City Council Preview - April 16

 
This week’s city council meeting has a few items of interest. For one thing, the City Council should address the breach of its own guidelines (and quite possibly the law) from the use of prayer in the council chamber at the last meeting. See my previous blog for specifics. For another, there will be discussion of proposed changes to the signage ordinances. Both Adam Nick and Dwight Robinson have been proponents of making the City more “business friendly” and here’s a chance to do it. Of course, it’s a fine line, and for the sake of making a City more business friendly we don’t want to turn it into a “strip” or to have the type of problems we see it cities like Los Angeles.

The real attraction for this week’s meeting is the recognition of the work of three of our Sheriff Deputies. In May of 2012, Deputies Jeremy Buffong, Manual Duran and Sean Dumas acted courageously by risking their own lives to save a woman who was the victim of multiple gunshot wounds. OCSD awarded them the Medal of Courage for their actions, and this is the chance for the City to recognize their service to our citizens.

The other item of interest is the review of the 5-year strategic plan. I covered the workshop review of this plan in a previous blog. This week’s meeting will by the council’s follow-up to discuss the subjects raised in their joint meeting with commission members. Quote frankly there were some good ideas raised at that joint meeting, but I don’t think there was enough time for the 14 members to fully discuss the issues. My own recommendation would be that they re-convene the joint meeting and go into more detail about these issues and come up with some definitive plans.

BTW – also on the agenda is a staff recommendation that the City Council initiate a competitive procurement process to identify and select a firm to provide sales tax and property tax audit and reporting services. If you’re a local business that specializes in this service, here’s your chance to put in a bid and get some of that $35,000,000 the City spends each year deposited at home.