... (Dan) Coffey, who represents District 1, received a unanimous nod from the council Monday to be its president except for Councilman Jack Messer, who abstained from voting.Coffey had noted aloud that he and city clerk Marcey Wisman "went through" the list of positions and determined who was "most qualified" to serve, but like Lucy pulling back the football as Charlie Brown takes his steps to kick ...
Coffey was the lone member nominated for the position and was suggested by Councilman Pat McLaughlin. He replaced Councilman Jeff Gahan who said previously he didn’t want to be president in 2009.
Coffey appointed himself to the Plan Commission and will remain on the Redevelopment Commission with Councilwoman Diane McCartin Benedetti, who was also selected to be the council’s vice president by the body.So much for qualifications, seeing as though lengthy experience hath abundantly shown that Coffey officiously attached to anything vaguely resembling "planning" and "redevelopment" ranks just below the senselessness of the senior editor being selected to the College of Cardinals and taking up residence in the Vatican ... but so goes life (and ironic detachment) in the open air museum.
Suddeath ends his account with an overview of comments made by the deputy mayor, who addressed the topic of ordinance enforcement.
Deputy Mayor and Director of Community Development Carl Malysz promised the council more action in the next 30 days centralized to code enforcement.Follow the link above to read the remainder of the story, which includes Malysz's thoughts on the future of rental property registration.
Mayor Doug England plans to give the State of the City address at the Jan. 15 council meeting which will include parameters on code enforcement.
In the meantime, Malysz said the mayor is ready to fill the code enforcement officer position that will be funded by Community Development Block Grant money.
I heard a lot of talk about code violation "recognition" but zilch on code "enforcement".
ReplyDeleteA pair of decent eyes and little time walking and/or driving some streets will identify plenty to "enforce", at least to start with. If the "problem makers" notice actual enforcement, we may not need to spend much on recognition.
Is anyone else concerned about the Coffey-Benedetti-Gary McCartin influence on both the planning commission AND redevelopment?
ReplyDeleteMy own father, of mid-century 20th Century NA vintage, like Coffey and his milieu, walked into my under-restoration historic house at Christmas and the first thing he muttered in that snide contempt all of you will recognize from dealing with city govt. was - “Why do ya wanna spend your money taking care of this old house?” Obviously I’ve been working to enlighten him for going on 50 years and I haven’t made a dent. When I consider the similar mind-set that has infected NA for generations, I do often wonder if the total destruction of all things of value will be complete by the time these people die out. I think to call them parasites is being too generous, ‘cause even parasites don’t kill off their host. Yes, I am saddened to see the past still churning it’s small-bore, utterly vision-less pack of government hacks through city government’s gut like so much bacteria. I mean Councilman Coffey doing the Dick/Cheney and appointing himself to Planning and ReDevelopment(two bodies infamous for their nothinglessness).
ReplyDeleteBut then on a happier note I think - hey! maybe they’ve killed off the host! Now all we have to do is wait for a good wind to blow away the dead parasites and ...
Wake me up when this plague is over.
I should have mentioned in the story that Coffey asked the council if anyone else wanted the slot on the plan commission before accepting it himself.
ReplyDeleteYou also could've mentioned that Coffey called a 15 minute recess during which the entire council continued to conduct city business, reading and discussing his proposed appointments, until he declared the recess over after 10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteWhen the appointments came up on the agenda, he skipped them and never actually said who was named to what, if they actually were.
It was reminiscent of the day he voted to approve (an already defunct) redistricting agreement guaranteeing that neither he nor any other council members would discuss redistricting outside of official, on-record meetings and then immediately convened a council group during the next recess to discuss redistricting. I have that on tape.