Monday, July 30, 2012

Council Meeting Tonight

A special meeting has been called for tonight. This is the fourth meeting in July. The council usually takes August off but with everything that has been going on there is a lot of business to be taken care of.

I also heard a little bit ago on the radio that there will be a group at tonight's meeting protesting a police shooting in the city, so should be another wild time.

Here are some of the items on tonight's agenda for those who might want to attend:

  • Consent Agenda Items
    • Accepting a JAG grant for the Police Dept for $76,781
    • Renewing DPOA agreement to hire supplemental police for downtown at $120,000 for the year
    • Agreement with School District (PUSD) to cofund Community School Resource Officer
    • Agreement to lease purchase CNG Trash Trucks over 7 years for $4.1 million.
    • To put on the November ballot a city version of the charter amendment to compete with the Charter Review Commission's charter amendment
    • To put on the November ballot a $61 per parcel tax to go to the Fire Contract (total $3 million/year)
    • To put on the November ballot a $38 per parcel tax to go to the Library to continue library services
  • Changes to job descriptions to allow new library staff to be hired as hourly, non-benefited, part time workers
  • Ordinance allowing for the impounding of cars as nuisance when involved in an arrest for prostitution.
  • Public Benefit funding for:
    • $100 to Latino Art Museum
    • $200 to Fairplex Big Yellow Bus program
    • $75 for Latina Roundtable Meeting at Philadelphia Park
I'm sure that there will be comments to be made tomorrow on several of these issues.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The city attorney deliberately ignored council's previous direction to explore language on the library tax measure guaranteeing a certain amount of funding from the city's general fund. He claimed it was in the interest of time. Now he has a couple of days to come up with those options. Same with the sunset clause.

On August 6, the council will get a choice of which measure to put on the ballot, then the city has 4 days to submit the paperwork to the state. The 6th would be the last day to decide, and while I believe it is important to get this right and find the appropriate language to get a library tax that stands a chance of passing, they are cutting it very close.

On the subject of Pomona's history, which was discussed at length last night: while I agree with the current Mayor's populist rhetoric that the historical artifacts belong to the people of Pomona and we should be able to see them if we want to, there has to be a responsibility to preserve and protect that history for generations to come. The declaration of independence belongs to all americans...go ask the smithsonian if you can touch it. No, DEMAND to touch it. Then demand they stop laughing as security escorts you away. While I'm sure the library does not have anything of that magnitude to catalog appraise and post on ebay, the analogy remains. Preserve, protect, and make it as accessible as possible with the resources available.

Would you really want to treat your city's history worse than you treat baseball cards? Would you let a volunteer touch your collectibles and show them off to strangers without consequence? I hope not, or would at least hesitate more than the mayor and council did at the suggestion. And these are not memorabilia, this is our city's history we're talking about.

John Clifford said...

The city attorney I guess was spending a lot of time on writing an alternate amendment to the charter from the one that the Charter Review Commission has on the ballot so couldn't spend time on the library.

As for a sunset clause, I can't blame that on the city attorney. The Library board of trustees (Commission) didn't ask for that. The arguments (which I agree with) is that sunsets are great for temporary projects, it is unlikely that the library or the city will be flush with funding anytime in the near future. If not, then they'd have to go back and ask for an extension and the public REALLY hates it when you go back over and over again asking for more (I think this is part of the problem with school measures, it seems like there's something more on each ballot).