Council Meeting Notes

There was a Council Meeting last night while all the rain was coming down in the area, and while that sounds like the opening line to a horror film, inside the temporary Council chambers, it really wasn’t too bad. The meeting started off with a cute presentation of the winners to the Bee Mascot contest sponsored by the Municipality. The three young artists had drawn interesting pictures of bees that were enlarged and shown to the audience. There were 83 entries that ranged from middle school to high school, and I must say the winners were pretty good.

Several speakers took to the floor asking Council to consider such things as supporting the HARB recommendation, the unhoused situation, and blighted property issues. Following the public comment, the agenda follow through to cover appointments to the Recreation Master Plan Advisory Committee, approval for the mural painted on Roosevelt School, amending the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) request, awarding a contract for Rehabilitation Services, and voting on to deny a bid that was submitted for a local restaurant before it got to discussing the HARB Appeal. 

There was some confusion by the Council on how exactly the vote would go on this. After the Solicitor opined, the County representative, Jessie King, reviewed the reason for the appeal, and Doug Seiler, a member of the HARB, spoke on why they denied the request for demolition. The HARB report had previously been sent to Council in their packets. Council members had no questions on the report, and the Code Manager and Solicitor again defended their position that the application was incomplete. It begs the question if Council members actually reviewed the report as it, in my opinion, clearly spells out exactly how the application was incomplete. At any rate, after some discussion on if the appeal would be postponed indefinitely or for a specific time, Council voted on postponing the Appeal and application for 6 months to allow for the County to “engage public input”. I can somewhat understand postponing the Appeal, but the application will have to be drastically changed if they come back, so why don’t they just withdraw it and start fresh?

So this is where you come in, dear reader. Please reach out to the County Commissioners and ask them to withdraw the HARB application and the appeal, and make the RFI a transparent and public process.   

Commissioner Ken Lawrence - ken@montgomerycountypa.gov

Commissioner Jamila Winder - jamila@montgomerycountypa.gov.

Commissioner Joe Gale - joe@montgomerycountypa.gov.