Troy Council appointments are shaping up

WILTSHIRE

KOPKA

Not to say that all is hunky dory between Council President-elect Rodney Wiltshire and company and Lynn Kopka, the current council president who will give up the seat on Jan. 1, but his projected appointments do not indicate an all-out war.

According to sources, Clerk Karla Guererri is out of her $54,800 job, which is no surprise. The new city clerk will be the current deputy clerk, Cheryl Christiansen, Councilman Gary Galuski’s sister-in-law.

Lou Schneider, the assistant deputy clerk who toyed with the idea of running for Council earlier this year, will get bumped up to deputy clerk at a salary of $40,000. Who will take his place is not yet determined, according to sources.

The auditor, Mary Beth Quinn, will keep her $59,600 a year job, according to sources. It’s kind of surprising in that Wiltshire could use it to reward a campaign worker but not really in that her husband, Larry Quinn, back in the day, was a loyalist to Mayor Mark Pattison and active in the Democratic Party.

There are currently no plans to change the $10,000 position of Council secretary currently held by Lucy Larner but it’s not been solidified yet, according to sources.

The position of bingo inspector is also up in the air. It’s such an insignificant job, really, that I don’t know who holds it now and could not figure out how much the position pays since it comes out of a pot of temporary salaries.

Also, the Council will appoint, or re-appoint, some of the city marshals but it depends on whose terms expire next year. You remember last year the Council, behind Councilman Kevin McGrath, went nose-to-nose with Wade over re-appointing Rick Mason to his marshal post. The pay depends on how many eviction notices and other legal documents the marshals chose to deliver, but who gets the job can be a way to throw political muscle around a bit.

While the way the appointments are shaking out aren’t the nuclear bomb they could have been, the one that is a least a quarter stick of dynamite is naming Christianson clerk. Not only is it a message to Kopka, reminding her she is no longer in charge – and an indirect message to Wade that Wiltshire, Councilman Ken Zalewski and company will not bow down to the chairman’s feet – it’s also a way to buy off Galuski (pictured left).

I wrote before that every indication is there is a distinct split in the Council and until this appointment Galuski was considered squarely in the Kopka/Wade corner. But, that was before his sister-in-law will not only stay employed but will get a nearly $15,000 raise to boot.

Pretty savvy strategy by Wiltshire and company.

However, Galuski also has a job at the Board of Elections, which is still controlled by Wade so, in short, I would not want to be Galuski the next time both sides want his vote on something.