News

Council holds meeting

By Scott Wagar

01/10/2012

Monday evening’s council meeting brought a new alderman to Bottineau’s council table.

Greg Bernstein came before the councilmen’s table and requested to fill Andy Freeman’s Ward I council seat, which Freeman resigned from in November of 2011 after he relocated out of his Ward. Brad Gangl moved to accept Bernstein’s request, which was seconded by Harley Getzlaff. The council unanimously voted in favor of Bernstein.

Bernstein, who is an information technology officer for the State Bank of Bottineau, will finish out Freeman’s term, which will be completed in June. The Ward I seat will then be on the ballot during the city election in June and Bernstein will have to re-run for the seat if he chooses to stay on the council.

In other city news, Diane Olson, director of Bottineau’s EDC, requested a Gateway loan for Kevin and Rebecca Herbel to assist them in purchasing the Stadium II. Herbels’ request was for $42,500, at three percent interest for 10 years. The request was approved by the council.

Olson also requested to speak about man camps in association with oil companies. During the December 2011 council meeting, the aldermen gave their consensus that they did not want man camps within the city limits of Bottineau. However, Olson requested from the councilmen on Monday evening that they reconsider their consensus.

“When you ban anything to the oil companies it can become a problem,” Olson said. “I believe the better thing to do is to look at the bigger picture and adopt, and put into place, city and county’s ordinances which focuses on licensing, design, infrastructure, utilities, etc… We need to address all these issues.”

Olson gave the example of housing when it comes to man camps, and stated that by allowing workers’ camps in a local community it does regulate rent fees throughout the community.

“In some oil communities, residents are charging $200 a night for a sleeping room. A two-bedroom apartment is going anywhere from $1,800 to $2,500 a month,” Olson said. “This, of course, causes a ripple down affect that can affect the elderly and others and their ability to afford housing in a community. If we allow workers’ camps in the community this can be controlled.”

Olson also added that good and bad can come from man camps, but if communities’ set-up good rules and regulations local residents can have a positive and comfortable situation with the camps in their presence.

“It doesn’t matter if workers camps are located inside or outside of communities, the impact will be felt,” she said. “So, by controlling them through ordinances, the outcome can be much better for communities.”

Olson then asked the council to consider her words, which the council agreed to. The council also told Olson that the man camps issue had already been brought back to the committee table and that it was being discussed.    

The issue of salary raises also came to council table. At the year-end council meeting on Dec. 29, the issue on how raises should be given was spoken about by the finance committee (made up of Brad Gangl and Mayor Doug Marsden) and the other councilmen.

In the discussion, the two entities spoke about granting percentages in the raises, along with taking a look at the years of employment by the employees, certification and performance.

There was some disagreement between the two entities on the issues and how fair these actions would be in giving out raises, which never came to a true and united conclusion by the council as the meeting ended.

On Monday evening, the percentages were removed from the raise issue and the council voted on granting a 70 cent raise across the board for all the city employees.

During this year, it was agreed by the council members that they would be hiring a firm that will assist them with how to care for job descriptions, compensation rates, and pay scales with flexibility for performance based evaluations when caring for city employees’ payroll and raises.

The next council meeting will be Feb. 6 at the City Armory at 7 p.m.

Editor’s Note: During the council meeting, Councilman Harley Getzlaff brought up the issue of a $2,000 audit bill to Alderman Brad Gangl which was charged to the city’s taxpayers without being approved by the full council first. The discussion became part of the meeting, which the Bottineau Courant wrote an independent story on that can be read on the front page of this issue of the newspaper.