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2020-09-21 News Article/September 30, 2020 Lake Okeechobee News - merger of Okeechobee News, Clewiston News, Glades County Democrat, and The Sun 39 Okeechobee City Council sets millage rate By Cathy Womble Lake Okeechobee News OKEECHOBEE —At its Sept. 21 meet- ing, the Okeechobee City Council set the millage rate for the fiscal year 2020-2021 at 7.6018 and a new operating budget was officially adopted. The council discussed a resolution to make customer hookup to Okeechobee Utility Authority's water/sewer system'man- darory. City Administrator Marcos Montes de Oca said OUA has made a change in the way th ' andle their fees, and they now alto yment plans. According to state sprute, If a homeowner's septic tank or am d fails and they are within 600 feet ity council By Cathy Womble Lake Okeechobee News OKEECHOBEE — Once again, a fire ser- vice interlocal was a topic of conversation at the city council meeting Monday night, Sept. 21..City Attorney John FLmero went over the terms of the preliminary agree- ment, including the possibility of paying some of the employees Pump sums to make up differences in salaries. One of the issues involved the city paying for EMTs to work at the county while they studied to become paramedics. The county agreed to allow this for up to two years. The county would pay for the schooling, but the employee would be re- sponsible to pay it back if they did not pass. Councilman Bob Jarriel said he had a prob- lem with paying for anyone to got to work for the county as an EMT. If they wanted to go to school, they were already given that opportunity, and he felt they should have taken it when it was offered. \"lilt go back to our first meeting with the county. At that time, the county said they were only going to hire paramedics, and would give city employees special recognition. They didn't say they would hire them. We came back and spent the taxpayers' money to offer all the people to be able to go and become a paramedic at the city's expense. Evidently, seven decided that was a good deal and they would do it. l think they should have accepted it when we offered it," he said. He said he did not have any problem with buying out any employees' contracts or making up additional pay, but he does not like the idea of paying for employees to go over to the county and "sit around decid- ing whether to become paramedics." Councilman Wes Abney said he did not think they would be ready to sign anything until they knew exactly to the penny what the cost would be to the city. "Do we know that? I don't think we do." He also said he understood all along that the city would pay the salaries of the three EMTs who wanted to work for the county until they became paramedics. He did not have a problem with that. "1 consider those employees part of the attrition process we all agreed on several times." When asked J his employees had enough information to make a decision, of available service lines, they must hook up, but if they are farther away, they can choose to put in new septic tank or drain field. "There's not a lot of teeth in that stat- ute," said Montes de Oca. "That's why if there's a resolution from us, when they do a building permit, we could verify it with the building department going forward." Councilwoman Monica Clark suggested making the requirement within 100 feet of the lines rather than 600 feet so it would be more affordable for the homeowners. The consensus of the council was to have the administrator work on the issue with OUA and come up with a plan. In a related matter, former Councilman Gary Ritter, who lives in the Southwest section, said his house is hooked up to the OUA sewer system, but his two daughters live in the same area and are on septic tanks. Both of them having been experienc- ing problems to varying degrees, and one of them can barely live in her own home, because the water table is so high right now and she cannot even flush her toilets. He said he has talked to several people in the area who are interested in getting on OUA sewer lines. He said both of his daugh- ters are at the point of wondering if they should pay $7,500 for a new drain field, or can they just hook up to OUA and not worry about it anymore. Recently, the city council voted to set up a charter review committee to go over the city's charter. The following people applied to sit on the committee: Suzanne Bowenm, Noel A. Chandler, Steve Dobbs, Jamie Gamiotea, Jeremy R. LaRue, Sandy Perry, Cary Pigman, Gary Ritter, Myranda Wh rls and Hoot Worley. When the council originally discussed setting up the committee, they agreed that seven members would be selected but when ten applied, they agreed unanimously to accept them all. The committee will se- lect a chairperson from among themselves at their first meeting. The entire charter review, process is expected to take at lest 1 a year. / \ moves closer to interlocal agreement,\,� Fire Chief Herb Smith said "no." He asked if it would be possible to give his employees options, maybe a severance package if they did not go to the county, because not every- one can go to the county anyway. Councilman Keefe said the council un- derstood the employees felt in the dark, and the council felt a similar need for informa- tion. They need to know who has a desire to go over to the county so they know how much it will cost. "We gotta talk here. This is pretty pathetic here. l apologize 1 have not come to see you," said Keefe to Smith. Smith said, "As the leader of my depart- ment, I can't give them information. I can't make it up. l talk to individuals. l talk to everybody here. We all have different ideas, but these guys need to be set down with numbers, with options..." Mayor Dowling Watford said they needed to make a decision on whether they would offer every employee the choice of 20 weeks pay or going to work for the county, or would only those who cannot go work for the county be given the chance to get the 20 weeks' pay. He said they also needed to decide if they would pay the three men to work as EMTs for the county. Once the council makes those decisions, the employees can make their decisions, he said. Councilwoman Monica Clark suggest- ed giving all 13 employees a separation package of some type because all of them would be severing their employment with the city whether they went to work for the county or not. She said they could base the amount of the settlement on the amount of time the employee was with the city, and make 20 weeks' pay the highest amount since that is the limit they are allowed to give, by law. Josh Borgstrom the firefighters' union president spoke and said he felt the council and the commissioners were forgetting about impact bargaining for each employ- ee. He also said, "and the fact that some of the city council is saying that they realty don't care if they went to medic school or not. If they didn't then, oh well. That's wrong. Everyone's got different circum- stances. Everyone's got different scenarios. That's wrong. We've got guys back there who are just starting their third year of the job. Why would they want to take a year out of their life to go be a paramedic for one year? That doesn't make any sense. Every employee has an independent reason for what they did and why they did it and that needs to be found out why. That's y'all's responsibility to do that." He suggest- ed waiting until paramedic school ended to go any farther with this agreement. Councilman Jarriel said he was con- cerned about paying the salary for the three firefighters for two more years while they worked for the county. "Who will pay that money back to the city tax payers?" he asked. He said the council already offered to send those firefighters to paramedic school, and they did not want to go. He does not see any reason the city should pay their salary as EMTs while they work for the county and go to school to become paramedics. He said he thinks the agree- ment they are negotiating with the county is more than fair. Borgstrom asked, "You think it's more than fair for someone who has put their life on the line for this city to potentially lose $20,000 over the course of three years? You think that's fair?" Councilman Jarriel replied, "We didn't ask them to lose it..." He tried to go on but was interrupted. Borgstrom said, "Well, you're not help- ing them keep it either. Councilman Jarriel said he worked for RCA years ago and one day they came to him and told him they were going out of the computer business and he was out of a job. They did not care what happened to him. It was a business decision. "That's what we are trying to make tonight, a business decision. We're trying to help all these employees, and that's where you're wrong! We're trying to help them. That's why we've been fighting to get this where we're at now." Borgstrom asked why employee number 5 with 17 years of service would have to take a $28,000 pay cut, and Councilman Jarriel said that was why they were discuss- ing giving them separation packages. They want to make the employees whole. "You can't!" yelled Borgstrom. "You can only do 20 weeks! And that's only three years, what about the other two years? Councilman Jarriel said, "1'm not going to argue with you. I don't think you should even be in this discussion." "I don't think YOU should be either," shot back Borgstrom. Capt. Lalo Rodriguez asked why they couldn't wait until September of 2021 when it was time for the union to open up nego- tiations. Then the firefighters could go over to the county with the salaries they have now, he said. In addition, they would know which firefighter had successfully complet- ed the paramedic course. He also ques- tioned whether the taxpayers would see any savings if and when the fire department was gone. "What are you going to do with that money?" he asked Councilman Jarriel. "We're losing a public safety for what?" Councilman Jarriel said it was not his - decision but was up to the council. "On social media, they say the economic council is going to plant trees with it and beautify Okeechobee," said Rodriguez. "Will the city tax payers realty save or is the city gonna put it in their pocket and they can do whatever they want with it? Councilwoman Clark said there would be no savings the first year, because they are taking money out of savings just to meet the budget. The council voted to direct staff to come up with a severance package for each employee of the city fire department based on years of service. The maximum will be equivalent to 20 weeks of salary. After further discussion, the council voted 3 to 2 in favor of paying the EMTs' salaries while they worked for the county and attended paramedic school for up to two years. Councilmen Jarriel and Keefe cast the dissenting votes. Councilman Jarriel made a motion to approve the interlocal agreement, and Councilman Keefe seconded the motion, but Council woman Clark said she thought they should heed the attorney's advice and wait until some issues were ironed out. Councilman Abney said he would not be comfortable signing without more informa- tion. Mayor Watford voted no as well, and the motion failed to pass. Councilman Abney requested they discuss the collective bargaining agreement and the possible benefits of postponing the signing of an interlocal agreement during the next meeting and Mayor Watford j agreed it would be on the agenda.