I was pulling double duty last night, trying to cover both the County Board and the City Council. I kinda pulled it off . . . I got the important part of the County Board meeting, but still ended up missing 1 hour and 15 minutes of discussion on their procedures. I miscalculated how long they’d talk about that and didn’t tivo enough of the council meeting. This portion of the meeting has the elections of council leadership and the Edgewater in it.
GETTING STARTED
Well, they got started late . . . they were in room 260 because the County Board was being sworn in at the regular council chambers. So, things were a little off. Staff were scattered throughout the room with everyone else that was there to speak on various issues. Kerr was absent, Verveer late. Mayor absent, Bruer starts off chairing the meeting until the Council President/Pro Tem votes.
SUSPENSION OF THE RULES
Mark Clear moves suspension of the rules to allow things to be introduced at the end of the meeting and to move things out of order. As usual, it passes.
HONORING RESOLUTION FOR THE GOODMANS
There is a substitute, there aren’t copies available, but Bruer has the clerk read it. The owner of Goodman Jewelers thanks them for the resolution, he says he will try to carry on their good works.
RESOLUTION HONORING TIM BRUER FOR BEING PRESIDENT
Tim Bruer leaves chair and hands it over to Clear.
Clear reads the resolution.
Bruer thanks them, he says that anyone who has been in the role, and there are several of you in the room, [Unless I missed something, its just Verveer and myself that were in the room that had been council president. Wow. That surprises even me.] realizes quickly how much influence you do not have, no question that these are challenging times, hopefully he brought calm to the meltdown of the council, he hopes the collegiality will continue, this is the most collegial in 28 years, [I think collegiality is code for – “makes no waves” or “do as you are told” or “no room for differences of opinion” or “get this worked out behind closed doors”.] He says someone told him they were not born yet when he got on council, (Maniaci says it wasn’t her) he says this is generational, he says they traveled a lot of ground in last the two years, he says you know how effective you are when some sector of the council or everybody on the council is telling you what you should do and wants to guide and council you, he says it is rewarding the level of involvement and enthusiasm and how hard working this group is. He says someone figured it out once and the alders actually get paid 14 cents an hour, he tried to bring stability and civility, no longer function in vacuum its not just us and mayor but private sector and labor, if watching economy you know that is important, as time goes forward, will see greater unprecedented challenges. This is a group of people who have taken more on and grasped quicker and faster than any new council, he thanks council members. He says that if he misses something Verveer will be quick to point it out and if he messes up on procedure, Rhodes-Conway will notice. He says just when he is thinking he has it all figured out, suddenly we’re still here at 11:00. He says the city staff are great, not so many years ago council, mayor and staff relationships were toxic at best. [Wow, he can’t be that unaware is he? Is he pulling a George Bush here declaring something is true even tho its not for the perception?] . He says that has radically changed, they work collectively together, this is a new spirit. He thanks the people in his district that have elected him over years. He says the council is going back to the basics, basic service, economic development, jobs and public safety. He says they are ensuring them into the future. He says if they are right, left or middle, this body represents growing diversity of the city, this is the one place people still have a voice and government is not for sale. [Except that this last year we have seen less and less open government and more and more slippage of ethics in the city.] He says thanks for privilege of serving, looks forward to continuing to work, he’s going to go back to being a free agent, he wonders why that worries some people. He says that as they look at 2011, 2012, 2013, the council has the role and responsibility to move us forward through this decade and ensure quality of life and prosperity and promise of the city continues.
RESOLUTION HONORING MARK CLEAR FOR BEING PRO TEM
Bruer is back in the chair, Clerk reads the resolution honoring Clear. [It was kind of cute, she bungled the mayor’s name. Which led to snickers and snide remarks about the Mayor.]
Clear says if he learned anything from working with Bruer it is to be succinct and brief. Thanks them for the honor and privilege, looking forward to what we have in front of us.
ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND PRO TEM
They move to go into the committee of the whole, the clerk calls the roll, Kerr is only one absent.
Joe Clausius nominates Clear for council president.
Brian Solomon nominates Marsha Rummel.
Ballots are handed out. After some waiting for tabulation, the clerk announces Clear won 11 – 8.
Bridget Maniaci nominates Lauren Cnare for Pro Tem.
Steve King nominates Shiva Bidar Sielaff for Pro Tem.
King says he knows it is unusual to nominate a rookie, but by standards among the four rookies she is far ahead because of her role in the community and she is well suited for council leadership. She has demonstrated courage, conviction and collaborative skills. She has shown that over and over, esp on the Edgewater, that she can cross the divide and move us forward in constructive and proactive way – he is proud to nominate her, she is ready and she has demonstrated that.
Bidar-Sielaff appreciates the nomination from King who had tol here she would be a good fit for leadership, but she declines to be considered, hopes here next year she can look at it again and would consider it an honor if that is the right time to step up to leadership, looks forward to working with new leadership.
Cnare is unanimously elected Pro Tem.
RECESS
They move a 10 minute recess.
20 minutes later . . . after jokes about how ineffective the new council leadership is since they can’t tell time, just like the old leadership . . . and it seems Tim is still in charge, barking orders to Cnare to get the meeting started, not a good sign of things to come.
TIVOD PORTION OF THE MEETING
So, I was in room 260, but watching/listening to the county board on live stream. So, I could kind of see what what going on, but was really paying attention to the County Board elections of leadership – not that there was any surprises, as the votes were as lopsided at the conservative/liberal split on the board. Anyways, my plan failed to cover both in that I only tivod an hour of the council meeting and the county board started late which was unusual and then went on with amendments to their rules. Sorry I don’t have all the scintillating details for you!
#6 AND CONSENT AGENDA
#6 – Move referral of the item to 5/18/10.
Consent agenda includes the following:
#45 is referred to 5/18/2010
#52, #53, #54 has registrants and will be separated.
Clear says that item 15 is not being referred for a public hearing, but just a regular agenda item for 5/4.
Item 13 they record a unanimous vote.
Rummel points out they missed some other items.
Clear says item 64 should be referred to BOE not the council.
They Pham-Remmele asks to be recorded as abstaining from item 13 and item 55 excluded for a question.
Brian Solomon asks to separate item 17.
Cnare reads the motion again and reads the editorial changes.
They have confusion about item 13 (Mayor’s appointments), needs a 2/3 vote (for people being appointed to Economic Development Commission who live outside the city), Pham-Remmele abstained from it. Clear says that its unanimous with that exception.
Still fumbling their way through.
[I thought that this was why they took their break, to straighten this all out, but apparently not.]
PUBLIC HEARINGS
Item 7 is referred to May 18th meeting.
EDGEWATER
Mike Verveer has a question on the topic, also for agenda item #6. Is there a logical reason for the council to consider item 6 (appeal of conditional use permit) on the same night as the reznoning.
Michael May, City Attorney, says it makes sense since they both relate to actions by the plan commission on the Edgewater, it they wanted to separate them they could but he understands the plan is to put the items all together on one agenda. It also covers item 45 later in the agenda. The date was picked because the Landmarks Commission will be considering this on the 10th and there is the hope that these land use issues with the Edgewater could be considered at one time.
Verveer says he agrees with the recommendation and that it might even need a special meeting, but he is concerned that item 6, the merits of that item, he could move reconsideration but concern that he believes has merit that the Plan Commission did not state on the record that the standards were met, in fact not much of a record at all, if that is the case, in order to avoid legal challenges, shouldn’t the council consider the appeal and perhaps send it back to plan commission to make findings and state it on the record and then come back to the council on the 18th or whenever we consider all items Edgewater.
May says he has not looked at the legal issues you raise and if it is substantial enough to merit such an action such as referring it back to plan commission. I guess if you wanted us to look at it we could do that and comment on it. If you want us to look at it, you could refer to council meeting on May 4th, but the difficulty is that it has to be noticed for a public hearing, and it would be tight and if you refer it to plan commission, he is not sure how that timing works out. He says he hasn’t looked at the legal issue and if it is substantial enough and he thought they were referring to May 18th and going to take it up at that time. [Seriously, he didn’t look at this issue? What is he doing? What does he get paid for? Has no one noticed this issue in city hall? This smells funny.]
Verveer asks if he is offering to research it and then we would address the issue on May 18th and then we might have to refer other items to a future date.
May says that is a possibility.
They refer it to May 18th.
MORE PUBLIC HEARINGS
Board of Public Works items 8 – 11 are voted on as noted on the agenda.
Item 12, plan commission, one registrant avialable to answer questions, Brandon Cook. No discussion.
Verveer makes a motion, to reopen and recess public hearing and refer back to plan commission. Staff know why. Verveer explains that this rezoning is in his district and he missed the meeting because he was hearing a quasi-judicial hearing on the Vending Oversight Committee so he couldn’t testify at the Plan Commission. Says first time not present in person or in writing. Neighborhood was not able to be there that evening as well. He did watch replay and believes there is additional information that would be relevant to the plan commission but more over, the applicant is willing to make some changes to the proposal that are significant enough that the plan commission, who had a split vote, will be convinced through the changes and that a different motion would prevail and come back. Staff knows about this request and are ready willing and able to respond to this request.
They recess the public hearing and send it back to plan commission.
PART TWO
Part two will be a little late this morning . . . still watching what happened!
