So, I was excited for it. Beautiful picture. Thanks.
Before I move to live. Thank you, Jim.
I'll call the meeting to order. Common, the roll call, please.
Mayor Cassavan. Here.
Councillor Emhizer. Here.
Councillor McCurry. Here.
Councillor Sinks here. Here.
Councillor Quetrone. Here.
Councillor Clearwater. Here.
Councillor Belanger. Here.
Councillor Reddy. Here.
Councillor Ortiz. Here.
Councillor Lessard. Here.
Thank you. Just with the agenda, what we did, of course, is add a day's short workshop after
the meeting because of an oversight that had to do with street closures. We'll pick that
up after this. Consideration to minutes, June 18, 2020.
Second. Seconded.
Seconded.
Discussion? All of you may just raise your hands.
That is everybody. Thank you.
Second reading, City Government Budget, fiscal year 21, moved and seconded, discussion, Jim?
The information I provided to you on Thursday night was wrong. You had not put $500,000
in there. I think Council Manager was correct when he noted that.
No.
So, we've got to amend it back to the original order, which takes 50,000 out of the contingency.
It puts it back into the general government classification.
I'll second that.
I'll second it.
Anyone from the public like to address that amendment?
Seeing none, back to the council.
Council, left side.
So do we have to do that, or is this just to get us back to where we were, or if
If we choose as a group to leave it the way that it is, we can do that too.
What would happen is that I'd have to find $50,000 worth of cuts in the general government
and all the rest of the lines and would have to make up for the shift.
That was not what the council or the Budget Committee council did.
And so when I moved or I asked you to move them based on what I thought you had done,
and it actually reduced what you would authorize
in all the other general government categories.
So it doesn't have an impact on the tax rate,
it's just which category or which bucket
is that those are on that appropriation in.
Thank you.
Any other questions, comments?
Seeing none, I'll vote with your electronic hands.
Mr. Councilor Belanger, Clearwater,
St. Cyr, Reddy, M. Heizer, Ortiz, McCurry,
The next item
is 3.2. Estimated Revenues Fund Balance Appropriations.
No, we have to do motion as amended.
Oh, sorry about that. I was reading the wrong screen.
Any more discussion?
If you would please raise your electronic hands.
I see Councilor Sainz here.
Belanger M. High has a clear water ready.
Ortiz and Quattron.
those opposed? No, this is for discussion, I thought. I was raising my hand for discussion.
Oh, I thought it just went up simultaneously with me. Okay, let's backtrack a little bit. Go ahead.
I want to make one last appeal. I feel like I have one straw left in my quiver, and if I can
just put it on the scale that it will tip my way. I'm not one that spends a lot of time
talking about my business or my family or myself, but I want to share with you how the pandemic
has affected me to give you a little bit of an insight into how it's affected people. And
to be quite honest, I'm sure it's not all that different than, you know, my fellow counselors
and the rest of the citizens are fit of it. But my youngest son is unemployed and just
recently went back to work. He's now working reduced hours. My son and his wife and their
three kids are home working. The two of them are getting paid. The three girls are school
age girls. They're getting paid, but they're not getting much work done. They do their
work in the evening while they watch the kids during the day. And my daughter, who
just came from California to Maine.
She experienced kind of a pause in her work
but is now back on track.
My wife who does multiple things,
half of which is probably still in place.
The other half, she works part-time for a local church
that has closed and is not yet open.
So she's lost that part-time job.
And she also teaches piano lessons.
she had 10 piano students and it was immediately dropped to five and she was teaching the other
five virtually. And then my own business, this all happened in the middle of my tax season,
and there was a pause. But quite frankly, it doesn't really affect me that the tax season's
now been extended and I have more time and people are taking more time to submit information.
But as a whole, that's how it's affected me and my family.
And I think if we went around the table, most people would probably have a similar story.
And if it's not specific to you, it would be a family member or a neighbor or a friend
because that's pretty common.
And for me and my family, for the most part, it's just a short-term hit.
We're going to be okay.
We'll get through this.
We're in good shape.
My youngest son is probably the one that's in the worst shape, mostly because he's going
to go back out into a job market that just isn't going to be there.
He's going to be fighting for fewer jobs with more people.
But he's young and talented and works hard and he'll be okay and quite honestly will
help him if we have to.
I'll begrudgingly help him if I have to.
but the reason I share this with you is I almost feel like that's what this budget that we've
developed and that you know we're asking to be approved is designed for. It's designed for people
like myself and my family that for the most part has taken a hit but it's kind of a short-term hit
it and we'll get through it and we'll be okay. And that's certainly true for me and nobody
has to be concerned about me. But quite honestly, I don't really think that's true for most of
the people in benefit. I, you know, we can argue over what percentage is more adversely
affected than the rest. You know, I would say it's probably 50-50. You know, somebody
could argue at 6040 or maybe 6535, depending on which way you want to go. But there's way
too many people in our community that this is not only hurting now, but it's going to
hurt, hurt longer term. And I just don't think the budget really takes that into consideration.
You know, it's really designed, you know, as if we're all going to get through this
and we'll all be okay. And I don't really think that's the case. I'm hopeful and I'll
work really hard to, you know, make the economy get going again. But quite honestly, I think
this budget, this is the mark and I still believe there's two votes out there that
will join me and upend the thing. So I would ask, I appreciate you allowing me to share
what I share and I would ask your final consideration. Thank you.
Thank you, Steve. Anybody else?
Seeing none, all in favour of the order as amended.
Council's
valiant clear water ready, M highs or T's and less iron. As opposed.
Council's St.
C and McCurry and Quattrone.
Passes. Next item is 3.2, estimated revenues, fund
and balance appropriations.
No moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded just for the public total estimated
revenues appropriations that are 11,593,887 dollars.
Discussion.
Seeing none, all in favor please raise your hand.
Council's Clearwater, Amheiser, Belanger,
St. Cyr, Reddy, Ortiz, Quattrone and McCurry.
Opposed?
Council Lussard in opposition.
in addition.
3.3, airport fund.
So moved.
Second.
It's been moved and seconded.
Again, the number we are looking at, we are appropriating $562,977 for that particular airport,
with the revenues being $540,481.
Discussion?
Seeing none, all in favor?
In favor,
councilors Belanger, McCurry,
Amhi is a clear water, ready and Ortiz, opposed?
Council's Quattrone, Lessard and St. Cyr in opposition.
Next item, the fund.
So moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded.
And according to this,
we are appropriating $46,359 for the mooring fee fund
and the revenue was estimated to be 42,000.
Discussion?
Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
In favor, Council's Clearwater, Bilanja,
M. Highs, Ortiz, Reddy, McCurry in opposition.
Kalto's-Quattro, Lessard, and St. Cyr.
Thank you.
Next item, Cool Permits Fund.
So moved.
Second.
Summary.
We're appropriating the sum of $177,966 with revenues being $99,500.
Discussion.
Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
In favor, Councilor Bilanje, Clearwater, M. High as a McCurry, Ortiz and Reddy.
Those opposed.
Health is left side, St. Cyr and Quattrone in opposition.
Next item.
Recreation program fund.
So moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded, appropriating the sum of $850,878 for this revenue sum of $871,135.
Discussion.
Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
Councilman Blanger, McCurry, Clearwater, St. Cyr, Em High, Lesser, Reddy, Ortiz and
Quattrone, it's unanimous.
Thank you.
Next item.
Parkland.
Second.
So moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded.
Appropriate in the sum of $201,007 to $51 with the expected revenue of being $363,400.
Discussion.
Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
In favor, the council is patrolling on the left side.
Saints here.
Clear water.
M highs or Ortiz and McCurry.
And Belanger.
Opposed.
Councilor Reddy in opposition.
Next
one, 3.8 is the Ambulance Fund.
No moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded, appropriating the sum of $1,550,000 to the Ambulance Fund with the
expected revenue being $1,425,000.
Discussion?
All in favor, please raise your hands.
Those in favor, our council is Clearwater, Belanger, Lessard, Em Highes, McCurry,
Ortiz, and Ready, those opposed?
Oslo's Quattrone and St. Cyr in opposition.
Super operations fund. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Operations fund, totaling $5,604,882
with estimated revenues being $4,717,311. Councillor McCurray? I just want to make sure everybody
know is that they're besides their taxes they also have this fee that will be going up uh just
their hidden tax that they'll be getting charged more for thanks thank you anybody else see
none
all fair please raise your hands those
in favor council the lands of clearwater m highs are ready
in Ortiz those opposed councils
McCurry quatrone and lessard did I miss somebody on that what
What about Steven, St. Sarah?
How's the second act involved?
So that goes automatically to the firmative.
You look frozen to me.
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Next item's MDEA, the main drug enforcement agency fund.
So moved.
Second.
Seconded, we appropriated a sum of $266,431,
and the revenue would be the same.
Discussion, Councilor Quadron?
Sorry, I just didn't get my hand lowered in time. I don't have anything to say on this.
Okay.
Anybody else?
See none. All in favor, please raise your hand.
Councilor Belanger, McCurry, Letzard, M. Heizer, Ortiz, Reddy, and Quattrone in favor.
Those opposed?
Councilor Clearwater in opposition.
Thank you.
People Recovery Program Fund.
Second.
We'll do seconded, spending the sum of $97,979, the revenues are anticipated to be the same
to offset that discussion.
Councilor Clearwater.
Just real quickly, I would like to commend the police department on the use of this
fund and the way that the city does focus on folks who are in need of recovery services.
Also, just for the benefit of people who may have joined these budget discussions
just today. And this is the only meeting that they've seen and we look like we're making
real fast and avaliable decisions. I would like folks to know that we've been working
on this now for months and I'd like to take again the opportunity to thank the city staff,
city manager's office, Carmen, finance office, everybody who has done this work and there's
been a lot of thought going into it and I'm really grateful for the conversations
that we've had.
Thank you, Amy. Anybody else?
Seeing none. All in favor, please raise your hands.
Those
in favor, councilman Langer, Clearwater, Lessard, M. Heizer, Quartron, Ortiz, McCurry,
and Ready, those opposed?
No, I'm sorry. I'm in favor of it. Sorry about that.
It's unanimous. Thank you.
And for the orders of the day, CBG Fund, the corrected
So moved. Second.
It's been moved and seconded.
Anyone for the public like to address the CDBG fund?
This is the Community Development Block Grant Fund.
Seeing no one, you're back to the council.
All in favor, please raise your electronic hands.
Those in favor, councilor Belanger, Clearwater,
St. Cyr, Em Highes, Lesard, Ortiz, McCurry,
Quantrone and Reddy, which makes that unanimous.
4.2.
So moved. Second.
And this is the pre-payment interest rate on private taxes. Excuse me. It's been moved
in second. Anyone for the public?
I'll be back to the council. So, Council Lesser?
Oh, sorry. Actually, yeah. Yeah, I've got a question through here. How did we come up with five
percent?
Folks, the recommendation is that there should be four percent. The state
publishers every year with the maximum amount is that you can charge for an
over for overdue taxes. This year it's 8%. You're allowed to go down to 4% lower
than that if somebody gets an abatement. And so last year they were 9 and 5, which
would be 8 and 4. If you do not have something then you automatically have to
pay 8% back on the abatement. So the recommendation would be that this
would be at the 4%, which is a little out of my state of mind.
So I'd make a motion to amend to 4%.
Second.
The move is cited.
Anyone from the public would like to address the amendment.
Moves it back to 4%.
Seeing none, back to the council.
Any more commentary?
All in favor of the amendment, please raise your hands.
Electronically.
Councilor Blanger, Lessard, St. Cyr, McCurry,
McCurry, M. Heiser, Clearwater, Quattrone, Ready and Ortiz, that makes that unanimous.
Any further discussion?
On the left side?
No, I'm good.
Sorry.
I clicked too fast.
Okay.
Quick draw, McGraw.
All in favor of the motion as amended.
Sousa is ready.
Belanger, McCurry, Quattrone, Clearwater, St. Cyr, M. Heiser, Ortiz, and Lessard,
making that unanimous.
I'm showing my age.
Quick draw, McGraw.
Somebody don't even know who that was.
I do.
I'm the youngest person here. I know who quick drama bra is.
Anybody who doesn't is just missing all of the cartoons reruns on cable.
I watched him first hand.
4.3 property tax commitment.
It moved and seconded
going out to the public first.
A little bit of trouble here with my tablet.
It's not registering.
Anybody for the public address this?
Seeing none, back to the council.
Council M. Heizer?
Yeah, just sort of a technical question that the approval of this
requires the amount of the school budget.
The school budget's getting voted on on the effect of July 13th.
So in the very, very rare event that it doesn't pass,
what happens to this order?
it's an interesting question because normally the school budget would have
already been voted. Yeah, that's why I asked. I mean, technically we won't commit
until the school budget is actually done. The school budget when it gets passed
by the voters, we end up then making the sole thing legal. If they don't pass
the budget then it comes back to the council anyways because then the
council and the school board have to work together to come up with whatever
that the next referendum question would be built.
And then that would have to go back up to the voters.
We would hold off on actually doing the final commitment
until we actually know what the final result would be
that comes from taxes to go out to the school budget.
Okay.
Thank you.
Councilor Kerr?
Yeah, there's a note there with the overlay
to be added after commitment by assessor.
Are we assuming that we might have
have a higher assessed value so that will leave more money in the overlay account.
That's just the normal language, Council President, and because if you look at that last sentence,
Council is recommending what you believe to be the tax rate that you want the assessor
to set as I think you know at the end of the day the assessor sets that.
Right.
Whatever the budget is and what the assessed value is, that's the tax rate.
We can hope this is what it is, but it could be different.
Well, I mean, as you know, whatever the council goal was, we would hit that.
And if for some reason we had extra money that was available because they picked up more
valuation, we'd come back to the council and say, council, they picked up another
$100,000.
Do you want to apply it to the tax rate or would you like it just to fall down
to the overlay?
We don't believe we're going to be in that situation this year.
But we believe that the overlay will come in very close to the 250,000 that we had built
into the budget documents, which will still get you in at that $20.05 rate.
If there's any changes, like I've done in the past, I would bring it back to you before
we actually do the commitment.
Okay.
That's all I was getting at, just in case we had a windfall.
Maybe Steve could get a windfall with a change in the tax rate.
He's smiling.
He's dreaming of that.
that. Council, left side.
So I actually think that the final sentence where it says $20.05 per 1,000 property valuation
should continue reading and saying based upon a positive vote by the citizens of the city
of Bitterford on the school department referendum question. So that way we're basing this
on that it will be positively asked because otherwise we're doing it in reverse. I don't
and I'm not sure that that's right. So, I'll put that in the form of a motion.
Second.
It's been moved and seconded. Anyone with a public like to address the amendment?
Back to the council.
And the reason why I put that there was because I just think that we need to say that that
is based upon the positive vote by the citizens. If it's not included in there,
then the cascading of how this happens with the citizens vote, it's just wrong.
So that's why I added it there. Thank you, folks. Thank you
Anybody else
None all in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand. This
is less out Belanger St. Cyr M. Heiser Ortiz McCurry in Clearwater
Opposed council ready in opposition along with council quateron
Any
more discussion?
All those in favor of the motion as amended?
Council's Belanger, Clearwater, M. Hyzer, Reddy, and Ortiz?
Those opposed?
Council's McCurry, Lessard, Quattrone, and St. Cyr, in opposition.
Thank you.
Did you take a motion to adjourn?
So moved.
Second.
All in favor please raise your hands just visually.
That's unanimous.
Okay, so we're going to go into workshop format.
So
I'll call the workshop to order. And the topic 1.1 is street closing opportunities.
Over the last several weeks, we've been hearing from the city manager regarding the possibility
of closing certain streets, pedestrian walkways and things of that nature. Council Quartron
sent an email a week and a half or so ago offering some suggestions of what he thought
might work where what's what's being talked about. Tonight's an opportunity just to look
at the document that was sent to you yesterday from for some thoughts in terms of what you
see or what you want to recommend and not recommend. It's no decision tonight whatsoever.
Do you want to add anything before we jump into the conversation?
The only thing I would add is that I asked staff back in, it probably actually was in
April.
Early April to identify locations in the downtown area that they thought we could actually shut
down streets for a period of time or possible parts of the streets and that we could do
that safely for the benefit of trying to allow commerce to happen on the outside.
This is the work that staff came back with.
so these are areas that they've already looked at and said, yeah, we can make it happen.
As identified in Matthew's memo, there were some concerns about staff time and moving barriers and
some of those kinds of things. I think those were all issues that we can work through.
If there were other parts of the community that somebody wanted us to look at,
Why they did look at the general downtown area, certainly we could look at more and try
to figure out if there was a way to do it, and if it couldn't give you the rationale why we
thought that that would not be a good alternative. So here's the list. We're here to listen
and take direction so that we can proceed in whatever direction the council would like
us to.
Council McCurry?
Yeah.
And Council Reddy, Council Amhizer, and Council Clearwater.
Yeah.
I think it's a good idea to try to figure out how we can try to get some of this to come out.
But I would also like to see, you know, at some point, even after this pandemic is over and everything is back to normal,
Whether it's City Square or part of Main Street, so that we can have the farmer's market have vendors come in that's selling their homemade wares or whatever it is.
I think that would be good to do on the weekend. I said that right along. I think we need to encourage that.
And then on the list that they gave, I can sort of visualize most of it.
But the one Franklin Street between Maine and the palace diner, the palace, what other
restaurants are right in that little piece in there that you're talking?
George's and Louis's Pizza.
Yeah.
Oh, but just from Maine to the palace?
That's the only one, the palace.
I don't have much sense to me. The palace could actually use part of the park like they
did in the past, so I wouldn't be in favor of that one there. I think there's opportunity
there for the park. I think Yettos could use part of the park on the other end if they
wanted to, plus the sidewalk. But I also don't think any business should go from double
or triple the size of their footprint. If they had 10 tables before, now they got 50.
I don't know how that would work. But I think it's worth looking at and trying to come up with
some sort of solutions. But I also like us to take a look at if the businesses want to do that,
they should participate in putting these barriers up and taking them down in the
So we reduced labor positions and police positions that could have helped with some of this stuff.
So I think the businesses, if we're going to try to do this, they've got to be the ones
that are also helping manage this, so it's not taking so much labor away from everything
else.
That's the only thing I see with this.
Thank you, John.
Councilor Reddy.
One of the things, Jim, you mentioned to do this safely.
I didn't see any and I don't know maybe you had the discussion with Roger but because I'm concerned about Lincoln Street and I see on Matt's statement that he's talking about Mulligan's not reopening till August.
So maybe Main Street will be all done by then.
But I hate to see us closing one way on Lincoln Street if the traffic is still one lane on
Main Street from Water Street all the way up to Alfred.
The other thing, and I really hope somebody can open my eyes on this, I wonder, I'm looking
at what we're discussing for closing in Main Street between Washington and Alfred that
that makes the most sense to me when I look at it.
But I still see a lot of businesses
that I don't look like it doesn't,
I don't think that they'd be able to take advantage
and maybe Matt, people have come to you like Edo's
and said, yeah, that would work for us.
Or I just don't know,
you know,
we're picking winners and losers here
by picking the locations that we're doing this.
And again, the idea makes all the sense
in the world to me. It's why I was in favor of, you know, the sidewalks. It's why I was in favor
of people being able to use part of the parks. But this part I'm really struggling with. So
maybe somebody can address the, you know, whether we've talked to the police department about it
and then just the picking and winners and losers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mike. Does
Jim, or Matt, want to answer those questions?
Yeah, so with staff, what staff did is I asked them to take a look at all the practical places
that they felt that they could safely do this.
Long before businesses started coming to us to ask us if they could do that,
and one of the pushbacks I got from staff was, well, how do we even know if businesses
want to do that and what the impact was?
And so the answer to your question, Mike, is that all of the department heads have looked
at that, including Roger Scott, Jeff, Robbie, Matthew, all of them had their hands in developing
this.
We would still have to have – we wouldn't close something down unless there was a request
from businesses to do that.
And to give you an example, coming back to John's question about Franklin Street,
even though there's only Palestine that's right there,
you may end up having businesses that are in the area
that want to take part of that.
So for instance, around the corner on Main Street,
if you didn't close Main Street,
there's a couple of businesses that are in that block
that say, okay, I'd like to have a little part of that, Franklin.
Louis Pizza might want to have part of that.
Georgia may want to have part of that.
They may not, but if we decided to proceed
and that was something that was of interest,
we would then try to find out who would be interested in it
that would make sense for them
to be able to operate out of their shop
and still have people go on those areas.
So I think you don't necessarily have to look
at these public spaces
just if somebody is immediately adjacent to it.
And you can make it a little bit more broader
as this is the outdoor area for somebody to be in.
And take a look at that.
I think I answered all your questions, Mike, on that.
that. Like on Lincoln Street, if we were going to do that, there was some thought that we
could do it, turn that into a one-way street. Obviously, when they were looking at this,
we had, back in April, we had not quite had the CSL project on Main Street. We would
have to revisit that, but I think staff would still figure out a way to make that
happen if that was something the council wanted to do, and there were businesses
down there that wanted to make that happen as well.
You know, you also take a look at the other side of Pearl Street, and so going to LinkedIn,
you can do that at L.A. section of Pearl Street and make that work as well as an opportunity.
I hope I can answer all your questions, Mike.
Thank you, Jim.
Bill?
Yeah, I wanted to ask the chair to allow maybe Matt Eddy to address the funding that
he's applied for and sort of describe the sources and the uses of that amount of
monies.
Sure thing.
Good evening.
Actually, Jim identified this grant source for us. It's it's an it's odd
in that it comes through the main CDC Center for Disease Control. I think I think it's part
of the larger funding that the state received. They put it out as a combination of public
education, physical barrier improvements and work related to trying to make areas more accessible
and to help open main streets a little bit.
We've put in funds for labor, for equipment,
for additional tables and share sets. And I really, it's one of those I haven't got a clue
you know what our chances are getting at or not it's it's one of those all new
that comes through the coronavirus process I was on a call today with the
commissioner for the ECB they she indicated that they were hoping to be
able to make those awards by the beginning next week there was about a
hundred communities applied the highest was one asking for 1.8 million after I
heard that number I was a little like what we should have gone for more I feel guilty they did
mention that we were identified as one of the more affordable communities in the country and that's
why we only asked for 20 thousand so I have a pretty good I have a good feeling that we will get
awarded the money as long as what we submitted is consistent with what the requirements are
and I believe it will be so I feel pretty good that we'll get on those funds and what's the
amount Matt? That's 64,000. 64,000. Thank you. Thank you. Amy?
Perfect. I have like a
million and five questions, but my first one is of that money that we're talking
about right now Matt, you have requested that from the CDC. Businesses
don't have to be in on that already. Is that correct? That's correct. To do
what we're proposing, it would be, as Jim suggested, we'd let them know and reach out
to see who would be interested in participating.
Got it. Okay. And so if we are awarded that pool of money, I assume we will do some sort
of outreach to folks at that time. Do we know if that grant money is available for things
like barriers to go around parking spot seating or is that it does it hinge on
us closing Main Street like are these two interrelated topics no no not
necessarily it could be both and we also have put in a social media public
education piece on this to let people know what we're proposing to do and we've
also propose to continue doing our virtual meetings with the businesses as this evolves,
because our experience thus far is as they evolve with the situation, they become more
and more – the businesses become more and more comfortable with the idea.
But it's a lot to think through and how to do it safely.
And so you lead right into my next question, which is how are we engaging the business
owners and if I hear from folks who want to know something about that should I direct them to your
office if there are people watching now who aren't sure what they need or what they ought to do who
should they talk to. Either my office or Delilah Delilah and Jim Labelle the chamber have been
active participants in this program so either one would be fine and and we've been focusing
you know, we're working group through that cluster. And then, you know, going back out
in virtual meetings are really kind of gathering information. In the virtual meetings, we've
had 35 to 40 participants each time. So it's been active.
One, the one piece I'd added Amy and the rest of the council, if somebody's looking
to use POC space or sidewalk space and not streets, the contact person is Robbie's
office. As you know, you've already approved that process and we've got probably, I think
we might be up to almost 20 businesses, maybe it's 15 or so, that have taken advantage of
that. So if somebody is looking to do something on a sidewalk or public land other than a
street, Robbie is the individual you want to talk to and he's the magic man that
can make that happen. If the council decides you want to move ahead with something
like this, then we would flush out exactly how that would work and then we would
develop what that process would be for you, and then we can tell somebody right off.
Somebody that's interested right now, but isn't sure what they want to do, then Matthew and
Delilah and Jim at the Chamber are the ones that you want to express interest to so that
we know who out there is actually ready to participate compared to where we were in
April.
Okay. And I see that right now we have one business owner attending this meeting who
has their hand up. I'm not sure in workshops we usually don't do public input but I'm wondering
what we want to do and I guess that leads me to my next question which is like I'm
broadly supportive of this idea but what do you need from us tonight in order for you
to know what the next steps ought to be.
What I'm looking for is this is at a very high level.
If we get the signals from the council that you're interested and tell us what your concerns
are so that if there are concerns about any particular of it, then we can react to it
and then we'll go flush out the details so we can bring something back much like what
we did with the special, you know, when we discussed how to deal with the other
public space areas.
So you gave us some information, some feedback on what you thought, how you would want it
to work, and then we went and developed the program and brought it back so you could try
to improve it one night.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Thanks.
Thank you.
If there's no opposition, I'd like to have Katie Pineda from Elements actually jump
in here just to offer us a little bit of insight.
She's the only person attending from the business community, but...
Sure.
Yeah, I'd like to hear from her.
Me too.
Hi, Katie.
Can you hear me?
Yep.
Hey, everybody.
Thank you so much.
And I do want to say a couple things.
One is given that we don't foresee a time,
any time soon when we can reopen our inside space
safely, we do appreciate the city and the council
considering what our other options are to salvage
salvage whatever we have left of the summer season ahead of us so thank you
for for all of all of your work on this we have not applied for the outdoors
We are not really interested in, like, taking up the parking spaces around elements because
that's, like, really vital, like, customer use for curbside pickup kind of space. We would
be interested in being a part of, you know, actively, like, planning and strategizing how
this plan could work, but it's obviously specifically around the Jefferson Street side of things.
I just want to throw out a few questions that Michael and I would invite you to consider.
And again, these are not questions that are going to be answered right now.
They're just things for you to know that we're being super thoughtful.
And safety obviously comes first on everything.
And secondly, it's like finances, right?
So, number one would be like, are we talking about these spaces as being communal versus like individually permitted, right?
So, for example, we've got in our area elements, Yeto's, Jonesy's and Riley's, right?
And again, we don't know who would even want to participate right now.
so this is all just like theoretical, right? But like, so would the Jefferson Street space be like
communally owned and permitted or like individually? And that matters for a few things. Number one,
like who's taking responsibility for like sanitizing? Who's taking responsibility for like theft? Or,
you know, that's, you know, obviously like worst case scenario, but something we always
have to think about. And then liquor licensing, right. So like if we have a liquor license
but like Jonesies doesn't like how like what's what does enforcement look like like business
enforcement as well as like police enforcement like and how are the two working together.
So like those are things to kind of think through. And then I think the other thing
is like barriers being permanent versus temporary. So like if you go to Purple Square those
Jersey barriers seem like fairly permanent for like a while for New Moon and Kierrow
Cafe to like use those outdoor spaces. And you kind of just know at this point where you can
and cannot park in Peppermill Square because of those Jersey barriers. And so I would almost
make an argument for permanent barriers versus barriers that you know are taken up and taken
down so that once people get used to like traffic patterns they're just used to them as
opposed to like well at this time of day I can the two way and then it's a one
way and that I just want to reduce like public frustration of accessing
downtown like services and businesses you know what I'm saying so anyway so our
sense would be whatever like tables and chairs and nonsense is out there like
it's got to be durable it's got to be stuff that can't be stolen it's got
to be things that can like stay out in the rain like picking tables kind of
thing you know and and and hopefully you know the city is like involved in the
purchases of those things hopefully through this grant program. So those are
just a couple like off the top of our head you know kinds of things but just
and again I'm happy to be part of like any other strategizing conversation but
really I think the conversation the the question of like how much is the
city like owning these spaces versus how much are you expecting the
businesses to own these spaces is a really important thing both in terms of cost and
liability and enforcement. So I mean if you kind of leave it to us like well if you want to take
advantage of it we'll let you but you have to like take full responsibility for everything we're
probably going to pass honestly like you know there's just there's anyway there's a lot of
things to think through and we appreciate you being thoughtful about everything with us and
And I'll kind of leave it at that.
Thank you, Katie.
Norm?
Hi.
I like Amy have a bunch of questions.
But let me start at the high level.
And I think this concept makes sense.
It's something that we definitely need to look into
and to look into in more detail.
So at the 10,000-foot level, I'm in favor
and would like to look into some more.
I do think we need to also make sure we consider more than just the restaurants.
This would also be an opportunity for any of the retail establishments.
You know, they can put out clothing or storage, bring their wares outdoors,
and so we should be looking to do this to me more than just the restaurants.
We think of it generally as outdoor seating for restaurants,
but outdoor use could be for other things as well.
But like everything else, you know, you're playing a game of whack-a-mole here.
You know, we open it up and make it easier for some places,
but then there are other issues.
I mean, we need to take a look at the parking.
We need to make sure we have limited parking as it is.
Parking's been a problem downtown.
It's been relieved because people aren't going out.
But that problem will,
once again, we were talking to the head
once we stopped moving on all this.
So I think that needs to be looked into.
Not only parking generally,
but parking for some of these stores like a hairdresser
or these takeout outlets,
they may prefer to have parking right in front
and we may be losing that if we're blocking off the road.
So, that needs to be factored into all of this as well, you know, part of the takeout.
And also, I would like to look at, too, would it make some sense to do this not permanently,
but, you know, Friday and Saturday night from, you know, eight to midnight, or, you know,
we may want to do it not on a permanent basis, but look at opportunities to say we'll block
these things off, kind of like we do for French Fest or something.
We block it off for a temporary, you know, every weekend, because we may not want
to do it all the time, but you may want to do it just on a temporary basis.
So I'd like all of those things explored, not only amongst the staff, but also with the people downtown.
So those are kind of my thoughts at, you know, off the top of my head.
Thank you, Norm. John,
you're muted, John.
There you go. These buttons don't always work so well.
I agree with what everybody is saying, you know, and at the 10,000-foot level,
I agree. And, you know, it may come back and I may disagree.
But some of them I have concerns with some I don't but I think we also need to take a look at if there is going to be alcohol
Served outside who's going to manage that you know like at at fringe fest and everything else
They got to have somebody that's tip-certified or security. I mean there's there's all sorts of issues that need to be
Looked into and and figure out how we're going to deal with each one of these
So I think at the 10,000 foot level, I'm okay with looking and let's see how we take
into all these considerations. But I do agree. We got to look at all the businesses because
I don't want to pick and choose winners and losers. I want everybody to have the same opportunity.
Thank you, John. Mark? So the downtown and the system is set up to support what we have
today, or what we had back in February before the coronavirus, meaning that the traffic layout,
the parking, et cetera, and the reason why the folks located to the business locations that they
were in was because the way the system was built to support what was there before the virus.
And some of the questions have already been asked, but is this an everyday piece versus
is like what Norm was saying, do we just do it on weekends? What are the hours? If somebody
is serving breakfast and they serve breakfast at six o'clock in the morning, does that mean
that there can be people outside and in the street at six o'clock when other people
are maybe sleeping? Does it go till midnight if somebody is open late and there are
people out on the street and having drinks and stuff like that? Does it allow music
so a band is set up on the sidewalk so that people can be out in the street listening
to the band as part of the entertainment for the business. Is there a put-up and takedown
of all of the seats on a daily basis, or do they just stay? And if the city puts the seats
there, what happens to the seats once the coronavirus goes away? Where do all the tables
go? How do we store all of this?
What is the process if not followed by one? So if there's one entity on Main Street
that doesn't follow it? Do we punish everybody? Because there's going to be some guidelines
as far as how they follow it or not. And what happens if there's a non-food business
because the parking changes and they have an erosion in their business? Can they raise
their hand and say, wait a minute, this isn't working for me. We've got to go back to
the way that it was. Well, what's the decision going to be? Is it going to be, yeah,
we're going to or no, we're going to pick the winners and losers?
If somebody wants traffic again, do we have to ask the people, can we get the traffic back?
Or can we just unilaterally, as the city say, you know what, we've got to put the traffic
back in downtown?
So that would have to be operating guidelines of what's allowed and what's not allowed.
What happens if we get citizens that complain that I can't drive my car downtown?
down. How many of the complaints make it where it goes back to the way that it used to be?
What happens if residents on Main Street, they just want to go down and use one of the tables
with a couple of chairs that the city put there? You know, can residents who live on
Main Street on the second, third, fourth floor, can they go downstairs and use the
tables or are they going to get kicked out? And how is that police?
at least.
I understand that we're trying to do something that is righteous, okay? I understand
that and I applaud the effort. I really, really do. And I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm
just saying that I think in the end what's going to happen, we're going to try really
hard and in the end we're still going to be picking winners and losers. And thank
you, folks.
Thanks. Mark brought up a lot of good questions. Everyone's brought up a lot of good questions.
And I have faith that our staff is going to go out and figure this out for us and bring
back solutions or considerations to us. I think this is something that we should try
doing and it could be a weekend thing. I've been to Portland and I've seen them where they've
set up Jersey Barriers for the restaurants. The restaurants are responsible for that area.
I get a little nervous with temporary barriers if we have folks sitting in parking spaces and
traffic around. That's the part that makes me nervous. And yeah, we do want to be fair
and we want to open it up to everyone so everyone has an opportunity, that's the goal here.
But I think if we can get this down and have it be successful, we will have a really good
summer and it could be a destination point for folks to come to in the summer because
we don't have the tourists that we had last summer.
We have people who don't want to go out.
If we could figure out how we can get people out on the streets, walking around and
eating out, I think we're going to benefit from it. So I'm for it. If we can just figure
out a way to answer these questions and do it safely, that'd be awesome. That's it. Thanks.
Thanks, Doris. Amy?
Just one further, I agree with everything everybody said. There are a ton of moving
parts here. One real easy win might be that one thing Elements has been suggesting is telling
people where the spaces are in town where they can just go and sit on a park bench or whatever
and sit one friend at this end of the park bench, one friend at the other end of the park bench and
have a coffee chatting in real life. If there are ways that we could get better utilization of
some of our existing public parks right now and maybe focus a little bit more staff time on
cleaning them up and making sure that we're keeping them relatively nice and orderly,
that might be a really easy win. There are a number of places downtown or walking distance from
all the bars and restaurants that if somebody wanted to grab sandwiches at one place and a
bottle of wine at another place, we could maybe figure out how to make that happen
if we thought hard about it and we wouldn't have to mess with traffic.
just might be another area to think about.
Thank you, Amy.
Anybody else?
I get the sense from the discussion that everybody at the 10,000 foot or the 9,000 or 9,000 foot level are pretty well intrigued by this.
It's when you get into details that there are many questions.
So I suspect that you're willing to allow staff to continue to investigate.
I do think it's really important that businesses like Elements, for example, have to be part
of this process, or businesses that just have takeover because it has to be really active.
It just can't be something casual.
I think you've got to really reach out and go talk to these people because I worry
about parking.
That's always been a big issue and when you take away free parking, where do the
people park?
I don't know.
So I like the concept. I want to help all these different businesses, and I think we ought to proceed.
So any other questions? Jim?
Not to be cavalier about this, but the answer to all your questions is yes and no.
And it's really going to depend on each of the individual spaces and where you're at.
You know, for instance, there would be no way that we could, in my opinion,
and based on the information that staff has done,
that we could permanently shut down Main Street 24-7
for the summer, that section.
Just not gonna be something that's gonna work.
And so, whatever we would do there
would have limited hours and be certain times
and we'd have to work through those.
The end of Jefferson Street,
you might be able to do part of that
because it's central's one way
and we'd have to rest it through those issues.
You may end up up in a place
where the Jefferson one may be, because there's only one person who wants it, it becomes exclusive
for that particular business and we work through that with that particular business and work
through how that would work. It may be that you end up having three or four businesses.
We want to work together as a coalition for this particular area. I will tell you that
staff has been having these conversations from day one. One of the big pushbacks when
I challenged staff and asked them to come up with where could we possibly do it was they
went to the businesses and the business were like, we don't even know what the heck we're
going to do at all. And so we're not ready. So the dialogue has already been going on
And anybody that would like to do something now, the door is open, we now would reach out
and say to the businesses, we have a green light to explore this in more detail.
And conceptually, the council is interested subject to the details.
What would you like to, what would work for your business and where would it work?
And we would work through the particulars with those, but also have to talk to other
people that would be impacted by that.
So, each of the things we, in my opinion, we would bring back to you would be custom
to that particular business in that particular area, because what we do in one part of the
community, we're not going to be able to do in other parts.
And so, that's the process we'll proceed with at this point, is to let the business
community know there's a possibility here, start having conversation with us about
what would work for you and what would you might, how would the details work
for you and what you'd be interested in.
That will be the next step.
And then we'll bring back very specific recommendations
for anybody that would have something
you want to do for a specific location
for you to react to.
That's what I envision the next steps would be.
Thank you, Jim, Mike.
And I think, and Jim, you kind of addressed it there,
but to me, it would be critical
if we're talking about closing a portion,
like you were talking about between Washington
and Alfred Street.
How many businesses have given us a commitment but shown their interest in utilizing that
for whatever period of time?
I have a high-time envisioning supporting multiple street closings, at least the way that I'm
looking at it.
There may be all kinds of things that people come up with that I haven't thought of.
you know, the weekend thing obviously would be a different scenario than closing every
night of the week. The other thing Norm talked about, but some of these businesses, I'm sure,
you know, they're doing curbside pickup. If we close Washington to Alfred Street, you
know, Cowbell, are they going to do enough business in the close-off area to make up
what they're doing already with their curbside. So I guess a long way of saying it's important to
me to know which businesses are supporting which effort that you're going to bring forward.
We will not be doing a field of dreams. We're not going to build something,
hope somebody shows up. Everything is going to be custom
work through with the people that are going to be impacted based on what their needs are.
This is not a case, and given that I've had some restaurant experience in my background,
I understand that each restaurant, business, and other businesses have a particular client
talent, a particular niche, and it's not up to us to be telling them what we can do
for them.
It's for us to tell us what we ought to be doing to help them out and working to find
solutions for them.
And so it's really one of those, they're going to drive the process, we're going
to make sure it's safe and then come back to you to make sure it's good.
Anybody else?
Before we go, do you want to just like Jim to share the screen for a second?
I just want to show you what staff came up with for Magnus, the mechanic's mark.
A number you get back to me saying you had no problem with having staff do the review
and this was a good compromise, I think.
So if you take a look at what you're showing, you see this red area identified.
that would be where the the airstream would go and then the blue area would be the area that would
end up being the area that the Patriots would be. Robbie has made contact with the owners that
are very comfortable with this. I like this solution. We believe that the least majority
of the package you can see through here available for the rest of the public.
And Robbie's contacted with been in contact with our department heads as it relates to
this area. I think the last thing they're doing tomorrow is they're just making sure that
the automatic irrigation system is going to come on and all of a sudden drown out the
people that might be having a sandwich or beverage there. So based on the concerns
from the council and the current policy, if this is okay, we're going to proceed
down the road as if this has been approved as a secondary application and then of course
the sidewalk one that we've already signed off on works for them. I'm glad to answer any questions,
but I think this addresses all the concerns that the council had.
Anybody got questions? John, then Mark, then Mike.
Can you put that little picture back up
where the red is where the airstream is going?
How are they going to power that unit?
They're going to use a generator, and the generator has to be set up in such a way that
that it's going to comply with the new age requirement
to the area.
Okay, because that was going to be one concern.
And then the blue area, that's going to be cordoned off.
And then they are going to be responsible for cleaning it
and everything else of that nature.
Yes.
Okay, how are they getting the alcohol
from across the water street there?
Yeah, my understanding is-
I don't have to pay just walking across the street
with a beer in their hand.
that's what I'm yeah my understanding is they're looking to have certain limited
beverages that will be served out of the air street
and so they would not be beverages that would be coming across the street
they still have to get their permits through the state in order to do this
and so some of those issues are going to be resolved when they go to the
state for that particular license. Now let me I have
not had the direct conversation so there may be a possibility that
they're looking to be able to have their staff bring the beverages across as
opposed to having the public. And so I just want to make you aware they
may be thinking about that as well. And then is this going to be set
for a certain period? I mean because we're not going to have this through the
winter months. No as you recall your ordinance expires sometime in the
October and so all this goes away unless the council changes um that that directive so right
now we have a hot stop and I believe it's like a week after Columbus Day or in this person's day
it's just this this park here I mean every time I go by there's always a bunch of people in it and
a bunch of kids in it so I I guess you know I I think one of them brought their own little
canopy the other day and had it set up on Sunday. They had their kids' birthday party
there or something. So I just want to make sure we have enough space for the residents.
It looks like we do based on this right now, but I'll wait. And once I see everything else,
thank you.
Thank you.
Mark?
Yeah. One of the questions was how are they going to power the airstream, which
another entity that they want to put up a hot dog cart, you know, another air stream,
and they want to put up a generator, are we going to allow a second, a third, a fourth,
and a fifth, you know, these other entities that want to come and also take advantage
of the park?
So my answer, I believe the answer is going to be unlikely. I mean at some point, we take
the public space and the public no longer has a right to that. I think you are going to
end up as the new alterable approval of this, going to decide where is that saturation point.
So what we're going to do is we're going to allow either one or two entities, whatever
the number is to have financial gain by using a public property. So, my next piece is, can I go
and set up a hot dog and hamburger stand over at the beach? Because the beach is public and I want
to be able to put up an air stream over there so I can sell hamburgers and hot dogs. And I'm not
asking the questions to be flipped. I'm not. But for me, we're allowing the you in this particular
case, we're allowing the use of a public space that's used by many people and many citizens
in that area of the city who do not have yards. They do not have the ability to go out and play
and enjoy. They go to this park, which is in excellent condition right now. And we're going
to coordinate off a section of it for somebody to have financial gain. And, you know, I applaud
the effort and I applaud the idea, but it's
everybody, every business would have to have
the ability to go and locate there if they want to. It can't be just he who comes first.
I'm sorry, folks, in my mind, that's just wrong.
Okay, I would like to help, but for me, it's unfair.
It is. Thank you, folks.
I just think I'd like to add to that is that, of course, it's an emergency situation.
They invested over $100,000 in that facility and they haven't really made much because they can close down.
My argument would be whether it's that park or the park that abuts Elm Street and Main Street or any other park.
If we can save some businesses in the temporary short-term, I think it's incumbent upon us
just to do that to resuscitate our community.
And it's not a perfect system, and I get what Mark's saying, but I just think that it's
something that the community, that we have to do.
Mark?
Yeah, just one last piece, and a good point, you know, Mayor, and I appreciate that.
but the the idea of an investment into a business is that you invest in a business with the hopes
that it's going to be successful, but not all businesses are successful. There are other folks
that invested in things that they have in the city, but the rules of the city have changed
since their investments have been done and they're not making as much money for their
investments and they've invested more money than the hundred thousand dollars.
So, Ergo, can they come to the city and say, hey, listen, I need your help.
You know, I need to make more money because of some of the decisions that you made and,
you know, you're helping this person, now you've got to help me.
And again, I'm not being flip, folks, I'm not.
And I understand the argument, and Mayor, with all due respect, I respect the town.
But for me, it's looking to spread the peanut butter evenly on a piece of bread
to not have chunky peanut butter this poison. Thank you. Amy? Yeah, so I'm already getting
texts about this from business owners right now in real time asking if they can also get
a quarter of that park. And so I think we need to hold off on this idea until we have
a coherent plan about public spaces. Because at this point, we need to be sure that we're
doing things that support everybody. And I'm not at all – I am very sensitive to the needs of
Magnus. I'm very sensitive to the needs to not use up all the parking spaces, filling them with
two tops if we could use park space just a little bit of it that still reserves the park
space for the people like I understand what we're talking about I like the idea of closing
streets more than I like the idea of closing parks quite frankly but I think at this moment
I'm very nervous to support this until we have a plan in place that addresses other
public spaces and is more equitable among people.
Where am I, Norm?
I guess I'm somewhere between Amy and Mark.
You know, I'm comfortable.
I mean, it's nice to do stuff equally.
Do everyone give equal opportunity.
But we've already done stuff that isn't equal for the sake of this pandemic.
I mean, people are allowed to have stuff outside of their restaurant.
I'm not allowed to bring a hot dog cart outside their restaurant to sell hot dogs.
So, and again, I realized Mark was, you know, just pushing the example and pushing the envelope.
But nonetheless, we're already doing stuff because this is a truly unusual time
to try to keep, allow people to keep their head afloat. And in this particular case,
this park space has to be, happens to be very close to Magnus on the water.
And so it's more in the mindset of, to me, the parking, you know, the sidewalks next to
a restaurant that we're allowing some people to use and not other people. We don't allow
anyone in town to come use it. Though I do think we need to get more public input so I don't think
we should approve it tonight and just say to staff go ahead do it I think we you know we should
direct the staff to come back to us make sure the public has a chance to weigh in on this issue
we may or may not agree with the public that I have to say so I do think this is a good thing
I think we should be doing stuff to throw people a lifeline so they can survive this pandemic
in this, you know, unusual times. And I don't think you necessarily make it, you know, open
it up to all in this meeting. You know, we may come up with a program. But I don't think
we necessarily need rules for all public spaces because we've already done, to a certain extent,
an exception with regard to sidewalks. So I think we can make an exception here too if
the council deems fit, given the particular circumstances of this particular case. Thanks.
Thank you. Anybody else?
I mean, it's an emergency situation, I mean, every week.
That we missed is another week that someone's in more financial trouble. I don't think that
there's going to be a rush there because as Norm indicated, excuse my dog, as Norm indicated
that Magus of Butts that there are really no other businesses nearby that really can take
advantage of that the way they can. I've got my hand up.
You can do, of course, is that council authorized that, you know, some time ago that staff
can make decisions unless there were some indication that the council was questioning that then it
can come back to the council. I don't like the idea of it going to policy because it's too far away
and then it's going to come back to the council so I have no problem whatsoever putting on the
agenda for next Wednesday. You know if that's what the council wants to do. I have no problem
with saying staff do it tonight but you know obviously there's a different opinion there.
Is that a hand up or was one that never came down?
No, it's been up. It was up when Mark was talking, but his first time. The, you know,
the Airstream is the problem because, you know, a lot of places could bring it. And Magnus
is already, we already gave them the street and we sold them the parks. They got all
that other outside seating also. So it's not like they don't have a lot of outdoor
seating that they couldn't arrange it within their own facility and on the sidewalk besides
if we gave them some park space. But setting an airstream up is just, you know, if you're
if you're going to sell the burgers or whatever other restaurants down there that wants to
buy an airstream because that's an investment too. So thank you.
Amy. Yeah, I just want to clarify what I'm looking
for from staff. I'm not saying, I did not mean to say that we should have a very detailed
plan about every public space, but I think we need to keep in mind that once we do this,
the palace would like to have the back of Chetanel Park. Well, okay, that's reasonable,
but then the wine bar is close to there. Like, we just have to know the can of worms
that were opening and think hard about how we're going to make those decisions
in a way that's fair to everybody, who is a restaurant, who has some amount of outdoor
space, because Magnus does have quite a bit of outdoor space to start with.
I think it's not a terrible imposition to say, give us like one council meeting to try
and figure this out, because I do think this is an important decision to get right for
the benefit of all the other businesses in town.
Thank you, Bob.
I was just going to say that I was like yourself, Mr. Mayor, I'm all in favor of doing this
for Magnus ASAP.
I know everything you guys have spoken about and I agree with some of it, but just anecdotally
I guess, or maybe as an example, my friend owns one of the busier breakfast joints in
Bitterford.
On a normal Saturday she would sell 400 plates.
now she's down to 137 and that's with outside seating curbside and separating
the inside tables by every six feet so the quicker we can get these companies
some relief I think better and as far as making it even I look at it this way
we drive by 99 restaurant and they have the luxury of having a big parking lot
And yet they were probably able to take, you know, maybe 50 square feet and turning into
an outside dining room, whereas some of the main street places like Caldwell can't do that.
So I think it's kind of just leveling the playing field.
I think somebody will leave Caldwell and say, well, let's put a 99 because, you know,
those reasons I just said.
So I'm all in support of doing whatever needs to be done to help these businesses
spread.
Thanks.
Thank you, Bob.
Jim?
Yeah, just procedurally,
the policy, the way you've set that up, is that if there was
some concern, it was going to go to policy, because policy could pull the meeting off
pretty quickly and make that decision.
You're next official council meeting isn't until two weeks.
And so you would—that was the rationale the council used at that time to make it
go to policy.
So, at this point, I think that unless you tell me something different, we would work
with the Chair of the Policy Committee to try to have a quick meeting in order to be
able to wrestle with this based on the way it's currently set up, unless you tell me
something different in order to deal with that.
From staff perspective, we've identified the public space other than the sidewalks.
There is a proximity issue or relationship with these things so that the way that the policy
or the ordinance was drafted was your business needs to be in location that or close proximity
to it to be able to use that.
So for instance, somebody could come in from, you know, a different part of the community
and say, I want to stop on sidewalk in front of your particular business.
That's really, that's not the intent of the audience.
It has to be a relationship in terms of that the public space that a person wants to use
has to be close to where that business is in order to make it part of that unless we
ended up doing a whole street.
And then at that point when you do the street, then you can open it up to other businesses
that are in that area.
That's the way we've been approaching it.
Thank you, Jim. Mark?
The biggest hurdle that I have with this particular one is being able to use an airstream. There
are no other businesses that could set up in Chevenel Park and put an airstream.
I want
to help. I mean, I really, really do. But it's opening up a can of worms because if
If we're allowing an airstream for one entity down at Mechanics Park, why can't another
restaurant on Main Street also use an airstream?
Because it doesn't have to be proximity to use an airstream.
It's separately functioning than what the original address is for the current restaurant.
And beyond restaurants, if somebody has a place where they sell clothes or they sell jewelry,
can they now put a 24 by 36 tent, like you see at a wedding, down at the park so they
can have open house to be able to help them sell stuff?
And should they have a right to be able to use the park because now you're allowing
somebody else to use the park?
Sorry, folks.
Thanks.
That's all that's okay. I mean it's just a lot of good questions. I think I also don't think we're
opening up a can of worms. I think the can of worms is open because of the pandemic.
Nothing's normal. I think it's the same. And so even in terms of winners and losers,
it's, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to satisfy or help everybody. It's
just the way it is. The question is what can we do for the greater good? That's what
going to boil down to. And I had no miracle answers myself, but I just see this as an opportunity.
That's where I am. Could I ask a question to see if I can help move this along? We've already,
from staff perspective, the sidewalk piece is already all set for them because nobody had
concern about that. If they came back to us tomorrow and said they could do this without
the air stream is that comfortable for the council given their proximity and more comfortable. Yes.
Is that am I because I'm reading the air stream is sort of a trigger point here and I just want
to make sure that I'm not making a conclusion is not that it's not the fair conclusion. No.
I have no issue with the air stream and I wouldn't care for the company want to do it as well.
So either way, you guys want to do this. I'm fine because
I see two paths three paths here
and I just want to make sure that we're doing what the council wants us to do.
Path number one is we would get a hold of John and ask John to pull his policy committee
together to wrestle with this particular application as it stands right now.
So, option number two is they could reconfigure this without the airstream if they wanted
to and then find out whether or not the council is okay without the airstream that they could
proceed with it or is that not a fair conclusion based on the comments.
I'm just trying to, I'm not trying to get you to do something.
I'm just trying to understand what the issue is so that I can help direct where
we need to go with that.
John?
I'd be I'd entertain it without the airstream. I still would you know, that's across the street
So I still would have to figure out everything else. We've done has been right in front of businesses. It hasn't been
You know across the street and I just like to know what the plan is to get whatever it is across the street
I just wouldn't want to see patrons say um, I'm buying a beer here. I'm gonna go sit in the park. I
I don't think the liquor license would allow them to do that, John.
But what I'm hearing is you would like to know what the details are on how that would
work but not necessarily have to have it before the committee so that you could then react
to it.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Yeah.
I mean, based on what everybody was saying, you could draw up a plan and if there's
no harm in that one and you get no feedback and everybody says, okay, then we're
good.
But if one counselor says there's a problem, let's pull a policy committee meeting as soon
as we can.
And the last one we had at 10 o'clock in the morning.
I mean, we could pull one together as long as Norm and Doris and everybody else can make
it.
We can do it during the day.
I mean, we did the last one during the day.
Thank you.
Norm and Amy, and I'm assuming Rob's hand is just up from Previsio.
Norm?
Okay. So, you know, for me, the air stream is not the issue. So I know some for some
people that it, but that's to me, it's not an issue. But, you know, I think, you know,
if they want to come back and propose with without an air stream, I don't, you know,
I don't think we should wait until the next proposal comes to start setting up that that
policy committee meeting, John, because it takes a time to get find people in opening
the people schedule. So I would suggest let's do that on, you know, and if if
it turns out no one objects, we come up with something and no one objects, we
we can always cancel the meeting,
but I would like to make sure we get on this quickly.
As everyone knows, summer is short here,
so the sooner we get this thing approved,
if that's where, if we're going to,
as soon as we act on this one way or another,
the better right there.
Thanks.
So then let's do this in common.
Can you see what the availability is?
We'll give them tomorrow to come up with a plan
availability for a policy committee meeting for Thursday,
somewhere between 10 o'clock in the morning
and two o'clock in the afternoon?
Uh, Amy, then Bill.
Yeah, just real quickly.
For me, it's not about the Airstream.
It's about that being a public resource.
And if we're going to, it's not a contiguous public resource.
It's not like their sidewalk.
It's a space that everybody has equal right to.
They don't have extra rights to it
because they're nearby, like with the sidewalk.
And so for me if we're gonna do this I would almost rather we say like this is now the city of bit of her dining
Pavilion and rent a whole bunch of picnic tables and say anybody who gets take out anywhere
Come and sit at our dining pavilion and have somebody from public works come and clean it up every night
Like I just want to make damn sure that we feel good about giving this away
Because we don't have all the parks in the world to do this for everybody
And I'm already getting requests from various businesses who are like, okay, well, if it's
about proximity, can I have a corner of the Foss Street parking lot?
Like, I think we need to try and figure it out more strategically than just the knee-jerk
reaction of trying to do the most good for the person who asked first.
Though I want to do good for them, and I'm very sensitive to the time.
And speaking of time, I have a hard stop at 7.30 and have to jump on another call.
I'll be interested to see how this turns out.
Thank you all and good night.
Bill?
Yeah.
You know, a lot of good comments and I want to be just careful that we don't talk ourselves
into the perfect solution here that, you know, I think, Alan, as you said, it's for
the greater good.
It's for the participants.
You know, it's for the people that want to go and eat there at different places.
So the perfect solution is to do nothing because then it doesn't change anything and to me that's just not an option
You know that I want to be real careful. We don't talk ourselves into doing nothing. I think this is a unique time
I think this is you know stressful for everyone for the businesses for the people who
You know normally like to go out, you know, and so I think we need to find a solution. Let's be strategic about it
It's not gonna be perfect, but dammit. Let's do something
Thank you. Thank you, Doris
I I would agree with with bill there. I feel like their stream isn't an issue for me
the fairness is and
In the timing we know summer is short we need to get on this right away
So whatever we can do to figure it out would be great
I'm wondering if maybe their situation could be one where
where they can have tables in the parking spaces and also on their sidewalks.
And they have the park next door if we decide not to go with them putting the air stream
in the park.
But again, I just wanted to say that we need to
Act on this right away and try to think outside of the box and try to support them. That's it.
Thanks, guys. Thanks, Dars.
Anybody else?
So,
I mean, John's willing to hold a committee meeting on
Thursday. Is that the route people want to go?
John? I thought we were going to see what staff
came up with between tomorrow, send it out, and if anybody had an issue, then we were going to
take a rate to policy on Thursday. We're going to give one more crack at it to come
up with something to see if the council could all buy off on it. And if anybody objected,
then we would take a rate to policy. So we're setting up a policy meeting for Thursday,
and we're giving staff tomorrow to come up with something. So if they don't come
up with anything that's amenable to the council, then we'll take it to policy.
And Carmen will work to set up a policy meeting on Thursday.
first day?
My sense is, John, based on the conversation that I think it would be helpful for the policy
to have a discussion anyways, because, you know, so, for instance, yellows, their most
likely space would be the small park that's next toward them. Now, there wouldn't be the
same sort of demand like this, and it's a little different scenario, but it isn't
different. It is, but it isn't. And so my sense is that it probably makes sense
for you as the policy committee to have this at least general discussion even if you don't have
this application to be able to provide some guidance for us to be helpful as more of these
opportunities come along or more of these requests come based on the conversation I heard today.
I'm fine either way so all right. Mike. Yeah and I guess I just John had already said it I
I thought that was the understanding too but something that you John said is the standard on
this that if one council has an objection then it doesn't go forward? Not on this particular item but
on the ones that Robbie's been sending forward if someone has an objection it doesn't go forward?
But there haven't been any objections I requested people to email me and several people did not
I don't know if that should be the case that one of one councilor can you know slow a whole
process down shouldn't it just be majority like like for everything else that's just kind
of what I was thinking and I was going to say something similar to councilor ready about
you know if one if one councilor objects and it goes to politics
I don't know. I don't know if that's the right way to do it. I think it just, it sounds
like paralysis from over analysis. So that's all I got.
And I think the reason why that was somewhat put together was so that we didn't have to
have a council meeting to vote on each and every one of these. That was the main premise
of how that came about and policy just got picked for it, but that was the main premise
so that we could move these along really fast instead of half and a half.
The businesses wait every two weeks to the council met.
We let staff do the decision and do that because otherwise if we need to go back to
doing every two weeks with the council meeting, that's so you can debate it.
That's not the question. The question is, should it be one person has an objection or
that stops it? And that sends it to the policy with one objection?
That's the way that order got voted on.
Yeah.
Jim?
Yeah, the reason we stood up with that extreme was because of this very concern, because
we anticipated from a staff perspective that we would get some request, particularly
with the history of some of the alcohol questions in public box.
And so we wanted to make sure that there wasn't something that happened
that blew up all the other really good items.
Now that you've had, you know, maybe that's a discussion on Thursday,
the policy committee ought to have and say,
okay, do we really still need to have it at one
or should we save two or three members now have an injection to it?
Because as you, some of you know that have served on the council
as long as I've been the city manager here.
In times past, there would be a particular councilor because their particular stance on alcohol,
they would have an objection to any of these issues.
And so that may have caused us some issues in the past on that particular area.
So maybe that, now that you've had some chance to look at these things and understand
it, maybe that's also a discussion that the policy committee could have on Thursday
as well to revisit that one one concern triggers the review. Speaking as a person that's voted against
allowing any alcohol in the parks I don't have a problem with this situation because typically when
we're asked to allow you know nonprofits or whatever to as part of their event to have
alcohol in the parks we're not in the middle of the pandemic that's driving businesses out of
business through no fault of their own so I just I was I didn't realize that
that was the intent of the vote was one person if that's that's the way it was
written that's the way it was written council ready I wasn't referring to you
by the way no it's a but I I've said it to Robbie several times but I I wanted
to make clear that that's not the case this situation thank you Mike mark so
So my last piece on this, and yes, I want to help people just like everybody else.
My day job requires me to go into this type of thing, which is, well, what kind of airstream
are we talking about?
Is it a 12-footer or is it a 48-footer?
They have, that's the length of these things.
Is it a 1952 airstream that's all beat up and patched together with duct tape
or is a nice brand new shiny one that will be down at the park.
You know, we don't know which version that's going to be.
And I would think that even though we want to allow if that was to happen,
I think people would say, you know what, I'd rather see a brand new nice shiny one down there
because it would look better for everything versus a old 50-year-old beat-up one
helped by, you know, with duct tape.
And I would rather have the generator be 40 decibels instead of at 78 decibels.
you know, from a noise standpoint. So, anyways, thank you folks for your indulgence.
So, I guess the way it's going to work is that staff will engage with them tomorrow
and come up with a secondary plan with or without that airstream.
We send it out to the council. If there's objection, it goes to policy.
I mean, that's a pretty quick turnover time, obviously, if we can get it out by Thursday.
Everybody happy with that?
I mean, not happy, but everybody, after I've already told you, it's going to be a short
meeting.
Is that okay?
Yeah.
Any objections to that format?
No.
Okay.
If we have one.
Anything, Steve?
Is that your hand?
No.
No, I'm ready to sign out.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
all right close the workshop thank you goodnight everybody night all thanks
everyone