City Council Highlights For 09/02/2020

The City Council Meeting for 09/02/2020 started off as always with the pledge of allegiance, followed up by the approval of minutes.

During this time Council person Rich Wassall wanted to make comments on the previous minutes and have them separated into different sections. Motion was made for this and no second was made. Council Person Wassell brought up again the ADA compliance he is seeking for Zoom meeting, he then went on to say Council Person Graham made attacks directed toward him about ADA compliance. Mayor Klakken stated he wasn’t at the last meeting but that Council Person wanted it to say that Council Person Graham attacked Council Person Wassell over Zoom meeting requirements. This exchange can be seen at the beginning of the meeting.

At the 7 min 45 second mark Council Person Wassell has another problem with the August 19th minutes stating they have numerous admissions of his time. Then he goes again into Council Person Graham having comments directed to him, he would like the records to show this. Mayor Klakken states the reason for this is they cannot understand what he is saying during the recording. Council Person Wassell then goes on to state if she cannot understand him, she needs to pick up the phone and call him. He is in the understanding that the city employees, transcribe the records directly after the meetings that tend to run 2 plus hours late into the night. Mayor Klakken then yells at Council Person Wassell saying he is taking it as a personal attack.

At the 24-min mark DOWL Engineering was available for questions main questions being brought up was the sidewalks, the main work they will be doing on them is to slop them and make them ADA accessible. Council Person Wassell pointed out he had a couple discussions with engineers from Butte and they pointed out and based on his experience that they should do a property survey before they do any construction. This survey can run up to $8,000 dollars, according to Wassell this would set a baseline if any problems turned up. Another suggestion was to do ground penetrating radar of the construction site, DOWL stated they would not recommend this, Council Person Wassell then wanted him to state on record that he said no.

At the 38-min mark Council Person Wassell still had questions for DOWL Engineering on the timeline of the project, making sure the timeline was still ok. DOWL Engineering stated they needed an agreement tonight on if the project was to start or be put on hold. Council Person Wassell then stated he is getting tired of the process problems of the city. Stating they continually get into situations that they must do a project and agree to it or bad things will happen.

At the 43-minute mark they discuss voting changes for board members via digital, instead of in person.

At the 1 hour 12 min mark the final discussion and approval of the city budget takes place, main objection is by Mary Jo O'Rourke involving the squirreling away of money for a shop, to be built for the water and sewer department.

The rest of the meeting was followed up by the various departments and committee's reports.