2/8/2011 council meeting

I’ve just finished watching this past Tuesday’s City Council meeting, at least the televised portion, on BlipTV.

The first 45 minutes were occupied by having two outsiders attempting to pump sunshine up our butts. I might note that the actual (non-televised) discussion of public business by our elected and appointed public officials was reported to only have lasted 50 minutes.

First, the spinmeister from Al Neyer spoke. He pointed out that the East End Master Plan identified the “East end for best opportunity for economic revival”. My first thought was: If the EAST end is our “best opportunity”, why do we spend so much money downtown???

My next thought was: how many “Master Plans” does this town have??? We have the overall Master Plan; a Downtown Master Plan; this East End Master Plan; a Renaissance West Master Plan, and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. I’d say that we only “need” ONE!!! And perhaps not even one, since we continuously override every other “master” plan with things such as “The Main Street Plan” and the Community Building Plan, and the MiddletOWN IT plan, the Place Matters plan, and The Gateway Development Plan, etc.

One of the mandates of this East End Master Plan was to: “Assist the city in retention of local companies.” This “master plan” was rolled out in 2005. How many “local companies” (I mean BESIDES AK’s General Offices) have we lost since then??? Usually, city hall was among the last to know!!!

He also spoke of a SEVENTY PAGE “gateway development” PLAN!!! Why haven’t the citizens seen it yet??? WE paid (at least $100,00) for it!!! He mentioned that City Hall is searching for the dollars to implement this plan. There probably will be dollars “tucked away” in the new public safety levy, or in “one of our other accounts” after the new Public Safety Levy is passed. Perhaps that is one of the things that they discussed in the semi-secret “work session” that they were afraid to show the taxpayers Tuesday night.

He also spoke of “Selling a vision”, just like Professor Harold Hill sold the vision of a boys’ band in “The Music Man”!!!

One thing that I did find interesting was he said when he tried to sell out-of-town businesses on the Renaissance area, the out-of-towners often asked the question: “Why Middletown?” His explanation was: “Middletown has a reasonable income tax…they look at that!” I’m not certain, but I don’t think anyone from city hall was listening to THAT part of his little pep talk!!!

Next came “Council Comments”! I think I am developing a new stance on this. If council is afraid, ashamed, or otherwise unwilling to share their discussion of the real issues and items of public business with their constituents via TVMiddletown, then I don’t think that we really need to hear any of their prepared or off-the-cuff propaganda either. Let them give their “Council Comments” during the NON-televised portion, too!!!