News from City Hall
Gossips has learned that Mayor Rick Rector today vetoed Local Law No. 4, the law pertaining to vacant buildings. On July 17, the Common Council voted unanimously to enact the law. The action, coming a day after a public hearing at which no one had anything to say in support or in opposition to the law, was taken in response to objections from code enforcement officer Craig Haigh to some specific language in the law. Exactly what Haigh found to be problematic is not known at this point and may not be known until the mayor issues his formal veto message.
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK
Carole, as your own reporting suggests, this was a sham public hearing. (What public hearing is called for 3pm?) And as I reported in my comment about that meeting, there was a heated discussion between the mayor and craig about certain language in the proposed law. Had I known that I had stumbled into a pre-veto discussion, I would have paid more attention.
ReplyDeleteFYI, Peter--Mayoral hearings on proposed laws have always, as long as I've been here at least, been held in the afternoon.
DeleteThanks, Carole. I have no reason to doubt you on this, but I don't think this meeting was billed as a "mayoral hearing." As I recall the Mayor said he wanted to hear from the public and my experience with such meetings, is that you schedule public hearings when the public can attend, which is usually after the public gets home from work. And I don't know about Mayoral hearings, but it's a also a bit odd to close a meeting after 5 minutes and then reconvene one after the public left. The discussion that I stumbled on to could have -- should have? -- been had while the public was there.
ReplyDelete