JAMESTOWN – The effort to look into the consolidation of the Jamestown Police Department and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s office will be moving forward.
The Jamestown City Council Monday night approved a resolution for the city to continue to work on developing a plan for potential consolidation, with the help of the Center For Governmental Research (CGR) in Rochester. The anticipated cost for completing the study is $10,000, with the money coming from a grant from the New York State Department by way of its Local Government Efficiency Grant.
Since 2012, representatives of a public safety consolidation task force having been meeting to discuss and determine details for a plan that would allow the Sheriff’s office to provide police services in the city, with many services of the Jamestown Police Department being phased out over an extended period of time through the process of attrition. However, any plan finalized by the task force must still be reviewed by the collective bargaining units for both the sheriff’s deputies and Jamestown police. The latest grant will allow CGR to facilitate that review and work with all parties to collect input and finalize any plan.
Once a plan has been completed, it would go to both the county and city legislative bodies for review. That part of the process may not happen until next year.
COUNCIL OKAYS LABOR CONTRACT
Another union in city government now has a new contract in place. Monday night the City Council approved a new contract with the Jamestown City Administration Association. The new contract is retroactive, and covers the time period from Jan. 1, 2012, through Dec. 31, 2016. The contract calls for zero percent salary increases for 2012 and 2013; a 1.5 percent salary jump for 2014; and 2 percent raises for 2015 and 2016.
The new contract also states there will be an increase for how much employees pay for health insurance and also includes a wellness program. Between 20 and 30 employees are currently members of the union.
MYGOV.US GETS GREEN LIGHT
A screen image of MyGov.us, the web-based code enforcement software the city of Jamestown, NY is considering implementing to help create more efficiency and transparency in local code enforcement.
The City Council last night also gave its approval for the city to spend $30,000 on MyGov.us, a software system and website that will make it easy to report, track and enforce housing code violations in the city. Money for the software came from the city’s contingency budget, which will still have more than $200,000 after the purchase. Once online, the software will have an annual subscription cost of about $20,000. Earlier in July, City Development Director Vince DeJoy went over the details of the software with the city council.
The new software will allow residents to report housing code violations online. It will also allow code enforcement officers, city officials, and the general public to track the status of current violations. It will take about 90 days for the city’s mygov.us website to be up and running.
Leave a Reply