fema info

Sometimes I wonder what goes on at our town meetings? When I'm not thinking about more exciting stuff. Like, if today's the day I put hospital corners on my bed.

Recently, I read a blow-by-blow account of such a meeting. Now, I don't know who came up with the term "minutes" to depict the slow-moving action, but I think he had a more objective and fluid sense of time than Stephen Hawking.

Here's what happened when the town board last met.

At their last meeting, the board proposed that they amend Chapter 155 of the Town Code, entitled, "Garbage, Rubbish And Refuse." Amazingly, chapter 155 of Tolstoy's "War And Peace" has the same exact title. Tolstoy has better characterization, but he's got nothing on Harrison for raw suspense. A novelization of the proceedings will be out in the fall.

Mayor Joan Walsh stated that this amendment was "only for three family homes," who will be exempt from paying a carting fee in the year 2010. But they will have to begin paying again in 2011. When this was announced, gasps were heard around the room and several people fainted.

However, the board was not through with discussing "Garbage, Rubbish And Refuge." Even though the tension and excitement in the room was already at a fever pitch.

Next up was the controversial amendment, "Placement For Collection: Collection In Commercial Districts." This should have been resolved in the previous meeting, but the board got bogged down in semantics and spent several hours just defining "placement." And all they could resolve was that they'd tackle the rest of the title in the next meeting.

So, it was resolved, that "Every Commercial Establishment within the Town/Village of Harrison" shall "annually pay a Commercial Registration Fee for the carting away of its Garbage, Rubbish And Refuse." The board was near an agreement on this when someone suggested that "Garbage, Rubbish and Refuse" was a tautology, or, an unnecessary repetition of words. Then someone said that "an unnecessary repetition" was itself a tautology. So things bogged down for the second time in a month.

The suggestion that they instead re-title the amendment "Blood, Sweat And Tears" went unheeded.

Finally, the amendment was passed because Harrison needed the money.

The board then put forward the amendment that every commercial establishment must also pay a fee for the collection of "trash, rubbish and garbage." Which, if carefully worded, would seem like a completely different amendment and allow the town to charge everyone twice. This amendment passed enthusiastically.

Finally, the board got around to the meat of the garbage question. That's right, the kind of pails it should be put in. It was proposed that each commercial establishment shall put out no more than 10 pails or cans for the collection of trash. Although some merchants have put out 12 and said it's the same according to The New Math. The quality of each pail, it was proposed, must be approved by the Public Works Commissioner. If you bought them from his brother, Joe the pail salesman, approval would occur that much quicker.

All the board members called out "Aye!" So either the amendments passed, or they really are just in there watching "Pirates Of The Caribbean."

The other order of business that the board voted on, had to do with installing an emergency generator at police headquarters, to the tune of $210,000. The board first resolved to make sure there was that much money in their Capital Improvement Account. Not like the last time, when all they found was some petty cash and some handwritten IOUs - misspelled.

It turns out the money was available. Then the Law Department had to prepare a contract and the Treasurer had to do an audit. And, after submitting their bills to the town, Harrison was $30,000 short.

Finally the money was all in place.

The last order of business for this recent board meeting was the Authorization To Adopt The Hazard Mitigation Plan. Now, I'm no fan of hazards. And I feel they should be mitigated whenever you get a break in the day. But there's one catch here. This plan was supposed to be presented to FEMA. What happened after that in the meeting? I'm still unsure, because I didn't read the minutes. Whenever I see the name FEMA. I have a tendency to scream and throw stuff across the room. In this case, it was my laptop, which broke.

It should be ready Thursday.

So, I really don't know how the most recent board meeting ended. But, I'm concerned. FEMA doesn't really have a great history, especially when it comes to mitigating hazards. Harrison, are you sure you want their advice about this?