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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.cclc.080223 1 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION AUGUST 2, 2023 Chairman Ball called the meeting to order at 8:35 a.m. Commissioners present: Angi Wang, Terry Butler, Charles Cunniffe, Amanda Tanaka, Stephanie Davis, Noemi Kiss-Baldwin and Jeb Ball. Absent were Bill Dinsmoor and Kiki Raj. Staff present: Emmy Garrigus, Downtown Services Nicole Henning, City Clerk Other attendees: Alycin Bektesh, ACRA Ms. Bektesh introduced herself to the new members and explained her role with ACRA and how she fits into CCLC. Miss Kiss-Baldwin introduced herself to Alycin and said she is here representing hotel & lodging with the Limelight. Ms. Davis introduced herself and said she is here representing herself and that she has no connection or ownership with any business in Aspen. Ms. Butler motioned to approve the minutes of July 19th; Mr. Cunniffe seconded. All in favor, motion carried. Mr. Ball said the first topic is the Saturday market continuing saga. We asked Kathy to attend but she decided that her letter attached was her attempt to address some of the issues. Mr. Cunniffe said he walked through the market and saw the space that Kathy gave to Res Ipsa, and he feels is too generous and leaves a huge gap in the market. She gave them 20 feet. They have come in twice now and we need to make the rules clearer for next year. Ms. Tanka said signifying where their space will be with a red carpet would be better instead of all the open space. Mr. Ball revisited for the new members what CCLC did in the past regarding retail entryways. We need to revisit this because other retailers will make an issue since Res Ipsa did. It’s going to create more gaps. Mr. Cunniffe said you’re either in the market or you’re not. Plain and simple. If you want to be then you need to apply. Ms. Wang said there is a weird grey area with Wind River because Kathy mentioned they are “grandfathered in”. Mr. Cunniffe said they need to go back to the red-carpet idea. Mr. Ball said there needs to be some basic retooling of how things should go. Ms. Butler and Ms. Tanaka said Kathy should come once a month while the market is open to connect with the board and discuss issues. We can also do this by zooming her in. 2 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION AUGUST 2, 2023 Mr. Cunniffe said they need to tweak the application to address adjacent store fronts with the addition of red 10-foot carpets and leave it at that. Mr. Ball introduced the remainder of agenda. There was a brief history given by Terry Butler. Mr. Ball reviewed the current mission statement. He went over member composition/qualification/term limits and addressed continuous programs of CCLC. He discussed the initiatives and goals for 2023-24, the feedback cycle and next steps. Ms. Butler said she has been involved with the board since 1986. She originally got involved because of the alleyways. They had no outdoor dining back then either. What you see today is because of their initiative. In 1987 they got the Saturday market with no artisans, just aggies. It was a big vote that was split when they added the artisans in. We’ve worked hard on the market since then. Had some nightmare managers. A lot of things had fallen back on us. Having a good manager makes the difference. It’s a hard job and Kathy does a good job for the most part. She said they used to do a lot with the art on the mall and were very involved in gardening and the flowers in town. We did a good job with everything and then eventually the city would take it away from us. Except for the market, we’ve done the best with that. She said that Jeb is the best chairman they’ve ever had. Mr. Ball reviewed the mission statement for CCLC regarding circulations, parking, sidewalks, landscaping, lighting, signing, graphics, alley improvements, public transit and improvement to existing mall areas. Ms. Butler said they used to have holiday light input as well. Ms. Bektesh said the ACRA marketing team is planning to take another look at that retail chain ordinance. This is a great thing to workshop with CCLC and go to council with. Ms. Davis said this is a much bigger issue, coming from a developer. It’s a cycle. Mr. Cunniffe agreed it’s circular and said it was the developers who pushed to get rid of chain stores. Mr. Ball said this is a great topic that we will put on a list to be revisited. He continued to go over the powers and duties and then asked for a grade for each duty, should there be changes to duties, and then he gave examples of topics not to focus on. We should not be talking about the housing issues, the airport issues, whether or not city council is effective and how they spend their money, etc. Ms. Butler said council didn’t pay any attention to the work CCLC did on the living lab parking fiasco last summer. Mr. Ball said there is still strength in numbers. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend the time and provide the feedback to council. Ms. Garrigus said “recommend” is the important word here. CCLC did a good job with their recommendation. Mr. Ball said they’ve been good at identifying issues, but then there has never really been any action plan to follow it up. The alleyways could end back up on their action plan moving forward. Ms. Wang said she, Mitch and Jeb were involved with cleaning up the alleyways that one fall. And it was a huge success, but it just got dropped after that. 3 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION AUGUST 2, 2023 Mr. Ball spoke about member qualifications and terms. He asked if there should be any changes made to the requirements (age, residency, business ownership, leadership role). He said there should be business leadership represented. Residency isn’t such a big deal. Ms. Tanaka said the business and leadership roles are very important. Ms. Kiss-Baldwin said adding that extra layer makes it more meaningful. She said it’s important to be here and represent for the hotel & lodging group. Mr. Ball asked if we want to formally make some modifications to the qualifications or ask them to use the following characteristics. He asked if there should be a requirement for members to spend time outside of monthly meetings and a minimum attendance requirement. Ms. Henning reminded them that it does lay out in the ordinance that they want different reps from all different areas of business in town. Mr. Cunniffe suggested that the missed meeting limit be set at six; 25%. Mr. Ball said this group takes more time than just showing up at 8:30 on two Wednesdays a month. He spoke about having “block captains” for areas of town. Ms. Tanaka said face time is important. People don’t need city swag regarding the welcome baskets. Ms. Kiss-Baldwin said she is happy to go to other hotels in town and explain what we are doing and be a point of contact. Ms. Ball said they could hand out a single page fact sheet. Ms. Garrigus said if they decide to bring any of this to council to change anything, she is happy to help put that through. Mr. Ball motioned to adjourn; Ms. Wang seconded. All in favor, motion carried. _____________________ Nicole Henning, City Clerk