Oklee City Council hears complaint of missing money and training time at clerk’s office

Mathew Genova was called to address his concerns with the city. He asked the board to read the letter from the school which explained a proposal to establish a coat of arms for the City of Oklee. In the letter the term “code of arms” was misspelled by the school so Genova explained that the coat of arms is representation of what the city is all about. It depicts honorable traits of the city and its interests. He also proposed a flag to depict the best of Oklee as well. These things can be created by the youth of the town and be something to be proud of in future years. The school is on board with it and Genova asked that the council consider the project as well. There was some discussion on this proposal, and the council seemed to agree it could be a good thing for the students to take on. There was no vote on it because there was no request made only assent.  

Mr. Genova also brought his concerns to the board that there was a lot of garbage and junk stored in yards in town, and that it is not only unsightly but brings in vermin and other animals that are obnoxious. He said that he has brought this up before and nothing was done on it. It should be cleaned up, and he asked for something to be done. He received no answers to his request.  

He also was concerned about money that went missing from the clerk’s office and not only was nothing done about the missing money, but it was swept under the rug and deleted from the books as well. He stated that an investigation was in order because it was public funds and any loss of public funds should be reported to the sheriff and an investigation be made until it is resolved not just deleted from the record.  

Genova also brought up the fact that the Clerk Derek Cross, has needed an assistant to do his job. Though the clerk admittedly is computer saavy, he needed Leo Olson’s help to get up to speed with the computer use and job details. That was 18 months ago. Leo is getting paid for an on call type of job, and his salary is around $15.00 an hour, but he spends a lot of time in the office and plays games on the computer or plays dice in the restaurant with his friends. So in essence he is there too many hours, not doing city business. He has cost the city about $47,600 over the past 18 months. Genova asks that the city answer to this egregious use of money.  

Jenny O’Neill a citizen that was in attendance said that it seemed that Cross should be trained in by now.  She works at Digi Key and she said that when she got her job, she was trained in by a co-worker, and it was only a matter of a few weeks. She said that she deals with large amounts of money, and she noticed that the new President of a billion dollar company gets training of only a couple of months. She felt that 18 months was a bit excessive.  

In other matters Clarence Gagner came to the council to mitigate damage done at the post office and he was told that it wasn’t the city that did the digging causing the flood water to inundate the post office. The city said that the digging was done by Garden Valley and that Clarence should address Garden Valley for the damages.  

The good news is that the Freedom Living Center rents out rooms now. It will be the new motel in town. With the pipeline coming through it could at least be used for rental rooms. He also suggested that if you have guests that need a place to sleep during the holidays, rent a room at the new Oklee Inn. There were several suggestions made in how to turn the living center into useable space, but they have all been avenues that have been pursued to no avail. This seems to be the best alternative for now. Hopefully people will take advantage of the rooms whenever they can.  

The meeting adjourned.