Interesting Council Meeting

Tonight was an interesting meeting at the Grand Terrace City Hall.

Perhaps the most interesting was the public complaints by a parade of small business owners against their landlord, and the facility management person, in particular.

Lets review, this situation.

Each of the restaurants making complaints all hold A Health Ratings.

Yet, they complain that the sewage doesn't work, and there is standing water in and around the complex. What is the source of the standing water?

Perhaps the Health Department should be called in to make an inspection of the operations and if things are so bad and the publics health and safety is in jeopardy the businesses, (restaurants in particular) should be closed immediately until the sanitation problems are resolved.

Perhaps the standing water is a result of tenants washing out work areas with hoses, rather than mops and buckets.

Perhaps the road repairs, and repairs to sewer lines along Barton Road have contributed to the problems of drainage to the Center.

Perhaps the Littering Citizens should be fined for Littering, and the Skateboarders for being in violation of posted prohibitions.

Perhaps the Comments Should have been limited to the actions that the City Might Take rather than the issues that belong in a Civil Court or Arbitration between the lesser and lessee.

Perhaps the parade of Complaints was Organized, not as an effort to remedy the alleged problems but to humiliate a person who has had the courage to engage the City Council, and Planning Department in the interest of their business holdings, as well as the citizens of the City.

Perhaps the City will send it's code enforcement Officer to each business, and close them down until the problems are corrected.

It was an interesting show, we wonder what effect long term it will have.

Perhaps when a tenant leases a building for the purposes of having a restaurant, they should inspect the amount of AC provided and not complain that their pizza ovens, and coolers add heat to the room for which the AC was not intended to vacate.

Perhaps the Roof Design Code should include El Nino requirements. Consider that the City Managed Senior Center also had Roof Problems during those wet seasons.

Perhaps the area could be zoned for high density housing complex for people attending UCR. Perhaps the same design as the Senior Villas.

On to other Matters.

Real City Related Business was brought up to the City Council during Public Comment. This Business was cut short by the 3 Minute Rule, and was not addressed by Staff Comment or any of the Council Members Comments, nor the City attorney's Comments.

The development of the various plans, and filing them with the State is a requirement of which the City Manager and City Council have been derelict in seeing accomplished. As was mentioned no plan or development should go further without these documents being updated and available for each approving agency to use as a measure of compliance. When will the City Manager be held accountable for the fact that these reports have not been updated and filed with the state. When will the Council realize that many of the problems in the city are caused by the lack of these reports being done properly.

There was question raised about the apparent expansion of the Town Center Development as the "Preferred" Developer has purchased Residential Zoned Property adjacent to the Development. The plan calls for 16 ac and is often refereed to in the news coverage as a 20 ac development. What is the Plan for the residential Zoned Property?

The public did not hear the last two paragraphs of the presenter's issues.

Next Issue:

Manhole Builder Returns back to the Planning Commission. This is a direct result of active community members being alert to the actions of the "City Staff" and making the failings known. The same people referred to by the City Staff, and Council Members, and City Manager as annoyances are responsible for bringing to light the issues which returned this proposal to the Planning commission.

Next Issue:

The need to use competitive bidding was in evidence during the last portion of the meeting. The staff budgeted 80,000.00 for painting stripes and the bids came in well under that at 22,000.00 and change. Then the next two road contracts were single sourced to the vendors. Apparently there was no open bidding on these contracts. The citizens will never know if the price being paid is the most prudent, or that fairness was a part of the contracting procedure.

The discussion about road repairs on Barton Road did include the mention of repair to sewer lines. Perhaps the Sewer Line system needs a check along the entire length of the major Pipes. Remember the road is to be cut up for a water project in the near future. Perhaps a general inspection should be done so that work on City Pipes could happen at the same time as the water project road work.

Next Issue:

Is Jeff G. Going to vacate the house rented to him by the city for 500.00 per month when he leaves the employment of the city? Yes, he was responsible for most of the interaction with the annoying public and citizens of Grand Terrace. It is perhaps this annoyance which has lead him to a more spiritual employment. Perhaps the attachment of a non related EIR report to the proposed Manhole Builder's Plan had something to do with it? How will we know?

Of other Interest:

The citizens contributing to this blog have been less than pleased with the amount of information available on the city's web site. We have been told there is not the staff or money or time to make more data available to the citizens. Yet, when asked to put data on the web site Steve Berry always responded to council, no problem we can do that. Which is it? No money or time, or is it a lack of desire to inform the citizens on all city business?