Tuesday, October 15, 2019

10.15.19 Meeting Summary

Tonight there were a few significant items discussed:

  • In the consent calendar, we approved a bid to update and replace equipment at the North Valley Park off of Keller Ridge Dr.  This includes shade structures, surfaces, and various playground equipment.
  • We established an ad-hoc legislative committee to develop guidelines that are consistent with the goals of the city for the purpose of directing staff to respond more quickly to ongoing legislative matters.  This is important because state legislators want to hear from cities, but the city can't typically act without direction.  Setting out priorities in advance will both allow the city to act and respond more quickly, and it will add more transparency in what the Council determines its priorities are.Myself and Vice Mayor Pierce will serve on this ad-hoc committee to draft city policy for full council approval.
  • We banned glyphosate (Round Up) usage by city staff.  Given the changing landscape with many other municipalities banning or restricting the use of glyphosate, in addition to the staggering legal judgments that have recently been awarded based on harm caused by the product, the Council thought it was prudent to eliminate its use by the city.  I first raised this issue back in the Feb-19 meeting.  At that time, we went over the practices of staff, and made sure use was limited to non-public areas (hillsides, road medians, etc.) and wanted to find out more information.  Given the recent developments with litigation, I'm glad the rest of the Council agreed that this was an appropriate course of action to ban the use of glyphosate.  

In addition to these items, we continued to have positive discussions in closed session regarding selection of a new City Manager.  I will share more information when possible.