#councilman mccord

[pattersonvoice-blog]

City Council Meeting - 2.8.17

As noted in my first post my goal here is to ask the question.  Last night I kept thinking of questions over and over in my head but with some I just never got up the nerve to ask, and with others I didn’t think of until public comment period was over.  Here are my overall reactions to the meeting along with what questions or concerns I had: 1. Call to Order.

2. Pledge.

3. Statements of Conflict.

4. Items from the Public:

This was a good section in that many members of the public were present and spoke.  This is a sharp contrast to many occasions where there is very little public comment.  One of the best items I heard from was the Pop Program that is going to be taking place at the Hammon Senior Center.  The idea is a simple program for Dads to share their experiences and guidance.  I think it is a wonderful idea and I know how hard it can be from personal experience to be a new father looking for help.

Another item here that I loved was our local Librarian going over many of the programs for kids that our library offers as well as pointing out where the funding for such programs comes from - especially in a climate where certain political groups who have control of government at this time want to consistently defraud science and pull funding for arts and public social works.  It is a reminder that what happens on a large scale can still affect us locally.

5. Consent Calendar:

Okay, I am going to admit here that I don’t really understand what this item is.  Waive readings of what?  All city ordinances?  It looks like this is saying that procedurally they are waived the need to read all ordinances and resolutions.  Is that really a thing and if so, if this is always waived, then why does it exist at all?

6. Presentation/Action Items:

At this time there was public discussion about who should be selected for the vacant city council.  They selected the top 4 people to discuss from the applicants.  

When it came time to public comment, the only real excitement there was from Mr. Troy McComak, a former mayoral candidate.  Troy seemed a bit irate over multiple facts including that he had received 1/3rd of the vote in the last election and felt that it should have entitled him to the council seat.  On top of that he was not happy with the selection process and wanted a special election held.

I don’t know Troy over than seeing him at a couple meetings and what I read on his public record, but he seems to feel he was shafted in some way in this process.  I am not sure I agree with his take on this - I do think that maybe a special election would have been more democratic, but it also would have been highly costly with little turn out.  If we are honest and pragmatic about the situation, the selection process was probably the simplest path to take.

The only other interesting exchange in this was when Councilman Farinha made comment about one of the applicants, Mr. Larry Buehner, who did not take part in the interview.  The councilman seemed to imply that the applicant was not properly informed of the interview, as if on purpose, but then what made it more interested was when Mayor Novelli then attempted to silence Councilman Farinha on this topic stating that it was not the time to bring this forward to which Farinha replied with the fact that he had a right to speak at that time.  While I am not one to buy into conspiracy theories and remain a militant skeptic, I did find it odd that the Mayor didn’t seem to want to hear or have heard the Councilman’s comments on this matter.  

Now, I don’t know Mr. Buehner but I know what I have read and heard from others about the the man and I if what is written is true, which I believe at least some of it is, then I have no issue with not wanting him on the council.  Be that as it may, if someone like Mayor Novelli or any of the council or staff is actively working to keep him off the council in the dark, then that is a concern for the city and the public and does little to inspire trust in our city leaders.

Finally, after comment and discussion, the council chose Mr. Alfred Parham to take the oath and join the council.  I don’t know Al well, but I had recently met him at a political action committee meeting group and found him to be charming and wise, so hopefully we will be able to continue working with him and he will prove to be a voice for reason on the city council.

7. Presentation.

8. Public Hearings: 8.1

Okay, so here is where it gets interesting the questions start flowing in my head.  The first read and discussion started over a city ordinance (City Ordinance No. 797) pertaining to shopping cart abandonment.  The idea here is to inform shops when people report abandoned shopping carts around the city, giving them 24-hours to have them picked up, or else face a penalty unless the shop has either theft deterrent carts (electronic wheel locks) or a contract for cart retrieval from a 3rd party service.  The ordinance draft was written by the city attorney as well as the sheriff’s representative to try to solve the problem of abandoned shopping carts left around town.

My first question as someone that lives and drives around town a lot is to ask if this is even a problem?  Now, while I do travel a lot in town, I do not spend much time on the south side of town, which I am told from multiple sources in and after the meeting that yes, this is a problem in those areas.  Another small concern as someone that does not see this as an issue is simply that one member of the public made comment on it being an eyesore across from his property, which always makes me skeptical as to who drafted the ordinance and for whom’s benefit.  Is this an ordinance that is only a concern and crafted by wealthy property owners around town?

Once discussion opened on this topic Councilman McCord brought up the concern about the ordinance and what it was intended to do.  One part of the ordinance defines an “abandoned cart” as any cart that is removed from the business premises without prior authorization and then continues to prohibit the removal or possession of an abandoned cart and will give them a citation. This is clearly beyond the scope of what the ordinance is intended to do.  If the ordinance, as noted by the Sheriff’s office who helped draft this, is to hold businesses accountable for not retrieving carts and creating a safety hazard, then why are those people with carts being cited?  The way this is written faults those that are good samaritans and want to help return carts that have been dumped with a citation.  Now, I understand that this is not who they say they are targeting and I am aware that people should not be stealing carts, but this entire definition of “abandoned cart” and the point that those in possession will be cited is overstepping the bounds of what this ordinance does and is intended to do, if that stated intention is honest.  I do appreciate Councilman McCord bringing up this point and pushing for it, but there is another issue at play here.

The main issue that I have is that during the discussions which ranged from the wording topic above to issues with who gets cited and how to prove contracts, it comes out that the people writing the ordinance, the sheriff and attorney, never talked to or partnered with the major stores in town to go over this ordinance.  They never even reach out to them on them while drafting this.  That would never fly in the type of engineering that I do.  So many of the questions and concerns raised could already be solved by a local store, they could have some ideas about best practices for their property, or they could have important input as they are the ones that are claimed to be targeted by this ordinance.  If you don’t reach out and partner with those affected you could be wasting time, money, and reinventing the wheel on something that may not even be the correct course of action.  To me it shows a great failure on such a small issue - something that would have taken very little time or effort on the drafter’s part.  If this is how the council and staff treat a simple ordinance, it does make me question a lot.  It makes me assume that people want power to implement rules, but don’t want to actually talk to the public and work to implement the will of the people and businesses they claim to represent and lead.

This is the exact question that I should have asked last night.  I know it would have ruffled some feathers, but in the end, isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?  Many people are too scared to ask such questions and even I, a person with a lot of stage and speaking experience, still get anxious a bit as well, but it needs to be done.  We need to push back.

8. Public Hearings: 8.2

The next items for discussion was a request from City Finance to place a lien on a property based on City Ordinances Nos. 174 and 243, and then opened the floor to public comment.  While this is all fine and dandy, there was little information given and as a member of the public I was unaware what these ordinances were for or what/where this lien was for.  It makes me question what the point of this public comment period was for.  To the defense of the city though, I learned there is a more complete packet available online that they do not print out.  This complete packet has more information then the summary packet that they do provide.  This is something that I will be paying more attention to in the future.

9. Public Comment/Action Item.

Complete packet: http://pattersonca.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1099&Inline=True

In the end - we all need, myself included, to remain vigilant and keep ourselves and our community informed.  As noted above, I don’t know if many people know of the complete packet as opposed to the summary agenda.  I should make it a point to outreach this information to people beforehand to each meeting along with my own summary notes to be better prepared to ask the necessary and important questions that often times no one from the public or from the council seem willing or able to ask.

This is the first entry into my local Patterson City Council diary.

[pattersonvoice-blog]

City Council Meeting - 2.17.17

Tonight’s city council meeting consisted of two sessions - the first one was a special “closed” session concerning the city purchasing some property.  The city is looking to purchase 2 pieces of property in what is known as the “Mahaffey Triangle” I am told, between 9th and Ward streets here in town.  When it came time for public comment I asked the simple question “Why are we buying this property?” and got told simply that it was confidential and that I could only ask about what is written on the sheet, which just states the properties in questions, and negotiations about price and payments.

I did ask then what is the point of public comment if we don’t get to know what it is for, why, or be privy to negotiations...and just got told that is how it works.  That may be, it might be how it works...but I do not understand why.  As far as it is concerned, from a public standpoint, outside of the people in “charge,” it looks like the City Council can just purchase whatever they want with our tax money with no input or comment.  This is disturbing, especially as we see more and more how we the people cannot take our democracy for granted.

Once the council got out of “closed session,” they did state that there was nothing to report - so we shall see about how this goes, but I will be keeping an eye on it for sure.

Finally, the proper city council meeting started.  This proceeded as normal through the agenda - the consent calendar was approved as normal, the only item that was commented on was 5.5, which the City Manager Ken Irwin pulled just to clarify that they updated some of the language on the document for  grammatical errors - or as actually stated in the meeting, “grammical errors” which I found oddly charming.

During the next section, the Mayor Deborah Novelli read a couple of proclamations honoring the Boy Scouts of Patterson as well as National African American History Month (or properly known as Black History Month.)  At that time the City Manager opened up to item 6.3 which consisted of a workshop and discussion on Marijuana Regulation and Legalization.

Here is where the meeting got interesting - the workshop covered a lot of topics about the legalization of weed, as well as current state and federal laws pertaining to it.  Out of this discussion and the questions asked by the council the most intriguing point was that the Chief of Police made his opinions on the matter well known - all of his concerns were in the negative and there were a few points I took offense to...

First, there are some “scary sounding” statistics that the Chief cited in rising crime rates and so on from the legalization of weed, which he even admitted cannot be directly tied to the legalization, but still felt the need to point them out.  Then he stated other issues with “letting criminals back on the street” from the overarching changes in the way we house and let loose non-violent criminals from prison...and to start here I did not appreciate the way that the Chief Dirkse of Patterson put a blanket cloud of all former inmates still being classified as “criminals.”  If a person is convicted of a crime, they are a criminal.  If that person then pays their debt to society as written by law and government, then they are no longer a criminal and should no longer be treated or judged as such.  If our police force and society are still pre-criminalizing people for what they perceive to be future risks, it is one way to continue a cycle of criminal activity.  When you tell someone they are pieces of shit after they lawfully fulfilled their debt to society, then you are just asking for them to continue down a path of criminal.  Therefore we as a society are not releasing “criminals back onto the street” so so notably stated by our Chief of Police.  We are releasing former convicts out into public as noted by law.

Secondly - the Chief also stated that currently they use drug offenses to lock up people while investigating other, possibly worse crimes.  Yes, police all over the United States do use minor drug offenses for this purpose, but when the police use that as an argument against the legalization of weed, they are admitting a major flaw in our police and justice system - the use of minor laws, not for any just or right reason, as a tool of arrest and a tool to investigate for larger crimes.  In my opinion, if you are using a minor offense like possession of weed to arrest someone while you investigate something really serious, then it sure looks a lot like abuse to me, especially if that minor drug offense isn’t much of a social problem or isn’t right to criminalize in the first place.  It makes it clear that we pass laws and ordinances not because they are just or right, but because they make someone’s job “easier.”  The job of the police service is to serve and protect the community within the law and constitution - and if certain laws are only passed to give more tools to the police force to enforce non-violent and minor offenses because investigating the rough and real crimes is difficult, that sure sounds antidemocratic.  To this note, see the last meeting post about the shopping cart ordinance which clearly looks more and more to be using one idea to grant more tools to the police for a completely different purpose than what is stated and claimed.  I just believe that if your job is made harder by doing the right thing, then your job is made harder.  Doing the right thing is what is important.

Enough of my ranting on that - the only other item of interest from this discussion was a completely ridiculous and unscientific poll on people’s opinions on what and how the city of Patterson should regulate the marijuana industry.  What was even funnier about this was that most of the audience was made up of Boy Scouts and their parents - the boy scouts which are mostly children and a group, while good in nature and well-meaning at a local level, at a national level are a group with a well-established track record of anti-progressive ideas, inequality towards non-traditional sexual and gender orientations, and exclusion of atheists and other non Judeo-Christian faiths.  To this point, the questions asked in the completely public and non-scientific poll about weed regulation were not in any way representative of the public at large - and it served no real purpose other than a publicity stunt of some kind.

The rest of the meeting was not much of note, the first reading of the ordinances Nos. 798 and 799, pertaining to updating the fire codes - which contained some edits and changes, most of which appeared innocuous to me when reading through them.  The final item on the agenda was for selection various council members for various roles and meetings - again, not much of note here other than hearing from the two newest councilmembers, Naranjo and Parham, on volunteering for some of those positions.

Not an overly exciting week, a bit long and drawn out of a meeting, but overall the main takeaways for me are:

1. What is the point of public comment on a closed session item if we the public can’t have any information and is that closed session really necessary even if it is completely legal?

2. The city is planning two different town-hall workshop sessions to discuss the regulation and taxation of the marijuana industry.  I believe it will be important to have strong public opinion on this matter - especially since the Police made their thoughts and opinions well known on the topic.

Please feel free to reach out to me here or via email at pattersonprogressives@gmail.com for any comments, questions, or concerns.  Thanks!

Meeting Agenda

Patterson Election Districts