02/24/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Council Meeting 2-24-03 Page 28 large for Caucus, we have a special workshop discussion meeting to discuss it and it hasn't gone through that process or anything--- Mr. Marquardt said I just think the volume of questions that have come up and issues that have been brought up says that it didn't get enough prior discussion. It should come to a vote. Mayor Rinker said I think there's something that everybody needs to know. I would like to say that we have planned everything to a point where we always have the luxury of doing it so that we could be far more deliberative on some of these issues. My personal goal on both the Zako and the Falkner properties was to acquire them period. And the discussion that we've had has taken place over a protracted period of time. The idea of taking advantage of Issue One to me has always been "the icing on the cake." We do not dictate; we do not control the timetable for the Issue One. Case in point part of the discussion tonight were questions about what's going on with the Upper 40 application. This Council approved that application being submitted as an Issue 2.application virtually the same. We've added the Wetlands. I think thaYs about the only real difference. And it is true. These are complex and they are worthy of a discussion. The fact of the matter is Issue One is forcing certain logistics right now so that's why. That's why we're here. If I could've said we had Zako worked out 2 months ago and we could put this out and have gone through a more deliberative process, I would've done that. We knew Zako was lining up but it wasn't until he said it was ready. I took him at his word. If he's ready to talk, we're ready to talk with him. With Dr. Falkner, we're been pushing and pushing it in a variety of ways and it, again, has only come about in the last 2 to 3 weeks. If it were not for the Issue One, this is something we could've put out in front of you and we would have just had our discussions onward. But Issue One gives us a different kind of a leg up. With both of these the potential for a strategy has been there. And as Bill Riter has pointed out, at the end of the day, the application is we have to make a good faith effort and so I'm not going to blow smoke on that. My view is that we're making a real commitment to do this barring some unforeseen circumstance. But the fact of the matter is if we get these approvals, they are going to come back to this Council and this Council forum has to ratify whether or not it wants to accept. And I think you have to understand that if you take application and then you reject it and then later on you come back and you want it again, you'd better think twice. Because some of these people have a long memory and again a case in point: Issue 2. We got Issue 2 funding years ago for Upper 40 and then we ended up involuntarily having to reject it. We had to turn away from $600,000 worth of funding. And I think that had an impact for a while. And typically stormwater issues have been less favored for Issue 2 anyway. Issue One is more germane to these kinds of things. So, the complex of decisions and the timetable we have doesn't always make it real easy. So I just want you to understand. And we're trying to keep it moving. Council President Buckholtz said directly back to Mr. Marquardt's comment, I would like to say I respect your opinion. More than respecting your opinion I wanted to highlight for the record that you are not I mean you voted for the resolution so you are not, per se, against the purchasing of the properties. But the process in which we arrived here and if I was remiss in including it in an Executive Session or a Caucus, I apologize and I will be more diligent to follow these matters through but I would like that to be noted by the Council and the administration-in terms of-as far as following the procedure and following the process.