Overland City Council Meeting 9/25/06

The City Council Meeting of September 25th, 2006 was held at the Overland Community Center and was attended by somewhere in excess of 260 people. I cannot report the exact number because I received conflicting reports that evening. However, all of them put the count in the 260s.

At the beginning of the meeting the Mayor informed us that the camera, for Channel 18 was not working. As a result the meeting would not be televised. Some suggested this was intentional, though personally I doubt the cameraman would have worked so hard, for so long on the camera if it was actually working.

The first thing we noticed at the meeting were the changes in the agenda. There were several interesting changes made on this meeting's agenda compared to past agendas.

(click image for full sized version)To compare to other agendas click here.

The first notable change was the move to put the residents comments at the end of the meeting. Theories and rumors were on everyone's mind regarding this action. However, I personally believe it was a wise move. By moving the comments to the end of the meeting you ensure that all of the regular business gets done first. Since residents comments have been the source of many debates among the Council members and we knew we've risked lawsuits by restricting them in the past, this was a wise move in my view. Also, you give residents a chance to comment on what just happened at that meeting. The Council might benefit from the possible immediate feedback that could result. I have to admit, I expected to see several on the Council walk out of the meeting before residents comments or at least before they were completed. I am happy to report I was wrong, and that all of our elected officials remained until their conclusion and a proper vote to adjourn that followed.

The next change involved adjourning in the middle of the Council meeting to executive session. Halting a public meeting midway through to adjourn to a private meeting and then return to the public meeting again made little sense to me. I am not sure of the reasoning here. I suspect that the intent was to ensure that the executive session was completed before residents comments which has been the source of such turmoil on the Council lately. I would like to suggest that the Mayor and the Council consider changing the start time of the Public Meeting to 8PM. Then they can schedule their executive session at 7PM the same day. The Council can meet for executive session, conduct whatever business is needed and then go to the public Council meeting without interruption and without concern that the executive session would not take place. Adjourning in the middle of the public meeting is unnecessarily disruptive in my opinion.

At this meeting the executive session in fact did not take place. Several on the Council voted against adjourning to the executive session causing that motion to fail. The reasons varied. Some complained that they did not feel they should do this in the middle of the public meeting, while others took issue with not having enough time to review information "packets" before the meeting.

After the Council failed to adjourn to executive session the Mayor asked to have several individuals speak to the Council. One was Mr. Hanson, a developer. Another was Mr. Cunningham, an Attorney the City has worked with in the past on real estate projects. A review of the above agenda shows that neither was originally scheduled to talk to the Council publicly. When asked about this the Mayor explained that they were scheduled to address the Council at the executive session. What I am curious about is why they were scheduled to discuss the issue in executive session and not publicly in the first place. The Sunshine Law does reference real estate matters when it comes to exemptions. However, the spirit of that provision, in my opinion, is to protect those involved from profiteering by others. The Mayor's choice to ask these gentleman to speak at the public meeting suggests to me that no such issue was involved. I hope future dealings on these matters will be handled publicly.

Several on the Council objected to allowing Mr. Hanson to speak, on the grounds that he was not originally on the agenda. I would have liked to hear what the man had to say personally, so I agree with Councilman Owensby when he asked "what is wrong with letting the man speak". However, it still begs the question as to why originally scheduling him to speak to the Council in executive session was necessary.

Mr Herman, the City Attorney, expressed concern about these dealings, pointing out that he had only been copied on these issues a week prior, though it was apparent that meetings on these matters had been going on for much longer. Mr. Cunningham, the Attorney apparently engaged by the City (without a vote of the Council to do so as far as I can tell), explained that "cutting" the City Attorney out of the loop was not intentional. Mr. Herman pointed out that the City had done business with Mr. Cunningham's firm in the past and expressed that he was a skilled professional and had no issue with working with him. My own concerns on this entire issue are simple. How was this attorney's services engaged without a vote of the Council, a contract, etc? Mr. Cunningham also claimed the work that would be done researching possible options would be paid for by the developer. He included his own fees in that cost, yet there was a bill from his office for his services submitted to the City and listed among the bills for the Council's consideration at this meeting.

My guess, is that the City pays him to represent us. By receiving his pay from the City, any possible conflicts of interest are avoided. Once the deal is decided one way or the other, I assume the developer will reimburse the city for the expenses from Mr. Cunningham's firm. However, I would like the City to explain this a bit better so I can be sure that is the case.

8801 Page and 2500 Ashby are apparently developments under consideration regarding this developer. I cannot be completely sure on this as the City has not been very forthcoming with information on these properties so far, and Mr. Hanson had not been allowed to speak on the issue. I would really appreciate it if the City would be a bit more open and explain to us what is under consideration and where.

One of the issues raised by Councilman O'Connell was a possible "substantial tax abatement" involved in one or both of these developments. Personally, I don't have a negative opinion of tax abatements. However, you have to show that the tax revenue you give up is worth the eventual return. That requires numbers that can be analyzed and we have yet to see those. Without the numbers, I cannot support such a measure. I hope more detailed information will become available soon.

Eventually the Council voted to table these discussions and return to them in the Parks Committee. I would like to attend such meetings and I hope they are properly, publicly announced in advance.

The Mayor stated that we financed the purchase of the Seminary property at 2500 Ashby, and that it is costing us $200,000.00 a year in payments. She also stated that we would lose the insurance on the property after December as it is unoccupied. The fact is, one building is occupied as a police substation and another is regularly rented out. The remaining buildings are unoccupied. However, I am sure the financing company requires insurance on the property. What is curious to me is that though the property was completely unoccupied when it was first insured, apparently without issue, we would now, according to the Mayor, be unable to get insurance with it partially occupied. Again, further clarification is needed from the City on this issue.

The Mayor pointed out that several of the buildings suffered water damage from the previous rains. However, some on the Council mentioned that $45,000.00 was budgeted in the Capital Improvements Budget (which passed unanimously) for repairs to prevent further water damage. This begs the question, if the money was budgeted why has nothing been done? It would be entirely possible that if something had been started it would not yet be completed. However, as far as I can tell no project has been started to protect this property thus far.

One of the "highlights" of the meeting was an exchange between the Mayor and the City Attorney. The Mayor claimed she paid all of Mr. Herman's bills with the exception of the Sunshine Law case. The Mayor seems to believe that Mr. Herman was representing the Plaintiffs in that case. In reality, his was representing the City of Overland as per his contractual obligations with the City.

Mr. Herman pointed out that he only charged the City 1/3rd of his normal billing rate as an Attorney. Mr. Knode mentioned that Mr. Herman stated at a previous meeting that he could wait to be paid until after the Mayor left office if need be. Mr. Herman acknowledged that, but explained that his issue was the Mayor's statement that she had paid all his bills, and he wanted to make it clear that several had in fact not been paid.

Later when the Mayor read a veto letter the exchange got even more interesting. In her veto letter the Mayor suggested that some of Mr. Herman's actions were unethical. Mr. Herman of course took issue with this. To the Mayor's credit she agreed that this was uncalled for and stated she would remove that part from the veto letter.

The Veto was regarding the 5-2 vote not to Pay Mr. Rudman's legal bills from when he represented the Mayor during the Sunshine Law case. Though the Mayor vetoed the vote NOT to pay the bill, there has never been a vote of the Council the engage Mr. Rudman's services, or enter into a contract with him. As a result the City still cannot pay his bill. The Mayor engaged Mr. Rudman's services privately, so I imagine she will have to handle the bill for those services privately as well.

The other bill the Council had voted not to pay at the previous meeting was an 800.00 bill from a consultant. At that time several on the Council expressed concerns about not knowing who this consultant was, or what he was working on. There had not been a vote of the Council to engage his services either. However, at this meeting the Mayor claimed that she paid his bill personally (which I assume means out of her own pocket). When asked by Councilman Schneider if the Council would be seeing a report or any information regarding what the consultant was working on the Mayor told him no. She explained that since the City was not paying his bill they were not entitled to any report. In principle I agree with her. That is of course assuming that nothing he was doing was done by this consultant under the color of authority or sanction of the City of Overland.

One issue I had at the meeting was when Mr. Owensby read the minutes from the Public Works committee meeting. My concern is that I never saw an announcement for this committee meeting. The committee meetings are supposed to be publicly accessible and announced at least 24 hours in advance. Considering that several residents (and at least one non-resident) were listed in the minutes as being in attendance I think it is safe to say it was a public meeting. So where was it publicly posted? I was under the impression the City intended to start posting all meeting announcements on the website. I would have liked to attend this meeting to better understand what is going on in our community. I would also like to attend all committee meetings in the future. I think I will need to start taking daily trips to City Hall to check out our tiny bulletin board to ensure that I do not miss anything in the future.

Another issue that came up was when Mr. Knode was recognized to speak. He spoke at length on various issues. One bit of confusion came at the very beginning of his comments. He mentioned that he was a resident among other things. As a result some took issue when his comments went longer then 3 minutes (they were around 15 minutes I believe). To set the record straight, his comments did not come during the residents comments portion of the meeting. Also, he was recognized to speak by the Chairman (the Mayor). Being a Councilman, being recognized to speak during the meeting, and not being limited by the Chair in the length of those comments is entirely proper. He was not subject to a 3 minute time limit.

At one point in Councilman Knode's remarks he accused the Chief of being derelict in his duties by not removing "disturbers" from the Council meetings, or enforcing Ordinance number 220.260 (Disrupting a Public Meeting). The Chief responded by stating that he takes direction on this issue from the Mayor, not Councilman Knode or others. Councilman Knode argued that this was true but that he had repeatedly asked the Mayor to direct the Chief to remove "disturbers". The Chief did not respond. However, as we have all seen at previous meetings there have been many times when Councilman Knode asked the Mayor to direct the chief in this manner, and the Mayor did not do so. I am not sure what the issue is here. The person responsible for determining who is disturbing a meeting and thus might be in violation of Ordinance 220.260 would the Chairman of the meeting in question. If the Chairman does not act to have someone removed, then no one gets removed. To have a crime, you need a complainant.

Overall the meeting went pretty well in the light of past meetings. City business was accomplished and all of the residents who asked to speak were allowed to do so. I hope this is beginning of improved meetings in our future. I also hope that the City will begin to better inform the public about various issues as well as committee meetings in the future.