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 EDA Minutes peculiarities?

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Lady Hawk
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PostSubject: EDA Minutes peculiarities?   EDA Minutes peculiarities? Icon_minitimeSat Jan 09, 2010 6:58 pm

Going over the EDA minutes have been interesting and have produced some oddities. For instance the minutes for April 2, 2008 have Johnson making a motion and then seconding it.

(Jim) Foster provided financial information to the Board. $10,000 has been transferred to the EDA budget to cover the overages on the RLF accounts. Foster advised that the EDA is not making $30,000 per month. Fairway View has a total of $273,000 which is currently sitting in an unrestricted account. The Board reviewed the need for capital replacement dollars. Motion was made by Johnson and seconded by Johnson to transfer $120,000 to designated funds to cover the last two years and then designate $5,000 per month retroactive to January 2008 for restricted funds for capital improvement.
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mouthpiece
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PostSubject: Where Is the Check and Balance?   EDA Minutes peculiarities? Icon_minitimeSun Jan 10, 2010 11:38 am

As I read this post I am reminded that the group that has recently been removed from power has criticized this post for being controversial. At best this is sloppy but it makes one wonder if the minutes were ever approved. I understand mistakes. However it is hypocritical of those in power to say we do not want anyone to criticize us for obvious mistakes.

For those who think we have been overly critical I would point to the praise given to law enforcement, fire and street departments this past week. I did not see or hear these praises from other media.

This site consistently supports our men and women overseas and who have served our country.

We have consistently promoted an inclusive club versus an exclusive club.

What are we controversial about? Here is what our opponents stand for:

Elimination of a police department?
Spending taxpayers money at a rate second to Obama
Excluding people who have different ideas than others
Approving street projects without support of its citzenry
Raising electric rates and taxes on the backs of the elderly
Gossiping behind the backs of the forums so that these individuals can feel better about themselves.
Allowing city clerks to take months to produce public documents

Our opposition is afraid of the truth and the truth is that they want control and exclude others by gossiping about the forums. A community of gossip is not good government. Gossip cannot be verified. What is said on the forums can be verified. The forums has challenged those that gossip and as the forums continue to challenge gossip those that oppose the forums are more concerned about control than about good government.

This is not a controversial site. It is a site that has exposed bad government and we now have new leadership.

How can our opponents say it is good government to have the same person who makes the motion, second the motion? Sounds like a dictatorship to me!
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Lady Hawk
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PostSubject: Motion by Johnson and seconded by Johnson   EDA Minutes peculiarities? Icon_minitimeTue Jan 12, 2010 9:00 pm

The more I thought about this the more serious the ramifications became. One of two things occurred here. Either there is an error in the minutes and Blair Johnson did not M/S or it is true and Blair Johnson did make the motion and seconded it. Either way in the interest in making our government better it should be reviewed if for no other reason than to avoid such pitfalls in the future.

If Blair Johnson did motion and second one has to wonder at the legality of such an act.

If Blair Johnson didn't make the motion and the second then would that make an even greater error? Would that mean that everyone present at the meeting where they approved the minutes were neglecting their duty?

At the meeting on April 2, 2008 (Click here to see page 1 of the minutes) Blair Johnson is recorded as making the motion and seconding it. At the next meeting on April 16, 2008 the minutes for April 2 was approved. (Click here to see page 1 of the meeting on April 16) With the exception of Craig Randleman everyone was there at the meeting, including the same guests and staff. Wasn't anyone paying attention? At the City Council meetings the minutes are not read. They are given to the council-members and they vote on approving them. One would assume that the councilmen read them before they approve them. If we assume this is the procedure then that would mean that the board as well as the staff would have had copies of the minutes when they were approved. Didn't anyone read them? Is one to assume that 12 people didn't notice anything wrong? Attorney Bill Watson came in late but he still would have been given copies of the minutes. What else is he paid for but to check to see that things are done legally? Why didn't he say anything if they were wrong? Why didn't David Lang say anything if they were wrong?

Should we conclude that if 12 people saw nothing incorrect in the minutes that they were correct as written?

Another thing that troubles me about this vote is that it doesn't say it passed. What happened? Did the vote pass? According to the law all votes are to be kept track of. Do we assume that it didn't pass? How do we know? What kind of record keeping is this? If you look at page 2 of the minutes for the same meeting (Click here to see those minutes on page 2) It states that Randleman moved and Herberg seconded to approve the monthly bills. Again it doesn't say it passed. Are we to then assume that they didn't pay their bills that month? It would seem possible that not putting passed in the minutes didn't mean that it didn't pass. It is possible that it just didn't get put in there.

The pattern of keeping minutes is not consistent. Sometimes it reads at the beginning of a paragraph "M/S/P" and give the names of the people. Sometimes it has the "motion by" and "seconded by" in the middle of a paragraph with no reference to passing while other times it says "passed unanimously." Other times, as in the minutes for May 7, 2008 (Click here to see page 2 of the May 7 meeting) in the paragraph where Blair Johnson's accounting contract was expanded to include billing, the Motion and second is in the middle of the paragraph in bold print. Why is there no consistency in the EDA minutes?

It also makes one wonder where the $120,000 went? To "designated funds?" What funds? How does the EDA keep track of this money? Shouldn't the record show where the money went?
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Lady Hawk
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PostSubject: Nypen comments on "mouthpiece."   EDA Minutes peculiarities? Icon_minitimeTue Jan 12, 2010 11:02 pm

The comment above by mouthpiece about people criticizing and gossiping struck me as I was reading the minutes of the EDA on August 6, 2008 in page 3.

"Nypen brought to the attention of the Board the negative references from "mouthpiece" on the area blog forum." (Emphasis mine.)

Vicki Oakes submitted these minutes. (Click here to see the page 3 minutes.) It was also Vicki Oakes who six months later called the Chamber and complained that this site was "negative" and an emergency meeting was called and based on the "information" she gave the Chamber pulled our link. This action was followed by Artie Arndt, Chamber board member, who then wrote to the City Council and Chamber informing them both of how the Chamber and the City Council called this site "negative." Click here to See Yo Ho Ho

Amazingly these minutes were approved. Are they minutes or are they gossip? David Lang is the Director of the EDA and as such is responsible for the employees under his direction. David Lang was in attendance at the EDA meetings referenced above. Is David Lang properly supervising accurate minutes in city boards?
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