Last night's St. Marys City Council meeting.

I've been a little busy earlier today, hence the delay.

Well, for openers a disabled fellow who did not know that I normally park my van in the one and only city hall van accessible space that was made at my request parked his VW bug there. Not 15 feet away, the other "regular" disabled space was unoccupied. I had to park way down by the  Ward Henandez building at the end of the block. So, the first thing I did when I got into the council chamber was to call for everyone's attention, then asked who had the VW beetle parked in the van accessible space. A fellow about my age spoke up. I asked if he would kindly park in the regular disabled space in future. He agreed to and apologized. I assured him that it was "no problem." We introduced ourselves and spoke after the meeting. I think that many fellow disabled folks do not really realize what that sign "van accessible" actually means. Maybe "wheelchair van accessible" would be a better choice. That, and when folks get a disabled tag or placard for the first time, it seems to me that they should get a pamphlet explaining why there are two different types of disabled parking places.

Anyway, the police dog intro and show was postponed. Turns out the dog bit someone.

Councilman "No Conflict" Bird was AWOL. Turns out he will be in Washington, DC all week -get this- personally lobbying legislators and FAA bureaucrats against the airport move. In his abscence,
Councilman Morrissey read the council's newest resolution to move full speed ahead with the airport project. That passed 4-1, with Howell casting the nay vote. Without his running mate for backup, Sydney Howell reached back and got in touch with his inner union thug. He got really bositerous and aggressively vehement in his stated opposition to the airport move. During public comments, he got support from self-styled enviro-bad-boy, Bob Nuttier and an increasingly bizarre Bill Creed. Can't quite figure out whether Bill has been exhibiting early symptoms of senile dementia during the last few meetings or just showing up fresh off of a barstool at Seagles.

Jerry Lockhart gave a report of the activities of the Tree Board. They spent a little over $1,500 for the trees and plants in the median in front of the new elementary school downtown. The money came from the $6,000 extorted from CVS for cutting down their privately owned oak trees. No - contrary to what you were led to believe, that planting was not another Alex Kearns/St. Marys Earthkeepers operation. During comments, I suggested that they take a few tips from Savannah's Parks and Trees Commission, particularly with regards to planting specimen trees from similar lattitudes around the globe. Moreover, Savannah has a civilian group of several hundred people who hold an annual public tree sale at cost and do extensive tree plantings at no cost to the city where the city needs them. Not to be unnoticed, Kearns jumped up and whined that the dozen or so trees that someone had donated to Earthkeepers had not yet been planted by city workers, as she and Barbara Ryan had previously commanded them to do. Interesting.

They agreed to run the advertizements for a beer and wine license at Matt's Italian. So far, the folks at Crooked River Baptist have not availed themselves of this performance opportunity, but it's early yet.

At the final public comments session, I thanked Bobby Marr and his people for finally actually planting something (wildflowers) in the recently re-weeded and plumbed medians on Colerain on either side of St. Marys Road. The seeds have sprouted. They are numerous and well distributed. It should be nice looking. Of course, the usual JDS afflicted assholes on Topix Kingsland quickly said that I was trolling for votes. No, Feller was not there.
When they went into executive session on a personnel matter, I left. That turned out to be a wise decision. I'm informed that he session lasted 90 minutes. Now, this is another personnel executive session on the heels of a special, called meeting of the express purpose of personnel executive session, when was it, last Thursday? Anyone know what is going on?

Oh, on the way out, I looked down in front of the CVB building and saw Janet Brinko, Alex Kearns, and her enviro-bad-boy hero, Bob Nuttier, huddled together in a post enviro-theater performance conference.

Oh, I almost forgot, speaking of dementia, Cookie Johnson is still obsessing on that mayor pro-tem business. Apparently, she hates Councilwoman Hase and is pissed because the council turned down her husband Larry's request to be mayor pro-tem.

Update, 4/14/@2:03 PM:  According to Emily Heglund, who stayed to the bitter end, the executive session was actually about the terms of the contract with the St. Marys Airport Authority.  My guess is that they tasked the attorney with trying to find a way to break the management contract with said authority. That sounds more like a legal than a personnel matter.