The meeting called to order at 7:07 pm with all members present. After some changes to the agenda (adding staff reports and an executive session), the agenda was approved. The meeting minutes from December were approved.
General Public Comment
There were no comments from anyone, which produced a chuckle from everyone.
Staff Reports
Police: Cheif Kunkel noted it was an honor to represent Ruston along with Fire Chief Torbet at the memorial service for Pierce County Deputy Mundell recently. In addition to reporting on the various calls and reports filed, he notified the council of a minor accident that of the officers had due to ice on the road. The town is moving to a new system called Etickets. The town has a grant to install the needed equipment. The new system involves scanning the drivers license, vehicle registration and the ticket is automatically emailed to the court after printing out the ticket for the officer.
Fire: Chief Torbet said that he and Chief Kunkel had attended the memorial service for the deputy in Moses Lake as well. The public outpouring at these services has been overwhelming and he hoped this was the last such service for a long time. He noted the average response time was about 2.5 minutes per call in 2009, which is almost a full minute faster than the response time in 2008. He felt this was due to having the residency program now with on-site fire fighters.
The Commencement now has the Knox Box system in place and the chief encouraged the town to use the same system for the school building. Council Member Hedrick asked if there was national standard for response times. Cheif Torbet told him the standard is to arrive on scene in 8 minutes or less on 80% of the called. Tacoma Fire achieves that standard about 70% of the time. He reminded the council that other departments have one minute of dress time that is deduced in their response time, while Ruston does not. In other words, Ruston's time in one minute faster than times reported by other agencies.
Council Member Hardin complimented both chiefs on their uniforms. The mayor expressed the town's thanks to Fire Fighter Jeff Wheir for his time working on the town web page.
Business
1. Ordinance 1304: Repealing Chapter 1.12 RMC (Second Reading): Hedrick wanted to be reminded why this ordinance was needed. The town attorney noted this code duplicates the town personnel policy in ordinances when it should only be done via resolution. Ordinances are law, resolutions are more general policy statements. The personal policy has already been updated via resolution after careful review by legal counsel with personnel experience. Passed 5-0.
2. Ordinance 1305: Amending RMC 19.01.110 and RMC 1.14.050 to provide separate fee & permit review (First Reading): The town attorney explained that currently developers pay a fee based on a specific schedule, but there is no enforcement in the current code. Council Member Hunt asked if this is a problem. The mayor said there is currently outstanding fees of about $70,000. Hardin wanted to know if this was a common way to deal with this problem. The attorney said it was similar in other jurisdiction. Hardin asked if there would be a timeline before penalties are imposed. The attorney said anytime after the due date the town has the option to take action. Hedrick confirmed that court costs are not allowed to be included in recoverable costs. The town planner confirmed that plan review is suspended when fees are past due.
Claims and Payroll
Passed 5-0
Mayor's Time
Mayor Hopkins reported that the town engineer says we have a lot of work ahead of us before construction season starts on the sewer replacement project. BIAS is taking over the town accounting functions. There has been a few glitches in getting on-line banking set up, which took over three weeks to resolve and will now cost $50 per month. Mayor supports moving ahead on the document imaging proposal presented in the study session tonight. He expects the town will gain tremendous efficiencies with this project. He suggested implementing the on-line service immediately so new work can go on-line now and get the archives done when we can.
Council Time
Huson noted that Point Ruston asked to update the council at the next meeting. He suggested using the local Columbia Bank for town banking.
Hedrick reported that the state's Asarco bankruptcy settlement of $188.5 million may be used to balance the general fund as part of the current budget shortfall. He encouraged folks to contact their legislators.
Hunt said the utility tax saga continues. There is a national service that tracks all utility taxes that vendors use to track what taxes they need to pay. Once Ruston provides its tax rates to this service they should get included on all local utility bills. Hunt noted that some folks had called her wanting to know why the new taxes were not on their bill in January because they wanted to pay more to support the town (they does not start until February).
Hardin reported on his work with the mayor on updating the town electronic equipment such as copier, scanner and such continues. He invited anyone with ideas or suggestions to email him.
Kristovich has noting to add, especially since the mayor had not assigned her any duties yet.
The meeting adjourned into executive session not to exceed 30 minutes to discuss personnel issues.
The meeting reconvened at 8:25 pm and was promptly adjoined.
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14 comments:
Your Council 'minutes' gave me some amusement. Don saying that Ruston response times are a minute faster than other fire depts around the area, Hunt saying that she has had phone calls from residents wanting to pay more utility taxes, Hardin paying compliments on how the fire and police chiefs look in their uniforms, and Hopkins saying that developers are $70,000 delinquent in the payments they owe the Town but that the Town has no policy to deal with enforcement, and so on.
This meeting felt like tapioca pudding, soft and sweet, no chewing necessary.
Ruston response time is under one minute do not need extra minute for changing clothes. Hopes this clears up misunderstanding. Listen to tape and you will hear:
. National average eight minutes to respond to fire
. In Ruston one minute
. State allows one minute to change clothes
. Time is from dispatch to arrival on scene minus one minute
. Ruston is under one minute so minute not deducted
So has Ruston Fire Dep been written up in national professional journals? With that response time it should be recognized for what it is.
#3. That is a wonderful idea. RFD is not looking for praise...just support. It would be cool if you would make the arrangements for the article. What a great place we have to call home.
best person to do the arranging is don himself. he musthave the respect and contacts in the fire fighting field.
Wow, I just went to Free Ruston to see what Karen isn't posting on Ruston Home. I want people to know that Free Ruston is where the real issues that are of interest to residents are being discussed. You go, Free Ruston, good job!
Ruston Home, you are so last decade.
It seems obvious that even though Karen says she has no connection to Free Ruston, she is heavily connected to it.
1) She as an individual and Ruston Home as a website make most of the posts on F.R.
2) At the bottom of the Ruston Home home page Karen defines one of the roles for Free Ruston website right into her policy statement. She wouldn't have the legal right to speak officially for another website if she didn't have a connection to it.
3) You can't google Free Ruston and get connected directly; you can only get there through the link on the Ruston Home website. That's a strong indicator of an intimate connection. Now that it's out there, I suspect she will create a direct link to F.R. immediately to deflect this statement.
Is Karen or someone close to her Don Knotts? If not, who is Don Knotts that he or she won't divulge his or her identity? Hmmm???? It's silly to think you can keep things like that private. Sooner or later it leaks out. Remember, this is Ruston.
I'm only going to grace the last comment with the simple reminder that I have put comments on Free Ruston in an attempt to be fair and pass along even the comments that don't make the cut for this blog.
As I've been taking time to move the many rude and false comments to this other site the last few days, I've realized I no longer have the time or energy to pass along such comments. If you don't see a comment here that you've submitted, feel free to submit it somewhere else.
I can get to Free Ruston when I Google it. This last comment is just silly speculation. I frankly don't care if this nameless commenter believes me or not. We have much more important issues to spend our time on and I suggest we all focus on how to make our town better, not waste our time with this kind of silliness.
Your last response looks pretty goofy: when you say you're 'only going to grace the last comment with one simple reminder', and then you take three laborious paragraphs and six inches of column space to do it, all that does is make you look ridiculous as a blog administrator.
You should cut back on being so defensive and sensitive to criticism - and cut back on over-writing while you're at it.
Oh,and one more thing, spare yourself some embarrassment and use spell check more often. Thanks.
Wow, no more reference to Free Ruston in your policy statement - wow, that was quick. Why the retreat from your association with that blog? What's all the jumping back and forth about?
Hi, I just read this blog. About the tapioca pudding comment from Anon #1. I geuss he thinks that’s how the council meetings are now – no meaty discussions, no one going head 2 head on controversial issues, just 6 people up in ther seats falling asleep it’s so quite...
If that’s true then the fire dep report is like Minute Tapioca, right?. Fire chief said Ruston F.D. response time is less than 1 MINUTE . I like a good joke and this blog needs to lighten up.
In spite of what others claim, it is I who am the real Don Knotts, administrator of Free Ruston. I thrive on the gassy political effluence of Ruston Home bloggers, including Karen herself. Karen coughs them over when she doesn't want Ruston Home set on fire by a controversial subject. Makes her blog boring but I am tough and will print anything; just read my policy statement and you'll see it's true.
It's up to you to discover my real identity because no one who knows me will tell. Clue: I have a curly tail.
Whats you taklin bout Willis?
To be fair, what the fire chief said was that if he were to report Ruston's response times using the same method and standards that Tacoma and other agencies use, Ruston's time would be under 1 minute. Other agencies subtract a minute from their response time (from the time the call is dispatched until the unit arrives at on scene) to allow time for the fighters to get into their gear before the clock starts ticking. In Ruston, that one minute is not subtracted.
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