Putting it in writing...

So some of you heard about an email that Tom Edwards sent me a week or so ago. It questioned whether or not our city should be self-insured. This email was printed out and circulated among various folks...and then was referenced quite a bit in last night's very tense city council meeting.

I attended the meeting last night and wanted to give a perspective.

There was a lot of intensity last night, and I love to see this much passion when citizens and elected officials are talking about making the City of Coshocton a better place. But at the end of the meeting here are two points that I took away from the gathering.

1) The city, with 100 employees, cannot afford to continue to be self-insured. This was Tom's point from the beginning and I think it stands. The benefits package needs to be re-considered.

2) The point was also made last night that the city cannot account for about 30% of the water that we treat. Someone else can verify that stat I suppose...but that is an enormous number! If we were missing 30% of our paycheck we would want to know why! This is not an indictment of the employees of the city. They work hard and do a good job. But the system's inefficiencies need to be addressed.

I am glad I was there last night...and I am going to try and attend more often. I hope that everyone on council can get past the frustrations of last night in order to move the city forward. And I, for one, hope that Tom Edwards continues to question and probe and share the information with the public.

From my perspective, that is why he is in office.