Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Making Sausage

Otto von Bismarck nailed it when he said no one should ever watch the making of sausage or laws.
I went for a portion of the Nuisance meeting yesterday. Two other citizens in attendance. All of the aldermen, the mayor, city clerk, the chief of police and both city attorneys as well. First nuisance topic: length of grass. The current code allows up to 12 inches before the city can issue a citation and/or abatement (cut the offenders grass and charge them). After an agonizing discussion of fifty minutes the Board recommended lowering the limit to 8 inches. How many households of the 700 plus here at WL are "habitual offenders"? According to Chief McMullin, "5 or 6".
Will lowering the height make a difference? The discussion about this issue alluded to "absentee owners" as being part of the problem, so don't know if it will.
Mercifully I had business to attend to and had to leave after the grass discussion, like Mike at the GrassPad says, I was high on grass. I understand the discussion continued, well over another hour, discussing other nuisances which I will outline. The meter was running, the attorneys getting paid time and distance...life is good here at Weatherby Lake.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the October/2008 Weatherby Lake Living regarding nuisances, Mayor Bos states "We will make this a very open process." This "open process" meeting was scheduled at time when most Weatherby Lake citizens can not attend. No where have I seen the list of nuisances "open" for discussion. Further the statement "I am grateful to the Board for taking this project on .. . " As stated in another blog, this is a board where four of the members are in partnership. In other words, Major Bos is grateful to his coalition.
Regarding the new entrances. Major Bos states, "This is a significant project with a high level of support around the lake" Was there a vote taken? What statistics is Major Bos relying on? I have heard little to no support for the new entrances. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR ENTRANCES. Out country is already in an economic crisis. With the WLIC assessments and proposed city expenditures, our city will bleed our already reduced savings to death. If people to not speak up it is only going to get worse. The people making these decisions have money to spend or like to spend others money. I wish someone like Paul Gross was back in the picture. Many did not agree or like him but he stood up for what he believe in and made people pay attention to the wrongs at the lake.

Anonymous said...

Except Gross promotes lies, inaccuracies, and his own personal agenda. Not to mention all the money he cost us in attorney fees, Gross is no friend to this community.

Anonymous said...

The cost concerning attorney fees was the result of a stupid decision by our otherwise highly respected police force to wrongly arrest Paul Gross. Paul Gross was exonerated and the costs fell to our city.

Anonymous said...

The last posting is wrong on the facts. Line up everyone who has had Paul inflict his will on them and you will find a consistent response that he has used lies, inaccuracies and his own personal agenda against this community (even former supporters).

Let's get past him and focus on what's best for the community.

Anonymous said...

While is is true Paul Gross was not liked by all, read the October/2008 Weatherby Lake Living. Many consider him a good friend and neighbor - and always will.

Anonymous said...

Let's hope some other community gets to experience that wonderful friend and neighbor.

Anonymous said...

I agree Paul may have spoke out, but I do believe he had the best interest of this community at heart. Not just lets keep wasting money. The attorneys seem to pocket a lot of money as it is. As I am related to several attorneys I can safely say "most" of them pad the time they charge for. We have attorneys who live in this community. Why do they not do work for the city at a more "reasonable" fee that what we pay to the current attorney? I may not like the attorney fees, but I am glad Paul Gross speaks up for what he believes in.!! GO PAUL!!!

Anonymous said...

If you think for a minute that Gross has your best interest at heart, i feel sorry for you. I,too, once thought that but have since learned. I don't mind gross voicing his opinion. But when the majority of our membership votes to take certain actions - that speaks to how the majority feels. Gross and his few followers may not agree, but I resent him tying up or trying to stop the process that the overwhelming majority of residents agree on. That is only serving his own interest. We have wasted too much time and too much money dealing with his troublemaking. It's time for him to move on to some other community to destroy.

Anonymous said...

From what I have seen, I had not noticed Paul voicing against the majority. I have heard of him voicing against the few with the most money who want what they want, and forget the fact that some of us are not rich. We just moved here to have children and live in a good community that we could raise a family in. Please don't get me wrong we love our city and our lake. However when we are constantly being hit up for increasing lake fees, dock fees, special assesments, the bridge work 5 years ago, the Perot property, the bean field, it all gets to be a bit much. We probably get more polution from the "crap" that pours into our lake from the sewage issues and property owners, than from putting up a few houses in a bean field that residents can't even afford to pay for. I don't recall a "majority" vote on that one. And yes I was at the meeting years ago when we agreed to let the WLIC handle things without necessarily a vote. However that was to deal with selling the Perot property, not to be an ongoing war of spending more than we have. The WLIC acts like it has an open ended credit card that mommy and daddy pay for. That it may just keep buying whatever it wants and it will never have to pay the bill itself the money will come from mommy and daddy (the residents). In this day and age we have residents right here in forclosure, why are we spending so much money when we are going into a recession????

Anonymous said...

You may have gone to the wlic meeting, but apparently you weren't paying attention. A vote was taken and passed overwhelmingly to allow the board to purchase property without having to take a vote each time. The majority spoke. Yes, it costs money to live here and none of us like paying it, but the bottom line is our lake is our most valuable asset. If we don't protect it, then we all lose.

Anonymous said...

I agree with previous anonymous. And to add to that, same goes for increases. The majority overwhelmingly voted for WLIC increases, but Gross decided to intervene because he personally doesn't agree. I say too bad - the majority spoke. Gross is only interested in his own agenda and is hell bent on destroying this community. It's a well known fact that the only reason he tried so hard to get dock spaces permanently assigned to second tier homes was because a realtor told him his house would appraise at $50,000 higher if he could do that. He admitted it in public at a WLIC meeting and lots of people witnessed it. And all the while people thought he was concerned about them. He's a joke and a trouble maker and needs to leave this community.

Anonymous said...

Again go back to the WLIC meeting about buying property was meant to deal with the Perot Property not this (excuse me) crap that keeps going on. And as for a majority voted. It should not be a mojority of the # of people that voted. Majority should mean there are 750 homes in WL then you must have 326 votes yes to approve something. If not everyone is able to make it to vote then sorry you do not have a "MAJORITY".

Again go back and read the minutes from that meeting. Residents that agreed to no need for vote did so under what I would consider "FALSE" pretence". Assuming it was only for the regards of the Perot Property.