Tonight’s meeting Agenda includes the CDBG Grant from HUD, which is Federal money for low income housing assistance and other community development needs. The city’s contract with Panhandle Area Council for administering this Fed money is to be approved tonight. But there are problems. First, the approval was put on the Consent Calendar, which means they won’t discuss it as a separate item unless someone insists; it’s bunched together with other “stuff” and passed all at once.
Secondly, the City has botched this thing up from the start, last Fall. The PROCESS they used to choose the company to administer the program did not meet the Federal guidelines. (Do you detect a theme here…lack of clear and proper process?) The City didn’t bid out the administration job fairly. They gave different information to the group they wanted, so that their bid came in lowest. But it’s a group that has never worked with CDGB entitlement funds before, and there are lots of hoops to jump through when dealing with the Feds. Other groups in town have a history of successful experience with HUD, but the city gave them incomplete information, so the bidding process was tainted.
Now, long after the December meeting of the City Council when the city staff said they had to “hurry” to get the approval for this same contract, the city is still spinning it’s wheels because they have not followed proper procedure. And the HUD money has not yet helped one person in CdA.
(Note: many people think that this HUD money was the reason the city was so suddenly adamant about fixing the sidewalks, because to get approval for HUD money brings greater scrutiny from above, and the ADA requirements for city issues and schools are examined more closely.)
Another Agenda item to watch tonight, is the Mayor’s appointments. There’s still an empty seat on the LCDC board. Will she appoint someone tonight? Will it be the just-retired school superintendent Harry Amend who is very connected with the city and has also just been hired by the Kroc Center? Just a question.
Don a suit of armor if you attend in person, or grab your remote control and tune into Channel 19 — the fun starts at 6pm in the Community Room of the new Library.
Mary,
The Council’s agenda reads:
That implies consent calendar items will be removed for later discussion if a citizen requests it. That implication is an intentional deception by the City.
On November 7, 2006, I appeared at the Council meeting and during public comments requested that a consent calendar item be removed for later discussion. The council refused. There was no reason given for the refusal, but the factual reason is that the item slipped into the Consent Calendar and being “ratified” at that council meeting had been illegally approved days earlier over the telephone by several council members in violation of several provisions of the Idaho Open Meeting Law. How do I know? Because Dixie Reid admitted it. I have her recorded admission.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
Bill,I thought you were going to include some audio clips,on some of these blogs?I’d like to hear dixie,
openly violate the ‘open meeting laws’.You did your audio testing
awhile ago,to see if we could play MP3 files.
Comment by kageman — July 1, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
kageman,
Great idea! I should be able to strip the audio track from the City’s DVD of the meeting and post it as an .mp3 file here. If you’re interested in a written transcript of the exchange, go to my Whitecaps post titled Explosions Shake Coeur d’Alene Place Home. Further down in that post is an explantion of just how the City violated not only its own City Ordinance but the Open Meeting Law as well.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Tucking items into the Consent Calendar is an often used ploy of the city. Frankly, I have found it to be a questionable practice that circumvents the public process as little discussion, if any, takes place on these issues. Case in point: Person Field Memorandum of Understanding.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — July 1, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
It would be great to see or hear all of Channel 19’s broadcasts of the LCDC or City Council or SD271 but if you don’t have access to Time-Warner cable – you are out of luck.
I have been told by Susan Weathers from the city:
* I could go to someone’s house who has cable access and view the programs
* I asked if the library carries any copies of the Channel 19 offerings and they don’t
* Could I check out a copy of the meeting I want to view from the city – No they only have one copy and then they destroy the older DvDs or VHS periodically
* I can go down and sit in her office and view the program I want on her DVD player
I asked if these programs couldn’t be podcasted over the internet. Well according to Susan there would be a legal issue with Time-Warner over the rights of this as they own the equipment and the service that they are providing to the city
So guess the ones of us who use Direct or Dish TV are out of luck seeing this programming on Channel 19 and being involved in our city governing bodies.
Any ideas out there on viewing the programs?
Comment by ShyAnn — July 1, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
ShyAnn,
The City will charge you $30 plus 6% sales tax for a copy of any DVD of a public meeting.
If you’re part of a group that is interested in DVRing the meetings on Channel 19, and if one of the group’s members has cable, chip in and buy a digital video recorder and record the meetings yourself. At the City’s $31.80 per DVD ripoff, it won’t take long for you to pay off a very good DVR. I’ve got a Panasonic DMR-EZ27 DVD Recorder, and it’s got all the features needed to make your own DVDs.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
I cannot believe the city is not trying some ploy to say it is illegal todo the recording of council meetings. After all, the NFL, NBA, NASCAR all have disclaimers about rebroadcast being “strictly prohibited”.
Comment by concerned citizen — July 1, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
With housing prices dropping like a rock, all the LCDC would have to do is encourage businesses that pay livable wages to come in and VOILA! They would be heros.
I know! I know! This is the LCDC we are talking about. What was I thinking, silly me!
Comment by concerned citizen — July 1, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
ShyAnn, Post Falls has their city council meetings on the internet! They have them broken into sections, about three per meeting, and you just click on the video and download. I asked Channel 19 and city councilman Woody McEvers about it, and he said he’d look into it. Obviously not. Or the city doesn’t want to make it accessible.
Comment by mary — July 1, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
kageman,
You requested that I post an .mp3 file of Dixie Reid’s admissions the Council had violated the Idaho Open Meeting Law at the November 7, 2006, Council Meeting. Here is that one-minute audio segment from public comments. It will help if you read along from the transcript I linked to in my response on July 1, 2008, at 1:40 p.m. If you are not familiar with the requirements of the Idaho Open Meeting Law, you may want to review Attorney General Wasden’s publication, the Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual.
If you want to hear the audio of the entire exchange between Reid and me, I’m sure the City Clerk will be happy to provide you with an audio recording or a copy of the DVD.
Comment by Bill — July 3, 2008 @ 7:42 am
Bill,has Lake City H.S.had anymore fireworks displays since the Nov.3,2006 incident?
Thanks,for the audio post.Everybody
who comes on opencda,should listen to this clip.
Comment by kageman — July 3, 2008 @ 9:45 am
kageman,
Not to my knowledge. When I spoke with Principal Brumley in November 2006, he indicated the school would be more alert to possible disturbances to the surrounding neighborhoods. I suspect that if the school was planning something that would cause such a significant disturbance, the principal or the district would contact the neighbors or at least the neighborhood associations. We’re going to be moving this comment up front and reposting it as a full post.
Thanks for reminding me about doing the audio clips. Dan, Mary, and I hope we will be able to find a way to extract video clips with as much clarity and resolution so we can post them.
Comment by Bill — July 3, 2008 @ 12:46 pm