Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Zimmerman Surprises All At Council Meeting

At the May 4th City of Ferndale council meeting, council member Zimmerman surprised everyone with his vote on the Parking Standards Ordinance. At the meeting city staff presented the new Parking Standards Ordinance that the Planning Commission had been working on and recently forwarded to council for the final public hearing and vote. There was no public at the meeting wishing to comment on the ordinance. Therefore, the council had their discussion amongst themselves and then a motion was made to approve the ordinance. When the vote came there were 5 votes for the new ordinance and then council member Zimmerman voted against it (one council member was absent). This was a surprise vote as he did not say anything during the discussion that he opposed anything in the ordinance or why he could not support the ordinance. In fact, his vote was such a surprise that a fellow council member's jaw dropped and the look on her face was that of "what?"
Council member Zimmerman did not stop there. Later in the meeting he did the same thing when the discussion was on the Grandview Annexation. Again there was some discussion by council members but when the vote came down both Zimmerman and Downey voted against moving the process forward. Again, this was a surprise as neither one had voiced any opposition to the matter during the discussion.
I am not criticizing their vote as they have every right to vote the way they did. My concern is with the fact that they did not enter into any discussion with other members of council or express any reason for voting the way that they did. Were they afraid to go on record as they did not have any valid reason for voting the way they did? Were they trying to make some kind of point by their votes? Were they supporting the citizens of Ferndale by their vote? We will never know as they remained silent.

1 comment:

  1. First off, let me say thanks for your blog. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts on what our local elected officials have been up to. It seems that our officials have a lot on their plate and with the effects of a harsh economic climate in our community, dwindling funds to work with. Some of the recent decisions have been outstanding, only to be followed by decisions that amount to nothing more than political waste and personal favortism. For example the work of Malpezzi to find a creative way to help city officials keep their jobs by using funds set aside for projects that have been shelfed, only to turn around and promote the use of funds for River Walk artwork when I'm sure those same funds could be put to better use addressing the complete needs of our community.

    I would be very interested to hear your position on a proposed firework show and use of Pioneer Park put on by the local Boy Scout Troop 483 and their leader Robert Northouse and waiting approval by the city council. Please keep in thought that the national leadership of the Boy Scouts of America strictly forbid any and all involvement by the Scouts with anything associated with the use and/or sale of fireworks. This is the same troop that last year was reprimanded for the scouts directly selling fireworks at their stand off of Portal Way. The county scout leadership told the leader of the troop, Mr. Northouse, that he had to remove all signs of boy scout involvement for the firework stand. A second trip had to be made by the county scout leadership to once again reprimand the leader of this troop because, even though he removed the scout flags and scout signs, he still had scouts in uniforms helping customers load fireworks into their cars and being a "presence" at the site of a firework sale. I would also like to point out the Malpezzi is a member of good standing within this scout network and has a long friendship with Mr. Northouse, which has allowed this troop to boondoggle it's desires for "publicity and fund-raising" within the city of Ferndale with total disdain of national scout rules and conduct.

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