By Lauren Lifke — Town of Edgewood commissioners let out exasperated sighs on Friday, Sept. 19, when the commission had to end a meeting after just five minutes due to a problem with the agenda, despite its plans to discuss clarification on police overtime policies and have a closed session to discuss personnel matters.
At the Sept. 9 meeting, Town Manager Nina McCracken said it had come to her attention that police officers were being paid overtime during pay periods where they had already taken sick leave, earning overtime pay for hours they hadn’t physically worked. Friday’s follow-up special commission meeting sought to resolve this.
Friday’s agenda also contained a closed session in regards to Executive Assistant Helena Meyer for “the discussion of hiring, promotion, demotion, dismissal, assignment or resignation of or the investigation of complaints or charges against any individual public employee.”
Meyer told commissioners during public comment that she hadn’t been informed that she would be involved in a closed session.
“If I did not look at tonight’s agenda, I wouldn’t have known,” Meyer said. “I wouldn’t have been notified closed session was being held to discuss complaints.”
After public comment, commissioners noticed that the published agenda for the meeting mistakenly did not contain an “Approval of Agenda” line, putting a halt to the meeting.
“If we can’t approve the agenda, we can’t move forward,” Mayor Ken Brennan said.
The agenda for the Town of Edgewood’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 23 contains items regarding overtime policies and Meyer’s closed session.
