City Council Meeting 02/21/2012

The Carbondale City Council and the Liquor Control Commission met Tuesday, February 21 at city hall. I watched from home on Mediacom channel 16.

The Liquor Control Commission met at 7:00 with two major items on the agenda – an application for a beer garden for Sports Blast (behind the mall) and transfer of a liquor license to the new owners of the Newell House. The transfer of a liquor license for Newell House was approved unanimously.

What should have been a simple approval for the Sports Blast beer garden became more complicated than necessary, as is customary at city council meetings. In the first vote, the application was denied over concerns about amplified music. Commissioners Monty, Adams, and Fritzler voted against the beer garden, while Commissioners Fronabarger, Wissmann, and McDaniel voted in favor.

This meant the approval failed for lack of a majority. Council member Lance Jack owns Fat Patties, which has a liquor license, and does not sit on the Liquor Control Commission.

The owner of Sports Blast then agreed to conditions limiting his ability to play amplified music – conditions which burden no other beer garden in Carbondale – and his application was approved unanimously on a second vote.

Liquor Commissioner Monty raised the concerns about noise from a beer garden and justified the imposition of conditions by claiming the other Carbondale beer gardens are in the core of town, while Sports Blast is closer to residential developments. I checked Google Maps and it appears to me that Hangar 9′s beer garden is at least a little closer to residential areas than Sports Blast, which undermines that justification.

I think the commission did the wrong thing here. I would have voted to approve the beer garden without unfairly imposing conditions that apply to no other beer gardens in town. I will never understand the strange attitudes toward liquor issues in Carbondale. I realize some will claim this was a noise issue, or a neighborhoods issue, but make no mistake: it’s a liquor issue.

The Liquor Commission adjourned and the City Council meeting began at approximately 7:40. The consent agenda was approved unanimously, as was the resolution authorizing submission of an application for grant funds to support the CDAP housing rehabilitation program. The council then turned to discussion of Mayor Fritzler’s proposal to cut  $120,000 from the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau’s budget and distribute the money to other organizations.

The council heard detailed proposals from organizations including Carbondale Main Street, Carbondale Community Arts, and the Chamber of Commerce on how they would use the additional funds. Ideas included improved landscaping in the downtown, addition of murals outside the Amtrak station, development of a smart phone app promoting downtown Carbondale, support for the Southern Illinois Music Festival, and marketing Carbondale to SIUC alumni.

CCTB Executive Director Debbie Moore again defended the agency and took questions from council members. CCTB board members and hotel owners and managers again spoke in defense of CCTB.

Council eventually directed city staff to cut $50k from the CCTB budget. The cut will be reallocated as follows: Carbondale Community Arts – $5k, Carbondale Main Street – $15k, Carbondale Chamber of Commerce – $10k, Buckminster Fuller Dome NFP – $10k, Carbondale Park District – $10k (this year, with more likely to follow). Council also earmarked $8k of the funds it will allocate to CCTB – $3k for the Lion’s Club Fourth of July fireworks and $5k for the Lights Fantastic parade.

It’s hard to score this as a win or a loss for anyone. Of Fritzler’s original proposal for a $120k cut, which I supported, only $50k was ultimately cut. I can’t score that as a victory for Fritzler. On the other hand, CCTB didn’t want to have any funds cut from its allocation. It lost $50k, so I can’t score it as a victory for CCTB. And I wouldn’t call it a win/win compromise either. I’ll score it a draw.

After a lengthy set of citizen’s comments, council entered closed session to discuss personnel matters.

Comments are welcome.

UPDATE: Due to technical issues, an earlier version of this post was published this morning by mistake. I caught the error at 7:48 and corrected it by 7:51. Email and RSS subscribers may have gotten the earlier, incorrect version. I apologize for the error.

City Council Meets Tonight

The Carbondale City Council (and Liquor Control Commission) meets tonight at the city hall/civic center at 7:00 p.m. The agenda is available by clicking here. The main items on the liquor control commission agenda are consideration of a beer garden permit for Sports Blast and transfer of a liquor license for Newell House. The main item on the city council agenda is further consideration of the plan to cut funding for the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau. It could turn out to be a long meeting despite the short agenda.

One other item of note – council will hold a closed meeting to discuss personnel matters. If a council decides to act on its discussion, action would be taken in an open meeting.

I’ll be watching from home on Mediacom channel 16.

Comments are welcome.

City Council Meeting 02/07/2012

I watched last night’s city council meeting from home on Mediacom’s channel 16. As expected, council approved TIF funds for Coleman Rentals, approved the labor agreements with the police unions, and approved the chicken ordinance. And, as expected, the discussion of community and economic development organization funding consumed most of the meeting.

Most of the time spent on community and economic development organization funding was devoted to the mayor’s proposal to cut $120,000 from the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau’s budget and distribute that money to other organizations. CCTB executive director Debbie Moore delivered a 30 minute summary of the agency’s activities and former SIUC chancellor Sam Goldman delivered a speech opposing cuts to the CCTB.

After other organizations seeking funding gave their remarks, council returned to the CCTB issue. Council member Jane Adams asked a number of questions of CCTB executive director Debbie Moore. Adams’ questions were aimed at CCTB’s budget process, performance of its duties, and use of staff time. Mayor Fritzler cut Adams’ time short before she was able to finish asking her questions.

Council member Corene McDaniel delivered a fiery defense of CCTB and indictment of Fritzler’s plan. McDaniel pointed to the assortment of agencies Fritzler proposes funding with the money cut from CCTB and noted that Attucks Community Services, which provides services mostly to African-American children on the city’s northeast side, is not included.

Council member Lance Jack shared his concern that the city is moving too quickly to reallocate funds that have gone to CCTB in the past. Jack said he was open to reallocating the funds but wanted to be sure that whatever projects would receive the redistributed money are able to spend the money intelligently. A tense exchange with Fritzler followed.

Council member Don Monty echoed some of the concerns raised by Jack and McDaniel and added that he is concerned that city funding for some organizations might discourage people from volunteering with those organizations. Monty said that the funding levels proposed for some beneficiaries of the CCTB cut are too low to make much difference to those organizations – offering the Buckminster Fuller Dome and the Park District pool as examples.

Council member Lee Fronabarger pointed to a communications gap with CCTB and said he never knew how CCTB spent its money until he began studying the issue recently. He also said he’s heard complaints about CCTB’s performance of its duties – specifically that CCTB has been unresponsive to requests for help in organizing festivals.

Several community members spoke on the CCTB issue, some in favor of cutting funds from CCTB and some opposed. Council decided to continue the discussion of CCTB funding to the next meeting and to hold funding for all other organizations steady.

I’m going to withhold comment on the substance of this, but I will tell you that I’d vote to cut the funds from CCTB this year and every year until major changes were made to CCTB. To see what Fritzler proposes funding with $120,000 cut from CCTB, click here.

Comments are welcome.

City Council Meets Tonight

The Carbondale City Council meets tonight at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall. The agenda is online on the city’s website (click here). There are only four items on the general business agenda: TIF funds for Coleman Rentals at 210 E. Walnut, an ordinance adopting a labor agreement with police, the chicken ordinance (again), and a discussion of community and economic development organization funding requests.

I’d expect the TIF and labor agreement items to be fairly uncontroversial. I’m hoping the chicken ordinance will be uncontroversial too, but the city has been working on it since February 2010, and there have been numerous delays. This looks like the last step, though, so maybe it will go quickly.

I expect the final item, discussion of community and economic development organization funding, to take awhile. The public always turns out to comment at these meetings, and often at length. That alone would make for a long meeting, but it looks like conflict is brewing over the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau.

Mayor Fritzler wants to cut $120,000 from the CCTB budget and transfer that money to the general fund. Jackson County, which provides a small amount of money to CCTB is considering withdrawing all funding. No decision will be made at tonight’s meeting, but the discussion could take awhile.

You can read more about the conflict over the CCTB at the links below.

Comments are welcome.

Carbondale Times:

CCTB Could See Dramatic Funding Cuts from Carbondale, Jackson County

Southern Illinoisan:

Fritzler Mulls New Split of Lodging Tax Money

Tourism Group, County May Part Ways

No Rush To Dump Tourism Bureau

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Anonymity

It’s been awhile since I’ve addressed the anonymity issue and I’ve been meaning to return to it. Regular readers (and anyone who reads the “About” or “Frequently Asked Questions” pages) know that I blog anonymously. On the About page, I’ve given you a reason for that:

I choose to blog anonymously because this blog isn’t about me.  It is about Carbondale, SIUC, Jackson County, and the surrounding area.  I’m interested in writing about local government, business, and civil society.  I’m not interested in writing about myself.

By writing anonymously, I keep the focus on whatever I’m writing about. The focus is on ideas and issues instead of on me. I’m not running for any office. I have no desire to be a public figure. I do enjoy talking (or writing) about local issues, and the blog gives me the opportunity to do that. Adding my name to the posts doesn’t make my opinions any better or any worse.

What I didn’t tell you on the About page is that I had two other reasons for blogging anonymously.  

Fritzler Should Apologize

I’m sure everyone in Carbondale knows that the annual Polar Bear party took place on Saturday. And everyone has probably heard that a nineteen year old male (who was not a student at SIUC) lost his leg in a train accident early Saturday morning. And if you’ve heard about all that, you’ve probably heard about the comments Carbondale mayor Joel Fritzler posted to his campaign Facebook account. In case you haven’t, this is what our mayor thought was an appropriate response to the accident:

First Polar Bear casualty took place this morning just after the bars closed when a 19 year old male with a .273 BAC tried to jump onto a freight train. Human bones between metal train wheels and train tracks usually doesn’t end well. Was it worth it?

There are a few problems with this. First and most obvious is that the remark shows no trace of sensitivity to the person who was injured or to his family. That would be bad enough if the statement came from a private citizen speaking for himself. But Fritzler is the mayor and when he speaks, he speaks for Carbondale.

But it’s not even clear that Fritzler has the facts right. Polar Bear started at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. According to the police department’s press release, the accident happened around 2:50 a.m on Saturday – over seven hours before Polar Bear started. So why is Fritzler claiming the accident is a Polar Bear casualty?

In his Facebook post, Fritzler claims the victim had a .273 BAC. But the Daily Egyptian reports that police are still waiting for results of the victim’s blood test to determine if he was intoxicated. So why is Fritzler claiming the victim had a .273 BAC?

Let’s think about this. A young man, a visitor to our town, was in the hospital with life threatening injuries after a horrible accident. It wasn’t yet clear that he would survive. And our mayor thinks the correct response is to make a sneering, insensitive, inaccurate post on his Facebook page. This is a serious lapse of judgement on Fritzler’s part, and he owes an apology to the victim, his family, and the people of Carbondale.

Fritzler must know he made a mistake, because he’s removed the post from his Facebook page. Unfortunately, it looks like Fritzler isn’t going to apologize. KFVS 12 asked him about his comments, and here was his response:

“When I said is it worth it, it was basically out to everybody,” said Fritzler. “Is something like this worth it? Where you have a party and the purpose is to get as drunk as possible. That doesn’t sound like responsible behavior on anybody’s part no matter how old you are. And, that is what I was trying to get at, this is not responsible behavior.”

That doesn’t sound like an apology to me. That sounds like a defense of remarks that are indefensible. Fritzler only has one good option. He needs to issue an apology, and he needs to do it immediately. Judging by his comment to KFVS 12, it looks like he isn’t going to do it.

I voted for Fritzler in the general election. Since he’s taken office, he’s made a series of mistakes. I’ve criticized him when I thought he was wrong, but I haven’t regretted my vote until now. But his response to this accident has given me buyer’s remorse. It’s clear now that Fritzler is not up to the job we’ve given him. If Fritzler cannot swallow his pride and apologize, that shows serious weakness as a leader.

I’m posting a screenshot of Frizler’s Facebook page below. I’ll also post a second screenshot showing the comments on his post up to about 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. I’ve blacked out the names of the people commenting and the photos next to their names. Click the photos to see a larger version.

Comments are welcome.

Armory Update

The state received five bids on the old National Guard armory at Oakland and Sycamore. The bidders are:

1. City of Carbondale – $9,999
2. Servants for Christ Ministries – $15,525
3. Arthur Agency – $25,525
4. Christine Boettcher – $40,000
5. Andy Wallace – $80,000

The Department of Military Affairs is still reviewing the bids and have not yet accepted the high bid. It’s possible that they may re-advertise.

My preference is for the city to get the Armory. If the city doesn’t get it, I’d prefer that it go either the Servants for Christ Ministries or the Arthur Agency. A church would be an okay use of the building. So would offices, which I assume is the use Arthur Agency has in mind, although that use would require rezoning the property. It’s not clear yet what Christine Boettcher or Andy Wallace have in mind for the property. There are rumors, but no hard facts.

My first priority is for the building to be used and maintained. My second priority is that it be used in a way that benefits the community and doesn’t place an unfair burden on the surrounding neighborhood. A public, community use would be best.

Comments are welcome.

City Council Meeting January 17, 2012

I watched last night’s city council meeting from home on channel 16. It was quite long and the council only took action on two general business items. I’m short on time so I’m going to write a very short summary.

After approving the consent agenda, the council voted unanimously to participate in the Coal Belt Revolving Loan Program (pdf). This seems like a good program and I can’t see any reason not to participate.

Next the council reviewed the Community Investment Program checklist items for proposed new projects. You can see the agenda item here (pdf). Council did not object to any item staff recommended and no action was taken.

Next council conducted a review of community goals. This is done annually and was the best part of the meeting. The best suggestion came from Jane Adams – that the city prioritize streaming city council meetings on the web. I really hope they do this because I’d probably cancel Mediacom if they do. Don Monty also had a good suggestion – that the city put drafts of city council meetings online before the agendas are finalized. His reasoning was that it would allow concerned parties more time to meet and plan to address council. Check out the agenda item here (pdf).

The final item on the general business agenda was a request for a special use permit to operate a Day Care Home II (6-12 children) in a residential neighborhood. Council rejected this. Normally I’d be complaining about this, since a day care is a great use in a residential neighborhood, but it seems like there are some legitimate concerns with this particular home and the “no” vote wasn’t a general rejection of any day care centers in residential neighborhoods. Of course the neighbors all turned out to argue against the home – typical for Carbondale.

After citizen comments and council comments, the council went into closed session. I’m not totally sure what they were planning to discuss and I’m not sure if council re-convened in open session afterwards.

After spending three and a half hours watching one of these tedious meetings – even on TV in the comfort of my own home – I think council members deserve more than the $4,200 per year they are paid.

Comments are welcome.

Northwest Neighborhood Meeting

I attended the northwest neighborhood meeting at Hickory Lodge on Monday night. I was surprised at the attendance. I’d say at least fifty people and maybe a few more crammed into the small front room to ask newly appointed city manager Kevin Baity questions about the sale of the old National Guard armory at Oakland and Sycamore.

I was less hopeful when I heard the comments and suggestions for future uses. Few people in the audience seemed to understand our zoning laws and what is and is not permitted in the various districts. Most of the comments focused on what people didn’t want the property used for. The few comments offering ideas on what might be acceptable were oriented toward community or non-profit uses, which would be desirable, but which might not be practical.

I was most surprised at the reaction to one gentleman’s comments. I didn’t catch his name, but the man gave a short speech detailing what he sees as the decline of the northwest neighborhood and laying at least part of the blame on our overly restrictive zoning laws. The man said he considers Chicago a great example of how to handle mixed uses in a neighborhood and pointed out that in Chicago $500,000 dollar homes stand a short walk from coffee shops, retail stores, and even taverns. He concluded with a call to let the free market decide what uses belong where. His speech was met with a groan from those in attendance.

I will write a post about this in the future, but for now I want to point out one thing. If the Armory is sold to an individual or a for-profit company, we will have to make it possible for that person or company to make money from the property. If we don’t, it will gradually fall into disrepair and eventually it will have to be torn down. We don’t have to like that fact, but we have to accept that it is a fact.

It’s possible that the armory won’t be sold to an individual or a for-profit company. Maybe the city will buy it and either keep it for its own use or transfer it to a community group. Maybe some community group will buy the armory itself. It’s even possible that an individual will buy the property and donate it – maybe to a community group or the Park District – and it will be put to some non-commercial use. If so, great.

If not, we need to start thinking about best and worst case scenarios for a commercial use, and about what we’re willing to tolerate. I can tell you the worst case scenario. It isn’t that someone will use the armory for something the community doesn’t like. It’s that it will go unused and eventually will be torn down.

I’ll tell you what I think. I’ve already mentioned that the best idea I’ve heard is for Carbondale Main Street to get the property (probably through a purchase by the city) and use it as a year-round farmer’s market. Someone at the meeting suggested that the property be used as an arts center. That might also be a good use, although we already have the Varsity Center for the Arts.

But if the purchaser wants to use it for commercial purposes, I’d be agreeable. I wouldn’t want to see it used for any purpose that puts the health or safety of the neighborhood at risk. That would rule out the chemical plant that so many at the meeting seemed to fear (and which, I’ll add, would never ever happen, not in a million years). I’d accept offices. I’d accept a retail store, although I think it’s a poor location for that use. I’d accept an entertainment venue or nightclub.

I urge residents of the city to consider what they’d accept if the property is sold for commercial use.

Although there was no consensus on how the armory should be used, there was one interesting outcome of the meeting. Some in attendance formed a committee to meet again with the goal of organizing a stable neighborhood association similar to the Arbor District. I think this is a great development and I hope it succeeds. I may write a longer post on this topic in the future.

Comments are welcome.

Northwest Neighborhood Meeting Monday January 16

There is a neighborhood meeting scheduled for Monday to discuss the pending sale of the old National Guard Armory at Oakland and Sycamore. The meeting will be held from 7:00 -8:30 p.m. at Hickory Lodge (1115 W. Sycamore St.) Newly appointed city manager Kevin Baity will be on hand to answer questions and hear concerns.

I’m short on time tonight so I can’t spend too much time on this. The Armory sale is another situation where our zoning laws could produce a less than optimal outcome. I’m looking at the zoning map (pdf) and it looks to me like it’s zoned either R-1-8 or R-1-8D. You can click the links to see what is and is not allowed in these districts.

The old Armory building is attractive, and we don’t build them that way anymore. I’d hate to see it torn down, which is the standard practice with beautiful old buildings in Carbondale. But our code doesn’t really allow uses that would be appropriate for the building. The best use allowed in any R-1 district would be a church (which is a special use). But that’s hardly the best use imaginable for the property.

We have a couple of options. The city could possibly rezone that lot. The southwest side of Oakland and Sycamore is zoned R-3, which has a wider range of uses. It would be possible to imagine other possible zoning designations for the property. The other option would be to amend code in some way that would permit the property to be used.

What’s certain is that it won’t be used as a single family residence, which – unless I’m mistaken – is how it’s zoned. The best proposed use I’ve heard for the property is for Carbondale Main Street to use it as a year-round, indoor farmer’s market. Maybe it could be converted for condos or apartments. I’m sure there are other good uses too. But few or none of them are allowed in an R-1 district.

One other potential problem occurs to me. Unless I’m mistaken, there are underground fuel tanks on the property. That would make the site a brownfield and expose the new owner to potential liability issues. I doubt there is anything the city can do about that problem. I’m going to plead ignorance of state brownfield laws. Some states have incentives to clean up brownfields that limit the liability of owners after a successful cleanup. I don’t know if Illinois has such laws.

I suspect some of these issues will come up at Monday’s meeting. If you like old buildings and don’t want to see the Armory torn down, maybe you can spare an hour and a half on Monday evening. Unless we find a use for this building, it will eventually be razed.

Comments are welcome.