City of Newcastle, WA -- Council
Meeting of 1/2/13
In yesterday's short Council Meeting, Mayor Rich Crispo discussed restructuring Newcastle's city parks, again, but similar to a previous meeting (11/7/12) in which this subject was brought up, there wasn't much specificity for the sparse audience at yesterday's meeting to grasp on to. Apparently, the Council has some major plans in mind for the city's parks system, but they seem to be keeping them pretty close to the vest. Going by the little that was said in the Nov. 7th meeting, this may have something to do with a plan for joint city and private management of one or more parks, if not outright disinvestiture of some parks by the city, but the plans are unclear at this stage. The next Parks Commission meeting might shed some light.
In other Meeting news, Council candidate Mark Greene took to the public podium and proposed a 6:30 P.M. starting time for Council Meetings (currently they start at 7:00 P.M.) to make it more convenient for working people and the elderly to attend meetings, making the correlation between an earlier start time and getting home at a more suitable time at night. Also, Greene said that council meetings should not be held on election days, suggesting the preceding or succeeding day. Additionally, Greene took differing views regarding Newcastle's new congressman, Adam Smith, who became the city's federal representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, today, as a result of re-districting and winning last year's not-very-close election (Newcastle is now in the 9th Congressional District, though previously in the 8th). Smith has actually been in Congress since 1997 and has made some very bad votes (see a previous post in N.P.R. entitled "This Isn't Jimmy Stewart's 'Mr. Smith' "). Greene pointed out some of Smith's worst votes at the Meeting.
The mayor adjourned this Meeting quickly and moved the entire Council to Executive Session to consider a litagatory matter.
[Revised on 1/5/13; initially, N.P.R. had mistakenly shown the wrong date of the Council Meeting in the subtitle, among other changes.]
COUNCIL'S PARKS PLANS SHROUDED IN MYSTERY
In yesterday's short Council Meeting, Mayor Rich Crispo discussed restructuring Newcastle's city parks, again, but similar to a previous meeting (11/7/12) in which this subject was brought up, there wasn't much specificity for the sparse audience at yesterday's meeting to grasp on to. Apparently, the Council has some major plans in mind for the city's parks system, but they seem to be keeping them pretty close to the vest. Going by the little that was said in the Nov. 7th meeting, this may have something to do with a plan for joint city and private management of one or more parks, if not outright disinvestiture of some parks by the city, but the plans are unclear at this stage. The next Parks Commission meeting might shed some light.
In other Meeting news, Council candidate Mark Greene took to the public podium and proposed a 6:30 P.M. starting time for Council Meetings (currently they start at 7:00 P.M.) to make it more convenient for working people and the elderly to attend meetings, making the correlation between an earlier start time and getting home at a more suitable time at night. Also, Greene said that council meetings should not be held on election days, suggesting the preceding or succeeding day. Additionally, Greene took differing views regarding Newcastle's new congressman, Adam Smith, who became the city's federal representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, today, as a result of re-districting and winning last year's not-very-close election (Newcastle is now in the 9th Congressional District, though previously in the 8th). Smith has actually been in Congress since 1997 and has made some very bad votes (see a previous post in N.P.R. entitled "This Isn't Jimmy Stewart's 'Mr. Smith' "). Greene pointed out some of Smith's worst votes at the Meeting.
The mayor adjourned this Meeting quickly and moved the entire Council to Executive Session to consider a litagatory matter.
[Revised on 1/5/13; initially, N.P.R. had mistakenly shown the wrong date of the Council Meeting in the subtitle, among other changes.]
