New Polson mayor sworn in

Jules Clavadetscher was sworn in as the new mayor of Polson last week, but he'll be paid a fraction of the former salary despite his promises to work a full, 40-hour work week.

Clavadetscher and fellow mayoral candidate Mike Lies both received three votes each in a city council meeting last Wednesday, Nov. 30, but council president Mark MacDonald broke the tie since he had two votes as both acting mayor and a city councilman.

After he was sworn in, Clavadetscher said he was committed to working full-time in the position, but asked the council to give him an appropriate salary that would stifle the criticism that came with former mayor Randy's Ingram's salary.

"I applied for the position of mayor to serve the community," not for monetary reasons, he said.

Earlier in Ingram's mayoral career, the council voted to triple the mayor's salary in a reflection of what they said was appropriate pay for the expected duties of the job — mainly, that it had become a full-time position that required regular oversight and administration of day-to-day city affairs.

But resident Murat Kalinyaprak complained over the past two years that more people would have signed up to run for the job in 2004 if they knew it paid about $27,000 a year, and that the council's decision to vote on the pay raise was not well advertised.

When he made the same complaint last summer, Ingram asked the council to lower his salary if they felt that he was overpaid, but they took no action on Kalinyaprak's request.

At Monday night's city council meeting, they voted to lower the salary from $2,397 per month to $700 — the amount it was prior to Ingram's raise.

Clavadetscher reiterated his commitment to still work full time, and did not protest the pay cut at Monday's meeting.

"The intention is to work 40 hours a week and be available 24/7," he said.

The salary reduction should remove any friction associated with the prior salary, councilman Tom Corse noted after the vote.

At last week's meeting, Lies received votes from Fred Funke, himself and Bruce Agrella, while Clavadetscher received votes from Corse, himself and MacDonald.

When MacDonald was forced to break the tie, giving the job to Clavadetscher, city attorney James Raymond said the state attorney general had ruled on this issue before, and that a councilman who is also acting mayor can in fact vote twice.

MacDonald has one vote wearing his hat as city councilman and one vote wearing his hat as mayor pro tempore, Raymond explained.

Three other candidates - Nathan Pierce, Diane Richards and Lou Marchello - had also submitted their names for consideration, but Marchello withdrew his application late last month and Richards did not meet the two-year residency requirement.

After he was sworn in Clavadetscher said hiring a new city engineer to replace Bob Fulton, who resigned last month, was the city's top priority, saying the city can run better without a mayor than it can without a city engineer.

He also said the city needs to start its search for a city manager, following voters' preference in the Nov. 7 election when they chose a city manager/mayor form of government, whereby the mayor would be more of a figurehead.

As such, Clavadetscher will serve until next fall, at which point he can decide to run for re-election or step aside, but his $700/month salary will only continue through June 30 in keeping with the city's budgeted fiscal year.

In other city council news, water and sewer superintendent Tony Porrazzo said the council should begin interviewing potential replacements for Fulton, despite the fact that there haven't been many applicants for the job.

Porrazzo recommended the council interview someone from Kalispell engineering firm Thomas Dean & Hoskins to discuss issues such as a retainer fee, ad hoc hourly rates and other factors, until the city can secure a full-time employee.

"We aren't getting a lot of other feedback," from potential candidates, Porrazzo noted, although the city just started advertising for the job a couple of weeks ago.

"The one thing I do know is we need a city engineer," Clavadetscher said.

The city council also voted to appoint Corse to fill the vacant position on the local government study review commission, after Ingram stepped down. However, their nomination was challenged by elected commission member Elsa Duford, and Rory Horning, both of whom said Corse shouldn't sit on the commission because he had criticized Duford for her involvement in past legal action against the city.

"He has an adversarial opinion of the only elected member of the commission, and her rights as a citizen," Horning said.

Later in the meeting, Horning thanked members of the Polson fire and police crews for their help in the annual Parade of Lights last Friday.

The meeting ended in an executive session that was closed to the public, in which the council discussed various legal actions facing the city. Although those items weren't listed on the agenda, notes from a similar session last month indicate the council discussed the Wal-Mart related suit, as well as a discrimination claim made by Kalinyaprak against the city's golf course.

In a ruling earlier this fall, a Montana Human Rights Commission officer sided with Kalinyaprak, saying the city erred in giving couples a slight discount, after Kalinyaprak complained that single people shouldn't have to pay more, but that ruling still has to be approved by a higher MHRC board before it becomes final.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled in Missoula District Court on Tuesday to outline potential trial dates and briefing deadlines in the suit brought by Lake County First and about a dozen homeowners around the proposed Wal-Mart supercenter, but details of that meeting were unavailable by press time.

The city filed a response to the suit, and district judge Kim Christopher recused herself earlier in the fall, sending the case to Missoula judge Robert Deschamps, III.