Tonight, there are three Public Hearings scheduled for the 12/17/2018 City Council Meeting, in which you are invited to contribute your opinion and feedback about drafts of laws put before the City Council. This is your chance to speak in public to the City Council, so that they may consider your thoughts before signing proposed legislation into law.

Usually what happens at the meetings is people attend - sometimes it’s just one - then they have a chance to voice their opinions at a podium, and the City Council considers what they said. The City Council may then take the draft of the law back into a “Workshop” session where they meet again to talk about it in detail, and/or the City Attorney may take notes from the City Council and make changes to the draft law, and present it again. If no one shows up to a Public Hearing, the City Council has what it needs in the draft law to vote on the proposed new law or change to an existing law, and possibly sign it into new law that night if they get majority votes from themselves.

Here’s What’s On Deck Tonight:

“SIGNS” - HOW SIGNS HUNG OUTSIDE IN PUBLIC VIEW ARE TREATED
From the City’s Agenda: “A continuation of a public hearing to receive public comment on a proposed Local Law to delete Chapter 183 entitled “Signs” and to amend Chapter 223 Sections 15 and 63 of Code of the City of Beacon, concerning sign regulations in the City of Beacon”
Background: Highlands Current reporter Jeff Simms has been covering this signage development that was triggered by a large white political sign hung on a building on Hanna Lane that can be seen on Route 52. You can read about that here from June 2018, and here from November 2018. According to the November article: “The law was called into question after the city repeatedly clashed with Jason Hughes, a business owner who hung politically topical banners on the side of a warehouse he owns that faces Route 52. The draft of the new regulations would require permits for certain signs but not others… Real estate and construction signs, for example, would be allowed in residential zones without a permit, as would lawn signs (not exceeding 3 square feet) for elections, yard sales and other events as long as they were removed within seven days after the event took place.”

MUNICIPAL IDs
From the City’s Agenda: “A public hearing to receive public comment on a proposed local law to create Chapter 42 of the Code of the City of Beacon to establish a Municipal Identification Program in the City of Beacon”

ZONING LAW TO ALLOW ALL ARCADES, NOT JUST VINTAGE ARCADES
From the City’s Agenda: A public hearing to receive public comment on a proposed local law to repeal Chapter 223, Article III, Section 24.8 and to amend Chapter 223, Attachment 2 of the Code of the City of Beacon concerning amusement centers containing only vintage amusement devices
Background: Proposed new business offerings at a property at 511 Fishkill Avenue (which is in Beacon but just outside of downtown Beacon, past AutoZone), include a brewery, an arcade, and an event space. The property owners are seeking the allowance of an arcade, without being restricted to offering vintage games/machines that were built prior to 1980.
Deep Dive: We took a Deep Dive into this one, to see what it was all about, and you can read about it here.

Drafts of the laws, emails from people, and other supporting documents that are to help educate everyone before a Public Hearing are linked with each agenda on the City of Beacon’s website. To help with the ease of use, we have republished those here in our format to help keep things easy to find. (We love our Search bar!)

Many other items are on the agenda for the City Council to discuss among themselves, but in public. A Little Beacon Blog has published the entire agenda for tonight here to help you keep up. We do this for all of the City Council Meetings (started doing it about a year ago). When a video of a City Council Meeting has been published, we re-publish it with its dedicated meeting web page as well.