Jamestown City Council met in Council Chambers for its voting session for the first time in 14 months Monday. Council President Tony Dolce said he woke up excited and it felt normal again, “I’ve got a reason to put a tie and shirt on and actually get in my car and drive down here and have a bit of normalcy. It was nice to have the High School kids, the Mock Trial team, to be recognized and have someone here from the public to speak.”
Dolce said it was great to not have to worry about people being muted, or being frozen on screen.
Mayor Eddie Sundquist and Council members recognized the Jamestown High School Mock Trial team at the meeting with a certificate for their undefeated season in the 2020-21 New York State Mock Trial program.
City Council approved a request for home rule legislation to add school speed zone cameras in the city. Resident Doug Champ said he supports the cameras, but that council needs to address the variations in speed limits around schools, especially on Buffalo Street, “The camera sequence will not work under that kind of condition, I mean the metrics, the evaluation of a car speeding from one of those district zones to another, it’s going to be very difficult to measure. So, I’m suggesting that that whole district, that whole zone be a school district zone and set the speed limit at 20 miles per hour throughout.”
Champ also called for the addition of flashing lights in school zones.
Council President Dolce said while there were issues with how Buffalo had done the school speed zone cameras, the city should have those resolved, “We have the ability to control a little bit more with the timing and the calibration of the speed. So when that comes back to us then we will formally be able to pass it and we can have a further debate about it. I know there have been some people concerned about that and we’ve had feedback both ways.”
Dolce says the State Legislature may be able to take up the resolution before the end of its session in June with the City looking at possibly implementing the cameras in the next school year.
City Council has approved home rule legislation to make the second full-time City Court Judge position an elected position rather than an appointment by the Mayor. Council President Dolce said other municipalities who opted to add an extra full time judge had already made that position an elected position, “Judge Larson, I believe, will be retiring at the end of this year. But what’s going to happen, we have to get the ball rolling. There’s not enough time to get someone elected and put on the ballot to get elected for next year, so it will be temporarily appointed until the next general election after that.”
Judge John LaMancuso currently holds the elected City Court Judge position
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