The Metro Council will meet in-person this afternoon for the first time since the novel coronavirus emerged in the spring, moving meetings to a virtual format to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Though council members will physically meet in the council chambers, the public will be required to either make comments via a live video stream sent to the council from the River Center Branch Library or email them to the Metro Council, though emailed comments will not be read aloud during the meeting.
The council is expected to consider several noteworthy items, including authorizing Mayor Sharon Weston Broome to accept and appropriate more than $2 million in funds awarded through the CARES Act. Broome is also submitting amendments to several of the city-parish’s Community Development Block Grant action plans, for the purpose of reallocating federal Department of Housing and Urban Development funding to affordable housing developments and a homeless diversion project.
There are also several items being introduced at the meeting that will go to public hearing later this month.
Those items include:
- A series of proposed changes to the East Baton Rouge Parish Plan of Government, originally introduced to the Metro Council one year ago.
- An ordinance levying and providing for the collection of sales and hotel occupancy taxes within the boundaries of the Harveston Economic Development District.
- A request for Capital Outlay Funding for fiscal year 2021-2022 for the General Aviation Development Project (Utility/Infrastructure) in the amount of $2,777,980.00.
- A long-awaited ordinance regulating electronic scooter rentals. See the full agenda.
