Wednesday
February 11, 2004

John Harrington asked for suggestions for the makeup of the "The Assembly".

Ok John, remember you asked for this.

The make up

There will be six members of the Assembly.

Each member will serve one six-year term.
only source of employment
Sign a six year contract
Remove themselves from conflicts of interest
Each year the community will elect one member.

The most junior member will act as Mayor
Has the least experience
Only votes to break a tie

Duties

Will serve a 40-hour workweek
Participate in training
Travel and attend seminars in various aspects of city operations
Attend ATA meetings, Four Dam Pool meetings, trade shows, etc.
Participate in regularly scheduled meetings every two weeks

Participate in a monthly public bitch meeting
Saturday afternoon for four hours
Coffee pop and sandwiches (plastic no glass for safety, real coffee cups can hurt like hell)
Strive to meet every employee within the first year.
Ride with garbage men, phone men, truck driver,s etc.
Spend time with customer service, accounting etc.
The view from the bottom can be enlightening as the view from the top
Learn as much about all aspects of the City and KPU operations as possible

Compensation

Same hourly pay as electric lineman (100%) around $33
$4 per hour deferred comp payable on completion of six-year contract
Incentive to stay on because the experience they gain will be expensive
3 week paid vacation

PERS

Sound nuts? What is really nuts is we put folks in the position to make decisions and some don't have a clue or any desire to learn. In 16 years of working at KPU, I have seen very good council people and bad. I've seen some pretty stupid and expensive decisions.

A long time ago we had a KPU manager named Newland. When he left he gave a little speech about the competency of the City Council. Basically he said when he asked for a 13 million-dollar telephone rebuild, the Council passed it without any discussion. When he asked for a pickup truck, the Council discussed it for three meetings. You see, they understood what a pickup is and were informed enough to discuss it and make a decision. They were clueless about a telephone rebuild and couldn't discuss it. When you have good managers it can be OK because they can steer the council in a good direction. If your manager is a meathead, the outcome can be disastrously expensive. On top of that, if the council doesn't know what is going on, they may never know when they get screwed or if the manager is incompetent.

I was talking to one of our local curmudgeons the other day and he surprised me when he said he is happy with the management we have now. I can't say who it was because Tom has a reputation to protect, don't you know. Managers move on and we have to plan for all circumstances.

If elected, each councilmember would enter a six year, full time, well paid, school of the workings of Ketchikan. The first year as Mayor would have little influence on decisions. By the end of the second year the member would have a pretty high level of competence. Without even trying a person would have to absorb an incredible amount of information on the workings of the system and therefor help to make competent decisions.

The old story is "you get what you pay for". The cost of the extra salaries could be made up with one good decision.

Patrick Jirschele
Ketchikan, AK