The "Mother of All Agendas"-Part 2

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In yesterday's posting, we noted that Mayor Hiremath has created the "Mother of All Agendas" for tonight's Oro Valley Town Council Meeting. In that posting, we noted that there are 17 items on the consent portion of the agenda, at least five of which should be discussed in detail.

There are also 6 regular agenda items, items that require some discussion.

Here are some of the 6 items:

• Item 2: DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE DIRECTION FOR A MINOR GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT TO ADD A NEW MIXED USE (MU) LAND USE DESIGNATION TO THE GENERAL PLAN.

Here's our "direction" regarding Mixed Use. Put a lid on it and bring it up as a part of the 2015 General Plan. Mixed Use was rejected in the 2005 General Plan by the voters. It is up to the voters, not the council, to put it in and to approve it. As Shirl Lamonna has so eloquently noted, Mixed Used is a Trojan Horse to get property rezoned for apartments.

• Item 3: DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE INITIATION OF A ZONING CODE AMENDMENT TO ESTABLISH AN ECONOMIC EXPANSION ZONE WHICH WOULD PROVIDE ALTERNATIVE SUBMITTAL, REVIEW AND APPROVAL PROCESSES FOR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS WITHIN RANCHO VISTOSO NEIGHBORHOOD 3, GENERALLY LOCATED NORTH OF TANGERINE ROAD, ALONG INNOVATION PARK DRIVE

"This is a request from Council [Former Member Gillaspie] that staff look into an overlay zone that is intended to spur economic development. Wednesday evening Council will give staff direction on whether or not to press forward and work on an Economic Expansion Zone amendment or overlay in Rancho Vistoso Neighborhood 3. This amendment would address how the Town processes development requests through our system." (source: email from Paul Kessler, Director, Oro Valley Development and Infrastructure Department).

• Item 4:DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION REGARDING AQUATIC CENTER EXPANSION AND CONSIDERATION OF FUNDING PROJECT ELEMENTS.

This is a request to spend an additional $1.17 million on the aquatic center renovation. This is in addition to the $3.45 million that was approved. The additional funding may be required to bring the pool up to competitive swimming standards. We do not know why something like this was not known when the prior council approved it. Seems like somebody should have checked the standards for competitive swim meets if, indeed, we were building a facility to house such meets.

Talk about a lot to discuss. Any one of these items could take two hours to discuss.

That is why the last two of the items, Items 6 and 7, on the regular portion of the agenda are so important. These items call for restoring the July 17 Oro Valley Council Meeting.

When it comes to Oro Valley Town Council meetings more is better. The town is growing. The town also has an active, informed constituency. Issues should be identified and discussed. Issues should not be swept aside as consent agenda items or buried in agendas that become marathon sessions, with the possibility of exhausting the Council members into making bad decisions.

It is the job of the Mayor to create the agendas. It is the Mayor's job to insure that the issues are identified and fully vetted. It is not the Mayor's job to get decisions made quickly and to encourage decisions to be made under duress. That is when mistakes happen. Mistakes can cost us dearly. Unfortunately, the council meeting agendas that Mayor Hiremath creates do just that. Like we said before, Mayor Hiremath loves being Mayor; he just doesn't want to do the job of being Mayor.
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