Danville City Council – LIVE! (3/15/16)

SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting. The business session happened so fast that we never caught up, but we’ve edited this article into a complete recap of what happened. Enjoy!

We’re underway. Buddy Rawley leads the prayer (that touched on the presidential race) and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Here’s the left side of the council.

And here’s the right side of the council. We missed Sherman Saunders, but he’s up in the big chair. And sorry for the blurriness. Stupid camera on the phone.

Attendance is so light tonight that everybody has their own row. Madison Whittle goes to the middle of his row just in case somebody else wanted to sit there. They didn’t. Nobody else arrived. And let’s hear it for a Renee Burton sighting on the back row. YAY!

Sheila Baynes paired up with Mike Miller on the front row, then we skip the second row. Assistant Fire Chief Steve Dishman and Transportation Director Marc Adelman are here if anybody had questions on their agenda items. Nobody did.

Here’s the business that flew by in the time it took to upload the first four photos. The minutes were approved, a $77K grant for Social Services data entry was approved and Mark Gunn was placed on the Danville Community Policy & Management Team.

Next, the moral obligation for the IDA to buy the old AVRC building on Stinson Drive was approved after Fred Shanks explained that this wasn’t a waste of money and needed to be done for bank purposes. Larry Campbell also agreed with Fred on that. Fred said he had received lots of phone calls on this item. Those people should have looked at the Southside News & Views Facebook group, where I explained why this item was needed. After that, the mutual aid agreement between the school system and emrgency management was approved without debate, then the federally required transportation plan also passed without debate.

Stop the clock at 7 minutes, 24 seconds for the end of the business section. In the around the horn section, city attorney Clarke Whitfield and all council members offer condolences to the families of Richard Barkhouser and George Shields.

We’re done on this side of the hall, and we move to the work session. One quick alley abandonment on Pine St. is presented by Renee Burton, and we move to budget review time.

Renee Burton had to get dressed up and make a presentation for the 0.005 acre alley highlighted in yellow. City Engineer Brian Dunevant didn’t have to speak, so we won’t mention his name here. Heh.

First, budget director Cynthia Thomasson goes over questions raised last week.

Cynthia Thomasson knows her budget stuff.

I bet you’ve seen this view before.

Here’s tonight’s work session audience. We lost Mike Miller but we’ve picked up John Ventimiglia on the back row! And we’ve got Sara Weller! Yay!

Philip Haley is going over the budget on his Ipad, and Madison Whittle is calmly and coolly taking all of the discussion in. Robin Dabney & Sheila Baynes are the other city council candidates here tonight. And HEY! It’s Mark Aron on the back row.

Conversation flows to talk about the White Mill dam. Fred Shanks is adamant about not destroying the dam. Lee Vogler wants this item taken out of the budget. Buddy Rawley reminds that the Pinetag emergency entrance and exit pricetag will be coming soon. Gary Miller says those types of dams are dangerous. Shanks says water is always dangerous and it’s already illegal to walk on the dam. Gary Miller says fishing is better with no dam. Fred Shanks says fishing is better with the dam in place. Gary Miller says the sky is orange. Fred Shanks says the sky is purple. Ok, maybe not that last two things, but you get my point.

Budget Director Cynthia Thomasson points out that there is no funding for this project in the Capital Improvement Project list for the next fiscal year, so ended up being a waste of time. Next, the talk goes to non-departmental budget spending and the Job Bust repayments. US Green Energy is officially dead and gone. We knew that. Fred Shanks & Buddy Rawley ask if any more Job Busts are left to um…Bust. We get some heads nodding but nobody says anything specific. I’ll have to find out more on that.

Human Resources Director Sara Weller’s budget gets no questions and she never even has to stand up. The final around the horn section is pretty much nothing special, so we’re done at a reasonable time.

We’ve got some photos for bonus content, but we’ll post those in a separate article. Thanks for reading the most comprehensive recap of Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting… only here on SouthsideCentral!