by lynda williams

An unusual start

The October 1 City Council meeting was a little weird. After the general formalities of starting the meeting they opened it up to the Public Forum which produced no comments.

The City Council then went into a closed session: to discuss possible litigation, security, property acquisition or sale, or the character and professional competence or physical or mental health of an individual.

This closed session is usually always on the agenda with about the same wording. The only thing notable about this closed session is that it was item E on the agenda and came at the beginning of the meeting instead of it’s usual place as the last item of business after conclusion of the public meeting.

I’m glad I was attending this meeting by way of YouTube. I would not have appreciated spending an hour in the car waiting for the public meeting to resume.

As it happened there was a glitch and the video portion of the meeting never got aired. Even the audio portion of the meeting was not available until the next day on YouTube. I was especially grateful for not being there in person.

One Cryptic Business Item

There was only one item of Business on the agenda.

F. 1. Discussion and possible action to recommend that the Planning Commission consider Ordinance 2025.XX – an ordinance adopting/designating anew the highway commercial zone as reflected in the 2024 General Plan.

I have to admit this discussion was hard to follow, even reading along with the transcript. It almost seemed that they were talking in code. Saying things in a rather cryptic way without really saying it. It was also hard to identify who was talking without the video portion so I’m not going to try to assign any of these comments to a particular councilman.

clear as mud quotes

It seems that they want to clean up some items in the General Plan. They mentioned 1-8.

“I think we should make them match the Standards for Review referring to where the factors that are included. Five from 10-8-3. Which is actually B9”. (Quoted from the transcription)

This seems to be referring to a section in the city code: AMENDMENTS TO ZONE DISTRICT MAP.

More random quotes that might make more sense at some later time:

“If anyone wants to talk about the findings. Think about the findings because it’s totally different, totally different findings because we are changing some things.”
“Think we ought to let Planning Commission look at the findings and see what they want to do with them.”
“Yeah, we don’t know why we have to have them in there if we get if…”
“Well, I think planning commission need to ask themselves those questions on those findings because there’s two sets now of basically reviews- findings is not a review but yeah, one reiterates the factors that are identified in your code that they would have to find for a like zone designation like is contemplated in this ordinance and the other lists the purposes that are found in the lema. If there’s any purposes that you feel like this zone designation would not be consistent with, we can talk through those and maybe remove them but like Joe said, you guys will see this again. The planning commission will come back to you.”
“Litigation is important that gives context to what we are doing.”
“So I think that’s important that it stays, the litigation portion of it because they need to make a biased decision on the ordinance itself. Unbiased. Unbiased on the ordinance.”
“Yeah the ordinance itself rather than getting all wrapped up in all. It has nothing to do with litigation designations of property.”
“Yeah it’s just stating, it’s just designating a new accord to make sure it reflects the 2024 General Plan.”
“Make a motion that we recommend to the Planning Commission consideration for Ordinance 2025.XX an ordinance adopting and designating a new highway commercial zone as reflected in the 2024 General Plan with changes presented to us to reflect 10-8-3 to correct them to 1 through 9 correctly before we send it today. Correct? Motion and second. Roll call vote. Motion carries.”

Is it about this?

I’m not certain, but I suspect this is related to a lawsuit. You can get important details from this post.

And if this has piqued your interest, you can get the full nitty gritty of this council meeting on YouTube.

Calendar of Events

Halloween Storytelling. Saturday Oct 25, 4 pm, Old Town Hall

Halloween Trunk of Treat, Oct. 25, 6 pm, LDS Church Parking Lot

short notice for council members

The mayor asked if there was anything else anyone wanted to bring up. One councilman said he did.

He was concerned about the short notice Council sometimes gets to consider business items. Sometimes things get sneaked in within the 24-48 hours. He said it was hard to give it the consideration and preparation it deserves. He was asking if some of these things that were not that pressing could be put off to the next meeting?

“You’re asking us to vote and I’ve had maybe 2 days to look at it. That’s just not enough time.”

It kind of reminds me of Washington, D.C.: Perhaps “you have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it!”

Some bonus information

Although it was not part of this council meeting, I want to pass on something related to Toquerville. There were two posts on Interstate Rock’s request for designation as a Critical Infrastructure Materials Protection Area. First Brian McNary wrote this post. Then Barry Chandler wrote this post.

Barry Chandler let us know that, “Interstate Rock has withdrawn their request for designation as a Critical Infrastructure Materials Protection Area.”

A very cryptic Council meeting