We told you what happened at Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting. Let’s do a BreakDown and go in-depth to analyze it.
Big board for the BreakDown!
- The housing survey that was presented at the special work session before the council meeting has a lot of painful truth in it. Nobody wants to buy the abundance of ranch-style houses that were built in the 1960’s because they’re old and could use remodeling. The study’s suggestions said that the city needed to offer incentives for remodeling. That’s going to be hard to pull off in this type of economy because of the lack of city funding.
- It was good to see a lot of private citizens at the housing survey meeting. Most of them were at the business meeting a few weeks ago to speak against the “tearing down the historic houses” issue.
- The consulting firm presented the study to an assembly of real estate agents on Thursday morning. It’s not like real estate agents know what sells and what doesn’t in Danville…
- The Riverwalk Trail attracts as many as 300,000 users per year. Wow.
- Stewart Street. I couldn’t have told you where that was before I researched the issue. That housing proposal looked good and had Planning Commission approval. What could go wrong? Plenty.
- There were neighbors who used the “Change Is Bad” mantra. Ugh. They did the same thing at the Planning Commission and it failed. It should have failed at the council meeting too, but the developer made some huge mistakes. First mistake? Gus Dyer, Jr. He had an “I know everything and those opponents are stupid” attitude and that’s Strike 1. Keith Walden (the developer) didn’t say a word and let Dyer do all the slick talking. Strike 2. When council members asked questions, Gus Dyer got a sort-of-an-attitude with them. Strike 3. Gus Dyer’s demeanor almost got the project denied.
- FYI: I questioned Gus Dyer about his $30,000 in back property taxes. He said “I have a lot of vacant properties and I haven’t been able to rent them.” Well, jeez. If he’s got three other successful housing developments going on, it should be easy to cough up the $30,000 to pay off the back taxes. Or so I would think. Dyer’s also the chairman on the court-appointed Board of Zoning Appeals. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?
- The legal process for that Stewart St. thing required nine different public hearings and nine different votes. There was no way to combine them, but that didn’t stop John Gilstrap. When he tried to lump them together, you should have seen City Attorney Clarke Whitfield’s face. He zoomed in for the kill.
- Buddy Rawley was ready to vote on the issue that night and not send it back to the Planning Commission. When Whitfield made it clear that there had to be nine separate votes on the project, it was quite hilarious when Rawley let out a loud “Oh God”. Ha!
- We’ll deal with this issue again in about 6 to 8 weeks. I hope Keith Walden learns from what went wrong in this meeting.
- New design guidelines were passed for the Old West End area. I wonder how many citizens know what area that consists of?
- I honestly never paid attention to the “In God We Trust” signage until I was editing some photos.
- On to the work session. The Register & Bee reporter didn’t even stick around for that.
- The Craghead Street alley was routine. The idiotic “Rules For City Council Meetings” discussion went on yet again. It will be passed at the first January business meeting and then soon forgotten. I chuckled when Sherman Saunders said that if 2/3 of council members could vote to suspend the rules then there would be no way to have “order”. Clarke Whitfield said “That’s possible.” Saunders now knows that he’d better not get to the point where there will be six people against him. Hee hee. You wanted these “Rules”. Now you’ve got them.
The closed session for personnel evaluations and the like probably had something to do with the Utilities department scandals… and that’s just an educated guess. Human Resources director Sara Weller was there with a big folder.I’ve been told that I was totally wrong on this so I’m withdrawing this item.
And that’s the BreakDown. You won’t get in-depth coverage and commentary like this in the newspaper. You may get a story of Gus Dyer and his back taxes after they read this article. Heh.
Your take on the Stewart Street issue is right on point. Council should have taken the recommendation of the Planning Commission and staff and approved this project, but, Gus Dyer killed any possibility of that happening. Watching from home you get the frontal view (just like Council) and Gus Dyer looked like the goofy professor with “Igor” standing behind him waiting to do his bidding. Keith Walden would have had a better chance using an attorney as a mouthpiece (others have been successful with this strategy) or speaking for himself. He had the foresight to buy and demolish those houses on Stewart Street so he must have some passion for this project. It would have been nice to see that enthusiasm. The other problem I have is the number of issues that the Planning Commission and staff recommend that Council sends back for tweaking because they want everyone to be happy. This is never going happen and they are beginning to hold back some great projects, some of which we will never see on the table again, just so they will appear all warm and fuzzy.
what a shame there is not more rental housing ( apartments/ town houses in the upper crust areas such as west end) getting built in Danville. Always opposition. the city council never approves or blesses apartments unless it is in the sacred river district. if progress is not happening in the river district city council could care less !!!!! Alonzo jones ” move the city forward” philosophy is slanted and restricted to river district and nowhere else when you look at the big picture and its final results.
All the eggs are being put into one basket-the River District basket in fact. Will that save the City? It can help, depending on the types of revenue it generates and how much. But, will it save the City? It is only one part of the whole, the rest must do it’s part. So no, it will not save the City.
The Utility department scandal is not a surprise to me, and it definitely should not have been a surprise to the City Manager as he was personally informed of the abuse in the first month of 2012 by the then current Director of Utilities. The Director of Utilities was even being threatened by some of those now accused, and terminated, but not all for trying to eliminate the abuse! There should be more terminations forth coming if they would look at the Electric side? If the City Manager had listened to the Director, instead of asking him to leave, then I don’t think that we would be having this discussion. I see the lack of oversight on the City Managers office, and no others!