Jamestown City Council
Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist has issued seven vetoes in the amount of $71,445 dollars in regards to the 2022 Budget passed by City Council last week.
Six of the vetoes are to restore budget cuts or eliminations made by Council. Sundquist’s vetoes would restore
– $18,538 for increased wages for the City Clerk and City Comptroller management positions,
-$6,000 to the Jamestown Human Right’s Commission for a diversity festival
– $9,950 in the Mayor’s travel, education and stationary budget
– $10,000 to the building maintenance budget
– and $10,000 to the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency
– and a veto of the $643,568 dollar fund balance.
Sundquist said in his veto statement that the latter is so that Council may amend the budget by pulling more money from the fund balance to cover any vetoes they do not override.
If council chose not to override any vetoes, the 2022 budget would increase by $71,445 dollars.
Finance Committee Chair and Council member at large Kim Ecklund reminded fellow council members that they passed a budget 9 to 0 and have set the tax levy, “You can vote up, you can vote down, I’m not telling you how to vote, but for everything we add back in we have to take it out somewhere else. And to take it out of contingency, as the Finance Chair, or somewhere like that right now is foolish cause we don’t know what we’ll be facing next year and I will go on the record saying that. We have nothing in contingency right now this year, so it’s unprecedented to take it out this early to make these types of amendments.”
Council will hold a special voting session at 6:30 p.m., Monday, December 13 to vote on overriding any of the vetoes issued.
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