Remarks by Marc Laplante
101 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 5
“Order a public hearing on this item on the second meeting in October.”
“Oddly enough, it's still on the news at various levels. I don't need to go into more detail now about that, but I think we all know what I'm talking about. And so what we're trying to do is our part in this which is making sure that every camera that's inside a building, a city camera that we have out there, that the public is aware that there are cameras and they know what the cost is, what the purpose is, and what the impacts are, what are the results of the cameras. And hopefully with this item, there is now a vehicle so when we start getting the information from i.t and all the other…”
“The ordinance, this is not my ordinance, the ordinance says any cameras that the city utilizes, the public needs to be aware that there's cameras. So we need to know if there's cameras in City Hall, for example, we need to know that there are seven, I'm throwing stuff out, seven cameras at City Hall and they're on various floors and we've been able to capture, what's the purpose of the cameras? They need to say that so the public is aware. How long are we keeping the information? What are we doing with the information? These are all part of the discussion, part of what should be provided to…”
“I don't recall us doing, like, approving weddings. I know there, like, I believe there are weddings that take place right across the street and can't be known in common. I don't recall anybody coming for permit to have a wedding across the street. Can I? Yeah, I'm looking for help, yeah.”
“So if you want to get married in a park and you don't want to pay a lot of money for a hall, you can go there and pay nothing.”
“Can you imagine where this is going is my point. We're not charging anybody for the use of our public spaces, which I think we should be thinking about, which I don't know. I'm kind of surprised, and I should know this, but anyway. Those are the rules right now, but we're paying this much for anybody to use our parks. I think if you went to Boston, you'd want to use the park, for example. I think there's some sort of fee. It may not be $1,000, but there's a fee because people want to use it.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Yeah, that's what I thought, thank you, yep, thank you.”
“Just for clarity, I think it's important to just say this. It's important that we say that there was a reason why we were drawing it, and the reason is because it was requested by the administration to put it on the agenda that they wanted. So I just, and that happened again for this document as well.”
“But I just think it's important that we say that, which I just did, so thank you.”
“We give a member's options I think I would prefer to be here I just know how fragmented and difficult it is to run a meeting on zoom even though I'm sure you're very skilled at it, but I just it just there's like did you hear me now it has a lot of fragmentation it's not smooth. So I would prefer to be here for that meeting.”
“Discussion. Councillor Blum. Thank you. It may be a relief to know that I'm not going to offer any amendments tonight. Maybe I'm disappointing a few of you, but I'm not offering any amendments tonight. However, what I will do is this. I want to focus on three places that I think can use some improvements as we go forward in the next fiscal year. And then I want to have one comment regarding the approach that we took this year and how we got here. So number one, in being a part of the Budget and Finance Committee this year and listening to the department heads speak, and by the way, I thought…”
“Discussion. Real quick discussion. I don't think we said tonight yet, and someone needs to say this, that based on these cuts and based on what we're about to vote on, The folks that came here two nights ago, that bus issue has just evaporated. We are now fully funding. It hasn't been said yet. That is now being fully funded, and it is as it was this year. It's going to be again next year, and that's for those folks who really want it as a victory for them as well.”
“The other night I was listening to my colleague from District C who was commenting regarding the transportation contract, and I thought it intrigued me because I wanted to learn more about that. Just because we have the folks here, I would like to ask at this point through you if anybody from the school department has a reaction or a comment regarding the contract that we have with, I believe it's NRT, When does expire and I just think that to my colleagues point this may be something we need to review Council thank you for your time.”
“I appreciate that. I appreciate your attentiveness and listening to what my colleague had to say. I support what he was trying to accomplish, and it appears successfully accomplished. We'll see what happens. I don't think that we actually have an ability to do anything with respect to that except to bring it to light. We don't vote on the contract. This is purely a school department issue. This is something that happens internally. We don't get into those kinds of details and weeds. That's not our jurisdiction, right? But our jurisdiction does, at the end of the day, when you look for the…”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Council President, the reason why we have interpreters is WHEN PEOPLE ARE HERE, IT'S A PUBLIC HEARING AND A PUBLIC MEETING, AND THEY'RE SPEAKING TO THE COUNCIL.”
“AND COUNCIL PRESIDENT, WE ALSO WOULD HAVE HAD THE TRANSLATION SERVICES. WE WOULD HAVE HAD THAT IN THE AIR. WE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, BUT WE DON'T HAVE THEM HERE TONIGHT. Yeah, we don't have it today. That would have been the fix.”
“We have a memo that was given to us by email and on our desk.”
“And I just think it's important, before we actually have a motion, after we do this motion, after this vote, someone's gonna make a motion to support whatever the motion is. I just think it's important now that we at least acknowledge that there's this information here.”
“Anybody else? I wasn't aware of the plan.”
“Oh, you're going to read it before the vote?”
“I just want to, I got two sets of numbers, one with the 590, what is it, the 594, 794, and one without. So, if we had, just as it is, with the two and a half plus the new growth, what's the additional amount that the taxpayers, an average single-family taxpayer would be paying? What is that number?”
“And on the flip side, there's where the $201 come in. If there's an increase in taxes, if I had a 594 or 794, then that's going to be a 201 total additional taxes? That's correct. There we go.”
“I got a question as well. Councilor LeBlanc. Councilor LeBlanc. Thanks, so the assertion that we've heard is because of the new numbers that were given to us by the school department is that we have the busing's been taken care of, and the school lease issue has been taken care of, but there is a deficit of 594, almost $600,000. If we were to pass this budget today, would it be unbalanced? Because there's a deficit of almost $600,000?”