Visitors can learn more about city services and members of the Newcastle Police Department will be on hand to meet younger residents of the city.

City staff members will conduct a food drive and ask visitors to bring nonperishable food donations on behalf of Northwest Harvest.

City Hall is located at 12835 Newcastle Way, Suite 200. Learn more by calling Aleta Phillips at 649-4444.

As most of Western Washington continues to dig out of hazardous conditions due to snow and ice, the city of Newcastle will again have limited staffing today.

The city is encouraging residents to call City Hall at 649-4444 to see if the services you need are available if you have questions.

The Public Works Department is working to plow priority 1 and priority 2 streets today.

Coal Creek Utility District’s business offices will close at 2 p.m. today due to inclement weather. CCUD will operate with limited emergency staff only. If you have a utility-related emergency, call 235-9200.

To view the city’s snow and ice priority route map, go to http://www.ci.newcastle.wa.us/documents/SnowIce_8.5×112011.pdf.

Links to the Bellevue and Renton snow and ice priority route maps are also available at the city’s website at www.ci.newcastle.wa.us.

Waste Management will not service any routes today in Newcastle. It will collect up to twice your regular amount of recycling, garbage and food and yard waste on your next regular service day.

If your collection day was Tuesday or Wednesday and your waste was not collected during those times, Waste Management will collect up to twice your regular amount of waste on your next service day.

If conditions approve by Saturday, Waste Management’s commerical and roll of vehicles will collecting that day.

According to the National Weather Service, an ice storm warning is in affect as a warm front will continue to spread rain over portions of Western Washington, including Newcastle, until 2 p.m. Temperatures will remain below freezing with freezing rain expected at the surface until tonight.

Total ice accumulations could be between a quarter of an inch to three quarters of an inch, which could impact travel and power outages in some areas are likely, according to the NWS.

Ice accumulations can lead to snapped power lines and falling tree branches.

See who is permitted at www.ci.newcastle.wa.us. Click “Peddlers/Solicitors Licenses Issued in Newcastle” under the “What’s New?” section.

Permits are free and valid for two weeks at a time, but applicants must have a city business license, which costs $45 per year. Applicants are also subject to a background check before receiving permits.

Those selling door to door are required to display their city permit around their necks. Report salesmen without permits to City Hall at 649-4444, or call 911 if you feel threatened.

Permitted salesmen can knock on doors between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., but they are not allowed to knock on a door if the property contains a sign prohibiting soliciting. The city manager or police can generally revoke permits if necessary.

The following organizations are exempt from needing door-to-door permits: charitable organizations, religious organizations, certified nonprofits, political candidates, campaign workers, people campaigning for ballot measures, people distributing political literature and people seeking signatures of registered voters for petitions.

Call City Hall for more information about how to obtain a door-to-door permit.

The position titles for each employee changed last month, and each was given a raise.

The promotions will cost the city $4,200 more this year, but no budget amendments were needed, as the operating budget will be able to absorb the cost increase.

The administrative assistant title changed to executive assistant/human resources analyst. The change came with a 10 percent raise, increasing Jacob’s salary from $52,000 per year to $57,000 per year.

The administrative position was changed because there was nobody in the city assigned the task of handling personnel duties. During a recent audit by the city’s insurance carrier, the insurance carrier said the city was at risk by not having an employee handle those duties.

The accountant title changed to senior accountant to better reflect Lynch’s abilities and her position requirements. The change comes in the wake of the city adopting new accounting software in 2008, which allowed the city to eliminate an accounting clerk position, saving $58,000 per year.

The new software required a more skilled accountant to handle the new tasks associated with the new software.

Lynch was given a 5 percent raise, increasing her salary from $61,000 per year to $64,000 per year.

If the employee takes a job at such a company, he or she would face a $10,000 fine for violating any of four restrictions.

According to the new code:

First, for one year after leaving the city, an employee cannot accept a job with a company if he or she approved large contracts for that company and would work on the same project as he or she did at the city. The contracts are considered large if they total more than $100,000 during the employee’s last two years at the city.

Second, an employee cannot have a financial interest in any contract that he or she played a role in negotiating, supervising or awarding while working at the city.

Third, an employee cannot accept a job offer from a company if he or she knows or has reason to believe the offer has been made as compensation for his or her work while working at the city.

Finally, an employee cannot accept a job offer if the circumstances of the offer appear “to a reasonable person” to have been made as compensation for the employee’s work while working at the city.

The rules do not apply to employees who take jobs with government agencies.

The city’s previous code of ethics bars city officials and employees from general conflicts of interest. It also restricts former employees — for one year after leaving the city — from being involved in contracts in which they were involved with while at the city if the contracts were worth more than $5,000.

The code of ethics did not address fines, and the new and old code will be combined, City Manager Rob Wyman said.

City Councilman Bill Erxleben brought up the issue in late 2010. He said the issue came about after the 2003 Boeing tanker scandal gained renewed notoriety in 2008 when The Boeing Co. lost a major tanker contract with the government.

In 2003, Boeing hired Air Force official Darleen Druyun after she deliberately inflated the price of a sale in favor of her future employer. Druyun and then-Boeing CFO Michael Sears were both sentenced to prison time. Some pointed to the incident as the cause of Boeing losing the contract five years later.

Erxleben said he wanted to protect Newcastle from falling victim to that type of situation, which has historically been a problem in procurement settings.

“I wanted to plug a hole,” he said.

He said the city also ran into an issue of a perception of a conflict of interest when former Public Works Director Maiya Andrews left the city in February 2010, taking a job with engineering contractor CH2M Hill. As the public works director, Andrews worked with CH2M Hill while it did construction management work on the Coal Creek Parkway project and the Newcastle Transit Improvement project — formerly known as the Newcastle Transit Center.

“While there is no evidence whatsoever that I know of that there was any impropriety, it looks like hell,” Erxleben said about CH2M Hill hiring Andrews.

Andrews signed change orders for contractors C.A. Carey Corp. and Marshbank Construction, which handled the physical labor on the Coal Creek Parkway project. CH2M Hill continued billing the city as change orders increased the duration of the project.

Andrews did not respond to phone calls or emails from Newcastle News.

Wyman said he also knows of no evidence of wrongdoing, and he said it would be reasonable to assume Andrews would not be in violation of the new code had it been in place when she left the city.

The council approved the new code by a 6-1 vote, with Councilman Sonny Putter dissenting. While the council majority applauded the new code as a step forward, Putter said the code was flawed.

“My concern is that as proposed, this ethics language is far too broad,” he said before the code’s adoption May 3. He said the city should have directed the code specifically at the public works director, as the public works director handles large contracts the code addresses.

He said the code could also be damaging to the city’s contracting options.

“As a small city, we have limited options,” Putter said. “Our goal is to contract where we can.”

On the web:

Read the new code, section 2.67.020, on the city’s website, www.ci.newcastle.wa.us. Click “City Hall,” “Documents & Press Releases” and “Municipal Code.”

The existing code of ethics was too broad and did not hold employees accountable, whereas the new ordinance does — through fines. This new degree of accountability should give residents a higher level of confidence in their government.

The ordinance — which applies to employees for one year after they leave the city — should also discourage suspicious situations from originating, such as the departure of former Public Works Director Maiya Andrews. After resigning in February 2010, Andrews took a job with contractor CH2M Hill, which she worked with on the Coal Creek Parkway and Newcastle Transit Improvement projects.

There is no evidence that Andrews used her power at the city to obtain a job with the company. In fact, City Manager Rob Wyman said it would be reasonable to assume she would not have been subject to the new regulations had they been in place when she left the city and joined CH2M Hill.

Nevertheless, the situation is a hair-raiser. When Andrews recommended change to the city’s contracts with C.A. Carey Corp. and Marshbank Construction, CH2M Hill was given more work to manage and more money from the city.

Even if there is no wrongdoing, these types of situations adversely impact the city’s image and diminish residents’ trust. The new regulations may not apply to situations like that of Maiya Andrews, but they may discourage them, and the ordinance proves the city is serious about such ethical issues.

It is refreshing to see this ordinance apply to the entire city staff, but it only makes sense to apply these regulations to the elected members of the council. Although each individual member of the council has no authority on his or her own, each plays a role in making the most significant decisions in the city.

The ordinance is well-written, and only substantial conflicts of interest would be in violation. If a member of the council is found guilty of such a conflict of interest, he or she should face the same fine as a member of the city staff.

Negotiations took 14 months.

City Manager Rob Wyman said the city’s priority was to maintain internal equity among the maintenance crew and the city’s other, nonunion employees.

The negotiations did not result in changes to the employees’ scopes of work or their salaries. Minor changes were made to how overtime is calculated, and changes were made to working conditions when employees are called in for emergencies. For example, when an employee is called back in to work, he or she must work a minimum of three hours.

Wyman said the negotiations went well and he is extremely satisfied with the result.

“It took up a fair amount of time, certainly. But the discussions were cordial,” he said. “Both sides shook hands at the end.”

Maintenance worker Aaron Milner had previously served as the maintenance crew’s shop steward, but after Milner left the city in May 2010, maintenance worker Josh Forte took the role.

Forte said he is happy the process is finished, adding that the maintenance crew is looking forward to moving forward and getting to work on summer projects.

Wyman, Community Development Director Steve Roberge and labor consultant Cabot Dow made up the city’s negotiating team, and the group reported back to the council in closed executive sessions.

In late 2010, the sheriff’s office estimated that the contract for 2011 would cost the city about $1.46 million. The final contract cost came in $37,000 under budget.

There will be no changes to the level of service for the year.

Street repairs to be cheaper than expected

The city’s street repairs for the year will be cheaper than its contract engineers estimated.

Engineers estimated the city’s repairs to cost about $1.04 million, but Redmond-based Watson Asphalt Paving submitted a bid of $825,000.

The city’s budget for the year was $1 million.

This year’s repairs — which include deferred repairs from last year — call for fixes to 10 stretches of road in the city, including on Newcastle Way and Southeast 84th Way.

City Manager Rob Wyman said construction will likely begin in late June or early July.

For a map of construction locations, go to the city’s website, www.ci.newcastle.wa.us, and click the “Public Works Project Updates” link under the “What’s New” heading. Then click the “2011 Pavement Overlay locations” link.

City updates salary, vacation policies for its employees

The City Council in May unanimously passed updates to the city’s personnel policies.

The updates make small changes to city employees’ salary and vacation accrual practices, which were last updated in December and January.

Pertaining to salary practices, the city will strive to conduct salary surveys every two years, adjusting the top and bottom salary ranges for each employee in accordance with the Seattle Consumer Price Index. These changes take the place of cost-of-living pay increases.

Employees are to start in the bottom to middle of their salary ranges, although the city manager can approve a higher starting salary.

Raises, which now come in the form of merit increases, are dependent on results from an annual performance review.

With respect to vacation accrual, employees can accrue as much as 30 days of vacation.

Reductions in employees’ healthcare coverage, approved last fall, will also be permanent.

The Salary and Benefits Committee recommended the changes, and the City Council unanimously approved them Jan. 18.

The changes to salary ranges had been overdue, said Councilwoman Lisa Jensen, who chairs the committee. Previous policies dictated that the committee re-examine salary ranges every three years, but it had not done so for about five years.

By Dona Mokin

The committee compared Newcastle salaries to those in similar cities, averaging the high and low salaries elsewhere to make up Newcastle’s new salary ranges.

The new salary ranges — which widened on both the high and low ends — will shift to reflect trends in cost of living, and will take the place of annual cost-of-living adjustments that employees had received each year.

Also, employees will not be able to accrue more than twice their annual amount of vacation by saving up across years, and no employee will be able to take more than six weeks of vacation per year. Those changes start next year.

Merit payments won’t be discussed further until the council begins work on the 2012 budget this summer, but by the new policy, merit payments will be the only way for employees to increase their salaries. An employee who reaches the top of his or her salary range will not be eligible for a merit raise.

Last fall, the council approved a switch to a cheaper health insurance plan for employees. Also, healthcare coverage will be at 90 percent for employees and 80 percent their for dependents. Previously, coverage had been at 100 percent and 90 percent, respectively.

“The way that things were going were not sustainable,” Jensen said. “I think it’s just the new normal. It’s just recognizing the new economy. We have to live within our means.”

Councilwoman Carol Simpson and Councilman Rich Crispo are the other members of the committee.

Cripso said the most significant changes were those to employees’ health insurance.

“We’re just asking employees to help in the cost of their health care,” he said. “It’s certainly what exists in all of private industry.”

Crispo said trading cost-of-living pay raises for the new salary ranges also makes sense because it sets more money aside for merit raises with which to award employees.

“We have very good employees, and they should get paid for their performances,” he said.

In adjusting salary ranges, the committee took into account size, economic base and proximity into account in choosing its similar cities. It settled with Lake Forest Park, Enumclaw, Edgewood, Mill Creek, Snoqualmie and Sammamish as its similar cities.

Salary ranges for Newcastle department directors will now vary. Each department director had a salary range of $85,855 to $102,695 before the change.

The committees recommendation did not define ranges for the city’s permit coordinator, development review engineer and construction inspector, storm water management engineer, or accounting and payroll specialist, as none of the positions matched closely with positions in other cities. The committee did not recommend salary ranges for unionized employees: the parks program manager and the city maintenance staff.

The Salary and Benefits Committee plans to repeat the salary survey every two years.