City Council Workshop Meeting 8/4/10-Where the discussion is really heard

Tonight was a surprisingly short meeting. It started at 6:30pm and ended at 8:30pm...2 HOURS!!! As I did last week, I will just post issue by issue that I took note of: [NOTE: This is a harder meeting to cover as they have much more discussion than during the regular meeting about a particular issue)

Roll Call: 3 Councilmembers were absent (Goow, Rodriguez and Ames), 15 total citizens present at the meetings with only 4 speaking at the Public Portion.

1) There is a section of the meeting where they focus on "Payment of the Bills". This is where they go over what bills are being paid in the month and I believe the chair of the Finance Committee (Councilman Ken Morris) goes over the numbers. However, no document is available for the public to view as these numbers are thrown around so I could not provide these numbers for you at this time.

2)The council was discussing a salary bump depending on longevity for public employees who are military veterans. There were some questions about this such as whether high paying military veterans (Deputy Chief officers, etc.) will get the same raises as a DPW worker who makes $22,000. The discussion was brought back to Committee for further investigation. (NOTE: at least thats what I understood of the conversation)

3)Someone during the Public Portion Meeting ask about the possibility of bringing a taxi stand back to the City, in particular at the Broadway Bus Station. He was complaining that as a taxi driver who has a Certificate of Operation is losing business to those who dont have a valid CO. The council expressed that they will look into the matter.

4)A reminder was made that Commercial Vehicles parking in residential area is illegal, that includes any vehicle that has a commercial license or commercial signage (This happens a lot in paterson).

5)There was an ordinance in New Business that was interesting:

"Resolution authorizing acceptance of funds or services to enable city officials to travel to Lowell, Massachusetts to explore redevelopment programs suitable for the City of Paterson."

I understand that this is not to be considered official business and the City is not paying for this trip but someone offered to pay for some Council members to meet their counterparts in Massachusetts but they did not go into detail who is giving them money and what is the itinerary of the trip. The City Clerk is also attending.

6)In response to the shooting during National Night Out Block Parties, Councilman McCoy requested that the administration develop an emergency notification system that would update the council on emergencies as they arrive as some individuals were not aware until mid day today that the shootings occurred. No other discussion of the matter was had.

7)Next workshop meeting, The council will discuss the possibility of enforcing parking decals in the city.