HomeMy WebLinkAboutcclc.min.040517COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF
APRIL 5, 2017
Chairperson Bill Guth called the meeting to order at 8:34 a.m.
Commissioners in attendance: Kiki Raj, Bill Dinsmoor, Terry Butler, Steve Fante, Charles
Cunniffe, Bill Guth, Erik Klanderud; ACRA.
Staff in attendance: Linda Manning; City Clerk, Nicole Henning; Deputy City Clerk, Mitch Osur;
Parking Services Director
Mr. Guth asked about any changes to the minutes and there were none. Mr. Guth moved to
approve and Mr. Dinsmoor seconded.
I mentioned that Kathy Strickland wanted a decision regarding the market bag. Everyone
agreed that they are fine with new version of the bag she originally sent .
I notified everyone about the situation with Dragonfly Jun and Mr. Guth suggested the market
go with the other kombucha applicant since Dragonfly Jun is not producing at the moment and
is in the midst of an owner battle.
I mentioned that Gina Murdoch wants to be a part of the market regarding a food product and
the group unanimously advised that she apply on time next year.
Mr. Osur commented that Ms. Strickland reached out to all of the market applicants regarding
closing early and received only 14 responses. 13 said yes, one said no and it was determined
that not enough responses were received out of a 100 applicants to warrant closing early this
year so will stay with 3:00 p.m. Mr. Osur stated that he and Ms. Strickland will walk around with
counters so next year they can quantify this better and mentioned that if an a ggie sells all of
their goods, should they be allowed to close early and that CCLC will have to make the rules
work for the aggies as well.
Mr. Cunniffe suggested that the aggies should have canned or preserved goods to sell as well
and be prepared to be open until 3:00.
Mr. Dinsmoor said that everyone should have three strikes and then they are gone for closing
early.
Mr. Guth asked if anyone has turned in apps for the vacancies on the CCLC board.
Ms. Manning said that we haven’t received any applications yet, but are p utting an ad in the
paper that will run for all board openings.
Mr. Guth brought up the CCLC Vision and Mission and Mr. Osur responded by making a point
about the mall renovations and said the same points were brought up by CCLC and ACRA. He
COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF
APRIL 5, 2017
said we need to look at opportunities like this to take the bull by the horns and get involved in
different events in town besides the market to raise the bar for CCLC.
Ms. Raj asked if they decided to heat the mall and Mr. Osur said this won’t happen until 2020
and nothing is set in stone yet; all ideas are still on the table.
Mr. Guth stated that we need to keep providing feedback at those sessions.
Mr. Skadron is running on the concept of changing mobility of transportation in the city that
would be more walker and bike friendly and he wants to test an area of Hyman mall this
summer and extend two blocks to art museum.
Mr. Cunniffe stated that no one will be able to park in front of his office if they do that.
Mr. Osur said they would bring in bunch of dirt, trees, flowers and do a temporary experiment
for this summer.
Mr. Guth said this is a tremendous waste of money because everyone already knows what it
will be like.
Ms. Raj said that temporary trees and pinwheels is stupid.
There was a unanimous agreement that expanding the mall makes sense, but not a temporary
looking thing.
Mr. Cunniffe stated that we need to have major parking lots adjacent to the mall like in other
cities to accommodate the idea of expansion. It’s a nice goal, but you’re reducing shoppers
who come in cars and we don’t have the appropriate parking to accommodate this like other
cities. We have to make it convenient for people to come into town and shop.
Ms. Raj said that this is a CCLC stated concern.
Mr. Dinsmoor agreed by saying that we do need a parking offset and this never happens.
Mr. Cunniffe gave a scenario of family located in Snowmass and asked which way would they go
to shop? El jebel and Carbondale make sense for convenience of parking and affordability. If
aspen wants to push people down valley to shop, this is the way to go.
Mr. Osur mentioned that the downtowner has done 50,000 rides in the past few months.
Mr. Guth commented that Mr. Osur has proven that there are other solutions and we can’t poo
poo everything.
COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF
APRIL 5, 2017
Mr. Osur reminded everyone that a positive and aggressive attitude towards solutions is the
stance CCLC needs to take. He went on to say that the biggest problem in the core is that 60 %
of employees are parking in the downtown and that we should think about how we get the
employees out of the core. Come up with ideas to incentivize their employees to not park
there. He suggested talking to some of your people and friends and see how we can find a
solution to this problem.
Mr. Osur mentioned letting employees park in the garage for free and said it is full from July
through August with tourists so if we can move the employee cars out of the core, the tourists
will be able to park there instead.
Ms. Butler noted that consistently for 25 years, the parking garage is not normally full that she
has seen.
Mr. Guth said that we all need to think about this and let’s come up with ideas for next time
how we can incentivize. Mr. Osur reminded everyone of the carrots and sticks ideology.
Mr. Guth said that regarding the CCLC vision and mission, he wanted to start with the
framework and let everyone build on it and his idea is to promote vitality and success for locals
and visitors here in Aspen.
Mr. Dinsmoor said that CCLC has acted in an effective and aggressive manner to be the liaison
to the city. He said they went block by block, mall by mall to have these conversations and
that’s when we’ve been our most effective. Doing this instead of going straight to council
seemed more effective. Practical application and engaging in conversation.
Ms. Butler stated that they’ve always worked as a liaison and everyone in this committee owns
a small business. We represent the business owners who are paying rent, trying to retain
employees, trying to find customers to shop in our stores. We represent a lot of people that we
talk to. The more communication we have out there, the better. Then we go to council with a
list of 50 people that we’ve actually spoken to. We have a lot of unique problems in this valley
because it’s a long, skinny valley. Driving back and forth, up and down the valley is hard.
Mr. Fante stated that he likes idea of communication regarding the vision and mission for CCLC.
He mentioned that he looked to see who had commented on the Aspen Community Voice
website regarding the retail store issue and the comments were very minimal so he wondered
how do we engage people? It’s hard to engage with chain stores because they are not part of
the community from a business stand point and they are mostly dealing with in store hierarchy.
He said he would try to engage, but wouldn’t get his expectations up and he thinks with more
engagement, the details of the mission statement will become clearer. He said that they need
COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF
APRIL 5, 2017
more of a focus and that is where his frustrations lie because the group tends to float around a
lot.
Mr. Cunniffe mentioned that they have been focused on the market and now it’s time to look at
a larger focus. We are stewards of the entire commercial core and we need more lodging input
in here too who can tell us what the tourists are saying and that is important to building a new
mission statement.
Everyone agreed that this is a great idea.
Mr. Guth said that the consensus on the board regarding pops up is that they don’t have a
problem when retail spaces have these events, but we don’t like when non-retail spaces host
the pop up events. Mr. Klanderud said that the bigger issues lie with the trunk shows and they
need to pay bigger business license fees. These small trunk shows are the ones undermining
the brick and mortars because they are selling high end jewelry out of hotel rooms, etc.
Ms. Manning mentioned that this is on Adam F riches’ radar and agenda. This is still very much
an item for him.
Mr. Guth mentioned that everyone seems to be on the same page and we should table
alleyways until the next meeting since we are low on time.
Mr. Cunniffe asked what they can be prepared with for next time as far as alleyways go and Mr.
Osur said that alleyway issues come up consistently because they are dirty, smelly, bloc ked, etc.
The question is what can we do and what should we do? One option might be that we use one
refuge company instead of four different ones four different times a day.
Mr. Dinsmoor stated that they have some knowledge to share on this issue.
Mr. Cunniffe asked what the goal is beside cleaning them up? To be pedestrian friendly? Or
have other small businesses in the alley?
Wrapping up, Mr. Guth mentioned that everyone should call Nicole if they can’t make the
meetings and it’s important that everyone attend.
Ms. Manning mentioned that we should cancel the May 3rd meeting due to the election and
move to May 10th.
Mr. Guth adjourned the meeting at 10:07 a.m.
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Nicole Henning, Deputy City Clerk