The Gardner News

Sunderland set to sign Blues' Gardner

The 24-year-old is close to agreeing a move to the Black Cats in the wake of the Blues' relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season.

Gardner, a lifelong Blues fan who began his career with derby rivals Aston Villa, has been in Bruce's sights for some time and the Black Cats registered their interest in him earlier this month.

He was part of the side which lifted the Carling Cup in February with a famous 2-1 victory over Arsenal, a match in which he was outstanding, as he was for much of the last season despite Birmingham's relegation.

New Blues boss Hughton admitted as he was unveiled earlier this week that he was expecting several of his high-profile players to go, and much as he had to when he took over at Newcastle, he may have to wait to discover which men he can retain before he can plot the way forward.

Bruce turned his attention to Gardner after selling England international Jordan Henderson to Liverpool in a move worth almost £20million, and with Bolo Zenden and Sulley Muntari having also left the club, he has a rebuilding job to do in midfield.

He has already landed former City winger Sebastian Larsson who, like Coventry goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, will formally complete a Bosman free transfer on July 1.

Meanwhile, Birmingham's board have reacted angrily to reports suggesting they interfered in the transfer policy of former boss Alex McLeish.

Blues have issued a new statement insisting they operate a "robust system" under which every completed transfer is signed off by the manager.

The club claim in the statement by way of example that interest in players such as former Liverpool striker Ryan Babel, who is now in Germany with Hoffenheim, Peter Odemwingie, the Nigerian forward who plays for West Brom, and Stoke winger Jermaine Pennant was not followed up because McLeish did not want to sign them. The Scot resigned from his role with Birmingham earlier this month before joining bitter rivals Aston Villa.

Birmingham are involved in a legal dispute over McLeish's exit and subsequent arrival at Villa, while the Scot has claimed he did not have a free hand in transfer dealings and that the dismissal of the club's chief scout Paul Montgomery contributed to his decision to resign.

Council meeting devolves into argument : Gardner News

The Gardner City Council didn’t close in quite the traditional fashion on June 20.

Instead, three council members left the meeting as an argument broke out between the mayor and one council member.

“That’s bull——,” Mayor Dave Drovetta told council member Larry Fotovich. By the end of the argument, Drovetta stood inches from Fotovich near his council seat.

A discussion about employee health benefits lead to the heated exchange. And specifically, an analogy Fotovich used to reason why many city employees select HMOs, a healthplan with additional costs to the city, rather than High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) with Health Savings Accounts.

Fotovich explained if the city were running a restaurant and offered to buy diners a bottle of wine and then offered them a $100 bottle and a $20 bottle, the diners would choose the $100 bottle. The HDHP is like the $20 bottle of wine. That wine might taste just as good as the $100 bottle, but most diners wouldn’t know, because they’d take the higher priced bottle.

The analogy upset city human resources manager Mary Bush.

“I’m offended,” she said in a shaky voice.

She said she deals with the employees everyday, and that limiting their health care options to only high deductible health plans would have a dramatic effect on the employees.

Council member Fotovich responded that he’s trying to find ways to limit costs to the taxpayers – many of whom have HDHP themselves.

Drovetta said it’s not the council’s job to make healthcare decisions for citizens of the city and he agreed that Fotovich’s analogy was offensive.

The debate came at the end of a three-plus hour meeting. As Drovetta and Fotovich talked over one another council members Kristina Harrison, Brian Broxterman and Dennis Pugh gathered their things and left the meeting room.

Terry Norwood, CEO of Midwest Public Risk (MPR), said the city could reduce its healthcare costs in a number of ways. Currently, the city pays 80 percent of an employees’ healthcare costs for an individual plan and 85 percent of the cost of a family plan. Employees have the option of selecting one of two HMO plans, two-tiers of PPO or a HDHP with a Health Savings Account.

Kelly Kilgore, also of MPR, said some entities have opted not to offer HMOs to their employees.

“The High Deductible Health Plan is gaining in popularity,” she said.

In a high deductible plan, employees must pay a $6,000 deductible before any medical expenses are covered through insurance. Employees can funnel money tax-free into a health savings plan that rolls over each year and follows the employee in the event that they change jobs.

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