Monday, November 5, 2007

$3.9 million in architect fees!

Hastily called meeting just prior to new council members taking office
A special meeting called by City Council on October 22, only 3 weeks before the inauguration of the new City Council members, to approve another $3.9 million in architect fees received 2 hours prior to the meeting. Click here for the architect's proposal. (The document is 35 MB so will take a couple of minutes to download).

Watch the video of Higgins trying to slip the special meeting of council under the public radar. The request for the meeting was not attached to the council agenda. She did not mention that the special meeting was a city council meeting and did not mention that it would be held Monday, Oct 22 at 7:00 PM even though the city charter requires that time and place be included in the request for the meeting. Subsequent to her announcement, there were several press releases posted to the city website's homepage but none on this meeting. The actual resolutions are not linked to the agenda and as of Saturday morning, city council members did not have the resolutions so we don't know how the architect's contract will be amended and whether additional money will be authorized.