Belleair Bluffs City Council Convenes for Regular MeetingBy Josh Valone The Belleair Bluffs City Council convened Monday night for their regular meeting to pass several proposed ordinances. Monday's meeting went by quickly without much debate or public comment. The smooth proceedings can be credited to the fact that all sixteen proposed ordinances had been hashed out in previous workshops, which made their passage little more than a formality at that point. The evening's house cleaning was light on contentious debate, but effective in moving along several minor changes to existing policies. A few of the changes included readopting and reinstating section 51-1 of the city code setting hours for sale of alcoholic beverages, and amending a reference in the code of ordinances from "1999" to "2009." The city of Belleair Bluffs has decided to continue ending alcohol sales at 2:00 a.m. A change was also made to the city code's current terminology for council members being re-compensated for expenses related to city business. The previous term of "expense allowance" was replaced with the word "compensation". Another interesting agenda item was a resolution encouraging newly elected commissioners to attend training at The Institute for Elected Municipal Officials and to serve on at least one government board. This initiative hopes to give new commissioners opportunities to gain experience as they enter office. Overall Monday's meeting seemed extremely productive. Only three of the sixteen proposed ordinances and resolutions did not pass with a unanimous vote and no members of the public voiced any concerns when given the opportunity. Police, Fire, and Public Works departments were also heard with everyone appearing to be on the same page with the progress being made in those three areas.
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