By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A new St. Joseph City councilmember insists the new city council means to fulfill the campaign promises of its members.
Councilmember Jeff Schomburg says the council campaigned on focusing on the basics: public safety and infrastructure.
“If we can keep that crime level down, help out on the infrastructure, help out on a lot of the things that we campaigned on, we can make St. Joe a better place,” Schomburg tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr.
Schomburg says the council knows it must increase the pay of police officers and firefighters to adequately address public safety. It goes beyond that as well. Schomburg says the city must provide police, firefighters, and safety personnel with the equipment to do their job. He says pay will have to be increased to find and keep qualified personnel.
“Again, I think we’re going to still focus on those things and try to get that done as quickly as possible.”
The St. Joseph City Council is currently working on the next city budget, which must be in place by the end of the month.
Schomburg, a businessman, says he is learning that while city government is a big business, it doesn’t quite operate like a business.
“And it takes a little bit more time to get something done through government, because you’re doing through meetings and everybody’s got to vote on it and it has to be first read,” according to Schomburg. “So, it’s a month-long process where a small business, like myself, we just, oh, we need that, so we just go out and buy it.”
Schomburg says he is finding that he needs more patience to implement the priorities of his campaign.