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Regular meeting <br />September 19, 2005 <br /> <br /> <br />Mayor Adams asked if there was a removal of the motion made and seconded. <br /> <br />Mr. Wagner said his motion still stands. <br /> <br />Mr. Adams said he could not understand Council’s motion when it was approved by the <br />Pension Board which consists of employee representatives. He felt it was a slap in their <br />face of the employees for their dedicated service and their work for the citizens of this <br />community. There has been a motion on the floor to kill 8814 and was seconded. The <br />motion passed four to three, with Sandi Colquitt, Arthur Sharpe Jr. and Mayor Adams <br />voting NAY. Mayor stated that the majority of the Council has now told the employees <br />that the City of University City, that we do not value their participation in this process of <br />negotiation. <br /> <br />Mr. Wagner objected to Mayor Adams statement as that was not what was said by the <br />majority. <br /> <br />Ms. Welsch wanted to go on record stating to Mr. Mayor that she does not believe that <br />that was the message we were sending. I believe that the message we are sending to <br />our citizens and to the members of our Pension Plan is that this Council wants to make <br />these decisions when they feel they understand the Bill that is before them and they <br />have enough background information to understand. In all due respect, today we have <br />a move of $150,000 to be put into the Pension Plan, then we had two very similar Bills <br />on the Docket of which we just found out the difference between at this meeting. I <br />argue that we should sit down with staff and Pension Board members so that we <br />understand as this is a lot of money that we are talking about and I think it should be <br />presented in that way as opposed to that we don’t care about employee services, with <br />all due respect I feel is Mayor’s words. <br /> <br />Mayor Adams said that Mr. Sharpe Jr., Ms. Colquitt, Mr. Wagner and myself did have <br />meetings dealing with these issues and everything was laid out. You all had printed <br />handout materials. You had stuff from the Pension Board dealing with this and their <br />recommendation. You had what the employees were asking for. If a member of the <br />Council was not at that meeting I am sorry, but there is no way to have a meeting when <br />everybody can be there all the time. He said he would agree that it was confusing when <br />this other Bill came in, I will accept that. We did look at all of these percentages and the <br />possibility of where to go in the future in dealing with this pension system and it was all <br />talked about, it was all laid out. To continue to say that we have to continually go over <br />and re-plow the same field is a disservice to the employees. <br /> <br />Ms. Brungardt said that the defeat of this Bill has other pending business that this may <br />have some relation to and until it is clear if whether or not there is a relationship <br />between this particular amendment and other business that we are managing. She did <br />not feel comfortable allowing this to go through. I can not vote on something that I feel <br />Page 15 <br /> <br />