Council Meeting 6/13

I attended Council on 6/13 and here's what I saw.

In house installation of new Fire Dpt alarm system - I think this is great opportunistic savings, and it's a great way to offset big cost increases. For instance, why couldn't a Fire Guy/Girl answer the main Village phone number? Figure out a fair perk for double duty and leverage their need to be in the building whenever not on a run. Well done.

Online payments. Well done Jeff, let's expand! Trash fees, Income tax, etc.

Extra Sidewalk replacement $$ this year. With Miami Rd grant (great), we can authorize some additional sidewalk creation and replacement. I would like to see the east side of East Street, between East Bound and West Bound Wooster. There should be a sidewalk and a crosswalk there.

Hamilton County Development $$ participation. I am slowly learning about this. It is grant money in exchange for the possibility of low income housing units, to be placed in Ham Co suburbs outside of the City of Cincinnati. I do not want property value erosion, no on does, but a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) doesn't solve problems, while decentralizing low income households seems to make great sense. The argument is: decentralized low income citizens see and matriculate to higher income. Concentration doesn't allow for a new point of view. I feel we should at least investigate this. "Control" is the argument batted around, but it's a thinly veiled argument to keep low income people out of Mariemont. With Section 8 already available to ANY Village landlord, we probably already have low income families here. Is this program right? I don't know, but I would welcome discussion at least as a 1st step. We're walking away from real grant money and the Village sorely needs income now (and in the future)

Emergency Ordinance popularity - we do last minute legislation too often. Our lack of planning hurts the cause of Democracy in the Village. And it looks bad. We should back up the Calendar 2 meetings (1 mo) to avoid 3 readings in one night. We can do better on some of our Emergency legislation.

Disabled/Handicap parking at Belltower. I think we should seriously consider adding disabled only parking, but I feel full Council needs to be in on the decision. My idea of STREET handicapped parking was not even considered prior to me bringing it up. And my idea solves the extra width requirement without taking an additional valuable spot. We need group think here. Not just a couple of folks making big decisions without Council.

I voted in the affirmative on all votes, as all were procedural in nature. Liquor license suspension is for an interesting, novel adult pool party. I'm supportive of this and would like to see it broadened (carefully). Additional stop signs seem to be popping up a bit too frequently, but I am not in opposition of additional stop points in the Village.

www.icrctv.com

Cortney