I feel bad, that was kind of apparent at the last council meeting the Council wouldn’t pass this ordinance – I don’t think it even has one vote, but I didn’t blog it and somehow it was missed by many in the media. While the council pretty clearly said this was a bad idea and the Mayor should address it or they would in the budget, the media came out slamming the council for an idea they clearly were looking for a different solution for. So, hopefully, CCOC and the budget will put this issue to rest.
This also was discussed at CCOC yesterday . . .
One person, Rosemary Lee testified against, which surprised me, given the council discussion on this at the last meeting. And Chris Schmidts admission that the committee that was promoting this was having second thoughts.
Chris Schmidt asks Michael Schumacher to comment since he referred it here.
Schumacher says he and Mark Clear thought it should come here, he doesn’t know what motion to make except to kill this.
Schmidt moves to place on file, and it is seconded.
Schumacher says there is not much more to say.
Schmidt says he explained how it came to us and he was surprised it made it this far.
Schumacher says this is misguided, we will have more handicapped people once they break their backs on the huge boulders at the stops.
Lauren Cnare says still going to be an issue, did Al Schumacher get a bid for private contractors so we can address this.
Lori Kief from the audience tells them they should look at the budget, and she thought there was $300K additional in there for . . . .and I missed what she said.
Schmidt says that talked about it in the snow workgroup, and the magnitude to do them all is quite substantial, we used contractors as the bid, and issue they ran into besides the cost is having enough staff to do it, it is in the priority list, but low, but it is still there and the reason it is not happening for a few weeks is cuz there is not the contractor or city manpower to do it.
Cnare asks if it is not in the 2011 budget?
Schmidt says not yet.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff shows them the budget and it is in there.
Schmidt says he is talking to Schumacher about what the solution should be and is surprised it is in the budget. He asks if it is really in there and if it is additional money.
Bidar-Sielaff and Cnare look and say there is 70K in there.
Cnare says they need to follow up on this on the floor, it is still an issue, she is will to take it on.
Bidar-Sielaff says Board of Estimates should discuss it thoroughly.
Bruer says they asked questions and will.
Lisa Veldran, council staff, notes that CCOC is making a report to another committee.
Marsha Rummel says this is a legal requirement, we really have to do it, when it comes to the budget we have to address it.
Schmidt says he wants to quickly restate, this was never about saving money, it was about addressing the issue, this is what they settled on, he never labored under the delusion it would be received well, let alone thought it would make it through the committees, but it’s a sign of the need. We will talk about it in budget.
Clear says they should look at the notes from the Committee on People with Disabilities. It was a controversy which doesn’t’ happen often.
Schumacher wants to again emphasize, this is not negotiable, this is what we should be doing, and not to point fingers, but this is a management issue that just has to be done, we have to allocate money to it, and if they say it is not enough money then we have to do it. He says if this debate didn’t happen, if the committee hadn’t brought it up, this would not have happened. The mayor’s team should do it regardless, if they need money need to do it, they need to say how much money they need to have. Otherwise, CCOC will have to get more involved in operations. And that . . . he just laughs.
People look around for someone from the mayor’s office. I honestly don’t know if Janet was there at that point.
They placed on file unanimously. Meaning, they voted no.
