If he took his vacation each year then his unpaid monthly overtime and benifits must have been about 7-9 hours per month. If he used half of his sick leave, the uncompensated overtime jumps up to more then 12 hour per month. The argument must be that the ex-police chief / city manager must have been working an approximate extra 7 to 12+ hours per month, without regular compensation, for 10 years and that this time was recorded and documented by superiors? If so, does this overtime represent (for example) attendance at council meetings? In fact, do we pay ‘exempt’ employees to attend council meetings? I thought that one of the reasons for exemption from state and federal labor protections was to allow profesional employees to make many of thier own personal / personnel scheduling decisions? In other words, the Police Chief / City Manager coulda / shoulda been scheduling himself off the clock at other times an equal number of hours to council meetings. I wonder if Mr. M kept track of the ‘off the clock’ hours that he took as an exempt employee? Would an audit of city time records show any off the clock hours (even one, signed or documented by a superior(like overtime would be)) for Mr M. during his 10 year tenure? Maybe he worked so hard that he never took any? Or is it possible that Mr M. did not meticulously record his off the clock hours? I wonder?

Guess what, our Mayor does not get paid overtime and it appears that he would not ethically consider taking comp time for council meetings!

If you watch the council videos from late 2006 early 2007, you can verify Lillian is absolutely correct.

The two council members responsible and the third who fell into step with them will be still sitting on the council at their next public meeting 12-14-09. Two of them will vote to approve a 2010 budget and then thankfully be gone. Maybe the other five council members can minimize the damage that they may do to 2010.

Direct public reaction to such very bad city leadership ended over 160 years ago. We are more civilized today. We let them sit doing continual damage against our will until the time comes to vote them out or they resign.

In McEachin’s case it was indeed his council friends who set him free so he cold pull the rip cord of the golden parachute he designed and they voted to legally create for him.

Gosh when I think about it if we had those dollars and 1/2 of the spending spree that Mr. McEachin and council went on the last two months of their control, we would probably still have a healthy reserve!