Appointment of Vice Mayor, 2024 Meeting Schedule, New Liaison Assignments and Town Audio/ Video Status were all discussed at Wednesday’s work session.
Council Member Liaison and Commission Reports
Planning Commission- Their next meeting will be on the 11th at 5:30 PM. The Housing Authority meeting will be held at the end of the week.
Public Safety - Krista Brown raises safety concerns over kids walking to and from school (this is an issue that has been raised by myself and others over the years).
Non-Governmental Organizations - Eric Nelson is the new president of Downtown Colonial Beach. The Economic Development Committee has moved from the Chamber of Commerce to Downtown Colonial Beach.
Public Works - The new sewer treatment plant monitoring system, SCADA is to be installed starting Monday and should be finished by Friday. Public Works is scheduling to clean the sewer tanks, which should help with capacity. Mr. Wood also stated that we would be discussing our treatment plant at the coming strategic planning meeting.
Public Comment
Citizen - commented on meeting schedule, stated he read the strategic planning meeting minutes from last year and thought they were helpful, stated we should look at the wastewater treatment plant and other items at the coming meeting. Also, does not believe anybody would be interested in buying our sewer treatment plant.
Write-in - stated there were some deficiencies in our bylaws, including who the parliamentarian should be, it does not seem an appropriate role for the mayor if the Tom attorney is not available. Council conflict of interest should also be clarified. Also stated something about minutes and how they come out way too late.
Election of Vice Mayor – Each year council nominates and votes for a council member to hold the title of Vice Mayor. Rick Wood gleefully nominated Kenny Allision for his second term as Vice Mayor. Final Vote was 7-0
Liaison Assignments - Each year, the Mayor appoints, liaisons to various town departments. Liaisons basically represent specific departments, but have no real authority so, for example, when I was Economic Development liaison, I would attend the meetings and report back to council. I also tried to helped foster economic development.
Schools - Caryn Self Sullivan
Public Safety - Krista Brown
Finance and Administrative - Kenny Allison
NGO non-governmental organizations - Vicki Roberson
Planning Commission and Housing Authority - David Williams
EDC Economic Development Committee - Robin Schick
Resolution #01-24, Establishes Town Council Meeting Schedule - Every year we set the calendar for council meetings and work sessions. We canceled the July 3 and Sept 4th meetings since they were near a holiday, we also moved the January 2025 work session to the sixth and Council meeting to the 22nd.
DRAFT, Resolution #02-24, Adoption of 2023 Bylaws and Rules of Procedure - There were no significant change to the bylaws so Council all agreed to vote to prove them as written final vote 7–0
Town Center Audio and Video, Councilmember Williams - as many of you know I’ve been trying to advocate for over two years to get the audio and video quality fixed for our town council meetings. This is why I asked for the topic to be added to the agenda once again. As I was trying to speak on the topic, my microphone would not work at all, which is a great indicator that things are not resolved yet especially since it was a brand-new microphone. I had to borrow Rick’s microphone to give my spiel about how I thought we needed to address this that it was important for the people to hear our meetings. After short discussion, council seemed to agree that something needed to be done finally. Caryn suggested that we submit an RFP (Request for Proposal) to have contractors bid. Rick suggested that in the meantime, we pay a professional, to handle the audio and video for the next couple of meetings until we can get a bid. I thought those were both good ideas. Council YES voted 7–0.
DRAFT, Ordinance No. 755, Amends Chapter 3 “Animals and Fowl” of the Town
of Colonial Beach Code of Ordinances, Grant Writer - This is an update to an existing ordinance and has been discussed previously. When council reviewed 755 last year, I asked about the class 4 misdemeanor regarding leash law and pet waste because I thought it was a bit extreme to give somebody a permanent criminal record for those things. As a follow up from last year’s meeting, I asked if those penalties were removed and the answer was yes, but we are awaiting additional clarification from the town attorney. Council set a public hearing for January 17th.
Closed Meeting
Our Town Attorney was absent so consultation with him was removed from the agenda, but discussion was added about a Council appointee.
Please email or call with questions or comments:
540-604-4335
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