08/18/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 8/18/2009 and Center Ridge Road. Based on those results, we'll come back to City Council with that. Mr. Sturgeon said he couldn't come up with any real benefit of what the city would gain by raising that speed limit. He can think of a number of things why we shouldn't do it for safety reasons. Mayor O'Grady said it is fairness to the motoring public. It's trying to be responsible and do what is just. Regarding allowing dogs in the park, he wholeheartedly agrees with Mr. Sturgeon. People should be able to bring their pets in the parks, but they should be required to keep them on a leash and clean up after them. He knows that city crews have to clean up after dogs in the park now. The people who are letting their dogs run in the parks are doing that improperly. There are law abiding citizens who should be afforded the same opportunity to bring their pets, but they would do it the right way. He would encourage Council to take that up. If there's any way the city administration can assist, he would welcome the opportunity. President Kennedy commented that Mr. Mahoney will probably take that up in his Recreation Committee. Commenting on the issue of health care, Mayor O'Grady said the legislation that is before Council is simply encouraging reform, and that is what's needed. Right now, our citizens are suffering. Reform must happen. The reality is that the insurance industry is one of the most profitable industries in the United States of America. The insurance industry takes 24 cents out of every dollar to provide services. The government through Medicare takes about 3 cents on every dollar. The insurance companies are not going to regulate themselves. And until we actually put in regulations to start controlling costs, our people are going to continue to suffer. When the time comes to vote, he would ask that Council look favorably upon this and think about the people who are having a difficult time. We have great delivery of medicine in our nation, but we have an incredibly poor system of charging for it. It's too expensive. 6) Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane, said he concurs wholeheartedly with the Mayor regarding that issue. It is apropos to the people of North Olmsted directly. A gentleman last tr%~:eting stood up here and said he had no job and no health insurance, but he didn't agree with it. He is not so sure he would want to be in that gentleman's position. Most people are just a few medical treatments away from losing everything they have if they have to make one trip to the hospital. And our citizens are directly impacted right here in North Olmsted. 7) Terry Smith, 26615 Fairfax, is against the universal health care. He thinks a lot of our health problems have been caused by the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid. That's a whole other subject, which he'd like to proceed further in some other forum. He guesses he is promoting health care reform too. Health care reform could mean anything. Regarding the signage, it seems like cooperation between businesses and local government and schools to create the signs is a good thing. It could even go further-he thinks any business should be able to put out signs. Again, it's their property. It's individual rights. Why shouldn't they be allowed to put signs where they want, what they want up there, as high as they want to? Some of these zoning laws go against individual rights. As far as charging the people to put the banners across, that's not the right direction. Let them put the banners across, but let everyone else put out signs too. 12