The Ides of March

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head. In my last posting, I put up my letter of resignation from the Budget Oversight Board. The commission in its wisdom decided that the problem was not that the budget meetings happened during the workday when most residents can't attend, but that members should be people who are not busy at that time. Kind of narrows the pool.

Other things happened at the meeting. There is a proposal to take out the oak trees on Treasure Island at some cost to the city. I think it would be much better to fix the problem. The trees should be beautiful.

The city planner resigned. Word has it that the resignation was not amicable. There is a great deal of lingering bitterness over the cavalier way he treated the strip club application, never reviewing or applying the conditions specified in the city ordinance, and apparently there were many complaints that business permits were handled randomly.

We need serious zoning and coding revision. Many of our problems stem from poor zoning and I hope this will be an opportunity for a top to bottom review of the whole city plan.

Speaking of strip clubs, apparently the plans were resubmitted and rejected as incomplete. Word on the street has it that Scott Greenwald is very angry at the commission he bought and paid for. Who could have known that these people were unreliable? Just kidding, we all knew.

Dr. Vogel continues to be absent and Mrs. Vogel is still ducking the bill collectors who would like her to pay back the seven years of personal phone service paid for by the city.

The police department lost a court case and now has to reinstate a wrongly fired officer at great cost to the city. They are poised to lose another. And Tuesday, they took another $100,000 out of the Law Enforcement Trust Fund to pay for routine overtime. It's a lucky thing there are no community policing programs in place, Crime Watch, Outreach to the Elderly, PAL, or they might have to be cut. I wonder if an individual department can declare bankruptcy or if the whole city will have to? I'll check that out.

The meeting droned on until about 12:40 AM. Eddie Lim, now the only elected commissioner, was visibly impatient and Connie Lim-Kreps, lawsuit winner, got terribly confused over which items on the agenda were being covered.

We really need to do something different in November.

Kevin Vericker
March 15, 2012