"Shouldn't There Be a Semi-Colon In Sentence 4, Article 2, Page 34?"

IRONWOOD, MI - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - A Ironwood Planning Commission Public Hearing to review and hear comment on the new Zoning Ordinance was scheduled for 5:15 PM yesterday evening. A regular monthly meeting of the IPC was scheduled to follow the Public Hearing. Additionally, a City Commission/IPC Workshop to discuss and examine the Zoning Ordinance was scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM.

Immediately after the IPC meeting was called to order and roll was taken, reappointed Commissioner Eric Lytwyniuk  and newly appointed Commission LeRoy Johnson took the oath of office. Mayor Bruce Noren and the Ironwood City Commission appointed both gentlemen at their last regular meeting.

Following the oath of office, the Public Hearing began. The meeting quickly changed from a public hearing to a grammar and rewrite session as Community Development Director Dan Petersen and the Commission reviewed the document. There was practically no public input on the newly overhauled multi-page Zoning Ordinance, nor was there time for any. The IPC plowed through the document checking for spelling and grammar errors; typos; misdirected references; duplicated sentences and phrases; and confusing or unclear statements.

Newly appointed Commissioner LeRoy Johnson, being a stickler for detail, went over the document with a fine tooth comb. "Mays" were corrected to read as "shalls;" "City Councils" were changed to "City Commissions;" "Planning Boards" were turned to "Planning Commissions."

After more than an hour of corrections and discussions, City Manager Scott Erickson left the meeting to greet the City Commission who were anxiously waiting to go over the very same things the Planning Commission was just going over.

Due to the fact that the Public Hearing ran excessively long with the rather mundane and routine spell and grammar checks and typo corrections, the Planning Commission quickly called their regular meeting to order only to approve the previous meeting's minutes and to postpone the remainder of the meeting until they are scheduled to meet again on April 1st.

The IPC meeting was then adjourned and most of the IPC Commissioners joined the Ironwood City Commission in the Commission Chambers to go over the very same corrections once again.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Readers of the Chronicle may have noticed that is reporter has been suffering from severe writer's block. Quite frankly, I am getting burned out. How many times can a person report the same thing and make it sound fresh and worth reading? By the same token, how many times is it really necessary to rehash the same issues without taking action on them? Last night's Public Hearing was a farce. Was it really necessary to hold a public hearing to go over spelling and grammar errors? Couldn't those corrections have been made prior to the public hearing by a subcommittee? The main purpose of a public hearing, I always thought, was to hear what the public had to say. Then again, when so few people choose to attend public hearings and City meetings... why bother?

To schedule a Public Hearing, a regular monthly meeting and a joint workshop all in the same evening was asinine, especially considering there wasn't enough time to hold the regular IPC meeting, and the joint workshop was designed to go over the very same issues that were discussed at the Public Hearing.

How do you write an article about two groups of people that spend an entire evening discussing the verbiage of a Zoning Ordinance? Well, this is the best I can do. I just wasted three more hours of whatever time I have left on this earth.