Another piece of flood-related news

And another good one, at that.

Three Tomatoes Trattoria on Merchants Row will reopen at 5 p.m. tonight, so go enjoy a nice Italian meal and support downtown business at the same time.

FNL will happen this Friday

Just got off the phone with Karen from the Downtown Rutland Partnership. Last week's rained out finale of Friday Night Live will be made up this week, she said.

Friday Night Live makeup a possibility

Friday's weather may have forced the cancellation of the last regularly scheduled Friday Night Live, but Mike Coppinger is hoping the series won't fade with a rainout.

The Downtown Rutland Partnership's executive director said Saturday morning that he was already working on coordinating with businesses and city officials to make up the date this week.

"I don't want it to go out with a whimper, so I feel it's more important than ever that we try to hold it this upcoming week," Coppinger said when he was stopped on Center Street on Saturday, having just left breakfast at Clem & Co.

Board will decide antique flag issue

The city's aldermen will take up an array of business at tonight's regular meeting of the full board. Last week, the Charter and Ordinance Committee met with Debby Dubay, owner of Limoges Antiques on Merchants Row, about her request to be able to hang an "antiques" flag outside her store despite the fact that it hangs lower than 7 feet above the ground.

The committee unanimously agreed to change from 7 feet to 5 feet the height requirement in the existing city ordinance governing awnings, shades, flags and signs. Tonight, that motion will be up for approval by the full board.

Clearing the air.

On Thursday, I spoke to Alderwoman Sharon Davis about an article I'd written for that day's paper about the Board of Civil Authority's decision not to grant a hearing to two laid-off city employees, and the lawsuit an attorney for one of the employees promised would follow. Toward the end of the article, I touched briefly on an exchange at the start of the meeting in which Davis made a motion to compel Mayor Christopher Louras, the BCA's chairman, to recuse himself because she felt he had a conflict of interest as the maker of the budget that included the layoffs. That motion was denied by Louras, a decision which Davis and Alderman David Allaire then challenged. A vote on the challenge failed 4-5, with Louras casting a vote.

Both Davis and Louras were quoted in the article. Davis spoke about her objection to Louras' participation in the night's discussion because of the perceived conflict. On top of that, she said that, by voting and debating as the chairman, he had violated Robert's Rules of Order, a widely used guideline to parliamentary procedure that dictates how meetings of a variety of bodies should be conducted when they do not have their own rules that specifically outline those procedures. This last point did not make it into the article because I thought the explanation and an argument about Robert's Rules would become confusing.

A must-read...

With the aldermen likely to approve an anti-shopping cart theft ordinance, today will probably hopefully be my last chance to talk about shopping carts, so I cannot pass up the chance to link to the book Alderman William Notte showed me last week.

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification

  According to the blurbs on Amazon.com and the book's accompanying Web site, the 176-page book is by artist Julian Montague and was completed over a six year span in Buffalo, N.Y. It's chock full of photos of all sorts of carts in just about every situation or state of being you can imagine, and Montague's developed clever classifications for the variables - for example, plaza drift, alternate usage, bus stop discard, wheel lock stray. It goes on and on.

Clearly, Rutland is not the only place with a shopping cart problem - and that's the point Notte told me last week he was trying to make. 

Another board member, Dave Dress, was thinking along similar lines. When he spotted a couple stray carts while on vacation in Scotland, he stopped to take photos. He brought a couple large glossies, which now hang on my desk, to the committee meeting.

Anyway, does the fact that it happens elsewhere make it excusable? No. At long last, however, it looks like enough people might be working on enough of a variety of initiatives to really affect some change.

A busy week for city leaders

The city's elected officials have a busy week ahead, including meetings of the Board of Aldermen, Board of Civil Authority and an informal review of the structure of the city's government.

Tonight the BCA will meet to map out how it will handle a small number of grievances filed against property valuations on the grand list abstract released in June. Anyone whose grievance was not granted by Assessor Barry Keefe was given a two-week window last month during which he or she could file an appeal with the BCA.

At tonight's meeting, the BCA, composed of the mayor, aldermen and 15 justices of the peace, will elect a president and set a hearing date.

A meeting of the Board of Aldermen is also scheduled for tonight. Treasurer Wendy Wilton is expected to present to the board a rough draft of a final report on the city's major funds for fiscal year 2009. Although general fund figures will change in the coming month as the treasurer's office continues to collect delinquent tax revenue, Wilton predicts the city will see a $120,000 surplus – which has already been accounted for as revenue in the fiscal year 2010 budget.

Other business on tonight's agenda includes final votes on whether to purchase two new police cruisers, grant snowmobilers access to the city forest and enact an ordinance aimed at curbing shopping cart theft.

On Tuesday, the aldermen and mayor will meet as the Board of Civil Authority to discuss whether BCA hearings are warranted for two city employees whose recreation department positions were cut in the fiscal year 2010 budget. According to the city personnel manual, employees are entitled to a hearing if dismissed, demoted or suspended; Mayor Christopher Louras is contending since the layoffs do not fit those descriptions the hearing should not be granted, while some aldermen have argued it's common courtesy.

The following evening, the full board will meet again as the Committee of the Whole to discuss the governmental model used in the city – namely, the benefits of a mayor versus city manager, having a certified accountant in the treasurer's office and employing a Board of Listers instead of an assessor.

A representative from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns is scheduled to run the workshop for the group. The meeting will resume a discussion left off in late May, right before the board delved into budget review mode. At that time, the group was leaning heavily toward forming an eclectically composed charter review committee to tackle the problem.

Deadline day

Payments on third-quarter water and sewer bills for fiscal year '09 are due today.

Ratepayers can either make a payment in person in City Hall or drop their payment in the mail, as long as it is postmarked with today's date, according to the treasurer's office.

Late payments are subject to a 5 percent penalty.