Council meeting 1/13/2012

I attended Council on 1/13 and here's what I saw.

2011 Final General Fund balance. With the information I have, I believe the final balance is artificically high vs where we should have landed. I believe we truly ran a deficit in the General Fund in 2011 (3 of last 4 years). Result: a false sense of security for the Village's "checking account". Again, with the information I have, it appears to be a benign situation. If evidence presents itself to the contrary, I'll followup and dig deeper.

Ed'd Sidewalk Opinion. Where Village trees have damaged sidewalks, it's on us to fix. Where they have not, we're not on the hook. The resident is. This is very clear - thx Ed for the clarification. This will come in handy as Public Works decides how to prioritize sidewalk repair in 2012.

IT/Computer consolidation. I am very excited about the progress made to our IT Infrastructure. We'll have some growing pains for sure, but this modernization is overdue and will help reduce cost and reduce risk to the Village and its data. Thx Jeff for seeing this through.

IT Purchases. I'd like to see us purchase exclusively from the State purch program for consistency and stability as well as cost.

West Street Parking. I continue to be concerned by the soundbites mentioned during Council, suggesting work is being done without Council's consent (or full awareness). This is a big enough project that every little bit needs to be done for public review and scrutiny. Further, work being done to take West St down to 15mph or even 10mph is very concerning because it essentially eliminates West as an egress street into out of District 4 (triangle bound by Murray, Madisonville and Miami). This is the primary way into and out of my neighborhood (from/to Fairfax). This will be an undue burden on the residents of District 4. Again, I would hope all work on this controversial plan will be done in public.

Pool Board expansion. Council was given verbatims from Pool Board Members requesting the expansion. I had asked for this at last Council meeting. Similar to the Parks board, supporting our volunteers trumps a sub-optimal organizational structure. So I supported it and voted for people and structure.

Scott McIntosh reappointment. As promised by the Mayor in December, I look fwd to his renomination of Scott to the pool board now that the board has been expanded. 1st reading should be next Council meeting.

Executive Session. We talked only about the 1 confidential topic: E&O Settlement.

I voted in the affirmative on all votes. All were administrative in nature except Pool Board & Parks Board changes which I support (see above).

Cortney

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