Thursday, May 5, 2011

Mary, Quite Contrary

The Official Unofficial Minutes of the WL BOA
May 3
(As reported by ACE and others)

"It was long and interesting", so reads the second sentence in Mary's email Dear Residents for the May BOA meeting notes.  For those of you on her list, and others who are interested, here, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

As you know, Mary has been on a crusade to change the city's zoning ordinances, the end game being the building of patio homes in West Ridge (and for that matter, anywhere, in the City)  At the last Planning Commission meeting a "Dear Commissioner" letter was dropped on the Commissioners from Mary suggesting major changes to the zoning codes.  Most if not all the Commissioners had not seen the document until they sat down for the meeting.  Mary left the meeting early, missing a majority of the discussion...and not being available, conveniently, from questions from the Commission...and trust me there would have been questions.  The Commission made a reasonable (my opinion) recommendation for Acts of God to the BOA and unanimously rejected Mary's request for consideration of other changes.

Fast forward to Tuesday night.  Once again Mary, at the last moment, drops an amendment on fellow BOA members, Mayor, and Attorney regarding an amendment to the Planning Commission recommendation, allowing a home owner to rebuild on a non-conforming lot at the "owner's discretion".  This had been vetted at the Planning Commission but not added to the conditions of their recommendation.  Although Mary doesn't say this in her email, this prompted the BOA to go about an hour and a half after they had dealt with most of the City business.  Luckily there were two Planning Commission members in the audience and WLIC President Joe Ennett to keep the facts straight.  Mr Ennett reprised his reading of the resolution of the WLIC Board and their opposition to changes the the 15,000 sq ft rule.  Jerry in his recap of the meeting (he was there) gave a somewhat accurate version of the details but really didn't speak forcefully of his position on the matter...leadership?

The BOA passed the recommendation of the Commission without amendments and sent back to the Planning Commission Mary's amendment for "owner's discretion".  There was no appetite at the last meeting for this, but you never know.

The question is, on whose behalf is Mary acting and what will they gain.  Is Mary representing the will of the majority of residents...or a couple of folks who have an ax to grind?...or?

http://www.podbean.com/home/podcast-directory-play.php?eid=3598770

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you have a guess as to Mary's motives here? as building small patio homes around the lake is not from public outcry.

mike moratz said...

This is in regards to your question...taken from a letter from Mary to the Planning Commission on this issue:
"Many of our residents have, however, left the lake with much regret because these spacious lawns have required resources of time and energy and perhaps money that they no longer wished to invest in maintenance."

Anonymous said...

We do know that Mary is a great friend of Linda Cone & Marlin!!!!!!

She has not and we repeat has not contacted her CONSTITUENTS that she
represents, so there is only one or two people she is trying to help.

Sixteen Tons said...

WLIC Acceptance - clause 7 - middle part is sorta interesting.

https://www.sos.mo.gov/BusinessEntity/soskb/Filings.asp?654919

More interesting stuff here;

http://tinyurl.com/63wcu8v

Anonymous said...

WLIC ought to be concerned about changes to zoning. I wonder if Mary has appeared before their board lately?

Jackdaw Observer said...

This isn't about the Cones pushing their agenda. There are folks at WL who would like to continue living here with a more manageable property. Many planned communities have a range of homes covering various housing needs including patio like homes. The problem I see is will the "patio homes" simply become cheap housing bringing in another sort of residents.

Anonymous said...

I think the Cones have been very supportive of the change and I think they will tell you that, just ask them. I agree with above, once the door is open all kinds of lower income housing is possible, is that what we want?

Anonymous said...

Mr Birther

What would those other "sorts" be ?

Anonymous said...

Copper Creek is a good example. Patio homes and homes built twenty-five to thirty years ago, are now run down rentals. Cones tried to push small homes into the city a number of years ago and failed.
This is a city with a lake not some community with arms like Riss Lake.

2Tired 2Sleep said...

LOL! 6:04PM So the Lake makes us 'special' huh? I got news, there are lots of lakes around here like Smithville. People can go swimming, fishing and boating anytime they want for a couple bucks. I have been up there, it is really nice. Those run down homes couldn't be because of stuff like this, could they?

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361572n

I just spoke with a realtor the other day. Lots of people are moving and purchasing properties in the unincorporated county to 'get away'. Read some of the articles here;

http://www.ccfj.net/

You might want to reconsider the whole idea of making it difficult for people to invest and build in the community and taking votes on how people can utilize their property. Have you ever read that history book about Weatherby Lake? They built a good part of this lake with horse teams during the great depression. I don't think they knew what a zoning ordinance was back then. You would have never managed to even build this lake with the laws they have in this day and age. It is just too funny when you think about it in the context of history. This lake all started out as a bunch of farms and fishing cabins and now farms and fishing cabins are forbidden!

Think about this for a minute. The UN wants to give most of it back to the animals. I am sure they all got together and took a vote on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM

So if they all get together and vote what you should do with your property and how you should live your life, are you going to go along with that? For some reason the people doing this type of stuff always think it will not apply to them. Better have a listen to this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlkPkJInUmU