Council OKs another employee
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

The city's building department will get another employee under a budget adjustment approved July 19 by the city council.

Or not.

While the council told City Manager Michael Kovacs to use $7,000 from the budget to hire another worker, Building Official Joe Lamb said that worker probably wouldn't mean a net addition to his work force.

Peggy Werth, who was hired in 2005 as a code enforcement officer, actually has been spending most of her time working with city computers, Lamb said.

The reason: Werth brought with her computer skills that make her more valuable in that role than as a code enforcement officer, he said.

That leaves Lamb, in effect, without anyone to do code enforcement. The new employee would take over that role.

Werth will continue in the building department for an estimated six months to train the new worker before devoting herself to computers full time, Lamb said.

Lamb estimated it would be late September or October before the new employee is on the job.

Also on July 19, council members approved on second reading an ordinance to adopt the thoroughfare plan part of the city's comprehensive plan.

They set Thursday, Aug. 2, at 5 p.m. as the time for a workshop on city harbor improvements.