City Council 1/8/19—The first action of the New Year for the City Council was welcoming and swearing-in Donna Bowen who won a seat in the November General Election! Bowen, who served as Chair of the Historical Architectural Review Commission and on the Budget Committee, brings a wide-array of professional and personal experience to the post. In related business, Councilor David Jesser was re-elected as President of the Council and of the Urban Renewal Agency. Mayor Paul Becker presented the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award to Pastor Larry Jung, who recently retired after serving his church and the community for 33 years. (See more on page 8.) Becker noted that having the opportunity to recognize outstanding citizens is the best part of being mayor. Following staff recommendations and deliberation, the council decided to inactivate the Land & Buildings, Parking and Public Safety Committees, any of which may be re-activated should the need arise. Staff noted that these committees rarely need to meet and that in some cases, the original intent of forming the committee in the first place was no longer germane. In committee and commission appointments, Alan Betcher and Mike Card were appointed to the Planning Commission, Sally Melgard to the HARC, Brad Bennington, Mike McClain, and Eric Rogers to the Budget Committee, Mike Thornton and Robert Roos to the Transient Lodging Committee and Omer Kem to the Parks Committee. Council also approved a hiring list of applicants for the fire department in anticipation of vacancies and it set an Urban Renewal meeting for February 19 to begin discussions on the need for financing a new fire hall. When asked, Interim Fire Chief Wayne Painter acknowledged that several of the city’s current fire fighters/EMT’s are testing with other departments, presumably in search of higher paying posts. The meeting will take place at the conclusion of the regularly-scheduled City Council meeting.