Snow, Citation, and Parking Changes

 The Cascade City Council adopted Administrator Lisa Kotter’s suggestion that parking citations be increased 300% from the $5 they are now to $20. (Incidentally, there is only one local town with a $5 parking citation fee; most are $20.) Council defined a “snow emergency as 4 inches or more, discussed instituting a violation fee for them of $150 for the first citation, $200 for the second and $250 for the third. Until the ordinance is passed, it’s only a tow charge.

            When Kotter proposed that the current 48-hr window we have for sidewalk snow removal be cut in half, they went for that. Citizens will get a warning (a doorknob hanger) and have another 24 hours, a total of 48 before the city would remove the snow and assess your property tax. 

Councilwoman Oliphant pointed out that this might be a burden for the elderly and less well off, noting “we don’t have sidewalk.” Generally, Cascade’s older neighborhoods have sidewalk and newer ones don’t, creating an inequitable situation under which half the city has incurs the expense of snow, vegetation and obstruction removal etc. and the other half does not.

The administrator reiterated, “The goal is to affect change, not to increase revenue.” Someone might be forgiven for thinking it might be a 3^rd option.

Residents from the N.E. section of Tyler St. just beyond Main Street where there has been an incremental increase in traffic were invited to discuss solutions. Resident Ann Kurt noted she has lived at her present location for 40 years, asked why this has become a problem. Clearly, traffic to River Bend, including Martin semis, and both the size and frequency of industrial agricultural equipment (cattle transports and honey wagons) turning into a narrow street have created a potential hazard at the top of the hill, just across from the grade school.

However, those who precipitated the problem will not be required to remedy it: after a half hour’s discussion, the parking spaces on the west side of the street (along the Noonan residence) will be eliminated. Most of these changes will take publication and readings at coming meetings, but should be in place by the new year.

Council approved Tax Increment Payments to ROSO Properties, LLC, an agreement that was cut by the previous city administrator on the building rented by Butch & Frankies, for renovations that have already been done.

When BOTH the Universities & the DNR Are Corrupt

 

Ironically enough, last week, Farmer John, one of the grandees of the swine republic was in was in full-on mode running honey wagons up Tyler St. and back every 15 minutes from 8 till 10 p.m. from Monday till Thur., while I was reading Iowa, the Swine Republic by Chris Jones. Jones is a “research engineer with IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering at the University of Iowa,” according to the bio under his picture in the book.

Though a PhD there, he is more than a little peeved at swine ag and the university’s role in it. Having taken the Master Gardener training from Iowa State Extension, I can testify there is no preference for organic solutions there either. Leaving one to wonder how many profs endorse unsustainable, chemical agriculture just to keep their jobs.

That’s the reason to read this book of essays, incidentally. In one of them, he points out that everybody says they want clean water, in fact, 81% of Polk County residents voted to tax themselves to get it, but “the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) has no meaningful way to regulate farm pollution…” but in actual fact, “CAFOs (Confined Feeding Operations) make intelligent manure application impossible…”

The ironies never quit that day. Wednesday, another farmer, ironically also named John, stopped by to commiserate and complained, “He (the Farmer John with the 3 CAFOS up the road) doesn’t even bother to cut it in!”  I suppose knifing it into the soil would help keep a bit more pig pee and nitro on the land, but is that the solution?

  I think we have arrived at such a far-gone point where our institutions (universities and government, the DNR) are so corrupt that we may have to take matters into our own hands: refuse to repair the roads, bridges and culverts polluters drive on—since farmers don’t pay for city streets anyway. Put up a sign (pictured) and tell Farmer John to take the gravel over to Hwy. 136, which he does pay for.

 

Should City Residents Pay Farms/Businesses' Real Costs?

 If you caught the “Lisa Show” a.k.a. Cascade City Council meeting Monday night 13 November you heard her read me out for conflating the current main town bridge repair with work essentially ordered by an Iowa Dept. of Transportation (IDOT) Bridge Condition report. That repair now underway was apparently authorized earlier in the summer. There was no discussion of the IDOT report or its potential cost, and either Councilman Riley Rausch or Andy Kelchen said, “Let’s do it.” The following Tuesday a Weber Construction backhoe was already cleaning out the accumulated sand under culvert on Tyler, 1,000 ft. from my house. So you can understand my confusion.  The culvert installed in 2005, so the DOT report listed its condition as “Good;” all it needed was to have the accumulated cleaned out of the waterway.

            At the previous council meeting an IDOT “Bridge Condition Report” was introduced showing various problems on three city bridges: 1) the main span over the North Fork in the middle of town, 2) the culvert, which replaced the bridge just on Tyler St. NE out to River Bend and 3) the Monroe Street Bridge, formerly the main road to Farley. It is now dead ends at Custom Pre-Cast, so the only traffic is to the self-storage and Custom Pre-cast, essentially a private bridge/road.

            When Lisa finished I asked Kelchen “Is Custom Pre-cast in the city limits?”

            “Half of it is; half of it isn’t.” Mr. Kelchen answered and then launched into a tirade on me insisting that his company “pays more taxes than a private residence like mine”; (Duh!) that it supports many other businesses (Bard Concrete, for example), and is beneficial to the town.  He further insisted that the DOT created a private road his family’s business, inferring, I guess, that the city is obligated to repair it.

            I beg to differ on two scores: 1) all the hard surface you and Bard are installing around town is a “benefit” and the city, which has lots of other demands? Question is: should the city fix the bridge, which is going to be expensive because it is old and primarily been used by trucks carrying multi-ton loads of concrete?           

Speaking of demands, the exchange was followed by property owner Allen Knepper coming from Wisconsin to exhort the city to install curb and gutter near his property adjacent to Thomas and DeLong streets. And speaking of bridge and culvert repair, from dawn till well past dusk—the last one returned around 10 p.m. last night—every 15 minutes for the last two days, there has been a multi-ton honey wagon up Tyler Street. How soon is the Tyler Street culvert going to start showing the wear and tear? Question is, should city residents be paying Farmer John's way? No wonder farms are so profitable—city residents pay for all their real costs!

 

Election Reflections

 

In November of 1993, I ran for and was elected to the Cascade City Council. The main issue, if I recall correctly, was that then-Councilman Kenny McDermott (RIP) was splitting up city street repair work into component parts, so jobs came in below $25,000 and didn’t need to be publicly bid. Reporting for the Cascade Interpreter, the newspaper I published until then (The last edition is dated Winter 1993-4.) I discovered this, squawked and was voted onto council.

My dominant memory of being on there was Bill Gehl, also on council then, abusing me so spectacularly, that I bashed the desk, swore and stomped out of chambers. In defense of Mr. Gehl, I can safely say I was such a doofus about infrastructure, I wouldn’t have known what a piece of rebar was if one whacked me on the butt.

I know a 100x more now because my brother Paul has since worked for the city, and every time there was something I didn’t understand, he would it explain it or show me how it worked. Not that he didn’t get exasperated with me on occasion either:  “Can’t you see where the water is running?” “Well, now that you point it out, I can.” (Life is an uphill learning curve.)

So now that I am more enlightened about infrastructure, why was I not elected? A variety of factors I am labeling a, b, c, etc. and you can rearrange them in numerical order of 1, 2, 3, 4-priority as you yourself see fit: 

a)     Cascade is older and more conservative than it was previously. A History professor I had in a U. of Wisconsin course assured me that this was going to happen to the U.S. at large and indeed, the whole country has become more conservative—witness our governor—it’s a little like dementia, I guess. Just happens.

b)      b) I am more socialist. For the simple reason that I spent 5 years in Germany and saw how the Communist and Green parties there kept the capitalists from walking  off with everything. Like as not, you would be too, if you had that experience.

c)       C) This country thinks of itself as a democracy, we routinely vote for local, state and national royalty, the Kennedys, the Gehls and Hoschs.

d)    d) Women are far less likely to be elected, appointed, etc. to anything. I eventually resigned when I couldn’t get a job locally:  the principal of a school told me point blank: “You are well-qualified for this position, but I can’t consider hiring you because that newspaper you published was too controversial…”

I went home and applied for a job teaching English in Changwon, So. Korea and left the U.S. for two years the following month.

Cascade as Cruise Ship for Surrounding Communities

 

In the 1950’s the farming community came to town on Saturday night to buy, socialize, tipple and confess their sins, making a clear contribution to the city economy. Now?

We can only hanker for early decades of the last century when the farms of the countryside provided Cascade’s businesses an authentic, organic source of customers. The future is now and contains a lot of dog parks if we don’t step up and shape it.

Here’s why: Last January 24-26^th at the invitation of the Cascade Economic Development Corp., Iowa Rural Community Enrichment, a division of the Iowa Economic Development Authority in Des Moines, brought four experts to Cascade. They met with several people—a dozen business owners, a dentist, a chiropractor, a couple medical professionals, the three school principals, a high school teacher, some students, a banker, the chamber president, four council people, the mayor, a half dozen citizens and a couple farmers. This group and 98 other folks who filled out a survey on Facebook provided input to a Downtown Assessment Report issued in March. There is a copy in the library and you would do well to read it because what is happening in town is more or less laid out in this Downtown Assessment Report.

I. E: the new $50,000 party-planning, promotions and volunteer-organizing position created this summer, the new sidewalk and cement parking installed in October on the southeast of the pool, and the dog park—are all a result of those meetings. On page six the authors of the report have listed the town’s greatest weaknesses. Number one: “There is not enough to do in town.” 

Naturally, such a report does not assess the underlying problems plaguing American society—lack of meaningful education that cultivates interests (except sports) and makes us believe as people that going places, spending money and buying stuff makes us happy. Proof: the “most needed new businesses” called for by respondents are: 1) restaurants (We already have 5 plus 3 places you can buy fast food!), 2) clothing/boutiques, 3) bowling/entertainment, 4) an ice cream shop, 5) sports bar/Irish pub and 6) a consignment shop.

The business this community most needs is a lumber jack. Close to half the residences in town have a tree that needs to be removed and some local tree services can’t come to assess one for 60 to 90 days. Longer to schedule a removal. If city taxpayers are investing in businesses; why not invest in one we really need and haven’t a single one of?

Are dog parks, new restaurants and consignment shops the answer? I know an older couple on Main Street who would like to stay in their home, but can’t because they can’t do the maintenance and can’t find anyone to help them do it.  Shouldn’t we be investing in a business that would help them? I am sure they’d pay.

Last month, I searched in vain for a place to get a fine old Grundig radio repaired. I tried Dubuque, where it was bought, Cedar Rapids, Chicago, L.A. and NYC. I finally found a lovely guy in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Perhaps we need to question our toss-it-in-the-landfill-get-a-new-one philosophy and look for businesses that help preserve the environment, not just provide entertainment and diversion.

Volunteers, Volunteers

            One might also object to the Downtown Assessment Report’s insistence on drafting volunteers to do city work. We know why we don’t have the money to hire people and why. Last year, Cascade and state taxpayers gave a business $600,000 to redo the old Brewery Building. A couple years back we gave Jesse Loewen $157,000 to redo the old Farmer’s and Bankers’ Building.

            Almost every council meeting city taxpayers are asked to pay for infrastructure. At the Monday night October 24 meeting, Origin, Dubuque firm, presented its report on the main bridge over the North Fork of the Maquoketa, and two others both with defects, both receiving heavy use by non-tax paying businesses outside the city.

         

   The Monroe Street Bridge spans the creek bed that brings water from the East Side of town. It sits on a dead-end, no-outlet street and the traffic on the bridge is primarily Custom Pre-Cast’s trucks loaded with cement. Should city taxpayers be repairing a bridge for a profitable company not even located or paying taxes in the city? It’s practically a private use bridge—let them fix it.

            The farm community made notable contributions to the city’s economy in the past, but the situation now seems reversed! We now have three hog confinements on a farm north of town, and their heavy grain trucks and honey wagons have compromised the culvert that replaced the bridge on Tyler St./Aitchison Rd. in/out of town. They run up Tyler St., spill their contents on the road and Cascade taxpayers are expected to pony up to fix the culvert these vehicles have compromised?

This past summer, with a new pool, Cascade became a destination for out-of-towners and according to one of the life guards I spoke with, there were many patrons from as far away as Dubuque—“especially after the city-sponsored parties.” One has to wonder with potholes in other areas of town why the street along the pool was prioritized for repair and a brand new sidewalk. Is this a service for business?

City residents pay the same entrance fees as non-residents. South of town at Riverview Ridge, there are two dozen or more vacation/weekend residences. Should these non-taxpayers pay the same as us? It seems that ordinary taxpayers ought to get some benefit along with the business and farming communities. The right council person will insist on it!

 

 

More Comparisons & a Few Questions

 

At the Cascade City Council meeting Monday 9 October, $1.2 was shaved off the new library construction budget. Councilman Andy Kelchen even suggested that more might be taken off for good measure—to make sure we are well under the line. It is quite sad to consider what a beautiful design the library was to begin with and what has been removed.  Pictured above are two Cascade playgrounds barely a block apart—one at the East Side Elementary expanded this summer, the other in the Legion Park at the pool. Of course, the former was built by the school system; the other is a city installation, different government levels. However, it seems some cooperation and communication among decision makers might have avoided this costly duplication so we might not have to make such painful cuts.  Might other expenditures such as dog parks might receive the same scrutiny?

 

Administration is a widely varying cost among cities, but it bears looking at them, though comparison

is difficult because city administrators have differing duties. For example, the city of Epworth (pop. 2,023) is run by long-time Clerk Janet Burger. She stresses that she handles “only administration; the streets and police are run by the heads of those departments.” However, she has 35 years experience and makes $71,760. In Anamosa, with more than twice the population of Cascade at 5,522 people the top job held by Jeremiah Hoyt is paid $100,880.  With almost exactly twice the population at 4,040, Monticello Administrator Russell Farnum pulls down $96,500. Of course, none of these figures include heath care, clothing allowance, phones or other perks paid administrators.

 

Your Democracy & Your Access to It

This spring, the Cascade City Council voted to curtail citizen access to agenda discussion almost totally. Previously, a citizen could get up; volunteer any information, opinion or fact about an issue.  Now you are limited to “3 minutes per person—Agenda Items and Local Government Issues.” Good luck if you have a complicated issue and are not an accomplished public speaker!

Though a Cascade resident is still able to put an item on the agenda—but tell me, who is going to put Tax Increment Financing or Façade Reimbursement (programs under which we transfer taxpayer money to businesses) on the agenda? You? Me neither! So citizens are not free to input to these discussions. One routinely hears grumbling around town about public money going people who already have plenty, but that notion is never aired in a public TIF discussion!

At the end of a meeting, when the issue has been decided or tabled, the citizen gets another three minutes—then only to comment on agenda issues.

            I have long harbored a suspicion that this change in agenda policy was aimed at me, and was gearing up to ask City Administrator Lisa Kotter point blank, when in a conversation she volunteered this, “You are very dramatic and you interrupt any time…”

            “No, when an idea is appropriate and relevant. With ideas they seldom, if ever consider.”

            She went onto confirm that something I had suspected for even longer—that she (and former administrators) bend over backward to present Council with ideas and ordinances—the legal execution of ideas—they already favor. “Assessing the sentiment on council and giving them what they want is the heart soul of this job!” Kotter explained. 

And she is crackerjack at it: in the last year since she has arrived, we have had a clutter of ordinances and fee increases that Council adores, because generating $, not aiding citizens seems to be the object of the exercise.

Oligarchs, especially Councilmember Mike Delaney, insist this is “representative democracy.”  Once the vote is taken, you no longer have a say—and good luck changing his mind. The ideas and options for dealing with issues are simply off the table, if he doesn’t fancy them.

The Dog Park is a perfect example. When the Rural Enhancement people said it couldn’t be built on the old sewer plant grounds in the flood plain, rather than having a public discussion to find another central site, as it seems democracy would dictate, the decision was made behind closed doors to move it to Oak Hill. A sign suddenly appeared out there. Now, only 2 towns, roughly our size have dog parks—Dyersville and Epworth. Most don’t—Anamosa (pop. 5,201), Bellevue (2,349), Farley (1,766) Monticello (4,040), and Peosta (1,908).

For most of my years in this town, we have had a council dominated by business people. The current one may be biz-interests-on-steroids, considering Mr. Delaney is running a business-to-business concern, and Mr. Rausch is married to Builder Bucky Manternach’s daughter.

Normally, I abhor blaming women for their husband’s actions, but Hailey Rausch put herself on the agenda advocating the new Council-Chamber Promotions and Party-planning position and then her husband, Councilman Riley Rausch give Brad Ludwig, and Ken McDermott Chamber president and VP respectively the 3^rd degree for 45 minutes in a council meeting.  There was never a sentence of discussion of the drawbacks.

I might have said something, but now I am locked out and so are you!       

Some Enlightening Comparisons

 

Administration is one of Cascade’s biggest expenses, costing over $200,000 a year. City Administrator Lisa Kotter is pulling down $104,000 a year. Her clerk makes roughly $55,000 and the new position—Director of Community and Business Promotion—Sean Chambers makes $50,000. The Bellevue (pop. 2,349) administrator makes $81,284; the assistant clerk $67,745 and the City Secretary $51,480. In Farley, the Director of Finance and Development makes $70,304; the clerk $50,053.12, but only works 32 hours a week; the deputy clerk makes $49,566. Of course, these are raw salary figures, and do not include health insurance or perks—clothing allowance, moving expense or a phone, all of which were provided Ms. Kotter by Cascade.

 

The Monticello gazebo is a simple cement, wood and shingle structure that probably cost –what $35,000? The high-design limestone rock-and-wood Cascade gazebo recently completed by Bucky Manternach Construction came in at just over $135,000. The previous gazebo, a small wooden affair, the historical venue for the town band when a lot of people played in it, was not maintained, as much of Cascade’s infrastructure is not, so it had to be demolished. A sweet, unpretentious piece of history down the tubes, which is why I advocate more resources be spent on existing infrastructure. 

 

Cascade's Deep State

 When Donald Trump was carrying on about the “deep state,” I dismissed it as a superb bit of paranoia, guaranteed to nab votes.

However, since we have acquired a new city administrator in Cascade, I have had second thoughts about the deep state—unelected people with the authority to take actions, spend money, and set policies that affect citizens.

This is not a new wrinkle: the previous City Administrator Deanna McCusker overspent her allotment by $10,000 to put a fancy blue roof on the pool. I have in my possession and email that proves she issued a building permit for the Tyler St. Apartments before the drainage was installed. Then, of course, it was not—the water runs directly into the street.

 Of course, she wasn’t the first. We have had some doozies, which is why I sat down and wrote an ordinance to make the city administrator responsible to the people.  Yes, s/he is hired by council but council has convinced me that it doesn’t care about citizens concerns; it cares about bringing $ in. Last spring, a whole neighborhood appeared objecting to cramming some housing onto a lot at the edge of the New City Park, and the citizens’ interests were ignored.

So I dug out my old ordinance and called the DBQ County Auditor. She assured me she would NOT put it on the ballot because there is no provision to allow it. I argued that if I had enough signatures that was a referendum and citizens have that right. She refused, so I called the Secretary of State’s office. Josh Nelson in the Iowa Secretary of State’s elections division sent me a referendum form; he said it would do the job. I started collecting signatures.

Monday 11 Oct. Ms. Kotter invited me to her office, and told me I should be careful what I wished for—no city administrator should have to worry about a vote when they make a decision. I told her THAT was exactly though they should worry about—for whoever is in the position, to worry what citizens think. What citizens want.

“Especially when it comes to democracy,” I told her point-blank. “You have been responsible for serious curtailment of access to democracy council discussions.”

She insisted, “If you get in your car and drive to towns all around here you won’t find any that allow you the access you want to discussions.”

She is simply wrong about that. My buddy Steve Hanken, running for council next door in Monticello, tells me he routinely gets up and voices his opinion about the financial imbroglio that town is in as a result of the DNR ordering them to build a new sewer plant.

And unless Bellevue, Dyersville, Epworth, Anamosa, and Decorah are lying to me, you can get up in any one of them unannounced and comment on any topic up for discussion. The situation changes in towns such as Galesburg, IL pop. 32,195; Bettendorf, IA pop. 39,102;

Marion, IA pop. 41,535. But that’s a function of population.

            So Ms. Kotter has brought us the worst of both worlds—we have the high fees and limited access to democracy of a big towns. Incidentally, Ms. Kotter is not cheap: she is pulling down a salary of $104,000 plus perks, Teresa Weinschenk, Bellevue Administrator (pop. 2,349)  is earning $81,284.

            Check the next edition of the Cascade Free Press next time for more salary comparisons and I am again collecting signatures on a petition for voter approval of the city administrator.

Resolved: Should Aid Citizens with Tree Removal

 In 2017, sly as a virus, the Cascade City Council killed off the Sidewalk Committee and passed an ordinance to make citizens responsible for their own sidewalks without ever making an announcement. As it stands now, the city can order you to repair your sidewalk and incidentally you, dear citizen, are responsible if somebody falls on it.

Recently it was noted there are a large number of dead and dying trees around town, casualties of both our 3-year drought, an emerald ash borer infestation and derechos two Julys running. At the 28 July 2023 meeting Council passed a Tree Ordinance with some dissention about the time-frames citizens should be granted to hire a service and have the tree removed.

Councilwoman Megan Oliphant argued that “removing a tree costs $1,000, and nobody has that kind of money lying around.”

Councilman Andy Kelchen, who apparently does, argued for shortening the deadlines saying, “People have known about it (their dead trees) for years, so….” He might be right about ash trees dying from emerald ash borer, but I will personally invite Mr. Kelchen to come here and see a tree I myself planted 25 or 30 years ago—a willow, which has succumbed to the drought in the last three weeks.

No one on council suggested any financial help for any citizen—no matter how much trouble they might have paying for the removal of a couple trees—as in one case, a family has more than one dead tree. There was only a short discussion of trying to make an arrangement with a tree removal firm to make it worth his while to come to town for tree removal several days/weeks running.

            Under three separate programs—TIF (Tax Increment Financing) Rebates, Façade Reimbursement and Business Incentives for the most recent fiscal year 2021-2022, the city has paid out some enviable sums of money to some of the most well-off people and businesses in and around the town:

            Premium Plant Services --$19,239.25

            McDermott Industries--$14,099.06

            Callahan Construction--$38,690.20

Under the Façade Program, $24,000 was paid to Centro for fixing up the outside of its buildings.The new Brewery Owners got $600,000 of state money (your Iowa taxes) to renovate the old Dalhem Feed Store; Cascade citizens are chipping in $70,000.

We have no problems spending money; we just seem to have a problem spending it on people who really need help. This accounting does not include some of the large sums paid out in the past. We know of course that we sent almost $300,000 to the out-of-town owners of Brothers Market over the last decade. Some of us still haven’t recovered from the city paying Jesse Loewen $257,000 of our taxes to renovate the old Farmers Bank abandoned when Jeremy Miller absconded and left us holding that bag.  The new gazebo in Riverview Park cost us upwards of $135,000.

This is why I am running for Council because people who really need city help are not receiving it—ordinary citizen’s claims are not even articulated in council these days. 

 

Ordinances, Ordinances

 

New Cascade Ordinances:

Know, so You Don’t Get Caught Out!

A dizzying collection of new ordinances have been passed in the last year. This rundown is to help the average citizen know what they are and not incur a police visit, or worse—a  fine, penalty or lien.

The most widespread changes likely to affect the most people relate to building permits. One of my neighbors was aggravated to discover that he needed a $75-permit to fix a drainage problem the city created (!) on the sidewalk in front of his house. The fee for sidewalks and driveways currently listed on the city website is $25, but by September 1st you will need a permit for Fences, Signs & Concrete #12-23 costing $75, a 200% increase.

Passed last July (’22), the building permit for a deck or addition has gone up from $25 to $150, a whopping 600% increase. A new home permit is $400 and there is further expensive new wrinkle here—the permit applicant must also pay for an inspection by East Central Iowa Association (ECIA). And said applicant must pay extra if ECIA has to come out from Dubuque to inspect your place.

Yes, and fix what he/she doesn’t like if it doesn’t pass inspection!

The Dilapidated Buildings Ordinance #01-23 is not likely to affect most ordinary citizens. It’s mainly aimed at business people with vacant downtown property.  However, it will be excellent to have some redress against a property owner like Jeremy Miller, who let the old Farmer’s Bank Building roof decay, absconded and ended up costing Cascade taxpayers over $257,000.

Perhaps the most worrisome of the clutter of new ordinances is the most recent—carried over from the August 14^th meeting because the legal language was incorrect. Ordinance #10-23 limits Garage or Rummage Sales to 3 per year, only 3 days running, so if there is a 4-day weekend, you can’t have a sale every day of it. Anyone reading this can envision the sort of family problems that might cause you to have to dissolve your household and need to sell stuff.  

Before it has even passed, a young couple on Main Street may have been driven out of town by it. (They may have been the impetus for it.)They had a month-long yard sale trying to save the house they inherited and people complained. I don’t know who, though I hope it wasn’t the couple who moved a business in next door. This is a perfect example of how people are driven into poverty in the U.S. and it’s shameful. We should be outraged.

            An ordinance animal lovers might get caught on is #07-23, Vicious and Dangerous Animals & Maximum Allowable Dogs and Cats passed on 26 June. There was a great deal of discussion over the appropriate number for a household, which turned out to be a total of 8: 3 dogs and 5 cats. For most of these ordinances, there has been a 5-0 approval vote, but here Councilman Riley Rausch objected, something we need more of.

            It was gratifying that Councilwoman Megan Oliphant objected to the deadlines in #14-23 the Trees Ordinance, which gives the city the ability to order a homeowner to remove a dead or diseased tree in their yard. “Removing a tree can cost $1,000, and people don’t have that kind of cash lying around,” said Oliphant. (At the end of the meeting, I pointed out removing mine cost $3,000.) As many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck perhaps Council needs to consider aiding homeowners in compiling with the Tree Removal Ordinance. 

The Storm Water Discharge #13-23 ordinance passed 14 Aug. (on one reading with no subsequent readings) may help homeowners prone to flooding, but not if the city won’t enforce the 80-20 rule. Private homeowners are allowed to cover more than 100% their property with hard surface. Only developers are held to the 80-20 requirement.

If the gutters run water off your house directly into the street, you may be asked to make sure it gets trained onto a grassy surface. But if we don’t get some rain, nobody is probably going to ask you that either!