I take notes at local government meetings because my memory is near-nonexistent, and I’ve ruined in short order every handheld electronic device I’ve ever owned. I zone out when people are rehashing what was in the staff reports or when somebody is pontificating, stringing words and phrases from the synergy lexicon together with connecting words for proper syntax. Even so, the notes are so copious, I mark the really good and bad stuff to help me find it. This is what got marked last night:
- Budget Manager Tony McDowell said the city expects revenues from property taxes will start growing soon.
- A project for infill development was actually approved.
- Opposing the project was one neighbor who could not believe the developers would offer a trail without also providing a management plan therefor.
- Another expressed disbelief that the developer, with all the money he would be saving by increasing green space, couldn’t at least give the neighbors some cash or sidewalks.
- Councilman Gordon Smith acknowledged council’s strategic goals were at odds.
- Smith, who at recent meetings has been adamant about rent-controlling subsidized affordable housing in perpetuity, acknowledged that any housing would help the city’s deficit.
- Councilman Cecil Bothwell suggested the developers were creating their environmentally-sensitive housing clusters for money instead of out of respect for the natural habitat. He said if the developers wanted to help the planet, they would propose something more off-the-grid with a lower impact. And the crowd went wild.
- County Manager Jon Creighton said the county was looking into privatizing its garages, “to let somebody try to make some money.” Mayor Esther Manheimer asked him to let the city know what he learns. This would be lovely, except all sorts of meanings are assigned to “privatization” anymore. I have a friend who works for the city’s parking division and swears that because it is an enterprise fund it is privatized.