Common Council Meeting 10/18/2023 – Will Vote On Lawe Street Truck Route Resolution, Mental Health Awareness Resolution, Wastewater Utility Rate Increase, Salary Increases For Mayor And City Attorney

The Common Council is meeting 10/18/2023 at 7PM.

CC-Agenda-Packet-10-18-23-REV.PDF Download

One never knows exactly what items if any will be separated out for individual votes by the Common Council, but there are a number of items of note from the committee meetings last week.

The resolution regarding the Lawe Street Truck Route will be coming before the Council. This resolution calls for city staff to further explore the possibility of removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street between College and Hancock. The committee had initially been recommended for approval by the Municipal Services Committee after being amended to specify what areas should be investigated by staff. It was then referred back to the committee which upon further review voted 3-1 to deny the resolution. One of the concerns driving that recommendation was that the city could lose $2.8 million in grant funds for the Lawe Street reconstruction project if it removed the truck route designation.

The Mental Health Awareness and Services Resolution will also be coming before the Council. This had initially been approved by the Board of Health after minimal discussion, but the video for the meeting was not posted in a timely manner and alderpersons who were not present at the meeting had not been able to review the discussion. As a result, it was referred back to the board for further discussion.

The board ended up recommending it for approval a second time, this time after amending it to require that $1 million in ARPA funds be provided as grants to local mental health organizations.

The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee recommend salary increases for the positions of City Attorney and Mayor for the next four years.

The Utilities Committee voted to approve a 7% wastewater rate increase for general services and special hauled waste.

The Municipal Services Committee voted to approve free ramp and meter parking on Small Business Saturday this coming November. At the time there was no discussion as to the impact this would have on the city’s parking utility; however, Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) has indicated on her aldermanic blog that she will be asking about that at the Council meeting.

Finally, although I did not have an opportunity to recap the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting, the committee voted unanimously to approve the award of approximately $80,000 in Neighborhood Grant Program funds to be awarded to the Historic Central Neighborhood to cover the cost of upgrades to the Columbus Elementary School playground.