Board of Aldermen 03-09-2021 Page 26
| do think there is some merit in looking at the time frame for implementation, because | think we were using
the same model as last year where we were making sure that there was maximum exposure for outdoor dining
so that there would be most the safety. But | mean the vaccinations, as long as people continue moving
forward with them and taking them as much as possible, as long as we build our herd immunity. As long as
people make responsible decisions with the upcoming holidays, we can keep our numbers low, we can keep
our systems from being in danger of being overwhelmed. We can look at how we approach this throughout the
summer, we do still have the ability to change those kind of dates within a reasonable amount of time based on
the contract.
| just want to make sure that it is clear that those concerns are heard and we are not just throwing away the
commercial businesses in favor of the restaurant ones. There’s a lot of need in the area and we kind of have
to figure out how that plan is going to work out.
President Wilshire
Thank you Alderman Lopez. Anyone else? Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you Madam President and again | want to echo what Alderman Lopez just said. | think we do need to
make sure that we are taking care of those businesses. | know | have spoken to parking and so on about, well
can we put someone’s name on a parking space and that is against the rules. You can’t designate City
Parking to any one particular household or person, you can’t even put a permit up there and say this is for this
parking only, not when it is City Parking. | would hope that what Alderman Lopez brought up for places such
as WineNot, that the residents will just go around the corner for the bank and just park in that bank because
the people from WineNot cannot park in that private parking lot; they are not supposed to do that. | hope that
residents will be a little bit more considerate. | know they are probably not thinking when they are just running
into the bank | think they are going in real quick and out and this is a nice convenient parking spot and they are
going to take it.
But again, | also believe that Director Cummings will work as much as he possibly can to try to give them as
much parking as possible. Maybe we just have to tweak it a little bit more but | still think that this is a
worthwhile project and | will be voting for it.
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd
Yes, | talked to Director Cummings just a couple of hours ago, three hours ago now and he is going to be
calling Wingate’s tomorrow and setting up a meeting with those shop owners in the area and hopefully they will
have a resolution that they can all agree with and | think we will be fine.
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette
Thank you Madam President. | think everyone or most people think that what we did last summer was a great
thing, it was very helpful to the restaurants. | know a lot of people, | think it was an added bonus in that it
provided us with a real time experiment on could we narrow Main Street? Could we provide for more sidewalk
dining areas? Could we slow the traffic down?
