Danville City Council – LIVE! (8/18/15)

SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting. This article is now complete.

Here’s the left side of tonight’s gallery. Good seats were still available unlike last time.

And the right side of the gallery. (Ugh, sorry for the blurry photos.)

Let’s all rise for the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance

New Danville Regional Medical Center CEO Alan Lawson “officially” introduces himself.

Lee Vogler leads the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance. Sherman Saunders introduces now Danville Regional Medical Center CEO Alan Lawson. We move to the public comment session.

Harold Garrison is up first.

Harold Garrison speaks first tonight.

He’s got a speech full of various issues with most of his points are on target. I told him that I’d be glad to publish his speech on SouthsideCentral.

It’s Sheila Baynes!

Sheila Baynes is up next. She thanks council for the vote to remove the flag.

Oh noes! It’s Glenn Scearce!

Glenn Scearce is um… special to listen to.

He starts lamenting the fact that Danville has no K&W cafeteria, nor any cafeteria. The horrors! He’s making lots of points and they’re all completely wrong. It is hilarious to watch the council members’ expressions of pain as he speaks.

The minutes are approved and the old business is just putting up $25,000 to get up to $100,000 of airport funding. We move on to new business. The big thing is an appeal to reverse a Commission of Architectural Review decision granting Tim Norton a permit to build a deck with vinyl siding behind his 944 Main Street house.

We start with simple non-controversial zoning cases then we move to tonight’s Big Event.

The first speaker is Paul Liepe. He’s for the reversal, claiming vinyl siding is against the rules.

Paul Liepe talks.

We have a second police officer tonight for no apparent reason. Thanks to the folks at the Danville police department, I’ve found out that this officer was the duty partner of our regularly stationed security police officer.

I’m going on record now. This is the kind of crap that pisses me off about these strict preservationists. The deck in question is far out of the public line of sight. Gah!

Fred Shanks is the only one on the left side to ask questions.

Tim Norton’s lawyer speaks next.

I’m not sure why Tim Norton’s lawyer was here, as he didn’t really say anything meaningful. It was more like an introduction for Norton to take the podium.

Tim Norton

Tim Norton steps up and says “Thank you, Your Honor” to Sherman Saunders. Hee hee. He makes his case with a little bit of swagger.

Steve Wilson is up next. He’s slightly condescending when he reminds us why the historic district is so important to Danville. You know, I’m getting close to the snapping point now. Wilson has this high tone wheezing in his voice and it’s grating my nerves. In closing, Wilson equated the house with “a doublewide” and that arrogance makes his side lose any support that I ever had for it.

Sarah Latham

Sarah Latham is up next. She takes this as Serious Business and shows the same disdain for Tim Norton like everybody else has so far. She’s mostly rational. If memory serves me right, she resigned from the Commission of Architectural Review right after this case was originally heard.

Fred Meder

Fred Meder is a past member and chairman of the CAR. We’re nearing the 90 minute mark. These historical preservationists are droning on and on with the same thing.

Mike Nicholas. We heart Mike Nicholas.

Chairman of the Commission of Architectural Review Mike Nicholas takes the podium and is on fire! He’s blowing the preservationists’ appeal grounds up with legal citations. We heart Mike Nicholas. He’s clarified the procedural issues that the appellants brought up and that’s no longer relevant.

The crowd is thinning out.

We’ve got one more speaker and she’s um… interesting.

This woman had a raccoon on her third floor.

The insanity continues as Norton’s neighbor ends up talking about Norton is a “neighbor from hell” and she had a raccoon on her third floor. She also has bats in her belfry. Hiyoooooooo!

Ken Gillie tries to explain the issues.

Ken Gillie answers some questions from Fred Shanks & John Gilstrap. Alonzo Jones asks if council can remand this issue back to the CAR, and city attorney Clarke Whitfield says “No”. That means it’s decision time. Gary Miller makes a motion to overturn the CAR decision. John Gilstrap seconds it. Buddy Rawley, Lee Vogler and Larry Campbell speak against the reversal. Fred Shanks seems to be against the reversal on technical reasons. The motion to reverse fails on a 4-5 vote with James Buckner being the fifth and deciding vote. So, we move to the alternative proposal to affirm the CAR decision and that passes by the reverse 5-4 vote. I believe this is the first 5-4 Danville City council vote in over four years (at least).

After their defeat, the appellants leave. The police officer has to go out to the hallway to quiet things down. The lobby and hallway are an echo chamber so even low-level talk reverberates into council chambers. We have a few matching grant items left on the agenda, but they’re just up for first reading because the law requires anything like that to be held over for at least 10 days before any money is appropriated. One of those grants is interesting though, and it blows up the idea that the city is all about demolishing rundown historic houses. Take a look at the write-up…

Funds awarded from the Certified Local Government Grant will be used for the rehabilitation and stabilization of 864 Pine Street.  It is estimated that this construction will total $42,500.00.  This home has suffered many years of neglect and vacancy.  Once a fine Italianate example in the Old West End Historic District, it is now plagued with rotting wood and a leaking roof.  This development project will be a beacon of light for Pine Street and the struggling Old West End neighborhood that has been blighted with absentee landlords and neglect. It will also show other property owners and potential investors that an historic home can be restored and returned to a quality product that is an attribute to the area.

Let’s see how much mention this gets from the preservationist movement.

Around the horn time. Clarke Whitfield mentions the death of City Treasurer Lyn Barbour. Buddy Rawley has a good speech about his frustration on how the Confederate flag was taken down quickly. Fred Shanks follows that up with comments that he was totally blown off by Sherman Saunders when he asked about the procedure at the last meeting. He’s right on that. There was a plan in place. Alonzo Jones talks about the very successful College Bonanza 2015 (and we owe you an article and some photos from that event). That’s the highlights of the around the horn section and we’re done.

Eighteen photos (sorry about those semi-blurry ones), over 1100 words. It’s the most comprehensive coverage of this Danville City Council meeting and I’m glad that you come to SouthsideCentral to read it. Thanks!