Notes from the November 17th meeting

Last week's meeting did not contain any truly controversial decisions.

They did the second reading of the smoking ordinance which makes it official.

There was to be a public hearing about lowering the maximum height of fences. That was taken off the agenda. I have not seen any word on why that was.

There were several zoning changes approved. I need to learn more about the codes. I know that generally there are commercial, residential, and mixed use zones, but I don't know the difference between an M-2 and and M-1 or M-3. More on that later.

There was one speaker, Mr. Green. He had a complaint about city inspectors. He hired a contractor to repair some steps on his property. A city inspector told him to stop work on it until he got the proper permits. Later, he was told the work did not meet code. When the inspector came back out, Mr. Green was at home, but the inspector drove off without inspecting the steps or going to the door of his residence. He was informed that the work had failed inspection because the inspector could not get to the steps. Apparently, the permits were close to expiring. It sounds like this man was not treated fairly by city workers and this concerns me. It took a lot of courage to stand up in front of the council and cameras to make this statement, so I do not believe he is a complainer. I applaud him for using this chance to air his grievances.