Council Talks Dirt, Compensation

The Canton City Council looked at two controversial issues during their Thursday evening meeting at City Hall, including a potential problem with the site chosen for the Laurel Canyon fire station.

The meeting saw a first reading of a motion brought forth by Councilman John Beresford to increase the compensation paid to the mayor and council members. .

“I haven't made a secret of how I feel about this,” said Hobgood. He reiterated his position that an increase at this time was inappropriate, especially considering that city employees have not seen raises for at least six years.

“I feel it sends the wrong message for council to approve itself an increase when our employees have been denied increases,” he said.

Beresford agreed with the mayor that city employees should be given raises, but said that the two issues were unrelated. Beresford then challenged Hobgood to make a "photo-op" statement that he would not take the proposed $10,000 salary he would get in the compensation increase package and instead accept a dollar a year in salary.

Councilman Glen Cummins said he supported the increase in compensation in principle but would not vote to raise his own salary. He suggested that there be an effective start date of Jan. 1, 2016 for the compensation increases so that no current council member would see a raise.

Councilman Bill Bryan expressed concern at the delay, feeling that it would discourage younger people and people who are still in the working world from attempting to run for office due to the low compensation. 

Councilman Hooky Huffman reminded council that the recent cost-cutting measure to discontinue the pension plan for future mayors and council members has saved the city tens of thousands of dollars that could be put towards employee raises. He said he felt it necessary to approve the compensation increase for the mayor and council to, "create an incentive to encourage people to give to the city."

City Manager Scott Wood then discussed the problem of the terrain at the proposed site for the Laurel Canyon fire station, and reminded council that roughly 50,000 cubic yards of dirt still needed to be removed from the property to make it suitable for construction.

Estimates provided by Wood indicated that it could cost up to $300,000 to move the dirt. 

According to Wood and City Engineer Joby West, negotiations with the owners of the neighboring plots of land to the fire station site regarding dirt relocation have met with little progress.

"We have been negotiating with our neighbors for five years," said Councilman Bob Rush. "Who are they? North Korea?"

Wood told council that if they wanted the dirt moved, it could be moved, but the main issue was money.

Cummins said that the city had still not decided on the best way to provide fire services for its residents, so any work on the Laurel Canyon site would be putting the cart before the horse.

To see the video of Thursday's meeting, please follow this link. The agenda for the meeting is also attached to this article.