Council Pay, State Review of Open Meeting Law Violations

10/21/10
[Note there was a pay decrease done by the current council in 2/2011, see also Council Pay Issue, Fox 9 News]

Special Meeting Pay
I would like to raise some questions on when Council Members could be paid the $70 special meeting pay in the City of Montrose.

For instance, should they be paid for meetings that they show up to due to no fault of their own but were canceled or if they arrive after a meeting ends but stay and discuss with hourly city staff after hours?  Should they bill for meetings if they show up say after half the meeting has gone by or if a meeting is only around 30 minutes long?

I don't think there will be much change unless we put new members on the council.  The council at their workshop says that if a council member were to show up to a canceled meeting due to no fault of their own, they should still be paid the $70 Special meeting pay.

The council met on September 27th to discuss when the council should be paid for meetings and to consider changing their pay rate, which was last increased when Charlie Nelson was Mayor.  Per Diem went from $100 to $140 in 2005.  $100 to 150 for the Mayor/75 to 110 for the Council for City Council meeting attendance, the amount is slightly less if they don't attend. Special Meeting pay went from $50 to 70 in 2006.

The median Special meeting pay is $30 for other cities of similar pay and size when we had 2 council meetings a month (a higher yearly salary).  Now that the City Council has a smaller annual salary due to 1 council meeting a month, the average Special meeting pay for other cities of same pay/size would be $42 a meeting, with a median of $50.  We are 29% to 40% higher than cities with about the same salary.

Open Meeting Law - State Review
The State also responded in an Affirmative, on each case, to my Opinion Request on if the Montrose Council [Sharon Knodel, Kauffman, Jensen, etc.] violated the Open Meeting law on several occasions.  One of the reviews the state did in this Opinion Request was on the posting for a meeting on 6/28 where they knew they were going to discuss the Open Meeting Law at the special meeting, they violated the Open Meeting Law.