City Council eases residency rules for its employees

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

The Nevada City Council voted Tuesday night to allow most city employees to live anywhere they wish as long as they can make it to work on time.

Currently the city code requires that the city manager, city clerk and all department heads must live inside the Nevada city limits. Commissioned police officers are required to live within Vernon County and firefighters must live within a four-mile radius of the public safety building, Nevada City Manager Bill McGuire, told the council.

"While residency requirements ensure that key personnel reside in or near the city, they can also be a negative factor when hiring or promoting employees. Candidates who are otherwise qualified for positions with the city must consider the expense of relocating in order to comply with residency requirements. The city currently has no provisions for reimbursing employees or applicants for this type of expense," McGuire said.

"I do not have a problem with this change for department heads, but why is there a difference in the requirements for the police and the firefighters?" council member Mike Hutchens asked.

Gary Herstein, director of public safety, told him that it had to do with the quicker response required for firefighters.

"I am not sure I understand the discrepancy. The police could also have situations where they need to be able to respond rapidly. It seems that they should always be readily available," Hutchens said.

"I understand the police don't have that many callbacks and when they do, they don't need to be back in three or four minutes," councilman Bill Gillette said.

"I think we need to take a look at this later," Hutchens said.

"We used to require that all the police and firefighters live within four miles of the public safety building, but we had one police officer whose family owned property near Schell City and he wanted to build a house there. He asked the council several times to change this and finally they relented," Gillette said.

Hutchens said that the city should also look at providing financial assistance for people accepting certain positions to move into the city limits.

McGuire told him that they would consider it during the budgeting process.

In other business the council:

* Passed on first and second readings an emergency ordinance accepting and approving the bids for rebuilding the runway at the Nevada Municipal Airport. The low bid for the runway construction was $1,909,115.55 from Emery Sap & Sons, Columbia for a concrete runway and the low bid for electrical work was $286,505 from Kimrey Electric, Inc., Urbandale, Iowa. Construction on the project is expected to begin June 18. This was considered as an emergency ordinance so work could start as soon as possible to allow the construction to be completed before winter.

* Gave final approval to a special ordinance establishing a fee structure effective July 1 for using the meeting rooms at the City/County Community Center in Nevada. The new fee structure requires any group using the kitchen to pay a $15 usage fee. It permits Nevada and Vernon County non-profit organizations, religious groups and local governments to continue to use the rooms for no charge. Nevada and Vernon County residents and business will be charged a $15 minimum fee for the first two hours and $5 for each additional hour. Non-Nevada or Vernon County residents or businesses will be charged $20 for the first two hours of usage and $7 for each additional hour.

* Approved the reappoint of Pat Chambers to the tourism board and the appointment of Wendy Barton to her first term on the tourism board.

* Accepted the bid of $8,782.50 from Scurlock Industries, Springfield, for a 66 inch-by-44-foot concrete culvert to repair the section of south Spring Street that was washed out last month. The new culvert replaces one that was 24 inches in diameter, and is expected to carry the storm water that is estimated to be produced by a 25-year storm; which, according to engineers, refers to a storm with an intensity likely to occur, on average, every 25 years. However, this does not mean such a storm would only occur once in 25 years; a 25-year storm has a 4-percent liklihood of occuring in any given year.

* Voted 3-1 to approve a liquor license for Andy's Pizza LLC, 1403 E. Austin. Bill Edmonds, Bill Gillette and Tim Wells voted yes and Mike Hutchens voted no.

* Passed on first reading a special ordinance approving an intergovernmental service agreement with Vernon County to share the cost of public safety and record management software for the Nevada Police Department and the Vernon County Sheriff's Office. The initial cost of the equipment, contract and the annual support fees will be shared. The total cost of the contract is $69,662 with the county paying $16,052.50 and the city paying $53,609.50. The county is not implementing the computer aided dispatch feature of the software, which costs $34,720 so they are not sharing in that portion of the total cost. The Vernon County Commission approved this agreement Tuesday morning.

* Passed on first reading a general ordinance amending Chapter 29 of the city code, concerning signs. The change in the code will allow the sign at the new Sonic restaurant. The city code currently prohibits animated, flashing or blinking signs. McGuire told the council that the federal government has changed the Highway Beautification Act to permit this type of sign.

* Held a public hearing and voted 4-0 to amend Chapter 28 of the city code to bring the city's sewer rates into compliance with the Department of Natural Resources requirements that sewer rates must be the same for everyone. The change will lower the minimum charge for metered sewer users from $4.88 to $3.39 and will affect one commercial customer. The ordinance also requires that the administrative fee for processing biochemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids be based on the actual costs when the limits are exceeded, which has never happened, McGuire said.

* Passed on first reading a special ordinance approving a service agreement with the Council on Families in Crisis. The city will pay them up to $6,000 between June 1, 2007, and May 31, 2008, for providing educational services in conjunction with the operation of the Moss House.

* Passed on first reading a special ordinance approving a service agreement with the Children's Center of West Central Missouri for providing up to $6,000 in educational services between June 1, 2007, and May 31, 2008. The Children's Center provides a multi-disciplinary team approach to prevent, investigate, refer for prosecution and treat children and families who are victims of child abuse. The facility provides a safe and secure location for the victims to be interviewed so they do not have to testify in court.

* Passed on second reading a special ordinance approving paying Burns & McDonnell $205,347.07 for on-site supervision of the construction of the runway at the Nevada Municipal Airport as required by the Missouri Department of Transportation. The services include daily inspections, collection concrete core samples, paving observation, reporting and project management.

* Passed on second reading a special ordinance approving an agreement with Challenger Sports Corporation to provide a youth soccer camp in Nevada during August at no cost to the city. Since the ordinance was approved on first reading the city and Challenger Sports worked out an agreement for Challenger to collect all of the fees from the participants and to pay the city their share of the total paid.

* Gave final approval to a special ordinance approving a software license and service agreement with Global Software for public safety software.