Minutes 09/08/2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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September 8, 2020 20-184(b), "A Resolution Requesting and Petitioning that a Referendum Be Held on the Question of Whether Casino Gaming Shall Be Permitted within the City of Portsmouth", got added to the agenda. Any citizen who might have noticed that eleventh hour modification would have had no opportunity to express an opinion to council before the vote. The train just barrelled along. Speaking of railroads, the current item of business was "fast-tracked" from the Planning Commission meeting one week before council's. It got put on the docket so quickly that the transcript of the public hearing was not yet available to be part of the packet provided for your review. Luckily for you, I have taken the time in this message to recap some of the objections I raised in the Planning Commission virtual public hearing, which, incidentally, was what I would consider a reasonable approximation of a public hearing. (You would do well to follow their example for your future proceedings.) In conclusion, I urge you to defer this item until the people have made our will known by referendum two months hence. Relative to the money you have already misappropriated, the remaining cost of updating the zoning documents to include a use that may not be necessary will be relatively small. Nonetheless, a decent respect for the wishes of the people you purport to serve would argue for forbearance in this matter, if only for the sake of creating the illusion of prudence. Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky PO Box 50141 20-200: I am pleased to see that the City of Portsmouth will be receiving an additional $8.235 million in CARES Act money from the federal government by way of the commonwealth. I was impressed with the creative uses to which the city administration put the previous such grant and hope to see more of that kind of innovation this time around. Specifically, I would hope that you might deploy some of the funds to support COVID-19-related activities undertaken by our Constitutional Officers and their staffs, particularly the Sheriff, and set aside an allocation to replace the current city council virtual meeting platform with one robust enough to handle real-time citizen participation including non-agenda presentations, along the lines of what the Planning Department uses today. I doubt that this last endeavor will require any large-scale expenditures to accomplish. Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky PO Box 50141 20-210: For the reasons stated in the executive brief and documentation accompanying this agenda item, I support the re-appropriation of unexpended grant funds from the FY 2020 Portsmouth Public Schools budget to the FY 2021. Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky PO Box 5014 20-211: I support the re-appropriation of unexpended textbook funds from the FY 2020 Portsmouth Public Schools budget to the FY 2021. Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky PO Box 50141