Eugene Paulsen, Minot

This city must have a — of money!

A new city hall ($14 million give or take) but who will keep count. New locks to keep the public out of areas of city hall (if they listened to the public they wouldn’t need locks) another $52,000 and whatever these will cost again when the new city hall is found, Shannon Straight, you slipped a little here.

We have new changes to the prison walls (don’t they just glorify the view across Minot) for the river…taaaadaaaa…the third, what does it cost each time we make a change? It’s said…we can’t block off the railroad during a catastrophic flood but, did the railroad run their trains through the waters of our last major flood? I don’t remember. The council/mayor doubling their salaries, I’ve got to give credit to Shannon Straight to vote no.

Now the City Manager, as glorified by our mayor as “job evaluations have shown Barry to be above average in meeting job requirements” needs an assistant. The cost of the new position will be $12,000 to $15,000. Wait a minute, wait a minute, the council just increased the city manager wages so we have to add this to the cost of the position. On top of this, who are they (the council) going to also increase pay to for the person/people to take up the slack of this “department head” while he/she steps back from doing his/her normal job.

Paul Pitner can read between the lines too when he asked about any workload that might get placed on other employees in the department if the director is on special assignment. Believe it, no matter how the city council sugar coats it, the City Manager (with the help of his mayor) is creating a new permanent position within the city government because Mr. Barry said it himself “it is possible if the workload continues, the temporary position may last longer than 15 months.”

This position has the smell of any “new” quarter-penny tax that is created, they never go away. The “Good ole Boys” club is alive and kicking and they have their hands in your wallets!