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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcclc.min.062018 1 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION JUNE 20, 2018 Commissioners in attendance: Ms. Raj, Steve Fante and Angi Wang. Absent were Amanda Tanaka, Terry Butler, Bill Dinsmoor and Charles Cunniffe. Staff present: Nicole Henning, Deputy City Clerk; Mitch Osur, Parking Services Director. Councilman Ward Hauenstein was also present. Chairman Steve Fante did not open the meeting since there was not a quorum present. Group discussion: Everyone present went to market on Saturday. Ms. Wang noted that Two Roots out of Carbondale had a great spread. Ms. Raj said the new cheese guy was having a great time and she was impressed with him. I gave the board Ms. Strickland’s update regarding some electrical issues and spacing issues, but overall, everything went well. Mr. Osur said he did notice the City booth was in the opposite corner that it was the previous year. Ms. Wang asked if anyone walked the alleys and said it was absolute mayhem with cars illegally parked, etc. Ms. Raj started off on a long discussion regarding the alleyways and said that her group wants the alleys enclosed at the ends and enforced, which would entail ticketing and towing cars that shouldn’t be there. Mr. Osur reminded her that half of those alleys are private property and you can’t just go towing cars. Ms. Raj said they should have bollards and key cards with only authorized people allowed to enter. Mitch asked how that would work regarding garbage and delivery trucks, etc. Ms. Raj said the time of day they are allowed in should be limited. Mr. Osur said commerce is the most important thing and we have to allow trucks to be able to enter and not make it difficult for them. Ms. Raj agreed and said she doesn’t want to limit them. Mr. Osur said we’ve had conversations with the businesses and retailers in town and the first thing you have to do is write up your expectations on alleyways and get approval from council, but we can’t just start towing people. Mr. Osur said he is on board with Ms. Raj and their ideas, but we need to go about it in the right way. Ms. Wang said the first thing should be to get the cars out of the alleys. Mr. Osur said we can’t boot cars in the core and that City Council and Steve Barwick don’t like it and it’s bad for businesses and tourists. Mr. Osur said you have to think about the consequences of affecting employees, tourists and business owners, etc. Mr. Hauenstein said they just extended parking hours in the core and there are programs we are working on to get shuttles going from the intercept lot to town. Mr. Osur said employees that are here early, can park in the parking garage. Ms. Raj argued that it’s the people with kids, dogs and stuff that the buses and shuttles don’t work for them. Mr. Osur said those people should park in the garage. Mr. Hauenstein said he doesn’t feel that anyone is trying to ban cars all together and he fully appreciates the kids and dogs argument because he used to have to deal with that as well. He said he wanted to remind everyone that this is CCLC and you guys should be concerned with what is going on with businesses downtown. Ms. Raj continued to argue her side. Mr. Osur said he is for the economic vitality downtown and he wants this for the tourists and locals coming downtown to spend money, not for the employees. If we agree with that idea, we should spend our time trying to figure out alternatives for them. 2 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION JUNE 20, 2018 Mr. Fante said we need to do better on communication in general. Mr. Hauenstein said this is one of his biggest frustrations. Staff does constant outreach and they take all this time to get the word out and the same 12 people always show up to the meetings. He said the challenge for all of us is communication. This is the same issue as Mr. Mesirow wanting to change the election date. Just because you do that does not mean that more people will vote. The clerk’s office gives everyone every opportunity to vote so if you want to vote, you will. He also said that what works for you, may not work for others as far as communication goes and that most people don’t get pissed off until the decision has already been made. On that note, Mr. Fante brought up the sandwich board issue. Mr. Hauenstein said he argued for sandwich boards in the Council meetings. He said he knows second tier businesses depend on these for the survival of their business and that he’s only one vote. He agreed that Mr. Fante should kick up some dust and make some noise regarding the potential petition to get sandwich boards back. Don’t let these go away. Mr. Fante said he feels that the City is pushing hard to put him out of business. Mr. Osur said he agrees with Mr. Hauenstein and told Mr. Fante that it’s a good idea to do a petition and get signatures from every retailer in town. The choice on sandwich boards was made so that either everyone was allowed one or there would be none, which is why Council went against it. If we allow them, we have to let everyone have them. Mr. Hauenstein thinks the solution is that CCLC polices the sandwich boards and to discourage the street level people not to put them out and to encourage the second-tier ones to do it. Mr. Hauenstein advised Mr. Fante that he doesn’t need an initiative to change this, he said to come to council and ask for it to be changed. I noted that an initiative is the only surefire way to amend the code and that he would be taking his chances with Council. Mr. Hauenstein said what carries weight is filling the meeting room with people. Mr. Fante has a meeting with Mr. Supino tomorrow morning and will talk to him about the initiative. Mr. Hauenstein said he’s done a couple and it’s a lot of work, but Mr. Supino should have a list of all of those who have permits for sandwich boards. Mr. Fante noted that he and Ms. Tanaka are working on the petition together. The board thanked Mr. Hauenstein and Mr. Osur for attending. Mr. Osur suggested talking codes of excellence at the next meeting and work on the goals for the Council meeting. We will meet next week on the 27th since our next regularly scheduled meeting is July 4th. _________________________ Nicole Henning, Deputy City Clerk 3 REGULAR MEETING COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION JUNE 20, 2018