Remarks by Lona Dallessandro
97 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
I have a follow-up question to the – so I asked – I wanted to go on record, just make sure people knew, Mr. Mayor, that I had asked a question because I promised constituents that I would ask this question. And so I did ask this question. It was answered. I just want to get it on the record. So I had asked the question about whether or not we could look at limiting the vehicle's – outside of a residence to four when it's on a cul-de-sac or a circle. And the reasons I stated for that were because of public safety concerns with public works concerns for snow removal and garbage and other things…
And that and I know we've recently this is keeping up with all these changes is challenging so I just want to clarify this too we recently changed the definition of a commercial vehicle or the length of a commercial vehicle we did something recently that allowed more commercial vehicles to be parked in front of residences so can we articulate how that all goes together?
Right. Yes, that's perfect. And then the last question I have is how far away from their house does it count? So in other words, I live on, you know, my street's pretty long, right? So if I had two vehicles in my garage in my in my driveway and I had two vehicles in front of my house but then I parked three more vehicles halfway down the block does that count does it not count like how does that work and how what would be the enforcement action for environmental health around that like if they can't tell if those vehicles are mine or you know my residence vehicles or not
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Thank you, Mr. mayor. Thanks for being here. I appreciate all you're doing around election time. Quickly on the election budget, knowing we're now proposing to be in the two-year cycle for budgeting, can you, are you able to predict for us kind of what that ebb and flow of elections costs will be like plus or minus 20% like in the off year it will be x in the y year it's a plus 20 percent something like that so we can get again an understanding of the rhythm associated with that?
I understand what you're saying. It's not quite as simple as that because of things like special elections and not, but maybe on the other side of all this, as we go into a 10 year cycle, we'll start to see a pattern. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Mayor, hi. Good to see you, director. So are you able to speak tonight about the kind of the shift in the investments that you're considering? So obviously I don't want to assume but with a big number of reductions 400,000 or so it feels like okay there's some software we're getting rid of. Or some technology we're not using anymore we're replacing that maybe with other technology what does the shape of that look like if you can explain are we is it moving more to the cloud is it moving to more AI enabled technologies what's kind of the shape of that looking like right now yeah mayor…
That makes sense, and I think we saw that even in the contract that we did earlier today with the police department. Are people that you're contracting with, are they moving to a consumption model around data right now? Because the downside of this, at least in my experience, is sure, you pay less for the software, but then the storage of your data and the utilization of your data and all those things
I just want to say thank you folks. To say that you went through your budgets with a fine tooth comb is not an exaggeration. I know on behalf of all of us I want to say thank you. Especially since this is really more about cost. Everybody looks at these things as the expenses. The things that just have to happen in order to make government work. Yet you proved that with prioritization we can find opportunities to hold steady. It's not a huge reduction. That's okay. But you're holding steady even though costs are and everything else is increasing because you're finding ways to be more…
I'll go very quickly, Mr. Mayor. As we kind of alluded to, we had those two potential preemptive ordinances, one around a humane pet store ordinance and one around the wild animal free circus ordinance or something to that effect. I don't know to whom we should direct potentially looking into some of those, but it did sound like at least with the humane pet store ordinance, we had some places to go with New Hope and a number of other cities that might have already done something that might be easy for us to pick up and I would be supportive of that. I don't know what the heads here are…
Okay. So it's okay for us to ask staff to do that. I just don't know which department that is, if that's a compliance department or if that's one of the divisions.
All right. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate you looking into it on behalf of the folks that came forward and also I'm kind of an animal welfare person as you all know so thank you for that.
Good evening, everyone. Council member Lohman is unable to attend the meeting tonight and the mayor is traveling on city business today. So when we have this happen, the council adopts an acting mayor coverage schedule for those rare meetings when Tim Bussey's not here. As such, I am council member Lona D'Alessandro and I'm acting as your mayor tonight until he returns. It is 6.30, so I'm going to call this September 28th meeting of the Bloomington City Council to order. Please silence your cell phones, if you would, please, during the meeting. And a copy of the full city council packet is…
Okay. I can run through it very quickly for everybody here. We have our introductory items. We're going to work through Latino and Hispanic heritage Month proclamation which I'm super excited to do tonight. We're going to have the introduction of some new employees. Then we'll have our consent business. Council member Carter has the consent agenda and I believe there's 12, what, 13 items on the agenda. We have four public hearings tonight as part of our hearings resolution and ordinances. And then finally, we'll have our organizational business. We'll have a review of Centerpoint Energy's…
All right. So Council Member Carter made the motion and Council Member Robinson made the second. So we are, I guess, getting ready to say all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? No. Okay. Five nothing is the motion carrying by a vote of five nothing. There we go. I'm going to get this right, guys. I promise. All right. Well, the fun part comes now. Right. So we'll move to our introductory business. Our first item is 2.1, a proclamation recognizing Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month. I'm looking forward to community members, Martha Mendoza Mendista, Rios, and Juan Cerezo…
I know we have a couple of shorter folks coming to the table, so we'll make that adjustment now.
Thank you very much. Yes, that's great. Thanks. All right, come on up and join me. All right. Whereas in 1988, the United States Congress adopted a resolution designating September 15th to October 15th of each year as National Hispanic Heritage Month. And whereas September 15th marks the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, followed by the independence anniversaries of Mexico, Chile, and Belize. Whereas the rich and diverse cultural heritage of Hispanic and Latino communities has profoundly influenced our country, and generations of…
All right. You want to come over here, Estela, and we'll have you guys. I know you're going to be doing the proclamation or your comments in Espanol and then followed with a translation in English. Excellent.
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Yeah, absolutely. Good to have you here. How long have you been on staff so far?
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Wonderful. Thanks for coming tonight and saying hello. Appreciate it. Thanks. Appreciate it. I know the mayor usually says at this moment that whenever we talk to the new employees of Bloomington, it's important for us to recognize that oftentimes you are the people that most of the folks around here see. We get to sit up here, but you get to go out into the community and be the face of Bloomington for a lot of that. So much appreciated to you. We're glad you chose to work here and appreciate your commitment to serving the community around here. So welcome. Thank you very much. All right,…
Second. Okay, so thank you Council Member Carter making the motion and Council Member Robertson seconding the motion to approve the Consent Business 3.2 through 3.13 as presented. All right, if there are no comments or questions, I would look for a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great. All right, motion passes 5-0, and you held 3.1.
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