There were some spirited discussions at Tuesday night’s Guthrie city council meeting with the discussion of amending the City of Guthrie’s building codes.
Back on March 12, the Guthrie Planning Commission, a recommending body for the city council, voted 5-0 to adopt rules and regulations concerning building codes throughout the city limits.
During the May 19 council meeting, there were concerns from the council on some of the requirements requested by the planning commission. The council then formed a committee to work alongside with City staff to fine tune the ordinance (Ordinance No. 3333). The council selected council members Brian Bothroyd, James Long and Sharyl Padgett to serve on the committee.
During Tuesday’s night council meeting, City Manager Leroy Alsup asked for the discussion to be tabled to a later meeting due to numerous changes made by the committee.
“It is now significantly different from the version that went through the planning commission,” Alsup said and added clerical items would also need to be addressed.
Alsup recommended that the council allow the planning commission to have an opportunity to look over the “significant” changes made by the committee.
However, Bothroyd suggested the council hear each of the changes “line by line.”
“We have about nine hours and three days in this,” Bothroyd explained. “My time is extremely valuable and so is his (Long) and so is hers (Padgett).”
The committee held three separate meetings with staff. Members of the planning commission did not receive an invitation to the meeting. However, Joe Chappell did attend portions of the meetings but said he did not attend the final meeting, which is when Chappell says the “significant” changes were made to the codes.
Mayor Steve Gentling agreed with the recommendation of the city manager to allow the planning commission to review the changes.
“I think they (planning) deserve to have input into a document that we should be voting on,” Gentling said.
Long shared his frustration about the agenda item being put on the agenda.
“Here’s my beef. We knew this before Friday. We knew this before this damn agenda went out so why in the hell did it make it to the agenda? I don’t know who is in charge of that?”
Long went on, “what pisses me off is that we come to this meeting.” Long was stopped by Gentling, who said, “Let’s clean it (language) up a bit.”
Long continued, “What ticks me off is that we come to this meeting with an agenda item that we know should not be on there in the first place.”
Long eventually made the motion to table the item and send the changes back to the planning commission for their review. The motion was second by Bothroyd before a 6-1 vote with Bothroyd voting no.
A special planning commission meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15 with the hope of the city council voting on the final document in their first scheduled meeting in August.
Permits on hold
Guthrie resident Brad Butler shared his frustrations with the council as he continues to wait on city permits to build a (30 x 40) shop on his property.
Butler, along with other residents, are waiting for the codes to be finalized so that permits can be granted by the planning department.
“All I want is a damn shop and you guys are dragging your feet,” Butler told the council members as he made several valid points in his discussion.
“Now I’m waiting, and in the meantime the price of steel and labor are going up.”
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