Council moves to promote code-enforcement supervisor and hire support after kennel incident

The Benton City Council on July 1 agreed to implement a memorandum that promotes Jenny to supervisor of code enforcement and to hire a new code-enforcement/animal-control position, council members and staff said.

The mayor described a recent safety issue at the city kennels involving a pit bull and said the personnel change is necessary to protect staff and improve enforcement capacity. “This has come to a head last month when we had an issue down at the kennels with a pit bull and an incident that could have been potentially very dangerous to Jenny and the staff,” the mayor said, urging council approval of the memorandum from Russell that includes the promotion and hiring.

Council and staff discussed whether the action creates a new classification or represents a promotion and replacement. Staff clarified that the memorandum promotes the current employee to a supervisor role and authorizes hiring a helper to replace that person in the code-enforcement/animal-control duties. City staff said the positions and salary impacts are reflected in the negotiated collective bargaining agreement and will be inserted into a forthcoming salary ordinance.

Members raised procedural questions about how the change will appear in municipal pay documents; staff said the council will receive a revised salary ordinance and that the memorandum functions as the immediate authorization to proceed with the personnel adjustments. No separate ordinance reading was recorded in the transcript; council instructed staff to bring the formal salary-ordinance language back to a future meeting.

The council’s approval was handled during the new-business discussion; the mayor and staff indicated a memorandum from Russell approving the personnel actions was before the council.