By:  Diane Benjamin

Much of the news about the City Council meeting last night concerned the Brady grant and Central Catholic.  It was illuminating to see how the conversation turned from “this is the only use for the $750,000” to now “we can use it for any park or trail project”.  Sen Bill Brady was quoted in the Pantagraph saying “this is my grant”.  Obviously last night Renner and Hales now believe they can use it for any qualifying project – therefore bypassing Brady.  The future relationship between Brady and the City should be interesting.  Alderman Mwilambwe summed it up nicely:

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Something else was totally overlooked in the media.  A City auditor made a report to the Council concerning the financial statements.  In the past the entire Council has met with the auditor privately before the public meeting.  This year the auditor met with Mayor Renner only, the Council wasn’t invited.  Renner should not have done that – he isn’t the boss of the Council.

Alderwoman Stearns asked if she could email the auditor is she had questions as she reviewed the statements.  David Hales told her not to.  Instead she was to contact City staff.  David fails to realize that he is an employee of the City Council.  Stearns was totally within her rights to contact the auditor.  The City doesn’t have a good track record of answering questions from aldermen.

Renner then came to Stearns defense!  Miracles never cease (or ulterior motives, who knows).  Watch the video here:

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Is Renner thrilled that Stearns isn’t running again, so now he can be nice to her?

I wonder what happened to the downtown hotel?  Is Renner holding off until after next year’s elections?  Will he have more flexibility then?

Isn’t it strange he was so hot and had a developer all lined up, but now nothing is being brought to the Council?

Cue the Mboka video here too.

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