Postponed and Tabled Bills Line the Council Agenda

The Florissant City Council postponed or tabled most of the bills on Monday night’s agenda to make for a short meeting session.

A majority of the bills the council agreed needed more discussion in a working session or with City Attorney .

Although several of the bills received a brief discussion from the councilors, one garnered a suspension of the rules to allow representatives to speak on it.

Substitute Bill 8713 would add two additional positions to the parks and recreation advisory board and eliminate alternate members, which would give the board a total of nine members.

Ward 3 City Councilman requested that the bill be amended to reflect that a representative from each ward would be seated on the board -- with exceptions to those who currently sit on the board. 

Parks and recreation advisory president Linda Rose, as well as other representatives of the board, explained to the council that the expansion would allow for the board to have a quorum as a few of the current members have personal and professional obligations that might prevent them from attending meetings. 

Rose said that she is not supportive of having a representative from each ward.

“It probably would be the death of the board,” she said. “We would never have enough representatives.”

pressed the council to pass the bill with the caveat that there would be representatives from each ward.

“I think it’s the way to go,” Mayor Lowery said. “There’s nothing wrong with having fair and equitable representation.”

Ward 7 City Councilwoman Karen McKay was quick to fire back about at the mayor’s suggestion, though.

“This is a council commission, not a mayor’s commission,” she said.

The council as a whole wanted to discuss the matter further and research other boards or commissions that have a representative from each ward.  Therefore, the council voted to postpone the bill for further discussion. 

Several other bills on the council’s agenda were tabled or postponed, including: 

• Bill 8712, which was proposed by Councilman Schneider, would allow off-site tent sale fee to be $30 for a not-for-profit organization. Several councilmen expressed concern with this bill, however, as there’s no solid definition for a not-for-profit organization. The bill was postponed until further discussion with City Attorney Hessel could be done to define the term.
• The council remains split on clarifying the . Ward 1 City Councilman Tim Lee said that he would prefer to make one code match the other versus rewriting both zoning and city code sections. Currently, the zoning code and the city code read differently with regards to the family definition. The council voted to postpone the reading further.
• The council tabled two bills that would assist in paying additional overtime costs due to the snowstorms of this past winter. Bills 8719 and 8720 would have appropriated money from different funds to several accounts to compensate for the overtime. Councilman Lee felt that it would best be discussed in a budget work session before a vote could be done. Both bills were tabled.