Pat talks downtown parking ramp, higher education, wages and city budget, and much more.
The Chamber went on a mission to find out;
. . . , city debt was about $277 million in 2010, jumped to $399 million in 2012 (based on a voter approved events center*) and will stand at about $339 million as of the end of 2017. From there it is projected to decline to about $275 million by 2022 and that includes bonding for projects such as the administration building, downtown parking ramp and wastewater plant improvements.
I find the $339 million dollar figure a little interesting, but believable. I know some bonds have come to their end over the past 5 years, so it is possible.
*The EC vote was an ‘advisory vote’ and didn’t give the citizens any power to authorize the bonds for the facility, the city council authorized them after the ‘non-legal suggestion’ from the public.
Theresa will be talking about several things Monday morning at 8 AM on 1320 with Greg Belfrage, including affordable housing and the downtown parking ramp.
UPDATE: The City Council didn’t get the 6 votes needed to overturn the Mayor’s VETO on transparency. The Patsy Three; Rolfing, Kiley and Erpenbach voted with mayor, but not before some bizarre public input from parks board members about being scared of cameras. But I will applaud councilors for letting the mayor and the Patsy 3 have it before the vote. Especially Councilor Neitzert who called the VETO indefensible and Erickson saying it was a frivolous use of the VETO pen.
The city council had a change of scheduling due to visiting the legislature tomorrow.
But they still have a busy agenda. During the informational, they will be briefed on Police Union wage negotiations, re-districting, downtown parking ramp and legislative update. It all must be pretty top secret, because there is only supporting documents in SIRE about re-districting. You know, that whole ‘transparency being a slippery slope’ thingy.
Speaking of slippery slopes, they decided to NOT livestream and record the Fiscal Committee, even though they will all be present in Carnegie for the meeting anyway after the informational. They are calling it a ‘work session’. Guess what, that is what a committee meeting is anyway, a council work session. Not sure why we can’t record a meeting about giving money to a non-profit?
During the City Council meeting they will take up the mayor’s veto on recording meeting. Don’t expect the vote to change. The Patsy Three will probably vote with the mayor upholding his idiotic VETO against open government. Pretty scary that out of 8 city councilors 3 of them are for closed and secretive government. Passing the recording ordinance should have been a slam dunk.
Well, the city council has had a brief stint of vacation for the last couple of weeks, they are jumping in full steam this next Tuesday. There should be a lot of fireworks during the public input of the council meeting. Lots of things to discuss. MMA fighting, a million bones for siding (that won’t be fixed) and host of zoning issues.
Let’s start with a little agenda item during the Fiscal Meeting;
Council Supplement to Finance Status Report by Dave Bixler, Budget Analyst
Looks like the council is going to be a little proactive when city hall wants to start digging in the cookie jar. I guess we will wait and see.
During the informational meeting, we get to hear about our new $10 million dollar parking ramp (that we really don’t need);
Downtown Parking Ramp Update by Darrin Smith
Lets move to the always entertaining city council meeting;
Item #13, it seems someone feels they are paying too much in property taxes . . .
Items #14-15, my favorite hispanic restaurant is opening a second location! Woot! Woot!
Item #29, the administration’s proposed pool rate structure officially gets killed. I have heard that the council’s proposed rate structure is going to be VERY different.
Item #30, Billion Auto gets ‘conditions’
Item #35, Get your fight on!
Item #36, SFPD Appropriations for WHAT!?
Item #37, apparently we don’t get a PDF document ahead of time about UBER.
Item #38, Sculpture Walk and city tax dollars get in bed with the Pavilion, again. Love the Dutch Boy paint logo, BTW.
Item #39, a curious ‘resolution’
Item #40. Huh?
Item #41, another annexation? On the new Veteran’s Parkway.
Item #42, a construction manager at risk for a private development and parking ramp? Do I smell a fart?
Item #43, say please and thank you, Delmont.
Item #44, more favors and glad handing.
So there you have it, another fun filled night at Carnegie. Hopefully there will be lots of bathroom breaks and the mayor won’t be ‘under the weather’ so he can attend. Better get Netflix cued up.