Read the full city council agenda below.
Raleigh City Manager Russ Allen will deliver the proposed city budget to council tomorrow. Councilors have been meeting in a series of work sessions to develop the budget of the past couple months as they face lower revenue in the ongoing economic crunch.
In one of the work sessions, council already decided to increase water fees to fill the budget gap left by residents conserving water. See earlier Raleigh Public Record coverage on the water fee increases here.
Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and other councilors have said several times this year that they will follow the council’s unofficial policy of not increasing taxes during a recession. Read the full text of last year’s city budget below.
The new chair of the Raleigh/Wake County Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness will give an interim report and ask council to continue its current funding for the next fiscal year. The city has given the program $50,000 a year for the past several years. Read the interim report here.
Councilors will consider an ordinance changing front yard parking regulations before it goes to public hearing. The new regulation would require that single-family homes with front-yard parking have paved parking spaces. Read the proposed changes below.
From the consent agenda:
Items on the consent agenda can all be passed with one motion or councilors can pull items for discussion and a separate vote.
A proposed ordinance could change the way nuisance party and noise violations are enforced. Currently, the Raleigh Police Department can charge people with misdemeanors for “nuisance parties,” but this new ordinance would allow police to asses civil penalties instead of only handing out criminal charges.
Council’s agenda says, “Obtaining misdemeanor convictions for offenses such as noise and nuisance party violations tends to be time consuming and often challenging in the criminal justice system. While officers would still have the option of making a misdemeanor charge in the event of chronic or repeated violations, a civil penalty would not result in a permanent criminal record against the offender.”
The ordinance would set the penalties at $100 a day for the first violation and $300 a day for the second in the same one-year period. Read the changes to ordinance below.
The initiative to bring free wireless internet access downtown is moving forward. Council is expected to approve the bids for implementing the downtown wi-fi system. WindChannel Communications put in the winning bid, and KompSys has the second-place bid.
