The Monday night meeting is over and the open items list didn’t change much. The big item on the agenda tonight was the School budget presentation. The school budget has been cut significantly and I think they did a pretty good job in a tough fiscal environment.
The other thing we did tonight was to establish a date by which the City will shut down the BPL internet system and it looks to be July 1st. After we lost our last partner, the Council elected to give the Utilities department some time to see if they could make it work and, well, it just wasn’t working out….
April 6, 2010 at 8:07 am
I saw where Prince William County is vying for the chance to partner with Google, but they don’t have the fiber optics.
The city already has fiber optics in place.
Did the city consider competing to partner with Google?
April 6, 2010 at 5:10 pm
FYI — some data from the MSPS
budget presentation to council last night.
– Special Ed. – 14% FY2010
– Limted English – 34% FY2010
– Free/Reduced Lunches – 47% FY2010
(up from 23% of studenta – FY2006)
-Student population grew by 300 from FY2009
to FY2010 but the budget fell 3.6% FY 2009-10
and is slated to drop another 3.1% FY2010-11.
– I think the School Board and staff are doing
a great job, considering the increased
demand and diminished resources they
must manage.
April 7, 2010 at 11:22 am
I have to agree with shutting down the BPL – I remember months ago when the decision was made, Jon made a strong case about gov’t should not be doing what private enterprise does.
I won’t be around to watch the markup meeting – I’m off to Richmond this afternoon thru Saturday for a conference. Looking at the Contributing Agency list, I have trouble with the Church Without Walls asking for such a large chunk – they did not ask the County for a dime, so this one troubles me.
For the Human Service providers, my point is hold to last years funding for some of the larger ones, so that ones like IEC who asked for a modest increase, could receive it. A little dickering across the line of all of them should allow for some to receive a larger amount than last year; others a modest increase (i.e. if they asked for a $5K increase, drop that to $3K and distribute the other $2K to smaller ones).
For the Arts – well, I have expressed my opinion on that before. We are paying down a debt on that Center, and yes “IN THEROY” the City would reap benefit from people coming into Old Town for dinner before show. For those moving their operations out to Hylton Center, they may just have to consider raising their ticket prices. But this may all just be a wild theroy since operations out there for them will be expensive for awhile since empty stages create the urge to have larger props.
That’s my two cents worth 🙂
April 8, 2010 at 8:13 am
Well, I lasted until 9:30 pm when I had to pick up my son from work. Uncle!
How you all do it, and maintain your day jobs, families, community work, and to-do lists, I don’t know. I’m convinced you’re crazy to be public servants, but we’re just as fortunate to have you and live here in the city, because it just works.
When it comes down to it, it appears that you do care that the neediest among us get a hand up (Family Services), you recognize invaluable resources like Neighborhood Services’ community building work, and supporting Northern Virginia Community College (where a high percentage of Osbourn HS grads attend), you protect public safety (police – fire-rescue -EM), and our electric utility rates are 10% lower than Dominion Power and 30% lower than NOVEC.
I also I like how not everybody on the council thinks alike or rubber stamps everything — I think the best decisions are made when a variety of people are in the mix.
Wish I could have stayed till the end. What were the recommendations on Manassas Next?