EG Town Council President Cienki: “Unions Disrupted Democratic Process”
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
East Greenwich Town Council President Sue Cienki told GoLocal's Kate Nagle that the Democratic process was "disrupted," following Monday's Town Council meeting with was cut short due to crowd numbers -- and lack of control.
"We had a regularly scheduled Town Counil meeting - when we arrived there were lots union members, firefighters and NEA members," said Cienki. "During public comment, [the] unions started screaming and shouting me down."
"They disrupted the Democratic process, which is unfortunate that we were unable to complete our agenda," continued Cienki, who addressed calls for her to change meeting location. "I could not have moved the meeting because it was not posted for another location -- that would be in violation of the law."
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"Had a union member told me [of the anticipated numbers], we could have accommodated them," said Cienki. "One of the items was to talk about salaries and overtime -- for all employees, including the firefighters union. We've been exceeding overtime by over 220% -- so we wanted to have a conversation about what is driving these costs."
"We were all blindsided," said Cienki. "We're approaching $100M in unfunded liabilities for current retirees -- how are we going to continue going forward? It's a math problem."
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