The Wellman City Council met in work session in the Council Chambers of the Wellman Municipal Building at 7:00pm. Mayor Ryan Miller presided with the City Administrator, City Clerk and following Council Members: Marc Pennington, Steve Slaubaugh, Fern Bontrager and Johnny Schwartz; absent: Doug Powell. Also present were: Mary Zelinski from the news media, and two citizens. The Agenda was approved upon motion by Slaubaugh, second by Bontrager and all aye votes.

The work session was held for the purpose of discussing three items. The Library Board has requested a change in their Board of Trustees makeup to change from a six city-resident and one rural-resident membership to five city-residents and two rural-residents. This is to provide a better representation from the rural area as a large percentage of the library’s user-ship is from outside the city limits. Library Director Miller has been in contact with County Auditor Bill Fredericks who has indicated the council will need to pass a resolution to authorize this to be placed on the ballot. It will then go to the voters. This will have to be done and submitted to the Auditor by September 2, 2011 to have it on the November ballot. The current Library Board has already approved this. It was the consensus to pass the Resolution to provide for the public vote at the next regular Council meeting.

The second item of discussion was to determine the language for the Local Option Sales Tax Resolution to provide for placing it on the ballot for voter approval to continue receiving the one cent sales tax. After a brief discussion it was agreed to identify use of the LOST funds as “100% Lawful Purpose” with no sunset clause. This Resolution will be passed at the next Council meeting.

The third item was discussion on options for the city administrator position. A lengthy discussion was held on the process with general consensus to move forward with advertising for the position. Ross offered his services to advertise, do background checks, rank the applicants and assist in the interviews for $2,500. He would return to Iowa on Saturdays at $400 a day to meet with the applicants and Council and to return to help train the new person. After further discussion and consideration of options, it was agreed that Ross could go ahead with the nation-wide advertising to have the resumes emailed to the city’s email. They can then be forwarded to council members for their review as the applications are received. The Council will meet on Saturday, August 27 to review the applications and determine the finalists to be interviewed. They will then set a date for the interviews at which time all candidates will be present to be interviewed and receive a tour of the community. It is expected the whole process will take six to eight weeks to complete. Ross encouraged the Council to put a salary on the notice of position so that candidates will know up front what to expect. It was agreed to set the salary at $55,000.

Other items discussed were placing “no smoking” signs at North Park ball diamonds. It was decided to encourage the YMCA and ball association to include the request not to smoke in their materials they send out for their ball events.

Public works has asked about removing the announcer’s stand at South Park. It was agreed they should go ahead with its removal.

With no further business Slaubaugh moved for adjournment at 8:07pm, Pennington seconded and all voted aye. The next regular City Council meeting will be Monday, August 8, 2011, 7:00pm in the Council Chambers of the Wellman Municipal Building.

Minutes transcribed by the City Clerk subject to Council approval.