Board of Aldermen 03-09-2021 Page 33
President Wilshire
OK. Alderman Kelly?
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you. So | am going to support this. | think that the intent here is to allow for flexibility and | actually think
last year we had to approve an amendment to allow Tim to make some changes as they came up, if |
remember correctly. So | mean | think the intent here is that the downtown is a fabric of different types of
businesses.
We are trying something for only the second summer and we want to make sure that there’s some flexibility for
Director Cummings or the Mayor to make adjustments much faster than bringing them to us every time a
business has a request. So | think, you know, this is really in the spirit of allowing for some flexibility for
something that is kind of new but also allowing for a more responsive time for our businesses instead of
saying, ‘Oh we have got to bring it back to the Board of Alderman’. It'll be a month before we can even move
that barrier for you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Clemons?
Alderman Clemons
Thank you, yeah, | don’t necessarily have any problem with the language change. | just wish that it had come
sooner because it is frustrating when you are wordsmithing you should have the words that you want to put in
there. | think what our City Attorney has proposed, | think is good. It just kind of codifies what we were doing
last year anyway. So I'll support it but | think, again, | think it comes back to that conversation about doing your
homework.
President Wilshire
Anyone else, Alderman Jette did you have your hand up?
Alderman Jette
| did. | just wanted to point out to Alderman Dowd that when you talk about Director Cummings meeting with
people tomorrow to make adjustments, when | re-read the Ordinance, |, like you, thought that you could make
adjustments or adjustments could be made. But when | read it, | thought | saw that the Ordinance wouldn't
allow that it would only allow the Mayor to provide for additional road closures, etc. not make adjustments in
the current plan as shown by those aerial photos.
| thought that might be a problem and evidently Attorney Bolton agrees with me. So if we are correct, then this
meeting that Director Cummings is having tomorrow will not allow him to make adjustments; he is going to
have to install the barriers exactly as they are shown in the plan. But if we adopt this amendment, it does
provide us with the flexibility that | think we anticipated and we are expecting
