December 8, 2010

City Council 12-6-2010 Video!




For the viewing displeasure of our faithful PRU readers!

We suggest viewers pay special attention to the discussion of the vote to override the Mayor's veto of the amended and suspended Facade Improvement Program, which begins @ the 0:23:13 mark of the video. It would seem Mayor Schmidtzkrieg may have made a new frenemy!

Residents Mr. Declan Stapleton and Mr. Ed Berry, of O'Reilly's Public House fame, address the Council beginning @ 0:24:00 mark of the video. And the PRU Crew feels it's very sad how little understanding Mr. Stapleton has not only for general municipal accounting practices, but also that Mr. Stapleton has less than zero understanding of TIF district financing in general, or the Uptown Redevelopment TIF district, specifically.

And despite the PRU Crew's strong suspicions that the Council doesn't understand either municipal accounting or TIF district financing much better than Mr. Stapleton, they somehow managed to vote to sustain the Mayor's veto of the amended and suspended Facade Improvement Program -- which they plan to discuss and amend again at the December 20th Council meeting.

Under Citizens Wishing to Address the Council on Non-agenda items, we hope people will give consideration to the remarks offered by resident and local builder, Mr. Rob Lohens, begining @ 1:14:02 mark of the video. Unfortunately, while Mr. Lohens' comments on public employee salaries and pensions have much merit, his grasp of the Crook County property assessments and the property tax system is lacking.

For others who may not quite get how the whole mess currently works -- as simply as we can state the matter -- property value assessments are created for the purpose of apportioning shares of the property tax burden, within any given taxing district. You can have your property tax assessment reduced and you still may end up paying as much or more in actual property tax dollars. Why? Because until the local taxing bodies actually reduce the tax levies -- the actual total dollars they ask for from the taxpayer pool -- taxes will generally continue to remain the same or rise. Place your bets, people!

Thus concludes our PRU civics lesson for today.

The discussion of the proposed Hoffman Homes project, as recommended to the City Council by the Planning and Zoning Commission, begins @ 1:20:51 mark of the video. And we found the discussion of affordable...er...no...make that, attainable housing very entertaining.

The Aldermen voted 3-yes (Sweeney, Bach and Allegretti) to 3-no (DiPietro, Ryan and Wsol) on the matter. Mayor Schmidtzkrieg attempted to break the tie by voting "no," but the City Attorney advised him his vote was not necessary as a tie vote means the request for approval of the special use dies for lack of receiving a majority.

The project developer, Mr. Hassinger, then took the opportunity to let the Council know he would not be back with a new application. So there!

Enjoy the rest of the show!

8 comments:

Bean said...

Good for you, Mayor DipSchmidt!

...then again, it's easier to tell a $175 contributor to take a hike, than it is to tell a $4,646 dollar contributor to STFU...

Anonymous said...

Bean:

I don't know what he did but remind me not to get on your bad side.

Bean said...

Anonymous @ 4:21,

Don't betray the public trust by conducting yourself contrary to your promises, act like a fraud, or lie to the public...and we're good!

Anonymous said...

They did the right things for the facades and the housing project. It's a nice change of pace from what we usually get. The mayor and the council members deserve to be recognized here.

Anonymous said...

Bean:

Fair enough!

Anonymous said...

We can look forward to a cleaning of the city council seats this election year.

It's time to take back our wards
and get back to the basics of good govt and people who do care about the welfare of the people.

There are no boundries when it comes to leadership.

Anonymous said...

hmmmmmm....OK, let's be honest. When you say welfare of "the people", what you really mean is doing things that you want and/or agree with. This whole welfare of the people phrase is a bunch of political crap. Just because you disagree with a decision made by a politician does not mean that they do not care about the welfare of the people.

Hell, I voted for Schmidt and have been very disappointed with some of what he has done. Does that mean he does not care about the welfare of the people??? Of course not!!

By the way, what is even funnier is your "take back out wards" comment . You obviously wrote your post while reading the teabagger manual!!! Take back our wards???? From who?? who took them from us?? Hell 3 of those evil aldermen ran unopposed and one was appointed by the Mayor. Those wards were not taken from us - nobody ran against them!!!!! Even the other wards were not taken from us. The aldermen were elected.

Anonymous said...

Anon 7:03,

The question is which people are the ones the Mayor or the Aldermen are concerned for their welfare?