Since I attend the West Lafayette City Council meetings on a regular basis, I am going to try and give a quick overview from my notes, share items I learned, and help people stay informed on the issues.

This is by no means everything that happened.  Just what I found interesting and can easily recall as I sip on tea back in the comfort of my office.

A copy of the December 1st, 2014 agenda can be found here.

Misc.

• As an aside, at tonight’s meeting, Councilor Gerald Thomas was absent.  Councilor Dietrich wished him good health, so I am not sure what type of illness he is suffering, but I hope for a speedy recovery as well.
  • UPDATE:  I wrote Councilor Thomas and he is doing well.
• Thank you to Councilor Keen for informing us that the APC released an updated Tippecanoe County Student Rental Report & Survey for 2014.

Waste Water Treatment Utility Report

• 11.2131 millions of gallons flowed into the Wabash under a total of 32.27 CSO hours.

Personnel Committee Report

• Mayor Dennis appointed Janet Fawley as Superintendent of the Parks and Recreation Department on November 17.
• The City joined the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns (IACT) to help leverage health care benefit costs.
  • I look forward to learning more about these and to see if there are ways for other municipal entities to join to also gain these benefits.

Parks and Recreation Report

• The West Lafayette Tree Friends are currently taking donations to help with the tree landscape in and around our City.

West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission Budgets and Appointments

• Larry Oates and the Redevelopment Commission presented their new budget, along with wish list items from various departments.
• The same members were reappointed to the commission.
• The current TSC school board representative, Janet Elmore, is retiring from the school and will need to be replaced once she submits her letter of resignation.

Ordinance No. 33-14

• Grant Streetstation petitioned to be rezoned from PDRS to PDMX, allowing for commercial development along the first floor.
  • I asked if the Council, the City, the Developers, and local business members could work together to assure some local, non-chain, non-franchise establishments could be secured in this facility.  Especially in light of the Indiana Tourism Association’s recent Legislative video campaign.
    • If we do not strive to provide unique and celebrated offerings in our community, what incentive do we give people to visit again and again?  How can we encourage people to become a tourist in their own town?

Communications

Councilor Bunder (District 2) read some constituent e-mails regarding NRT enforcement issues and the Confederate flag being flown, in a window, on Salisbury and Stadium.

Listen to the audio for full details.

Citizen Comments

Thomas Kesler spoke about trash and concrete issues in and around New Chauncey.

I asked and spoke about a few items:

• The lack of all documents being made available to the public before the meeting.
  • We can update some aspects of the City Code to help alleviate this issue.
• Asked whether or not West Lafayette was reconsidering its 6-hour snow removal requirement in light of Mayor Roswarski talking about changing theirs in Lafayette.
  • Not sure of how the vote turned out (Lafayette meets tonight as well), but interested in learning more.
• The Form Based Code meeting for New Chauncey should be happening soon.  Councilor Keen did not have any new information to report.
• I thanked Doug Payne for the great work he and his crew does with the leaf pickup this time of year and appreciate their watchful eye for our leafy curbs.
• According to the Mayor, the State Street Master Plan Facebook is the best place to find updates.
  • I suspect (I was witness to a meeting at the Research Park where the public was not invited) that there are also bits of news and other facts floating around that are not being made as public.  If you know of anything, please pass along a link, a document, phone number, etc.
• I thanked the Redevelopment Commission for the continued invest in our City’s Arts Committee to the tune of $40,000.
• Thanked the City for posting the full City Hall Remediation Report online.
  • It’s a big one!  If you pull out anything interesting, let me know.
• I also celebrated and thanked Thomas Kesler again for all that he does in our neighborhood and our City.  He is inspiration for civic action.
• I asked the City to revisit its file update procedures as the current method is leading to link rot.  I personally charged Councilor DeBoer with helping to alleviate this problem.

Mary Cook spoke about her experience on the trash ordinance committee (updated in May of 2013) and how push back on trash toters continues to exasperate the problem with trash blowing around the neighborhoods.  In light of all this, the City services, in her mind, are outstanding.