City Council Meeting update 10/7/09

Zowie Batman, What a time last night. First to start with the mundane. Surprisingly there was not a prayer this week. Whew...Read my last CC post and you'll understand. Attending was Dan, Sandra, Bruce and Lois. Gary is traveling. The administrators report was of course short. I'm failing to see why the City Managers cannot attend and report themselves to Council. The fire hydrants are being tested as per State regs. The tops are being color coded with spray paint so that the fire dept can tell which hydrants put out the most water. I won't go into all of the color coding details here but I will say that if you have a bag over one in front of your house, you might consider buying a really big garden hose. A reminder that snow removal is the responsibility of each property owner or tenent of a business or residence. As is maintenence or repair of sidewalks. The city admin not so nicely reminded everyone that they can bill you if the city does the work because you were neglegent. Ouch.....A spirit of civic pride and not fist slamming would be nice here. A private individual would like to build a house just outside of city limits on 4th street. The city would have to draft an agreement for water service. This issue will be addressed at a later date after more info. Last, the Medical Center has no Flu shots yet. Ha. You heard it here first!!Larry Manning from Planning gave an update on the "transportation exhibit". So far as Ii understand it is an addition to the Heritage Center. I'm guessing it was a state grant because I can't see Dan funneling any more money into the glass house. It was decided that any work wouldn't happen until next Spring anyway.
On to the agenda. Bronco Billys has been trying to use their lots by District Supply for storage for quite sometime now. I think the biggest objection was the proposed use of Conex Boxes. They have agreed to build an actual building that would be used for storage and maintenence. This seemed to be more agreeable to Council and they passed the rezoning of Lots from C1 to C2.
Item 2. Improvememts to Bennett. Chip Huffman, public works and Bill, City Admin. A really big poster with details of every pothole problem and curb issue from the District Museum to the Jailhouse Museum. Bill gave an impassioned, albeit whiny, speech about how the State refused to maintain or repair the State highway, technically Bennett Ave, that runs through town. Hmmm.... Now they know how we feel about the fence. Temp plan will get started right away to fill in the potholes with asphalt. Duh...After a quite lengthy disscusion over who talked to who, it turns out the Larry seemed to have everything worked out and was the one talking to all the right people.
Item 3. Womacks asked for money to repair the Palace sign. Passed with restictions on neon tubing. Old vs New. Same old story.
Item 4. The Elks lodge asked for HP monies to repair and paint the front facade of the building. John Sharpe, an Elks trustee, spoke about some of the strucrual problems the building is having. Item was tabled until the engineers report can be discussed in detail.
Now the rest of the meeting was the public comment portion. I spoke first and asked the Council about the feasibility of getting the Council meetings webcast. I think this would be great for all of us because you could just watch them yourselves at your convenience and you wouldn't have to put up with my sarcasm. Dan asked if I would be willing to set this up and of course I said yes, because I can't say no.....So, look for this to happen soon because I like to get things done. The rest of the Public Comments were very impassioned pleas to the Council not to let the Butte close or TATC leave our community. Dan specifically said that they would not close down the Butte but that they needed to scale back. Mary Barron and Michelle Kohne said it best when they both stated that they'd rather miss a few potholes, refering to Bennett, than miss the Butte. Mel Moser speaking later, after many others, said that he wanted to thank the City for the opportunity to produce live theatre in Cripple Creek and that he wanted everyone to know that they were good stewards of the City's money. I know this is true because as the costume shop manager I think I'm making about $2 an hour, and I know that there are other city dept managers making far more money than Mickey. He's working 12-14 hour days. In one last note. The mandatory trash service issue is, as Dan put it, DOA. In other words. Dead......