By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — Making city business more efficient is the goal of new legislation put forward by Plymouth Mayor Mark Senter.
A proposed ordinance will be submitted for first reading at the tonight’s Common Council meeting to eliminate the current Water Works Board of Trustees and the Sanitary Board of Trustees and transfer their oversight responsibilities to the Board of Public Works and Safety.

“The idea was to be more efficient in many ways,” said Senter. “Many times those meetings will only take a several minutes and then it will take the clerk’s office a half an hour to type up and take more paper to distribute. Streamlining is the purpose.”
In its preamble the ordinance states:  “Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.  And effectiveness is producing the desired result. Efficiency and effectiveness must at all times be organizational objectives of the highest order.  It is in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness the administration puts forth the initiative embodied in this ordinance.”
“I’ve contacted four of the five council persons and they’ve all been positive on this change,” said Senter. “The two department heads (Jeff Yeazel, Water Department superintendent and Donnie Davidson Sanitary Depart-ment superintendent) are both very much for it.”
Should the Council adopt the ordinance, Senter announced he will issue an Executive Order expanding the number of members of the Board of Public Works and Safety from three to five.
The Mayor explained that a new law that took effect July 1 granted to mayors of third class cities the power to increase board membership to five individuals. The law requires the mayor be a member, and the rest are his appointees.  The plan is to appoint four City Council members.
“This is something that we had talked about before the law took effect allowing us to raise the number of board members,” said Senter. “It will make everybody more efficient. Our Board of Works meetings will likely take a half an hour and then we can begin the Common Council immediately afterward.”
The mayor is requesting this change take effect Sept. 1.