Bellevue Council voted unanimously to override Mayor George Doscher’s veto of the salary ordinance adopted by council in December.

Doscher said that he disagreed with a provision of the ordinance that required non-contract employees to contribute 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance. A recent contract reached with the firefighters union set their contribution rate at only 5 percent. Members of the police and public works unions currently contribute nothing.

The post-election reorganization of Bellevue Council Monday night was not without incident -- several of them in fact. The meeting began with one council member-elect omitted from the swearing-in, and ended with questions about the legitimacy of the entire process. In between, a new regime took charge of council, and perhaps set the tone for the coming year.

Bellevue Council voted Tuesday to include director of administrative services Doug Sample in a cafeteria benefits plan that could net the new DAS another $3,600 per year.

As part of the cafeteria plan, employees can choose not to be covered by the borough’s health insurance, and instead be compensated $300 per month. Some members of council said that Sample had agreed, as part of his employment contract with the borough last summer, not to take part in the benefits plan, and that his starting salary was increased because of that.

Bellevue Borough will install new guiderails in a turn-around area on East Roseridge Avenue while officials try to figure out what it will take to maintain the property legally.

Solicitor Tom McDermott told council members at their meeting on Tuesday that although the borough reportedly has maintained the property in the past, it is not clear that the area actually belongs to the borough or falls within the borough’s right of way. There also is the issue of decades worth of accumulated fill dumped in the area in a “non-engineered way,” McDermott said, that could create a liability.

For the second time in recent months, Bellevue Council did not have the votes necessary to approve paying the borough’s bills due to concerns about the hiring of a new solicitor last December. That solicitor, however, says that his hiring was completely legal and no further action is necessary.

With three council members and the mayor absent from the Sept. 28 meeting, a motion to pay the borough’s bills failed in a tie vote. Voting in favor were council members Kathy Coder, mark Helbling and David Gillingham Jr. Opposed were Jane Braunlich, Linda Woshner and Susan Viscusi.

Bellevue Council's public safety committee will take another shot at drafting an ordinance regulating recreational fires after officials and residents agreed there was no "burn" in the burn ordinance proposed.

The committee reviewed the issue after receiving complaints from residents about outdoor fires that had become a nuisance due to the quality and quantity of smoke being produced.

Bellevue's new solicitor is finding out the hard way what it means to earn his retainer in the borough.

Tom McDermott found himself uninformed and on the hot seat as Bellevue Council wrangled over several issues at its twice-rescheduled regular meeting on Feb. 16.