Next Up at City Council, 5/31/07

Wow, this is unusual for the end of May: On Wednesday morning, there is no meeting “due to the lack of a quorum”, and on Wednesday afternoon there is no meeting “due to lack of an agenda”. Sure makes Next Up at City Council easy to write and read, doesn’t it?

So, the Portland City Council will be in session only on the afternoon of Thursday, May 31. The Agenda looks much like a regular Wednesday morning’s, however, with a Consent list as well as three Time Certain items. The latter are a Measure 37 Claim I’ll review separately; TIME CERTAIN: 2:20 PM – Declare the week of May 30-June 10, 2007 to be Great Blue Heron Week in Portland (the Great Blue Heron is Portland’s official bird – I’ll post one of Steve’s photos in honor of it. Note to City: a “week” is generally seven days, not 12), and TIME CERTAIN: 2:30 PM – Extend moratorium on development within commercial and industrial zones on Hayden Island.

The Consent and Regular Agenda items are a long list of contracts, billing, and grants administrative stuff. I think I missed this one on its first reading: 631 Revise residential solid waste and recycling collection rates and charges, effective July 1, 2007 (Second Reading Agenda 558; amend Code Chapter 17.102) I can’t find any information about the proposed increases on the Office of Sustainability site or search engine. There is a nice page titled How Rates are Set, but sadly it doesn’t give any information about how these particular rate proposals were reached, or what they are. Sigh. Y’know, in this day and age, you’d think they’d want citizens to be able to find information quickly and easily on the City’s site, and in particular on the Commissioner-in-Charge’s web pages regarding this week’s proposals before Council. Apparently not.