If you did not watch the city council meeting last night, you missed many exciting moments. In Mayor Majewski’s absence, the council decided to have Algazali run the meeting. The council voted mostly in two blocks: Gordon, Zwolak, and Miah vs. Jankowski, Algazali, and Hassan. They deadlocked on nominations of Jankowski, Gordon, and Zwolak for Mayor Pro Tem, finally settling on Algazali.
Almasmari’s appointment to the ZBA was voted down, and Steve Cherry’s was approved unanimously while Gordon was out of the room.
On police department health insurance, the unions were successful in getting a Temporary Restraining Order against the insurance premium increase enacted by the council at their last meeting.
Zwolak and Miah were not sworn in at the time and were excluded from the closed session prior to the original vote. Neither agreed with the decision, both saying that the action was unfair. Jankowski accused the police of retaliating against him for trying to make them pay for their own body armor, blamed them for the amount of overtime being worked, and tried to justify the premium increases by saying that the city deficit has ballooned to $3.422 million dollars from $2.2 million since the beginning of the year.
It came out that the finance director and the city manager advised the council against the resolution, and it was the city attorney, Jim Allen who convinced the council to charge each police officer an extra $800 or so per month for health insurance as a bargaining tactic.
Hassan argued that the resolution was to balance the budget. Gordon reminded him that some of the overtime is due to the traffic program, which has raised $800,000 in ticket revenue so far this year. (I found out later that the department is also 3 officers short, and that many more are applying for jobs elsewhere.) Gordon also brought up the fact that the firefighters union was willing to reopen their contract to save the city money on insurance, which was confirmed by their union president during public comment at the end of the meeting. Nazarko verified that the city would save $490,000 if they switch insurance plans, plus the cost of going to court, versus $295,000 saved by putting the burden entirely on the police. Algazali wants to eliminate the deficit by cutting the salaries of all city employees.
When the vote was taken, Hassan, Algazali, and Jankowski voted against rescinding the resolution. The show cause hearing is scheduled for January 17 at 10 a.m. in Judge Ziolkowski’s courtroom. If the city prevails, about $400 will be deducted from each officer’s paycheck every two weeks starting February 1.