01/18/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 1/18/2005 for replacement Fire Station No. 2 and declaring an emergency. The Law Director pointed out to the committee that he is not authorized to proceed with negotiations with the property owners until appraisals have first been completed. Since the decision to proceed with appraisals was just made, it was the recommendation of the joint Public Safety and BZD Committees that the legislation be held in committee. • Law Director Dubelko inquired whether the motion to amend Ordinance 2004-80 included the various other changes discussed and recommended by committee in addition to those for Section 13b3.07 (a) (7). Councilman Gareau said it had not, and he made a motion to amend Ordinance 2004-80 consistent with the modifications as written in the document. The motion was seconded by Councilman McKay and passed unanimously. Ordinance No. 2004-80 amended for a second time. Councilman Miller requested that the issue of newspaper and advertising boxes be taken into committee. For example, he explained there are numerous boxes at the intersection of Sparky Lane and Lorain Road. A number of these are clearly not news publications, but are commercial ventures. Some of the boxes are in the right-of--way, and they are an eyesore. Councilman Gareau, chairperson of the BZD Committee, agreed to take the issue into committee for discussion. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane, commented that our city and others are endeavoring to make services more efficient and basically tightening their belts. However, in the case of regional transit, he believes things seem to be growing. Over a period of years, RTA has gotten into other service areas such as snowplowing and even law enforcement. These are all services that could be provided by private firms or the individual municipalities at a lower cost. RTA is now coming back to our community and telling us they don't have the money for NOMBL, that they need to cut back, they need to tighten their belt. But they don't need to tighten their belt when they start shifting those extraordinary expenses to the city to bear their brunt of the cutbacks. This is something that really needs to be looked at. Somebody needs to get into the books at RTA and see what they are spending versus what their ridership has been. Another area of extravagance is the use of large buses in off-peak hours when much smaller vehicles could be used. These extravagant expenses are being shifted onto the burden of this community when they ask us to forego our contract to "save them money" so they can continue to spend on extravagances. They need to drive buses and nothing else. Finance Director Copfer said that the negotiating committee, at the first meeting, requested detailed information. RTA's CAFR is more like a corporate annual report, very glossy, very high-level information. It doesn't even break it down by what type of transit. The team requested more detailed information but has not yet received it. Law Director Dubelko noted that Congressman Kucinich has made a public records demand and has acquired records and is communicating with RTA based on the records he has acquired. 8