Board of Aldermen 04-12-2022 Page 23
Overall, | can't support this legislation because | listened to the people. | read the e-mails. | heard the concerns from
public safety. | think there is an idea out there. | just don't think this is the one. Hats off to all my colleagues that spent
hours upon hours times that number of people trying to come up with a solution. | just can't support this one. Thanks.
Alderman Comeau
Thank you, Madam President. On the amendment, | personally kind of feel like I'm in between both the Gomez's and Mr.
Wingate. I've had what | feel like is a good relationship with both of them and the analogy of King Solomon was brought
up and where | have a decision to make who to side with. Unfortunately for my relationship with Mr. Wingate, I'm going to
side with the Gomez on this because they are my constituents and | have been an advocate since | was elected to the
idea of us being representative of the citizens of our Ward. | plan to vote for the amendment because they are my
constituents and | will support their request.
Alderman Moran
So | had a conversation with Miss Gomez and | was one of the Task Force members that voted for the limiting of the
space. At the time, | thought it was going to create two spaces. After getting the e-mail from Director Cummings, that's
clearly not the outcome of what | thought | was voting for. So even though | was very concerned about amendments
being brought forth today, this one’s not so bad because it gives me the opportunity to rectify a mistake that | made. So I'll
be supporting this amendment because of that.
Alderman Jette
Thank you, Madam President. | think we're losing sight of the fact that when people talk about, you know, taking space
away from San Francisco Kitchen, or giving them a space, or giving a space to Wingate’s, | think we're losing sight of the
fact that those spaces are not ours to give. We can decide to put up barriers and | think Attorney Bolton always chooses
his words very carefully and he always cringes when | attempt to repeat what he said and | screw it up. My understanding
is from what he said that tables and chairs are - he refers to “non-viatic” use. Well tables and chairs are non-viatic use.
So, you know, the city cannot take a space in front of Wingate’s and give it to San Francisco Kitchen. Okay. What the
city can do and this and what this motion is going to do is put a barrier up in front of Wingate’s. So Wingate’s loses
whatever parking that barrier blocks.
Now whether or not San Francisco Kitchen can put tables or chairs there is going to be up to the landlord. Now | would
rather than hearing, you know, your conversations that an alderman has had with the landowner about what he will do or
won't do, | mean no offense but what you said is he's changed his mind at least once, maybe twice, maybe three times.
So | don't know what the final outcome is going to be but if we put barriers up in front of his property, it's certainly going to
make it easier for him to say to San Francisco Kitchen well the space is there, you might as well use it. | think what we're
doing is we're picking winners and losers. | would rather...
President Wilshire
No comments from the audience, please.
Alderman Jette
| would rather we - | mean the ordinance does say there is provision in the ordinance for the Mayor after the Parking
Manager, and Department of Public Works, and the Infrastructure Committee, the Mayor can make adjustments. | would
rather that the landlord, and Wingate’s, and San Francisco Kitchen come up with an agreement among the three of them
and say okay if you do this, this is what we're going to do, or it's okay with us for you to do this.
| feel the same way about the barriers in front of Casanova and Gentle Dental. There are barriers that we're going to put
in front of those two businesses that are going to, you Know, remove that extra parking there. We're doing it because of
an e-mail we got from JaJa Belles. There is no parking space in front of JaJa Belles. Unless her landlord - the same
way, the landlord says okay well the city put barriers there so you can put tables and chairs there because it's not being
used for any other purpose. | think that | would rather see the landowner and the tenants resolve this themselves rather
than our imposing this on them.
As far as the narrowing of Main Street, you know, we can put a barrier at the beginning of the corner of Main and Factory
on the north sides to reduce the lanes on Main Street. But as far as the use of that non-viatic space between the barriers
in the sidewalk, | don't think we should be doing that. I'm going to vote against this amendment. Not to mention, you
know, we were here till 11 o'clock one night, one o'clock another night working this out, and now here we are its 9:30. |
