By Terry E. Cohen
On Monday, August 2, 2010, Mayor Jim Ireton released a package of legislation as part of the Maryland Safe Streets Program crime initiative, a partnership with the State of Maryland in which Salisbury became the second city (Annapolis being the first) to become a Maryland Safe Streets City.
My op-ed on the subject appears in today's Daily Times to inform the public about the history of this program and clarify my involvement. Later this week, I will repost that op-ed.
For now, I think it is most important that citizens have access to the actual proposals themselves. In the coming weeks, posts will be made here to clarify the process, correct misconceptions of the public and media, and stimulate productive debate.
Six items are new. The seventh is actually existing code that the mayor intends to "re-activate" through administrative enforcement. You can click the links in this post to view the documents now or download them for later reference. Note: the ordinance names may vary slightly in different media. Descriptive names are used here.
- Repeated Calls for Service
- Crime-free Lease Addendum
- Tenants' Rights
- Equitable Relief from Prostitution
- Amend BZA Procedures
- Amortization of Nonconforming Uses
- Periodic Area Search (current code to be "re-activated")
For those who checked this site earlier, thank you for your patience while we resolved uploader problems.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Important Information About Council Audio Files
By Terry E. Cohen
Some of the most important discussion Salisbury's city council has on any given issue takes place at its work sessions, which are not televised on public access cable channel PAC14 or streamed over the Internet at PAC14.org's website, as are the Monday night legislative sessions. Council Member Campbell and I have suggested to council that work sessions be taped for later broadcast so that the public would have a better understanding of issues, some of which do not make it to the legislative agendas. We did not receive support from any other council member.
In the spirit of compromise and increased transparency, we then suggested that the audio from council sessions be placed on the City website, which is why the audio of each current Monday legislative session is now on the site (thanks to City Clerk Brenda Colegrove and Assistant City Clerk Kim Nichols). However, only the one current legislative session is posted at a time.
After a public input session we held in 2007, we suggested that work session audios also be posted on the City's website. We did not received support from any other council member.
Therefore, when we started this site, we decided that, for the public's information and convenience, it would have links to the audio of these sessions, maintaining a history for as long as space permitted.
The 2010 audio files from May, June, July and August to date have been posted now. As time permits, we will post the previous sessions for 2010.
You can look in the right column of this page, scrolling down to find the link to the session you want. Depending on your own computer's settings, a simple click on a link will allow you to save the file to your computer for later listening and/or allow you to listen to the session of choice immediately with your computer's media playing software.
With the limitations local media have in covering issues, we hope these files will be useful to our citizens when they want to understand more fully what is taking place. With the number of additional work sessions being held, mostly scheduled during City office hours when it is difficult for the majority of the public to attend, we feel this affords the public an opportunity that they may not have had otherwise, at least not without inconvenience or cost to obtain a CD from the city clerk's office.
Please let us know if you have any questions about the information you hear. Thank you for taking time to stay abreast of issues in Salisbury that affect you.
Some of the most important discussion Salisbury's city council has on any given issue takes place at its work sessions, which are not televised on public access cable channel PAC14 or streamed over the Internet at PAC14.org's website, as are the Monday night legislative sessions. Council Member Campbell and I have suggested to council that work sessions be taped for later broadcast so that the public would have a better understanding of issues, some of which do not make it to the legislative agendas. We did not receive support from any other council member.
In the spirit of compromise and increased transparency, we then suggested that the audio from council sessions be placed on the City website, which is why the audio of each current Monday legislative session is now on the site (thanks to City Clerk Brenda Colegrove and Assistant City Clerk Kim Nichols). However, only the one current legislative session is posted at a time.
After a public input session we held in 2007, we suggested that work session audios also be posted on the City's website. We did not received support from any other council member.
Therefore, when we started this site, we decided that, for the public's information and convenience, it would have links to the audio of these sessions, maintaining a history for as long as space permitted.
The 2010 audio files from May, June, July and August to date have been posted now. As time permits, we will post the previous sessions for 2010.
You can look in the right column of this page, scrolling down to find the link to the session you want. Depending on your own computer's settings, a simple click on a link will allow you to save the file to your computer for later listening and/or allow you to listen to the session of choice immediately with your computer's media playing software.
With the limitations local media have in covering issues, we hope these files will be useful to our citizens when they want to understand more fully what is taking place. With the number of additional work sessions being held, mostly scheduled during City office hours when it is difficult for the majority of the public to attend, we feel this affords the public an opportunity that they may not have had otherwise, at least not without inconvenience or cost to obtain a CD from the city clerk's office.
Please let us know if you have any questions about the information you hear. Thank you for taking time to stay abreast of issues in Salisbury that affect you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
