Majority Backs Off Eliminating Monday Meetings

OCEAN CITY – A concept to eliminate Monday night legislative meetings was nipped in the bud this week as the reasoning didn’t pan out to all it was thought to be.

The majority of the council has been considering a move to eliminate the Monday meetings as a cost savings measure, but Council President Jim Hall shut the idea down on Tuesday.

“It was a suggestion that there could be a cost savings by changing the meetings to Tuesdays,” he said. “After we talked to the staff and the folks around town, nobody supports it. There really wasn’t a savings in money and the idea, for me, has gone away.”

On Wednesday, Jim Hall explained that he has been tossing around the idea as a way to save the town money. Monday night meetings require department heads and staff to be in attendance to weigh in on the topics discussed resulting in what was thought to be overtime.

“I thought it would be quite a cost saving but it turns out not to be worth the effort,” he said. “I was thinking that since some of the department heads had to stay later it may have cost us a great deal of money … but in fact they do it in comp time and flexible time and all in all there wasn’t a great savings. “

Instead of holding Monday night meetings, the city business was suggested to be handled during Tuesday afternoon meetings every other week while city staff was on the clock.

“There was also concern that a Tuesday meeting would be too long and we wouldn’t be able to get all of our work in, and talking to the staff and talking to the residents,” Jim Hall said. “What I thought was a good idea, practically speaking, didn’t really save us anything, which is fine.”

“It’s not a secret, it is just if we can save some money,” he said.  “Everybody was like ‘it doesn’t really matter either way’, and rather than break the tradition we will just leave it be.”