Changes in golf cart ordinance, precinct & ward boundaries to be discussed by Clear Lake City Council this morning

CLEAR LAKE — Several items are on the agenda for a special meeting of the Clear Lake City Council this morning including dealing with changes in the city’s golf cart ordinance as well as the city’s new wards and precinct boundaries:

== The council at a workshop earlier this month discussed potential changes to the  allowance of golf carts on city streets. Among the changes the council will consider to the golf cart ordinance include: mandating that anyone under the age of 18 riding in a rear-facing seating position shall wear a properly adjusted and fastened safety belt, safety harness, or seat belt any time the golf cart is in motion; that the yearly price for obtaining a permit to operate a golf cart would go up from the current $25 level to $40; and increasing fines for those violating the golf cart ordinance from $75 to $105 for a first offense and from $100 to $150 on second and subsequent offenses. 

== The council will hold the public hearing on the proposed new ward and precinct boundaries that would take effect on January 15th. The city is in the middle of a 60-day time period where they have to create new boundaries to conform with the new census data. There would be changes in the boundaries between the Second and Third Wards. The proposed western boundary of the Third Ward would move from 10th Street two blocks to the west to be along 8th Street, with the new boundary beginning at the corner of 10th Avenue North and North 8th Street, then traveling south along 8th Street until it reaches 4th Avenue South where it then travels east. The council will hold the public hearing and then take the first of three votes to approve the new boundaries, with the second and third readings of the ordinance taking place at their regularly-scheduled December meetings. 

The council meets at 8:30 this morning at City Hall.