06-22-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JUNE 22, 2015 Councilmember Henry Davis interjected I did not ask that question. Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand continued the other issue is that the regulations have to be consistent with the governing law cases in this area that I mentioned to the committee. We followed the Bloomington case law which was handed down in December of last year. Councilmember Henry Davis interjected I read it, and I did not ask that question and want to clarify. Councilmember Derek Dieter stated everyone will be able to make comments. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked if a Councilmember doesn't use their five (5) minutes can we get their five (5) minutes. Councilmember Derek Dieter replied if we take a vote on that and you get majority of the vote. Would you like to take a vote on that now? Councilmember Oliver Davis responded not now, if and when that occurs. I would like to state that someone else should time Mr. Gavin Ferlic as he will be keeping the time. Councilmember Gavin Ferlic interjected, I will keep my comments to 30 seconds. Council President Tim Scott — I would like to thank my co- sponsors Dr. Ferlic and Karen White for co- sponsoring this. Also Randy Wilkerson, Crystal Briscoe, and Tasha Outlaw from legal, and Brian Pawlowski from the administration, John Martinez from Parks and Kathy Cekanski- Farrand for her work. We looked at several different ordinances, and the one thing I see in the 1st District is we are doing the same thing over and over again and not getting any results. So tonight the language that we put up is step 1, hold people responsible for their properties that's what this does, as it allows rain gardens, artistic use of grasses and natural landscaping and makes the law consistent. I do appreciate your vote on this, I do appreciate your comments on this. I know we have a larger conversation to do with capacity and the administration. I think that will vet itself out. Within the Resolution we brought up getting youth and mentor programs with youth to pick up that program to be able to add to capacity. Where right now there is a monopoly with the Park's Department cutting everything for the city. What I would like to do in the Resolution is to open that up to be bid on where people are actually employing youth during the summer time. We will have that discussion in July. This has been endorsed by legal and code. I appreciate your vote on this Councilmember Gavin Ferlic — I will just say I think people respond to incentives. I think this will help with overall enforcement, I think the more compliance you have based on private property owners mowing their lawns the fewer lawns the city will be responsible for mowing. It is not the city's responsibility to mow private property, it is the private property owner. If we can put a greater burden on the private property owners specifically the delinquent property owner we will get greater overall compliance and be able to address other properties as a result. Councilmember Derek Dieter — There are several issues that everyone discussed, where is the line of the council's job, where's the line of the city's job and the role of the city council; is it supposed to be like a watch dog, where you have Dr. Ferlic who goes out to look at yards. The intent is to keep your lawns cut. In the end this is a first step and probably not the last step. Councilmember Scott needs a lot of work to see who will be the final person in charge if we get to that point for other people to cut. I hope with this being my six (6) months on this council, that this will be a wakeup call for the Council during their next budget cycle, because of the 11 years that I've been here when we ask city department if they need more staff, need more equipment, need more capital to tell us and nobody ever has. This will be the prime example and hopefully when the budget process comes around, we look at the budget and all those figures and when they aren't there we say no. We are done, we are done babysitting for you, and we are done doing all these quality life ordinances. You can go down the list that it has been the Council who has stepped up and done the job for the city workers and administration that they haven't done theirs. Those are the issues that I am looking at. These are valid points. Something needs to be done, this isn't going to be perfect and can continued to be fine- tuned. Like Oliver Davis said, there are a lot of people, granted they may have been to other meetings, but when the rubber hits the road I don't see the Mayor, the assistant Mayor, assistant Mayor 2, Parks those people need to be here. Like Randy said there is a problem with the software, but that should be fixed within a week. Councilmember Oliver Davis — My daughter went to a trip last week to Cincinnati. I asked how much is the trip? She said $40 dollars. I gave her $40 and a little change. If she came back and said she needed $20 more, I would ask her what she did with the money I gave her. The role of 14