A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
Vice President Michael B. O’Brien, Sr. presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman Ernest Jette led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
The roll call was taken with 11 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Wilshire,
Alderman Dowd, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, and Alderman Gidge were recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
Vice President O’Brien
The acting president would like to note that many of the Aldermen that couldn’t make it this have been
properly excused. Some are ill and we wish and hope that they are feeling better. And | do know some
people in this Chamber who are still suffering and | am glad that you’re here so thank you.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
Thank you. So | am going to try to keep my remarks brief tonight because | know there are a lot of
people here would like to speak | suppose on both sides of the tobacco ordinance. But | wanted to
speak about O-19-040 which is the Ordinance following up on the Assessing Audit which creates the
position, or re-creates the position of Administrative Services Director. We have discussed in
Committee and the Committee has recommended the creation of the position with some amendments,
which are fine. But just for the sake of history, the Administrative Services Director was first created in
around 1980 Maurice Arel was Mayor and the City was re-organizing and modernizing management
within the City. And some of you | know, know about that first-hand. The Administrative Services
Director position was created to oversee City Hall Departments including Assessing, Purchasing, IT,
Personnel, etc. It remained as an effective City Hall position; a manager within City Hall for some
decades through the administrations of Maurice Arel, myself, Rob Wagner, Don Davidson, Bernie
Streeter. Then early in Mayor Lozeau’s tenure, she decided to request that that position be changed to
a so-called City Stat position and that remained in effect for some years and ultimately that was phased
out.
But in the Assessing Audit, CFO Griffin and Chief of Staff Kim Kleiner recommended that we make a
cost neutral change which was to eliminate and reorganize, to eliminate the position of Chief Assessor
and reinstitute the position of Administrative Services Director. Now in looking back to history it turns out
that at least in the 90’s when there was an Administrative Services Director, there actually was no Chief
Assessor. There was a Manager of Assessing, a person without Assessing expertise certification, but
someone who managed the people who did the assessing. Now | have told the Committee and | think
I’ve told the whole Board that as we move forward, what is going to happen, and we are going to report
to you, the Board of Aldermen later in the month, regarding all of the changes and improvements that
have taken place as a result of the audit.
In addition, in terms of procedure and work load and many of the things that are now taking place, so we
look forward to be able to enlighten you regarding all of the changes. In addition, if we determine or if
you believe that we should contract with an outside assessing firm to provide oversight beyond what is
being done; but | suggest you hear the report at least before thinking about reaching any conclusions.
We certainly can go ahead with that or if the Board of Aldermen were to recommend in the budget that a
Head Assessor be re-hired, certainly you need to add to the budget to do that, but we would certainly
proceed to try to hire such a position even though we think you should take some time and hear the
reporting and make a decision later.
