Danville City Council – LIVE! (11/17/15)

SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at Danville City Hall for Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting. We’ve got the best coverage & the most photos of any media source, so enjoy the recap!

Whew. Made it here with about 7 minutes to spare. We’re underway!

Lee Vogler does tonight’s prayer and leads the Pledge of Allegiance. We move to the public comment session, and we start with Glenn Scearce who talks about the Virginia state flag.

It’s Glenn Scearce!

Scearce starts off by clearly displaying that he has his own stopwatch to monitor his five minute time limit. Sherman Saunders is not amused. Glenn says he’s going to talk about the Virginia State Flag again like he did last time and brings old the old version of the flag. He does a nice job draping the podium with the flag as he start to speak. Let’s see how Sherman Saunders feels about this…

Sherman Saunders is still quite not amused.

Saunders asks Scearce if he’s finished. Scearce looks at his stopwatch and says that he has 40 seconds remaining.

Sherman Saunders is now highly not amused.

Next, Wayne Byrd speaks and it’s getting snippy between him and Sherman Saunders. Byrd talks about council changing the terms of the Confederate flag/monument agreement. He mentions that the decision to remove the flag was a “Pandora’s Box”.

OK, stop the clock. In mythology, Pandora’s Box was filled with the world’s evils that were released when she opened it. If Byrd & Friends are saying that all the Confederate flags going up in the area are results from opening Pandora’s Box, that implies that all of that comes from evils. Yeah, that’s a crappy analogy and mythology buffs chuckle at it being misused. Restart the clock, boys!

Wayne Byrd speaks next.

Byrd implies that elections are coming soon and that some council members could lose their reelection bids because of the flag decision. Right now, I don’t see that happening. Wayne Byrd & I need to have lunch one day so that we can talk politics. Saunders gets ready to call time on Byrd and Byrd says that he has ten minutes because he’s speaking for the Heritage Preservation Association. Saunders says “You didn’t say that at the beginning”. Byrd says he did. Saunders says “But your group didn’t stand.” Dianne McMahon & Vernell Gwynn stand up. Saunders says “You smell like doodoo!” Wayne Byrd says “Oh, yeah? So’s your face!” They didn’t actually say that, but it would be right in line with the way that this is going. Saunders “graciously” gives Byrd two more minutes to speak. This is painful to see, yet I can’t stop looking at this. Byrd finishes, and Saunders is still clearly not amused.

NEXT!

I think he said his name was Lewis Arnett.

Next, Lewis Arnett (?) is talking about lots of things, focusing on his perception that black men are harassed by Danville police. He says his son’s probation was violated multiple times due to him getting multiple traffic citations on a single traffic stop. He moves on to other topics that are race-based. I immediately tune him out, because he’s all over the place. Saunders calls time on him and he walks away grumbling and talking to nobody in particular.

Thankfully, nobody else wishes to speak. Well, that was an interesting public comment segment. And by interesting, I mean a horrible trainwreck that was still fun to watch.

The consent agenda is all grant funds and it passes. On to new business and Fred Shanks asks about the grant funds for home detention electronic monitoring.

The director of the WW Moore juvenile detention home answers the questions.

Everything will pass 9-0 tonight. WRONGO, Bruce!

We move to the rezoning and special use requests. Robbie Woodall is here to answer any questions about adding service bays to the Robert Woodall Nissan location, and Bill Mitchell is ready for any questions about rezoning the old Mitchell’s Cleaners location on Arnett Blvd. so that a new dry cleaning business can open there. These pass unanimously, with Fred Shanks abstaining on conflict of interest.

Robbie Woodall gets to answer no questions at all.

And neither does Bill Mitchell.

The $24,000 grant from the Riverbank Fund of the Community Foundation of the Dan River Region to establish a Riverwalk trailhead park beside Dan River church gets its first reading and will be officially accepted on Dec 1st.

All three people who spoke in the public comment segment have already left tonight’s meeting.

Whoops. Screw that 9-0 on everything predictions. I forgot that the parks & recreation revised fee schedule and the non-resident library fee elimination was up tonight.

Fred Shanks & Gary Miller stress that the city should recapture fees for parks & recreation use. Buddy Rawley says that this isn’t something council should be involved this deeply on this issue. John Gilstrap gets all “Daddy G” and tells Rawley that council sets all other city fees. Lee Vogler advocates for passing the new fee schedule because it’s the smart thing to do. James Buckner, Larry Campbell remain silent and watch everybody blather on. Sherman Saunders gets snippy. Fun times! Saunders says he’s going to call for the vote (which he really can’t do under parliamentary procedure). Oh well, it’s vote time. Buddy Rawley votes “NO” on both items just because he can. The items pass 8-1.

Around the horn time. We heart Alonzo Jones because he speaks nicely of our OpinionCentral telling everybody to not rush to judgment on Tuesday’s school system controversy. Let’s move to the work session.

Here’s the center and right part of the table.

And here’s the left side of the table.

Here’s tonight’s work session audience. Nobody ever wants to sit on the front row.

And here’s the summary from the work session…

• Finance Director Mike Adkins went over the finance statements. Everything looks good.
• Council finalized the plans on changing ordinances to make it more friendly towards food trucks.
• Council will issue a resolution supporting an $800K Tobacco Commission grant to help establish a precision machining vocational program at GW,

On the food trucks, Amanda Paez did a great job in getting all the information together and James Buckner’s proposal to be more food truck friendly will be enacted on December 1st. Commissioner of Revenue Jimmy Gillie is on hand to clarify any taxation and licensing issues.

Everybody looks up to Amanda Paez & Jimmy Gillie.

On the precision machining program, there’s still a bit of questioning. Buddy Rawley questions the need for this program, but then says he’s supportive of it. Economic Development Director Telly Tucker and Danville Public Schools Chief Administrative Services Officer Kathy Osborne are here to answer any questions.

Telly Tucker & Kathy Osborne get the job done.

Council’s going into closed session for economic development talk, so we’re done here. Thanks for reading the most comprehensive recap of Tuesday’s meeting, and it’s only here at SouthsideCentral!