Thursday, July 19, 2007

Council Re-Modifies Ordinance, Removes One Hurdle

I had to leave Monday's City Council meeting after the first hour. It turns out that a little after I left, something was brought up regarding the recent dog park ordinance change.

As you will recall, Council originally modified PAC's ordinance change resolution in such a way that gave Council final say on placement and regulation of any off-leash area. This week councilmember Lowenstein reopened that ammendment and suggested removing the regulation of off-leash areas from Council control and returning it to city staff. The idea is that rules and regulations may need to be tweaked and changed occasionally and therefore Parks & Rec needs the ability to do it without waiting for approval.

I don't think this will have a noticeable impact on the timelines that we're looking at right now. Neither Southeast Area temporary park, nor the permanent Paw Run facility is likely to be expedited. From the discussion, it sounds like this was how they originally intended things to work, but simply worded it incorrectly the first time.

I'd say this is a minor change in the bigger picture, but a positive one. Staff should be in control of these things and it keeps us from hitting unexpected delays later.

If you'd like to watch the discussion, it is at about EDIT 1:49:00 /EDIT in this video. Here is the official Council Meeting Packet that documents what part of the city code was changed. It's under section C-3.


Thanks Glenn and Christina who both tipped me off and sent the video link.

1 comment:

Christina said...

They just removed the wording that Council would have the final say on the rules. They still have the final say on PLACEMENT though.