Your guide to tomorrow’s City Council meeting

Columbia City Council meets at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Click here for the full agenda. Here’s my summary:

3. and 4. Resolution No.: R-2009-084 and Resolution No.: R-2009-088

• The first resolution gives the city’s permission for the Jobs Economic Development Authority to sell a $5.5 million tax-exempt bond for the State Museum to build a planetarium, observatory and 4-D theater on Gervais Street. The second resolution loosely commits $1 million in hospitality tax money to the State Museum Foundation for the next five years. For more information, click here.

Consent Agenda

• For a refresher course on what a consent agenda is, click here. City Council did away with them for a while, but now they’ve brought them back. This consent agenda includes:
• $121,483.24 in purchases, including $48,500 for a new roof at Fire Station 3, $13,106.43 for fire department rescue equipment, $13,867.20 for police body armor and $14,540.86 for more asphalt to finish paving Martha’s Glenn Road.
• Updates to the city’s building code

Zoning public hearing

• Rezoning 2300 Haskell Avenue for a Benedict College bookstore.
• Rezoning 1301 Sunset Drive for the development of a hotel. This is the same hotel project that mayoral candidate Steve Benjamin once owned. Benjamin said he has removed himself from the deal.
• Text amendments §17-258, §17-305 (a) and §17-294 and ordinance No. 2009-109: This would ban payday lenders from opening a store within 3,000 feet (roughly half a mile) from another payday lender and would ban payday lenders from operating in buildings smaller than 30,000 square feet. Council members are expected to hold the public hearing but delay the vote. For more background, click here.

Public hearing

• Ordinance No. 2009-106: This would allow city residents to keep hens — but no roosters — in their backyards. For more background, click here.

Columbia tennis center upgrades

• According to Allison Baker, the city’s interim senior assistant city manager, the tennis center needs an upgrade because “the lighting system is inefficient and the courts are in need of repair.” No word on how much it will cost.

Executive Session

• After interviewing eight city manager candidates Monday in a closed-to-the-public meeting, council members plan to narrow the field further in a private meeting Wednesday. After that, they should release the names of the finalists, as is required by the state’s freedom of information act.