No better way to celebrate the 4th of July than talking about local government, eh? Ok – so before I forget, here’s my version of what happened last night at the Council meeting. (I really should learn to take notes. Or perhaps I should have skipped Gomeroke at the High Noon after the Brocach. It feels good to sleep until noon every once in a while!)
We breezed through items 1 – 9 and 30 – 73, except #72 in the first 5 minutes or so. I separated item #72 which was the extra half million dollars needed to purchase the new garbage cans for the automated garbage collection.
#72 – Budget amendment for over half a million dollars for garbage cans.
I still think people are going to be freaked out when they see the 95 gallon garbage cans that get dropped off at their homes because they didn’t read, understand or return the postcard by last March. Something like 75% of the city will be getting these monstrous things. The default size of the recycling bins were 65 gallons. People will be stuck with the 95 gallon garbage cans for 90 days. Then, if they still don’t want them, they can get them exchanged. The staff thinking is that people will need them for when they have extra trash. I’m thinking, I’m going to get quite a few complaints.
After item #72 passed unanimously, we went back to the public hearings that we can’t do until 6:45. We passed items 12 – 29 and quickly went on to the consent agenda. We passed the rest of the agenda except items 74 (transfats), 103 ($300,000 contract for water utility) and 122 (RTA resolution). Click here for some of the items of interest that didn’t get any discussion.
#74 Transfats
This resolution, is only a voluntary ban. And actually, there was another version handed out at the Council meeting, so its a little different than the language linked here. I understand why people abstained from this, but as the author Ald. Tim Gruber explained, this is really just like any resolution we pass where we honor someone or the work they do. In a way, this was honoring the work the folks are doing to bring this to the attention of the public. I would have abstained, but it turns out, I was the 11th vote and I didn’t want it to fail as there is not harm in passing the resolution. This was a roll call vote, with folks voting as follows:
For: Schumacher, Solomon, Verveer, Webber, Kerr, Bruer, Clausius, Clear, Gruber, Rhodes-Conway and Konkel (11)
Against: Cnare, Pham-Remmele (2)
Abstaining: Skidmore, Brandon, Compton, Judge, Palm, Rummel (6)
Absent: Sanborn (1)
#103 $300,000 contract for water utility
This was a tough one and there were multiple issues. The one that I was most annoyed with, was the fact that the water utility had already spent $50,000 and obligated us for $115,000 or $150,000, I didn’t quite hear how much. But either way, this isn’t acceptable. Why bother even having the Council approve contracts if they’re already a done deal? Why bother having rules if they’re not followed? And even more insulting, was the after-the-fact excuse that this was a sole-source contract, even tho the resolution never mentions it.
Here’s a little background. On May 15th, the Water Utility Board knew that the staff were spending money without authorization and asked for more information. Instead of putting a rush on things, they delayed for more information. Meanwhile, the staff went on committing to more expenses. Seemed to me that someone from the Mayor’s office or the Alder should have stopped this much earlier. We should have been discussing this at our June 5th meeting. Or our June 19th meeting. We definitely should not have let this situation get to the point where nearly half the contract money had been committed before we even approved the contract.
Some on the Council were calling for the head of the David Denig-Chakroff, the manager of the Water Utility. To me, the Water Utility Board, the Alder, the Mayor’s office, the Comptroller’s office (purchasing) and many others had a role here too. Unfortunately, many of them were not at the meeting. So, we postponed until the Water Utility Manager and the chair of the Water Utility board and the Comptroller could be at the meeting.
Meanwhile, there’s still questions about if the work that is proposed to be done, or has already been done, is necessary or effective.
#122 RTA resolution
As I told you yesterday, the Mayor asked for this to be referred back to his office and out of the public eye. The Council, out of courtesy, agreed. However, all this does is postpone the discussion for another two weeks and makes it incredibly difficult to discuss with our colleagues without breaking open meetings laws with a walking quorum.
After the 2 hour long Council meeting, we were off to the Brocach. Those who attended were as follows: Tim Bruer, Mike Verveer, Eli Judge, Michael Schumacher, Joe Clausius, Mark Clear, Lauren Cnare, Satya Rhodes-Conway, Marsha Rummel, Robbie Webber, Julia Kerr and myself. We were joined by the “21st alder” Rosemary Lee, the City Attorney Michael May and some of the Mayor’s staff including Rebecca Cnare, George Twigg, Janet Piriano and Mario Mendoza.
