Randomness | Today’s the 44th day of the year. If we used the Julian calendar today would be 19044. “Astronomers refer to a Julian date as the number of days since the beginning of the Julian Period (January 1, 4713 BC).” Our introduction to the Julian calendar came from the Army’s Maintenance Management System
And so, on this Currier & Ives-like morning …
A photo collage | Photo 1 – The February Council meeting was last night. Weather may have kept people from attending as fewer than 20 persons were in the gallery. Absent, too, was the solicitor. Borough Manager Rebecca Denlinger said the counselor’s presence will be only when there’s an anticipated need for legal counsel. Photo 2 – Last night’s meeting was intended to be the first ever live streamed council meeting — 15 minutes into the meeting, though, the camera crashed to the floor. Evidently the mounting device at the rear of the council chambers malfunctioned. The meeting was a test and it was not live streamed, rather the recording was going to be checked first to assure audio quality before being posted at the borough website. Photos 3 – The scenes on this glistening, gorgeous February do conjure up visions of Currier & Ives scenes. Last night’s meeting began at 7:03 pm and ended at 9:31 pm.
There are some | Closings & delays today.
St. Paul Church LED sign | Turn’s out the question about the inconsistent signage on the downtown church (reported by Columbia Spy here may have some legal standing under the “The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.” Meeting participants learned that last night as the borough manager said the church has argued it has special land use prerogatives under the act.
New tenant in town | Council approved the agenda item “Lease of Borough owned property at 137 S. Front Street (the former fire station) to KT Graham” but is still communicating with Norfolk Southern Railroad for the attached property at 101 South Front Street. The motion included the caveat that any lease charges for the 101 South Front Street property applied by the railroad company would be passed along to the new tenant.
Columbia news, views & reviews 
How was the quality of the sound of the device crashing to the floor at the meeting?
LOUD!
Regarding the church sign: Council voted on an issue that they did not have full knowledge of. How many times has this happened? Blind faith.
They did, but the church reached into an obscure basket for this one. I seriously doubt the codes official knew about the “The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.”
On the topic of obscure, the mayor’s reading about the budget time-lines was just too obscure for us.
A councilman’s call to the mayor quickly stopped the church painting project in the 200 block of Locust Street last year. No vote needed!
The church being painted is leased property I suspect. That may make a difference. What actually happened is hard to say. The problem in that case, as I see it, is they were about to paint the stone work in addition to the trim. Others, I’m sure, objected to the colour.
I’m not sure how Hermansander was allowed to paint the brick, which had never been painted, on the Locust St. building.
The obvious and frustrating end result here is all too familiar and known as “inconsistency”.
I don’t think the church building should have been painted blue either anymore than the electronic sign belongs on the other church. The point is “inconsistency” as noted in the comment above. A Saturday morning phone call can stop work immediately, but HARB recommends no sign, council votes supporting HARB’s recommendation, and the work goes forward in spite of it. Now we’re told council made a mistake on that vote. They were not aware of the religious land use law. What other votes by council may have been mistakes? Perhaps Ordinance 897.