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Council Watch
Billy Manes paying attention to local government so you don't have to
Published: November 3, 2011
Item: The city adopts proposed ordinance No. 2011-43 relating to redistricting.
Translation: Our long municipal redistricting nightmare is officially over. Sure, there weren’t quite the alarms or surprises (please) that peppered the more contentious county redistricting explosion, but there were some minor changes of note that are really too tedious to cover here. This is the official ordinance laying out the schedule of implementation, and seeing as we only get around to this boilerplate once a decade, the city has taken the opportunity to “remove superfluous language, update stylistic choices and provide greater clarity.” Reading through the language of this ordinance did not provide us, dear reader, with much clarity at all. One amendment of significance, though, is the language shift from “qualified voters” to total “population” of each district, because we all know that anybody who isn’t on the donor rolls even bothers to vote in standalone municipal elections. Also, equality!
Item: The city approves Amendment 1 to its lease with L3 LLC, doing business as Oopsy Scoopsy at 397 W. Church St.
Translation: You know what’s not boring? Booze and yogurt. Even though (or perhaps because) this little boutique business across the street from the Amway Center is currently existing in the will-they-won’t-they gray area of Rich DeVos’ proposed entertainment complex development (DeVos paid the city $100,000 to explore the possibility of effectively shutting down the small businesses littering West Church Street), it’s altering its creamy business model with the devil’s juice. Under this agreement, the horribly named dessert emporium – brought to you buy the guy who created the equally horribly named O-Cartz – will now serve beer and wine, though not a lot of it (allegedly). The amendment provides that Oopsy Scoopsy can only make 50 percent of its profits with liquefied temptation. So it’s definitely not a bar. It’s just a middling cookie and yogurt shop where you might accidentally get drunk. Oopsy!
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