Aldermen Postpone Budget Vote Due to Absence of Mayor

Voting on a number of key issues, including the 2011 budget and city employee pay raises, was postponed at the Monday night Town and Country Board of Aldermen meeting. Mayor Jon Dalton was on a business trip and could not make the meeting so possible voting was rescheduled for Dec. 20.

Alderman Tim Welby, who served as acting mayor during the meeting, said Dalton wanted the aldermen to postpone voting on any budget issues because there was some information he wanted to share with them before the vote.

The board agreed to postpone voting on ordinances regarding the 2011 budget, pay raises and health care plans for government employees. Implementation of the budget for deer management was also postponed until the next meeting. During the work session prior to the meeting, the board decided to move the regularly scheduled Dec. 27 meeting to Dec. 20 due to conflict of schedules. 

Residents also spoke out about the proposal to authorize an engineering company to conduct a feasibility study of parking expansion at the Longview Farm Park for the sum of $19,500.

"We are laying off a policeman and we are planning on spending $19,000 on a survey?" said Alderman David A. Karney during the work session, referring to recent budget cuts made by the city.

Some residents who live along Longview Farm Park asked the aldermen during the city hall meeting to reconsider that proposal.

"We don't want greater utilization of this park," said Doug Gast, who lives in a home near the park. "By allowing more parking we are going to allow more outsiders. The board should allocate this money more prudently."

Gast said that before the park was built, residents were promised Longview Farm would be a "passive park." He said the park already has too many visitors, and increasing parking spaces would only aggravate the situation.

"Spend our money more judicially," Gast said. "It's not what the residents want and if you want to proceed with this a lot of people are going to be against it."

The aldermen decided to continue discussion of the ordinance at the Dec. 20 meeting.

Police Chief John Copeland congratulated two officers involved in the recovery of a missing teenage girl Saturday, Dec. 11. Copeland announced the Chief's Award of Excellence to Detective Joe Giacopelli and Detective Sergeant Rick Kranz for their help recovering Neda Hazemi, 17, who suffers from memory lapses and went missing on Thursday, Dec. 9. She was found on a bus headed to Chicago on Saturday night.

"It's just an extraordinary example of a job well-done," Copeland said.

Check back to Patch on Monday for Town and Country's last city council meeting of the year.