Last night, my seven-year old daughter and I attended a meeting of the Stop the Concrete Plant movement and Mayor Napolitano. The lawyer for Stop the Concrete, Richard Crowell, also provided a summary of the case and laid out a clear and reasonable scenario for the Mayor of what will likely happen once the permit is revoked — ie, Cullion will sue again and the case will head back to court.
Mayor Napolitano took the position that the best way to go about this is to go through the formal and careful process of hiring a new building inspector, allow that person to review all the material and then make a decision about revoking the permit. A panel of five has been formed to review applicants for the position of building inspector.
Frank Mattiucci, President of CCRZD, stressed that keeping up the letter-writing and public pressure on this issue is important. Click here to go to a page with all the addresses and information for letter-writing, emailing, and calling. Frank also expressed thanks to all of the members of the group, particularly Brenda Myette, whose letter-writing has helped everyone maintain their morale.
Kmareka.com 
I, too, attended the Thursday night meeting. Here are my impressions about what occurred. First, the Mayor who was forty minutes late for the meeting fielded a variety of questions. He even received applause from the group after he essentially told them that he was unprepared at this point to revoke Cullion’s permit. He wanted a building inspector in place to review the process through which the permit was issued. Since Anderson was fired, and not a good choice to do the review in the first place, it will take time (perhaps months) for the new person to be hired. According to what I heard, the advertisements for applications have not yet been run
Attorney Crowell informed the Mayor that under state statute, it is possible for the Mayor to request the state building commissioner to appoint a temporary replacement until a permanent building official is hired. In a private discussion yesterday with parties close to this issue, there seemed to be confusion about whether the statute applied to this situation. After reading the statute, I would submit that Mr. Crowell is right on this question – the statutory language supports the position that an appointment by the state building commissioner is appropriate. In any event, Mr. Napolitano agreed to pursue the issue on Friday and convey the results, through Council member Navarro, to the group. I haven’t heard whether the Mayor had any success.
But I think what was interesting in that meeting is what was absent from that meeting. First, only one state rep., Bob Jacquard, attended – nobody else from the legislature came to the meeting. As Frank pointed out in his opening remarks, some responded that they had conflicts on that night and at that time, but many didn’t have the courtesy to respond at all. There were only two members of the city council present at the beginning – council members Lanni and Navarro. Lanni left early and Council member McFarland showed up at the very end of the meeting. Only Navarro and Jacquard stayed the entire time with Bob asking a question to Atty. Crowell about revocation of the permit. Navarro made a few comments about the request for a temporary building commission and bantered with the Mayor about the tailoring of his (Navarro’s) suit.
But what was most disturbing and disappointing to me was the absence on Thursday night of any urgency in addressing and resolving the permit issue. Before the election, we heard all about how if elected investigations would be conducted and revocation of the onerous permit was right around the corner. Thursday, the Mayor was “careful� (a polite word) in his approach, and the council said nothing. There was no mention of an investigation or of any remedy for the ZBR so that this coming Wed’s meeting could be conducted. Obviously, there was no serious discussion of how to resolve this issue – only about how there will be no immediate solution.
In fact, it seemed to me that the criterion established for investigating the process and – if appropriate – revoking the permit is a criterion that ensures that there will be no progress or action on this issue in the foreseeable future. I think it’s fair to ask why.
I hope what I saw on Thursday was an off-night due to crumby weather and conflicting schedules. After all the promises and bluster made by those seeking the group’s support, I hope that what I saw Thursday night is not the beginning of a process of marginalization. These people – these good people – have worked too long and hard, spent too much money and energy (both physical and emotional), have placed too much of their faith in our system only to be sold short by their government officials.