Quick Updates

I'm a little under the weather today so I'm just going to make a few quick updates.

DARE PAL Suspension-We are now full week later with no announced transition plans. In the meantime, the parents are out gathering signatures demanding the reinstatement of the programs. Police Chief Daniels and interim city manager Bob Pushkin continue to stonewall the parents and have never responded to direct requests for meetings with the parents.

The whole mishandling of this and the continued refusal of the city administration to even speak to the citizens are a disastrous preview of what this crowd has in store for us. It looks like the budget cuts are being used to attain entirely unrelated outcomes. It's particularly surprising that a new hire like Chief Daniels would be so tone deaf about the community he has been hired to serve.

Planning and Zoning Board Meeting - I will say it loud and say it proud, Penelope Friedland is my hero of the well run, get it done, meeting. She is sharp, crisp, makes certain that all who are participating have a chance to be heard, controls needless rambling firmly and tactfully and her questions clarify and seek information.

You really should attend one of these meetings - they're a model of civic participation. I went to last night's meeting.

The two resolutions they discussed were controversial.

The first, a resolution to make 7904 West Drive a fully zoned commercial building, was opposed by the homeowner's association and recommended for rejection by the city planner. On the face of it, that would make sense but there's something weird about that building.

7904 sits on two lots - one zoned commercial and one zoned residential. The penthouse is split right down the middle which means that on one side of the apartment you can have a business but an invisible line means you can't on the other.

The owner, Al Coletta, wants to rent the penthouse for a business but can't since he can only operate one half of that space as such.

This is a big zoning mess and someone has to give.

The P and Z Board split 2 - 2 on the recommendation and this will come before the commission next week.

The second resolution was to make the building at 7910 West Drive commercial as well. The problem with that resolution was that nobody who proposed it was there to talk about why. A lawyer from the phantom Indigo Lofts got up to express his objection to the rezoning. In other words, the board had a resolution for change from someone who never showed up and opposition from a project that never got built. It didn't seem like a very good use of their time but it was interesting.

The board recommendation 3 - 2 was to deny rezoning.

Kevin Vericker
September 22, 2010