Board of Aldermen 09-10-2019 Page 21
ON THE QUESTION
Alderwoman Kelly
If | could speak to it please. Thank you, so just for those who were not at the Infrastructure meeting, the
change that was made was making it into a pilot program so that it would expire at the end of the School
Year with a presentation by the students prior to it sun-setting in concert with the Planning & Economic
Development Department and the Library Staff to see how implementation went.
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Gidge, Alderman Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Dowd, Alderman Klee, Alderman Laws, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman Caron, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja,
Alderman Tencza, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Clemons,
Alderman Wilshire 14
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-19-051 AS AMENDED BY ROLL
CALL
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman O’Brien
Yes God | really do hate to be the scrooge on this one you know but it was heard in the Infrastructure
Committee and | was the sole dissenting vote. But! take my duties as Chairman quite seriously. | cannot
let something that | really just feel on the popularity of it really affect, I’ve got to look at the global issue that
is athand. Just to remind you, we passed R-19-170 which is very global. That is going to look at parking
all in general. What | am concerned about is | have listened to the Downtown Community Board brought
up by Ms. Blaisdell and everything that this is going to highlight some problems with other people within
the demographics. As part of our tax structure we give breaks to Veterans and disabled Veterans. What
happens if they approach us and say they would like to have some parking at the Library? What about the
wonderful children’s program that we have there that we recognized tonight Mrs. Bolton on that? And you
know my mother herded 7 kids, you know what | mean and brought them out of the car and everything. So
| am sure my mother would have appreciated if we did have free parking or closer parking for that.
| really hate to do this, | think the presentation by the students was more than adequate and was good. |
looked at and they did eliminate part of it, there is cheaper parking in the same lot but farther away and
then on Cottage Street there is free two hour zone parking that they do have access. So if there was a little
bit more of a walk but the students could use that you know without feeding the meter. So to me, again,
vote your conscious, you will; | don’t want to be that much of a bad guy with it because if this gets shot
down and this is brought up as part of the study | will advocate for this strongly advocate for it. | believe in
it, it's not that I’m against it, again | am being in a way the bad guy because | have to look at the whole
global parking issue. To that vein, | really cannot support this.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you. So just quick background for anyone who has not been privy to what has been going on with
this. The students came to me and we actually formed a Committee and came up with the idea of this. |
think | talked about this when it was originally read. The students really felt strongly that this was what they
wanted to put their efforts behind for the summer. And | think that their argument that as students the
Library is an especially important resource for them, a lot of them talked about meeting at a place to study
