[0:08] Okay, let's call the ordinance committee at 6.21 p.m. Order. First on the agenda, minutes

[0:17] from December 18th. Motion approved minutes. Second. All in favor. Aye. There are no

[0:26] resolutions to review. Under the ordinances to review, the first ordinance is 2024-1 and

[0:36] ordinance establishing a resident only parking permit program. Is there a motion to discuss?

[0:41] So moved.

[0:41] Second. All in favor?

[0:43] Aye.

[0:50] So Mr. Administrator, I think you have submitted this. Do you want to walk us through this

[0:57] or how do you want to tackle?

[0:58] Sure. So, again, when we first started talking about this, the discussions and the thought

[1:08] process went back to the Maria's Kitchen discussions a few months ago when there was concerns about

[1:14] living in parking down there and some of the parking issues.

[1:19] After we started looking around,

[1:21] and again, I'm a firm believer in not having to necessarily agree about the wheel, I started looking

[1:24] looking around other communities.

[1:26] Well, they have ordinances for resident parking

[1:28] because we had none in place for the town.

[1:31] We've got to look at some larger communities,

[1:34] new ports and other ones that have about 16-page ordinances

[1:38] because of all the residential and tourist parking

[1:41] that's down there.

[1:43] Trying to find something that was a little more closer

[1:45] to a community similar to Lincoln at the same time,

[1:48] Cumberland was going through a similar issue

[1:51] with some congested areas with limited parking

[1:53] the residents and I had a conversation with their solicitor and what you're

[1:58] seeing here is a draft of what they've done. We made a couple minor adjustments to

[2:03] make a reflex. Our town, I'm just showing you some short-circuit language and you get what we need to be tweaked in some

[2:10] considerations from the council on this but I will tell you that along with

[2:15] the Reyes Kitchen and a couple of street down that area, I had some

[2:19] concerns about and I've worked with Councilman Olney. I like just to drive. We have a piece of

[2:25] property over there that's down the land that some people have used to parking like where

[2:33] it's become issues. People leaving several cars four or five or something. We have loads of family

[2:38] houses on Union Street and they're kind of using it almost looks like a junkyard in the backyard

[2:42] like the people that live over on the other streets are seeing this all the time. So we

[2:48] you need to find a way to control people that park over there,

[2:51] some type of accountability and who's allowed to park there.

[2:55] And the process with police department to enforce that

[2:57] if people have parked over there,

[2:58] they're not permitted to do so.

[3:01] The other part of the talent was a concern for me

[3:05] and not so much right now,

[3:07] but certainly next year is School Street.

[3:10] We have that park that's off the School Street

[3:13] and when you go down to Berkshire Drive,

[3:14] All right, the Disa is a town parking lot,

[3:17] and there's consistently a bunch of cars over there

[3:20] parked all the time.

[3:22] Because it's off the side,

[3:23] there's not a lot of cars there all the time,

[3:25] it's not that problematic.

[3:26] However, when the reconstruction,

[3:28] reconstruction of the school street happens,

[3:30] there's gonna be very limited parking

[3:31] for the people that live on school street.

[3:33] So we're gonna need that town land,

[3:35] we're gonna need that town parking lot

[3:36] for the residents of the school street to park over there.

[3:39] So we need to make sure that we're ensuring

[3:41] that the people that are there

[3:42] They're supposed to be there and have the provision in town.

[3:46] So that's sort of the inception of this.

[3:48] Again, I know it's showing some concerns

[3:50] on potential overreach or some constituents wanting

[3:56] to get in their question of different Negroes.

[3:59] I think it has to be the council and their constituents

[4:03] to find out where this would be appropriately applied.

[4:06] Who's going to control it?

[4:08] I do think that the idea of having the police department

[4:11] being the point of contact as far as getting a parking sticker or if we so

[4:18] are inclined to give a parking sticker or as a parking sticker out to a person

[4:23] that they control the registration for that sticker that you keep the

[4:27] capability for because at the end of the day they're the ones that would be going out

[4:30] there to enforce until people are a little crowded.

[4:40] I understand those two instances you talked about with the

[4:43] license to drive in school street. My concern in the neighborhoods, for example like where Maria's

[4:49] restaurant is, I just have a feeling that residents might regret if we do something like this in the

[4:54] neighborhoods. I know personally I work in a service business to one of people's homes and when I go

[5:00] into a neighborhood that has resident only parking it becomes a nightmare. You know if these people

[5:05] need work done in their house they have a party, you know things like that. You know some

[5:10] Some of these towns, like Cambridge Mast, they have visitor passes, you have to hand out,

[5:14] and you're going to find a space.

[5:17] I'm just afraid that it might be something that some people might regret, but I think

[5:22] we'd have to hear from people if they want it in their community.

[5:27] Other than that, I think the two you talked about are not problematic because it's more

[5:32] of a parking lot area.

[5:34] So, but I mean, I've just been concerned about us going into too far into this and

[5:41] Having people regret it, you know down the road, so

[5:46] Yes, so

[5:48] When I spoke to the administrator about this this on late Chester's

[5:53] It's really important because it's turned into a

[5:57] Junk out of there people park wherever they want. That's all him

[6:01] They park wherever they want. Leaking oil. So the people on, what's the street?

[6:10] What's my, what's the street? Oh, that's actually my hope. Union Street.

[6:15] So Union Street, they'll come up the front doors, but then they go around the back to get the cars.

[6:21] Mainly one of two houses, mainly one house is really abusive.

[6:27] They've got vehicles parked all over, like I said, he's bringing cars in on flatbeds,

[6:31] oil's leaking all over the place, so the people on my chest are just going to look at this.

[6:35] So they're going to look at everybody else's garbage.

[6:38] Vehicles parked on grass, parked all over the place.

[6:41] Now some people have made space to go onto their property from town property.

[6:46] They've done it the correct way.

[6:48] They've made it look good. They've done it right.

[6:51] These folks in this one particular house have just turned into a parking lot.

[6:55] They paved over our land, and some other ones have, but again, it's been done

[7:00] properly. They don't have cause on that side. They use that area just to

[7:05] mainly go in and come out of the, these other folks are just blocking, they're

[7:10] parking the street. These people in Leiches have beautiful houses. They

[7:13] got beautiful land, they're trying to take care of it, and all they see is

[7:16] a scabbage. And we've tried, the town administrator, myself, the chief of

[7:21] We've done all we can to try and corral it any other way than doing it this way.

[7:26] We've tried every other way to doing it this way.

[7:29] Nothing's worked.

[7:30] So I mean, from my neighborhood, from my district, this is imperative to get done

[7:34] because it's the only way we can control that.

[7:37] I mean, some people, this guy's pocket cars don't even belong in a neighborhood.

[7:40] You've got two on a flatbed, two more on the ground.

[7:44] Like, we got no way to control it.

[7:46] This is our only way to control that area.

[7:51] And I think we'd only talk about areas that necessarily need this, and we'd probably take

[7:58] a good overview of that area first, see if there's any other ways we can solve the issue,

[8:02] and if not, then we could pull this ordinance in and use this ordinance for that type of

[8:07] situation.

[8:10] I know there's things like, obviously we're going to give some leeway on holidays or

[8:17] someone someone on that streets having a family birthday party or Christmas party

[8:21] they're just we'll have to send a letter out to everybody when this starts to say

[8:24] hey listen if you haven't something just give the police department a call let

[8:27] them know that you're gonna have extra cause here we're gonna be able to put

[8:30] parking kits on all of them but on these certain instances if we know you're

[8:35] there and what hours of people are gonna be there we can we can allow it but

[8:39] I mean, to your point, Kauffman, again, within the language of the ordinance, my recommendations

[8:46] would be allowable, and shall versus may.

[8:54] So you're giving the authority to, for the enforcement you need to, not saying this

[8:59] or that you're going to, there's got to be some latitude, right, some discretion

[9:04] and within the town, I think it would make sure you write the ordinance.

[9:08] We had that latitude, we had that discretion, you know, you don't want to go into

[9:12] start telling cars that somebody's having a birthday party

[9:15] or somebody has to come see overnight

[9:17] to take care of a sick relative or something.

[9:21] But again, if you saw something like that happening,

[9:24] you made contact and say, listen,

[9:26] need to have a sicker, you don't have a sicker,

[9:28] but to Bruce's point, you guys bought hands a lot of cars

[9:32] and all of a sudden somebody's having,

[9:35] he's got his cousin keeping his car parked

[9:37] there for two or three weeks.

[9:39] It's legally registered.

[9:40] So if it's not registered, then the police department can tow it off the talent.

[9:44] But if it is registered, and but it's registered out of something of these prominence,

[9:48] and it's been there for two weeks, it hasn't turned to tire.

[9:51] It becomes very difficult for us to take enforcement on that, or it's a police officer going back to station,

[9:56] making a phone call to a phone number that may or may not work,

[9:59] leaving the message and not being able to track somebody down.

[10:01] So as long as, you know, if we have the ordinance in place, we have proper signage saying,

[10:05] and parking your own risks, parking your own, parking your own.

[10:08] Parking stickers are required for some permits

[10:12] and any questions will have the police

[10:13] to park you number there.

[10:14] Call 333-111 and they can call.

[10:18] And again, we would request people

[10:20] to let us stay there for a couple days,

[10:21] take care of a relative and it's going to be there

[10:23] temporarily, maybe they shouldn't know enough

[10:25] to call it but say, I'm here this is why.

[10:28] And then we don't go to let,

[10:30] we had that discretion.

[10:31] Well,

[10:36] I don't know how I feel about this because I'm certainly sympathetic to

[10:44] to Councilman Omni's situation down there that one of the residents approached

[10:51] me,

[10:54] you know, I had to explain to him, not my district, but you know he was

[11:00] certainly passionate about what's going on down there and Lychester Drive so

[11:04] So, you know, I do think that we need to address that problem.

[11:09] People are taking care, taking advantage of the situation down there, you know, and I

[11:13] certainly see the issue in that parking lot behind Alton Park, right, that perhaps, you

[11:20] know, people leave unregistered cars there or something like that.

[11:24] So I think we need to do something.

[11:26] But this, you know, I think back, it's a little reminiscent for me of being on

[11:32] on the zoning board when everyone on Great Road

[11:34] wanted the historic district.

[11:36] And I finally got elected to the council

[11:38] and I spent months and months and months

[11:40] on the historic district.

[11:41] And those same people that cried for the historic district

[11:44] were before me crying against the historic district.

[11:48] So, you know, I look at the constituency on Maria Street

[11:53] and while they were here saying that they wanted relief,

[11:56] they wanted the town to do something.

[11:58] Now, if we make that resident park,

[12:00] I almost see those same faces coming before us saying what are you doing?

[12:05] I you know, I this is ridiculous. I have to call I'm having a visitor

[12:09] So on and so forth and the same thing may be with the people at Leichester

[12:14] I would hate they're having a serious problem down there. So now we implement this this

[12:21] parking district and

[12:23] now either you know

[12:26] Somebody's some good resident. We have decides not to follow it. We tag the car

[12:31] You know, they they come to to the municipal court. How could you do this? Well, that's it

[12:36] So I'm just I'm not saying that I'm against it

[12:40] I do have some concerns. I share the concerns. It's like be careful what you wish for, you know, I

[12:49] Would almost like to see some kind of

[12:55] Like, for example, this light chest to drive, maybe we send some kind of mail to those people

[13:06] in that area and then just to get their feedback on, do you want us to do this on your street?

[13:12] I mean, these are just some ideas and some concerns that I have.

[13:16] I don't know what your thought or the thoughts are that-

[13:19] Well, I'm sorry I just had an emergency call, but yeah, so, you know, the people on Union probably would have a problem with us doing this,

[13:27] because that benefits them on Union. The people on Lightchester will not have a problem. They're going to be very happy.

[13:33] People on Lightchester are very particular about their properties, keeping them clean, keeping them nice.

[13:39] There's no cars parked on Lightchester Street from Lightchester. They park in their driveway, they sweep along their curves.

[13:47] they're very particular about it but then they've got people from the next

[13:51] street over bringing their abandoned vehicles you know those abandoned

[13:56] vehicles and sometimes they're out there talking and late at night and they're

[14:00] dropping bottles and stuff like that so I mean wait for me and those folks on

[14:06] my chest it's important yeah Union I mean I mean I have a problem

[14:17] It's one or two houses that are on Union Street that are becoming the problems because there are people who take great good care of the yards.

[14:29] They have had issues, they parked what they were doing respectfully, but this will again allow us to address the ones that we've tried.

[14:36] We reached out on several types to contact the owner of one of the properties down there.

[14:42] More return phone calls kind of told us to go found sand.

[14:49] Really, it's been problematic, but we haven't had the enforcement tool in place for registered cars

[14:55] and because there's other cars that are doing the right thing and they're being respectful.

[15:01] This is just more of a tool to have the toolbox to further enforce and make sure that it's nice for everyone that was down that area.

[15:08] So, what I would say, Mr. Chairman, to if you'd like, I could do a little bit of canvassing on Leichester Street, see what the feelings are on it.

[15:17] Again, I don't think they have to do it on union because it's not the street.

[15:23] I mean, so I could talk to everybody in Leichester Street and say, this is what we're thinking of doing.

[15:27] would your folks have a problem with it?

[15:29] And if anybody says they have a problem with it,

[15:31] I'd bring them back to the committee and say,

[15:32] listen, they have a problem with it.

[15:33] I really don't think they're going to, but I'm not afraid of it.

[15:35] Well, what about the people on Union?

[15:37] People on Union live on Union Street, not on Leichester Street.

[15:40] They're back at their houses.

[15:41] They're back at their houses on Leichester Street.

[15:44] And like the administrator said, this is only one of two people.

[15:47] The rest of the people on Union,

[15:49] it's not going to affect because they're doing the right thing.

[15:52] They're parking in the driveways.

[15:53] They're keeping off the land. They take care of the land.

[15:55] It's these two people and we've looked at every way to try and resolve this but this

[16:00] So this gives us our tool to try and get them under control the other people on Union

[16:06] They're pretty much compliant, but when I tell you these two these two properties

[16:11] Give us enough of a headache and have enough vehicles back there to make it look like sometimes looks like a Walmart parking lot

[16:17] I'm not just disrespecting Walmart, but it does it's cause everywhere and it's no reason for it

[16:23] It's a three-family house and to be honest with you, I think one of the guys is just using it as his workplace

[16:29] He runs his business out of there, you know and the people on my chest who pay taxes do what they're supposed to keep their street clean

[16:37] I've got to be affected by this. It's not right. It just it just seems like you're saying it's two people and

[16:45] we're going to

[16:47] And I don't want to say burden because that's not the right word

[16:49] But we're going to have to ask these people who are obeying the law and good neighbors to come in and register

[16:58] and get their permit and then if they're having guests staying for a few nights, they're going to have to call the police department.

[17:06] And they're going to have to, I guess, be burdened is the best way, or inconvenienced.

[17:13] They're inconvenienced because of these other properties.

[17:18] Is there something that can be done?

[17:21] Are you familiar with the situation?

[17:22] Is there any action that the town could take

[17:24] other than implementing this?

[17:27] It sounds like there's not.

[17:29] By the way, we've been dealing with light chest

[17:32] to drive for years.

[17:34] This isn't a new issue.

[17:36] This is something that actually bubbled up

[17:37] for the council many years ago

[17:39] and it hasn't been resolved.

[17:41] And I think that this is basically an enabled ordinance

[17:44] that would allow you to better police, like Chester Drive, I think Councilman only is correct.

[17:51] It's not everybody, it's a couple of people over there, this ordinance would address that issue.

[17:58] One of the people that had been a vocal and speaking to Councilman only and myself,

[18:05] but I was like, well why don't you stick it all in the parking?

[18:08] And that would become a cumbersome and problematic for some of the people that are doing the right thing.

[18:13] and they're taking care of the backside of the property and they're parking where they should be

[18:17] and they only have one or two cars, but they turn it entirely into parking as a solution,

[18:24] but my guess is it's probably going to be more problematic for a lot of people.

[18:32] So, you know, we can certainly try and make it an easy process, you know, we can sit there

[18:37] and do a racial thing for those folks that, you know, do have to do the right thing

[18:42] and they want to have a couple cars back there and they want to register we can send the

[18:46] traffic officer down there to put a mail in there and up to the process how to get a

[18:50] sicker and what not but this is again really you know just gives us the opportunity to address the problem.

[18:57] And just to piggyback off what the administrator said if we went down there and did the parking

[19:02] because like I said people on lettuce street it's like just say no parking on the street

[19:08] Then it is going to, it will burden one or two people on the Union because, again, most

[19:15] of the people on Union are parking in their driver, they cut through our land into their

[19:19] driver's clothes and geese, isn't it?

[19:20] You have a few, except for up near the top where the problem is causing.

[19:24] So to put no parking on there for everybody, it would be more cumbersome for those people

[19:33] that are doing the right thing than it would be for these other folks.

[19:37] This guy just, to be honest with you, one of the guys just pushing back.

[19:40] He just doesn't even own the property.

[19:42] Not even the owner of the property.

[19:43] But we've met the property owner in once and refused to come back in.

[19:47] So he just knows that it looks like he probably knows we've done everything we can.

[19:54] I mean, so he's just like, you know what, good luck with it.

[19:57] Because I think the people in the Maria's restaurant, we haven't heard from them in several months,

[20:05] so I think that the efforts, oh, you are.

[20:10] Say what?

[20:12] Well, I guess we'll hear from them in a public comment.

[20:16] Mr. June, if I may, I really studied this ordinance and after listening to what Councilman

[20:25] only said, I think the better way to handle this would be to have an ordinance regarding

[20:32] town property because that's what it seems to be as the main thing and separated out from streets

[20:41] because it's not that you're looking to have a lot of parking on the street,

[20:45] you're looking to have parking on town property and I think a town property parking ordinance

[20:54] would be would be more appropriate. So Mr. President, the only fear I have of that

[20:58] is this gentleman would say, okay you're gonna let me park on the property, I'll

[21:02] just park on my vehicles on my Chester. He'll

[21:07] just put his flatbed with the two

[21:10] vehicles on top, his vehicles he's working on, he'll just put them on my Chester

[21:14] instead of on our property. So it'll be off our property but now they're on

[21:18] my Chester and these people still have to look at all this garbage. That's

[21:21] that's the only problem I see because he's that kind of fellow. He's just

[21:24] push, you push, you push, you push till you can't push no more. But I would love that idea if we were dealing with someone that would be more cooperative, that would be a great idea.

[21:41] Well, if I could make a suggestion, I certainly would like you to speak to the people, if you don't mind Bruce.

[21:53] And let's see if we can kind of come back around and in the meantime when we come to public comment

[22:01] our friends from the Maria's Restaurant District can add some maybe some color to this and maybe we can reconvene

[22:13] next month we'll have a little shopper picture.

[22:20] But again, I'm not against it, but nor am I really for it.

[22:27] The next month will give me a little more time where the weather is a little better for me to walk around.

[22:30] Okay, and you know, maybe I haven't been down there to see, I mean, I'm not familiar with the situation,

[22:37] so as you've talked to it, as some other people have talked to me about this,

[22:41] I really can't visualize what's going on.

[22:44] We'll do a field trip.

[22:45] The law says that we will do tours at any time.

[22:48] Okay.

[22:50] So, go ahead.

[22:51] Sure.

[22:51] I could just offer just a couple of other things.

[22:55] Line 17, section 180-18 where it talks about the creation of

[23:04] resident-only parking areas shall be based on neighborhood

[23:07] conditions, including density of the neighborhood, lack of

[23:11] driveways and motor-ball street parking, would it be possible to get a list of objective

[23:17] criteria as to what the density has to be, the driveways have to be, so that we could

[23:24] see it, or is that going to be subjective up to the police? Because the line above

[23:31] it states that we may permit resident only on the recommendation of the police department.

[23:38] That's actually a good suggestion and it's something that's doable.

[23:42] Your town plan will be able to provide that information for you.

[23:46] And then a Line 39 paragraph E

[23:54] where it talks about commercial vehicles.

[23:57] What would be the definition of a commercial vehicle?

[24:00] Would that be a pickup truck that has commercial plates on it?

[24:05] or does it have to be a vehicle that's registered to a business?

[24:10] I think generally a commercial vehicle is a gross weight.

[24:14] I mean, I know you have a commercial license plate on a regular truck,

[24:19] but I think it comes down to tonnage and weight for a vehicle.

[24:23] And we actually do have somewhere in place already for not having a commercial vehicle

[24:29] like a tow truck or a box truck parked on the other town street.

[24:42] And then in

[24:47] regards to guest parking, where it states guest parking may be permitted at

[24:52] the request of a permit holder, so that means somebody already has to have a permit and

[24:59] then is requesting guest parking. But it doesn't say for how long or daytime, overnight, two

[25:11] days, a week, what would be the guest parking. Or would that be, once again, subjective, end

[25:20] up to the police department to say, yes, you can have it for a week. Or you do have

[25:27] a sick parent so you're going to have an indefinite one so see the places I

[25:32] dealt with this with my work is they have like guest placards that you hang on

[25:36] your mirror but each household would only get two I don't know I mean that's

[25:43] how I dealt with resident only parking for work so just some that should be

[25:49] tightened up just some comments that came up maybe because sir if you were

[25:55] having an overnight guest stay for a series of nights, that would be a guest that you

[26:03] would want to let the police know about or get a flat guard or something like that, but

[26:09] you have somebody that's just showing up, a friend that's going to be over for coffee

[26:15] for an hour or comes over a person maybe assisting. I have people at my house that

[26:22] assist with my son, like, if they're coming in for two or three hours, right?

[26:28] Do they need to have to call Lincoln Police and have them?

[26:31] So what I would say to this too is that I think what we're trying to do is use this as a tool.

[26:38] So I don't think our police are going to go down there hunting for any cars.

[26:43] But it gives us the opportunity, like, okay, we can call the police department and say,

[26:47] He's got six cars down there with no parking permit.

[26:52] We're looking at resolving the problem for a few people.

[26:56] Our police ain't going to go down there and say,

[26:58] okay, we've got a car here.

[27:00] I think we want to use this as a tool to try and resolve the problem.

[27:05] I mean, I guess you could say we'd be picky.

[27:09] But I mean, as the officer goes down there,

[27:13] he probably wouldn't go down there hunting the cars.

[27:15] But he'd probably go down there on a call of a complaint from a resident or a councilman

[27:20] because someone's parked in four or five or six cars on the street.

[27:24] Obviously, if there's a car down the road, too, that just so happens to be there, well,

[27:28] then that's probably an issue.

[27:30] But, I mean, we also can imagine the situation where Mrs. Smith doesn't get along with

[27:35] Mrs. Jones.

[27:36] And every time Mrs. Jones has her daughter over for tea in the afternoon, Mrs. Smith

[27:41] this call on the Lincoln Police saying that she's never at the park. And if you

[27:47] remember I had this issue in Kendall Drive where we were trying to do

[27:51] something like that and everybody in Kendall, the people who wanted it were

[27:56] for it but the majority of everybody else was against it and that did not.

[28:01] I don't think we submitted that to committee. So again I'll say this. That was the

[28:05] on-screen call. I'll say this like I said I'm not just going to do light

[28:11] I'm going to go over to Union too because I know most of the people in Union and the problem is, a couple of houses in Union are multifamily. Everything on my chest is single family. Some on Union are single family, most of them are multifamily.

[28:26] I know most of the people over there, let me go over there and talk to them and see what everybody says and let me explain to them why we're looking to do what we do and get their honest opinion if they say no, I'm going to come back and honestly because I'm going to take names and say Mrs. Jones says she's not in for it and she lives at 51 Union.

[28:40] I mean, you know, what's his name from the water to the bottom?

[28:43] He lives on Leichester.

[28:44] He's definitely for it.

[28:45] So just let me do a little work.

[28:47] I mean, if we're going to do it, let's do it right.

[28:49] So we'll dig into it a little bit, do some legwork,

[28:53] and we'll see what happens.

[28:54] And we still have an address school street.

[28:57] And we should have a provision in here

[28:59] where each residency gets a couple of, like you said,

[29:05] permanent placards that they can hand to whomever

[29:07] if they can stick on the, right?

[29:11] Just hang it on the mirror.

[29:12] Yeah.

[29:13] And they would be like one day passes or something, I would think, or two day passes.

[29:19] So we probably should move on to the second ordinance because we've got ten minutes and

[29:23] then we're going to do some public comment as well.

[29:26] We sell the plates committee as well before 7 o'clock.

[29:29] Oh, so we're already over?

[29:30] Oh, yes.

[29:31] Oh, we're really over.

[29:33] Okay.

[29:33] Really?

[29:34] So I'll make a motion to defer.

[29:36] Second.

[29:36] Seconded defer, seconded, all in favor?

[29:38] Aye.

[29:39] Aye.

[29:39] Up next is ordinance 2023-6, amendment to the salary ordinance, is there a motion to

[29:46] discuss?

[29:47] So moved.

[29:48] Second.

[29:48] All in favor?

[29:49] Aye.

[30:00] Okay, I feel like we've discussed this at length. Is that fair to say as to what the motivation is that, in general, the town of Lincoln needs to fairly compete with other communities, and unfortunately, our salaries through the salary study are woefully low.

[30:25] so this ordinance is giving a greater range based on statistical analysis so

[30:32] that the administration can offer more compensation to town employees that

[30:42] are deserving of that in order to retain our town employees. I know we've

[30:50] been going through this quite a bit so I don't know how much discussion we're

[30:53] going to have or we're just going to recommend it to the council or I would say councilman

[30:57] only has something to say.

[30:59] No, I'm just, I always worry about taxes but I also understand why we need to do what

[31:05] we do.

[31:06] So to me it's a double-edged sword but I mean we have to also retain people but that's

[31:13] my concern.

[31:14] And it's a range.

[31:16] Right, so we can, yeah we could be a little picky on it which is good but I mean I'm

[31:20] full agreement. I've talked to the administration several times. I'm full agreement. We need to

[31:24] keep our people. We can keep our people. I just want to just want to always keep my eye on the

[31:29] other ball too. Sure. I agree. You know I had some people after the story ran in the Valley

[31:35] Rees last week say you know why why are they that just getting the normal 3% like everybody

[31:40] else does and the difference is if you get 3% you can do that the next 10 years and we're

[31:44] still not going to catch up. We're still not going to be where we're supposed to be when

[31:48] when it comes to the salary ranges,

[31:50] we're at a lot of these positions

[31:51] where they're underpaid compared to other communities.

[31:54] So, this is why we need to revamp it

[31:58] and then go back to the old way of standard raises.

[32:02] So, but you know, I think a lot of that got missed

[32:05] and a lot of things get missed in stories,

[32:07] but that was a big thing.

[32:09] Amen to that.

[32:10] And there's a lot of positions that we have here

[32:14] at Town Hall that require professional certifications.

[32:19] And those people that have to be professionally certified

[32:23] can certainly get much more in the private sector

[32:27] and can go to some of our neighboring towns

[32:29] and get poached.

[32:33] Well, that's what I said to one of the people

[32:35] that commented about, you know, I only get 3%.

[32:37] I said, well, if you were offered a job

[32:39] to get 10,000 more doing your same job 15 minutes

[32:43] it's from home, you wouldn't take the job, you know, so, yeah.

[32:46] Okay, so is there a motion?

[32:48] Motion to recommend to the council

[32:50] to adopt the salary ordinance.

[32:52] Second.

[32:53] All in favor?

[32:54] Aye.

[32:55] Okay, and a public comment.

[32:57] I never have public comment

[32:58] on my subcommittee meeting, so.

[33:01] I welcome public comment.

[33:04] Do

[33:13] you knock on street, Nathan?

[33:18] First, I'd just like to commend Mr. O'Neill

[33:20] uncaring so much about his district.

[33:23] It's really refreshing to sit here

[33:25] and hear you say so much about your streets

[33:28] and the people and how you're having a burden

[33:31] and you're trying to help it.

[33:33] No offense, Mr. Maxu.

[33:35] I haven't had that at all.

[33:37] It's been a year that we've been coming here

[33:40] talking about it.

[33:41] Yes, we haven't been here for a couple of months.

[33:43] I enjoyed four to six weeks

[33:45] and then I don't know,

[33:46] I didn't have to deal with any traffic on our street.

[33:51] I think first I would want to say,

[33:53] if you came on our street last week,

[33:55] it was a week of Sundays, it was school vacation week.

[33:58] So every single day, the street was flooded with cars.

[34:03] They parked in front of my house and in front of my walkway.

[34:06] There are no sidewalks, so that means a car is a buddy

[34:09] right up to my shrubs.

[34:11] My daughter has two kids, four and two.

[34:14] she'll come over, struggle to find a parking spot,

[34:17] has to walk in the middle of the road

[34:19] to get into my house with those two little kids.

[34:21] So it's not solved, it's not better.

[34:24] I'm sure some of my neighbors

[34:25] have maybe mentioned to you as well that he moved.

[34:29] There is a parking lot attendant and he does his best,

[34:32] but we can't make people do what they don't want to do.

[34:35] So quite frequently we see them parked in the wrong spot,

[34:39] he'll tell them to move, they'll give flak.

[34:41] this weekend somebody was actually in my neighbor's driveway and said they wouldn't move their car until they were off their telephone call.

[34:49] Sunday morning, I'm coming back down my street. The car is whizzing out of the parking lot and it almost hits me.

[34:56] I'm in the car and I, you know, motioned with my boys to slow down. I'm having an altercation trying to get to my own home.

[35:03] That's just not right.

[35:05] You mentioned a very word that struck me who said density. We have to look at density.

[35:10] You didn't even really talk about my street, you were more concerned with the street in Albion and the school street.

[35:17] I did a little math about my way here, so when we talk about density on Hopkins Street,

[35:23] as you are probably aware, there is only parking on one side of the street.

[35:28] If I count the total amount of spots available on my street, it's 10.

[35:33] And density, I counted the one, two, three, four, five,

[35:39] seven houses are on my street.

[35:41] It's a total of 20 cars for the people that live in the homes.

[35:46] If I minus out driveway space for everybody,

[35:49] that means there's an overflow of six residential cars

[35:54] for people that live on the street for 10 slots.

[35:59] That does not count.

[36:00] I have a family of six two of our kids are adults and don't live with us

[36:05] They do like to come to our house quite often. We are a big family

[36:08] We enjoy spending time with each other

[36:11] My neighbor has four children themselves two of them live at home two of them don't so you know

[36:16] It's tight as it is

[36:18] So I do think a resident only even if it's within a certain hour that it's assigned resident only parking

[36:27] 9 to 5, 9 to 6, I don't know what it is, but it's not fixed, so please don't elude yourself

[36:34] into thinking that having a gentleman standing at Berea's, telling people to move, has fixed

[36:40] the problem.

[36:41] I can spend once a month coming here, but I'm here, and tell you the same thing over

[36:46] again, but I'm going to implore you to please find a solution.

[36:50] It's not fair.

[36:53] Well, we certainly appreciate your comments, because I was under the impression that the

[36:57] problem had essentially been resolved, so I'm going to take you back that I've never

[37:04] heard and I dealt with a lot of people about this, so I don't know if some people just

[37:08] got tired of fighting the issue or not, but it's absolutely exhausting, sometimes I try

[37:14] everything I can to not be on my street on the weekend because it's just, it's

[37:18] so annoying and stressful, I shouldn't have to deal with that.

[37:21] I'm glad you're here because, again, I thought it was, I thought it was, yeah, pretty much

[37:25] well.

[37:25] The last couple of meetings, we were told that it's gotten better.

[37:28] I know my dear neighbor, a very good friend of mine, he, I know he gave some of these

[37:32] lip service saying it was fine, initially, yes it was, but people are going to do what

[37:37] they want to do.

[37:38] These are not, and I'm not being disparaging towards the customers of a business,

[37:43] they're not, most of them don't live in Lincoln, they just come, they want

[37:47] They run a park where they run a park.

[37:48] They get mouthy with you.

[37:49] They tell you you don't own a street.

[37:52] I have to put, my husband puts cones out

[37:54] so if my son leaves the house,

[37:56] he can come back home and park his car.

[37:58] It's like Tetris.

[38:00] It's crazy what we are still continuing to endure.

[38:04] I'm glad they're doing well.

[38:06] Frank's has a parking lot attendant

[38:08] at the top of my street.

[38:09] Now that the car wash is open, come right on the weekend.

[38:12] I welcome every single one of you

[38:14] to please come by around 11 o'clock on a Sunday,

[38:16] especially if it's nice that when the car wash is open, it's very challenging to get

[38:21] on and off the street. I'm quite shocked there hasn't been an accident there yet.

[38:25] It's time it's off the avenue a couple of days. Thank you.

[38:42] So I came and spoke at

[38:45] the last meeting on some of my initial thoughts on the ordinance and I'm glad

[38:51] to see some of my own concerns addressed tonight.

[38:56] I'm also not necessarily opposed to an ordinance like this.

[39:00] I absolutely recognize that parking can be difficult,

[39:04] especially as we continue to deal with issues like housing.

[39:09] But at least in its current form,

[39:12] I do believe that the ordinance needs some revisions.

[39:16] And I think looking to a couple of the other municipalities

[39:19] that have ordinances like this would be really beneficial.

[39:25] So for example, one of the concerns that I had

[39:29] in our initial ordinance is that guests may receive,

[39:35] or residents may receive a guest permit

[39:38] or may be allowed to have guests.

[39:41] And that it is up to the discretion

[39:43] of the Chief of Police.

[39:46] While I, I think that it would be better suited if we did it similar to a community like just

[39:59] trying to see.

[39:59] There's only a couple that have resident only parking ordinances, but for example, Jamestown,

[40:09] Each dwelling unit qualifies for one general visitor pass.

[40:14] In Newport, I believe each qualifies for one general pass.

[40:20] In North Kingston, each dwelling unit qualifies for two guest permits.

[40:25] So a change like that to allow for a guest permit just to be guaranteed for each person on that street

[40:32] I think is important to ensure that people can have guests over

[40:36] and feel like that they're not being policed,

[40:40] needing to contact the police every time,

[40:43] and going to the idea of possibly, you know,

[40:47] neighbors going after other neighbors.

[40:51] I've had, you know, issues like that, not with parking,

[40:54] but I think like over 10 years ago, you know,

[40:56] one of my neighbors really hated our dogs,

[40:58] so they would purposefully blast music

[41:01] out of a radio or whatever,

[41:04] out of their window to get our dogs to bark,

[41:06] and then call the police on us.

[41:09] Thankfully, that didn't cause any problems,

[41:11] but that is an example of someone, you know,

[41:14] just trying to go after another neighbor.

[41:16] And I do think having a guest permit system

[41:17] is important to make sure that that doesn't happen.

[41:22] When it comes to criteria,

[41:24] I do think that that is also very important,

[41:26] having more specific criteria

[41:28] about why we pick certain streets

[41:32] for resident-only parking,

[41:34] Going back to a couple of other municipal examples, in North Kingston, they have a purpose statement

[41:44] that lays out seven different goals for residential parking.

[41:50] In Newport, they have one that lays out nine goals, and in one of them, they not only

[42:00] those goals, not only are they just goals, they're also required criteria for

[42:05] that road to meet before it can be considered as a resident only parking

[42:10] road. And then the last thing that I would really say is in regards to which

[42:18] roads, again which roads are chosen for resident residential only parking, in a

[42:24] couple of these municipalities they actually require residents of that

[42:27] street to sign a petition with a majority of the people on that road.

[42:33] That petition then has to go to the town or city clerk. A couple of their

[42:37] municipalities require a public hearing that does notify all of butters to of

[42:43] that hearing and whether that street should be designated as resident only

[42:46] parking. So yes in conclusion I do believe that in ordinance like this has

[42:53] I guess it's purposes, but I do think it needs to be refined before we actually put it into practice.

[43:03] Mr. Chair, just for a quick statement I just want to make.

[43:07] So the town administrator did do some due diligence and he went out to other communities and got this information.

[43:12] I can sit here and tell you that my other part of my life has been too busy and too complicated to get involved and help in with that.

[43:20] so that's on me. I haven't been able to do much research or work on this, but he's

[43:26] done his work. The town administrator has done his job of trying to see comparing

[43:31] other communities and stuff like that and it's easy to say, yeah we should do

[43:36] this, we should do that, when it's not affecting your property. When

[43:41] something's not affecting your property, if you don't live there,

[43:44] it's easy to say, oh yeah, you know, there's probably a good idea or a good

[43:49] plan when it affects your property and it becomes a good plan?

[43:54] Well, I mean, we discussed, when we were discussing this in some of the issues, we discussed perhaps

[44:02] trying to change the general visitor pass and more permanent things.

[44:08] So that's something that we had discussed.

[44:12] Councilman Maxow had some concerns about the criteria,

[44:16] which we're going to hand off to the town planner to see if the town planner can establish

[44:22] some criteria there. And then finally, you know, he had mentioned the petition or maybe

[44:30] certified notice with a public hearing. And again, here I am asking you to go down to

[44:35] Lichester. So, you know, these are things that we probably could take a look at. I'm

[44:42] I'm so, so glad that, you know, Mrs. Scully come back

[44:48] and give us an update on the area or something.

[44:52] Are there any more public comments on this?

[44:56] Okay, is there a motion to adjourn?

[44:58] So moved.

[44:58] Second.

[44:59] All in favor.

[45:00] All right, all right, all right.

[45:03] I'll stop really quick right into the claim committee.

[45:06] Um,

[45:08] I'll do it as soon as Lily says so.

Ordinance Sub Committee - February

Agenda

Transcript