Agenda and Packets for Tonight's City Commission and Planning Commission Meetings.

City Commission Agenda Packet for 7:30 meeting 73 pages

Planning Commission Agenda Packet  for 4pm Meeting 24 pages

Hats off to City Clerk, Amy Burton and her talented staff who had the agenda packets for tonight's meetings on the City website by late afternoon last Friday. A thousand pardons from this publication  for getting them to you so late. Of course we had to read them and offer an  analysis and we
could and will say there seems to be  a whole lot of nothing going on. No cell phone tower, library, or USPS mailboxes at City Hall follow up.  Maybe some of these items will occur in the infamous Agenda Item 13 Commission will consider other business. City Commission has been known to drop bomb shells before running off to a closed session. Such a session will conclude tonight's  meeting but who knows ? The lead in is not ripe for bombshells. Agenda items include an award, tree beautification, Mers for retirement benefits, appointing someone to attend a conference, turn out gear for public safety, Fire codes, Public Safety operational plan,lead responsibilities, Agenda Item 13, employment contracts for non union administration employees, and the  closed session. Heck of a way to sell newspapers.

Even reading the correspondence in the agenda packet was  blah. . A letter from the Superintendent  of Birmingham Public schools (page 54) was a yawner and what you'd expect from a community that has its ducks in a row. Not like Bloomfield Township's  Recall the Board, where currently there is never a dull moment.The Chinese have a curse which says "May you live in interesting times." The Resolution, Complete Streets,  from our neighbor to the south, Berkley (page 52)   is more  interesting as is the Vacant property log (page 38).

Then there are the approved minutes of the most recent commission meetings. If you like some of  us spent the entire month of August vacationing in Southern France or Sunny Italy you will be happy to know that again,with a couple of exceptions, you missed a whole lot of nothing. The minutes of the August 9th meeting (page 56) contain two interesting items. The first is Agenda Item 117-2011  which appears on reduced form to your right.

Click to make full sized. Hit page back to return to post.

As many of you know this is not the sort of thing that makes the local papers in Arles  and  the Paris papers  which are dreadfully expensive  arrive late . So Je ne sais pas but it sure sounds interesting.  Incidentally DPS stands for Department of Public
Safety.

That brings us to the rather mysterious Commission meeting of August 30th (page 61) which like a summer storm  blew out of nowhere. Upon word of said, perhaps by satellite phone  some of you may have cut short your Adventure Tour of Cambodia which had you hacking through the brush at Angkor Wat before connecting with Air India Flight 1567 Phnom Penh  to Los Angeles connecting with Delta 9906 to Detroit  only to discover you were done in by the  date line and today was really tomorrow. Or maybe today was in fact yesterday and you went to the meeting only to discover no one was there. Regardless of circumstance it safe to say the August 30th meeting was probably not well attended. Interesting enough  none of the items discussed on August 30th have agenda numbers.
There was DPS follow up of sorts which refers to the website the DPS posts on the City site.

Also of note is talk of a residents survey. On August 9th , item  118-2011, Other Business....

And on August 30th

While not on the agenda these items may turn up at tonight's meeting under "other" business or in the case of the residents survey where City Manager Jay Cravens is taking charge, under 'individual lead responsibilities."

Planning Commission meets at 4pm. The packet includes a whole slew of old meeting minutes making their first appearance and new plans to be discussed this afternoon. Fences and Gates, past and future predominate. If you had anything you wanted to say on the new Fences and Gates ordinance the time has come and gone. Read it and weep. From June 14th in Planning Commission Packet item 135-2011 page 6.