Tuesdays with Councilman Henderson for 2/19/13

As I mentioned previously, Troy City Councilman Dave Henderson usually posts a report after City Council meetings. Unfortunately, if you are not on Facebook, I don't believe you can access these reports. If you are on Facebook, click here and request permission to join Councilman Henderson's group.

Dave gave me the "OK" to post his report (Tuesdays with Dave) from the the 2/19/13 City Council meeting for those of you not on Facebook.

Here it is...

Sorry I’ve been a little delinquent lately… lots of homework from the city ramping up to the budget sessions, Real Estates been strong, and (last but definitely not least) family, is a tough balancing act sometimes.

Brian has orchestrated several meetings conjoined with our regular meetings mostly, to help give us a better understanding of the breadth of each department, and the complexity of each budget. The open dialogue this has created between staff and council is encouraging, and in fact a small glimpse into his management style, which I really like. I’ve also been impressed with the presenters from each department… I’ve been in the business world for decades, and the professionalism is evident, and has been well hidden from the public in years past. Still more hard work to follow, but this is a great start to a new year.

The last couple meetings have been record breaking in terms of gavel to gavel time. The first meeting of February was less than 45 minutes, and there was only one person in the audience that had public comments. I’d like to say we are just a well oiled machine (and I think we are), but I think our new manager has his end of the meetings well in control, and business items are spaced out, and not filled with too much controversy. I’m sure this is a blip on the radar and meetings will likely lengthen as we near crunch time on the budget, but I’m thankful for the breather and professionalism that is being emitted from City Hall these days.

Monday We had great news from Cathy Russ about the Library. We received a grant for $ 65,175. The funds will be used to create an educational program at the TPL for students to learn how to navigate through the college process. The program is slated to run from September 2013, through June 2014. Congrats Cathy and her staff.

We had a little unexpected news on the transit center. I’ll refrain from commentary on this since all the details have not been discovered yet, but I thought I’d at least fill you in on what I know. CN who owns the line that goes through our transit center project just disclosed to us (this past week), that they are requiring a crash barrier for the West side of the tracks to protect the elevator and loading area from a crash. The barrier must be 12’ high, 2 ½’ thick and 60’ long. The projected costs are still being calculated, but it is safe to say this is not an inexpensive addition to the project. HRC has indicated that it is not covered under the contingency funds awarded to them since it is a large change in the scope of the project. The city is working on obtaining MDOT funding, and they feel confident that they will get it. Again, I’ll keep personal commentary out of this, but suffice it to say, even though we made it abundantly clear $ 6.2M was it, not a dime more… this is a mandatory change, we are in the middle of the build, it’s too late to turn back, it’s a safety feature that no one would walk away from in this litigious society, and simply because it’s a safety feature. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead. I’ll give updates as information becomes available.

Tonight we meet again for liquor license violations. I probably won’t report on that meeting unless something interesting happens.

Stay warm

Dave

Dave also posted this update on the transit center "crash barrier" mentioned above...

Late breaking news is that MDOT will be providing funding that has already been allocated to this areas rail projects to the crash barrier... we are still waiting for details of the total additional costs.