Mtn View City Council Begins Bimonthly Meetings

The Mountain View City Council met in special session July 27. The council recently passed a measure to hold two regular meetings each month, but until the change is officially enacted, the council members will meet in a special meeting on the third Monday of each month. The council agreed that the extra meeting each month will better allow them to cover all the topics that they need to address.
The council continued talks about allowing an assistant K-9 handler for the city. The wife of Mountain View K-9 officer, Sgt. Michael Pauly, is K-9 handler certified, and while the council agrees that an assistant would be an asset, city code prohibits two members of an immediate family to work under the same supervisor. Mayor Donnie Pruett stated that he feels uncomfortable with the arrangement of a husband and wife working together, saying that even if the situation was allowed with the K-9 officer’s wife working as an independent contractor, it seems like “bending the rules”. The motion was tabled for lack of support.
Previously tabled in the last council meeting was possible help from the city to pay for damaged fencing at the Mountain View Golf Course. The golf course wanted to replace damaged barbed wire fencing with a wooden fence. The council agreed to pay half of the cost to replace the existing type of fence, a total of $300.
Employee compensation time was addressed by the council next. Mayor Donnie Pruett cited the employee policy manual, which states that city employees are not allowed to accumulate overtime or compensation time beyond 80 hours. Mayor Pruett stated that the previous administration allowed workers to “run amuck” with compensation time, with some employees having accumulating hundreds of hours of compensation time. $91,000 in compensation time was allowed to city workers when the current city council took office. Some of the compensation time was earned while employees were earning a lower wage years ago, and would be allowed to claim the compensation time at their current rate of pay. The council plans to review the personnel manual to find various similar discrepancies. Any revisions that area found will be brought to a vote.
New phone systems were approved by the previous city council. $10,000 is still owed on the phone system, and has not been paid. The council is awaiting an itemized invoice from the company that installed the new phone system.
Since Mountain View has no City Administrator, and the constraints of the city budget does not allow for a new one to be hired, Mayor Donnie Pruett would be appointed as the chief executive officer of the city, under a proposal that will go before the council. The motion would allow the mayor to act on certain needs, as a City Administrator would.
The remains of Word War II veteran, Orval Tranbarger, a Mountain View resident who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, on the USS Oklahoma, were identified last September by scientists with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The city council is planning an event to honor Tranbarger, as his remains are transported through Mountain View on August 5, 2020, prior to internment at Chapel Hill.  
The front doors of City Hall will be locked on August 3 through August 7, as city offices undergo the installation of new computers. City Hall will be staffed during this time, but access to City Hall will be limited during the computer upgrade.
The Mountain View City Council will meet next in regular session on August 10.
 

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