Preview: Danville City Council (9/2/2014)

Let’s see what we’re going to deal with at Danville City Hall tonight at 7:00 PM. It’s Danville City Council meeting time and SouthsideCentral will be there LIVE! for our exclusive coverage.

At times, things can go quickly, so we’ll let you know what’s on tonight’s agenda now and add some commentary.

We’ll do this on a Big Board.

• Buddy Rawley will say the prayer invocation. We’ll then have a “Constitution Week” proclamation given to Andrea Scearce from the Daughters of the American Revolution.
• Public comment session will be next, followed by the approval of the minutes from the first meeting in August.
• We’ll start off with a five-item consent agenda. We know the city retirees bonus will be pulled off this consent agenda, so here are the remaining four items…
• 1) Ordinance Amending the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance for Projects to Be or Being Undertaken to Improve the Danville Community Financed with Community Development Block Grant, Home Investment Partnership Funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Estimated Program Income for a Total Appropriation of $1,434,550. – This finalizes federal funding towards housing programs.
• 2) Ordinance Amending the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance to Provide for a Virginia Commission for the Arts Grant in the Amount of $5,000 and to Provide for the Local Share in the Amount of $5,000 for a Total Grant of $10,000.- This completes the match from the state to Danville’s $5,000 line item in the budget. Arts organizations will apply for portions of this $10,000 and city staff then reviews the applications. They make award recommendations to a local arts grant task force who vote on the final awards. I’d prefer that the “city staff” stay completely out of the process, but that’s another issue.
• 3) Ordinance Amending the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance by Increasing Revenues to Provide for a Grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts in the Amount of $7,500, a Grant from the Danville Regional Foundation in the Amount of $7,500, and a Contribution from the Danville Regional Medical Center in the Amount of $5,000 for Implementation of the Danville Art Trail and Appropriating Same. – Danville will get seven sculptures on an 18-month loan to create an Art Trail in the city. If you’d like to see where these sculptures will be placed, go to our SouthsideCentral Facebook page. We added this map as a BonusCentral feature. While you’re there, LIKE the page!
• 4) Ordinance Amending the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance by Increasing Revenues to Provide for an Additional Grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Recreational Trails Program in the Amount of $49,629 for Completion of the Riverwalk-Riverside Drive Phase II Trail and Appropriating Same. – More grant money to cover some cost overruns for the Riverwalk Trail.
• That’s the consent agenda, and those should pass without any problems. We’ll move to the city retiree bonus proposal. SouthsideCentral has gone on record against this and our opposition is even firmer now. City Council would be extremely financially irresponsible to give this money from the general fund for a few citizens when the Tobacco Commission repayments will inevitably have to be made. It is simply wrong to hand out money to a small subset of taxpayers while asking for money from the entire set of taxpayers. Gary Miller, Larry Campbell and Alonzo Jones have spoken in support of this proposal. Buddy Rawley and Fred Shanks are against it. Sherman Saunders hasn’t expressed a public opinion (sigh, as usual), same for James Buckner, and Lee Vogler deferred comment but has been in favor of it.
• Here’s the breakdown. Lee Vogler and James Buckner must vote yes for it to pass. This will be an interesting test for Vogler. Will he go the “fiscally conservative” route , voting “No” because of the impending city obligations? Or will he go to the populist vote with the pressure of the city retirees and vote “Yes”?  As for Buckner, he’s hard to read because of his newness. His business owner skills should lead him to the financially correct “no” vote, but he seems to be following Lee Vogler’s lead so far on his council tenure. Will he break free of that? This will be an interesting vote.
• Back to the preview. New business starts with: Consideration of Authorizing an Application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for New Freedom Operating Funding and to Amend the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance to Provide for Additional Federal and State Mass Transit Funds to Provide for Public Transportation Service Improvements for Persons with Disabilities. – This adds grant money for bus services for the elderly and disabled.
• Consideration of Amending the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Appropriation Ordinance to Provide for Funds from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Highway Safety Selective Enforcement Alcohol Grant Program in the Amount of $10,781 for the Police Department AND Funds from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Highway Safety Selective Enforcement Speed Grant in the Amount of $12,732 for the Police Department. – This is DUI Checkpoint and radar enforcement Free Money.
• This article’s getting too long, so let’s Speed Round the rest. $200K grant money for senior citizen programs, and Cedarbrook W. Townes Lea & Glenwood schools going back to the city as surplus property. Maybe the city will mow the grass there now. Heh.
• Here we go. 1045 Main Street is back. Richard Holbrook has sued the city, withdrawn the suit, been rejected by city council, upset the Commission of Architectural Review and it’s all over 14 vinyl replacement windows in a building. This has the potential to be fun.
• Centra will need Danville’s approval on a $100,000,000 bond offering because they own and operate PrimeCare Main Clinic (130 Enterprise Drive), Dominion Primary Care (110 Exchange Street)  and a Multi-Specialty Clinic (173 Executive Drive). They’ll consolidate all of them into their new building near Sam’s Club and Danville Toyota.
• Final thing will be changing the first October meeting until Thursday so that everybody can go to the Virginia Municipal League conference earlier in the week.
• After that, we go around the horn and we’re done.

There you go. We”ll see you for LIVE! coverage starting at around 6:30 PM on SouthsideCentral.