05/02/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/2/2000 ,~,„ exception of a member of Council performing common duties that are routinely _~,. performed by all members of Council or where provided by ordinance, no member of City Council shall receive reimbursements or expend city funds, utilize city logos, letterheads and/or city resources without first securing the advice and consent of Council including an affirmative majority vote of the members of Council." Mr. Lambert said he felt that the Rules of Council should be codified, and he believed that would take a Charter amendment. Mr. McKay responded that, although he paid for and delivered a letter to his constituents, he believes that any Councilman has a responsibility to his constituents to give them any information he can on any subject. If that comes through Council's funds, that's fine with him. He is very much opposed to having any censorship from other Councilmen. It is his opinion that each Councilman has a responsibility to get the information out to his people. How he does it is up to him. Mr. O'Grady responded that he was not criticizing another member of Council for sending out a letter. His position is that there ought to be some controls. When there is an expenditure of public funds, Council has the responsibility to protect the public checkbook and to look out for the people. To do that, Council ought to institute some rules and controls to provide for some oversight, which is Council's primary mission. Council might also consider extending the oversight to trips and travel. Mr. Gareau responded that Mr. Lambert had begun the discussion saying that he did not know a whole lot about what had happened and was basing his statements on what he had read in the paper but did not want to criticize. Mr. Gareau said he felt Mr. Lambert's statements following his introductory comments were not consistent. The article did not say he had stepped out of line. He offered to give Mr. Lambert a copy of what was mailed out because, for someone who introduced himself by not knowing a lot about a situation, Mr. Lambert had rendered some pretty big opinions about Mr. Gareau's conduct. Mr. Lambert commented that he had qualified his statements by saying he was going by what he read in the paper. If he was wrong, he apologizes. He still feels that any time a Councilman conducts something that uses public funds the body must oversee it if it is an exceptional occurrence and not something that is routinely done. Jim Burns, 3978 Dover Center Road, said he would like to commend Council for the cooperative effort with the business community to put a sign ordinance together that everybody can live with. There are a couple of changes that the Chamber of Commerce believes should be made and that Council might feel are good ideas, but those can be addressed at a later time. A concern of his and the Chamber's over the years has been safety and vandalism. One of the purposes and intents of this ordinance was to bring signs down. When you do that, you are going to cause problems with line of sight. Also, the sign ordinance prohibits pole signs. The language is written in such a way that he could see future building commissioners and members of the Board of Zoning Appeals not allowing a pole sign. There will be instances where parcels cannot accommodate a ground sign, and the code does not include definitions or restrictions according to size to addresses that issue. Pat Graham, 26100 Lorain Road, thanked the Law Department, the BZD Committee and Council for all the consideration they have given to the sign ordinance. The stated objective of the ordinance is safety and aesthetics. The Chamber feels that the size 11 ~„~-~„'