Board of Aldermen 11-26-2019 Page 13
Ordinance O-19-059 declared duly adopted.
O-19-060
Endorsers: Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman-at-Large Michael O’Brien
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
ESTABLISHING A HANDICAPPED PARKING SPACE IN FRONT OF 13 NORTON STREET
Given its second reading;
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KLEE FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-19-060
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Klee
I'd like to speak to it. Yes thank you. This came to me I'd say early January/February of last year of a
family who rents from the place that they live, and the owners are on board with this also. She has a
teenage son who has a disability and issues trying to get in and out of her apartment. Putting this
handicap parking space in front of her home is not dedicated to her home, she realizes and
understands that it could be used by anybody else that were handicapped in there. But it is less likely
considering it is right in front of that particular unit, so | feel comfortable going forward with it. She went
and did all the things that she needed to make sure that her car would be handicapped, in other words,
meaning that she got the appropriate placards and license plates and so on; going through the doctor’s,
going to the State and so on. She has done her due diligence and then it came to the summer and so
on, so we finally worked through all the ins and outs of it and were able to get through to it.
When this originally came through | was considering trying to work with Alderman O’Brien about
possibly putting a sunset clause in this which | think for residents we may want to consider that in the
future. There are a lot of concerns about putting in a sunset clause as to how do we go about and who
implements it and so on and | did not want to delay this, so | did not put one of those into this. | would
like this to go forward. Ms. Rice was going to be here, but she had car problems, she was going to
speak to this at the beginning of the meeting but had car problems and couldn't make it. So | told her
that | would speak to it as | was the one who put it forward. | would like to see this get a favorable vote
and thank you so much.
Alderman Clemons
l’ll just say just to back up the previous speaker it is not without precedent that the City has done similar
things both for residents and businesses. When Rice’s Pharmacy was still on Main Street there was a
handicap parking space outside of their business because a lot of the patrons were handicapped that
went there and it was convenient for them. So we’ve done things like this before in the past and
typically when the need is gone, you'll hear from like the business that moved into Rice’s at the time
was a tattoo parlor, they said, they approached the Board at the time and said, “Can you remove this,
there’s not really the need” and so the Board rescinded that. So | would imagine if a new resident
comes in there that doesn’t need that, we probably would hear from them. The need for a sunset
clause, in my opinion, isn’t overwhelming when the community will reach out to us when these things
have, when the time has come for these things to change.
MOTION CARRIED
Ordinance O-19-060 declared duly adopted.
