MONDAY NIGHT AT THE COUNCIL Part 2

Corporation Counsel Williamson reported on the new draft of the agreement with Solaris which upon clearing up whether Solaris will purchase an ambulance for the city, or operate an ambulance for the next 3 to 5 years, the city is ready to sign off. If Solaris accepts this document and is approved by the Commissioner of Health then the city will probably drop out of the suit against Solaris. The agreement is being done unilaterally without the support of POP and Restore Muhlenberg.

There was no answer to a question about who would enforce Solaris' compliance with this agreement, since the Commissioner of Health had not held Solaris to the conditions which were part of the granting the CN to close the hospital.

Corporation Counsel in reply to a question stated that there was a provision in the agreement requiring Solaris to set a "fair sales valuation" on the campus. Solaris had supposedly put a bloated price on the property before receiving the CN to discourage any legitimate purchasers of the hospital.

I would hope that once the city has signed the agreement, all of its provisions will be made public. Solaris has proven in the past that it can not be held accountable.

An emergency temporary appropriation for March and April was approved for action next Monday. The resolution to be voted on states " that Temporary budget resolutions for FY 2009 previously adopted by the city are hereby rescinded and and are replace by the following consolidated temporary budget appropriation". What is presented is supposedly a "budget" for the first 10 months of FY 2009. May and June are still in limbo.

I can only assume that the $54,987,356.23 listed represents the sum total of the first 8 months already approved plus the 2 new months. It should represent 5/6th of last years budget. If I am wrong I would appreciate corrections.

At the Public Comment portion of the meeting several speakers remarked about experiences with PMUA. One questioned the inclusion of the "fair share" charge in PMUA's bill since it represents a contracted service from the city, and its costs should be a budget item and therefor part of the tax base, not the individual property owners responsibility.