Bloggin’ on the Edge

Posted by Scott Spielman at 1:14 PM | Comments (9)

It’s strange the things that warrant discussion at a municipal board meeting.

It’s also strange the things that don’t.

Take the Wayne City Council meeting last night. The city council spent about 15 minutes or so discussing the possibility of developing an ordinance requiring residents to license cats the way they have to license dogs. It’s apparently something that came up quite a few years back, and they may make it a fall project.

Here’s my favorite quote from the discussion, from City Manager John Zech:

“Some people thought it was humorous to walk a cat on a leash and there were some people that thought it was only right to walk a cat on a leash.”

I am a little embarrassed to say that I once tried to walk a cat on a leash and so I fall under the category of people who find such a concept very humorous. Suffice it say, putting a leash on a cat is a lot like putting a life preserver on a feline—you know it isn’t going to get in the water anyway, so you might as well save yourself a few scratches.

Later on in the agenda, the council approved a salary increase for Zech without any discussion whatsoever on a unanimous vote. That was very disappointing to me on a number of levels, and I’ll write more about it both in the paper and online this week.

In the meantime, let’s just say I think that sends the wrong message to the people out there who are struggling. Here we have a budget situation that everyone agrees will be just as tight next year, a situation that saw the city reduce the staff in the Youth Services department, move them out of their space and sell the building. And yet the council grants the manager—who is already making $121,000 a year, just in salary—another $3,000 or so.

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