Clockwise from top left: Students Fatoumata Camara, Olivia Green, Simone Inmann and Calvin Laforte; teacher Kimberly Wiseman
There’s a new splash of color at the MLK HUB shopping center, as a mural project undertaken by students and teachers from Snyder High School was unveiled earlier this month. The project was conceived by Robert Antonicello, the [...]
Despite the Board of Education’s (BOE) June 22 6-2-1 vote in favor of negotiating a new contract with superintendent Charles Epps, tensions at the board’s public meeting last night suggest that the contract controversy is far from over.
Thursday’s City Council meeting, the first of the 2011 fiscal year, also marked the beginning of the council’s summer hours, when caucuses and meetings are held at 10 am. It was a regular meeting of the council although there was no caucus and it didn’t take place at the usual time. About a dozen people, most of them city employees, were present to observe the proceedings as the council considered four resolutions; no ordinances were considered.
Wednesday’s City Council meeting, the last evening meeting before the daytime summer schedule sets in, was long on both content and comment. Clocking in at around two and a half hours, the meeting saw several members of the public on hand to address the council on issues ranging from significant bond ordinances to the problems faced by the city’s homeless. The full council was present to consider seven first reading ordinances, three second reads and 39 resolutions.
Although the municipal budget has been at the center of much council brouhaha lately, the hottest issue at this week’s meeting was the council’s consideration of the labor contracts with the city’s police and fire unions. A brief flareup between former mayor Gerry McCann and Ward E councilman Steven Fulop, perennial rivals, added to the atmosphere of tension in the room.
Although this Wednesday’s council meeting was not as packed as the last two were, a relatively large crowd of about 200 were present in council chambers for at least part of the five-hour proceeding as the council considered nine first-read ordinances, 13 second reads and 27 resolutions.
- Full-Time Council? Ward F councilwoman Viola Richardson is introducing an ordinance to make City Council jobs full-time, and another to increase the maximum salary for council members from $22,500 to $90,000 and for council president from $24,500 to $100,000. Both would begin July 1, 2013, and are meeting resistance from the administration.
- Re-introducing Bills: [...]
The proposed municipal budget was once again the star of the show at Wednesday’s council meeting, drawing a rowdy crowd of 500 or so to the council chambers — dozens of whom spoke out in protest of what is likely to turn out to be a hefty tax hike. But there was plenty more going on as well.
After last week’s snowpocalypse canceled a City Council meeting for the first time since 1996, a special meeting was arranged for Wednesday evening to handle time-sensitive business that needed to be addressed before the next regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 24. The thin agenda made for the shortest council meeting in recent memory, clocking in at a mere 29 minutes. There was no public hearing portion of the meeting, and only about 15 community members were in attendance.
Anger, disbelief and high drama were in the air at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, which lasted a bit less than four hours and provided a forum for hundreds of community members to raise a hue and cry over the proposed municipal budget that was introduced at the Jan. 13 council meeting — a budget that includes a 25 percent property tax increase.
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