Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 55
President Wilshire
Ok the Motion is to refer Ordinance 20-017 to the Committee on Infrastructure.
Alderman Clemons
President Wilshire?
President Wilshire
Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you. You know respectfully to Alderwoman Kelly, | won’t be supporting this. The reason isn’t
because | don’t want to discuss parking or even free parking. The reason that | am not going to support it
is for kind of what | said before, like we need to get through this year and we kind of need to see — first of all
we need to see where we are going to be revenue-wise. But more importantly, we need to see where we
are going to be with the virus. We need to see how it is going to affect the economy in the City. We need
to see how the changes we made to Main Street. To have an honest discussion on that, we really need,
we just kind of need to wait and see. My personal objective would be to try to get us over that $728,000.00
finish line, if you will to get some extra revenue for downtown. So even if it did go to Committee, | don’t
think it’s something that at least | would not advocate for it at any point in time this year. And | get what
Alderman Lopez was saying about different areas, but still | wouldn’t advocate for that. So while | think the
discussion, and | agree with what Alderman Lopez said about the different areas and | agree also with
Alderwoman Kelly about having a discussion like that. | don’t think that — first of all | don’t agree with the
Ordinance at this time but secondly, to some of the stakeholders downtown it is a good thing but to a lot of
the stakeholders it creates anxiety. Because they are like — well what are we going to do? We are trying to
get .... Some people believe in the parking like | do and they believe in revenue sources and they are
invested in that. So to have this hang out there is kind of — my opinion is we should just take care of it this
evening. And then next year, let's see where we are at and try to come up with a conversation for the
beginning of next year when we know a lot more than we know today. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Alderman O’Brien. As Chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, | would like to say to
Alderman Kelly or to all the Alderman we do welcome anything that comes into our Committee. We will
guarantee it will be properly vetted and discussed. But | kind of feel that is exactly what we are doing right
here and right now. | am not saying nothing is dead on arrival, of course not. But the thing is, | just kind of
wonder what would be the additional magic that would come into this at that particular time. But if it does
come back to Infrastructure, we welcome it, we will do our due diligence and we will hear it and judge
accordingly. So thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
Alderman Wilshire if | could respond?
President Wilshire
Alderwoman Kelly.
