Council approves transitional role of deputy city administrator | News
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A truncated Goldendale City Council, minus Loren Meagher and Fil Ontoveros, met Monday night and rolled through a busy agenda. Councilors granted approval of the recently formed Goldendale Community Sports organization to stage a fundraising festival at Ekone Park on May 28, Memorial Day weekend. The organization, which began as a loose group playing pickup ball games and flowered into a Facebook group, is now formal nonprofit organization. The group reported it has staged a number of family-friendly activities, including street hockey, dodgeball, board game nights, ping-pong, radio-controlled model racing, disc golf, and more. They also came to the park after the Fourth of July to clean up the fireworks debris and will be volunteering at the Home and Garden show and Community Days. As the organization’s fundraising chair, Austin Berard, put it, “Everything that we’ve done has been out of our pocket. Basically, we just want to do a fundraising event so we can raise money for sports equipment.”
Councilors thoroughly approved of the group’s civic responsibility and had no problem with a request to waive the fee the city usually charges for events at the park.
The council also noted major changes in administration, approving the mayor’s appointment of Sandy Wells as city clerk/treasurer, retroactive to March 17. They also supported a resolution setting up a termporary position of deputy city administrator and appointing Patrick Munyan to that post. In essence, it creates a job-shadowing situation for Munyan, who will step into Larry Bellamy’s city administrator role when Bellamy retires in June.
Mayor Mike Canon said Munyon will be also be appointed as director of public works
“He’s very strong in both fields, and we’re excited—very excited—to have him in Goldendale,” Canon said.
In other business, councilors approved replacing two copy machines and changed the Animal Control Ordinance to charge owners fees equaling the actual cost of housing the animals. Police Chief Jay Hunziker emphasized that when they find a stray dog, they make every effort to return it to the owner before impounding the animal. “That’s why it’s so important to have licenses for your dog,” he said. The city is not using the former animal shelter building, which was deemed wholly inadequate a few years ago. Instead, they are housing animals with local veterinarians who bill the city, with those costs being passed on to owners.
Another ordinance that passed easily was to raise stipends for members of the city’s volunteer fire department. Mayor Mike Canon said that it had been many years since those stipends had been updated. He reported that legal council said under state law, in order to be considered volunteer rather than city employees, stipends should be limited to 20 percent of the compensation given full-time firefighters in similarly sized cities. After investigating wages for firefighters in 10 eastern Washington towns from Buckley to Zillah, it was determined that the city could pay an additional $1,600 per month to the fire chief, $975 to the assistant chief, and $325 to each captain. Regular firefighter stipends will increase from $10 per required training session and incident to $40. The cost to the city was estimated at $65,000 annually, and City Administrator Larry Bellamy said the city had more than twice that amount available in cash surplus to cover the cost.