meeting tonight

Tonight's meeting in council chambers turned out to be a "public meeting". It was anticlimatic. About 80% about the evils of vacant properties and 10% the real issues of Section 106 Review and NSP funding. Chuck Gleaves pointed out that the thrust of the presentation seemed to be that blight was evil, and he wondered whether the city thought there were people who disagreed with that and needed convincing. Dan Seckel followed up with some questions about why in all his years on the Preservation Commission there were no reviews put before the commisson, and Ms. Baker answered honestly that they had not been done. That was one of two breakthroughs with this meeting. The other was that the mayor and presenters did not interject any surprises that would sink the progress of resolving these issues, as they have been prone to do up till now.