Glass City Jungle

The Blade reported today on some of what happened at last night’s Council meeting. One item on the agenda that has gotten quite a bit of discussion here is the Ottawa River Dredging project. The Blade reports Councilwoman Lindsay’s Webb resolution to Support Ottawa River Navigational Dredging Project that would have asked for the $1.35 million to be saved did not pass, from what I’ve been told Councilwoman Webb offered a compromise amendment of $458,000 being saved for the Ottawa River Dredging project, that was what she received support on from Councilman Tom Waniewski. Then Councilman Joe McNamara’s amendment to that resolution to ask for $100,000 to be held for the project did pass.

Another issue we’ve followed on the blog was the “Submit to Plan Commission changes to TMC Ch. 1107 & 1108, green infrastructure practices” which does not require but would allow the use of permeable pavement.

What I was surprised was not covered in the Blade and does not appear to have gotten any linkable media, was what happened at the portion of the Council meeting when non-attendance at Council Committee Meetings and Council Meetings are routinely excused. Councilman Tom Waniewski asked for his non-attendance at a Committee meeting to not be excused and requested that the rules of the City Charter be applied and that 1% of his yearly salary be deducted. He urged his fellow council members to follow his lead.

The City Charter states as a part of Chapter IV – Legislative Powers and Duties under Section 31. Salary and Attendance of Council Members:

For each absence of a member from regular meetings of the Council, unless excused by a vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of all the members thereof, there shall be deducted a sum equal to two percent (2%) of his or her annual salary. For each absence of a member from regular meetings of any Council committee of which he or she is a member made up entirely of members of Council, unless excused by a vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of all members of the Council, there shall be deducted a sum equal to one percent (1%) of his or her annual salary.

I spoke briefly with Councilman Waniewski this morning, he stated he was “putting his money where his mouth was” on the issue of attendance. The issue of attendance was something that was discussed during the last Council retreat, some frustration was expressed by several members as to the routine process where every absence is excused. I believe this is the first time this has ever happened where this part of the Charter was actually enforced, I understand there was an attempt to enforce this quite a few years ago but it was not done.

It appears there was quite a bit of discussion concerning the “Wish List” that was sent to the to the U.S. Conference of Mayors and will be sent to the Obama transition team as well as Congress, both on the issue of there being no communication with Council as to the items on the list and Councilman McNamara’s legislation to appropriate $200,000 for planning & engineering of a Municipal Solar Field. It’s stated in the Blade article part of the concern related to this appropriation was that the Law Department had not fully vetted it, it appears that the Law Director was given this prior to the Council Meeting and the Law Department did sign off on the legislation which will now be before the Economic Development Committee. The larger solar field project will be submitted to the Obama transition team, by the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department. It’s kind of interesting it was stated that an email was sent to Council on December 5th. The actual “wish list” was released on December 8th, so even if Council members would have wanted to have input, telling them on a Friday about something that has already been completed and ready to be released on a Monday would be hard to argue is “team work”. If you are interested in reading the list submitted by Toledo, click here if you want to search other cities or read the full list, visit USMayors.org and click the “Ready to go” report.

When the Council Meeting for yesterday is put up on the Knowledge Stream and/or Toledo City Council website, I’ll update. We still don’t seem to have that system totally in place as far as the turn around time of the meeting taking place and it ending up on the websites. I’m hopeful that will improve as time goes on so that it can be utilized by those in the community who want to learn more about what City Council is doing. As a reminder, the direct link to the Knowledge Stream website, courtesy of WGTE is located here on the Survival Resources Gov page, both Toledo City Council Meetings and Toledo Public School Board meetings are recorded and uploaded.