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Supplemental budget approvedThe Medford City Council approved a supplemental budget Thursday, including a $200,000 addition to the $235 million biennial budget for 2005-2007. The general fund increase of $200,000 is made up of $170,000 to match a FEMA grant for seismic upgrades of fire stations and $30,000 for unanticipated building maintenance repairs. These include such things as leaking windows, a cooling tower water line repair and HVAC heating, venting, air conditioning in City Hall. Alison Chan, city finance director, said the city sold land for $179,260 to the building fund for a parking lot for the Building Safety Department, which will cover most of the amount. The rest will come from the city's contingency fund. The supplemental budget also includes recognition of $2.5 million in grants, donations and contributions, as well as transfer of funds and the opening of three funds and closing of two funds. The budget period ends June 30, 2007. In other business, the council continued the appeal of the Wal-Mart approval, as requested by South Gateway Center Partners, to June 1, but not before Councilman John Statler announced he would not recuse himself from the discussion and deliberations on the application as he had done in previous discussions.The supercenter was approved by the Site Plan and Architectural Commission on March 17 after being appealed by the South Gateway developers and Citizens for Responsible Development in 2004. Both groups filed appeals April 7, again based on compatibility and traffic impacts. The 206,533-square-foot retail commercial building would be built on a 20.5-acre site between Center Drive and South Pacific Highway, north of Belknap Road, where Miles Field used to be located. Statler said in a prepared statement that he plans to participate in the appeal this time. He said he recused himself from the previous appeal because he had spoken in opposition to the Wal-Mart project at a prior hearing. "That particular plan has been replaced with a significantly different one and I feel that replacement sufficiently distances me from my previous participation in the site plan hearings," he read from his statement. Councilman Bob Strosser pointed out that Statler had been seen passing notes to the citizens group during the recent site plan hearing, but Statler responded that he was helping the group use the audio-visual equipment. Mayor Gary Wheeler said he knows Statler feels he can be unbiased. "I will trust that opinion," he said. |
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