Is It Just Me..

“It’s not like you’re going to be able to get a second bite at the apple next year,” Picard said.

He addressed growing concern his fellow council members — namely A.J. Smith and Josh Laubach — could take issue with the levy coming before them as an emergency ordinance, advising library officials to put together as much information as possible and have it included in council’s Feb. 2 meeting packet.

“Hopefully that will help alleviate any anxiety these two men have,” Picard said. “Make a short, concise presentation to council, and then hopefully, they will be glad to move forward with emergency legislation.”

Yes, I do have a problem with voting against every ordinance that is presented to Council as an emergency simply just because it is presented as an emergency.  Each council member receives a packet of information on the Friday evening before the Tuesday meeting which contains all of the information available on each piece of legistation that will be presented at the Council meeting.  That allows each member 96 hours to review all of the proposed ordinances and all of the supporting information.  Between the time the information is received and the meeting, there are two full business days during which each council member may ask the City Manager for any and all additional information they may need to make an informed decision on Tuesday evening.  If a council memeber fails to take advantage of that time to review the matters and ask questions prior to the meeting, they have no one to blame but themselves.

City Councilman Picard -

At next Tuesday's meeting, representatives of the Library will make a presentation to Council. No action will be taken at that meeting.  The resolution will be presented for Council consideration at the February 16th meeting.

The emergency legislation process has been abused and improperly used by Council/Admin for far too long. Sorry, Mr.P--the end of that abuse has arrived. Please be responsible as an elected Councilmember and responsive/respectful to the voting tax-paying citizens by voting against any un-necessary emergency legislation. Doesn't mean that you  don't support an issue, simply that the issue needs to proceed through Council with proper hearings and procedure.

The Library levy should not be rammed through this way. Obviously the library board assumed that passage by emergency was a given(were you involved in any such discussion, and did you recomend going through the hearing process or emergency legislation?). This issue should have been handled properly by the library board, and others should not be compromised or denigrated because of the library board's  failure to do so. Actually none of this discussion relates to supporting the levy--simply following correct procedures which need to be in place and followed consistently.

Mr. Picard- using the words from your post...... "each council member receives a packet of information on the Friday evening before the Tuesday meeting"...... where in this process, does the public have enough time to provide our input to our council rep prior to the Tuesday meeting? How is the public suppose to know when their councilmember receives the package, what it contains and has access to it to discuss it with said councilmember? By your description, there is currently no way that the councilmember and his/her constituents can communicate before the packet info is formally discussed in the Tuesday meeting. The people that the councilmember is representing is totally left out of the process. Furthermore, you state " SOME matters are very sensitive and must be acted upon quickly". Then why does Landen present EVERY ordinance as an EMERGENCY piece of legislation if only "SOME MATTERS MUST BE ACTED ON QUICKLY"? Finally...... you state "ample time is provided before and during each meeting to allow members to ask all of the questions that they may have regarding every matter presented"..... BUT, AGAIN, Mr. Picard- WHAT ABOUT THE AMPLE TIME THAT IS NOT.....NOT PROVIDED THE CONSTITUENTS TO ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS OF THEIR COUNCILMEMBER? You, sir, have left us totally out of the loop in OUR city government in your comments. I am sorry that you have given an indication that you will support the continuation of rampant emergency legislation for the purpose of shoving through legislation to get it on the books to avoid any public outcry. You may have also chosen to be behind that desk for one term only if you continue to ignore the people's wishes.

Glad to hear from you, Nick.  I always knew that you were a decent person from the day that my former boss with the City of Middletown called good citizens like Merrill Wood, Paul Nagy, Gary Barge, Tom Rapp, Dan Tracy, Adrienne Scherer, you and others troublemakers to avoid.  Did the City ever lose a substantial amount of money and credibility due to this person's actions!

A couple of months after Ginger Smith had reluctantly transferred to be the Community Revitalization Director, I was told by Kyle Fuchs that the City had sold one of the few rehabilitated FHA Dollar Homes on Logan.  He also noted that the buyer was not "bank qualified" and that the City would carry a 20-year mortgage.   This matter was reported by me last Spring and never one word was ever asked by the City Council.  As my Ward 3 CIty Councilman, how does this HUD-funded matter strike you?  Should the City be in the residential lending business?

danpicard wrote: ...The two members who voted against the emergency would have been directly responsible for this loss and yet I didn't hear either of them offer to reimburse the City for the loss which they would have caused.   Each council member has a duty to the citizens of this City to do their job and to be prepared. ... Each member must be aware that their actions may have very serious consequences and they must be prepared.   Dan Picard

Mr. Picard: Can we take it from your words highlighted in red above, that YOU will be "offering to reimburse the" taxpayers "for any losses caused" by any of YOUR votes during your term on council???  If so, that is very kind of you!!!  Please allow me to be the first to thank you.  If not, please do not require of your colleagues that which you, yourself, are not willing to offer.

Then again, back on the first hand:

I get the same "workbook" that council receives on the city website. I read all the legislation before Tuesday nights. I like knowing what is going on before an emergency vote.

Jag: