The Rockville City Council on Monday adopted a roughly $107 million operating budget and $70 million capital budget for fiscal 2013.  The vote was unanimous but was preceded by a lengthy debate about spending and the prospect of tax increases in fiscal 2014. The council’s final budget discussion included approval of a 2 percent salary increase for city staff, with a 1 percent salary increase for 13 senior staff members. Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio, backed by Councilwoman Bridget Donnell Newton, made the proposal for the first time on Monday. The council also approved another Marcuccio proposal …

Rockville has retained the law firm of Saul Ewing LLP to conduct an "internal investigation of various workplace matters," Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio announced during Monday's City Council meeting. City attorney Debra Verg Daniel sent an email to city employees Monday informing them of the investigation, Marcuccio said. The probe follows reports of former city employees claiming discrimination and harassment by supervisors. Saul Ewing LLP is a Mid-Atlantic regional law firm with offices in Washington, D.C. Get daily and breaking news email updates from Rockville Patch by signing up for …

A panel to review Rockville’s charter will comprise 11 members, the City Council decided after a lengthy and sometimes contentious debate on Monday. Each of the four council members will choose one panel member, whose appointment cannot be vetoed. The mayor and council together will select another five members. Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio will select an 11th member, the chairperson. Marcuccio formally proposed the commission last month. Get daily and breaking news email updates from Rockville Patch by signing up for newsletters here. The appointment process, proposed by Councilman Mark Pierzchala…

Lengthy discussions of economic development bonds and a proposed parking lot for the Robert A. Pumphrey Funeral Home dominated Monday’s marathon Rockville City Council session. Here’s a review of some of the business that the council tackled during a meeting that stretched into the wee hours of Tuesday: National Lutheran Home bonds The council voted 3-2 to issue economic development bonds on behalf of the National Lutheran Home & Village at Rockville, Inc. Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio and Councilwoman Bridget Donnell Newton voted against the issuance. The city will issue up to $25 million in bonds…

Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio said that the City Council will discuss a proposal for a search and hiring process for a new city manager as part of new business, toward the end of tonight's meeting.  Original post, 2:15 p.m., July 11: Proposals to convert King Farm Farmstead Park into a nonprofit campus or a center for sustainable growing, the divesture of city funds from companies doing business with Sudan, an update from the city's White-Tailed Deer Task Force, annexation proposals and bond ordinances pack the agenda as the Rockville City Council returns from a three-week recess with a meeting at …

Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market goes before the county’s Board of License Commissioners today for a hearing on an application to sell beer and wine in a proposed grocery store in Rockville Town Square.  If granted the license, the Richmond, VA-based store would clear a hurdle that has kept previously proposed supermarkets from opening in the space at 225 N. Washington Street. The Rockville City Council on Tuesday sent a letter in support of the license to the board. The beer and wine license would allow the store to offer “an extensive selection of organic wines and micro-brewed beer …

Rockville would be barred from investing the city's pension fund or other funds in companies that do business with Sudan under legislation that the City Council on Monday directed staff to draw up. The move follows a request by the city's Human Rights Commission. Daron Bolat, a member of the commission, told the council that the issue is important to him because his great-grandparents were killed in the World War I-era Armenian genocide. “Currently there is a genocide going on in the Darfur region of Sudan. And we, as members of the Human Rights Commission, felt that we didn’t want our tax …

The Rockville City Council on Monday gave final approval to a parking lot on property adjacent the Robert A Pumphrey Funeral Home. The final vote mirrored a 3 to 2 preliminary vote last month in which Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio and Councilwoman Bridget Donnell Newton voted against the parking lot. "I don't think I can say it any more strongly, that I think this is not the right way to be going with this and I will be voting against it," Newton said. "Well, I too will be voting against it and I have to assume that when the Planning Commission takes a look at their site plan that they will apply …

Here's a look at miscellaneous news and notes from Monday's meeting of the Rockville City Council: There will be no City Council meeting next week. Councilman Piotr Gajewski will be out-of-town next week and requested, earlier this month, that next Monday's meeting be canceled. Citing a limited agenda for that night, the council voted to cancel the meeting. Gajewski, who is in Poland on business, was absent from Monday's meeting. He is the music director and conductor of the National Philharmonic, which is in residence at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. The City Council will…