Council reviews salary-ordinance amendments to add community development coordinator, change mayoral aide titles

The University Heights City Council considered multiple amendments to the city’s non–collective bargaining salary ordinance that would add a new pay range for a community development coordinator and change two existing job titles. Council discussed ordinance 20-25-47 (adding a community development coordinator), ordinance 20-25-35 (retitling assistant to the mayor on special projects to assistant to the mayor on special projects, chief of staff), and ordinance 20-25-34 (retitling senior services coordinator to services for older adults coordinator). The council’s finance committee had reviewed the proposed community development coordinator pay range, and the item was advanced to council. The mayor and several council members said title changes had occurred informally in the past and described the ordinance items as cleanup to align job titles with practice. Opposing members raised procedural concerns about paperwork, timing and compliance with legal processes. "This law has been bypassed and ignored by calling, writing, pronouncing miss Bremer Fisher's job as chief of staff on the University Heights website, on city grant applications, and public meetings ... even on Ms. Bremer Fisher's social media page for political campaign," Councilmember Sacks told council, arguing the ordinance should serve as a reminder to follow legal processes. Councilmember King said changing a title is a common way to recognize work and supported passing the item. Councilmember Weiser said title changes must be accompanied by a matching pay-range line in the salary ordinance and that the administration had not provided full paperwork, calling some past actions "on the edge of the law." The council voted on the items in sequence: the community development coordinator pay-range amendment was passed (second reading/emergency procedural questions were clarified in the meeting); an attempt to suspend rules and pass the chief-of-staff retitling immediately failed for lack of sufficient votes and was put on second reading; the services-for-older-adults retitling moved forward after a successful vote to suspend rules and passed on emergency. Councilmembers emphasized the distinction between changing a job title (name only) and changing compensation (pay range). Several council members asked that administrative paperwork and job descriptions be submitted to council for clarity before final votes. No change to salary amounts for the affected positions was recorded as part of the title-only amendments.