Synopsis of July 12, 2016 River Oaks City Council Meeting.

The meeting started on time. All members present with the exception of the mayor. Mayor Pro Tem Joe Ashton took the big chair.

Before I start the synopsis let me explain a situation that happened online since it will pertain to one of the agenda items. Most citizens when you go to council meetings get a copy of the agenda which usually is only a few pages. The same material is available on the city website. There seems to have been some kind of mistake and the city website had the entire council packet posted for all to see. 70 pages worth, including personal credit information, drivers license, social security number and complete death certificate. No comment was made during council about what or how it happened.

First item on the agenda was a request by Carol Bradley to waive water deposit fee and certificate of occupancy for the house at 326 Frontier. She stated this house has been in her family since 1950. This has has never left ownership of her father or her and her daughter is now living in the house. It was explained to her by Council member Gordon that when ever there is a change of occupancy this triggers the new C/O and water deposit fee. Ms. Bradley also complained that she took four days off from work to try to handle this situation, yet every time she went in to city hall to try and straighten this situation out, she was told a different story by staff. Mayor Pro Tem Ashton stated everybody knows how he feels about the situation on these re-certification triggered by the water bill. He stated he was really concerned about how this particular property was singled out. He questioned whether we as a city just sit around and look at the obits to see whose water bill is about to change. Council member Scott felt they couldn't waive the inspection progress, but felt they should waive the water deposit fee since all of our personal information was put out online. Council member Holland stated this would sit a bad precedence and the city is giving her a year free of credit monitoring. He then made a motion denying her request and it was a four to one vote to deny her request. Joe Ashton being the only no vote to the motion.

No action was taken on the substandard structure located at 901 Churchill. One of the relatives has now obtained power of attorney and the existing order will stand until he returns to the next council member. According to council, if there is no progress or attempted progress in the next two weeks the clock will continue to tick to the 61 days and then its bulldozed per the order of city council.

No action was taken on the substandard property building at 5116 River Oaks Blvd. Otherwise known as Super Save. This is same as above. There is a 61 day order to bring it up to code or it will come down.

Taken off substandard is the property located at 1203 Yale.

No action was taken on the 2017 preliminary budget proposal. Although Marvin did state it looked like it was going to be almost 250,000 in the red. And this is not counting any raises, capital expenditures, or possible insurance increases.

Council approved the 2017 board and committee appointments as recommended by the mayor.

Council approved Resolution 1116-2016 amending the budget due to unplanned expenditures. This is to pay for Marvin's new car. The reason they need extra money is when they sold the old cars the didn't get as much as they thought they would bring.

Council approved Resolution 865-2016 electing to become eligible to participate in granting tax abatement and adopting guidelines and criteria for granting tax abatement in reinvestment zones.

No action was taken on the substandard houses at 4829 Kessler or 4900 Almena Rd. 5312 Taylor Rd. was bulldozed by the city.

Next up was our very own mosquito man (EMC James Myrick)gave a report on the 3 positive samples that they detected for West Nile Virus. They made access to the properties near this positive samples and found standing water with lots of larvae in it. After the homeowners abated the standing water they retested the area and no more positive samples were detected.

Next was a discussion on driveway surface enforcement. Code is currently having issues with determining what the city rules are on driveways that are not bordered, yet have gravel as there driveway. Marvin said the rule is not clear as it is currently stated and requested that we waive the rules they have now until they can be rewritten. I brought up that Zoning Board of Adjustments and Planning and Zoning had had very lengthy discussions and final decisions on what they considered a bordered drive so why wasn't these rules adopted. Marvin stated they just had never brought them before council.

Public Forum: No one from the crowd had anything to say. Councilman Holland then spoke up requesting Marvin look in to what can be done about the old Braums signage since we gave special permission for the tall pole sign and that they should remove the signage requesting customers to visit Lake Worth or University Drive. Holland also stated that council did call it could to try to keep Braums.
58 people reached