Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Emmet council straightened out on salaries

Questions about city employee salaries were raised at the February meeting of the Emmet City Council.

Emmet Mayor Dale Booker was out of town at the time and the questions were not answered. However, Booker did address the queries at the March council meeting.

He informed the council individual salaries would not be included in the packets council members receive each month. He said if anyone wants to know what the city employees make, they can come to city hall and check the records when the office is open.

Dick Snell asked why some employee salaries were listed in the packets, but not all.

This is because, Booker said, those salaries listed are from contract labor, not what is considered "full-time" employees. He pointed out the stipend received by council members is included, as no taxes are taken out. This, he said, is because the council, while paid, isn't considered employees of the city.

The mayor's salary, he said, is the same it was 20 years ago, with the exception of the council having approved an expense account for the mayor.

"I don't turn any expense tickets," he said. "I don't turn in mileage. If the council wants to cut the mayor's salary, it's OK, but there will be no individual salary report made in the minutes."

Booker told the council Emmet is a second class incorporated town, not a city, and the rules of how the council operates are different than those of cities.

The minutes, he said, show a record of decisions made by the council, not what was discussed.

The council was also informed how meetings are handled in the future will be changed so the meetings will be smoother. Booker said starting in April, the meetings will be operated based on an agenda and "last minute" items will not be addressed during the meetings.

Because of a recent break-in at city hall, Booker said the town needs to buy a couple of safes so any monies left overnight could be locked up.

The thieves, Booker said, entered city hall through a window, but destroyed a door to get to the money.

Ordinarily, he said, either he or Frank Faulkner tries to make a deposit daily, but hadn't on this occasion.

Along with needing the safes, he said, the city needs to consider buying some sort of fireproof storage for city records and electronic data, such as computer programming.

Emmet's new planning committee, he said, has met and is looking at a plan made for the city by the University of Arkansas in 1967. Many parts of the plan are still usable, though others will have to be updated.

The idea behind the committee, Booker said, is to put together the best plan for Emmet, and guard against those things that could pull the town down.

"We need to build a suitable town for people to live in," he said.

The committee's plans will include zoning, ordinances and whatever else may be needed to improve Emmet.

"The plans will never be complete," Booker said, "because things are always changing. This is something we've never done before."

Once the committee develops its plan, the plan will be presented to the city council. The council will examine it, modify it if necessary and approve it, should the council so decide.

The biggest problem, Booker said, will be in code enforcement. Emmet doesn't have the money at this time to hire a full-time code enforcement officer.

However, Booker said he and Faulkner would handle the duties in the beginning.

Emmet, he said, did a lot of extra street work in 2002, especially on drainage. Lasers were used to level the ditches, and are draining better than ever.

This year, Emmet's street department will be doing patch work.

Booker said work done on the north side of town between Walnut Street and Highway 299 has eliminated what was a "swamp".

In past years, the area had been a "mosquito paradise", he said, but now grass is growing and there is no standing water.

Because of the threat of the West Nile Virus, Booker said, residents of Emmet need to do their part to get rid of standing water and other areas where mosquitos could breed and thrive.

There will be little financial help from the state in getting this done, he said. The county received some money for mosquito abatement last year, but not enough to do much good.

Because of this, he said, the county purchased educational materials so homeowner could do their own abatement.

To help continue with the education process, Councilman Hebb Sorrells suggested having students make posters for mosquito abatement.

The final item of business concerned renting of the Chuck Wagon and bowling alley.

Booker said the town does rent the Chuck Wagon, but stores city equipment and other items in the old bowling alley.

He said Emmet will not rent out the bowling alley for a two or three day event, as city crews would have to remove what's in there now, find somewhere to put it, then put it back. However, if anyone is interested in a long-term lease, that might be considered.