Public Comment

Transcript (~7 min @ 10:20)

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▶ 10:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Eccles. And then without objection, I will open the floor to public comment. This is the period of time where any member of the public can speak to any item on our agenda. Madam Clerk, do we have

▶ 10:44 Speaker 1: anyone wishing to speak? Yes, Mr. Dittmar. Can you hear us? Mr. Dittmar, can you hear us?

▶ 11:08 Speaker 5: Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, great. Okay. Thank you, Kristen. Hi, Hi, councillors. My name is Myron Dittmer. I live at 93 Altamont Avenue in Melrose and I've been a homeowner in the city for four and a half decades and my wife and I raised three children here. They all went through our city school system. And I might add, they thoroughly enjoyed the many parks and recreational opportunities that our city had to offer. First, I have read the recent letter from our city solicitor, Mr. Van Campen, which is in the packet for tonight's meeting. In response to a question by counselor in an earlier meeting, Mr. Van Campen stated that in the preceding 15 years, in no instance has a liquor license holder has had their liquor license suspended or revoked by the Liquor Commission in Melrose. All I want to say there is, although this may be true, he neglected to convey to the council that the clubhouse at Mount Hood Golf Course was caught twice serving underage people as a result of a sting operations authorized by the Melrose Liquor Commission back in 2009 and again in 2012. I'm sorry, 2009 and 2012, right. I just wanted to put that out there and make you aware of that. Also attached to this meeting's packet is a letter from Mayor Broder in which he believes that allowing the sale and consumption of alcohol on the fairways at Mount Hood would help enhance the local Melrose economy during a time of global crisis. I doubt that many of you would agree that selling more alcohol would truly be worth the extra money given the fact that with the negative social impact we have all seen with excessive drinking during the pandemic. We now see the economy bursting out of its malaise where we just learned the GDP was 6.4% annually adjusted for the first quarter of this year. even the golf course management people have recently acknowledged that the golf course revenues have been in their words gangbusters while memberships have significantly increased this does not sound like an organization in need of a few thousand dollars more as you know i am against the order 2021-104 which among other things deletes the prohibition of selling or consuming alcohol on land managed by the park commission as noted in section 173-2 the city ordinance doing so will create a slippery slope which will open the possibility to the city to allow the sale and consumption of alcohol on any parkland including the fairways of mount hood golf course i've recently sent you an updated list of 32 melrose residents against this order and i have to apologize the original list had 34. i realized there was a problem with two two people one on that list so I had to remove them. As you can see, many of the residents live in Ward 6, and who would be more negatively impacted by beverage carts, selling alcohol on fairways than these people? Actually, if you look at the list, some of you may actually recognize a prominent name on that list. His name is James Lane. For some of you may recognize that name. He's a park commissioner, current park commissioner in Melrose. He's an avid golfer as are the other four members of the park commission. But Jim was a golf pro in the Winchester Country Club, which is a private golf course, for 32 years. He told me that he would never have allowed beverage carts to roam the fairways in Winchester Country Club, and he and he fought that every time it came up and was successful he just doesn't believe it's it's a good mix to have alcohol with playing golf and uh i think so you don't have to take my word for it you take a golf pro who's spent his whole life on the golf course certainly the current concerns of these melrose residents deserve your support since many of them are butters or live near the golf course and they would be negatively impacted by any potential safety issues such as is speeding down local neighborhoods while leaving the clubhouse. Also, the mayor has noted that he would consider allowing the sale and consumption of alcohol in some of the other parks in Melrose such as Bowdoin Park, maybe even Melrose Common. I find such potential use of parks for this purpose unacceptable for many families and children using these parks. Such a use of parks seems antithetical to what we all look forward to when we move to Melrose. It's a community blessed with so many parks, playgrounds, and fields for the enjoyment of our families and children. Please ask yourself this one question. Since many of you have young children, would you really like to see organization renting space at some of our local parks and have them sell and consume alcohol while your child or children play nearby? Or even worse, deny the children use of the park because of these parties. Concerning Mount Hood, city officials have not yet put forth a comprehensive program to mitigate the many safety and infrastructure improvements that would be needed if the city decides to move ahead with allowing beverage carts to sell alcohol beverages on fairways at Mount Hood, as well as other parks throughout the city. Some of these improvements include the installation of speed bumps and sidewalks on Slayton Road, the hiring of older staff to operate the beverage guards the addition of more professional golf rangers uh in addition of security staff patrol mount hood on evenings to threaten to prevent vandalism to the park as well as to local neighborhoods therefore for the many reasons outlined above i recommend that the subcommittee not recommend the passage of order 2021-104 to the full council and i thank you for your

▶ 17:06 Jen Grigoraitis: your time and attention thank you mr ditmer ms foote do we have anyone else in queue to speak

▶ 17:11 Speaker 1: There's 1 of the gentlemen, if you'd like to speak, you could raise your hand. They're on a phone. I'm not sure.

▶ 17:21 Speaker 1: Would you like to speak a public comment? Nope.

▶ 17:27 Jen Grigoraitis: All right without objection, I will close public comment and then we can move on to the business before us. Tonight, we have 1 order before the committee. It is order 2021 dash 104, amending chapter 173 of the revised ordinances of the city of Melrose.