02/05/2008 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 2/5/2008 Councilman Kearney, chairperson of the Public Safety, Health & Welfare Committee: 1) The committee met January 22 at 6:50 p.m. Present were committee members Orlowski, Mahoney, Kearney; Councilmen Barker and Gareau; Director Dailey. The committee voted 3-0 not to object to the transfer of a liquor permit at 27092 Lorain Road, from MJE397 Ltd. to Dover Pub, Inc. Councilman Kearney made a motion that Council not object to the liquor permit transfer from MJE397 Ltd. to Dover Pub, Inc. The motion was seconded by Councilman Orlowski and passed unanimously. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane. Expressed appreciation to the Law Director for having looked into the legal and ethical question regarding the website. However, he still believes this is not beneficial to the people because it does not move the city business forward The issue is, how do you want to run your city? He believes it should be run like a business. He brought this to Council's attention because, whether it is legal or not, Council could generate legislation regarding the operation of that website. What the public needs is current events. They don't need to be filtering through a lot of extraneous information. He does not believe those types of personal information would be found on a business website. Mayor O'Grady did not agree with Mr. Lambert and said that other governmental officials and corporate officials do post their biographical information. It is not improper. It is good, open government. Mr. Lambert said the Mayor unilaterally took the move to determine what is on the website. Council has a right to oversee it, and he has come to discuss that with them. Two wrongs don't make a right. Jim Burns, 3978 Dover Center. When cities issue bonds, whatever their own rating is, they go out and insure the bonds and the bonds will be sold as AAA rating. The insurance company guarantees that payment will be made if the city is unable to do it. He brings up this issue because a recent newspaper article noted that ratings for a bond insurer had been downgraded, which is a potential problem for cities as the insurer will probably not underwrite any more business making it more difficult for cities to issue new bonds. The article went on to say, that a very minimum, the troubles of the insurers will drive up borrowing costs of cities and other local entities at a time when many are strained by weaker tax revenues. Council has three ordinances before them. The cost is going up- it's either going to go up in higher interest rates or it's going to go up because the bonds will have to be sold at a discount. He does not think this city has a problem making their payments. But the market perception is out there. In addition, National City, who is still doing the bonding for the city, has been sued by a number of people for financially understating their losses because of the foreclosure problem. NatCity Investments may not be in a position to help the investing and put packages together to sell these type of issues. Other banks don't have the same problems. When Council is looking at the budget this year, they need to plug in some numbers for some higher costs for doing business in the bond market. Terry Smith, 26615 Fairfax Lane, is concerned. about recent legislation which increased the fine for illegally parking in handicapped/disabled spots. He believes it was passed so the city, instead of the State, could get the money from the fines. He believes the 7