Remarks by Erik Altmann
304 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 8 of 13
“Uh, I moved to excuse council member Meadows absence on grounds of illness. second motion by Altman second by Grigsby all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that absence is excused is there a motion to approve the agenda moved by Singh second by Whalen any discussion of the agenda Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Agenda is approved. Is there a motion concerning the minutes of previous meetings?”
“Motion by Grigsby to approve the minutes of the regular council meeting of 8 September 2026, the special regular council meeting of 8 September 2026, the special regular council meeting of 9 September 2026, and the city council discussion only meeting of 15 September 2026. Motion by Grigsby, second by Singh. Any corrections to those minutes? Seeing none, the vote is on the minutes as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Those minutes are approved. Communications, all written communications received by council are posted on the online agenda packet. We get them in real time…”
“I have one other slip from Brandon Green. I will call that during the hearing a little bit later. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to address the council? Please.”
“Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council?”
“Is anyone else interested in addressing the council?”
“Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council? Okay. Seeing none, do we have any callers?”
“Thank you, are there any further callers? Further callers, okay. That concludes communications from the audience, which brings us to communications from Council, Council Member Whalen.”
“For my part, I want to just comment briefly first on the issue of city attorneys. City attorney is a critical function, and I think when people consider the cost of billable hours, they might also want to consider the cost of not having accurate and timely legal advice. I think the cost of that is much greater. And we have just and exactly the attorneys here that we need to have here. If one of our attorneys is a specialist in zoning law, then we need that person here on nights where we have complicated zoning issues because we might not have questions, but we might. And if we do, we need…”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Thank you. Would anyone like an item removed from the consent agenda to the business agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Motion by Grigsby second by Singh any discussion with the consent agenda Just clarification the item with the bond That it's still in process.”
“It's not committing you to certain projects. And just to follow up on that, the vote on that bond will be a separate vote? Correct. At some point in the future. OK. And then I just had a comment that the grant in item 3.2 is a grant from the state to install two level 3 EV chargers at the DPW site to help power our new and, with any luck, growing electric fleet. So that's a great. Yes, please.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Okay. Further questions? I have I have one question. So in the if the process had been followed, one of the things presumably the Planning Commission could have done is try to mitigate edge effects, right? So that the destruction wouldn't then carry over to neighboring properties. That would be one of the points that they could have worked through. That correct? OK. If there are no questions, more questions for staff, I'd like to invite the appellant to the microphone to please make a presentation.”
“No, that's fine. So please take your time, the appellant.”
“And we appreciate your efforts to be concise. Thank you.”
“Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for the appellant? I do have one question, sir.”
“Any further questions for the appellant? Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions for staff?”
“I was going to suggest that we hold the public hearing first. I should have done that earlier. So let me open the public hearing and invite anybody who would like to address the council on this issue to please come forward. Please.”
“THANK YOU. IS THERE ANYONE ELSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE COUNCIL ON THIS ISSUE? DO WE HAVE ANY CALLERS? OKAY. SO I WILL THEN CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING, BRING IT BACK TO COUNCIL. MAYOR PROTEM, YOU HAD SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO SAY.”
“Just to be clear, you said the appellant wrote something about tree work along the property line. That was sort of the operative phrase, and this was tree removal across the whole property, which is a very different thing.”
“And tree work along the property line. That's correct.”
“So it doesn't matter that there were fewer on that property? What am I missing?”
“All right. So I have a couple of comments. One, I think, is do we care whether this happens again? That's a question I think we all need to ask ourselves. Do we care whether there is going to be future unauthorized tree removals? Because if all you have to do is come in and say, I'm responsible and you get a deal, then it's going to happen again. We all need to be aware of that. The other point I want to make is that the size of the fine reflects the scope of the destruction. It's not just the removal of the trees. It's the destruction of a landscape and a habitat and effects on neighboring…”
“Okay, so I'm going to move that we postpone further consideration of this item until our October 6th meeting. Motion by Altman, second by Whelan. Any discussion?”
“My motion was to postpone further consideration of this item until our October 6th meeting.”