Big thanks to Kari Chisolm at LeftyBlogs for finding a fix for the syndication problem with BloggerBeta. While my intent isn't for this blog to be a high traffic site, it's nice to have it out there for interested people to read.
It's great to be back! :))
Anyway, time to return to our regularly scheduled programming....
The City Council meeting was fairly sedate, at least in comparison to the first meeting that I attended in June.
The meeting covered three main topics, and some smaller ones.
One of the big topics was abandonments and easements in North Scottsdale. There were motions pertaining to this subject area on both the Consent and the Regular Agendas. This was probably the most contentious of the night's topics.
For some reason, property owners have a problem with being required to allow public access to their private property without compensation, while paying full taxes, even on the property they don't control.
And they have a problem with being liable for what happens to complete strangers on that property.
What a shock. :)
Anyway, the discussions during these motions became a little arcane to someone who is unitiated in the lingo ("Government Land Office Patent Easements"?? Is there a Government Land Office around here? Near the Post Office maybe?? And whatthehell do "patents" have to do with it? Wouldn't those be covered by the Patent Office? :)) )
Obviously, I need an education in this stuff if I'm going to start covering local issues effectively. As it was, I had trouble focusing on this stuff, though I have to say that it was much more interesting than the discussion of parking spaces and parking space credits that took place during the June meeting that I attended.
Another item from the consent agenda that generated some discussion was the item to approve funding ($60,000) for FY2006-2007 Scottsdale Community Events such as the Parada del Sol, its Rodeo, the Scottsdale Artwalk program, and the New Year's Eve Champagne and Chefs Party ($15K each). The discussion wasn't so much about whether the Council members thought that these events were worthy (they all thought so) but on things like questioning if it was appropriate to fund "touristy" events out of the General Fund instead of funds specifically raised and earmarked for that purpose (i.e. - the bed tax-funded Tourism Development Fund.) They also wanted more economic impact info to help sort the "mostly for Scottsdale residents" community events from the economic development events designed to attract more attendees from outside the city.
In the end, the funding was approved.
The last item that caused a lot of discussion was the item asking for approval of the City's 2007 State Legislative Program.
Most of the program was fully supported by the Council members. They all fully support protecting the City's amount of "state-shared revenues" and fighting against efforts to reduce preempt local control and the like. They also want to protect against legislation that would interfere with the revenue-generating Loop 101 photo radar project.
Part of the discussion over local control (and efforts to undermine it) revolved around condo conversions and how developers had gotten legislation passed that prevents local governments from having any regulatory input on conversions in their cities.
Note: Robert Robb of the AZ Rep was at the meeting (at least I think it was him) and his take on the subject is here. He's full of it on this subject (as with most other subjects :) ) but his writing is coherent and is worth reading. The piece pre-dates the meeting, but still fits.
The one item that generated some heat was the one that called for the support of legislation that would exempt the City from having to pay defendants' attorneys' fees for civil code enforcement actions. Currently, the city has to worry about having to pay the fees for defendants who prevail in civil actions, or bring a criminal action, which is already exempt from the fees rule.
A number of Council members thought that if this proposal was ever enacted, it would be fraught with abuse.
After much discussion, this part of the program was voted on separately from the rest. It passed 4 - 3, with members Jim Lane, Tony Nelssen, and Bob Littlefield voting against.
The meeting ended shortly after that.
Overall impressions:
1. I still have a lot to learn if I'm going to achieve my goal of moving this blog's focus toward a more local one. I've found that when the topic of discussion at hand is one that I am ignorant about, I tend to lose focus and let my attention wander, and that has to change.
It will.
2. I've been to two meetings so far, and at both meetings, the phrase "attorney-client privilege" was used to keep information away from the residents of the city (June: an opinion written by a city staff lawyer about the City Charter was kept out; at this meeting, it came up during the abandonment/easement discussions). Also at both meetings, the Mayor, Council, and City Staff expressed a strong preference that the City not solicit the opinion of the Arizona Attorney General on any matters (came up during the same issues as the "attorney-client privilege" topic.)
This is going to sound like circular reasoning, but I learned a long time ago that when someone is trying to hide something, it's probably because they have something to hide.
This is a situation that merits close scrutiny.
Future meetings:
On Monday, November 27, the council will be holding an executive session to discuss performance reviews of the City Attorney, City Auditor, and City Clerk. Later on in the same exec session meeting, they'll
Discuss or consider employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, demotion, dismissal, salaries, disciplining or resignation of the City Attorney, City Auditor, and City Clerk; including, but not limited to, discussion or consideration of confidential records and information relating to the employment of each officer.
Whatever that means.
On Tuesday, the City Council will hold a Work Study Session at 12:30 p.m. for Budget and Financial Work.
The meetings of December 11th and 12th don't have agendas posted yet, but one of the tentative items for the 12th is to revisit the designation of Scottsdale Rd. as a "high capacity transit corridor."
I'll try to attend both the meeting on November 28th and the one on December 12th, but finals are getting close so I may not have the time.
Anyway, have a good night and a great holiday!
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