Wednesday’s open line


Unless our calendar is wrong, the Clean Up Henderson Committee meets this morning at 8 at the Operations Center to hold a privately funded thank-you breakfast for the Public Works Department for the workers’ participation in Clean Up Henderson Week. It should be an interesting meeting after City Council member Mike Rainey attacked the committee Monday night. Among other complaints, Rainey asked whether it was a conflict of interest for council members to sit on the cleanup committee, which began as an ad hoc council committee and has no policy-making power. He also said the committee has cost the city money, even though the committee has no city funding. Initiatives such as the children’s cleanup crusade and the thank-you breakfast are paid with private donations; efforts that require involvement by city employees, such as Clean Up Henderson Week, have involved no paid overtime. But Rainey said his complaints had nothing to do with his election loss to the committee’s chairwoman, Lynn Harper. Hmm. Well, in any case, the floor is open.