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What began as a formality Monday almost turned into a defeat for Warsaw's planning department staff.
Warsaw city council, after some resistance and much discussion, approved the position of community development coordinator at an annual salary of $31,000. Teresa Ho, of Warsaw, will fill the position and was due to start work today.
However, a misunderstanding on the parameters and duties of the coordinator nearly resulted in the council not approving the position.
As explained by Warsaw Mayor Ernie Wiggins, the community development coordinator would assume the duties of assistant city planner (a position that has been vacant) and will help implement the Hyatt-Palma action plan for downtown Warsaw.
"She'll be my liaison to the process committee," Wiggins said, "and she'll do administrative work for the planning department."
Councilmen Jerry Patterson and Bill Rhoades initially objected to the position.
"We're overlapping a lot of jobs down there," Rhoades said after reading the job description for the coordinator. "It's getting to be one of the largest divisions in our city. ... If it takes three people to get out and do some of these things, we're doing something wrong."
Wiggins explained that because the coordinator would have assistant planner duties as well as expanded responsibilities to work on implementing the downtown study, the salary was increased $4,000 over the assistant planner's pay.
Because the council had discussed the matter previously, Wiggins said, "I guess I'm a little confused at what the problem is here all of a sudden."
The council unanimously agreed to reconsider the matter, and approved the resolution for the community development coordinator for $31,000 per year on first reading.
After the meeting, city planner Jeff Noffsinger said Ho was one of eight people interviewed out of approximately 35 applicants for the position.
He also said Ho had worked on a mixed use development project in San Francisco, with retail space on lower stories and residential space upstairs, similar to what has been recommended for some areas of downtown Warsaw.
"She has a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of passion, lots of ideas for downtown," he said of Ho.
In other business, the council:
• Approved re-establishing the tax rate of 33-1/3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation for the city's Cumulative Fire Fund and 5 cents per $100 for the Cumulative Capital Development Fund. According to Warsaw Clerk-Treasurer Elaine Call, the amounts are the same as in the past but stated differently because of the change in property tax assessment methods.
• Set the meetings for discussion of the 2003 city budgets to coincide with the regularly scheduled council meetings. The next meeting, July 15, will include some budget discussion.
City council members are: Bill Rhoades, Jerry Patterson, George Clemens, Joe Thallemer, Trish Brown and Charlie Smith. Councilman Jeff Grose was absent.
