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Regular Council Meeting <br />June 22, 2015 <br />Page 3 <br />communication, that in the past Council Members including himself had met on different issues, <br />with the City Manager and the remainder of the Council was not made aware. He said this had <br />been rectified in that he spoke to the City Manager about making the entire Council aware of the <br />meetings and providing information to the entire Council. With regard of lack of cohesiveness <br />and poor performance, he said it gives a bad feeling in the community when the leaders do not <br />get along, that it was okay to have a difference of opinion, but they should leave personal <br />agendas outside the Council Chambers. <br />Mayor Hashmi also said he believed city departments could also be improved. He said <br />he felt the engineering department had poor leadership, lack of transparency, complete loss of <br />accountability, disregard for authority, provided poor quality information and at times inaccurate <br />information. He also said if the engineering department felt contractors or someone was not <br />doing a job correctly, then they should bring this to the contractor's attention. As far as lack of <br />transparency, Mayor Hashmi said a resident was upset about something that was done and when <br />addressed with the engineering department the answer given to the resident was that the Council <br />was responsible for that and that the Council changes and they change their mind. Mayor <br />Hashmi said he discussed this matter with Mr. Godwin who reported back and said that the issue <br />was not the Council, but the issue was due to a change in rules. With disregard for authority, <br />when the engineering department was on the agenda and had been for quite some time, the <br />engineer nor the City Manager informed Council that the engineer was not going to be at the <br />meeting. Had Council known that in advance, the presentation could have been postponed <br />instead of having a junior employee trying to explain what occurred. Mayor Hashmi referring to <br />poor quality information referenced to the map given to Council reflecting the completed project <br />on Houston Street, but after visiting Houston Street and hearing the presentation, Council was <br />told it was not a completed project. <br />Mayor Hashmi said with regard to the City Clerk's office, he felt overall the office was <br />performing well, but thought there was some need of improvement in the agenda packet and that <br />he talked to Mr. Godwin about it. He said whenever a search was conducted on a particular <br />issue, one needed to know the specific Council meeting that an item was discussed or they could <br />not find it. He said he thought the IT Department could improve as related to the agenda. Mayor <br />Hashmi next brought up code enforcement and said there was an item that would be presented, <br />but that he thought the Council needs to receive reports from code enforcement. As far as EMT <br />service is concerned, Mayor Hashmi said he thought they performed quite well. He said the City <br />Manager could better answer if EMS needed a deputy chief or not, but he would like to hear <br />something about ongoing training of EMT personnel. <br />Mayor Hashmi said he thought that Public Works was under good leadership, and in the <br />future they were going to meet with the City Manager about a road resurfacing program. With <br />regard to the Police Department, he said there was a constant loss of police officers to other <br />agencies. He also said there was a meeting conducted at his office and they would hear about <br />that today. Mayor Hashmi said they discussed several issues with the police chief including <br />reporting of crime statistics and the chief was going to review ways to improve reporting of <br />statistics as far as Paris being reported as one of the top ten dangerous cities. He said they also <br />discussed development of new units, such as a drug task force and K9 units, minority <br />