Letters question city staffing level

RITZVILLE — Faced with looming growth, the City Council unanimously approved a plan to lift the city’s hiring freeze during its Nov. 5 meeting.

Councilwoman Michelle Plumb moved to modify the city government organizational chart to eliminate a vacant deputy clerk/treasurer 1 position, add a new community development director, lift the hiring freeze and allow for a hiring a part-time records clerk funded through March 30.

She also moved to have staff modify the budget to include the changes and related wages.

The council voted 7-0 to approve the motion.

The city will host a special budget meeting regarding this matter at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14.

During the meeting, Plumb said she wanted her colleagues to be aware of feedback the city has received from developers.

“In general, it seems like in one of the letters, the gentleman made a question to us, ‘How do you consider expanding the team to facilitate growth in this area,’” Plum said, referring to an Oct. 17 letter the mayor and council received from Rane Shaub, owner of Les Schwab Tire Center.

He said he is in the process of building a new store next to Love’s, “to replace our existing location (1004 W. First Ave.)”

“It recently came to my attention that there is a hiring freeze in place within the Clerk department responsible for, among other things, processing building permits and assisting with new development,” Shaub wrote. “The hiring freeze is having a direct impact on the development of our business along with other developments within the city that will provide much needed jobs and living wages.

“When we first began working with the city on our building permits, the speed and quality of work we received from the city was first class. Since then, we have seen a noticeable decline in response times which threatens our ability to continue work on our site.”

Shaub noted that City Clerk/Treasurer Julie Flyckt has been incredible to work with, given that she is “overloaded and could use assistance in her department to handle the volume of work so that projects are not further delayed or eliminated entirely.”

A second letter, penned Oct. 16 to Mayor Scott Yaeger by developer Tom Carlson asked, “Have you considered expanding the team to help facilitate growth in the area? I know added resources would be a tremendous asset as would more affordable utilities hook up costs. I know juggling short term benefits with long term success can be challenging but with all the surrounding growth I would love to see Ritzvillle capture some of that momentum.”

Several council members spoke of having enough staff to plan development, as well as process permits.

“The goal is to bring the Clerk/Treasurer’s office back to where it was seven, eight years ago,” Councilman Dennis Chamberlain said, “because what has changed in our town, we have done lots of granting, which has upped our workload tremendously. And on top of that, we have lots of development happening, and that has really upped the workload of our City Hall.”

“Part of the conversation we had was re-targeting customer habits,” Councilwoman Brooke Scheel said. “Right now, we have this customer habit where they come in, they pay their bills, they show up at the counter.

“They’re doing all of these things that can be done online — and currently we’re not charging for those services,” Scheel said. “But we need to reduce the burden on the treasurer’s load.”

“My recommendation here tonight, let’s get the position approved, eliminate the clerk/treasurer 1, not the position, but the vacant clerk/treasurer 1, and then we can continue with the committee to work out the fine details,” Chamberlain said.

Flyckt commented later it may not be necessary to hire a temporary position in her department and that it “could be a three-person department moving forward.”