City Will Pay Up Despite Last Week's Vote

Turns out the city will be making good on an $800,000 pension payment--the one council voted against making last week. Councillors Patty Higgins and Bill Farren had voted nay to protest what they see as the chronic mismanagement of the pension plan. But legal counsel Melanie Thompkins advised the motion to pay passed anyway, because it had a simple majority. Normally a two-thirds majority is required.

Mayor Ivan Court said the payment isn't going to come out all at once, but rather be planned into the budget over a period of years.

Councillor Bill Farren had voted with Councillor Patty Higgins against making the payment. He said plenty of motions have been defeated because they didn't have a 2-thirds majority--and if these are actually the rules, they should be revisited. Higgins appeared outraged by motion, saying the city has done nothing concrete to deal with the city's pension woes.