Your City Council Live: Feb. 16

CITY MANAGER REPORTS AND RESOLUTIONS

Item 1-- Agreement with Lew Edwards Group: Passed 3-2, with Councilman Gerard Boulanger and Councilwoman De Vera dissenting.

Item 2-- Received report from Parks and Rec on the department's financials.

Item 3-- Sister city MOU: Adopted.

Item 4-- Strategic plan: Council has additional notes it will submit to amend the plan.

Item 5-- Wasetwater pre-engineering services with HDR: Passed 5-0.

PUBLIC COMMENT

Resident Jeffrey Wisniewski, No gas station on the Sycamore Crossing lot.

8:20, PUBLIC HEARING

Item 1-- City fee schedule amendments: Passed unanimously.

Item 2-- Selling HMU: Passed unanimously with a 4-0 vote. Councilman Gerard Boulanger recused himself from the vote because he is an HMU user.

8:05, CONSENT CALENDAR

Item 1--Charlie Long contract: Passed 5-0.

Item 2--Ambac lawsuit lawyers: Passed 5-0.

7:14, PUBLIC COMMENT

Resident Lori Chinn, Defends the city manager's decision to hire the new finance director. "We have to pull together...I believe we should support our city manager, our city attorney and our (city council). They did not create this mess."

Resident Kris Padillia (not sure about spelling), Works as realtor. Says property owners are suffering right now. You cannot continue to burden us. Do not tax property owners. "I can hardly keep my pants on, there are so many people in my pocket."

Resident Hector Rubio, Regarding the appointment of the new finance director, "It is way better to air on the side of too much information than too little."

Bayside resident Selina Williams, Bayside residents feel the city and council is ignoring the residents concerns about the development of their neighborhood and the city at large. "We feel duped by the actions of this council..."We're really not happy with the idea that Sycamore North will be 100 percent housing...Their changing the character of this community...our home values are already so low right now...this is the reality in Bayside everyday...It's like the vision plan, you just threw it away...You can't just throw it away."

Resident Phil Simmons, Talks about openness and transparency specifically as it applies to a deed restriction on the Sycamore Crossing lot. Asks why, if the city and council knew about the restriction for several months, the public wasn't informed.

Resident Pamela McKay (not sure about spelling): Lives in Olympian Hills, and is concerned about incessant dog barking in her neighborhood. I have been dealing with barking dogs for almost four years now. There's virtually no way to get a negligent owner to correct the situation. Wants a city ordinance to deal with dog barking.

Stan Tom, I think it's really clear that it's in Duran's authority to hire the new finance director in the way he did, but I disagree that the new finance director's hiring wasn't vetted more. Hopes and expects the new finance director to have integrity and credibility.

Ken Morrison, Regarding the possibility of trying to increasing taxes, don't hire any more consultants

Chris Kelley, "I want to urge you not to give up the vision" for Hercules while selling city properties... A walkable urban community is the only thing that will differentiate us from all the other bedroom communities."

Bill Kelly, "We need to learn from the past. We went through the process of having two city managers (through) god knows how..." We need an independent finance director.

Resident Toni Leance, Wants City Manager Steve Duran to rescind his recent decision to hire a former colleague as the city's new finance director and put the position through more publicly vetted hiring process. 

Resident Susan Keeffe, “I’m speaking once again on my favorite topic—transparency.” Wants the council to speak more freely with meeting goers during meetings.

PRESENTATION

7:05, Police Chief Bill Goswick and Detective Alex Abetkov congratulate the Hercules Police Explorers for their wins at the National Explorer Competition.