February 19, 2008
The Board of Commissioners of the City of
RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:
With
Commission approval Mayor Hack recognized Mr. Brad Shuck for rescuing a
resident from a burning home on Monday, February 11, 2008.
CONSENT AGENDA
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of February 5, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to receive the Public Health Board meeting minutes of December 17, 2007; and the Destination Management Inc. meeting minutes of January 20, 2008. Motion carried unanimously. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to approve claims to 451 vendors in the amount of $2,938,770.18 and payroll from February 3, 2008 to February 16, 2008, in the amount of $1,791,935.77. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of
the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to
approve Drinking Establishment License for El Mezcal Mexican Restaurant II, 804
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by
Amyx, to approve the purchase of one track loader for Public
Works/Stormwater Division from Murphy Tractor & Equipment Co. off the H-GAC
cooperative contract in the amount of $161,850.58 less trade - $16,850, for a
total loader price of $145,000.58.
Motion carried unanimously. (1)
The
BIDDER BID AMOUNT
Laird
Noller Automotive $264,900
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Highberger,
seconded by Amyx, to award the bid to Shawnee Mission Ford, in the
amount of $261,396. Motion carried unanimously. (2)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by
Amyx, to authorize a purchase order for $16,539.30 to GE Fanuc intelligent
Platforms, Inc., c/o Industrial Network Systems, to continue the use of the
City’s use of Intellution Software maintenance for the period of March 1, 2008
to March 1, 2009, used by the Utilities Department. Motion
carried unanimously. (3)
The
BIDDER BID AMOUNT
Engineer’s Estimate $304,355.00
LRM
Industries, Inc. $336,396.70
R.D.
Johnson Excavating $362,879.98
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Highberger,
seconded by Amyx, to waive the engineer’s estimate award the bid to LRM
Industries, in the amount of $336,396.70.
Motion carried unanimously. (4)
Ordinance No. 8057, rezoning (Z-06-15-06)
approximately .85 acres from RS7 (Single-Dwelling Residential) to PRD (Planned
Residential Development), located at
Ordinance No. 8231, providing for the annexation
(A-04-03-07) of approximately 40 acres of City owned property located north of
Ordinance No. 8223, rezoning (Z-07-13-07) a
tract of land approximately .746 acres, from CN1 (Inner Neighborhood
Commercial) and RM32 (Multi-Dwelling Residential) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial
Development), located at
Ordinance No. 8234, establishing the Oread
redevelopment district, was read a second time.
As part of the consent agenda, it
was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to adopt this ordinance. Aye: Hack, Dever, Amyx, Highberger,
Chestnut. Nay: None.
Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by
Amyx, to approve agreement for services between the City of
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Amyx, to authorize the City Manager to execute
agreement for the Use of City Funds with Downtown Lawrence, Inc. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by
Amyx, to authorize Planning staff to issue a Request for Proposals (R08005)
for a consultant to provide on-call travel demand modeling support for the
Transportation Planning staff in 2008 and 2009.
Motion carried unanimously. (11)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by
Amyx, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Subordination Agreement for Brian
and Heather Bigham,
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the
City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said
The 2007
Also, the
park land below the
He said the City did not receive any
KDOT funding for the geometric improvements or economic development projects
the City had submitted which was disappointing.
He said what was incredibly disheartening was that KDOT did not have the
funds they once had for sharing in those types of projects. A person could not drive anywhere in this
community where the City had not benefited from KDOT’s geometric or state
transportation program funding. KDOT
indicated to staff to back off on submitting on that traditional 5 year surface
transportation program project the City had.
He said that funding source was not available and staff did not see that
funding source coming back anytime in the future. He said that meant the City would not be able
to do those types of projects, or would have to do those types of projects locally. There had been that kind of forecast from
KDOT in the past, but when seeing statewide that only two projects were
selected for a total of $1.2 million, it was not enough money to do substantial
road projects.
He said
there were discussions at the state level regarding a new surface transportation
program, but KDOT was not anticipating any action this year and it might be an item
in a non election year, such as 2009. In
many cases those were multi year efforts in order to enact a new plan. He said the state had indicated they did not
have, under their current revenue base, the ability to really do anything more
substantial than just basic maintenance to their state highway system.
Mayor Hack asked about the timetable
on the next Comprehensive Transportation Plan.
Corliss said the state talked about
making service purchases in 2009, but it was not likely to happen in an
election year and did not need to happen this year. He said his observation was that it took a
strong push, if talking about new revenue sources. When tying a revenue source to a gallonage
tax and the gallonage was not increasing, but the costs were significantly increasing,
there was not an escalating revenue source.
The City shared in that revenue, but the City’s gas tax revenue had not been
escalating, certainly not with the cost.
He said the City Commission had seen some road projects where the bids
had not been as high and it might be that road costs were not going to continue
to escalate, but the oil and gas component into road construction was
significant and that did not seem to be moderating. Next year the Commission might be seeing movement,
but state legislatures were hearing from their constituents what they were
hearing from their constituents in
Commissioner
Chestnut said regarding Eagle Bend, that revenue number was much better than it
had been in years past. He said that
revenue was in an enterprise fund and the bonds were in the bond and interest
funds, he asked what would happen to that $148,000 surplus.
Corliss
said that money would stay in that fund and would not be spent and that money
would be used judiciously and the money might be used to buy equipment,
depending upon what happened through the rest of the year. (13)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Discussion and direction on drinking establishment
– entertainment venue public safety issues.
David
Corliss, City Manager, said a general discussion took place last year about
whether the City Commission had interest in proceeding with some type of
additional, local legislation that might be a better tool to respond to public
safety issues the City had been experiencing regarding entertainment venues and
drinking establishments.
The State
of
In the
1990’s, there were similar experiences regarding public safety concerns with
some establishments in the community. At
that time, the law was not necessarily disfavorable toward local regulation
regarding drinking establishments.
Therefore, the City adopted ordinances that provided for conditional
local licensing of drinking establishments where the City was able to place conditions
on some drinking establishments after going through a process that allowed for
those applicants to participate in those decisions. Since that time, the law was changed or
clarified and it was clear to
The City
had pursued license revocation before the Alcohol Beverage Control Division. The City of
The ABC
Director issued an Order that denied the renewal of Last Call’s license, which
was the subject of litigation. Also, the
establishment continued to operate because they were allowed to continue as a
business, but not as a drinking establishment, with bring your own beer or
alcohol. It was understood by staff,
with some communications with the business owner and had been publicly
advertised as well, that Last Call would not operate anymore. He said he understood there was nothing in
the law to prohibit that business owner from seeking another license from ABC
to operate at that location or probably anywhere else in the community.
He said
regarding the public safety concerns, the City Commission asked staff to give
options regarding what local legislation the City might want to pursue and
staff came up with two different, but somewhat related, options. He said both options could be pursued, one or
the other, or obviously not pursue any of those options.
One option
was to establish a special use permit requirement for drinking establishments
in the City’s Land Use Code which would be through the traditional land use
regulations. The City Commission would
have the ability to establish special requirements on a particular
location.
Also, an entertainment
venue licensing regulation had been discussed which regardless of whether the
establishment sold alcohol, the City Commission would have the ability to
license and condition licensing and revoking licenses of establishments that
offer entertainment of certain capacities of crowds and those type of
things. He said staff did not think they
completely vetted those ordinances as far as public discussion or spent anytime
working with interested stakeholders on the ordinance.
He said Commissioner
Amyx had been in contact with an interested citizen regarding a licensing
ordinance that would license a number of other businesses in the community and
then if there was a nuisance situation with that type of establishment, there
would be a method of revoking that license for that business, which was another
alternative that could be explored and examined.
He said
this issue needed to be discussed as far as what were the expectations for City
staff and the City Commission as far as dealing with outside nuisance issues
associated with establishments. One
clear issue that came from the ABC ruling was their focus on what happened
inside the premises. Most of the
problems the City heard complaints about had not been about interior conduct,
but about incidents that happened outside the establishment. The establishment owner would kick out the
disruptive patron and the owner thought they were absolved of any
responsibility making that disruptive patron, the responsibility of the
community. He said the real issue was if
the establishment also had some responsibility, as well, for that
situation. He was familiar with a number
of those complaints in dealing with this type of issue in any number of places
around the community, outside on the public right-of-way or in the private
parking lot. He said it was a very fair
question and a lot of people interested in this issue had discussed where to draw
that line and at some point, judgment needed to be exercised in looking at the
situation.
He said this
community would have this type of situation occur perhaps infrequently, but
when situations did occur, there seemed to be one common theme which was the consistent
concern about public safety around the establishment. He said he was looking for the best tool to
advise the City Commission. The best
tool had objectivity and treated isolated situations in a gentle manner, but
for consistent public safety problems, had the ability to respond with some
element of speed and certainty. He said
in his opinion that meant the City Commission needed to rely on their ability
to look at the license and whether or not there was a threat to public
safety. A lot of the details had to be
worked out on that issue. The City could
rely on others or ABC, nuisance actions in civil court or criminal court. It might be a good vehicle as well, but could
take a long period of time to have those types of actions.
He asked
the City Commission what standard they wanted and the expectations. In any community there would be disruptive
behavior or situations where it was un-neighborly, but staff dealt with that
type of issue fairly effectively. The
consistent problems that were threats to public safety were where the
Commission might want an additional tool.
The process also needed to be discussed and come up with the right tool.
One type
of nuisance action was the public nuisance statute that was found in the criminal
code which was a Class E misdemeanor, meaning if someone was convicted the
maximum penalty to that offense was up to 30 days in jail and up to a $500
fine. The only problem was in many
circumstances, when talking about businesses that were organized as
corporations, corporations could be prosecuted, and when corporations were
prosecuted, there was no one to put in jail.
Essentially for the criminal code, when talking about a public nuisance
which was anything that was injurious to the health, safety or welfare of the
public, they were dealing with a possible fine of $500 per prosecution or per
instance for a business. The criminal
law was not set up to shut a business down, but was meant to punish criminal
conduct.
Another
option would be the nuisance action that was found in Chapter 41, of the State
of
The third
option would be the nuisance statutes that were found in Chapter 22. Those statutes could be colloquially termed
the “crack house statutes” because they were enacted for controlled substances,
organized gang activity, when some place was being used for the purpose of
advancing the gang activity. Violating
the statute could result in leased premises being vacated and the person being
evicted or the padlocking of the premises. The facts had to be, for instance, applied to controlled
substances and not be involved with street violence or other problems an
organization or business might create.
The fourth
nuisance action was a civil action for public nuisance. It had limitations because of the length of
time it took. Anyone experienced in
civil litigation would tell you that the discovery process from the time a petition
was filed to the time the case was fully litigated, would take a couple of
years. Public nuisance actions could be
filed by independent members of the public that were affected, but anyone could
expect a two year, lag time before the case ever made it to trial and then
whether or not something fell into the definition of a nuisance depended on the
judge or jury hearing the case on that date.
There was a lot of build up and not a whole lot of certainty to the
process. He said that was the idea of
some sort of licensing statute or criminal prosecution statute that Commission
Amyx proposed, where those ideas had some appeal because the ordinance that could
be crafted could set forth specific standards of conduct that needed to be
violated for the ordinance to be triggered.
They would have a little bit more precise definition other than the
condition that was injurious to the health, safety or welfare of the
public. He said there were a lot of
ways to go about doing that. One way
would be licensing entertainment venues.
He spent a lot of time drafting ordinances on entertainment venue
licensing and those ordinances could be drafted in any number of ways. The City could step farther and not just
license entertainment venues, but any business in the City that was having a
problem like this. There were cities
that had a general business license, which had some advantages and disadvantages
as well because any time creating an administrative procedure that applied to
any business in the community, they were talking about an increase in
administrative overhead and increased burden for business. None of those actions were without cost.
The
proposal that Commissioner Amyx proposed to adopt the disorderly house nuisance
ordinance to a situation like this was an interesting proposal. It would result in criminal prosecution of
the individuals who were in circumstances that were currently being discussed,
but the problem was that he did not know any other city that used the
disorderly house nuisance ordinance to abate the problem, and once again they
would be plowing new ground. Staff would
need to do quite a bit of work to make certain it applied to just the things
the City Commission wanted it to apply to as opposed to other things. He said
He said what
staff presented to the City Commission and what they discussed several months
ago were basic draft ordinances as one way to approach the issue. Special Use Permits, in this circumstance,
were allowed by statute and he mentioned K.S.A. 12-755(a). There were not a tremendous amount of cities
in the State of
The
unified government had provisions that dealt with Special Use Permits and
license permits along with the City of
Mayor Hack
asked Miller to explain the grandfathering clause that would apply to special
use permits.
He said when
asking how staff would deal with the legal non-conforming use issue, some of
that was a policy question, but not entirely. There might be other issues in
terms of restructuring.
Commissioner
Amyx said regarding Section 5(e) which stated:
“No
Licensed Premises shall be granted non-conforming use status upon the adoption
of this section and any non-conformity shall not be continued in accordance
with the provisions of this article.”
He asked
if this ordinance was written in the stric
Commissioner
Amyx asked if the ordinance would not allow for a legal non-conforming use and
granting legal non-conforming use approval would be determined by the City
Commission.
Commissioner
Amyx asked staff how long it would take to develop a Special Use Permit policy
for various venues.
Commissioner
Amyx said there would be 130 businesses that would be going through the process
and understood that conditions might be different for each establishment.
McCullough
said yes. Those conditions would be
identified through the public process of going through each Special Use Permit. Staff would look at physical aspects of a
site and perhaps operational aspects of a site and restricting or expanding the
use with the special circumstances of that property.
Commissioner
Amyx said he did not see how staff would address 130 applications due to the
amount of staff time it would take to individually address all the necessary
conditions.
McCullough
said it would be a major program with current City resources.
Corliss
said a phase-in period was needed in order to go through all those drinking
establishment licenses. It would be take
considerable staff effort in finding a good template for those different issues
along with situations with particular establishments where staff had to spend
more staff time on than others. In many
cases, there were already existing site plans which would not be overruled. Staff was trying to get at the issue of the
external problems associated with particular establishments and would need some
type of phase in where they would have opportunity to review different licenses
over time. There would be a heavy work
load on staff, but did not want to minimize the work load staff had gone
through with the recent unpleasantness with the establishment in question,
either. Staff devoted several weeks to
that issue. He said staff would get the
right resources on the right priority.
Commissioner
Amyx said there were a lot of people who ran good businesses throughout the
community and the City would always have a few businesses that would create
nuisance situations. The obvious
question was if the City Commission wanted the authority to shut down a
business in this community. If the answer
to that question was “yes”, then he asked about the best tool to use to
accomplish that authority. Before allowing
situations to get out of hand, further than what had happened, the question of authority
needed to be answered and what a business needed to go through. The City Commission needed help from legal
staff to write that policy.
He said in
hearing the nuisance laws that were in place today, he thought the City
Commission needed that authority to deal with nuisance businesses, but staff
needed to direct the Commission how to get that authority. He did not think planning was the best way to
deal with the issue.
Corliss
said that was staff goal in getting an understanding from the full Commission
about expectations. He said while legal
staff had taken a lot of effort in drafting proposals staff was not hung up on
those proposals and were willing to make changes. He said the guiding light needed to be the
City Commission wanted the ability to exercise their judgment about situations
that were consistent threats to public safety and the ability to shut that type
of business down. He said staff needed
to find ways to write that policy to be objective and fair. He said Commissioner Amyx’s response about
almost all of the businesses operating very well was exactly on point. He said staff had to write a policy in a way
those businesses had a level of certainty that their business and financial
interest were protected, but the City had the ability to work on the situation
where there was a consistent threat to public safety.
Commissioner
Chestnut said Miller had an updated memo on the liquor license proceedings on
Last Call and they had discussed that it sounded as if there was ambiguity on whether
or not it was legal to operate in the manner that Last Call was operating. He asked if the City had ever asked the
Attorney General or anyone else about whether that loophole could be closed.
Commissioner
Chestnut asked if staff considered at any point, after Last Call’s license was
revoked, pursuing to see if the City could get some kind of ruling on that
legislation.
Mayor Hack
called for public comment.
Nick
Carroll, Jackpot Saloon and Replay Lounge, said currently entertainment
districts and venues were doing well in downtown areas in
He said
Mayor Hack
said there were not any of those types of restrictions for lofts.
Ted Boyle,
North Lawrence Improvement Association, said he hoped there would be some type
of licensing program. He said they had
been dealing with an establishment in
He said
the activities calmed down last summer because the establishment was not open
most of the time. Now that Last Call has
closed down, those patrons had migrated back to
A year
ago, last winter and fall, there was police presence which helped the situation. The residents of
Rob Farha,
owner of The Wheel, said regarding the land use side of this discussion, it was
stated there was no grandfathering in, but there were two establishments that
were operating presently under the non-conforming use category which was The
Wheel and The Hawk. He asked if staff
was saying in one year their establishments would be out if they went with that
method.
Mayor Hack
said those two establishment were non-conforming to what existed in the code
and was just a different layer of a special use permit.
Jerry
Neverve, Red Lyon Tavern, said his establishment had been downtown since
1993. He said when the Last Call
situation first came up two years ago, several people including the Kansas
Licensed Beverage Association and several bar owners downtown suggested the
City appeal to the Alcohol Beverage Control Last Call’s license being
issued. Several years went by and it did
not happen. The first time it happened
the license was repealed. At the first
instance of a nuisance lawsuit brought up against Last Call, the club was
closed. It was in their position that
the City Commission had the power in the statutes that existed in
Tim Lyons,
Gregory
Mann, Lawrence, said with the license taken away and the City Commission able
to close the BYOB loophole, he did not understand why they needed anything
more.
Commissioner
Amyx said the City Commission had to go through a process before Alcohol
Beverage Control, an outside agency, to make a decision whether or not the
license could continue and that type of control needed to be local because they
might not have the same abilities to battle, without Alcohol Beverage Control,
with the owner of the business and whether or not the City would be successful
in having that license pulled.
Mayor Hack
said the City Commission had asked in legislative agendas and statements every
year that local government should be able to determine what to do with
entertainment venues. The Commission’s concern
was not just with BYOB, but other issues.
She said if the City wanted additional regulation and if so, she asked what
would be the additional regulation. They
needed to answer a basic policy question first and move from that point.
Commissioner
Highberger said he did not want more regulations but he also wanted the
Commission to have the ability to deal with the situation like with Last
Call. He did not like the special use
permit idea because it was too much burden on staff and the business owners. The only place he would consider special use
permits would be for those establishments that were in or adjacent to
residential areas. Extra scrutiny of
that kind of establishment made sense.
He would
like to see any system the City Commission implemented to have minimal or no impact
on the vast majority of drinking establishments that did not cause any
problems, but give the City the authority to ramp up and take appropriate
action when dealing with safety problems.
He did not want something that made it easy for the City Commission to
have the power to shut down a business and that sort of authority should only
be exercised in real problem situations.
He said
Nick Carroll raised a very valid concern.
He thought they would want to draft something that was sensitive to a contract
so increasing residents in the commercial areas did not come into conflict with
the entertainment industry.
He said of
all the options, the most appealing option was the disorderly business
ordinance that Commissioner Amyx proposed although it would need to be crafted
very carefully. He was not sure he
thought all the issues through, but he felt like he had not achieved a
resolution of this yet.
Vice Mayor
Dever said he first wanted to address the local control issue. The City Commission passed on this issue
before because they wanted to put it in the hands of the state regulators who
were supposed to be able to help protect the citizens in the community. From nuisance actions or violence, it came
down to the City wanting to have some control over what happens in Lawrence,
Kansas and to sum up the fact that they were able to get the ABC to do what the
City felt like was necessary, was not putting the whole history of what went on
there. He thought the City needed to
have some sort of control over what happened in the City and the City Manager
tried to convince him because he was previously against any regulation,
especially one that was written in haste to address a specific issue or one bad
actor. He was in favor of staff looking
at what Commissioner Amyx suggested and taking a look at what was on the books
already to make sure they did not already have the power, but if they needed
more the disorderly business ordinance would be the next best option.
He thought
they had quite a few of land use regulations already and was not convinced that
was the best step now. After what just
happened, they needed to take a hard look to see if they had control over what
went on in the community and protect the people who lived near those
establishments.
Commissioner
Highberger said he thought it was important to note that the ABC did not do
what the City asked them to do. Their
concerns were based primarily on public safety issues that were happening
outside and the immediate vicinity of the club and the ABC decision was very
clearly only based on the violations inside the club. Even if the ABC cooperated in the future, he
did not think it gave them the tools they were looking for.
Commissioner
Chestnut said there were a couple of things that needed to be balanced
here. He said standards needed balanced
and one thing they were forgetting was they also had to balance rights of
property owner. As far as the ordinance
that was drafted relative to a venue license, he thought there was a whole host
of issues and some of those problems he raised back in August defining
substantial criminal activity and how they would define an incident within 500
feet, especially downtown when they had venues that were within 500 feet. The most difficult thing in drafting an
ordinance was crafting something that was general enough to cover the conduct,
but something that would meet constitutional muster, which meant they were on
the thin edge as far as drafting something they thought really balanced rights. He agreed he had all the faith and trust in
the governing body as well as the police department, but they would be putting
ordinances on the books that would go past their tenure and if they were
written broadly enough, there was a lot of danger in that. He had a lot of concerns about the
entertainment license as written because it placed a lot of power, especially
because it talked about appointing a board, then having a hearing, and
basically their decision being when it came to the City Commission, they got to
consider any way they wanted to so it boiled down to three votes on the City
Commission, which was a pretty serious situation. If they went down that path, it would have to
be much more restricted than it was presented now.
He agreed
with Commissioner Amyx as to the special use permits. He asked if they were really prepared to take
on 125 establishments and go through that process. He agreed with the other Commissioners that he
liked more local control, but was sensitive to the fact that they could really
create something that was pretty broad and used punitively.
The
establishment discussed in
Mayor Hack
said the issue was the state could not enforce it. The City had a nuisance ordinance they
thought they were good to go on, but the court said no.
Corliss
said he would follow up with the owner to see if they were complying with those
requirements. He said State Law at the
time this was enacted the City argued that it gave the City the authority to
condition drinking establishment licenses.
The state law changed because of some court decisions to make it fairly
clear that cities did not have that ability.
Commissioner
Chestnut said there were currently restrictions on locations in the City Code
that restricts the sale of alcohol within 400 feet of a school or church. He asked why the code could not be amended to
include residential neighborhoods.
Corliss
said that could be done, but they would have the non conforming use issue. One of the issues they were trying to get at
with the special use permit was putting an overlay on top of the current zoning
and say the occupant had to comply with special use permit requirements into
the future. If those special use permits
would somehow in the future deny a legal establishment their ability to
operate, the City would have a strong legal issue as to whether or not the City
could do that. How staff envisioned the
special use permit requirements going prospectively into the future would be
requirements that would have to do with their specific operation that would
apply into the future.
He said
Los Amigos/Club 508 was a legal non-conforming use at that location which was a
commercial use that was allowed at that location. He said he did not think the City could pass
an ordinance that they were not allowed to be within 500 feet and make that
stick.
Commissioner
Chestnut said on a scale of 1-10 if the Commission felt their control was a 2
and wanted it to be a 7, then the ordinances were a 10 and that was not a place
he wanted to go. It put the Commission in
a place with a lot of broad power that would be concerning to him as an
establishment owner.
As far as
the SUP and entertainment license as written were too broad and could have some
serious unintended consequences going forward.
He also felt they should get a lot of input from the licensees.
He said in
most of the examples provided, regarding entertainment licenses, there were
typically a lot of exclusions and a lot of exclusions were for full service
restaurants that mostly served food.
That could be one place to consider.
It seemed like it went through and excluded some of the venues and was a
little more targeted. Whether it was fair
or not, he did not know, but it was one place where he saw to limit the amount,
because it would be a big undertaking if choosing to move forward.
Mayor Hack
said the answer to the question of whether the City Commission wanted
additional authority to act on behalf of the safety and welfare of the citizens
was definitely a “yes”. The question was
what was the balance and how much. She
said the special use permit was too burdensome on staff and business owners. It would create perhaps more confusion and
complexity than already existed.
In a
perfect world the state would give the City the authority to do this, but
obviously the state was not going to.
When there was that situation there were the layers of appeal. What they needed was when a situation emerged
like this; they could act immediately with a license that might allow them to
do this. She agreed with Commission
Chestnut that if they did anything that put the future of businesses in the
hands of five elected officials, she thought that was too much of a burden for
the other businesses. However, they were
also responsible for the health, safety and welfare of all the citizens so that
was difficulty.