Promises Made/Promises Kept?
Promise Made
At the February 8th Council Meeting, Mayor Scott Coleman told council that after discussing things by itself, the Charter Review Commission (CRC) would extend invitations to “members of Council, Department Heads and the public to attend future meetings.”
http://www.highlandhts.com/docs/city_council/minutes/2011/02-08-11_council_minutes.htm
The mayor quite clearly promised Council that the public would be invited to come and speak to the CRC before the CRC made its final recommendations regarding what Charter language changes (if any) should be placed on the November 2011 ballot.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when CRC Chair Dan Dombeck announced at the April 13th CRC meeting that the public would NOT be invited to speak to the CRC. While acknowledging that CRC meetings are open to the public, Dombeck declared that “the public doesn’t participate” in the meetings. He said that if residents wanted to provide any feedback they could talk to individual CRC members---that was it.
After the meeting, I shared the mayor's February 8th comments with Dombeck. Dombeck was totally surprised.
It seemed pretty clear to me, after speaking with Dombeck, that despite what he told Council, Mayor Coleman led Dombeck to believe the opposite---namely that it would be inappropriate or inadvisable to invite residents to come to a CRC meeting to share their thoughts and ideas about the Charter with the CRC.
That's typical Mayor Coleman: exclusive rather than inclusive.
So the question becomes: Will Mayor Coleman keep his promise to Council? Will he make sure that the public is invited to share their thoughts and ideas about Charter changes with the CRC, or will residents be--once again, as with the CRC selection process itself--frozen out of the process?
One postcript: In case there is any question about whether the CRC is acting as the truly independent body (as it is supposed to be)---and, more importantly, who is really directing the CRC and its activities---I add this one additional tidbit of information. Pam Hawkins, an attorney and CRC member, has been doing an absolutely terrific job taking minutes for the CRC. She uses email to send copies of the minutes to the CRC members. Although Hawkins initially agreed to add me to her email list, she informed me at last week's CRC meeting that she could not send the minutes to me. According to Hawkins, residents wanting copies of the CRC minutes must submit a formal request for them--- not to CRC Chair Dan Dombeck, but to Mayor Coleman's office.
Free Stuff
- The Fire Department still has some smoke detectors available for senior citizens. If you are a senior citizen and need a smoke detector for your home, give the fire department a call using the non-emergency number ( 442-7406).
- The Fire Department is also offering a free CPR class on Saturday April 30th. Call 442-7406 for more information and/or to register.
- Start planning ahead for the next shredding day: Saturday October 1st. Council President Scott Mills reported that participation in the free program continues to grow. Over 5 tons of paper was shredded at the semi-annual shredding event held earlier this month.
The Old Pool House Renovation/Replacement Project
Apparently residents are less than enthused about Mayor Scott Coleman’s plan to spend $220,000 renovating the Old Pool House (OPH) in the park (the mayor has set aside only $252,000 for road repairs this year).
Engaging in a bit of back-peddling, the mayor announced at the April 12th Council meeting that he met with Park & Rec Director Dave Ianiro to discuss “scaling back” the OPH project, with the goal of spending less than the budgeted amount.
Let’s think about this. Road repair is a “need”. The OPH project is a “want”.
Despite the negative feedback, Mayor Coleman still wants the OPH project.
Forget what residents need. What the mayor wants, the mayor gets--even if he has to drop the price tag to get it.
The City’s New Greenspace
Residents have been quite vocal about their vision for the city’s new green pace. They see it, first and foremost as a community gathering place. Among the specific features residents have expressed interest in are: a gazebo, community gardens, a small children’s play area, and an area that can be flooded and used for informal ice skating in the winter.
So Did the two proposals presented by the city’s landscape architect, Doug Nemecky, hit the mark? Nope.
Both of Nemeckay’s proposal included: 1) removing 70 % of the trees currently in the greenspace; 2) installing bocce courts as a prominent feature; and 3) putting some community gardens as far in the back and out of sight as possible, in a shaded area that gets only 8-9 hours of sun a day.
There clearly is a huge disconnect between the architect’s plans and residents’ visions for the greenspace.
I’ve since heard from a couple of different sources that Service Director Thom Evans worked directly with Nemeckay on his proposals.
Based on Nemeckay’s plans, residents can guess what the administration’s preferences are for the space.
Bocce ball ---yes. Beans and brussel sprouts---not so much.
FEMA/ODNR Flood Plain Update
Brian Mader from the city engineer’s office reported that ODNR finally admitted that the outside contractor that ODNR hired to prepare the newest set of flood maps used old, outdated maps. ODNR has agreed that the Williamsburg neighborhood (which has no open streams) was improperly designated as a 100 year flood zone. That’s great news---except for the fact that the remapping comes too late for residents, who have already been forced by their mortgage lenders to buy flood insurance for this year.
Mader’s crew have already begun working on delineating the actual flood boundaries of the streams that run parallel to Bishop Road. If you see people tromping around and see stakes in the ground near any streams, don’t panic. It’s just the city engineering crew at work.
Bass Energy Arbitration
Last Tuesday, Council held an executive session with John O’Neil, the outside attorney representing the city in the Bass Energy suit/arbitration. Law Director Tim Paluf recently indicated that Bass had rejected the two sites recommended by Mayor Scott Coleman and two other members of the Gas Well Committee and that an arbitration schedule has been set.
The drilling lease does not give Bass the right to choose drilling sites in the park---in fact, it states that the city has to give written approval of any drilling sites---something that never occurred.
Presumably during arbitration Bass will fall back to an argument it made earlier---namely that it got around the lease’s written approval requirement by hiring former City Engineer Andy Blackley to select drilling sites and draw up the map that Bass used as part of its drilling permit application.
Of course the problem with that argument is that Blackley was operating under a huge conflict of interest when he agreed to work for Bass because he was already working on the city’s behalf, as city engineer. As a public official, Blackely was subject to state conflict of interest and ethic laws--which should have prevented him from simultaneously working for both the City and Bass. In any case, since Bass paid him for his drilling site selection work, Bass can hardly claim that Blackley was working for the city---rather than Bass---when he did that work.
New Day Care Facility
The city has issued a conditional use permit, which will allow a “language immersion” day care program to operate out of a church school building behind the Abundant Life Church. (The church is located on Wilson Mills Road, across and down from the entrance to the Municipal Park.) Next up: the operator will have to get a license from the state to operate a day care program at that site.
