10-08-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING October 8, 2018 Councilmember Gavin Ferlic stated, Certainly I respect Oliver's leadership. The one(1)thing that at least gives me confidence here is we would still need to entertain an ordinance to make these changes. Is that correct? Council Attorney Bob Palmer confirmed, That is correct. Councilmember Gavin Ferlic followed up, And so while I do agree that I think the process could have been much better, I personally am ok with planning for something like this in the budget. Seeing that we have the funds available in the budget, we would have a bigger discussion on the ordinance. That is not to say I disagree with you in terms of the approach and communication. I think Councilmember Davis' points are certainly valid but in terms of my perspective, I do think I am comfortable with planning for it in the budget but certainly want to have a much bigger discussion when we look at that ordinance. Councilmember Tim Scott stated,I agree,too,almost verbatim,Councilmember Ferlic.I trust your leadership and your wisdom on Zoning and Annexation, Councilmember Davis,but I look at it in a different way. It is not as a rubber stamp to the Mayor, I look at it from a business standpoint. When we start a new project, we put together a budget. We put together what that money and allocation is going to look like before we start that project. We figure out what we are going to end up spending on it so we have those resources to go about doing it. If along the way it changes, it can change and we can reallocate funds elsewhere. Again, setting a budget tonight means any part of this is a potential. We are saying this is what we are planning on doing in 2019. I think we can still control the parameters and lay out our goals and objectives of what needs to be done. I am fully aware. I have so many issues in my district that have to deal with building and zoning. I'm dealing with one (1)right now. There are no teeth in the matter to the zoning issue and that is why I believe we need to do zoning within the City. I am fine with setting the budget. I don't think there is anything wrong with setting that budget tonight and then getting into the parameters. I agree with Gavin. Some may not agree with how HPC went and I don't think it was handled well either but the budget was set, it was approved and was going forward, and then they came to us with the ordinances and processes. If you talk to people in HPC and people in the City, I think it is a better program than it was before and I think the people are actually better, happier and more productive than what they were before. I'm hoping the same thing out of Building and of Zoning. I literally have a junkyard going up in a residential area and I am not getting the response that I think the City would give. As I said earlier today, I respectfully disagree with you. I understand your points. My point is to set the budget and then we can work out the details on the rest of it. Just because a budget is set doesn't mean it actually has to be implemented until the ordinances are put forth to us and we can have a say in that. We can have as many Committee meetings on that as you want to make sure it all reaches the parameters we want to see. Councilmember Karen White stated, Looking at the issue before us as well as looking at our past experiences with HPC, I do respect your leadership on zoning and all the work you've done, but I don't want this one (1) issue to impact Bill No. 39-18. I think that if we, as a Council, were to pull this out, I would like to have a timeframe, set meetings and we need to move forward and we all need to be at the table. I think it is important that we have this. We know that a number of our zoning issues impact the City and are from the City. We also know zoning tends to be one (1) of the biggest areas that we have a lot of discussion about. We also have to do a lot of pulling people together and a good example was what happened today. For me, I would like to know the dates and times of the meetings. Council Members need to be here and do the work so we can move forward as quickly as possible. We need to make sure that every Council Member asks their questions and gets answers to those questions so we can continue moving forward. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston stated, I hear what you are saying, Karen. I think that is really important. If we do vote that out, in my third(3`1)time going through this, I've seen already how many times we go forward and say we are going to do this,this and this, and then we kind of just forget. It is not intentional but so many things get forgotten about and left behind so I would agree with Councilmember White. If we decide to do that, we also have to have timeframes attached to that. 17