COUNCIL WORKING MEETING THOUGHTS

An additional thought or two regarding the Wednesday night Council meeting. I heard no mention about the health care vacuum that has resulted from the hospital closing except the Fire Department's training "first responders" for treating emergencies especially when the EMTs are not available. Meeting the community's health needs is as much a part of Public Safety as is Police and Fire protection.

Secondly, neither department should be allowed to drop as low as the minimal personnel needed to fulfill its functions. To be below those levels is risking the citizen's safety. They should be provided with the proper equipment needed. If this means that bare bones operations should take place for the pencil pushers so be it.

In return the uniformed services should adjust their TOs so that they are not top heavy and there are adequate grunts available. It would also be nice if some reworking their contracts in this time of financial distress happened.

The IT question is one that has to be answered and some serious thought must be given to less expensive adequate methods to answer that need.Councilwoman McWilliams in the latest posting of her blog, has written on her findings on this issue. She recommends that the Council takes its time in approving the Ordinance.

On reading Jerry Green's Page Thursday evening I understood that he has possible solutions to the gang problems as well as facing the re-entry situation. It would have been nice if he had shared his findings with the Council at their meeting rather than waiting for a meeting of his own.

Leland Ave. has become a crater zone again. 8th street by the library is an abomination. Are there any streets in the City that do not need work? I think that within the next 30 days a list of urgent street repairs and replacement should be provided to whom ever is going to dole out any stimulus money that the city can get.