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Council Hang Over
By Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske | November 13, 2008
Wowee. Our Tuesday night council meeting was a doozy. It lasted past midnight and I finally got home at 1:00 am.
Two days later I am stilling feeling the effects. I cannot imagine how my colleagues Pat O’Donnell and Dee Andrews are doing –the both have to get up very early to teach.
Council deliberated on two very controversial items: a 60 room assisted living facility in Bixby Knolls for seniors and the draft Housing Element plan.
The items were controversial because there were quite a few people in the audience who did not want a senior assisted living building of 5 stories in their neighborhood.
Likewise, there were several council members who do not want a Housing Element that contains any focus on low income housing — despite the fact that we have thousands of people in the city who work in low income jobs and without them we couldn’t keep our hotels and restaurants open.
Several council members — including me — were concerned that council had not been given all the informatin we had requested from staff on October 14 when we voted to continue the matter until this week.
Some very good news came from meeting — the City is eligible for $8 million in infrastructure fundings from the state Proposition voters approved last year. As soon as the streets scheduled for the 5th District are finalized I will let you know.
As the night wore on, I did get a little testy, especially at council staff that sits behind the council and chats away while we are trying to listen to citizen testimony. I finally turned and said sternly — “Will you please be quiet we are trying to listen to these people talk?” Didn’t mean to hurt feelings, but honestly, take a seat and the conversations away from council.
Topics: City Council |
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