Polson Development Code re-write nears completion
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POLSON — Dave DeGrandpre, Land Solutions, LLC, reported to Polson City Commission on the progress of the Polson Development Code re-write at their Oct. 21 meeting. Volunteers, city and county workers and DeGrandpre have been reviewing a draft, “page-by-page, paragraph-by-paragraph and sentence-by-sentence,” DeGrandpre said. The meetings will conclude at the end of October. DeGrandpre will then go back and fix the rewrites before bringing the code back to the commission for approval and then on to the city/county planning board for their OK.
According to the 1993 version, the purpose of the Polson Development Code regulations are to “promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of the City of Polson and the surrounding jurisdictional area by implementing the regulatory strategies of the Polson Master Plan.”
In preparation for the update, public scoping meetings held in 2009 addressed concerns such as: what is working, what needs improvement, and what is missing? Answers included making the PDC user-friendly, be consistent with all development rules, and make the zoning change process easier, among others.
It was Polson City Manager Mark Shrives’ first city commission meeting.
Since his first day in the office on Oct. 15, Shrives has met with Mayor Pat DeVries and the council and all city department heads, who will take him on a tour of the city. He also got acquainted with some business owners on Main Street and attended a Heart & Soul meeting.
He’s in the process of fielding a trespass complaint and bill from Paul Doolittle as well as a summons and complaint from Citizens for Open Government questioning Polson’s hiring practices, which was forwarded to the City of Polson’s insurance company, MMIA, and two requests for public information.
Shrives also noted that the Montana Supreme Court threw out a suit filed by Rory Horning. MMIA covered the defense costs of $70,000, which will likely affect the city’s insurance rates, Shrives said.
In other business, commissioners unanimously approved Resolution No. 1051, which will levy and assess special improvement districts for the fiscal year 2013-2014. They also unanimously authorized Shrives to negotiate the purchase of land for a new city well and the Polson Redevelopment Agency’s fiscal year 2012-2013 report.
But the agenda item that drew the most fire was a discussion about changing the form of minutes from narrative to action.
According to Shrives in a later interview, action minutes are nothing more than telling the outcome of the event, such as a motion was made and passed, an item was tabled, etc.
Narrative minutes take a lot of time to complete, but some items need the details in narrative. Hours can be spent transcribing every word every person says in a meeting.
“I don’t like action minutes. So many times I have had to go back to those books and had to read what was done at meetings,” Commissioner John Campbell said.
Meetings are also recorded and saved on CDs. The CDs are very difficult for Campbell to hear so “the written ones are easier for me.”
Although he said the written minutes do take a lot of time, they are for the history of this town.
Commissioner Todd Erickson said written minutes do take a lot of time and taxpayer money, but he prefers the written minutes, and hasn’t used the audio version.
A sampling of comments from the public include city resident Margie Hendricks who said, “Citizen participation, access to information and freedom of speech are the heart and soul of democracy.”
Audio minutes would handicap the public, she said, adding it’s difficult to access information from the audio minutes because a person has to listen to everything before they get to the portion they want.
For research purposes, resident Lita Fonda gave Shrives a copy of what’s required for meeting minutes from the 2011 Montana legislature, including date, time and place, list of the people in attendance, substance of all matters proposed, discussed or decides and records of any votes taken.
Campbell said, “I’m pretty happy with the minutes ... they don’t have to be word for word.”
Retired Polson City Treasurer Bonnie Manicke brought up technology. Before CD recordings of the minutes, floppy discs and 3.5 discs were used and now may not be able to be converted to CD. She also asked if the recordable CD would be available in the future. Paper and ink has been available for thousands of years.
“Historical minutes have a lot of value,” Manicke said.
Elsa Duford, former city commissioner, said narrative minutes are about real people who live here and participated, so written minutes are a necessity.
“It’s not like it’s some robot operation,” Duford said.
Shrives said he would research narrative minutes versus action minutes and talk to city staff.
The next city commission meeting will be held Nov. 4 at Polson City Hall at 7 p.m.
