Council wants to work with citizens

I feel a lot of misinformation was written into Susan Forbes’ letter of Jan. 9 (“Gold Bar council: Not listening to citizens”).

The mayor never attended the budget session or budget hearing because of being in the hospital both meetings. That qualifies for being absent. Regarding the question about not having a property tax total until January: it was explained by city clerk. They didn’t listen. The clerk was very cooperative. People still can come into the city hall and get the information. Why haven’t they? A budget can be passed without the total on property tax. We have a deadline to meet, and there is no other way until the county gives us the figure in January. And there will not be a 17 percent increase.

Regarding a citizen being told she had spoken long enough: We have always had a time limit on speaking at a hearing (usually three minutes). I let her speak for over half an hour. I was very fair.

Citizens by all means have a right to speak at council meetings, they just have to do it at the proper time, during citizen comments. That’s proper protocol, and all cities do the same. I did a lot of research with other cities and found that they do not let citizens speak during budget work session. But, yes, you can speak at the budget hearings.

Some felt that we should freeze the staff’s wages for 2002. In my research I also asked about raises. All cities stated that the employees were getting a raise. They were from 3 percent to 4 percent. Union members were mostly 4 percent. I find that some of those protesting against a wage increase worked for other cities. Did they get a raise?

We used to run very smoothly, then a rumor started with no validity at all, about us having the Sultan police force do our policing. It never was in the works, or any clandestine meetings. Please, let’s work together.

City council member

Gold Bar

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