The meeting on Tuesday, June 19th started with a public hearing with the council approving The Citywide Lighting and Landscaping Maintenance District in the amount of $56.23 for a single family home, the same rate that has been charged for the past 10 years.
We then moved on to The Park Maintenance Assessment District. This was a public hearing and this fund calls for an annual “Cost of Living: increase which this year was 2.1% or a $.22 increase bringing the total to $10.89.
The Council then adjourned to the Monrovia Housing Authority and approved a budget of $291,248 which is used in part for home improvement grants and to administer the Monrovia Area Partnership.
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The evening then turned back to the City Council and we moved on to reports from Council members. Several reports were heard prior to the Mayor moving on to appointing several board and commissioners. We had two written complaints regarding the process. After lively discussion the Council approved all of the appointments except the ones in question. Those will be brought back for further interviews.
Next we moved on to the big item, the budget. Our staff has been working on this for several weeks and we have had a few meetings to take a look at what next year will look like. The state continues to be a menace to cities and schools along with the elimination of the redevelopment agency. Our new City Manager, Laurie Lile, has done a great job in a very short time and we ended this item with a balanced budget, on time!
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Last but not least we had an item where a recent Ninth Circuit case called into question our anti-solicitation ordinance so we took an action to remove the questionable portion of this. I think we were all a little stunned to see that we now need to allow people soliciting business on the city right of way, that being the streets and sidewalks. This will now allow someone to walk around with signs or handout handbills for commercial purposes. The Appeals Court felt this was a freedom of speech.
Thanks for reading this, as always I am open to questions.
