By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich- On Monday night the village council voted 3-2 to not renew the village administrator/clerk contract for Jakki Sidge. Jake Vick, Tim Light and Tim Barraco voted to not renew the contract. While Council President Mark Baldwin and Council member Shannon McCafferty voted to renew.
Vick made the motion, seconded by Barraco.
Vick stated the village administrator contract is in effect for one year after the date of execution and renews automatically year to year unless either party requests in writing that it is renegotiated or not renewed. Those requests, continued Vick, to be effectual, must be received by the non requesting party three months before the date of the automatic renew. On Oct. 10, 2011 Sidge was selected to serve in the office.Baldwin opposed the decision.
“Keep in mind this is going to cost us dearly to do this,” said Baldwin. “You are going to see a new council this fall and also a new administrator. I wonder if this is in the best interest of the village? Maybe waiting until after the council is seated to go forward with this?”
Vick responded.
“Without going into a lot of details as to why,” said Vick. “I don’t know if this is the appropriate time to do this. “(But) there is language that is stated in here (the contract) she will have to train the replacement. I don’t think we are going to be leaving, if this was to go through, the village high and dry as ex-council member Richard Saroli stated.”
Vick said it would be appropriate in an early fashion to get the applications out in the paper so we can see who we can get in before the next council does turn over. There are classes available for new clerks that take office, they are a three year class, they go there for about a week, added Vick.
“I don’t believe we’ll be doing a disservice going in this direction,” he said. “I have expressed concerns before about difficulties and problems The council changes as has been stated but the issues don’t go away. So we are at our last resort.”
Councilman Barraco disagreed with Baldwin in regard to how not renewing the contract was going to cost the village money.
“Severance pay,” said Baldwin. “Be careful right now. I have talked to two labor attorneys and he told me to keep this (process) as brief as possible. It could cost us for having a new council and new administrator. The disarray.”
Vick responded.
“I think you went the right direction by talking to labor attorneys,” said Vick. “To get a heads up of what we may be in store for. It’s never easy making these decisions. That’s what we were elected to do and move forward. This decision was made once already and a contract was signed.”
The council approved Attorney Kendal Williams of Grand Blanc who will handle the contract at a cost of $250 per our hour. The case should take about 4-6 hours. At 6 p.m., June 25 the village council will discuss in a special meeting the transition to a new administrator.