Today we spent the morning in something of an informal planning session. We had a four hour facilitated discussion to help us identify budget priorities. I’m not sure how the Missoulian reported on this but we had a few people show up with the expectation that it was a public work session to discuss why taxes shouldn’t go up. Our facilitator did a good job of allowing for the legally required public comment time while keeping us on task.  One of the outcomes was to have us identify items that were short term goals, long term goals, and potential funding sources which we could all agree upon. All of this was in the context of the budget. It was all pretty general or from the 30,000 foot view. As soon as we started talking details any semblance of consensus vanished. I think the process was worthwhile. It seemed more of a start to something than a completed process.

I would like us to continue the conversation to actually arrive at goals and parameters that we can offer to the administration for formulation into the 2014 budget. This year we are already late in the game and at most can make various edits to the proposed FY13 budget. We can continue our goals and priorities discussions over the summer and have something for the mayor in the fall, in front of the upcoming budget process. We should be getting a report in about a week that details what all we said.

After lunch the most interesting meeting was Conservation. Dave put in a referral to have us sign a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers asking them to do a programmatic environmental impact statement related to the port improvements for coal exports. The document had been drafted by the Northern Plains Resource Council. The letter asks the corps to not only review the three export facilities as a whole, but to also consider the impacts to the communities along the rail lines that will feed the facilities.  Here is a link to a draft of the letter: http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentCenter/Home/View/19546.

We got tangled up on a couple of points. First, Adam didn’t like that this was related to global warming. He was OK with asking for the PEIS if we were only concerned about things like traffic delays at railroad crossings but didn’t think we should have anything to do with “philosophies” about global warming or other things that don’t concern Missoula, Montana.  Caitlin presented a version of the letter she had edited that eliminated the global warming references. We decided we needed more time to consider her version and it could be substituted on the floor on Monday night.

We also got hung up on whether it should be a letter that the supporting council members sign on to or if it should be an official action of the city of Missoula. I made a motion to wrap the letter in a resolution making it an official action of the council but agreed to Caitlin’s request to water it down to indicate if it is not passed unanimously. That motion passed so the item will be heard during committee reports on Monday.

On Monday I will most likely offer to amend the language to remove the reference to the vote count. The only point of including that is to assure that the Army Corps understands that even though we are making this request, there are some council members who think we should not. It weakens the request. It is kind of like when Dick goes to Helena to lobby for the opposite side of an issue from the City. He is free to do that but I’m not seeing why I should help.