SouthsideCentral was at Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting (but you knew that). Even though everything Confederate flag related has been rendered moot, let’s still do a BreakDown on what happened.
Let’s Break it Down on a Big Board…
- The 5:30PM closed session was to meet with coal ash attorney Charlie Williams and his team to talk about the negotiations with Duke Energy. I’m very surprised that this hasn’t been settled yet, but I’m picking up even stronger vibes that Duke Energy isn’t willing to make big payouts to the city when they don’t have a legal obligation to. Or in other words, common sense business practice.
- You can read my Winners & Losers article about all of the Confederate flag happenings.
- In the public comment session, it’s “unusual” with certain speakers are called on first. Heh. Anyway, Eric Deaton does his farewell speech and is roundly praised. When Duke Energy’s Davis Montgomery gets up, it was funny to watch him being watched by the coal ash attorneys. The new one on the team was tasked with taking notes.
- After the recess (which was sorely needed), let’s get to business and this BreakDown.
- I’m not sure why that the city staff wanted to keep working on the ordinance to eliminate the “Madison Whittle Effect” (when common sense can’t be applied to zoning problems), but we’ll have to play that out later. That Whittle-type scenario happens very rarely, but it’s important enough to get a solution process on the books now.
- The Watson St. rezoning made perfect sense, so it flew through easily. I was surprised that the Goodyear Blvd. property owners from New Jersey actually came down for the hearing. After listening to their argument, I sorta felt sorry for their predicament. But rules are rules, and Council did the right thing to deny the request until they actually can get an end-user for their property.
- One fun thing to watch about Danville City Council and Sherman Saunders is that the later it gets into the evening, the faster the pace.
- I wasn’t the only frustrated with the pulling of the Main Street/vinyl windows item yet again. Fred Shanks had a good point when he said he’s never gotten the answers to the questions he asked two years ago. If Council doesn’t overrule that stupid decision to make the guy remove the windows, it will be a lost chance to finally knock some sense into that horsecrap bureaucratic process.
- The city bus accident on August 15th was kept quiet. If a bus was totaled, you’d think that the city would have issued a press release on it.
- The Cable TV franchise idea is an ancient concept. I didn’t know that cable TV franchise fees were being collected by the state government and then sent to the localities. That makes no sense. Comcast wants to decommission their TV studio on Patton St. The city was the only user of it, anyway. Mark Aron and River City TV will easily put together a new studio. It’s also a good time to say that Mark and his team put together an excellent programming package.
That’s a more in-depth look at what happened at the 10/21/2014 City Council meeting. Or as we call it here, that’s a BreakDown!
More coming up on SouthsideCentral!
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