Joel Servatius

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Oak Harbor City Council Delays Reviewing Their Own Salary and Benefits After Declaring City In Fiscal Emergency!

May 23, 2013 by Cliff | No comments

At the City Council meeting on May 21st the City Council had 2 agenda items that were tabled until the next meeting following the November election. Both of these Agenda items were brought by the Mayor and Administration in response to the “Fiscal Emergency” declared by the City Council.

One of the items was Resolution 13-12 which would have eliminated health care benefits for part time elected officials including the Mayor and the City Council.

The other was an Agenda Bill that asked the Council to make a decision on the method of reviewing and possibly reducing the salaries of Oak Harbor elected officials. Read the rest of this entry »

Oak Harbor City Council Again Obstructs our Mayor from performing his duty under our State Laws

March 24, 2013 by Cliff | 6 comments

Again we see our obstructive Oak Harbor City Council in action.

Recently Mayor Dudley appointed a new city attorney as a full time city employee to replace the interim attorney. The City Council has refused to confirm this appointment. This is 3 or 4 to zero in confirming the Mayors appointments without obstruction. (Correction: The City Council approved ONE appointee without obstruction, Larry Cort.)

Let’s go back a bit in recent time to when the City Council approved a new rule that allows the City Council to confirm the Mayors appointments. Since inception Oak Harbor has allowed it’s Mayor the sole ability to hire and fire administrative personel under his control until this new rule by the council. This new rule was adopted with some controversy as this allows the council to control who works under the Mayor’s control and for the citizens of Oak Harbor. Remember the City Attorney and management personnel works for the Mayor and the citizens in this city not the council. The Mayor is elected as our executive officer and all city management personnel work directly under his control. The council has thrown a wrench into this process by voting in themselves the ability to confirm those appointees. Now the Mayor is faced with hiring an employee under his direct control but having to go through our obstructive City Council to actually hire that employee. There has not been one appointee for a position chosen by our Mayor that has not been rejected or obstructed by this council with the exception of Larry Cort.

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Oak Harbor City Councilman Rick Almberg walks out of City Council meeting. He refuses to follow his oath by supporting the laws of the State of Washington and our Washington State Constitution.

January 17, 2013 by Cliff | 111 comments

At last Tuesdays City Council meeting a citizen commented during the citizens comment period encouraging the City Council to support the Second Amendment and to help educate our children about firearms and firearm safety.

In a rather disturbing display by Councilman Almberg this citizen was called back to the podium by Councilman Almberg and the councilman asked the Mayor to enquire if he was carrying a concealed weapon. After some discussion with the city Attorney about the legality of Councilman Almberg requesting a citizen return to the podium to be asked a question by the Councilman the citizen volunteered to answer any questions Councilman Almberg saw fit to ask him. After the citizens confirmed that he was lawfully and legally carrying a concealed weapon Councilman Almberg made a motion (during the citizens comment period yet) that he wanted to make a requirement that citizens coming to city council meeting check their firearms with either the police department or the Chief of Police before being allowed to attend the meeting. The Motion was seconded by Joel Servatius. After a long discussion the motion was presented for a vote with Councilman Almberg and Councilman Servatius voting yes and the remainder of the Council voted no. Immediately after the motion failed councilman Almberg excused himself and left the meeting.

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What is next for Oak Harbor now that they have declared a fiscal emergency?

July 19, 2012 by Cliff | 2 comments

From watching what has happened in other cities that have gone through fiscal emergencies it looks like Oak Harbor may be in for some tough times. I question whether Oak Harbor is actually under a true fiscal emergency or if this issue has only been trumped up by the City Council for some unknown and possibly political reason. But it has been declared and now the city will need to live with the repercussions.

With the city having quite a few open employment positions available it is unclear that these will be filled. If they are not essential positions you would think that under a fiscal emergency that these would not be filled. We may even be faced with layoffs of our current city employees lowering the level of service that we receive from the city.

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Oak Harbor City Council Declares Fiscal “Emergency”. The facts concerning this issue directly from Oak Harbor’s Finance Director

July 12, 2012 by Cliff | 3 comments

I recently received a report prepared by the city finance director that answers a lot of the fiscal questions concerning the state of Oak Harbor’s finances and the need for a declaration of a fiscal emergency.

With the City Council declaring a “fiscal emergency” one of the first actions besides reducing the amount the Mayor and his staff can spend without City Council authorization was the creation by the Council of a special “stabilization account” that established a minimum reserve of $3,000,000.00 or 25% of the the general budget whichever is greater.

Reading the report by the city finance director it appears that Oak Harbor is already above the 25% limit of the new stabilization account, currently the projected reserve balance at the end of the year will be 25.8871% of the general fund budget and the ending balance will be $3,259,056 which shows both figures above the limits set by the Council for the stabilization account. The question does come up with our city finances in such good condition what was the purpose for the declaration of a fiscal emergency? Politics or was there a true need?

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Oak Harbor City Council Declares Fiscal Emergency. But…is there more to the story?

July 12, 2012 by Cliff | 3 comments

Updated
At the Monday June 18th Special City Council meeting the council passed a motion made by Rick Almberg that the city is now in a fiscal emergency. With the emergency declaration it is  now possible for the council to make and vote on amendments during the same meeting greatly lessening the length of time that the council has to consider these motions.  OHMC Chapter  1.04 allows for final consideration of all amendments to be taken at a single meeting as long as an emergency is declared beforehand.

At this same meeting another motion made by Rick Almberg under the color of this declared “emergency”  was passed that has greatly restricted the Mayor, City Administrator and  department heads. This motion limits the amount the Mayor and his staff can spend without City Council approval. Previously the Mayor was allowed to spend up to $30,000.00, the City  Administrator $20,000.00 and the department heads $10,000.00 without council approval now the limit has been placed at $10,000.00 for everyone with spending authority including the  Mayor.

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Oak Harbor City Council Squelches Public Comments at City Council Meetings

June 9, 2012 by Cliff | 8 comments

At the last city council meeting Thursday the people’s voice to the council was severely restricted. The council did not move the public comment period to the end of the meeting as proposed but what they did was much more draconian than that.

We now have a public comment period that is severely restricted. Rick Almberg made a motion that was voted in by the council (with the exception of Jim Campbell who abstained) to limit public comments to 3 minutes per person with a limit of 15 minutes for all public comments during the meeting. This means that  the public comments will be limited to 5 people commenting at any one meeting for 3 minutes each. 5 people and that is all the people that our City Council members want to hear from no matter what the issue.

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From a citizen- To The Honorable Mayor Scott Dudley

April 14, 2012 by Publius | 3 comments

Honorable Mayor Dudley,

It has come to my attention recently that some city council members have expressed unfortunate, ignorant, judgmental and prejudicial disdain for those who have earned their GED’s (General Education development certificate) as opposed to having traditionally graduated from high school. I am quite concerned that those council members might serve on a panel judging possible applicants for open positions for the City of Oak Harbor. These corroborated prejudices might certainly place this City in a liable position if an otherwise qualified candidate for an open position with the City of Oak Harbor might be disqualified or downgraded by a panel member due to their ignorance of the GED program.

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