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Tuesday, 03 October 2006 18:28 |
By DAVID FORBES
The formation of a Sustainable Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment was approved 5-2 by Asheville City Council on Sept. 26.
The committee will hear proposals and complaints from citizens in matters relating to energy and the environment and attempt to promote sustainable practices. It will advise council on which stance to take on matters relating to such issues.
The two dissenting votes were cast by councilmen Jan Davis and Carl Mumpower.
Councilwoman
Robin Cape, who initiated the discussion to form such a committee at a
work session earlier this month, said that Asheville is taking an
important step in setting it up.
"This is
Asheville going forward one step," Cape said. "This committee will be
there to advise, to recommend, to foster an important dialogue that we
need to have."
Earlier, Vice Mayor Holly Jones also spoke in strong support of the measure.
"I think the
time for this is right ÇƒÓ and the time is now," Jones said. "This is an
important leadership role for us to take and will help us get where we
need to to go. This committee can set some really far-reaching goals
and deal with matters a long way out. We should really have this in our
town."
However,
Mumpower said that the committee will simply add another layer of
bureaucracy to city government and might stifle needed development.
"I see this as
just adding another layer to the process," Mumpower said. "These
functions are already handled, more than adequately, by our staff, who
can keep out agendas at the same time. An advisory committee like this
would be ripe for such abuses and might even stifle some good ideas."
In contrast,
Mayor Terry Bellamy said that the committee could foster discussion on
important issues and emphasized that its conclusions are not binding.
"This is the
right thing to do," Bellamy said. "This is also an advisory committee.
It will make its recommendations to us and then we can agree with
those, or not agree. Any rezoning, any issue like that still has to
come before us."
In other action, council:
ï Voted unanimously to lower the capital improvement fee paid by residential customers to $3.50.
Currently, some
residents with oversized meters are paying much higher rates than they
were before. The reduction, which will cost the city about $80,000,
affects 150 water customers.
The increase is part of an effort by the city to pay for needed improvements to the water system it took control of last summer.
However,
concerns still remain among some council members about how other
categories of water customer might be affected by the fee.
In particular, Cape said that council needs to look at how the water fees are affecting mobile home residents.
"Mobile homes are affordable housing for a lot of people," Cape said. "We really need to look at opening up a dialogue on that."
ï Unanimously
passed a resolution calling on the areaës state legislators and Rep.
Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, to support the city on "mental health issues
through funding and other means" in the wake of the announced Oct. 31
closing of New Vistas, the areaës largest mental health service, which
serves 10,500 clients.
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