Employees, budget remain focus of new administration

The Mountain View Board of Aldermen met in special session on June 7. The only item on which the board voted in this meeting was to keep a 1902 Colt pistol that had been donated to the city on behalf of Pete Thompson. The item has been in the city’s possession since 2004, according to the draft minutes of the meeting. 

Under new business, Mayor John Krasuski introduced the idea of adding usage of the pool, golf course, and library for immediate family to the benefits package for city employees. As an item of information, Alderman Lindell Vandevort addressed a recent turnover of city employees, commenting that no one had been fired, but had “left on their own.”

The alderman went on to encourage members of the public to fill out a job application. The city recently used a pool of applications already on hand to fill vacancies with “quality candidates,” confirmed Mayor Krasuski in a follow-up interview on June 10. 

A discussion on the authority to hire and fire municipal employees followed, in which the mayor explained that department heads are hired and fired by council with a board vote. These supervisors, with the mayor, can fire employees. No motion, vote, or action was taken pursuant to this discussion. 

The board voted to enter closed session for hiring, firing, disciplining individual employees at 6:38 p.m. Open session resumed at 8:59 p.m. The draft minutes record simply, “Employees discussed with no motions made.”

This administration has held closed sessions of an hour or longer after every regular and special session since April. According to Mayor Krasuski in a May 27 interview, the board has been using the closed sessions to discuss transferring, promoting, or firing individual employees to finalize the municipal budget. A top-to-bottom overhaul of the budget was his first priority upon taking office in April, he said. The city’s fiscal year begins July 1.