CITY COUNCIL PRIORITIES

While I was sitting at the City Council meeting tonight I caught myself wondering if I could sell a draft of the proceedings to NBC for a new Sit-Com and make myself some money. It is nearly unbelievable what transpires at a “normal” council meeting unless you can experience it with your very own eyes. Let me relate the highlights to our readers.

The council spent zero minutes discussing the Citie's oil and gas leases, zero minutes discussing the Fireman’s contract or discussing any other matter of substance before voting to approve. However, let there be a topic of minuscule proportions and the discussions and questions drone on and on.

For instance, Rancher Joe LaSalle, whose family has leased small parcels of City pasture land around the Bullhook drainage for decades, came to the council to request a 10 year lease instead of the annual renewal that he now holds as his prior 10 year lease comes to a close. Joe wants to do some fencing and improvements to the property to better serve his needs and would like to have a long enough lease to amortize the improvements to make it economically feasible for his operation. We are talking nickel and dime stuff here but you would have thought the City was negotiating the lease on the Trump Tower. Councilman rancher wannabe Bob Kaul went on and on trying to educate all in attendance about AUM’s, market values, and then proceeded to request that the council have a few fact finding meetings before taking a formal vote. If you didn’t know better you would have thought you were listening to J R Ewing explain grazing rotation on the South Fork to uneducated “City Folk” Mr. Kaul -- All Hat, No Cow.

The Council went on to approve the idea of offering $10 per square foot or CTEP funding to businessman Dave Shaw and any “other” projects. Seven misguided votes for approval with lone Councilman Brekke voting no to the use of CTEP money on private business improvements. I hope every businessman downtown takes full advantage of this ludicrous offer of the wasting of the City’s CTEP funding. Kudos to Brekke for standing up for what’s right.

The finance committee presented the claims and warrants for approval which were well in excess of $100,000 and the only item that they seemed to find fault with was an expenditure of $70 for anti-freeze. By the way, the anti-freeze was used by the Parks Dept to keep the toilets in the parks from freezing.



Sorry if we at the Corrector are feeling cynical tonight, but these are your representatives spending your tax dollars and it’s disheartening to see these types of “priorities”.