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FLOODPLAIN FLASH: The Interim City Administrator announced there will be a special Council Study Session on Thursday 1/26, at 6:30pm at City Hall to receive a plan from Public Works Management on how to proceed with requirements from FEMA to more fully implement the cities floodplain compliance plan. This will involve not only cleaning up the remaining non-compliant properties from the 2001 inspections, but also a strategy for beginning the enormous job of inspecting all properties in the city's floodplain, and finding solutions to floodplain violations on those properties. We expect that emphasis will be placed on differentiating voluntary compliance from enforcement actions, and encourage all floodplain property owners to attend this important meeting.
ANNEXATION AND ZONING FLASH: Well, we now know how committed our City Council is to protecting our limited ground water supplies here. With just a handful of public witnesses, the Council took the unusual step of cementing their land use power at the Council meeting on 1/7. By approving an urban holding zone, the City can now annex land without the owner needing to demonstrate that sufficient city services are available to accommodate development of the property. Rather than the power to annex residing in city codes that are intended to be transcendent to the whims of a given governing body; by amending those codes, the power to decide who "gets in" and who doesn't now resides solely with the Council.
FLYWATER PREQUEL FLASH (With the emphasis on Water): For the past several months, Truth for (A) Change has been working on information received from a citizen that a new well had been drilled for a proposed development on Bond Road. This raises concern because each new well drilled for new dwellings impacts the limited ground water available to people already living here. What we have learned is that over the past few years, the developer has partitioned four quarter-acre lots, secured sewer connections for the lots and drilled a well to provide water. City Hall informs us that no further partitioning will be permitted on this parcel until the entire subdivision is submitted; however, that stipulation was made by way of a "personal conversation" between the public works director and the developer--there is no actual city documentation supporting that requirement. In light of the new zero holding zone (see Annexation and Zoning Flash above), we are more concerned than ever that more wells will be drilled "under the radar," further eroding the limited ground water supplies we have here.
CITY HALL SHENANIGANS FLASH: We are happy to report that City Hall now has both public meeting agendas and packets and meeting recordings on the City's website.
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