Wed 25 Aug, 2010
Here are some highlights from the agenda:
- Approval of a peddler’s license for APX Alarm Company. I’m trying to understand why they are considering these sales people as peddlers when under their own definition of a peddler, a peddler is someone who carries the product and immediately delivers the product. Peddlers do have to be licensed. But a solicitor, such as your Avon lady, someone that takes an order and typically delivers items at a different time, doesn’t need a license. What kind of alarms can be sold that way? Maybe it is a new style of alarm that I have never heard of?
- It seemed ironic that the council was approving the acceptance of the Comcast transfer of studio equipment to the school when the equipment at the city council chambers was not working. They said the meeting was being taped but because our equipment is so old and not functioning correctly they couldn’t broadcast live. The monitor that Adam uses has not been working for a long time, so he can’t see what he is taping unless he comes out and checks the camera. If the city had been using the money they have been getting from Comcast over the years to upgrade our own system, rather than putting the money into the general fund, there wouldn’t be the problems that we have now. That is being a little shortsighted on the council’s end.
There was the comment made a couple of times that the meeting would be taped and that tape would be available for check-out at the library. The only problem is that these are VCR tapes and THEY DON”T SELL VCR PLAYERS ANYMORE!
- The owners of the NE Bank Building had sent around a petition and got 22 signatures asking for Excel Energy to correct the problems that area has had with power outages. The city has agreed to help them work with Excel to get this problem resolved. They never presented the signatures, so I am not sure if these were business owners that signed this petition or residents that live in the area. Hopefully, this will help reduce the incidents that they have been having. I think it is great if the city can help them in this situation. It would not be good if businesses moved out because they couldn’t resolve this.
- An ordinance amending Chapter 7, Section 72 of the City Charter was approved at tonight’s meeting. I would like to point out one section: “Section 72. BONDED DEBT AND DEBT. No bond shall ever be issued to pay current expenses or to refund certificates of indebtedness issued to provide for emergencies in the revenues to cover current expenses,...”
This is good to know. Now, let me show you a line from a memo dated August 2, 2010, from the assistant financial director in Columbia Heights. Joe stated, “It should also be noted that the borrowing that resulted in this $17 per person increase in annual interest expense permitted the City to continue to meet some basic needs during these difficult economic times,…” There is a fine line differentiating that the city is bonding to meet “basic needs” or whether we can say that the city is bonding to meet current expenses, which is illegal under our city charter. Hopefully, they did follow the charter in this instance.
- The city council voted to suspend the tobacco license for Pyromaniacs. There was a display of several items that were confiscated from the original drug raid on June 15, 2010. With four citations against the store the city ordinances does allow for the city council to suspend the license for a period of time, no less than 7 days. The council, under direction of the staff chose to suspend Pyromaniacs license until the end of the year.
I know some of you are saying ‘yeah’ or ‘it’s about time.’ I do question the timing of the vote. Omar, the owner of the store, is a devout Muslim and the city chose to do this during Ramadan. Did the city really need to rush this through this month? Why could they have not waited a couple of weeks until Ramadan was over and that would have allowed Omar to come defend himself in this case. I doubt that the council would have changed their vote but by putting this on the agenda now was prohibiting him from coming to defend himself on this issue. That is showing that the city is either insensitive to a person’s religion or maybe they did this purposefully.
- The city also suspended the license for Hot Market for 3 citations of selling tobacco to minors. The owner came with an interpreter and presented his side of the case asking for the city to wait because two of those incidents are coming before the courts in September. He stated that at least one of those cases was that he either sold the item to an adult, who then gave it to the minor or the minor came in with a fake ID. In either case the officer did not witness the sale and the citation was based on the minor telling the officer that the item was sold to him from Hot Market. This was another case where maybe we could have put this on the September agenda rather than rushed it through in the August meeting.
- The city approved the Resolution 2010-68. This is approving the city to continue on in the Housing Incentive Account Program under the MET Council. Who did the negotiations? This is the stupidest number and requirement I have ever seen in my life. To allow the MET Council to get away with this and require you to add 231 affordable housing units (by affordable we mean approximately valued at $160,000, per Scott) is the reason we are living in the poorest city in Twin Cities. This is part of the reason that we can’t get upscale companies and businesses to move into this area.
Here is a quote right from the resolution, ” It is important to remember that these housing numbers are goals, and do not represent a commitment to the Metropolitan Council.” So according to this comment this whole goal is really a sham. Apparently, everyone knows this is a sham and it is an accepted practice. It would be interesting to note if our city met any of its previous goals or how many cities truly meet these goals?
- The city council also approved Resolution 2010-79, adopting the 2030 Comprehensive Plan. Bruce made a good point, they adopted this but never had a final copy in front of them to look at before they approved it. But this is the copy that the MET Council approved so the council did need to approve it just so they can move on. The city is supposed to be giving the final copies to the Planning and Zoning Commission and to the City Council now that it has been approved by the MET council and the city council.
The meeting was quite long tonight. I ended up leaving before the public forum was over but the ‘public’ part of the forum had already been lost. What was supposed to be a time for the public to get up and speak ended up being more discussion amongst the council members. I appreciate Tami, in the middle of this discussion, at least stating that she thought there were more people that wanted to make comments from the audience. Hinting that the council members should stop and let the public continue on in their portion of the meeting. The council had over 3 hours to share their opinions, the public should have been allowed to have their 5 minutes.
Thanks for your support!
Donna Schmitt
