Kiffi Summa, LWV Observer
All Council members present.
This Council work session had three Agenda items and all required policy discussion; therefore this report will focus on the policy issues of each Agenda item.
1. Review and Comment on Draft regulations for Development Procedures in the Land Development Code
There were few new or significant changes in the actual procedures outlined in this chapter, Article 5, of the new LDC. Staff and Planning Commissioners said that for the most part it was codifying procedures that are already in practice in the Community Development Department. Planning Commission Chair, Tracy Davis, stated that the desired goal is to speed up the regulating/permitting timeline for developers.
A Councilor raised an embedded policy concern: putting even more responsibility for administrative decision making, i.e. at the Staff level.
Will this result in less oversight/ control by the elected decision makers, and if so, how will they adjust to this increased staff responsibility?
Issues of how much, and what types, of decision making are built into the Staff process, and then how accountability is measured, will need to be thoughtfully considered by the Council.
2. Communications
The policy issue here circles around the use of various forms of electronic communication; what, and how much of paper city documentation should be converted to electronic .
The concept of electronic document storage has been accepted with the purchase of a laserfiche document storage system, and is beginning to be implemented. City documents from 2000 to current will be installed first, as staff time allows. In the future, documents dating from 2000 back ( how far?) will be stored.
Additionally, the City's website and all other communications with citizens were the subject of much discussion. The point was made that the City's website should provide, in the simplest intuitive manner, direction to all the city activities occurring on a given day, as well as have separate 'pages' to allow for following large projects.
Regulatory processes of the city should still be in paper form in order to be verifiably delivered/available, i.e. public hearings, etc.
Use of widely distributed e-mail notification from City Hall to citizens was also discussed, but recognized to have limitations which may affect significant segments of the community, i.e. those without home computers/internet service, including senior citizens who are not e-tech oriented.
Broadcasting additional City meetings, especially those of Boards/Commissions with statutory regulatory powers (Planning Commission, EDA, and HRA) was also discussed. At this time the City is paying KYMN Radio for live streaming up to 3 meetings a week, so there is opportunity to do much more than the City Council. However, there are Staff time/cost implications, and also format issues ... should DVDs of meetings still be provided... what should be on NTV, etc. More discussion will be needed to tie all this down; it was a good beginning.
3. Police/Fire Safety center Project
Although having attended the Safety Center Steering Committee meetings both last week and yesterday, as well as the following Council meetings, the way ahead still seems somewhat unclear as site location, building, and financing strategy are all, as yet, not finalized.
The June 15th date for Council to decide whether they will issue CIP (Capital Improvement Project) Bonds, or hold a Referendum, has been a controlling mechanism in the process. If a referendum is the chosen way to proceed, ballot language needs to be presented to the State by mid- August.
CIP Bonds are subject to a Reverse Referendum by citizen groups, and that possible process has been accounted for in the governing timeline.
From mid- June to early November seems a rather short time to educate the public on all the ramifications of either financing strategy chosen for a project that is now moving above the 12 million $$ range, including both building and associated financing costs.
In addition to the financing, another policy issue arose: this centered on the concept of "talking points". The Council feels that a clear short list of "talking points" needs to be established to communicate with citizens at public meetings/forums. These would represent agreed to decisions made by the council, as well as specific Council actions taken. The goal is for public presentations to be clear as to the facts.
Presumably this would not preclude Councilors from being able to dialogue with constituents who might have more diverse questions.
