Council also Talks Cash in Addition to Critters - Sept 27th

City Council meets tonight, and while "critters" get the headline, how the city spends "cash" is also a substantive matter.

Urban Renewal Agency

The URA board meets before the Council Meeting to decide a couple of urban renewal funding questions: Should we end the Pringle Creek Urban Renewal Area? And can the Whitlocks Building and Lafky Law Office Building be used for a "secondary lien position" to secure a $1/2M loan to the Rivers Condo project.

These are non-trivial land use matters, though not directly transportation related, and if you are interested you should read the staff reports and comment!

City Council

On Council's agenda are some other interesting, but non-transportation related matters.

The Travel Salem annual budget will be presented. At our MWVBTA meeting Kenji talked about wanting to work on bike-related tourism. Bike tourism is not discussed in the budget or its associated plan, so there's a big opportunity here!

The Planning Commission presents its year-end report, and its liason to the Bike Plan update is listed as "vacant." But David Fox is on it! It also lists a dormant Transportation Policy Advisory Committee. We'll try to find out more about that.

Finally the City wants to talk more about the disposition of $680,000 from the conservation easement on Minto-Brown.

So even though "critters" get the ink, over a million dollars will be discussed.