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‘Treasured Responsibility’

Community Member Challenges Government To Work Together

A Jamestown resident challenged City Council members and the city administration Monday to work together in the future for the benefit of the local community, instead of working separately and causing situations like the recent debate over the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant. Pictured is Doug Champ, a local community member. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

A local resident challenged the city administration and City Council to work together in the future to avoid “political” situations like the debate over the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant resolution.

During Monday’s public comments at the City Council voting session, Doug Champ, a Jamestown resident, said that while the situation with the SAFER grant debate was “cut and dry” during Monday’s City Council voting session, it was important for the community to understand how the situation occurred.

“The situation, I think, shouldn’t have come this far along, and what I mean by that is that there is a legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch of government; they all have to work together,” he said. “When this grant was acquiesced for use within Jamestown, it’s quite obvious that the City Council had no knowledge of it. Before that, even the police chief, who actually is the public safety director, had no knowledge of it, he so admitted. That’s not the way to do things.”

Champ argued that if the City Council had been included in a “team approach” during the process of applying for the SAFER grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and if the City Council’s “talent” had been utilized in conjunction with the city administration’s knowledge of what the city needed for the grant application, the city would not be enveloped in “political dialogue” and arguing about “who’s right or wrong.”

Voicing his opinion on the topic of public safety, Champ said it is a “treasured responsibility” for city officials to strengthen the city’s public safety efforts, and it is the responsibility of city residents to “demand the best they can have.” However, he claimed that the long delay and debate over the SAFER grant resolution resulted from one side “not relating to the other by choice.”

“What happens tonight, I’m fine with more firemen, more safety, more fires being put out, more emergency services done,” he said. “All of this is good, but from now on, I would hope the administration would engage themselves with City Council. They haven’t done this; that’s why we’re here tonight.”

Champ claimed that it is the mayor’s duty to “inform” the City Council about matters relating to the city, while it is the City Council’s job to do “due diligence” in consideration of each resolution and proposal. According to Champ, “log jams” in the process of city government can be avoided when both the city administration and the City Council work together for the good of Jamestown residents.

“What I’m saying now is learn from this process,” he said. “We don’t need to do businesses this way. It’s unnecessary to sit here at the last hour and work out deals. This should have been a done deal earlier on because you all would have been working on the same page.”

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