While walking downtown today, on my way to get sushi, a man from Guatemala was propositioning people "McCain or Obama?", showing command of the ultimate form of harassment. I knew this man was from Guatemala because he said so, and I knew he was a man as the result of deductive reasoning skills that I have been developing over the past few years.
Anyhow, if that man were Seth Zirkle, the new legislation writer/policy analyst for the city, he would surely be telling us of the city council meeting tomorrow night. It is technically a public hearing, but that distinction is no more significant than that between "Savings and Loan" and "Commercial" banks after 1989.
Now I know there is a faction of you readers that would like me to talk about the recent murder, or other things. (There is also a 1-person faction that demands to know why I have chosen to write this post in lieu of doing the dishes.) Unfortunately for you, I am not prepared to do that at this time. So let's see what tomorrow's meeting is all about.
PUBLIC HEARINGS:
-O-22-08: Modifications to Parking Districts 2 and 3.
-O-23-08: Non-profit financial reporting.
-O-26-08: Non-profit financial reporting.
O-22 appears to be a housekeeping bill that cleans up the parking code based on the recent construction of Acton's Landing. And by "appears to be", I mean the summary of the legislation was too boring for me to conclude anything else.
You may notice that O-23 and O-26 have the same synopsis above. This is a classic case of political goofiness, where 2 Aldermen each introduced their own version of the same bill, differing on one seemingly mundane detail and each hoping that his bill will be the final version, thus granting the winner the right to "claim" that reform. Alderman Shropshire wants non-profits receiving money from the city to provide semi-annual updates as to how that money is being spent, whereas Alderman Cordle wants the updates to be quarterly. Currently there is no requirement for them to report anything--at best, how grantee money is spent is debated by the finance committee when the organization lobbies for money during the next budget process.
LEGISLATIVE ACTION TO RECEIVE A FINAL VOTE:
O-29-06: A piece of legislation apparently specifying how to tell when a traffic study is needed that took 2 years to come up for a vote!
R-35-08: Legislation allowing the Key School, a private institution located outside of city limits, to use the city's financial prowess to enjoy a favorable bond issuance.
NEW BILLS TO BE PASSED ON FIRST READER:
-O-35-08: Renewing the Boat Show Lease for 2013 and 2014
-O-36-08: Renewing the Boat Show Lease for 2013 only*
-R-40-08: Honoring the City Clerk for receiving something called the Fannie Lou Hammer Award**.
(*Damn it people, get yourselves together. Can we please agree on these things before introducing two bills? Now we will have to debate both of those until one is passed and the other has to be withdrawn.)
(**I started writing this post at 7:00, and am now posting it at 12:30 am. It took me 22 minutes to write the post, and the rest of the time to try and figure out if I have ever used the words "Fannie", "Lou", and "Hammer" in the same sentence.)
Let's see what happens tomorrow night.
2 comments:
I appreciate the tone of this overview. You ( and the rest of the Reds) sometimes take things a little too seriously. This one made me laugh for a change instead of roll my eyes and say " geeeze" .
Thank you for the compliment. I'm willing to live with the charge of being too serious--I much prefer that to the charge of not being serious enough on the issues.
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