Videos during Commissioner Reports and Public Comment...

...from last night's City Commission meeting (1/8/13) are on the way. There was talk about the Banyan tree removal, a domestic violence incident that left a woman dead after being shot by an officer of the law and a "study" discovered by Commissioner McVoy about how "low rise" cities are safer and adapt easier to change. There are other tidbits as well.

It was a lightly attended meeting - much of the agenda dealt with second readings of variance code enforcement amendments.  We learned that the city's property files are a "mess" and will take at least 7 years to fix so that they can be accessed by the public with some assurance that the information is correct.  We also learned that the city is addressing ADA (accessibility) issues along the downtown's sidewalks and it is one of the more burning priorities.  This issue came up during discussion of the bar stools and the street/sidewalk cafe breaches in the downtown.  It turns out that our street trees in the downtown (consisting of Live Oaks and Foxtail Palms) - installed around 1998 - are showing the effects of top watering.  Their root systems have thus pushed up the pavers around them, necessitating the removal of the grates that were once there.  This is the result of a cost-saving decision, way back when, not to install an underground watering system for the trees.  The solutions to this problem did not sound "pretty", especially in light of the loss of the large Banyan tree in the Cultural Plaza.  More to come...