Council Blow by Blow for 1-26-09

We got a new president. We got the same councilmembers. We're gettin' at least one new one this spring but won't be gettin' any new ideas, I'm bettin'.

No report about what they talked about in closed session. Spending money without accounting for it, I'll wager. Holden's missing. Robinson's there. Madison's there and wants to adjourn in honor of Gloria Delaney who was a PUSD person. Deputy Chief Christopher Vicino leads the pledge. He was chief when the chief was city manager. Vicino intros Sgt. Shupe who's the new sergeant at arms. Madison wants to adjourn the meeting for Gloria Delaney who died. She worked for PUSD and was principal at Madison Schools and was an assistant Supe.

PUBLIC COMMENT: Erminia Ortiz who speaks English but insists on a Spanish translator complains about people getting evicted and thanks the council for helping out. Ortiz says she made the thing worse but got help from the city in the end. Gordo thanks his field rep for helping out. Betty Cooper from Pasadena Beautiful wants the city to save the Playhouse trees. Tyler wants to save them, too.

Playhousers show up and want their trees put in. Tyler's gonna get it redone. Pete Cutzer from Armory Center thanks council for what it does for the Armory.

710 FREEWAY TUNNEL: Two Indian guys and a lady tell the council about where they're diggin' test holes for the tunnel. There's five routes their checking out to see where the best is for earthquakes and boulders and shit like that. Pasadena freeway guy David Worell says it's gonna be a long time before anybody does anything real on the tunnel. (Like digging.)

CONSENT CALENDAR: They're buyin' med supplies for $450K, puttin' in a traffic signal on Washington at Catalina, spending $70K for something called LEED Commissioning for a power building, and changing some ethics rules.

APPOINT A MAYOR PAL TO PLANNING COMMISSION: Mayor's bud is in.

THEY'RE NOT ADJUSTING HEALTH COSTS: Mayor says they're puttin' this one off.

PUBLIC HEARING: They change the Historic Preservation codes. They're changing how Mills Act contracts get done. Planning babe says their tweakin' some rules and letting the commission call projects for review. Mills Act gives tax breaks to people who fix up historic properties. They already got 104 tax exempt properties. The big change is not letting people in houses worth $1.5 million or more get the tax breaks.

FINANCE COMMITTEE: They're refinancing some Rose Bowl debts. City manager does a report on the budget and people we are f+cked unless the council stops spending like spoiled debutantes on 5th Avenue. Expenses are growing by something like $20 million and income's not going up. Beck says they're gonna fix it by the year after next. But there's still personnel costs and $146 million in retirement costs to cope with. The council's wish list is something north of $300 million with no $$$ to pay for any of it. Madison tries to put a happy face on it all and really wants to make sure lots of money can still get spent on his Livvy pals. McAustin asks about pension costs. Airheaderlein asks about the electric transfer that's about $11 million and wants to know about using more to do council pet projects. So, guess who'd pay for that? Doh! It's us. He asks about doing a 15% reduction. Bogus says they'll be doing the budget in the next six months and says they'll be serious about it. Beck even quotes Obama. Bogus Bogey thinks we oughta not worry and be happy. McAustin verbally does Beck and maintains her June Cleaver composure.

TYLER'S TREE QUESTION: Tyler wants to stop the Playhouse tree removal so it's coming back next week.

ART PLAN FOR THE CONVENTION CENTER: Bogey says people care about this. Me, it's all sorta stupid. Art's cool, but why ya gotta put wiggly lights and big hats in front of my $200 million convention center? Art Director babe tells us there was a group of people who decided on the guidelines for the project. Oops. Nice try but a buncha art wonks picked two pieces of shit to adorn the Civic Aud. Good idea. Man, the woman's decent lookin' but she's effeete as f+ckin' hell. Lots of Qs about sightlines but nobody asks about the stoopid factor. Like, if it's stoopid can we get rid of it? So far they spent $150K on this. Without gettin' anything. Art consultants got $50K. man, I can pick stupid art, too. Pay me $50K.
Public Comment: Dale Oliver Daddy Warkbucks lookin' dude from Art Commission says their not to blame. Art Commission says the council's gotta decide. Tom Seefert from the Pasadena Center wants to kick the whole thing back so staff can start over. Steve Nowland from Art Center College and Arts Council wants the art to stay put like it is. Joan Abbey sculptor likes public art and wants the hats to stay. Mr. Cornwell takes after Madison for asking about what it costs and is pissed it's taken so long and staff wants to start it over. Marcia Rude, founding bitching biddy doesn't like the art. Nina Chomsky comes down to represent for the Livvies and she hates it too. Ann Shide another not-so-trollish bitching biddy wants the art out, too. Kelly Southerland McCloud for Pasadena Heritage wants to keep the sculptures out. Sue Mossman says she only knew about the vision statement but not about the art works. Shauna Clark says go with the staff. Mrs. Duker likes the artworks and thinks the process should be honored. Miss Bayer says we need bold leadership and nonconservative trajectories and compares Pasadena to Paris and talks about IM Pei and the Louvre but calls his building a sculpture.
Council kicks the stoopid art to the curb and starts it all over with convention center people involved. Holden says be careful the new shit may be worse than the stoopid shit that's proposed now.

New shit, old shit, even if it's bold shit, it's still arty farty shit to me.

CONTRACT FOR ARTS BUS: Council extends the contract to July. Because taxes are dropping they need to find more money to run the bus.

2009 LEGISLATIVE PLATFORMS: We want more money! Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee.

CITY STRATEGIC PLAN: Gets pushed to next time.

PUBLIC COMMENT REDUX: Blissed out BBW says the Lord is takin' over.

They're done in honor of Gloria Delaney and Joyce Nagapuchi.

Lots of wasted time on the stupid art project. Who really cares if the process is good if the art sucks? Somebody in all this should have done the stop and think thing, maybe they'da stopped the hats sooner and not wasted so much money on it all.

Long meeting with not much to show for it. Probly better for us anyway. We gotta wait another week to hear about priorities.

D.