Another
Elmwood Police Chief Resigns
Submitted by Rick A. Talford
Citizen Journalist
ELMWOOD, WI - The Monthly meeting was held Monday
evening at the Village Auditorium. After changing the board meetings to the
first Monday of each month instead of the second Monday, to keep Trustee Brian
Buck in attendance of the meetings, he was absent. Trustee Josh Bleskacek was
also absent, as he was at the school for the parent-teacher conferences. The
first item to deal with on the agenda was the resignation of the Elmwood Police
Officer Sam Petrasko. In a letter of resignation, Petrasko informed the Board
he would be done as of September 25, 2014. This happened about the same time as
he was to have his one year job review by the Police Committee. The Police
Committee also met and made some changes to the Personnel Policy since this
resignation. Trustee and Chair of the Committee Delorse Radtke spoke to the
members present with the changes made. (Rick Stohr, Brian Buck and Neil Boltic
are the Committee members) Effective going ahead, the policy will enforce a 24
month probationary period, instead of a six months. There will be a shortened
amount of time between the want ad publication, and the deadline to get
applications put in for job placement. Radtke will be in charge of all
scheduling of the officers hired. New employees will be given six holidays, but
will not be able to use them until they have been employed for six months of
continuous employment. This also includes sick time. The Village will no longer
allow for personal or floating holidays. Village President Bill Stewart
commented that this is the way other communities are handling the probation
periods, and Trustee Radtke stated “We have been very generous”.
Note: After making several calls to other community
clerks, I found that they all remain at six month periods, and places like Plum
City and the City of River Falls have done away with probationary periods all
together.
The next area on the agenda went into the Sewer
Treatment Facility. Resolution 2014-04 Authorizing the Issuance and Sale of
$2,820,000 Mortgage Revenue Bond was approved by the board unanimously. Village
Clerk told the members, they had a change in the money they were borrowing, and
this reflected those changes. A second Resolution 2014-06 Establishing
Post-Issuance Debt Compliance Policy was also discussed again, as the Attorneys
did not like the wording the Village used in the first round of this policy.
This was approved again with the change made. A quick update was given by Public
Works Employee Jamie Reitz on the process of the plant. He provided some
information in regards to the wet well was in stage one, as the construction
has been going forward now, after some delays early. It is estimated that they
will backfill the area by October 14. He reported that they poured 121 yards of
concrete on Thursday.
A Draw Request for $235,138.30 by Staab Construction
was then looked over and approved for payment. It was near $60K in rebar costs,
and another $54K in concrete in this billing. After a few questions by members,
Clerk Wayne told them that Jamie Reitz had looked over the bills and cleared
them. Another Draw request by Foth for $27,192.50 was then discussed and
approved. Again this month, it was stated that two forms were submitted with
only one being signed off. A breakdown of the many items on the bills, were
then discussed and the statements were looked over by Reitz, before the motion
was made.
In Committee and Board Reports, Reitz gave
information on the McCarthy Well, stating the cost was paid over two months at
the price of $22K each month. He told the members that the pump runs well, but
is not on-line yet. He added that he still needs to take additional samples
from it. Trustee Radtke spoke of a meeting held by the Personnel and Finance
Committee. The Budget numbers are starting to be looked at, but will not be
able to be gone through until later in the month or next month. She added they
have not received any numbers from the Library yet. No other Committee meetings
were held over the past month.
Payment of the bills was approved and the meeting
adjourned at 7:18 pm.
