05/04/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/4/2004 Gareau, yes; Dailey, yes; Nashar, yes; McKay, abstain, as a member of the VFW. Roll call continued: Limpert, yes. The motion passed with six yeas and one abstention. Mr. Miller invited any Council members who wished to speak to Resolution 2004-74 to do so. Mr. Limpert said he would like to say that dangerous weapons should not be the sole property of thugs, robbers, rapists and murderers. States that have enacted concealed carry laws allowing the lawful carry of handguns have had their crime rates greatly reduced. Recently in Cleveland a woman was raped in a parking lot. This sort of legislation is the type that helped her become a victim. Councilman Gareau commented, as a co-sponsor of the resolution, that he sees this more as an issue of the right of a city to enact legislation and regulations governing its own property. The statehouse has passed legislation which directs and specifically sets forth that city councils, despite the fact that they are the stewards of property for their own people, cannot enact a regulation concerning what activity can take place on that property. Over the years, Council has established regulations for the city parks. It was never the province of Columbus to step up and tell Council they could not do so. This is a home rule issue, and he believes the statehouse has gone too far. Councilman Miller noted he had not mernioned during his report that Police Officer Holly was presern for the discussion. Officer Holly is probably one of the more well-trained officers in the state. However, there are places where he cannot carry his firearm. Mr. Miller feels that perhaps a person having only 12 hours of training should not be carrying firearms in a park. There are many events in the park where children are in attendance, and we do not need to add guns to the scenario. Councilman Nashar said he strongly objects to the issue of carrying concealed weapons. He asked that, if the resolution passes, the Clerk send it to other municipalities in the western suburbs asking them for their support. Councilman Gareau, chairperson of the Building, Zoning and Development Committee: 1) The committee met on Wednesday, April 2$, to discuss Ordinance 2004-39 and the Ganley proposal to construct a new Volkswagen dealership on Lorain Road. He will not report on that this evening because Ordinance 2004-39 was withdrawn from the agenda. As he noted earlier, there will be a meeting scheduled for Monday, May 17, at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers to discuss the ordinance and the development proposal. President O'Grady asked if there were any objections or corrections to the minutes of the Council meeting of April 20, 2004 and the special Council meeting of April 27, 2004. Hearing none, the minutes were approved as written. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane. • Noted that after the Law Director made his comments regarding the Mayor and the lawsuit, a series of questions began regarding the Mayor's suit. He is personally curious as to what the Mayor is going to find if he finally gets the right to look at this information. He tries to be reasonable and fair in looking at these issues, and ,~,, sometimes wonders how others would be reacting had their undergone such close scrutiny and careful analysis of their behavior. Perhaps they would take the same 10