[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:03] So, I was excited for it. Beautiful picture. Thanks.
[0:14] Before I move to live. Thank you, Jim.
[0:18] I'll call the meeting to order. Common, the roll call, please.
[0:26] Mayor Cassavan. Here.
[0:28] Councillor Emhizer. Here.
[0:30] Councillor McCurry. Here.
[0:32] Councillor Sinks here. Here.
[0:35] Councillor Quetrone. Here.
[0:37] Councillor Clearwater. Here.
[0:39] Councillor Belanger. Here.
[0:41] Councillor Reddy. Here.
[0:43] Councillor Ortiz. Here.
[0:45] Councillor Lessard. Here.
[0:49] Thank you. Just with the agenda, what we did, of course, is add a day's short workshop after
[0:54] the meeting because of an oversight that had to do with street closures. We'll pick that
[0:58] up after this. Consideration to minutes, June 18, 2020.
[1:03] Second. Seconded.
[1:05] Seconded.
[1:05] Discussion? All of you may just raise your hands.
[1:11] That is everybody. Thank you.
[1:13] Second reading, City Government Budget, fiscal year 21, moved and seconded, discussion, Jim?
[1:25] The information I provided to you on Thursday night was wrong. You had not put $500,000
[1:34] in there. I think Council Manager was correct when he noted that.
[1:38] No.
[1:38] So, we've got to amend it back to the original order, which takes 50,000 out of the contingency.
[1:45] It puts it back into the general government classification.
[1:51] I'll second that.
[1:53] I'll second it.
[1:54] Anyone from the public like to address that amendment?
[1:59] Seeing none, back to the council.
[2:01] Council, left side.
[2:02] So do we have to do that, or is this just to get us back to where we were, or if
[2:08] If we choose as a group to leave it the way that it is, we can do that too.
[2:13] What would happen is that I'd have to find $50,000 worth of cuts in the general government
[2:20] and all the rest of the lines and would have to make up for the shift.
[2:23] That was not what the council or the Budget Committee council did.
[2:29] And so when I moved or I asked you to move them based on what I thought you had done,
[2:35] and it actually reduced what you would authorize
[2:37] in all the other general government categories.
[2:40] So it doesn't have an impact on the tax rate,
[2:41] it's just which category or which bucket
[2:43] is that those are on that appropriation in.
[2:49] Thank you.
[2:50] Any other questions, comments?
[2:54] Seeing none, I'll vote with your electronic hands.
[3:03] Mr. Councilor Belanger, Clearwater,
[3:05] St. Cyr, Reddy, M. Heizer, Ortiz, McCurry,
[3:19] The next item
[3:27] is 3.2. Estimated Revenues Fund Balance Appropriations.
[3:31] No, we have to do motion as amended.
[3:33] Oh, sorry about that. I was reading the wrong screen.
[3:36] Any more discussion?
[3:40] If you would please raise your electronic hands.
[3:52] I see Councilor Sainz here.
[3:53] Belanger M. High has a clear water ready.
[3:56] Ortiz and Quattron.
[3:57] those opposed? No, this is for discussion, I thought. I was raising my hand for discussion.
[4:05] Oh, I thought it just went up simultaneously with me. Okay, let's backtrack a little bit. Go ahead.
[4:09] I want to make one last appeal. I feel like I have one straw left in my quiver, and if I can
[4:18] just put it on the scale that it will tip my way. I'm not one that spends a lot of time
[4:26] talking about my business or my family or myself, but I want to share with you how the pandemic
[4:32] has affected me to give you a little bit of an insight into how it's affected people. And
[4:38] to be quite honest, I'm sure it's not all that different than, you know, my fellow counselors
[4:44] and the rest of the citizens are fit of it. But my youngest son is unemployed and just
[4:51] recently went back to work. He's now working reduced hours. My son and his wife and their
[4:59] three kids are home working. The two of them are getting paid. The three girls are school
[5:05] age girls. They're getting paid, but they're not getting much work done. They do their
[5:10] work in the evening while they watch the kids during the day. And my daughter, who
[5:16] just came from California to Maine.
[5:21] She experienced kind of a pause in her work
[5:24] but is now back on track.
[5:28] My wife who does multiple things,
[5:32] half of which is probably still in place.
[5:35] The other half, she works part-time for a local church
[5:40] that has closed and is not yet open.
[5:42] So she's lost that part-time job.
[5:45] And she also teaches piano lessons.
[5:47] she had 10 piano students and it was immediately dropped to five and she was teaching the other
[5:54] five virtually. And then my own business, this all happened in the middle of my tax season,
[6:01] and there was a pause. But quite frankly, it doesn't really affect me that the tax season's
[6:07] now been extended and I have more time and people are taking more time to submit information.
[6:14] But as a whole, that's how it's affected me and my family.
[6:18] And I think if we went around the table, most people would probably have a similar story.
[6:23] And if it's not specific to you, it would be a family member or a neighbor or a friend
[6:28] because that's pretty common.
[6:30] And for me and my family, for the most part, it's just a short-term hit.
[6:36] We're going to be okay.
[6:38] We'll get through this.
[6:39] We're in good shape.
[6:41] My youngest son is probably the one that's in the worst shape, mostly because he's going
[6:48] to go back out into a job market that just isn't going to be there.
[6:51] He's going to be fighting for fewer jobs with more people.
[6:57] But he's young and talented and works hard and he'll be okay and quite honestly will
[7:03] help him if we have to.
[7:05] I'll begrudgingly help him if I have to.
[7:07] but the reason I share this with you is I almost feel like that's what this budget that we've
[7:15] developed and that you know we're asking to be approved is designed for. It's designed for people
[7:23] like myself and my family that for the most part has taken a hit but it's kind of a short-term hit
[7:29] it and we'll get through it and we'll be okay. And that's certainly true for me and nobody
[7:37] has to be concerned about me. But quite honestly, I don't really think that's true for most of
[7:43] the people in benefit. I, you know, we can argue over what percentage is more adversely
[7:50] affected than the rest. You know, I would say it's probably 50-50. You know, somebody
[7:55] could argue at 6040 or maybe 6535, depending on which way you want to go. But there's way
[8:01] too many people in our community that this is not only hurting now, but it's going to
[8:07] hurt, hurt longer term. And I just don't think the budget really takes that into consideration.
[8:15] You know, it's really designed, you know, as if we're all going to get through this
[8:20] and we'll all be okay. And I don't really think that's the case. I'm hopeful and I'll
[8:25] work really hard to, you know, make the economy get going again. But quite honestly, I think
[8:31] this budget, this is the mark and I still believe there's two votes out there that
[8:36] will join me and upend the thing. So I would ask, I appreciate you allowing me to share
[8:45] what I share and I would ask your final consideration. Thank you.
[8:51] Thank you, Steve. Anybody else?
[8:56] Seeing none, all in favour of the order as amended.
[9:08] Council's
[9:08] valiant clear water ready, M highs or T's and less iron. As opposed.
[9:18] Council's St.
[9:19] C and McCurry and Quattrone.
[9:23] Passes. Next item is 3.2, estimated revenues, fund
[9:28] and balance appropriations.
[9:30] No moved.
[9:31] Second.
[9:32] Moved and seconded just for the public total estimated
[9:35] revenues appropriations that are 11,593,887 dollars.
[9:41] Discussion.
[9:45] Seeing none, all in favor please raise your hand.
[9:55] Council's Clearwater, Amheiser, Belanger,
[9:57] St. Cyr, Reddy, Ortiz, Quattrone and McCurry.
[10:01] Opposed?
[10:06] Council Lussard in opposition.
[10:08] in addition.
[10:11] 3.3, airport fund.
[10:14] So moved.
[10:15] Second.
[10:17] It's been moved and seconded.
[10:20] Again, the number we are looking at, we are appropriating $562,977 for that particular airport,
[10:29] with the revenues being $540,481.
[10:33] Discussion?
[10:37] Seeing none, all in favor?
[10:39] In favor,
[10:46] councilors Belanger, McCurry,
[10:48] Amhi is a clear water, ready and Ortiz, opposed?
[10:57] Council's Quattrone, Lessard and St. Cyr in opposition.
[11:03] Next item, the fund.
[11:07] So moved.
[11:08] Second.
[11:09] Moved and seconded.
[11:12] And according to this,
[11:14] we are appropriating $46,359 for the mooring fee fund
[11:18] and the revenue was estimated to be 42,000.
[11:22] Discussion?
[11:26] Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
[11:36] In favor, Council's Clearwater, Bilanja,
[11:38] M. Highs, Ortiz, Reddy, McCurry in opposition.
[11:50] Kalto's-Quattro, Lessard, and St. Cyr.
[11:54] Thank you.
[11:58] Next item, Cool Permits Fund.
[12:03] So moved.
[12:04] Second.
[12:07] Summary.
[12:08] We're appropriating the sum of $177,966 with revenues being $99,500.
[12:16] Discussion.
[12:21] Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
[12:29] In favor, Councilor Bilanje, Clearwater, M. High as a McCurry, Ortiz and Reddy.
[12:35] Those opposed.
[12:41] Health is left side, St. Cyr and Quattrone in opposition.
[12:44] Next item.
[12:47] Recreation program fund.
[12:48] So moved.
[12:50] Second.
[12:51] Moved and seconded, appropriating the sum of $850,878 for this revenue sum of $871,135.
[13:01] Discussion.
[13:07] Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
[13:15] Councilman Blanger, McCurry, Clearwater, St. Cyr, Em High, Lesser, Reddy, Ortiz and
[13:21] Quattrone, it's unanimous.
[13:24] Thank you.
[13:27] Next item.
[13:29] Parkland.
[13:30] Second.
[13:31] So moved.
[13:32] Second.
[13:34] Moved and seconded.
[13:35] Appropriate in the sum of $201,007 to $51 with the expected revenue of being $363,400.
[13:44] Discussion.
[13:48] Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hands.
[13:55] In favor, the council is patrolling on the left side.
[13:58] Saints here.
[13:58] Clear water.
[13:59] M highs or Ortiz and McCurry.
[14:02] And Belanger.
[14:05] Opposed.
[14:10] Councilor Reddy in opposition.
[14:11] Next
[14:15] one, 3.8 is the Ambulance Fund.
[14:18] No moved.
[14:19] Second.
[14:21] Moved and seconded, appropriating the sum of $1,550,000 to the Ambulance Fund with the
[14:26] expected revenue being $1,425,000.
[14:31] Discussion?
[14:36] All in favor, please raise your hands.
[14:43] Those in favor, our council is Clearwater, Belanger, Lessard, Em Highes, McCurry,
[14:47] Ortiz, and Ready, those opposed?
[14:55] Oslo's Quattrone and St. Cyr in opposition.
[15:00] Super operations fund. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Operations fund, totaling $5,604,882
[15:14] with estimated revenues being $4,717,311. Councillor McCurray? I just want to make sure everybody
[15:24] know is that they're besides their taxes they also have this fee that will be going up uh just
[15:31] their hidden tax that they'll be getting charged more for thanks thank you anybody else see
[15:41] none
[15:41] all fair please raise your hands those
[15:49] in favor council the lands of clearwater m highs are ready
[15:52] in Ortiz those opposed councils
[16:02] McCurry quatrone and lessard did I miss somebody on that what
[16:10] What about Steven, St. Sarah?
[16:12] How's the second act involved?
[16:15] So that goes automatically to the firmative.
[16:17] You look frozen to me.
[16:21] Yes.
[16:26] Okay, thank you.
[16:33] Next item's MDEA, the main drug enforcement agency fund.
[16:37] So moved.
[16:41] Second.
[16:44] Seconded, we appropriated a sum of $266,431,
[16:48] and the revenue would be the same.
[16:51] Discussion, Councilor Quadron?
[16:57] Sorry, I just didn't get my hand lowered in time. I don't have anything to say on this.
[17:01] Okay.
[17:04] Anybody else?
[17:07] See none. All in favor, please raise your hand.
[17:14] Councilor Belanger, McCurry, Letzard, M. Heizer, Ortiz, Reddy, and Quattrone in favor.
[17:20] Those opposed?
[17:27] Councilor Clearwater in opposition.
[17:33] Thank you.
[17:36] People Recovery Program Fund.
[17:38] Second.
[17:39] Second.
[17:41] We'll do seconded, spending the sum of $97,979, the revenues are anticipated to be the same
[17:47] to offset that discussion.
[17:52] Councilor Clearwater.
[17:54] Just real quickly, I would like to commend the police department on the use of this
[17:59] fund and the way that the city does focus on folks who are in need of recovery services.
[18:05] Also, just for the benefit of people who may have joined these budget discussions
[18:10] just today. And this is the only meeting that they've seen and we look like we're making
[18:14] real fast and avaliable decisions. I would like folks to know that we've been working
[18:19] on this now for months and I'd like to take again the opportunity to thank the city staff,
[18:25] city manager's office, Carmen, finance office, everybody who has done this work and there's
[18:31] been a lot of thought going into it and I'm really grateful for the conversations
[18:35] that we've had.
[18:37] Thank you, Amy. Anybody else?
[18:41] Seeing none. All in favor, please raise your hands.
[18:47] Those
[18:47] in favor, councilman Langer, Clearwater, Lessard, M. Heizer, Quartron, Ortiz, McCurry,
[18:55] and Ready, those opposed?
[18:58] No, I'm sorry. I'm in favor of it. Sorry about that.
[19:02] It's unanimous. Thank you.
[19:06] And for the orders of the day, CBG Fund, the corrected
[19:10] So moved. Second.
[19:13] It's been moved and seconded.
[19:15] Anyone for the public like to address the CDBG fund?
[19:23] This is the Community Development Block Grant Fund.
[19:27] Seeing no one, you're back to the council.
[19:33] All in favor, please raise your electronic hands.
[19:43] Those in favor, councilor Belanger, Clearwater,
[19:45] St. Cyr, Em Highes, Lesard, Ortiz, McCurry,
[19:48] Quantrone and Reddy, which makes that unanimous.
[19:53] 4.2.
[19:58] So moved. Second.
[20:01] And this is the pre-payment interest rate on private taxes. Excuse me. It's been moved
[20:08] in second. Anyone for the public?
[20:13] I'll be back to the council. So, Council Lesser?
[20:17] Oh, sorry. Actually, yeah. Yeah, I've got a question through here. How did we come up with five
[20:26] percent?
[20:29] Folks, the recommendation is that there should be four percent. The state
[20:33] publishers every year with the maximum amount is that you can charge for an
[20:38] over for overdue taxes. This year it's 8%. You're allowed to go down to 4% lower
[20:46] than that if somebody gets an abatement. And so last year they were 9 and 5, which
[20:51] would be 8 and 4. If you do not have something then you automatically have to
[20:57] pay 8% back on the abatement. So the recommendation would be that this
[21:01] would be at the 4%, which is a little out of my state of mind.
[21:06] So I'd make a motion to amend to 4%.
[21:08] Second.
[21:10] The move is cited.
[21:12] Anyone from the public would like to address the amendment.
[21:15] Moves it back to 4%.
[21:22] Seeing none, back to the council.
[21:25] Any more commentary?
[21:28] All in favor of the amendment, please raise your hands.
[21:31] Electronically.
[21:35] Councilor Blanger, Lessard, St. Cyr, McCurry,
[21:37] McCurry, M. Heiser, Clearwater, Quattrone, Ready and Ortiz, that makes that unanimous.
[21:42] Any further discussion?
[21:47] On the left side?
[21:49] No, I'm good.
[21:49] Sorry.
[21:50] I clicked too fast.
[21:51] Okay.
[21:52] Quick draw, McGraw.
[21:55] All in favor of the motion as amended.
[22:01] Sousa is ready.
[22:02] Belanger, McCurry, Quattrone, Clearwater, St. Cyr, M. Heiser, Ortiz, and Lessard,
[22:07] making that unanimous.
[22:09] I'm showing my age.
[22:11] Quick draw, McGraw.
[22:11] Somebody don't even know who that was.
[22:13] I do.
[22:14] I'm the youngest person here. I know who quick drama bra is.
[22:18] Anybody who doesn't is just missing all of the cartoons reruns on cable.
[22:25] I watched him first hand.
[22:29] 4.3 property tax commitment.
[22:33] It moved and seconded
[22:39] going out to the public first.
[22:43] A little bit of trouble here with my tablet.
[22:51] It's not registering.
[22:52] Anybody for the public address this?
[22:58] Seeing none, back to the council.
[23:00] Council M. Heizer?
[23:03] Yeah, just sort of a technical question that the approval of this
[23:09] requires the amount of the school budget.
[23:13] The school budget's getting voted on on the effect of July 13th.
[23:18] So in the very, very rare event that it doesn't pass,
[23:25] what happens to this order?
[23:28] it's an interesting question because normally the school budget would have
[23:31] already been voted. Yeah, that's why I asked. I mean, technically we won't commit
[23:37] until the school budget is actually done. The school budget when it gets passed
[23:43] by the voters, we end up then making the sole thing legal. If they don't pass
[23:48] the budget then it comes back to the council anyways because then the
[23:52] council and the school board have to work together to come up with whatever
[23:55] that the next referendum question would be built.
[23:58] And then that would have to go back up to the voters.
[24:00] We would hold off on actually doing the final commitment
[24:03] until we actually know what the final result would be
[24:08] that comes from taxes to go out to the school budget.
[24:11] Okay.
[24:12] Thank you.
[24:14] Councilor Kerr?
[24:15] Yeah, there's a note there with the overlay
[24:18] to be added after commitment by assessor.
[24:21] Are we assuming that we might have
[24:24] have a higher assessed value so that will leave more money in the overlay account.
[24:30] That's just the normal language, Council President, and because if you look at that last sentence,
[24:37] Council is recommending what you believe to be the tax rate that you want the assessor
[24:42] to set as I think you know at the end of the day the assessor sets that.
[24:47] Right.
[24:48] Whatever the budget is and what the assessed value is, that's the tax rate.
[24:51] We can hope this is what it is, but it could be different.
[24:54] Well, I mean, as you know, whatever the council goal was, we would hit that.
[24:59] And if for some reason we had extra money that was available because they picked up more
[25:04] valuation, we'd come back to the council and say, council, they picked up another
[25:08] $100,000.
[25:10] Do you want to apply it to the tax rate or would you like it just to fall down
[25:13] to the overlay?
[25:14] We don't believe we're going to be in that situation this year.
[25:16] But we believe that the overlay will come in very close to the 250,000 that we had built
[25:22] into the budget documents, which will still get you in at that $20.05 rate.
[25:27] If there's any changes, like I've done in the past, I would bring it back to you before
[25:31] we actually do the commitment.
[25:33] Okay.
[25:33] That's all I was getting at, just in case we had a windfall.
[25:36] Maybe Steve could get a windfall with a change in the tax rate.
[25:42] He's smiling.
[25:43] He's dreaming of that.
[25:43] that. Council, left side.
[25:47] So I actually think that the final sentence where it says $20.05 per 1,000 property valuation
[25:56] should continue reading and saying based upon a positive vote by the citizens of the city
[26:02] of Bitterford on the school department referendum question. So that way we're basing this
[26:07] on that it will be positively asked because otherwise we're doing it in reverse. I don't
[26:13] and I'm not sure that that's right. So, I'll put that in the form of a motion.
[26:18] Second.
[26:19] It's been moved and seconded. Anyone with a public like to address the amendment?
[26:27] Back to the council.
[26:29] And the reason why I put that there was because I just think that we need to say that that
[26:33] is based upon the positive vote by the citizens. If it's not included in there,
[26:39] then the cascading of how this happens with the citizens vote, it's just wrong.
[26:45] So that's why I added it there. Thank you, folks. Thank you
[26:51] Anybody else
[26:54] None all in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand. This
[27:02] is less out Belanger St. Cyr M. Heiser Ortiz McCurry in Clearwater
[27:09] Opposed council ready in opposition along with council quateron
[27:15] Any
[27:18] more discussion?
[27:21] All those in favor of the motion as amended?
[27:29] Council's Belanger, Clearwater, M. Hyzer, Reddy, and Ortiz?
[27:34] Those opposed?
[27:40] Council's McCurry, Lessard, Quattrone, and St. Cyr, in opposition.
[27:46] Thank you.
[27:51] Did you take a motion to adjourn?
[27:52] So moved.
[27:53] Second.
[27:55] All in favor please raise your hands just visually.
[28:00] That's unanimous.
[28:03] Okay, so we're going to go into workshop format.
[28:16] So
[28:20] I'll call the workshop to order. And the topic 1.1 is street closing opportunities.
[28:29] Over the last several weeks, we've been hearing from the city manager regarding the possibility
[28:33] of closing certain streets, pedestrian walkways and things of that nature. Council Quartron
[28:40] sent an email a week and a half or so ago offering some suggestions of what he thought
[28:45] might work where what's what's being talked about. Tonight's an opportunity just to look
[28:52] at the document that was sent to you yesterday from for some thoughts in terms of what you
[28:59] see or what you want to recommend and not recommend. It's no decision tonight whatsoever.
[29:05] Do you want to add anything before we jump into the conversation?
[29:09] The only thing I would add is that I asked staff back in, it probably actually was in
[29:15] April.
[29:16] Early April to identify locations in the downtown area that they thought we could actually shut
[29:22] down streets for a period of time or possible parts of the streets and that we could do
[29:28] that safely for the benefit of trying to allow commerce to happen on the outside.
[29:33] This is the work that staff came back with.
[29:35] so these are areas that they've already looked at and said, yeah, we can make it happen.
[29:41] As identified in Matthew's memo, there were some concerns about staff time and moving barriers and
[29:50] some of those kinds of things. I think those were all issues that we can work through.
[29:54] If there were other parts of the community that somebody wanted us to look at,
[30:00] Why they did look at the general downtown area, certainly we could look at more and try
[30:05] to figure out if there was a way to do it, and if it couldn't give you the rationale why we
[30:11] thought that that would not be a good alternative. So here's the list. We're here to listen
[30:19] and take direction so that we can proceed in whatever direction the council would like
[30:24] us to.
[30:26] Council McCurry?
[30:28] Yeah.
[30:29] And Council Reddy, Council Amhizer, and Council Clearwater.
[30:33] Yeah.
[30:34] I think it's a good idea to try to figure out how we can try to get some of this to come out.
[30:40] But I would also like to see, you know, at some point, even after this pandemic is over and everything is back to normal,
[30:47] 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.
[30:58] I think that would be good to do on the weekend. I said that right along. I think we need to encourage that.
[31:04] And then on the list that they gave, I can sort of visualize most of it.
[31:11] But the one Franklin Street between Maine and the palace diner, the palace, what other
[31:20] restaurants are right in that little piece in there that you're talking?
[31:27] George's and Louis's Pizza.
[31:30] Yeah.
[31:30] Oh, but just from Maine to the palace?
[31:32] That's the only one, the palace.
[31:35] I don't have much sense to me. The palace could actually use part of the park like they
[31:42] did in the past, so I wouldn't be in favor of that one there. I think there's opportunity
[31:49] there for the park. I think Yettos could use part of the park on the other end if they
[31:56] wanted to, plus the sidewalk. But I also don't think any business should go from double
[32:04] or triple the size of their footprint. If they had 10 tables before, now they got 50.
[32:11] I don't know how that would work. But I think it's worth looking at and trying to come up with
[32:19] some sort of solutions. But I also like us to take a look at if the businesses want to do that,
[32:25] they should participate in putting these barriers up and taking them down in the
[32:30] So we reduced labor positions and police positions that could have helped with some of this stuff.
[32:38] So I think the businesses, if we're going to try to do this, they've got to be the ones
[32:43] that are also helping manage this, so it's not taking so much labor away from everything
[32:48] else.
[32:49] That's the only thing I see with this.
[32:52] Thank you, John.
[32:53] Councilor Reddy.
[32:54] One of the things, Jim, you mentioned to do this safely.
[32:57] 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.
[33:12] So maybe Main Street will be all done by then.
[33:15] But I hate to see us closing one way on Lincoln Street if the traffic is still one lane on
[33:23] Main Street from Water Street all the way up to Alfred.
[33:27] The other thing, and I really hope somebody can open my eyes on this, I wonder, I'm looking
[33:36] at what we're discussing for closing in Main Street between Washington and Alfred that
[33:43] that makes the most sense to me when I look at it.
[33:45] But I still see a lot of businesses
[33:47] that I don't look like it doesn't,
[33:50] I don't think that they'd be able to take advantage
[33:51] and maybe Matt, people have come to you like Edo's
[33:55] and said, yeah, that would work for us.
[33:57] Or I just don't know,
[34:01] you know,
[34:02] we're picking winners and losers here
[34:05] by picking the locations that we're doing this.
[34:08] And again, the idea makes all the sense
[34:12] in the world to me. It's why I was in favor of, you know, the sidewalks. It's why I was in favor
[34:18] of people being able to use part of the parks. But this part I'm really struggling with. So
[34:26] maybe somebody can address the, you know, whether we've talked to the police department about it
[34:31] and then just the picking and winners and losers. Thank you.
[34:37] Thank you, Mike. Does
[34:39] Jim, or Matt, want to answer those questions?
[34:43] Yeah, so with staff, what staff did is I asked them to take a look at all the practical places
[34:50] that they felt that they could safely do this.
[34:54] Long before businesses started coming to us to ask us if they could do that,
[34:59] and one of the pushbacks I got from staff was, well, how do we even know if businesses
[35:03] want to do that and what the impact was?
[35:05] And so the answer to your question, Mike, is that all of the department heads have looked
[35:11] at that, including Roger Scott, Jeff, Robbie, Matthew, all of them had their hands in developing
[35:19] this.
[35:22] We would still have to have – we wouldn't close something down unless there was a request
[35:26] from businesses to do that.
[35:28] And to give you an example, coming back to John's question about Franklin Street,
[35:34] even though there's only Palestine that's right there,
[35:38] you may end up having businesses that are in the area
[35:41] that want to take part of that.
[35:42] So for instance, around the corner on Main Street,
[35:45] if you didn't close Main Street,
[35:46] there's a couple of businesses that are in that block
[35:48] that say, okay, I'd like to have a little part of that, Franklin.
[35:51] Louis Pizza might want to have part of that.
[35:54] Georgia may want to have part of that.
[35:56] They may not, but if we decided to proceed
[35:59] and that was something that was of interest,
[36:00] we would then try to find out who would be interested in it
[36:03] that would make sense for them
[36:05] to be able to operate out of their shop
[36:06] and still have people go on those areas.
[36:08] So I think you don't necessarily have to look
[36:10] at these public spaces
[36:13] just if somebody is immediately adjacent to it.
[36:17] And you can make it a little bit more broader
[36:19] as this is the outdoor area for somebody to be in.
[36:25] And take a look at that.
[36:26] I think I answered all your questions, Mike, on that.
[36:28] that. Like on Lincoln Street, if we were going to do that, there was some thought that we
[36:35] could do it, turn that into a one-way street. Obviously, when they were looking at this,
[36:40] we had, back in April, we had not quite had the CSL project on Main Street. We would
[36:46] have to revisit that, but I think staff would still figure out a way to make that
[36:50] happen if that was something the council wanted to do, and there were businesses
[36:53] down there that wanted to make that happen as well.
[36:56] You know, you also take a look at the other side of Pearl Street, and so going to LinkedIn,
[37:00] you can do that at L.A. section of Pearl Street and make that work as well as an opportunity.
[37:06] I hope I can answer all your questions, Mike.
[37:10] Thank you, Jim.
[37:12] Bill?
[37:13] Yeah, I wanted to ask the chair to allow maybe Matt Eddy to address the funding that
[37:21] he's applied for and sort of describe the sources and the uses of that amount of
[37:26] monies.
[37:26] Sure thing.
[37:38] Good evening.
[37:42] Actually, Jim identified this grant source for us. It's it's an it's odd
[37:49] in that it comes through the main CDC Center for Disease Control. I think I think it's part
[37:57] of the larger funding that the state received. They put it out as a combination of public
[38:03] education, physical barrier improvements and work related to trying to make areas more accessible
[38:12] and to help open main streets a little bit.
[38:17] We've put in funds for labor, for equipment,
[38:21] for additional tables and share sets. And I really, it's one of those I haven't got a clue
[38:28] you know what our chances are getting at or not it's it's one of those all new
[38:34] that comes through the coronavirus process I was on a call today with the
[38:39] commissioner for the ECB they she indicated that they were hoping to be
[38:44] able to make those awards by the beginning next week there was about a
[38:49] hundred communities applied the highest was one asking for 1.8 million after I
[38:55] heard that number I was a little like what we should have gone for more I feel guilty they did
[39:02] mention that we were identified as one of the more affordable communities in the country and that's
[39:08] why we only asked for 20 thousand so I have a pretty good I have a good feeling that we will get
[39:14] awarded the money as long as what we submitted is consistent with what the requirements are
[39:18] and I believe it will be so I feel pretty good that we'll get on those funds and what's the
[39:24] amount Matt? That's 64,000. 64,000. Thank you. Thank you. Amy?
[39:34] Perfect. I have like a
[39:36] million and five questions, but my first one is of that money that we're talking
[39:40] about right now Matt, you have requested that from the CDC. Businesses
[39:47] don't have to be in on that already. Is that correct? That's correct. To do
[39:54] what we're proposing, it would be, as Jim suggested, we'd let them know and reach out
[39:59] to see who would be interested in participating.
[40:01] Got it. Okay. And so if we are awarded that pool of money, I assume we will do some sort
[40:08] of outreach to folks at that time. Do we know if that grant money is available for things
[40:17] like barriers to go around parking spot seating or is that it does it hinge on
[40:24] us closing Main Street like are these two interrelated topics no no not
[40:29] necessarily it could be both and we also have put in a social media public
[40:38] education piece on this to let people know what we're proposing to do and we've
[40:43] also propose to continue doing our virtual meetings with the businesses as this evolves,
[40:48] because our experience thus far is as they evolve with the situation, they become more
[40:56] and more – the businesses become more and more comfortable with the idea.
[41:00] But it's a lot to think through and how to do it safely.
[41:03] And so you lead right into my next question, which is how are we engaging the business
[41:10] owners and if I hear from folks who want to know something about that should I direct them to your
[41:14] office if there are people watching now who aren't sure what they need or what they ought to do who
[41:19] should they talk to. Either my office or Delilah Delilah and Jim Labelle the chamber have been
[41:28] active participants in this program so either one would be fine and and we've been focusing
[41:33] you know, we're working group through that cluster. And then, you know, going back out
[41:40] in virtual meetings are really kind of gathering information. In the virtual meetings, we've
[41:44] had 35 to 40 participants each time. So it's been active.
[41:50] One, the one piece I'd added Amy and the rest of the council, if somebody's looking
[41:55] to use POC space or sidewalk space and not streets, the contact person is Robbie's
[42:02] office. As you know, you've already approved that process and we've got probably, I think
[42:06] we might be up to almost 20 businesses, maybe it's 15 or so, that have taken advantage of
[42:12] that. So if somebody is looking to do something on a sidewalk or public land other than a
[42:17] street, Robbie is the individual you want to talk to and he's the magic man that
[42:23] can make that happen. If the council decides you want to move ahead with something
[42:27] like this, then we would flush out exactly how that would work and then we would
[42:31] develop what that process would be for you, and then we can tell somebody right off.
[42:36] Somebody that's interested right now, but isn't sure what they want to do, then Matthew and
[42:43] Delilah and Jim at the Chamber are the ones that you want to express interest to so that
[42:48] we know who out there is actually ready to participate compared to where we were in
[42:54] April.
[42:55] Okay. And I see that right now we have one business owner attending this meeting who
[43:01] has their hand up. I'm not sure in workshops we usually don't do public input but I'm wondering
[43:09] what we want to do and I guess that leads me to my next question which is like I'm
[43:14] broadly supportive of this idea but what do you need from us tonight in order for you
[43:20] to know what the next steps ought to be.
[43:24] What I'm looking for is this is at a very high level.
[43:29] If we get the signals from the council that you're interested and tell us what your concerns
[43:35] are so that if there are concerns about any particular of it, then we can react to it
[43:40] and then we'll go flush out the details so we can bring something back much like what
[43:43] we did with the special, you know, when we discussed how to deal with the other
[43:49] public space areas.
[43:50] So you gave us some information, some feedback on what you thought, how you would want it
[43:54] to work, and then we went and developed the program and brought it back so you could try
[43:58] to improve it one night.
[44:00] Gotcha.
[44:01] Okay.
[44:01] Thanks.
[44:03] Thank you.
[44:04] If there's no opposition, I'd like to have Katie Pineda from Elements actually jump
[44:08] in here just to offer us a little bit of insight.
[44:11] She's the only person attending from the business community, but...
[44:14] Sure.
[44:15] Yeah, I'd like to hear from her.
[44:17] Me too.
[44:21] Hi, Katie.
[44:21] Can you hear me?
[44:23] Yep.
[44:24] Hey, everybody.
[44:25] Thank you so much.
[44:28] And I do want to say a couple things.
[44:30] One is given that we don't foresee a time,
[44:36] any time soon when we can reopen our inside space
[44:40] safely, we do appreciate the city and the council
[44:44] considering what our other options are to salvage
[44:48] salvage whatever we have left of the summer season ahead of us so thank you
[44:53] for for all of all of your work on this we have not applied for the outdoors
[45:02] We are not really interested in, like, taking up the parking spaces around elements because
[45:08] that's, like, really vital, like, customer use for curbside pickup kind of space. We would
[45:16] be interested in being a part of, you know, actively, like, planning and strategizing how
[45:23] this plan could work, but it's obviously specifically around the Jefferson Street side of things.
[45:30] I just want to throw out a few questions that Michael and I would invite you to consider.
[45:38] And again, these are not questions that are going to be answered right now.
[45:41] They're just things for you to know that we're being super thoughtful.
[45:48] And safety obviously comes first on everything.
[45:52] And secondly, it's like finances, right?
[45:57] So, number one would be like, are we talking about these spaces as being communal versus like individually permitted, right?
[46:05] So, for example, we've got in our area elements, Yeto's, Jonesy's and Riley's, right?
[46:11] And again, we don't know who would even want to participate right now.
[46:14] so this is all just like theoretical, right? But like, so would the Jefferson Street space be like
[46:21] communally owned and permitted or like individually? And that matters for a few things. Number one,
[46:27] like who's taking responsibility for like sanitizing? Who's taking responsibility for like theft? Or,
[46:35] you know, that's, you know, obviously like worst case scenario, but something we always
[46:38] have to think about. And then liquor licensing, right. So like if we have a liquor license
[46:45] but like Jonesies doesn't like how like what's what does enforcement look like like business
[46:50] enforcement as well as like police enforcement like and how are the two working together.
[46:54] So like those are things to kind of think through. And then I think the other thing
[46:59] is like barriers being permanent versus temporary. So like if you go to Purple Square those
[47:04] Jersey barriers seem like fairly permanent for like a while for New Moon and Kierrow
[47:10] Cafe to like use those outdoor spaces. And you kind of just know at this point where you can
[47:16] and cannot park in Peppermill Square because of those Jersey barriers. And so I would almost
[47:22] make an argument for permanent barriers versus barriers that you know are taken up and taken
[47:27] down so that once people get used to like traffic patterns they're just used to them as
[47:33] opposed to like well at this time of day I can the two way and then it's a one
[47:36] way and that I just want to reduce like public frustration of accessing
[47:40] downtown like services and businesses you know what I'm saying so anyway so our
[47:47] sense would be whatever like tables and chairs and nonsense is out there like
[47:51] it's got to be durable it's got to be stuff that can't be stolen it's got
[47:54] to be things that can like stay out in the rain like picking tables kind of
[47:57] thing you know and and and hopefully you know the city is like involved in the
[48:03] purchases of those things hopefully through this grant program. So those are
[48:07] just a couple like off the top of our head you know kinds of things but just
[48:11] and again I'm happy to be part of like any other strategizing conversation but
[48:16] really I think the conversation the the question of like how much is the
[48:20] city like owning these spaces versus how much are you expecting the
[48:24] businesses to own these spaces is a really important thing both in terms of cost and
[48:28] liability and enforcement. So I mean if you kind of leave it to us like well if you want to take
[48:33] advantage of it we'll let you but you have to like take full responsibility for everything we're
[48:38] probably going to pass honestly like you know there's just there's anyway there's a lot of
[48:43] things to think through and we appreciate you being thoughtful about everything with us and
[48:48] And I'll kind of leave it at that.
[48:50] Thank you, Katie.
[48:53] Norm?
[48:55] Hi.
[48:56] I like Amy have a bunch of questions.
[48:59] But let me start at the high level.
[49:02] And I think this concept makes sense.
[49:06] It's something that we definitely need to look into
[49:08] and to look into in more detail.
[49:09] So at the 10,000-foot level, I'm in favor
[49:14] and would like to look into some more.
[49:16] I do think we need to also make sure we consider more than just the restaurants.
[49:21] This would also be an opportunity for any of the retail establishments.
[49:24] You know, they can put out clothing or storage, bring their wares outdoors,
[49:28] and so we should be looking to do this to me more than just the restaurants.
[49:31] We think of it generally as outdoor seating for restaurants,
[49:34] but outdoor use could be for other things as well.
[49:37] But like everything else, you know, you're playing a game of whack-a-mole here.
[49:40] You know, we open it up and make it easier for some places,
[49:43] but then there are other issues.
[49:44] I mean, we need to take a look at the parking.
[49:46] We need to make sure we have limited parking as it is.
[49:49] Parking's been a problem downtown.
[49:51] It's been relieved because people aren't going out.
[49:54] But that problem will,
[49:56] once again, we were talking to the head
[49:57] once we stopped moving on all this.
[49:58] So I think that needs to be looked into.
[50:01] Not only parking generally,
[50:02] but parking for some of these stores like a hairdresser
[50:06] or these takeout outlets,
[50:08] they may prefer to have parking right in front
[50:10] and we may be losing that if we're blocking off the road.
[50:12] So, that needs to be factored into all of this as well, you know, part of the takeout.
[50:17] And also, I would like to look at, too, would it make some sense to do this not permanently,
[50:23] but, you know, Friday and Saturday night from, you know, eight to midnight, or, you know,
[50:27] we may want to do it not on a permanent basis, but look at opportunities to say we'll block
[50:32] these things off, kind of like we do for French Fest or something.
[50:35] We block it off for a temporary, you know, every weekend, because we may not want
[50:39] to do it all the time, but you may want to do it just on a temporary basis.
[50:42] So I'd like all of those things explored, not only amongst the staff, but also with the people downtown.
[50:47] So those are kind of my thoughts at, you know, off the top of my head.
[50:53] Thank you, Norm. John,
[51:00] you're muted, John.
[51:05] There you go. These buttons don't always work so well.
[51:08] I agree with what everybody is saying, you know, and at the 10,000-foot level,
[51:15] I agree. And, you know, it may come back and I may disagree.
[51:18] 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
[51:27] Served outside who's going to manage that you know like at at fringe fest and everything else
[51:32] 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
[51:39] Looked into and and figure out how we're going to deal with each one of these
[51:43] So I think at the 10,000 foot level, I'm okay with looking and let's see how we take
[51:48] into all these considerations. But I do agree. We got to look at all the businesses because
[51:53] I don't want to pick and choose winners and losers. I want everybody to have the same opportunity.
[51:59] Thank you, John. Mark? So the downtown and the system is set up to support what we have
[52:07] today, or what we had back in February before the coronavirus, meaning that the traffic layout,
[52:14] the parking, et cetera, and the reason why the folks located to the business locations that they
[52:20] were in was because the way the system was built to support what was there before the virus.
[52:26] And some of the questions have already been asked, but is this an everyday piece versus
[52:33] is like what Norm was saying, do we just do it on weekends? What are the hours? If somebody
[52:39] is serving breakfast and they serve breakfast at six o'clock in the morning, does that mean
[52:43] that there can be people outside and in the street at six o'clock when other people
[52:47] are maybe sleeping? Does it go till midnight if somebody is open late and there are
[52:52] people out on the street and having drinks and stuff like that? Does it allow music
[52:57] so a band is set up on the sidewalk so that people can be out in the street listening
[53:01] to the band as part of the entertainment for the business. Is there a put-up and takedown
[53:07] of all of the seats on a daily basis, or do they just stay? And if the city puts the seats
[53:13] there, what happens to the seats once the coronavirus goes away? Where do all the tables
[53:18] go? How do we store all of this?
[53:22] What is the process if not followed by one? So if there's one entity on Main Street
[53:27] that doesn't follow it? Do we punish everybody? Because there's going to be some guidelines
[53:32] as far as how they follow it or not. And what happens if there's a non-food business
[53:37] because the parking changes and they have an erosion in their business? Can they raise
[53:42] their hand and say, wait a minute, this isn't working for me. We've got to go back to
[53:45] the way that it was. Well, what's the decision going to be? Is it going to be, yeah,
[53:50] we're going to or no, we're going to pick the winners and losers?
[53:56] If somebody wants traffic again, do we have to ask the people, can we get the traffic back?
[54:02] Or can we just unilaterally, as the city say, you know what, we've got to put the traffic
[54:07] back in downtown?
[54:09] So that would have to be operating guidelines of what's allowed and what's not allowed.
[54:14] What happens if we get citizens that complain that I can't drive my car downtown?
[54:18] down. How many of the complaints make it where it goes back to the way that it used to be?
[54:26] What happens if residents on Main Street, they just want to go down and use one of the tables
[54:31] with a couple of chairs that the city put there? You know, can residents who live on
[54:35] Main Street on the second, third, fourth floor, can they go downstairs and use the
[54:39] tables or are they going to get kicked out? And how is that police?
[54:42] at least.
[54:46] I understand that we're trying to do something that is righteous, okay? I understand
[54:51] that and I applaud the effort. I really, really do. And I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm
[54:57] just saying that I think in the end what's going to happen, we're going to try really
[55:02] hard and in the end we're still going to be picking winners and losers. And thank
[55:08] you, folks.
[55:13] Thanks. Mark brought up a lot of good questions. Everyone's brought up a lot of good questions.
[55:19] And I have faith that our staff is going to go out and figure this out for us and bring
[55:25] back solutions or considerations to us. I think this is something that we should try
[55:32] doing and it could be a weekend thing. I've been to Portland and I've seen them where they've
[55:41] set up Jersey Barriers for the restaurants. The restaurants are responsible for that area.
[55:46] I get a little nervous with temporary barriers if we have folks sitting in parking spaces and
[55:53] traffic around. That's the part that makes me nervous. And yeah, we do want to be fair
[56:00] and we want to open it up to everyone so everyone has an opportunity, that's the goal here.
[56:06] But I think if we can get this down and have it be successful, we will have a really good
[56:11] summer and it could be a destination point for folks to come to in the summer because
[56:17] we don't have the tourists that we had last summer.
[56:21] We have people who don't want to go out.
[56:24] If we could figure out how we can get people out on the streets, walking around and
[56:30] eating out, I think we're going to benefit from it. So I'm for it. If we can just figure
[56:36] out a way to answer these questions and do it safely, that'd be awesome. That's it. Thanks.
[56:43] Thanks, Doris. Amy?
[56:47] Just one further, I agree with everything everybody said. There are a ton of moving
[56:52] parts here. One real easy win might be that one thing Elements has been suggesting is telling
[57:00] people where the spaces are in town where they can just go and sit on a park bench or whatever
[57:05] and sit one friend at this end of the park bench, one friend at the other end of the park bench and
[57:10] have a coffee chatting in real life. If there are ways that we could get better utilization of
[57:18] some of our existing public parks right now and maybe focus a little bit more staff time on
[57:24] cleaning them up and making sure that we're keeping them relatively nice and orderly,
[57:30] that might be a really easy win. There are a number of places downtown or walking distance from
[57:36] all the bars and restaurants that if somebody wanted to grab sandwiches at one place and a
[57:41] bottle of wine at another place, we could maybe figure out how to make that happen
[57:47] if we thought hard about it and we wouldn't have to mess with traffic.
[57:52] just might be another area to think about.
[57:55] Thank you, Amy.
[57:57] Anybody else?
[58:00] 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.
[58:09] It's when you get into details that there are many questions.
[58:14] So I suspect that you're willing to allow staff to continue to investigate.
[58:20] I do think it's really important that businesses like Elements, for example, have to be part
[58:26] of this process, or businesses that just have takeover because it has to be really active.
[58:31] It just can't be something casual.
[58:34] I think you've got to really reach out and go talk to these people because I worry
[58:39] about parking.
[58:41] That's always been a big issue and when you take away free parking, where do the
[58:46] people park?
[58:47] I don't know.
[58:47] So I like the concept. I want to help all these different businesses, and I think we ought to proceed.
[58:55] So any other questions? Jim?
[59:02] Not to be cavalier about this, but the answer to all your questions is yes and no.
[59:06] And it's really going to depend on each of the individual spaces and where you're at.
[59:11] You know, for instance, there would be no way that we could, in my opinion,
[59:15] and based on the information that staff has done,
[59:18] that we could permanently shut down Main Street 24-7
[59:21] for the summer, that section.
[59:23] Just not gonna be something that's gonna work.
[59:26] And so, whatever we would do there
[59:28] would have limited hours and be certain times
[59:31] and we'd have to work through those.
[59:33] The end of Jefferson Street,
[59:35] you might be able to do part of that
[59:37] because it's central's one way
[59:40] and we'd have to rest it through those issues.
[59:43] You may end up up in a place
[59:44] where the Jefferson one may be, because there's only one person who wants it, it becomes exclusive
[59:51] for that particular business and we work through that with that particular business and work
[59:55] through how that would work. It may be that you end up having three or four businesses.
[1:00:00] We want to work together as a coalition for this particular area. I will tell you that
[1:00:05] staff has been having these conversations from day one. One of the big pushbacks when
[1:00:10] I challenged staff and asked them to come up with where could we possibly do it was they
[1:00:17] went to the businesses and the business were like, we don't even know what the heck we're
[1:00:21] going to do at all. And so we're not ready. So the dialogue has already been going on
[1:00:27] And anybody that would like to do something now, the door is open, we now would reach out
[1:00:36] and say to the businesses, we have a green light to explore this in more detail.
[1:00:42] And conceptually, the council is interested subject to the details.
[1:00:46] What would you like to, what would work for your business and where would it work?
[1:00:50] And we would work through the particulars with those, but also have to talk to other
[1:00:54] people that would be impacted by that.
[1:00:56] So, each of the things we, in my opinion, we would bring back to you would be custom
[1:01:01] to that particular business in that particular area, because what we do in one part of the
[1:01:06] community, we're not going to be able to do in other parts.
[1:01:09] And so, that's the process we'll proceed with at this point, is to let the business
[1:01:15] community know there's a possibility here, start having conversation with us about
[1:01:21] what would work for you and what would you might, how would the details work
[1:01:25] for you and what you'd be interested in.
[1:01:27] That will be the next step.
[1:01:29] And then we'll bring back very specific recommendations
[1:01:32] for anybody that would have something
[1:01:34] you want to do for a specific location
[1:01:36] for you to react to.
[1:01:39] That's what I envision the next steps would be.
[1:01:42] Thank you, Jim, Mike.
[1:01:44] And I think, and Jim, you kind of addressed it there,
[1:01:46] but to me, it would be critical
[1:01:48] if we're talking about closing a portion,
[1:01:50] like you were talking about between Washington
[1:01:52] and Alfred Street.
[1:01:53] How many businesses have given us a commitment but shown their interest in utilizing that
[1:02:01] for whatever period of time?
[1:02:03] I have a high-time envisioning supporting multiple street closings, at least the way that I'm
[1:02:13] looking at it.
[1:02:14] There may be all kinds of things that people come up with that I haven't thought of.
[1:02:18] you know, the weekend thing obviously would be a different scenario than closing every
[1:02:25] night of the week. The other thing Norm talked about, but some of these businesses, I'm sure,
[1:02:31] you know, they're doing curbside pickup. If we close Washington to Alfred Street, you
[1:02:37] know, Cowbell, are they going to do enough business in the close-off area to make up
[1:02:43] what they're doing already with their curbside. So I guess a long way of saying it's important to
[1:02:51] me to know which businesses are supporting which effort that you're going to bring forward.
[1:02:57] We will not be doing a field of dreams. We're not going to build something,
[1:03:01] hope somebody shows up. Everything is going to be custom
[1:03:05] work through with the people that are going to be impacted based on what their needs are.
[1:03:10] This is not a case, and given that I've had some restaurant experience in my background,
[1:03:17] I understand that each restaurant, business, and other businesses have a particular client
[1:03:22] talent, a particular niche, and it's not up to us to be telling them what we can do
[1:03:27] for them.
[1:03:28] It's for us to tell us what we ought to be doing to help them out and working to find
[1:03:33] solutions for them.
[1:03:34] And so it's really one of those, they're going to drive the process, we're going
[1:03:39] to make sure it's safe and then come back to you to make sure it's good.
[1:03:44] Anybody else?
[1:03:47] Before we go, do you want to just like Jim to share the screen for a second?
[1:03:51] I just want to show you what staff came up with for Magnus, the mechanic's mark.
[1:03:56] A number you get back to me saying you had no problem with having staff do the review
[1:04:00] and this was a good compromise, I think.
[1:04:04] So if you take a look at what you're showing, you see this red area identified.
[1:04:10] that would be where the the airstream would go and then the blue area would be the area that would
[1:04:17] end up being the area that the Patriots would be. Robbie has made contact with the owners that
[1:04:25] are very comfortable with this. I like this solution. We believe that the least majority
[1:04:29] of the package you can see through here available for the rest of the public.
[1:04:35] And Robbie's contacted with been in contact with our department heads as it relates to
[1:04:40] this area. I think the last thing they're doing tomorrow is they're just making sure that
[1:04:44] the automatic irrigation system is going to come on and all of a sudden drown out the
[1:04:49] people that might be having a sandwich or beverage there. So based on the concerns
[1:04:57] from the council and the current policy, if this is okay, we're going to proceed
[1:05:01] down the road as if this has been approved as a secondary application and then of course
[1:05:07] the sidewalk one that we've already signed off on works for them. I'm glad to answer any questions,
[1:05:12] but I think this addresses all the concerns that the council had.
[1:05:18] Anybody got questions? John, then Mark, then Mike.
[1:05:25] Can you put that little picture back up
[1:05:33] where the red is where the airstream is going?
[1:05:38] How are they going to power that unit?
[1:05:42] They're going to use a generator, and the generator has to be set up in such a way that
[1:05:47] that it's going to comply with the new age requirement
[1:05:50] to the area.
[1:05:51] Okay, because that was going to be one concern.
[1:05:54] And then the blue area, that's going to be cordoned off.
[1:05:58] And then they are going to be responsible for cleaning it
[1:06:02] and everything else of that nature.
[1:06:04] Yes.
[1:06:06] Okay, how are they getting the alcohol
[1:06:08] from across the water street there?
[1:06:11] Yeah, my understanding is-
[1:06:13] I don't have to pay just walking across the street
[1:06:16] with a beer in their hand.
[1:06:17] that's what I'm yeah my understanding is they're looking to have certain limited
[1:06:21] beverages that will be served out of the air street
[1:06:24] and so they would not be beverages that would be coming across the street
[1:06:28] they still have to get their permits through the state in order to do this
[1:06:32] and so some of those issues are going to be resolved when they go to the
[1:06:36] state for that particular license. Now let me I have
[1:06:41] not had the direct conversation so there may be a possibility that
[1:06:45] they're looking to be able to have their staff bring the beverages across as
[1:06:49] opposed to having the public. And so I just want to make you aware they
[1:06:53] may be thinking about that as well. And then is this going to be set
[1:07:01] for a certain period? I mean because we're not going to have this through the
[1:07:05] winter months. No as you recall your ordinance expires sometime in the
[1:07:09] October and so all this goes away unless the council changes um that that directive so right
[1:07:16] now we have a hot stop and I believe it's like a week after Columbus Day or in this person's day
[1:07:23] it's just this this park here I mean every time I go by there's always a bunch of people in it and
[1:07:28] a bunch of kids in it so I I guess you know I I think one of them brought their own little
[1:07:35] canopy the other day and had it set up on Sunday. They had their kids' birthday party
[1:07:40] there or something. So I just want to make sure we have enough space for the residents.
[1:07:47] It looks like we do based on this right now, but I'll wait. And once I see everything else,
[1:07:52] thank you.
[1:07:53] Thank you.
[1:07:54] Mark?
[1:07:55] Yeah. One of the questions was how are they going to power the airstream, which
[1:08:06] another entity that they want to put up a hot dog cart, you know, another air stream,
[1:08:15] and they want to put up a generator, are we going to allow a second, a third, a fourth,
[1:08:21] and a fifth, you know, these other entities that want to come and also take advantage
[1:08:27] of the park?
[1:08:30] So my answer, I believe the answer is going to be unlikely. I mean at some point, we take
[1:08:38] the public space and the public no longer has a right to that. I think you are going to
[1:08:42] end up as the new alterable approval of this, going to decide where is that saturation point.
[1:08:49] So what we're going to do is we're going to allow either one or two entities, whatever
[1:08:55] the number is to have financial gain by using a public property. So, my next piece is, can I go
[1:09:04] and set up a hot dog and hamburger stand over at the beach? Because the beach is public and I want
[1:09:12] to be able to put up an air stream over there so I can sell hamburgers and hot dogs. And I'm not
[1:09:18] asking the questions to be flipped. I'm not. But for me, we're allowing the you in this particular
[1:09:25] case, we're allowing the use of a public space that's used by many people and many citizens
[1:09:31] in that area of the city who do not have yards. They do not have the ability to go out and play
[1:09:37] and enjoy. They go to this park, which is in excellent condition right now. And we're going
[1:09:43] to coordinate off a section of it for somebody to have financial gain. And, you know, I applaud
[1:09:50] the effort and I applaud the idea, but it's
[1:09:57] everybody, every business would have to have
[1:10:03] the ability to go and locate there if they want to. It can't be just he who comes first.
[1:10:10] I'm sorry, folks, in my mind, that's just wrong.
[1:10:13] Okay, I would like to help, but for me, it's unfair.
[1:10:19] It is. Thank you, folks.
[1:10:21] I just think I'd like to add to that is that, of course, it's an emergency situation.
[1:10:26] They invested over $100,000 in that facility and they haven't really made much because they can close down.
[1:10:31] My argument would be whether it's that park or the park that abuts Elm Street and Main Street or any other park.
[1:10:37] If we can save some businesses in the temporary short-term, I think it's incumbent upon us
[1:10:42] just to do that to resuscitate our community.
[1:10:46] And it's not a perfect system, and I get what Mark's saying, but I just think that it's
[1:10:51] something that the community, that we have to do.
[1:10:55] Mark?
[1:10:55] Yeah, just one last piece, and a good point, you know, Mayor, and I appreciate that.
[1:11:00] but the the idea of an investment into a business is that you invest in a business with the hopes
[1:11:09] that it's going to be successful, but not all businesses are successful. There are other folks
[1:11:14] that invested in things that they have in the city, but the rules of the city have changed
[1:11:19] since their investments have been done and they're not making as much money for their
[1:11:23] investments and they've invested more money than the hundred thousand dollars.
[1:11:26] So, Ergo, can they come to the city and say, hey, listen, I need your help.
[1:11:30] You know, I need to make more money because of some of the decisions that you made and,
[1:11:33] you know, you're helping this person, now you've got to help me.
[1:11:36] And again, I'm not being flip, folks, I'm not.
[1:11:41] And I understand the argument, and Mayor, with all due respect, I respect the town.
[1:11:48] But for me, it's looking to spread the peanut butter evenly on a piece of bread
[1:11:54] to not have chunky peanut butter this poison. Thank you. Amy? Yeah, so I'm already getting
[1:12:04] texts about this from business owners right now in real time asking if they can also get
[1:12:10] a quarter of that park. And so I think we need to hold off on this idea until we have
[1:12:17] a coherent plan about public spaces. Because at this point, we need to be sure that we're
[1:12:26] doing things that support everybody. And I'm not at all – I am very sensitive to the needs of
[1:12:36] Magnus. I'm very sensitive to the needs to not use up all the parking spaces, filling them with
[1:12:41] two tops if we could use park space just a little bit of it that still reserves the park
[1:12:47] space for the people like I understand what we're talking about I like the idea of closing
[1:12:52] streets more than I like the idea of closing parks quite frankly but I think at this moment
[1:12:59] I'm very nervous to support this until we have a plan in place that addresses other
[1:13:05] public spaces and is more equitable among people.
[1:13:14] Where am I, Norm?
[1:13:16] I guess I'm somewhere between Amy and Mark.
[1:13:19] You know, I'm comfortable.
[1:13:21] I mean, it's nice to do stuff equally.
[1:13:23] Do everyone give equal opportunity.
[1:13:25] But we've already done stuff that isn't equal for the sake of this pandemic.
[1:13:28] I mean, people are allowed to have stuff outside of their restaurant.
[1:13:32] I'm not allowed to bring a hot dog cart outside their restaurant to sell hot dogs.
[1:13:35] So, and again, I realized Mark was, you know, just pushing the example and pushing the envelope.
[1:13:40] But nonetheless, we're already doing stuff because this is a truly unusual time
[1:13:45] to try to keep, allow people to keep their head afloat. And in this particular case,
[1:13:49] this park space has to be, happens to be very close to Magnus on the water.
[1:13:53] And so it's more in the mindset of, to me, the parking, you know, the sidewalks next to
[1:13:58] a restaurant that we're allowing some people to use and not other people. We don't allow
[1:14:02] anyone in town to come use it. Though I do think we need to get more public input so I don't think
[1:14:08] we should approve it tonight and just say to staff go ahead do it I think we you know we should
[1:14:13] direct the staff to come back to us make sure the public has a chance to weigh in on this issue
[1:14:18] we may or may not agree with the public that I have to say so I do think this is a good thing
[1:14:23] I think we should be doing stuff to throw people a lifeline so they can survive this pandemic
[1:14:28] in this, you know, unusual times. And I don't think you necessarily make it, you know, open
[1:14:32] it up to all in this meeting. You know, we may come up with a program. But I don't think
[1:14:36] we necessarily need rules for all public spaces because we've already done, to a certain extent,
[1:14:40] an exception with regard to sidewalks. So I think we can make an exception here too if
[1:14:45] the council deems fit, given the particular circumstances of this particular case. Thanks.
[1:14:51] Thank you. Anybody else?
[1:14:55] I mean, it's an emergency situation, I mean, every week.
[1:15:00] That we missed is another week that someone's in more financial trouble. I don't think that
[1:15:04] there's going to be a rush there because as Norm indicated, excuse my dog, as Norm indicated
[1:15:10] that Magus of Butts that there are really no other businesses nearby that really can take
[1:15:16] advantage of that the way they can. I've got my hand up.
[1:15:21] You can do, of course, is that council authorized that, you know, some time ago that staff
[1:15:26] can make decisions unless there were some indication that the council was questioning that then it
[1:15:33] can come back to the council. I don't like the idea of it going to policy because it's too far away
[1:15:38] and then it's going to come back to the council so I have no problem whatsoever putting on the
[1:15:42] agenda for next Wednesday. You know if that's what the council wants to do. I have no problem
[1:15:47] with saying staff do it tonight but you know obviously there's a different opinion there.
[1:15:52] Is that a hand up or was one that never came down?
[1:15:54] No, it's been up. It was up when Mark was talking, but his first time. The, you know,
[1:16:03] the Airstream is the problem because, you know, a lot of places could bring it. And Magnus
[1:16:10] is already, we already gave them the street and we sold them the parks. They got all
[1:16:14] that other outside seating also. So it's not like they don't have a lot of outdoor
[1:16:20] seating that they couldn't arrange it within their own facility and on the sidewalk besides
[1:16:26] if we gave them some park space. But setting an airstream up is just, you know, if you're
[1:16:33] if you're going to sell the burgers or whatever other restaurants down there that wants to
[1:16:37] buy an airstream because that's an investment too. So thank you.
[1:16:44] Amy. Yeah, I just want to clarify what I'm looking
[1:16:49] for from staff. I'm not saying, I did not mean to say that we should have a very detailed
[1:16:55] plan about every public space, but I think we need to keep in mind that once we do this,
[1:17:00] the palace would like to have the back of Chetanel Park. Well, okay, that's reasonable,
[1:17:05] but then the wine bar is close to there. Like, we just have to know the can of worms
[1:17:11] that were opening and think hard about how we're going to make those decisions
[1:17:16] in a way that's fair to everybody, who is a restaurant, who has some amount of outdoor
[1:17:23] space, because Magnus does have quite a bit of outdoor space to start with.
[1:17:28] I think it's not a terrible imposition to say, give us like one council meeting to try
[1:17:33] and figure this out, because I do think this is an important decision to get right for
[1:17:38] the benefit of all the other businesses in town.
[1:17:42] Thank you, Bob.
[1:17:46] I was just going to say that I was like yourself, Mr. Mayor, I'm all in favor of doing this
[1:17:53] for Magnus ASAP.
[1:17:55] I know everything you guys have spoken about and I agree with some of it, but just anecdotally
[1:18:02] I guess, or maybe as an example, my friend owns one of the busier breakfast joints in
[1:18:08] Bitterford.
[1:18:09] On a normal Saturday she would sell 400 plates.
[1:18:12] now she's down to 137 and that's with outside seating curbside and separating
[1:18:19] the inside tables by every six feet so the quicker we can get these companies
[1:18:25] some relief I think better and as far as making it even I look at it this way
[1:18:35] we drive by 99 restaurant and they have the luxury of having a big parking lot
[1:18:40] And yet they were probably able to take, you know, maybe 50 square feet and turning into
[1:18:45] an outside dining room, whereas some of the main street places like Caldwell can't do that.
[1:18:51] So I think it's kind of just leveling the playing field.
[1:18:55] I think somebody will leave Caldwell and say, well, let's put a 99 because, you know,
[1:19:01] those reasons I just said.
[1:19:02] So I'm all in support of doing whatever needs to be done to help these businesses
[1:19:06] spread.
[1:19:07] Thanks.
[1:19:07] Thanks.
[1:19:09] Thank you, Bob.
[1:19:11] Jim?
[1:19:14] Yeah, just procedurally,
[1:19:17] the policy, the way you've set that up, is that if there was
[1:19:20] some concern, it was going to go to policy, because policy could pull the meeting off
[1:19:24] pretty quickly and make that decision.
[1:19:27] You're next official council meeting isn't until two weeks.
[1:19:30] And so you would—that was the rationale the council used at that time to make it
[1:19:37] go to policy.
[1:19:38] So, at this point, I think that unless you tell me something different, we would work
[1:19:44] with the Chair of the Policy Committee to try to have a quick meeting in order to be
[1:19:48] able to wrestle with this based on the way it's currently set up, unless you tell me
[1:19:54] something different in order to deal with that.
[1:19:57] From staff perspective, we've identified the public space other than the sidewalks.
[1:20:03] There is a proximity issue or relationship with these things so that the way that the policy
[1:20:11] or the ordinance was drafted was your business needs to be in location that or close proximity
[1:20:18] to it to be able to use that.
[1:20:20] So for instance, somebody could come in from, you know, a different part of the community
[1:20:28] and say, I want to stop on sidewalk in front of your particular business.
[1:20:33] That's really, that's not the intent of the audience.
[1:20:36] It has to be a relationship in terms of that the public space that a person wants to use
[1:20:44] has to be close to where that business is in order to make it part of that unless we
[1:20:49] ended up doing a whole street.
[1:20:52] And then at that point when you do the street, then you can open it up to other businesses
[1:20:57] that are in that area.
[1:20:58] That's the way we've been approaching it.
[1:21:01] Thank you, Jim. Mark?
[1:21:05] The biggest hurdle that I have with this particular one is being able to use an airstream. There
[1:21:10] are no other businesses that could set up in Chevenel Park and put an airstream.
[1:21:21] I want
[1:21:23] to help. I mean, I really, really do. But it's opening up a can of worms because if
[1:21:29] If we're allowing an airstream for one entity down at Mechanics Park, why can't another
[1:21:36] restaurant on Main Street also use an airstream?
[1:21:41] Because it doesn't have to be proximity to use an airstream.
[1:21:44] It's separately functioning than what the original address is for the current restaurant.
[1:21:52] And beyond restaurants, if somebody has a place where they sell clothes or they sell jewelry,
[1:22:00] can they now put a 24 by 36 tent, like you see at a wedding, down at the park so they
[1:22:07] can have open house to be able to help them sell stuff?
[1:22:10] And should they have a right to be able to use the park because now you're allowing
[1:22:14] somebody else to use the park?
[1:22:19] Sorry, folks.
[1:22:21] Thanks.
[1:22:21] 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
[1:22:27] opening up a can of worms. I think the can of worms is open because of the pandemic.
[1:22:32] Nothing's normal. I think it's the same. And so even in terms of winners and losers,
[1:22:39] it's, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to satisfy or help everybody. It's
[1:22:42] just the way it is. The question is what can we do for the greater good? That's what
[1:22:48] going to boil down to. And I had no miracle answers myself, but I just see this as an opportunity.
[1:22:56] That's where I am. Could I ask a question to see if I can help move this along? We've already,
[1:23:04] from staff perspective, the sidewalk piece is already all set for them because nobody had
[1:23:09] concern about that. If they came back to us tomorrow and said they could do this without
[1:23:14] the air stream is that comfortable for the council given their proximity and more comfortable. Yes.
[1:23:24] Is that am I because I'm reading the air stream is sort of a trigger point here and I just want
[1:23:29] to make sure that I'm not making a conclusion is not that it's not the fair conclusion. No.
[1:23:36] I have no issue with the air stream and I wouldn't care for the company want to do it as well.
[1:23:41] So either way, you guys want to do this. I'm fine because
[1:23:49] I see two paths three paths here
[1:23:53] and I just want to make sure that we're doing what the council wants us to do.
[1:23:58] Path number one is we would get a hold of John and ask John to pull his policy committee
[1:24:04] together to wrestle with this particular application as it stands right now.
[1:24:09] So, option number two is they could reconfigure this without the airstream if they wanted
[1:24:15] to and then find out whether or not the council is okay without the airstream that they could
[1:24:20] proceed with it or is that not a fair conclusion based on the comments.
[1:24:24] I'm just trying to, I'm not trying to get you to do something.
[1:24:28] I'm just trying to understand what the issue is so that I can help direct where
[1:24:32] we need to go with that.
[1:24:34] John?
[1:24:37] I'd be I'd entertain it without the airstream. I still would you know, that's across the street
[1:24:43] So I still would have to figure out everything else. We've done has been right in front of businesses. It hasn't been
[1:24:50] You know across the street and I just like to know what the plan is to get whatever it is across the street
[1:24:58] 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
[1:25:07] I don't think the liquor license would allow them to do that, John.
[1:25:10] But what I'm hearing is you would like to know what the details are on how that would
[1:25:14] work but not necessarily have to have it before the committee so that you could then react
[1:25:19] to it.
[1:25:20] Is that what I'm hearing?
[1:25:22] Yeah.
[1:25:22] I mean, based on what everybody was saying, you could draw up a plan and if there's
[1:25:26] no harm in that one and you get no feedback and everybody says, okay, then we're
[1:25:32] good.
[1:25:32] But if one counselor says there's a problem, let's pull a policy committee meeting as soon
[1:25:38] as we can.
[1:25:39] And the last one we had at 10 o'clock in the morning.
[1:25:41] I mean, we could pull one together as long as Norm and Doris and everybody else can make
[1:25:48] it.
[1:25:48] We can do it during the day.
[1:25:50] I mean, we did the last one during the day.
[1:25:55] Thank you.
[1:25:55] Norm and Amy, and I'm assuming Rob's hand is just up from Previsio.
[1:26:00] Norm?
[1:26:00] Okay. So, you know, for me, the air stream is not the issue. So I know some for some
[1:26:04] people that it, but that's to me, it's not an issue. But, you know, I think, you know,
[1:26:09] if they want to come back and propose with without an air stream, I don't, you know,
[1:26:12] I don't think we should wait until the next proposal comes to start setting up that that
[1:26:16] policy committee meeting, John, because it takes a time to get find people in opening
[1:26:20] the people schedule. So I would suggest let's do that on, you know, and if if
[1:26:24] it turns out no one objects, we come up with something and no one objects, we
[1:26:28] we can always cancel the meeting,
[1:26:29] but I would like to make sure we get on this quickly.
[1:26:31] As everyone knows, summer is short here,
[1:26:33] so the sooner we get this thing approved,
[1:26:35] if that's where, if we're going to,
[1:26:37] as soon as we act on this one way or another,
[1:26:39] the better right there.
[1:26:40] Thanks.
[1:26:41] So then let's do this in common.
[1:26:43] Can you see what the availability is?
[1:26:45] We'll give them tomorrow to come up with a plan
[1:26:47] availability for a policy committee meeting for Thursday,
[1:26:52] somewhere between 10 o'clock in the morning
[1:26:55] and two o'clock in the afternoon?
[1:27:00] Uh, Amy, then Bill.
[1:27:04] Yeah, just real quickly.
[1:27:05] For me, it's not about the Airstream.
[1:27:07] It's about that being a public resource.
[1:27:09] And if we're going to, it's not a contiguous public resource.
[1:27:13] It's not like their sidewalk.
[1:27:17] It's a space that everybody has equal right to.
[1:27:20] They don't have extra rights to it
[1:27:22] because they're nearby, like with the sidewalk.
[1:27:24] 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
[1:27:32] Pavilion and rent a whole bunch of picnic tables and say anybody who gets take out anywhere
[1:27:37] Come and sit at our dining pavilion and have somebody from public works come and clean it up every night
[1:27:43] Like I just want to make damn sure that we feel good about giving this away
[1:27:48] Because we don't have all the parks in the world to do this for everybody
[1:27:52] And I'm already getting requests from various businesses who are like, okay, well, if it's
[1:27:56] about proximity, can I have a corner of the Foss Street parking lot?
[1:28:01] Like, I think we need to try and figure it out more strategically than just the knee-jerk
[1:28:07] reaction of trying to do the most good for the person who asked first.
[1:28:12] Though I want to do good for them, and I'm very sensitive to the time.
[1:28:16] And speaking of time, I have a hard stop at 7.30 and have to jump on another call.
[1:28:20] I'll be interested to see how this turns out.
[1:28:23] Thank you all and good night.
[1:28:27] Bill?
[1:28:28] Yeah.
[1:28:29] You know, a lot of good comments and I want to be just careful that we don't talk ourselves
[1:28:35] into the perfect solution here that, you know, I think, Alan, as you said, it's for
[1:28:40] the greater good.
[1:28:40] It's for the participants.
[1:28:42] You know, it's for the people that want to go and eat there at different places.
[1:28:46] So the perfect solution is to do nothing because then it doesn't change anything and to me that's just not an option
[1:28:53] You know that I want to be real careful. We don't talk ourselves into doing nothing. I think this is a unique time
[1:28:59] I think this is you know stressful for everyone for the businesses for the people who
[1:29:05] 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
[1:29:11] It's not gonna be perfect, but dammit. Let's do something
[1:29:16] Thank you. Thank you, Doris
[1:29:20] I I would agree with with bill there. I feel like their stream isn't an issue for me
[1:29:28] the fairness is and
[1:29:31] In the timing we know summer is short we need to get on this right away
[1:29:35] So whatever we can do to figure it out would be great
[1:29:38] I'm wondering if maybe their situation could be one where
[1:29:43] where they can have tables in the parking spaces and also on their sidewalks.
[1:29:49] And they have the park next door if we decide not to go with them putting the air stream
[1:29:56] in the park.
[1:29:57] But again, I just wanted to say that we need to
[1:30:00] Act on this right away and try to think outside of the box and try to support them. That's it.
[1:30:05] Thanks, guys. Thanks, Dars.
[1:30:11] Anybody else?
[1:30:18] So,
[1:30:20] I mean, John's willing to hold a committee meeting on
[1:30:23] Thursday. Is that the route people want to go?
[1:30:31] John? I thought we were going to see what staff
[1:30:34] came up with between tomorrow, send it out, and if anybody had an issue, then we were going to
[1:30:40] take a rate to policy on Thursday. We're going to give one more crack at it to come
[1:30:44] up with something to see if the council could all buy off on it. And if anybody objected,
[1:30:49] then we would take a rate to policy. So we're setting up a policy meeting for Thursday,
[1:30:54] and we're giving staff tomorrow to come up with something. So if they don't come
[1:30:58] up with anything that's amenable to the council, then we'll take it to policy.
[1:31:02] And Carmen will work to set up a policy meeting on Thursday.
[1:31:05] first day?
[1:31:06] My sense is, John, based on the conversation that I think it would be helpful for the policy
[1:31:11] to have a discussion anyways, because, you know, so, for instance, yellows, their most
[1:31:18] likely space would be the small park that's next toward them. Now, there wouldn't be the
[1:31:23] same sort of demand like this, and it's a little different scenario, but it isn't
[1:31:28] different. It is, but it isn't. And so my sense is that it probably makes sense
[1:31:33] for you as the policy committee to have this at least general discussion even if you don't have
[1:31:39] this application to be able to provide some guidance for us to be helpful as more of these
[1:31:44] opportunities come along or more of these requests come based on the conversation I heard today.
[1:31:50] I'm fine either way so all right. Mike. Yeah and I guess I just John had already said it I
[1:32:00] I thought that was the understanding too but something that you John said is the standard on
[1:32:05] this that if one council has an objection then it doesn't go forward? Not on this particular item but
[1:32:13] on the ones that Robbie's been sending forward if someone has an objection it doesn't go forward?
[1:32:23] But there haven't been any objections I requested people to email me and several people did not
[1:32:33] I don't know if that should be the case that one of one councilor can you know slow a whole
[1:32:41] process down shouldn't it just be majority like like for everything else that's just kind
[1:32:47] of what I was thinking and I was going to say something similar to councilor ready about
[1:32:51] you know if one if one councilor objects and it goes to politics
[1:32:57] I don't know. I don't know if that's the right way to do it. I think it just, it sounds
[1:33:02] like paralysis from over analysis. So that's all I got.
[1:33:09] And I think the reason why that was somewhat put together was so that we didn't have to
[1:33:15] have a council meeting to vote on each and every one of these. That was the main premise
[1:33:20] of how that came about and policy just got picked for it, but that was the main premise
[1:33:28] so that we could move these along really fast instead of half and a half.
[1:33:32] The businesses wait every two weeks to the council met.
[1:33:35] We let staff do the decision and do that because otherwise if we need to go back to
[1:33:42] doing every two weeks with the council meeting, that's so you can debate it.
[1:33:46] That's not the question. The question is, should it be one person has an objection or
[1:33:51] that stops it? And that sends it to the policy with one objection?
[1:33:58] That's the way that order got voted on.
[1:34:01] Yeah.
[1:34:02] Jim?
[1:34:03] Yeah, the reason we stood up with that extreme was because of this very concern, because
[1:34:09] we anticipated from a staff perspective that we would get some request, particularly
[1:34:14] with the history of some of the alcohol questions in public box.
[1:34:19] And so we wanted to make sure that there wasn't something that happened
[1:34:22] that blew up all the other really good items.
[1:34:25] Now that you've had, you know, maybe that's a discussion on Thursday,
[1:34:29] the policy committee ought to have and say,
[1:34:31] okay, do we really still need to have it at one
[1:34:34] or should we save two or three members now have an injection to it?
[1:34:38] Because as you, some of you know that have served on the council
[1:34:41] as long as I've been the city manager here.
[1:34:44] In times past, there would be a particular councilor because their particular stance on alcohol,
[1:34:50] they would have an objection to any of these issues.
[1:34:54] And so that may have caused us some issues in the past on that particular area.
[1:35:02] So maybe that, now that you've had some chance to look at these things and understand
[1:35:06] it, maybe that's also a discussion that the policy committee could have on Thursday
[1:35:11] as well to revisit that one one concern triggers the review. Speaking as a person that's voted against
[1:35:20] allowing any alcohol in the parks I don't have a problem with this situation because typically when
[1:35:26] we're asked to allow you know nonprofits or whatever to as part of their event to have
[1:35:33] alcohol in the parks we're not in the middle of the pandemic that's driving businesses out of
[1:35:38] business through no fault of their own so I just I was I didn't realize that
[1:35:44] that was the intent of the vote was one person if that's that's the way it was
[1:35:49] written that's the way it was written council ready I wasn't referring to you
[1:35:52] by the way no it's a but I I've said it to Robbie several times but I I wanted
[1:35:57] to make clear that that's not the case this situation thank you Mike mark so
[1:36:05] So my last piece on this, and yes, I want to help people just like everybody else.
[1:36:14] My day job requires me to go into this type of thing, which is, well, what kind of airstream
[1:36:20] are we talking about?
[1:36:21] Is it a 12-footer or is it a 48-footer?
[1:36:24] They have, that's the length of these things.
[1:36:28] Is it a 1952 airstream that's all beat up and patched together with duct tape
[1:36:33] or is a nice brand new shiny one that will be down at the park.
[1:36:38] You know, we don't know which version that's going to be.
[1:36:41] And I would think that even though we want to allow if that was to happen,
[1:36:45] I think people would say, you know what, I'd rather see a brand new nice shiny one down there
[1:36:49] because it would look better for everything versus a old 50-year-old beat-up one
[1:36:53] helped by, you know, with duct tape.
[1:36:55] And I would rather have the generator be 40 decibels instead of at 78 decibels.
[1:37:01] you know, from a noise standpoint. So, anyways, thank you folks for your indulgence.
[1:37:09] So, I guess the way it's going to work is that staff will engage with them tomorrow
[1:37:15] and come up with a secondary plan with or without that airstream.
[1:37:22] We send it out to the council. If there's objection, it goes to policy.
[1:37:27] I mean, that's a pretty quick turnover time, obviously, if we can get it out by Thursday.
[1:37:33] Everybody happy with that?
[1:37:34] I mean, not happy, but everybody, after I've already told you, it's going to be a short
[1:37:38] meeting.
[1:37:40] Is that okay?
[1:37:42] Yeah.
[1:37:42] Any objections to that format?
[1:37:44] No.
[1:37:45] No.
[1:37:46] Okay.
[1:37:47] If we have one.
[1:37:48] Anything, Steve?
[1:37:49] Is that your hand?
[1:37:51] No.
[1:37:51] No, I'm ready to sign out.
[1:37:53] Yeah.
[1:37:53] Oh, my gosh.
[1:37:54] all right close the workshop thank you goodnight everybody night all thanks
[1:38:05] everyone