LIMA — As the current iteration of Lima City Council held its last meeting Monday night, several councilors stood firm in their decision to send several city skilled position contracts to next year’s council, which will feature several new members.
With 6th Ward Councilman Derry Glenn unable to attend Monday’s meeting, several ordinances to authorize various city contracts, including an engineering technician, a purchasing manager, an engineering and electrical inspector and plans examiner, were defeated by 4-3 votes, with 2nd Ward Councilman Sam McLean, 3rd Ward Councilman Jesse Lowe II, 4th Ward Councilor Rebecca Kreher and 5th Ward Councilor Teresa Adams all voting against passing the ordinances on their third reading. The city administration will now have to resubmit the ordinances to council next year for approval, a council which will have Lowe, Adams and 7th Ward Councilor Ann Miles replaced by Carla Thompson, Jamie Dixon and Jon Neeper, respectively.
“We have three new council members coming on board,” McLean said. “We should sit down with our new council people and explain how this works for them and then allow them to vote on this. That would have been my hope. This issue comes back to the point of explaining to them so they have enough knowledge to vote yes or no. It is not our given right to say yes to this. They should have a say in this. This is why they ran for their elections and why they won their elections.”
Council president John Nixon said that these votes do not send the proper message when it comes to fostering an environment conducive to economic development.
“The failure of those ordinances to pass this evening puts the administration into a position of having to utilize the [executive] purchasing program where they’ll enter into contracts for the interim, but after the first of the year, council will have to address these contracts and hopefully pass them,” he said. “The reason we do these is that, in many cases, you don’t need a person for a full 40-hours a week every week of the year, but we need these positions to get the work done. These tie into a business’ ability to build and expand here, and those inspections are required by the state, and we are a state-approved agency for that. We not only perform those inspections in the city of Lima, but the entire county.”
The city administration can make purchases up to $15,000 without requiring council approval.
