Sitting through an Albany City Council meeting has its reward — when it’s over and you walk out and are greeted by the festive lights on the City Hall plaza on a December night.
For a moment there, it looked as though the City of Albany was making progress in opening up, for public use, sections of the Vine Street right-of-way alongside the Santiam Canal.
Monday’s meeting of the Albany Revitalization Agency was called to award a demolition contract for the former Wells Fargo branch downtown. It ended on a sour note when the chair, Councilwoman Bessie Johnson, formally accused member Dick Olsen of violating the secrecy of an executive session.
Albany police are planning to buy a better type of speed-radar trailer, one that can record the license plates of vehicles it observes to be speeding.
Albany has lots of laws intended to safeguard the city’s livability, and the city council has just consolidated them in one chapter of the municipal code. The idea is to make it easier to find what’s allowed and what’s not.
The Albany City Council missed a chance last week to let people learn about the new contract between the city and the union representing most of the employees in the police department.
For two longtime members, the last meeting
I’ve been following most meetings of the Albany City Council on YouTube or Zoom. But I went in person Wednesday night because the last council meeting of 2022 was also the last for longtime Councilors Bessie Johnson and Dick Olsen.
Tags: Albany council, Bessie Johnson, council members, Dick Olsen, new council, Stacey Bartholomew