Monette Council holds special meeting

Monette City Council adopted the city's 2015 budget as well as other ordinances as a special meeting held Dec. 31.

Monette Mayor Chub Qualls explained the special meeting was to deal with issues that were tabled due to lack of time at the council's regular meeting Dec. 18.

The first ordinance read and adopted unanimously was to amend the 2013 budget as recommended by state auditors. Next the council went into a brief executive session to discusses pay raises for employees. Upon returning to open session the council agreed unanimously to give a pay of $625 per employee but no pay raise for the city recorder/treasurer. The council also voted to give the city water/sewer clerk a $1,000 salary increase to bring her pay in line with her job duties.The council then heard and adopted unanimously the 2015 budget ordinance.

After dealing with budget items the council moved on to ordinance 2014-9 accepting from the Highway Department portions of Highway 18 and 139 into the city street system. The ordinance did set forth that the portions of Highway 18 and 139 being adopted into the city of Monette would be overlaid based on engineering analysis and design.

The council suspended the rules and heard the ordinance for a second reading by title only. The council after adopting the policy on second reading voted to suspend the rules and hear a third reading of the ordinance before adopting the ordinance unanimously.

The final agenda item was the first reading of ordinances and resolutions concerning the Monette Planning Commission. The council adopted Ordinance 2014-3 adopting a comprehensive plan for the city of Monette. That ordinance will be read for a second time at the council's next regular meeting.

Ordinance 2014-3 will create the position of building inspector, require building permits, require electrical and plumbing permits, set penalties for violations and more.

The council also heard the first reading for a proposed zoning code, subdivision code and building codes. These will also be read for a second time at this month's regular meeting.