City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we're going to go ahead and start.

Thursday, July 16th, 503. So joint meeting with maintenance and development and intergovernment state and federal regulations. And we have one topic for discussion and discussion on the food truck ordinance that went into effect on July 1st, 2026 and related issues. ordinance. I'm just going to open up a few. Recognize our colleague here, Jose Delgado. We also have online. We have our state representative, Carlos Gonzalez. Online, we have Maria Perez. Council President, Madam Chair, Tracy Whitfield, Councilor Hurst. We have our Health and Human Services Director, Helen Cotton Harris. School Committee Member, Ayanna Crawford. Hope I'm not missing anybody else who's,

Councilor Govan.

Councilor Govan, thank you. Councilor Walsh is coming on. Hope that's all of our councilors that we have. If I miss anybody, I apologize. I'm having a hard time seeing. And then we also have Chris Signoli, who's with the city DPW as well. So I'm going to give a brief synopsis of how we kind of arrived to where we're at. I know Chris can kind of dive into a little bit more with. He's been dealing with this a lot more than I have. So I guess this came about sometime last year where there was a. Issue or issues occurring in particular area of the city. Which I believe is worth 5. I mean, we're 7, excuse me and. A counselor who's no longer on the committee. On the city council brought it to the attention. Of the city council, we're putting in some regulations. Regarding food trucks. Fast forward to January, we had a turnover. I became chair of maintenance and development, kind of fell in my lap to facilitate and help to work with the food trucks, our constituents and the brick and mortars to come up with some, again, some oversight that we have regarding food trucks. So we went, we had several meetings since I became a, came up. in charge of facilitating uh we had about four or five meetings uh several counselors wanted to bring it to committee to discuss further did take some input from from uh food truck owners um obviously can't get can't get all we did try to meet and come with a happy medium. Some of the things we will kind of go through as we go along. But, you know, that's where we kind of arrived at. We have some stipulations that we put in. We're more than happy to hear you all out again. And then we'll take it from there. But I also want to kick it to Chris Ignoli, who kind of gave another overview of kind of where we landed at. Because, again, he's more entangled in this than I was. I picked up as of this year. Sure. Also, I want to recognize, sorry, I want to recognize Councilor Dabla as well.

Wow.

Thank you. As Councilor Quick-Bruce mentioned, in April, May of 2025, from the previous year and early in 25, we were receiving through city councilors, through neighborhood amount of complaints related to food trucks on private property. We then got together with a number of counselors in internal in the city. Inside of the city, there is a process and procedure for food trucks in the public way. Those rules have been in place for over 10 years. So when we started writing the regulations for this, we took those same rules, same regulations, and brought them on private property. There was no... city permitting process for food trucks on private property. If you were on private property and you were property licensed, you did have your peddler, you did have your approval from the fire department, you did have your approval from Health and Human Services, but there was no overarching ordinance that oversaw this. The complaints that we were getting from neighborhood associations and from residents was location of food trucks relative to residential property, location of food trucks relative to existing restaurants, and hours of operation as far as noise with regard to the food truck itself, people, cars, et cetera. So when we started to put the ordinance together, I was tasked with the responsibility of putting the ordinance together. Basically, the rules and regulations that we put together or that I put together for presentation to the council was expanding it from public to and to private property. The ordinance was submitted in November to the city council. It was tabled. There was one committee meeting, I believe, and then it was sat, it was tabled at the city council, sat until we had new committee members. And I believe we ended up with six or seven subcommittee meetings on this with the ultimate approval with modifications being made at the April meeting. At the April meeting, modifications were made at recommendations from the counselor. Following that meeting, we created a one-page flyer anytime we do an ordinance modification. zoning code, police ordinance, and DPW were asked to kind of blanket the city, hand out the flyer. We had notified over 100 vendors, but I do know that there was ones that had no idea what was going on. So we blanketed the city once in May, in I want to say late April, early May. And at the beginning of June, not one vendor had submitted any application to the city. So we then blanketed the city again and started handing out the flyers, which were done the first, second, third week in June. And what we were saying, even though the ordinance was passed in April, we were saying we were not going to do any enforcement of anything until July 1st. So when we started blanketing the city with the second time around with the permit or with the notifications, we had a number of entities attempt to make applications to the city. As of today, there have only been eight applications submitted to the city. I see a lot of people in this room. I don't see a lot of applications from a lot of people. So there's only been eight that have been submitted and most of them are either been approved or in the process of being approved. So the issue that we're running into now is we need to get people certified, approved, and get you approved for your locations. The flyer, just to highlight some things in there, permits are for a year. Hours of operation are 6 a.m., 11 p.m. No more than two food trucks allowed on a parcel. If you wanna be more than two food trucks on a parcel, there isn't a process that goes through the city council. Chris. Yes. Also with the hours as well. Yes. So they can... Correct. Correct. Cannot operate within 500 feet of any brick and mortar restaurant. That was an issue. It is from the buildings. We are measuring that from buildings. But that 500 feet has been in place for 10 years. This is nothing new from anybody. You cannot be within 100 feet of any residential zone or residential use property. That is the lot, not the building. Can't be within 100 feet of any fuel dispenser. We did have some issues with some gas stations that had food trucks that were too close. A permit must be displayed if you're operating on private property, you must have written approval of the property owner. Now, the only reason one of the reasons we did that is last year we had an issue with a particular vendor who is not operating the city anymore. who was paying a tenant rent, but the owner didn't know about it. So obviously that was a little bit of an issue. If you're on private property, there has to be a buffer from the sidewalk. There's zoning rules, X amount of feet in from the property line, et cetera. And as I mentioned, trucks need to operate on private property within zoning rules, just from setbacks, et cetera, so that we're not clogging up sidewalks, we're not blocking entrances. And we are looking for sketches. And sketches, we are not looking for an engineered plan, but we want to see on a site where you're going to be. This is more of an issue when you are on an existing property. The problems that we had with a couple of them two, three, four years ago is a food vendor would be on a parcel that would have eight or nine parking spaces, and the food truck would take up four of them. So therefore people didn't have a place to park and then we're parking all over the place. So we wanna make sure that the lot is safe, it's operating the way that it should. So that's kind of the highlights. Some of those things were modified as part of the submission to the council. And at the last meeting, the council made modifications that were circulating. So that kind of brings us to where we are today. The ordinance is in place. The DPW has not issued any fines to anybody at any time. It was never, we never issued any fines. We were notifying people that they needed to come into compliance for July 1st. I received emails from some counselors, from other people saying, you fine people. Nobody was ever fined. If you did receive a fine, it would have come from zoning. It would have come from ordinance. And I don't know if anybody did. to police, they have not issued one fine on this. And I know my conversations with CODE have said the same thing. Anybody here receive any fines? Okay, I just wanted to make sure of that.

So that's kind of-

No. Okay.

Okay.

You're my interpreter? No, because I have this thing that's happening. No, you're my interpreter. I have sign language.

I'll do that for you. It's just... So that's kind of... I wanted to give everybody the big background on that. I can't remember the date in April that it was passed, but it was the first week in April on that. And I do know that the... I'm going to use the word complaint. that came in was um uh a lot some of you how many i don't know didn't even know about the the ordinance so we wanted to make sure everybody knew about it uh location is an issue we've been getting uh requests that say hey i'm next to this building but it shouldn't be a problem well If you're next to a business, the business is there. They're paying property taxes. They're doing everything they're supposed to. They're going to be the ones complaining to us. Hence the reason we had the 500 feet for years. The 500 feet, and I mentioned this a couple of times, is not new. It has always been in there for food trucks. So if you were getting approval for anywhere around the city in the public way, you were going to... required to be 500 feet away if you are a food truck that is in the public way or wants to be in the public way all of these rules are the same and have been in place uh and if you are in the public way you actually get a space we put a sign up for you it's your space all the same rules and regulations apply so i just wanted to say again when we put this together uh we use the same rules that have been in in applying for food trucks in the public way for the last 10 plus years so with that i will turn it back over to counselor thank you uh chris ignoli um any counselor i see your i have counselor go on any counselors and in-house wants to uh

I think I have my hand up first, Councilor, because I just want to clarify a couple of things before you turn it over to Councilor Govan. This ordinance was approved on April 7th, but we had meetings and So when one person posted a video, it was like, how is the city doing this without notifying us? Not true. We had a subcommittee meeting on November 12th. We had another meeting on November 13th. We had another meeting on January 12th, February 2nd, February 25th, March 9th, April 6th, and April 7th. So we had extensive meetings about this food truck ordinance. And a lot of people that I see in the room now were at some of the meetings. So I just wanted to say that we have been having a lot of discussions about it. In addition, the fee was originally proposed to us at $450 for six months and then a renewal fee of $150. And with extensive negotiation from the city council, we got the annual fee down to $125. We have to have our businesses also invested. in the city um so everything cannot be free because there is our additional services that the city do have to provide um in order to police safety fire all those things we still have to do that Number three, third thing that I wanted to address was notifications going out to the food truck owners. If you had a permit with Health and Human Services, which every food truck should have, you should have gotten a notification. That was suggested by Councilor Delgado. We sent the... We sent this back to subcommittee that was around February, March timeframe to get the list from health and human services. And then DPW sent notices to everyone who had a permit from health and human services, which is also a requirement. Then I got an email about additional requirements. that and i don't know this is something that we have to work with departments on um chris specifically that was not aware that they had to get other permits from police fire even healthy human services so i want to make sure that when folks come in to get a permit that they know all the departments that they have to get permits from because they think they only have to do certain things. And then it's like, oh, you didn't get this from police. You didn't get it from fire. So, Chris, my question to you is when the food trucks come in to DPW to get a permit for for the food trucks, do they are they aware that they have to go to police, fire, health and human services and other departments?

Two responses to that, counselor. If they are already operating in the city under any circumstances, they should already have a police, health and human services, and fire approval. They have to have that anyways. If they don't have that, they're not operating legally. So they have to have that. When they come in to us, we do say to them, you're going to have to get us copies of those. And of the applications that we've been receiving lately, we've been getting those. So we're notifying the people on that. As I mentioned, if they're operating now, they should already have those approvals. So nobody should then have to all of a sudden decide, wait a minute, I haven't gone through this process, because they're going to have their food truck inspected by Health and Human Services, by fire. Police is just the, it's a peddler license. $25? Yeah. Something like that. That's just a simple one. But yeah, they're all, I should say most of them are fully aware of that.

What about new food trucks? Are they told that they're supposed to get a peddler's license and go to Health and Human Services and go to fire and go to police?

Yeah, if you are new, you're going to need three things before you come to the DPW. You're going to need a peddler's license. And then if you have certain things in your truck, propane, fryers possibly, you're going to need to get inspected by the fire department. You're going to need their certification. And Health and Human Services is going to need to inspect your vehicle, and you're going to be getting a permit from them. Those are going to then come to us for your approval. Okay.

um to be able to get your location in the city so if you're new you're going to need those anyways one moment let me finish please sir so how would they know where to start chris if i'm new coming to get an application how would i know where to start is it like a checklist on the city website because This happens in a lot of ways with the city. It's like, oh, go here to get this license. And then they go there like, oh, you didn't get X, Y, and Z, but they were never told to get X, Y, and Z. How do they know where to start?

We hadn't done it yet. What we are going to do is be posting. We are going to be creating a food truck permit program. page. And I was going to be doing that in June. But with all this, I didn't want to do that in case there were any modifications of what we were talking about today that may go in front of the council. So I was going to put that together. As you mentioned, flyers went out to everybody that had an existing permit through the Health and Human Services. How did those flyers go out? They went out via email twice. If you had a permit, it went out through email. And everybody who had an email address from the Health and Human Services, those were sent out twice. I believe once in January because we had a meeting And then I believe they were once, they were again sent out in May by Health and Human Services just to get a notification. It may have been a later in May, but I know no second round notifications went out.

Yes, sir. I can't speak on behalf of everybody in here, but being that I'm on that list, I personally didn't receive a email. I'm pretty on top of my emails. So I can't speak on behalf of everybody else, but I personally received a email.

That was something that we also had an issue with, was is it... Was there one specific person in charge of sending those emails out?

The first ones went out from my department to everybody who was on the list provided by Health and Human Services, which was about 150. And then that same list, which may have been added to for more people who have gotten permits since then, was sent out through Health and Human Services in May.

Is there a way that we can recheck to make sure that everyone's getting those?

And I just want to ask the audience if you can also check your spam because we know that some of these notices can go to spam as well. I know like emails are sent and they go to spam for me all the time. So if you can also check your spam and we'll work on getting the notices re-sent out to everyone.

All right. So if also you all can hold your questions to later, because we want to get through all the counselors. And I also want to hear from the state rep and then definitely want to hear from you all. Don't get me wrong. But if we can just vote off to go through our counselors. I want to go to you have a question. You have a question. I have a question for Chris.

Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everybody. Before I ask my question, ¿todo el mundo entiende? ¿Todo el mundo entiende inglés? ¿Todo el mundo habla inglés? Nobody. I'm trying to figure out how many speaks English.

Everybody speaks... No, el necesita español.

El que habla solamente español es el amado. Solamente español. Okay. If you indulge me, Mr. President, I will do it with consolation to those people. Do you want those? Okay. Chris, thank you. Thank you for being here. And thank you for everybody for being here. Rep. Gonzalez, you honor us with your presence. Welcome to the chamber. Chris, I believe at one point you said that we have 120, 140 food trucks, correct?

So on the list that was provided by health and that they have that they have had either active permits for now or in the last two to three years, they provided a list that was 120 to 140. And the only reason is that some people had a food truck under a name. and then have a different food truck under a same name that may have multiples or changed. So everybody that was on that list is what we sent to that was provided by Health and Human Services.

So I have a plethora of questions, but I'm going to try to keep them to two or three of them right now. Then I can circle back later on. So 120, 140, you said that would be an email.

Yes. Why email and not mail? because we had a subcommittee meeting and it was directed as subcommittee meeting that we were gonna be having a meeting 10 days later, something like that, that we wanted to get the food truck vendors here. And a lot of the vendors on addresses when we send out stuff by mail, we have a hell of a lot more success sending stuff by email than we do addresses sometimes. So we decided to send that out email to, first of all, to let everybody know that there was a meeting. And we accompanied that email with, The modification that was proposed at that time, because I think we had that, I may be wrong, that meeting may have been in February, February, something like that. So we sent that out at the end of January because we had a subcommittee meeting. And then before we came before the council, again, we had a second one to make sure all the food vendors could attend. We then had a third one where the neighborhood groups were invited as well as the food truck vendors as well at that time.

If you give me a quick 10 seconds, I can try something briefly, a summary. So, Chris, So I think it's obvious that I will humbly submit to you that we do both. I will humbly submit to you that we do both, electronic and nail.

We have no requirement to... First of all, we have no requirement that we have to do a notification. This was... Well, we have meetings. There was a period during that time, Counselor, like Bruce would say, we were meeting three times a week on different items. I was here. Where we had a lot of different people here. There's no requirement to... do mailing notifications, A, we'd all go poor, B, when we sent this out, that was the means that everybody through Health and Human Services notifies everybody is always through email.

So I'm just saying, I'm saying humbly to you, that we can find whatever you're doing, your boss is going to cost us and those mailers out to the food trucks to avoid future headaches. Okay. In my humble opinion, I would love to hear what my colleagues have to say on that particular issue. But let me ask, how many, if I may, if you'd also Mr. Chair, how many of you in this room got a notice through email? I got one. You got to know how. Okay. Nobody receive a notice? No, no. About the food truck. Okay. When I asked you again, how many of you received an email about the food truck, about the new food truck ordinance. Raise your hand.

That would have been for the past X amount of months, not just in the past week.

So three people perhaps? You, you, two, three. How many of you received an electronic notification of the new law? Marcelo Maldonado. Just three. Okay. So, Mr. Chair, humbly, that will be my first observation if I may. I think that, to me, that will be saving a headache for the future, I think, personally. I don't think that would be that expensive to do. But my other, and I'm a little dismayed, honestly, that only eight people have applied. But I also know on the back end, Chris, that war travels like wildfire. So I will bet that even if you didn't get a notification, somehow you find out about it. But legally speaking, I think we should do both. Me personally. Now, the other question that I have is, I have heard... and we talked about it briefly offline, you and I, Chris, how many people that people were being, that were going to get an application were being denied the application? Can you comment to, let me actually, before we do that, how many of you went down to City Hall to get an application? Raise your hand.

I went to DPW. DPW.

Excuse me, DPW. DPW. ¿Cuántos de ustedes fueron a Sanidad, DPW, a buscar una solicitud? One, two, three, four, five. Okay. Five, six. Okay. How many of you were denied the application? Seven. How many were denied the application? ¿Cuántos? Uno, dos, tres, cuatro. Peter, did you get one?

The thing with us, it wasn't when I went to get it. The question is, did you get one? Yes or no?

They didn't give me the option. Did you get one? Six, I think. Seven. I will say the majority of the people didn't get one.

Just to counsel on that, a number of people went to the wrong department In the night of the building. Okay, where do you think they went? They went, when you come in the building, there is a new window with code. A number of people went there because I checked afterwards and said, did we have people coming here asking for an application for food trucks? They said, yeah, we don't have it. So I told them if anybody new comes in, come to DP, come to DPW Engineering. So that's the right place. DPW Engineering.

Yes. All right. So DPW Engineering. And the address is 70 Tapley Street. 70 Tapley Street. 70 Tapley Street.

Well, when I went in, there's also no sign in there regarding you to that department.

Fair point, fair point. So, Mr. Chair, those are my initial two questions. And I do, I just want to acknowledge that Chris has tried very hard, put up with us for the last, what, year and a half?

20 years.

And so I think my humble observation is there has been rollout issues here, okay? And we can figure it out because you guys have a niche of a business, right? that is important to all of us, okay? Thank you, Pastor Davila.

We're going to go to Councilor Govan and then Councilor Walsh, and then we're going to go to State Rep. Gonzalez. Councilor Govan, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for having this meeting and I'm going to thank all the food truck owners for being there and for Chris for explaining what has happened. I actually want to go back further to how the conversation started regarding the need to change the ordinance. I remember last year speaking to some of the counselors saying that we might need to, you know, look at the food truck ordinance and see if we can make some changes to it. But we had not heard of any, anyone meeting. So it sounds like Chris, you and counselor Allen started meeting because I guess there were some complaints in ward seven that none of us, I didn't know about. I'll speak for myself. I didn't know about, the concerns that were happening there. And I didn't know that there were some meetings happening regarding the ordinance. So that's kind of concerning to me because I guess I would have liked to have been in those initial meetings to talk about What was happening, what had happened and how we could have prevented, you know, some future things from happening. And I would also would like to have had some food truck owners there to join in the conversation and to, you know, address whatever concerns might have happened. So that was just a comment. So, um, I know Chris, you were right. I reached out to you. I want to say maybe, um, the beginning of June, cause I had some, you know, people, uh, reach out to me, food truck owners that were concerned about not being able to access the application. They did go to code and they were told that, no, there was no application. And you and I talked about, you know, where they needed to go. but the people didn't know where they needed to go. So these are micro businesses. And I know Rep Gonzalez is going to be talking about that in a minute. And I think we have to find a way to make sure that these micro businesses is probably one owner. You know, I know most food trucks I know have one person, maybe two at the most possibly working with them and helping with them. So, you know, looking out for emails, finding things from the city, going to the website, trying to look for things. That could be cumbersome on top of everything else that goes with running a business. I just want to make those points. A question I do have. So we have these mobile food trucks, which they move around. When they get a permit on top of all the other permits that they have to get, right? Because they have to get that pet loose license. They have to go to the Health and Human Service Department. And I did see Commissioner Harris here. Commissioner, how much is that permit from the Health Department, if I may, through the chair?

Is that the jobs?

Excuse me, it depends on where, so we do do temporary food truck permits and then we do permits that are for months. So the temporary permit, I believe is $50. The permit, the permanent permit, I believe now is $150. If I'm not mistaken, I know that we talked about increasing that fee.

Okay, and is that for the year or is that for a certain amount of time?

That is, if the food truck is in the public way or is on a private entity lot, then that would be sufficient for the year.

Okay, perfect. Thank you, ma'am. So... So there's that cost. And like when I have our food truck festival in Indian Orchard, if the food trucks don't have a permit from the commissioner's office, then they would have to pay that $50. So there's that fee, there's the peddler's fee, and I'm not sure what other fees are associated with. That's why when this came up, I advocated for you know, there to be not an additional fee because that's cutting into the profits. So now when a food truck gets the permit, Chris, through the chair, if they get the permit for a location, if they move to a different location, do they have to get another permit?

They would just notify us that they're moving to a different location and then we would modify the permit. They wouldn't have to pay again.

Can't hear you, Councilor Govan. Go on mute.

I noticed that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. So thank you for that, Chris. You know, I think this is something, again, I want to reiterate, and I'm sure Councilor, I mean, former Councilor Gonzalez said, current representative gonzalez will expound on this that you know the micro business we have to do all we can to protect them and to support them um i'm actually talking going to be talking to um diane at the chamber about finding ways to how we can support and uplift our micro businesses instead of making them go out business like dewey's did you know downtown where you know the the owner of the building was not paying their taxes so that the business owners had to eat that profit from their pockets and eventually they had to go out of business. So this is something that's very dear to my heart and I want to make sure that we can support and increase the number of business owners that we have in our city, because as Rev Gonzalez always says, they're the biggest employer in the city. There's more small businesses in the city, and I think we need to find ways to support them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Govan. Councilor Walsh?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, just wanted to make sure I wasn't on mute. And thank you for all the... the business owners that have shown up today because I think it's so important to actually hear from the people who are in fact affected by some of the ordinance that we passed today. A couple of thoughts on listening to this. I think somehow we should work on making the application process a lot easier. I remember when I was at the Forest Park Association for Illumination Night and how frustrating it was to have to go to two or three different departments getting permits. I think somehow they should all be in the same place. I worry about, as Zyda said, making it hard for people to do business in the city of Springfield. I think we definitely need to be looking into mailing some of this information. And I don't know if you can take a survey or if there's some way of finding out through a show of hands what the major concern of the people who are here today, what that is. because they certainly have turned out in force. Those are my comments.

Thank you, Councilor Walsh.

I'm trying to raise my hand, but I'm unable to do so. Go ahead, Councilor Perez. That's why I advocated so diligently when it came to the 150 down to the 125, because there are other permits that needs to be Um, taken out that cost money 1 of the issues that I've been receiving notice about the constituents is in terms of the visits. Our Chris, if you are visiting, and probably is the health and human services, because he was not able to explain. But how do those businesses go just for information to the public? So do they have to be on the site? Because they were having some issues when it came to the business that I don't want to enter into detail, but I wanted to be informative. Could anyone explain how the business goes when it comes to checking the food trucks, please?

Asking how there's a visit goes, I'm assuming by if Healthy Human Services pulls up on the So that's the question.

I'll let Helen answer from her side. From us, we've been working for the years, we've been in the public way. When we issue permits, we have a list of everybody who is in the public way. From our perspective, other than making sure that there's no trash and there's no issue there, There's no issue from our side. We then visit the ones that do not have a permit and let them know that they need to get one through us, and then usually they come in and get it. From an, I'm gonna use the word inspection standpoint, if you're talking about code, police, fire, or health and human services, that would be Helen and her people who would go out there from a health and human services standpoint. We don't get involved, from a DPW perspective, don't get involved with that at all. We do get notification from other departments from time to time that just say, hey, does this person have a permit to operate there? And as I mentioned, in the public way, I don't know if any of you are like down on Boylston Street or that area, we actually put up a physical sign that says, this is your spot, you're here. So make sure nobody else can be there so you get that location. But I don't, not to throw it on Helen, but I'm not aware of what the process is from health and human services side.

So number one, let me say we have a number of food trucks that will try to pull in from Connecticut and other places and come to the city of Springfield to be vendors. And so if the food truck does not have an inspection from the Department of Health and Human Services for the city of Springfield, then that food truck is operating illegally without a permit. We anticipate individuals come to our department. Our inspectors will go out to the food truck, do the inspections and issue the permit. Each permit should house with the food truck. So that permit should be onsite for us to inspect should we want to do an inspection or needs to do an inspection. So I'll leave it there. Individuals need to come to the Department of Health and Human Services. We have an application that is filled out. We issue, we let the vendor know when we're coming to inspect and we go and inspect and make recommendations and or just issue the permit.

Thank you, Commissioner Harris.

The point that I was trying to make it more informative to the public because right now, the food vendor that I was working with wanted to know and I wanted to know. Once you do that inspection, do they get any forms completed as being approval right there and then or does come through the mail? That was the question that I needed to Half address, because there was some type of confusion and I was not aware how the process work. That's why I was asking the question. So, when they come to the inspection, they told they, they've been approved or they have to wait for some mailing for to, to, to, to be provided and display.

When the inspection is done, the inspector will let the food truck vendor know if in fact there needs to be some modifications based on food handling and the sanitary code. That is what we respond to, the sanitary code. If the food truck passes the inspection while the staff is on site, there is usually a permit given at that time.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Harris, thank you, Councilor Perez. I see your hands, Councilor Whitfield and Councilor Crawford. I do want to go to Councilor Delgado, then I'll go to you, Councilor Whitfield and Madam President Whitfield and School Committee Member Crawford.

I'm going to try to keep it as short as possible because we really came here to listen to you guys, to the vendors. One thing I will say is I appreciate Councilor LaVar-Click-Bruce for having another meeting and for Chris for being here. This has been going on for a while. And last year when they were trying to pass his own November, I was actually one of the ones that asked the question directly. Did you talk to food truck vendors? When they told me no, I said, we're not going any further until you do that. I will give Chris credit after we sent it to committee twice. They did do their due diligence. My question I have for you, Crystal, you mentioned you reached out to folks that had emails. Yes. How many folks did not have emails on that list?

I want to say virtually everybody because part of the application required it because that's how I know Helen's office communicates with some of them. Virtually everybody on there. The only ones that I want to say everybody that was on there, the ones that didn't have it were multiples because people have different permits for multiple trucks.

So I guess everybody on that list had an email. Okay. So I was trying to get to make sure that there's nobody that didn't have a form of communication.

And I do know that I want to say probably three, four weeks ago, it might've been counselor Whitfield who asked, I shared that list. And so I'm assuming it was shared with all the counselors as well of everybody that was on that list. And, you know, with the exception of maybe one or two, everybody had an email address.

The one thing I thought about was, you know, mailing, whatever you mentioned about the cost, but like... I know a lot of folks use their phones and text messages. I don't know if there's a process with text message people as well as a notification process. So I would say, you know, look into that. I would second my colleague, Councilor Walsh, and we need to do something to make this process, not just this process, but many processes, a one-stop shop. This has been going on since I was a mayoral aide when folks were trying to get permits for parades and they were sending them to The law department and suddenly the police and sign a fire like they got folks crisscrossing around the city, which we should be making it easier and less complicated for folks. So I think we need to have a conversation around a one stop shop. The other thing I would say is, you know, we're in the middle now of probably like these folks' prime business time. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to delay or postpone the ordinance just to continue to get feedback from folks, because we obviously have a number of folks here who weren't communicated with, who I think we should take that into consideration on top of other residents and folks So that would be my one thing is, is can we do a 60 day, 90 day just to, because we're cutting off folks and some of the folks, this is their bread and butter. They're, you know, we're living in a top economy right now and folks are being real entrepreneurial to try to make sure that they provide for their families. And the last thing we want to do is cut people off from doing that. It will be my, will be my last thing. And with that, I really want to hear from them. So.

The last thing I would say about that is the ordinance is passed. So it's in place. We have not issued any fines to anybody. But as I said, we've had minimal people come in with an application. People, what I don't want to do is say, yeah, we're going to hold off until August 1st and nobody still submits an application. and then it's gonna be the same meeting, let's wait until September and nobody submits an application. What I do say to everybody in this room, come in, get the application, get it filled out because it is going to take us a period of time. I think we have 21 days to issue the permit for this with all the paperwork that we have to do and what we need to review. Also understand inside of the DPW, I see Patrick there, how many permits do we issue a day?

anywhere from 50 to 75.

50 to 75 permits a day inside of DPW for construction activities and other activities that are happening in the city. So if we're dealing with 100 food vendors total, we're dealing with 50 contractors a day who are working in the city that we have to process permits for. Every one of them has to give us vehicle information doing, when they're doing it, how they're doing it, this is important when it comes to a problem that happens in the field. So if something happens with anybody, the first thing somebody's going to say to us is, did they have an insurance certificate? Was their vehicle registered? Did they have a permit from Health and Human Services? And I do not want to say, well, we cut a corner just to make sure somebody could be working. We still need all that information to make sure. So what I do say to everybody here is that if you haven't, please get into the process of getting an application done so that we can then figure out. A modification or holding on, that's something that's got to be directed to me by the council.

What I would say to that last piece that you said about increase, I mean, food trucks are something that's growing all over the country. It's growing here in the city. We have to kind of meet that demand in a growing thing. The same way that we met the demand when MGM came to town, when other folks come, we figure it out. And so you've got an industry here. We've got to figure it out. If there's an increase, that means we need more employees. more people to be specific to these type of things. So those are conversations.

I just does that. You just cut an employee. What's that? You guys got an employee at the city council at the budget.

So we're losing people. We want to move this along.

So by saying get more people, you come. Can I ask you?

Yeah, one moment. I got you. Trust me. We're going to get to you. I'm sorry. I want to get to Councilor Whitfield and Councilor School Committee, Mr. Crawford. I also want to hear from our state rep. So these are our last two, and then we're going to go to our state rep. Go ahead, Costler Whitfield.

Thank you. So what I'm bringing forward is come from the food truck owners. One thing that I have heard, Chris, is your department will look on the map and say, okay, you don't meet this footage or whatever, the 500 feet. And then if a person asks, well, how many feet are we to them? Will you come measure it? They will say no. And I don't think that's right. I think we need to know what, how, how far or how close they are to the site. Can you give me some insight on that?

We can do that right off of the GIS. And one of the things that I mentioned is that we need to get a sketch to show where your food truck is going to be. Some of the maps that have been submitted is a photocopy this big of a neighborhood with a dot. That doesn't help us. We had an application, the food truck vendor that's on Bay Street, there was a second one that wanted to go there. They gave us a map and just said, we wanna be on this site. He's good, so I'm good. No, they want it to be at the other end. So we required a map and we told them that they were within 220 feet of the building or 320 feet, you gotta move. And they are in the process of giving us a new location and they will be getting a permit. So if somebody comes in with an application, we need a clear enough location to show where it's going to be on the site. And then hopefully we can then direct you if there's space on that site to go to. and we're able to do it because we're going to do it right off of the city's GIS system. There's a measuring tool that we have on there and we can look at that right away.

If their food truck is short, maybe five feet or something, will you come out and do an actual measurement? Because like you said, Their food truck on whatever they give you might not be the exact location. And I think it's only fair that they get an accurate measurement. So will you be able to do that?

We're able to do that off of the GIS because by looking at the map, we're able to go right off of the property lines, show an exact location and tell somebody. Most of the ones that we're dealing with, we're not talking about five or 10 feet. We are literally talking, somebody wants to be 100 feet, 150 feet. We're not going to argue over five feet. We're able to look at that right off of the city GIS.

And my final comment is I want to thank Councilor Click-Bruce for holding the meeting, but I did spearhead it at the request of Councilor Gonzalez. So Councilor Gonzalez, thank you for first bringing this to my attention. And Councilor Click-Bruce, thank you for having the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. School Committee Member Crawford, then we're going to go to our State Rep.

Thank you so much, city councilors, Cliff Bruce, of course, Delgado, and Madam Chair, for your due diligence. It seems that you've done a lot of good work. And I want to say to the children that are in the audience right now, thank you so much for being here with your parents, because this is civic participation. I wanted to say as a resident in Springfield that I am too concerned about the livelihood of all of the food truck owners. I want to make sure that they are accommodated. And so we have festivals that are coming up. They have a lot of things happening. And so doing a pause right now in terms of what they need. would be really advantageous because we do want to support the food trucks. We want to make sure that they're doing what they need to do. They're entrepreneurs. Their food is great. And so we want to be able to do that. That's an observation for me. And then the other piece that was brought up in terms of one-stop shop, we have neighborhood council offices. And so perhaps partnering with some of our neighborhood councils to say, hey, Could we supply some of the applications there so that our food truck owners can come and do those applications? Maybe it's a once a month that everyone come. And in addition to that, maybe do some sort of orientation so that all the food trucks are understanding the processes in terms of the application, what they need, when they need it, so that they're very, very clear. Because again, just having information is very powerful, but not knowing is where the gaps are happening. But again, I appreciate what the city council has been doing and is doing health and human services. Thank you as well. But we just want to be more collectively working together as a city and as a community that we support the food trucks. We want to see them successful, but we've got to make sure that they are successful. Thank you so much.

Thank you, School Committee Mayor Crawford. Now to our State Rep, Gonzales.

Thank you, Counselor, and thank you for the committee. President Whitfield, thank you so much, and all the seven city councils that got back to me regarding the issues. I want to thank all the efforts that are being made in this community to regulate or try to regulate. But I want to go back. There's no reason why we should be here. There's no reason why we should be here. Delgado said, this has been going on for 10 years. No, it's been going on 25 years ago when I sat in the mayor's office. When the Irish and the Italians and the French and the Polish had all the food trucks and I had all the little vendors. This was a problem that existed throughout the city years ago. This is not a race issue. Now, it's just a new community that's come. And they don't speak the language. No hablan el mismo idioma. Not talking Spanish to English. I'm talking business language. La comunicación de alguien que viene de Sudamérica es muy diferente sobre qué es un negocio. People that come from South America and Puerto Rico, their ideas of business is totally different. The food truck has been a great entry. Es una entrada muy grande para... sobrevivir, to survive, and to give food and opportunity to their families. And a lot of the food truck owners, muchos de los dueños, ahora son dueños de casa. They don't have ownership. One of them has a restaurant downtown Springfield now from a food truck. Homeless, after a hurricane in Puerto Rico, to a food truck, to a homeowner, and a restaurant owner. Esa es la identidad. So we embrace the work that the city council has done, but Chris Signoli, who I have dear near to my heart, una persona que he wants to do the right thing. He mentioned in the past, there was complaints. Where are those complaints? Are they in writing? Who made them? Quien hizo eso? Quiere ella. Es una querella because one neighborhood cannot dictate the changes for the whole city. Un vecindario no puede cambiar para todo el mundo. I've asked four neighborhood councils, can you tell me if you have had any complaints about food trucks? Not one. I've asked four city councilors, have you gotten complaints about food trucks? They haven't told me one. I'm going to ask the question to the city councilors, elected officials here. Have anybody received a specific complaint about a food truck in the city of Springfield? And if so, great. So can you acknowledge who that person is?

You have not? No. I haven't.

I haven't received any either. I have not.

I had one in Ward 5. One Ward 5, one Ward 6, one Ward 7. Maybe 10 more, but there's 122, 200 people. Probably, if we take this industry and build it, at a public-private partnership, maybe with the LATC, who has a better connection with the micro-businesses, maybe we can extend this to have maybe 200. I don't know. Maybe the restaurant owners that are present don't want it, quizá. But I really believe that we're here for a reason that we should not be. The community has changed. You can email people. Le puede mandar cogeo electrónico, le puede mandar carta. But you got to have to translate. Tiene que traducir. These people don't speak English. And it's an obligation on the state for municipalities to translate in the language that people speak. Es una obligación. Eso lo pasamos nosotros en el estado de Massachusetts. Okay? So, you just mentioned that one of your staff members had to go because of cuts from whoever. No tienen empleado. So, Putting this in play about regulating is going to be a difficult task for the city and a burden. I have our department at the law department at the state. We looked at all the city ordinances. Very few have them. Very few have them. In fact, for some people, we're putting a law that we just passed. We're trying to push the law that we just passed at the house. When you get a permit for Springfield, you have an opportunity not to have to pay the same fee in Holyoke, Chicopee, and everybody else. Okay? So we're pushing that law.

Okay?

And the reason for that, now, if you come from Connecticut, I have no issue. You've got to pay the fee. But the reason for that is because some food trucks, agunos, they can do fingerprinting. If you're selling some type of different items, ice cream warnings, that's $150 to $250 per person working with you. even if you have a youngster. So that's an added cost. But I would recommend, strongly recommend, strongly urge council president, elected officials, city councilman, chairman, that we rescind this policy at the next council meeting or hold off because it's not gonna work. This is prime time. This is the 10-round fight, championship fight, period. You got festivals, you got opportunities. Many people work during the summer, take off in the winter. So if you're going to make changes, make them during the winter or look at it. But I would urge that you get any complaints these next 120 days, get any complaints. that you feel came or open it up to the public, concerns from business owners, homeowners, about any food truck. But they put it in writing to you guys, to the city council. Open that channel with them. Upon that time, review it with, you know, signaling how many you've got. Maybe you've got 5,000. Maybe you've got five. And if you've got five, we shouldn't be here, people. And if you got six, maybe you can work with people to get it done. In addition to that, you have some that are good food truck vendors and some that are not. Hay algunos que son buenos y algunos que son malos. The ones that are doing the bad thing, go after them. Los que están haciendo mal, que los cierren. But if you're good, don't put another application, whether it's free, another phone call, another, that's a burden. How many of you would have been open today? You're putting into their money. That's two, 300 bucks an hour. We're here for three, we're here three hours over here. That's 900 bucks. This is not about showing, it's the reality of it. Nobody did anything wrong here. The counselors did what they thought with the information they received was the right thing. I have a lot of appreciation for them, and I want to work with them to do it. But listen, people. Counselor, can you ask staff to mute who's ever on the Zoom because it's interrupting and we can't hear clearly? because this is prime time, like I said, and I wish we can get to this resolution, but I have to be fair and honest, that we are prepared, to go to the court, to ask for an injunction on behalf of these food truck owners, many that don't speak English, many of them are, Licensed people, they pay taxes, they pay food taxes, they pay their fees because this is not the right time. So we can work on this together. And I think it's the best thing for the city because we need to elevate this. Representative Juan Candelaria from New Haven. 34 years ago had this issue, el mismo problema en New Haven. You go to New Haven now, food truck everywhere. And they are a destination. People go to New York, they stop there. People come back, they stop there. We can do this in the future for Springfield. So it's not about who's right, who's wrong, what happened, who didn't happen. You know, it's just a matter of trying to get to a better resolution for those that are trying to succeed. and build that American dream without the same resource or expertise or knowledge or sophistication that many of us have. What I heard here is that Chris Signoli did not fully understand the requirements from the health department and that one city council didn't understand the full aspects of the permitting process. I don't know it all myself. So if we don't know it, how difficult could be from somebody that's trying to just sell their burgers, sell their pinchos, or sell their pork, tacos, and everything else, right? It's difficult. So I would just urge that we send this whole process. Let's get back to the drawing table. Get those complaints in writing from your neighborhood councils, your residents, our taxpayer business. We work for them. We work for the homeowners. We work for the restaurant owners. But you know who else we work for? We work for the food truck owners. They're taxpayers. They pay taxes. So we all have a right to move forward. And I'm asking the council to stop the legislation as it is now. Stop it. Receive the written complaints. And then... En 120 días, escucharla, ya estamos, we're getting close to closing time, we're in the future, estamos en ese tiempo, y que después se sientan with Chris and Noli and come up with a better solution that hopefully can meet the demand that the food trucks want, and obviously the concerns of quality of life that people have, in my opinion, not many have, but A few, it's always important to address their issues too. But maybe we can address that not with ordinances, but just trying to address it specifically with the food trucks at that moment. Thank you very much. Thank you, State Rep. Dallas.

609, we want to hear from our residents and our food truck owners. I know Constable Dabla has something he wants to see. I see. So if you guys can just keep it brief, really, to one minute, please, because we're really on an hour, so we want to make sure we hear from them as well. So what do you got, Fabula? Really brief, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will use 15 seconds or less. I think as Chris and Rick was speaking, I just had this, they both, Rick Gonzalez just mentioned the LADC, it just occurred to me that perhaps we should look into the possibility. As it appears, there has been some sort of a rollout issue. I'm still not quite clear with that. And as I sit here and I look around the room, I see all these faces that proves that the city has changed, the demographic has changed. What was Carlos González Obrador living to? La demografía aquí en la ciudad ha cambiado. Ahora somos muchos latinos aquí en la ciudad. And I think that the LEDC, which I see that is sitting here behind me, perhaps, perhaps, as Rick Gonzalez kind of alluded to, should be a good intermediary between the city and import truck industry to roll this out, whether it be through some sort of a workshop, whether it be to some sort of one-stop shop, which I heard several times already here, I think there will be a perfect fit at the LEDC. I don't want to speak on them, but if you allow me a quick 10 seconds, maybe if I can ask Mr. Melendez from the LEDC who's sitting here behind me. Mr. Melendez, is that something that, in your opinion, the LEDC might be able to facilitate.

So with the chairman's approval, I will say that if this is able to get paused until over the next six months, the LEDC will pay our staff to call every single person in Spanish and English. We'll pay for a mailing on the process of this to work with the city council and the DPW, the Board of Health, to support them throughout this process and also create a guide on whatever is decided on. Do you want to open up a food truck in the city of Springfield? Here's the process from A to Z, from beginning to end, and we'll walk you through it. We will be happy to do that. We'll again pay for all the mailings. We'll call every single food truck. We'll work directly with the city council during the pause of six months or so. Then we'll work with them to re-educate. I agree with... with uh mr signoli that we don't want anyone to wait till uh let's say if it's march to say that now this is the time to do it everyone should get those new permits or new additions if if there is any in between them but i want to support uh uh the chairman and also thank the the the council for going through this long process you see people are here and they want to be a part of the the city of springfield we're happy to do it and make that investment

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Melendez, for those comments. And again, I will hope to submit that suggestion for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would love to hear from the C-20s.

Yep, that's what we're trying to get to. I mean, Councilor Whitfield, Madam President.

No, I defer to the food truck owners. I want to hear from them. But I do have a couple comments at the end for Rep Gonzalez, if he's still there.

All right. Thank you, Madam President. Who wants to go first?

With the whole situation with them down there, like when you go apply, the health department, when you go through the health department, you already need to have a fire department permit. You already need to have a harvest and peddlers permit. So when you go to them, the health department permit should be sufficient enough to let them know that you're legit. That's one thing. But everybody really here for the 500 feet situation. So I'm aware now that this has been in play for now, what, 10 years? 10 plus years, yes. So who's been policing that for the last 10 years? That's on the public side.

That's on the public. That's been on the public side. So everybody who comes in and gets a permit We review that where you're going to be. Are you within 500 feet of this? Are you good? And everybody gets a permit. And when we notice people who are out there who we know don't have a permit, we then notify them that they need to move. And as I said before, when you get a spot, you get a sign. So we know that it's already been vetted.

Also, I just got my permit in June from the health department. I wasn't even aware of none of this stuff. I just became a business owner. So, and then as soon as I got my permit, I went down there and applied. The next day later, I already got denied a day later. So that's why I made a video and I did what I had to do. But the health department didn't tell me, hey, you got these regulations going. I didn't know I found that out to people tagging me on Facebook. And I just want to add the whole 500 feet thing, like people that are already operating have been operating in a spot for a number amount of years. It will be unfair to bring this regulation into play and just kick them out after they already been making business there for years. You're going to kill their money. You're going to take them out of business, and now they got nowhere to go because they ain't nowhere else to go.

Yeah, that was the next spot. That was where I wanted to talk about was the opportunity to – the 100 feet away from residential and 500 from another brick-and-mortar business and then 120 food trucks and then not – But two of them can be on the same lot. How many of those spaces actually exist in the city? You know, so that that's what makes it super complicated for us to do so.

And that's a lot of people back there here. Yeah.

My point is, like, I'm on Boston Road. Everybody knows 475 Boston Road, one plus one stop plaza. When I went, I spoke, and at one point, I called him and his number. Because when I got my application, so Patrick, he just went to a screen, so the measurement automatically told me and him that he's been made, that I was in the same spot. So automatically, he said no. He cannot give me an application for that spot. So then I told Chris, Chris said, go and get it. So I didn't get it from them. There was like a rack there. I just grabbed it from the rack. But this is the point. Another thing that I was thinking that if this new ordinance came on and like, I've been in business for five years. There's people here that have been for more. Now, I got, right now I got even a major from a town, both from us. They wanted to meet me. So bring us to their town. And that's what's going to happen. So everybody's going to move. I got like from three or four towns already around. They crazy calling me like, we got to stop it. What are they trying to do? They're taking advantage of this to take all the business owners that you guys hear right now to get out of here. Leave the business owners.

The elite ones are still going to be doing their thing.

We love our town. Why do we need to leave? You know what I'm saying? So it makes no sense. Like right now, we never mentioned, and you guys know, and the meeting, well, they approved. We had 50 feet away from the property when it was connected or inverted. It makes no noise. If it's a loud generator, obviously, you've got to be 100 feet away. We did approve that, right? That was never in the ordinance. So when you go and see the ordinance, it's not there. So they don't give you the option of the 50 feet. It's in there. Not in the 50 feet? No. In the flyer? In the flyer, it's not.

No, it's not. It just says 100 feet. It just says 100 feet. But in the ordinance, it's 50 feet. Unless you have a generator, then it's 100.

Yeah, that's right. And then when I went and asked Patrick again for the new, for the permit for more than two food trucks, he told me, we don't have that here.

So you have to come to the city council.

For that permit? Yes. With the application through you guys too? Yeah, you got to get a special. Okay, but what's going to happen now that I got the four food trucks? And there's a process. Right now, you got to do a special permit. But why I get that permit, do I need to take two food trucks out? Because it's two families that I'm going to leave without working. They got to find a spot. The big question will be who has complained about that spot. Nobody's complaining. Why break it up? And I went through the city council pipeline and then it was approved through the pipeline city council and everybody agreed with it. Who's next?

I actually have some questions regarding specifically what was said on the Zoom. And also in the room. So one of the things that it sounds like is you all said that these ordinances have been in place for public property, correct? For 10 years. So I guess I don't understand why then people have to pay an extra $125 just for that to extend to private property. It does seem like it's price gouging the people that are here. You're already policing areas. You're already filling out and measuring and doing your own thing. I don't understand where the increase in work to justify the increase in fee is.

The public way is, correct me if I'm wrong, 225, 250? a quarter for a third of the year for four months, and then $150 or $125 for renewal. That has been in place for 10 years.

$150 for quarterly renewal.

Quarterly renewal. So if you're there once, you get your first permit for the $225 or $250, whatever that number is, then you get the renewal. way has been paying that for 10 plus years. So in moving it to the private property, now that that's falling under from the permit process from the DPW, I wanted to make it the same, but I did know that the people who are on private property most likely wanted to operate a little bit more year round than the ones on the public way. Because the ones on the public way were much, much more seasonal. So we knew the public or the private side was when we modified that as well. So that fee has been in place for 10 years. So there's always been a fee associated.

And the private, they pay... some of them that they pre-rent to where exactly exactly that's why we fought to lower that yeah correct yes yes that's that has nothing to do with the city that's the private partnership between them and them yeah yeah the city should have that that was a conversation we actually had with food trucks to cut in because we did have a conversation i brought i brought in eric a bunch of folks and we i know you had the conversation but i'm just saying yeah

You know, people, you know, they believe they have to accept that, but private, you have no right to tell me in my private property who I want. Anyways, I didn't mean to cut in. That's my opinion.

So then why do you have the right to tell us where to work and when in private property?

And during which hours?

I'm on private property for three years. We have all our permits, all our paperwork. We went there. We told them we work with New York. I mean, New North City Council, right? And they gave us their property to use. We maintain it. Never had a problem. We go there. We automatically got denied. No one came out, looked at it. No one investigated anything. We've been there for three years. Never had a problem. Private property. We're not even on the roadway. We got our own lot.

Can I briefly just finish real quick? The process of filling out all these applications is completely backwards. I can't even imagine the people that don't speak English fluently. I have a master's degree and it took me weeks to figure it out. I have TikTok videos. I'm not as popular as my friend here. It is ridiculous. I went to the clerk office. They couldn't tell me exactly what I needed to do. I went to health and human services. I was on the phone with Anthony Santanello. It has been a hot mess. And there are so many communities around here that just do it online. Everything is online. You click, click, click. You put in your credit card information and you're good. Springfield is so convoluted. It's like they almost want to make it so that people can't be successful. And that's frustrating. As a community member, I pay taxes, a ton of taxes, I might add. It just needs to be simplified. It's ridiculous.

Mine's quick, real quick. I think one of the problems is you're telling us we can't park anywhere, but we're not getting solutions as to where we can park. So if there was a way for 150 food trucks to have a list of approved locations that we do go through with DPW, if he already knows, hey, these first 25 spots are already, whether it's lottery, raffle, taken up, whatever the case may be, The next 150 have 50, 60 spots to choose from. What's happening now is you're like, you can't park there. You've been there for four years. You're not really supposed to be there, but you got to move. Where can I move?

I don't know. You know what I'm saying?

Right. So now we're forced to go look elsewhere. And it's unfortunate, right? So I think if there was a way where there was an approved list, because even when I spoke to the DPW office a couple weeks ago, the only approval... locations that he gave me were down here i'm typically on boston road like 15 minutes away complete my customer going to come on this side right so if there was a way um to have 150 food trucks similar to jalil's point yeah um as to where we can park i think that would make a little make this a little bit more feasible for a lot of people point

And it's also leaving food truck owners vulnerable. I'm sorry. To people that, hey, I own this private lot. And last year I was charging $75. No big deal. But now I know there's only two spaces in Springfield that you can park at. Now it's gone up to $1,000 a month. Supply and demand.

Supply and demand. Let's just keep a little order here.

We got Eric next. My question is, I've been in a gas station for three years.

I'm in a gasoline for three years.

The question is, can she stay there or not? And I think what the guard was saying, por eso que estamos aquí, para tratar de resolver esa situación.

She's at the gasoline, which has a building.

You need the autographs for that? Yeah, just two minutes. Liberty Street, 616.

Are you saying you're from the restaurant? No, no, no. The food truck.

She has a food truck. We're at... I'm sorry. Where are you at? Liberty Street. 660... 668 Liberty Street.

I think it's a valid point that people are confused and if we can slow it down, that'd be great.

We're going to get there.

Let's go to Eric.

So I just got one thing to say because I'm hearing everybody what they got to say and the confusion with the steps and all this stuff. And I can tell you, I've been doing this for seven years. Four years, I started going to a food truck conference around the United States. For three years, I've been on the National Street Food Vendors Association, a member. And I've been trying to create a chapter here in Massachusetts. There's one in Georgia. There's one in Philly. There's one in Florida. Bill Moore, the president of the Food Truck Association, has... been in contact with me. He's seen Rodimus' post. He chimed in right away and he just, he would be willing to come here to talk about all the ordinances, all this stuff, all the food truck parks, all that stuff. What I'm trying to say is everybody here is confused about processes and all this. But there are people who know what the process is because it's really not as confusing as it is for people. There are people who know how to do it. Like people come to me, I can tell you all the steps, city hall first, city clerk. City clerk, they're gonna send you to the health department. Health department's gonna tell you to go to police department. Police department's gonna tell you to go back to health department, bring that, go to the fire department, get the inspection. And then if you're gonna park anywhere, where you have to go. And what I'm saying is that everybody's confused. Nobody's together. But if you guys were to come together, even have a food truck committee meeting, food truck Remember, you know, again, the National Street Food Vendors Association has been great. They have trainings. They have, you know, I'm certified as a food, a proctor for service. So everything can be, you know, I know that they want to create it at the LATC. What I'm saying is, you know, I'm saying you have to know what you're talking about to know what to do. And the only way that we can do that is not coming here and saying, like, I don't know this. I don't know that. If people were to come together and say, OK, what do we need to do? then everybody can just filter in through one spot and then you know help each other out so that's the only thing that i have to say you know i think you know the counselors because they have been active they you know they do come up and they do ask like hey what's your opinion what's this so you know just want to say thank you I think somebody over here was talking. I'm sorry.

The private parking thing for me. You know what I'm saying? We've been there for three years. It's never had an issue. But there's a McDonald's in the top of the road right there. They can operate within each other, but we can't. And I don't understand why. If we play corporations can work across the street from each other, a couple hundred dollars from our food truck is not going to take. no money from them. We have no houses next to our food journey. There's only one food journey. They could be 24 hours.

Yeah. So I will say this in reference to that. If want to go a little longer, you can get a special permit from the city council. All it is is giving us some teeth in the game. If residents are asking us, constituents are asking us kind of what's going on in there, but that's all. We're not here to stop anyone from making money or anything of that nature, but we did want to have some skin in the game as far as if we're getting asked while we're in the community as far as, I know there where you can come before the city council to request a special permit.

Why is that different for a restaurant? When they apply for their license, they can put their hours. They don't have to come in before city council and say, oh, I got to do this. They just put it when they do the application in the year. And that should open up like any other corporation. And that can be the solution. No, they do.

They have to come for a special permit, too. And they have to put their hours. And we can approve or deny their hours. we can say we recommend lower amount of hours. They do, they come for a special permit.

That's what you guys propose, but that's not what they're recommending.

What do you mean?

No, we don't propose. The ones that you're listening to now, that's not something that they don't want to go through another step. There's no need for those steps.

You said that regular restaurants don't have to do that. And I'm saying that's not accurate. They do have to do that. That's all I'm saying.

Under initial application. That's right. That's it.

But they come to us and we can always say. We can always say.

Any restaurant that's operating under a special permit has to. Under a special permit, but if they're not. Well, if they have drive-thru liquor licenses, they end up in front of the city council.

They don't have drive-thrus and they have liquor licenses. So that's what I'm saying.

No, no. The idea of restaurants in the city, most of them end up in front of the city council right now.

Not all of them, but I've been involved in this city too long. I've been told that, but I hear you loud and clear.

I've been operating from 8 o'clock at night to 1 o'clock in the morning for the past four years. Majority of my customers are their cops downtown. They come and eat. They park there, and they stay there until they get a call. I never had an issue. No problem. nothing with guns, nothing with fights, nothing in that matter. And I am in downtown. So I'm a full-time student. Monday to Thursday, I'm in Philly doing pre-works. I come back home. I got two girls. I got to open at 8. Why? Because I got to put them to sleep before I head out. At my mom's. And this isn't the way I'm making money. So now you're going to tell me, oh, how am I going to operate? What are the hours I got to work? I'm sacrificing my hours to be able to do that. So then close that one to be up at seven to take my daughter to school. But those are sacrifices that I decide for somebody to come and tell me you can't do that.

I think we're being penalized not by the food trucks, but by the actions of the people that are out lately. like if they're blasting music like even now like if they're blasting music i tell my customers hey turn that down right like but sometimes you can't control it she's downtown if they leave in the spot you got 60 people and they're all in their cars she can't jump out of her truck to say hey i need you to keep this down out here she's just trying to control the crowd right so i think it would it sounds like that are happening at these food trucks, not necessarily what the food trucks are doing. It's only a few. Absolutely.

If that's the case, every nightclub should have been shut down a long time ago. The whole strip in downtown. How many shootings you've had?

And I'm not selling liquor.

I couldn't.

McDonald's, they don't come out and be like, hey guys, turn your music down. So I have a petition on change.

Oh, close to a thousand signatures. I do have a law firm interested in our cases. Anybody who wants to information about it, they're nonprofit organization and they deal with these kinds of things. They have over 10, 15 cases, same situation, uh, about the 500 feet, 200 feet. And they want all the cases with the Supreme court. Um, they, um, Like I said, they contact me. I didn't even reach out. They contact me, and they are really interested in seeing if we can change this on our website.

If I may, I just want to make a quick question to Chris, if I may close it out perhaps. Chris, to me, a lot of good points have been raised here. This talk about court keeps going back and forth. That one swayed my opinion one way or the other. What does sway my opinion is people showing up. That court stuff really doesn't move me at all. because we did our homework, like I said before. We did our homework. So we didn't just make this up.

Yes.

Right? So would you please suggest that I don't have, unless we put it in order, I don't know what mechanism we can do. I think the easiest way would be to ask you to hold off any type of enforcement.

We have not been doing it.

No, I know. I realize. No, I understand that.

But moving forward, the feed and all that, not just being in compliance.

Well, that's something for the city council to decide. You suggested, what, 90 days for Gonzalez? 120 days. Can we at least hold off in any kind of fines for now? I'm just making a suggestion. You're not going to have everything you want of any kind of fines for 120 days until we figure out how we're going to do this. Because we're not going to have an answer in a week. Let's be honest. So at least I'm trying to work compromise here. I'm trying to figure it out. Because a lot of good points have been raised. And so, but I also am mindful, I don't want to hear, we're most on the roll. Somebody says, boy, there's nothing wrong. I say, well, you know, We're not, it takes two to tango, right? So that's what my question, would you hold up for 120 days in the fine issuing and removal? I think Anthony was talking, he said, I don't see why he will have to lose two trucks because he will have to come to us.

Right, his issue just as a point, right next to residential property.

Yes, I mean, to his place. I get it. Extra residential property. But I think that he has an inverter.

I don't want to talk directly. No, no, no. I'm talking about a particular location. And just on your question, counselor, I have no problem with that. But I'm afraid that people are going to sit there and go, I don't have to apply. That's what I'm saying. I want everybody to apply so that we can then, in a few months, say, hey, we have 50 or 100 people here. they're in their location, they're working, and they are closer than whatever, they're closer than whatever, get them working, but I want them to become as legal as possible with that. So I don't have a problem with that. However, one of the items that was asked before about complaints that we've received, Hundreds, Patrick, over the years? How many years? It's the same locations, 5, 10, 15 locations. That's easy to address. State and Steppen Street last year. A shooting. Of course, that makes everybody's ears go up.

It was a shooting at the bus station when PBTA was over here too.

So this shooting- But it was associated- I'm gonna blame that on the food trucks. No, it was associated with the food trucks because they were working until four or five in the morning. And the property, well, they were shut down. Island Pond Road, you have a food truck that's open until 3 or 4 in the morning, residential property next door. Residents are going, why do I have to listen to a food truck playing music? Why do I have to listen to cars in the parking lot? Why do I have to listen to... Those are the general complaints that we received that then started us with this...

for lack of a better term. So. And he's in the north end and hasn't had one complaint. So why is he being challenged?

Excuse me for a second. I still have the floor. Go ahead, Chris. But what I'm saying is the complaints over the years in the specific 234 that started this whole process, if it doesn't change, these people are going to come back. Restaurant owners who I've talked to are going to come to the city council and go, Wait a minute. I pay property tax. Nobody here pays a property tax on where they're working. I pay twice as much to renovate a building. I have a building I spent a million dollars renovating, and I got a food truck right across the street from me who's taking my money. I mean, the property owner's paying property taxes. Those are the complaints that we receive. And where I'm going with it is if we make modifications and just let people go where they want to, now you're going to have the business owners in this room saying the same thing. So I agree, we gotta come to a level, but the complaining of one side or the other, if you do it all one way, the other half's gonna complain. You do it this way, obviously the food truck vendors are going to. But residents that complain, Belmont and Oakland, residents who live across the street, why do I have to listen to a generator

Every day. Every day. Exactly. So what I'm asking is, and I hear you, and I think we're kind of like between the rock and the hard place here. It's a difficult situation for all of us. But What I'm asking is if we can hold off into the finding for at least 120 days, like Greg Gonzalez suggested, for now, as a compromise. And I understand your point. It's a valid point. People still have to apply. La gente tiene que solicitar la solicitud. No se hagan los bobos tampoco acá, okay? And so do you see a situation in which maybe we can say to those that have applied Well, because it's going to be fine once they apply. Correct. Okay. So can we do that compromise for now? Can we do 90, 120 days? I don't know. I'm just suggesting something.

It's going to take time. It's going to take time, but I still want everybody to understand that, you know, in X amount of months, you're going to end up going through the application process anyways.

To that I will say, and I don't 100% agree with the compromise of 120 days because I was supposed to have the floor before you jumped in. Madam President, if I may finish my statement, please. Madam President, if I may finish my statement, please. If I may finish my statement in one second, I'm just saying that I don't agree with 120 days.

Please, thank you. So, Chris, what I'm trying to say is, I'm just trying to put a suggestion, an idea on the floor, okay? Al final del dia, todo el mundo tiene que solicitar. No nos podemos hacer los pobres locos tampoco, ¿está bien? Y estoy tratando de que no los multen. Okay. So I would just suggest that to you. I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of things going on. My head is spinning a little bit here. And so I just put that out there as a possible suggestion, whether people disagree or not, then I would listen to it. But that's my suggestion. Because again, as Rep. Gonzalez said, this is a niche business that produces a lot of money and that we need here to see this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, because technically, I gave up the floor to listen to the food truck owners, and it should have came back to me. Councilor Davila stepped in and said maybe he would have the last word. I want to say I don't agree with the 120 days for a couple of reasons, because we still have to make sure that the food trucks are in compliance with healthy human services. And with the police, with fire safety, having insurance. All these things are important. Not only do they protect the city of Springfield, but they also protect the food truck owners. We want to make sure that you're in compliance so you know the laws as it pertains to the safety of the food, especially if you're new. and the fire hazards and things like that. So it's not just for the protection, not to punish people. I would agree to grandfathering where people are located for 120 days. I agree with that a hundred and a thousand percent, because I don't think it's fair for the lady who reached out to me, who's been by McDonald's. And that was great points, how those two restaurants are next to each other. And there's no complaints. I don't agree with, with that. However, we do get complaints about the noise that happens late at night. So things that we can negotiate and we could talk about as a council, not, not being threatened with court, not being threatened with any of those things. I think that we should have meetings where we discuss these things in private and come back with another community conversation with what we um are suggesting to put in place and hear from you all to make sure that you can agree but i do agree with grandfathering locations where people are at even if there's more than two food trucks i think if we um give that some consideration. But as far as like rescinding the ordinance, I don't think that's the best thing to do for the city of Springfield. I think that we have some negotiation and wiggle room and some improvements that we can make to the ordinance. but just canceling it out because we need to make sure that when you're serving food to constituents who are also Springfield residents, that you are serving food according to code and people aren't getting sick with salmonella poisoning, cross-contamination. There are other things that come into factor outside of location and time. So... um i just wanted to say that and say that um this meeting has went on longer than we anticipated but we love the conversation we love that the food truck owners came here and you are advocating for yourself this is the kind of community involvement we need the type of conversations that we need to have to make changes that is a win-win for everybody because maybe I haven't got complaints on food trucks, but I definitely get a lot of complaints on noise. And if you're going out to eat and your car is up loud and you're stopping at the food trucks, then it is a problem. And no, it's not the food truck vendors fault, but you're open and that's where they're stopping and they're not turning down their music. And it's 60 or seven of them. That is a problem. And so we have to come up with a happy medium that benefits both the food truck micro businesses, which I am one. I've had one. Some of the fees and things that we're talking about, that's the cost of doing business that can be written off on taxes too. Running a business isn't easy and it isn't free. And we also still, if something happens, police will go there, fire will go there. If something happens in the food truck, you still get these city services. And so we have to understand that there is a cost to doing business as well. And there are services like L.E.D.C. that can help cut costs for you. And so we're happy that we have organizations like L.E.D.C. So I want to say let us work on it. Let's come to a compromise. Let's come back to the table and let's negotiate what we can do together.

Thank you, Madam President. That was going to be my suggestion is to continue the discussion. But yeah, one moment. Also with Chris, working with the city to make sure we're working with our food truck vendors.

I just wanted to make sure that everybody's signing it, but we want to get all your contact information and So that when we are kind of doing all this and we're, whatever we do, come back another meeting that we have your contact information on there. So if you have it signed, please sign it. So we have that piece.

Thank you. Yes. Just before we leave or wrap this meeting up, can we just get clarification on two things? Because there seems to be two major issues. One is whether fines or not. So that's number one. But the other one is getting applications in Are we still asking these? Most of these are private properties, boot truck vendors. Are we still encouraging them? Or do we still want them to? And are we going to follow the guidelines that are stipulated in there? Or are we waiving them for a period of time? I need to know this.

Patrick's the guy who's, for better or for worse, is doing these applications in my office. Right now, if somebody comes in for an application, my recommendation is we are going by what is in the ordinance to be able to tell them whether they are in compliance or not in compliance. That's what the ordinance is now. The city council in its power can say, we want to pause any fines for a period of time I don't want to be the one to say, all right, I'm going to do it. I need somebody to tell me this legally. So the city council would need to tell me, you know, we got to get applications, but we're still going to... If somebody comes in, we're going to say to them, you're not in compliance with the existing ordinance. Now, that could cause a food truck vendor to then go to the city councilors and say, hey, I really need you to change this from A to B to C to D. We want you to do it. But I would need the city council. I don't want to be the one to say we're not going to take an apple or we're not going to find anybody. And then something happens out there. And I got to sit in front of the police commissioner, fire commissioner and the mayor and say, you made a decision. Yes. We've got to go through legal processes here, and I want to make sure that it's done correctly. Sounds fair. That's an executive branch, so the mayor can make that call.

Yeah, absolutely. Next question. Actually. This works for the mayor. Oh, yeah. Or does the mayor stand on that? Is he, like, he agrees with all that?

I don't know.

That's not a city council duty. We passed the law, but the administration, the executive branch is the one who can make the decisions on the fines. Yes. What I recommend is we grandfather the locations. Ask the mayor if he wants to hold off on the fines for I don't know how many days or if not, that's his call, Chris. That is not a city council call. And I will also like folks to apply for their... permits for the reasons that I noted before regarding health and human services, police and fire. As far as like, but I would like no one to be like moved from their location and not find if they're not within the 500 feet. until we discuss that because we have had some conversations on lowering that in the ordinance with city councilors. And that will come up hopefully at our next city council meeting on the 27th. So we do want to lower the 500 feet buffer. And we have been having discussions also on the time if we want to extend it or leave it. So I'm going to suggest that you work with the mayor on the fines part. And I'm going to ask that we do not ask any of these locations to move at this time.

Thank you, Madam President. Any other questions? Yeah, Jake, sorry about that. You did tell me like five times.

I'm going to tell him now.

No, I admitted it. Good evening, everyone. about the permitting process that's been spinning in my head here tonight. We're talking about food trucks. We're forgetting the word mobile. And I remember Eric's comment about having to zigzag all these ways to go to all these different offices and departments. I'm envisioning a scenario, and it probably will take time. You know, Chris, we need to talk about it with the mayor and others. But imagine like, you know, a Saturday in March or April, you show up at a school, you park, You go see the DPW and then you drive 20 feet and then you get your fire inspection and then you drive another 25 feet and you get your health and human services inspection and then anything else. And you leave the school. I don't know how long it takes, but you're done and you got everything for the whole year. Because what I'm not hearing is we don't want any regulations. We don't want any permitting. We don't want to pay anything. What I am hearing is we want it to be fair. We want it to be streamlined. And we want it to be efficient. And so I'm sure what I'm suggesting is not as easy as I'm making it sound. But I'm putting it out there to those of you who represent the city to consider it. Because you are mobile, you are a unique business. Other businesses don't have the ability to literally drive up with your entire operation and say, check me out. So I offer that for consideration.

It's already been at the fire department only.

That's crazy.

So it's Monday through Thursday from eight to nine or eight to eight thirty. So in the morning.

So in the morning.

So you can't even like you have to get there first thing in the morning and hope that somebody is going to take you within the next 30 minutes so that you can actually get permanent.

Can I just make a statement? I've never been permanent in Springfield. And honestly, it's kind of a disgrace because I'm born and raised here. I'm actually a little afraid to do so. I've been in in business for about three years, and I have never, ever pulled a permit in Springfield. And it's because of all the comments that I've heard of how difficult it is, the process. And I've honestly pulled many permits elsewhere, never had an issue. The process is crazy. I mean, I know she mentioned online, everything's online. To get permitted, you're actually in one location, and both the health department and fire department meet you in that one location at the same time, and you're handed a permit. That's it. One-stop shop. And that's been everywhere else that I've been permitted.

never never done so in springfield and i just don't dare to i'm here today because i wanted to hear all everything else everybody else had to say and it's actually we'd just like to really quickly echo what she said my husband rademus lopez he's a futra person i'm just i'm a teacher i stay out of it um i do have a master's degree and i couldn't even understand all the rules and regulations and people are sending him here people are sending him there and He works. I'm a teacher. We have a nine-year-old. We have a four-year-old. I'm pregnant right now. And it's... Thank you. It's crazy for him to get all this stuff going and figure out where to go. And it's just crazy. So I think we just need to streamline, but also... There's an inequity happening. Half of these people in the room don't even understand what's going on around. Right. So we have to do something to give them that access. That's not right either. So I'm seeing a huge inequity. I'm seeing barriers, barriers. And I think we just need to. build a bridge because right now there's a divide and that's not for either. All right.

Thank you for your comment. Can I say something? Hold on one second.

Commissioner Carlton Harris has her hand raised.

I got it. Trust me. And we have, listen, we have seven minutes in this meeting. We'll be stopping in seven minutes. But I do want to give Commissioner Harris the floor. She had her hand raised in the queue. If you want to speak, please raise your hand. Thank you.

Yeah, I am going to be extremely brief. First, I want to thank Count Whitfield for bringing up the issue of foodborne pathogens. It is the Department of Health and Human Services who gets the complaints about foodborne or salmonella and other bacteria and or concerns. I bring that up only to say we have food trucks operating in the city of Springfield who are not permitted by the health department, who are come from. places and park and are selling food why am i saying that that hurts the legitimate uh food trucks who are out there doing business so i want to make sure that the health department you understand our permit has to do with keeping the public safe as far as the food that is being sold is concerned i will commit to going through each one of our emails to make sure that you are or that who is on the list. And we will check those emails just so we know we are responding appropriately. Our two Spanish speaking inspectors have been in doing inspections and really have been disrespected sometime from food truck vendors. I'm saying that because I want you to know our only job is to keep the public safe and make sure that the food is appropriate for selling to the public. So we are not there to be punitive. We really want to see food trucks um succeed because that's important to families it's important to us so thank you very much for um your time um and your attention but know that when we show up and ask for your permit when we show up to do the inspections and we come to the food trucks they do not come to us And so when we do that, it's about keeping the public safe as far as food is concerned. So I appreciate Council Whitfield for bringing up that point. Have a good evening.

Thank you, Commissioner. We're going to go to the Galaxy. You have the floor.

Hi, yes. I just had a couple of comments and just maybe a question about the private property. So I've been a vendor for Farmer's Market since like 2016. And I think there were not a lot of mobile food trucks. So there wasn't really, I think, maybe a permit issue at that point. So over the years, it's become big. I remember they were all at the Aquarius. They were openly, you know, Dunkin' Donuts across the street. down by the Republican, you know, food trucks down there. So I'm not going to say, you know, but I do understand. Also, maybe people don't understand. When you start your business and you do your business license and you get your EIN number, that is where it all starts. And then you go to City Hall and you pay the fee for the license. They kind of tell you where you can go as anything with food. And that's where you go to the Health and Human Services. And from there, they kind of give you the steps. It is a lot of back and forth. This is my first time hearing about anything to do with the DPW, and I'm just going to be mobile now this year with a mobile trailer. So this is my first time hearing about that. I definitely hear the frustration to all the business owners, but it does sound like a culture barrier thing where people just may not understand the steps. And it is not that easy going back and forth and just being, you know, one person as a food truck owner. So I definitely understand the frustration. If anybody does need help, I would love to help any of you business owners that may need help with the steps because I Like I said, I've been doing this since 2016. I know Steve has retired from the health department. He you know, he's helped me with a lot of questions that I have. But I want to I want to understand more of like the permanent like the private property part of things, because I know I go to people's sites where they hire me. Is there something that I would do? I heard you say something to do with a letter or contract stating you can be there. I guess that's my only real concern is the private properties thing.

Thank you so much. Appreciate your comment.

This will be my last comment. Nobody here has an issue with the health department, the fire department, any of that. We're all here for the 500 feet because 85% of the food trucks in Springfield are operating near a restaurant, near residential, near a gas station. So we've enforced these ordinances. 85% of food trucks are not going to have a home to sell food. So I would like the mayor, if there's any way we can make another meeting with the mayor sitting and reading this whole ordinance.

We are going to make a recommendation that the mayor, through Chris, holds off on fining anyone who is out of compliance with the 500 feet rule until we get back to the table.

Thank you, Mayor Hill. I've got two specific questions.

So they still want us to do the application, right? Now, 100% of us are going to get denied, right? Because we're not in compliance. Now, do we just ignore that denial?

going to answer that. It all depends on what they're getting denied for.

The 500 feet rule, we don't have to discuss that anymore. We already made a suggestion that we are going to just

hold off on that for a little bit we're going to send a recommendation to the mayor to do that so we don't have to discuss that right now and I also mentioned that we are looking to decrease that 500 foot rule in the ordinance that the city council actually has control over so that part we don't have to worry about are there any other reasons that you think you might not get approved outside of the 500 foot rule

Yeah, this is why people are applying, because they're scared that they get denied, and then they have to leave. This is their mentality, though. I'm not saying this is what's going to happen, but 90% of these people are not going to apply because they think, okay, I'm going to get denied, and I'll have to leave. And this is why they don't understand. Wait a minute, Catch-22, buddy.

Not holding off. I think you guys can't make that decision tonight. So make that recommendation to the mayor. Come back and see. Maybe translate it to the people that don't know. Yeah, I understand. So we're going to make... And I just got to say one thing. Listen, man. Anybody that's a legislator, this is what we signed up to do, to help the people. So it don't matter if we go five hours, ten hours, one hour. Nobody's accusing anybody. This here to work is solution. You're hearing from the people that I bring you in, pay your taxes. That's what we got to do. You're doing a great job. VAR, Davila, Delgado, Council President, you're all doing a great job. It's just... You know what I mean? You got to shut the meeting down at one point.

I'm kind of got what everybody's saying, so it doesn't make sense to keep. You kind of got a gist of what we, I got you, kind of got a gist of what we need or the requests are. We made a recommendation through Chris to the mayor as far as regarding the fee. We're going to look to have another meeting and still have the discussion. What we're hearing is the feet is the major barrier. So we want to make sure we get out of the track. It's still essential.

Feet, feet, feet. Distance. Feet, distance.

And also what I heard... Also, what I heard tonight is I know Andrew Melinda is saying he wants to help with the barrier. So how can we work together to make sure we're having workshops or educational and informational sessions to make sure our food truck vendors are being educated on the process? And also work with the city to make sure the process is being streamlined a little bit better. So we heard the concerns. This is what we try to have several meetings for. And prior to this, us arriving here, so it's good information. I know, Chris, we all talked about it. We said we didn't want to do this, but we're here. We're here. So we're here to help. Like our state rep said, you know, nobody's mad or anything of that nature on our side. We want to make sure you guys are here and thriving in our city. All right. That's what we want to do. We want to work with you. So I want to say that publicly. So go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. I think I just want to say, I think there might be some confusions where we can go over some common piece. Chris, and correct me if I'm mistaken, it's 500 feet from an existing restaurant. Freaking good restaurant. Yep. Right? So 500 feet from another restaurant. Oh, Dunkin' Donuts. Dunkin' Donuts. I don't understand it. 500 feet from another restaurant. Not from any business. Because I think I heard people saying a business. All right.

So 500 feet from another restaurant.

All right.

Do you agree with it?

Well, I just want to make sure that you agree or not. I just want to make sure that people understand. That's the law right now. I will try to figure something out. They see that Gonzales is going like this. He wants to shut it down. He wants to shut it down. No, I know. We are legislators and we're here doing the job. So let's finish my statement. Because I don't want people to be confused. Okay? Thank you.

All right, so it is now 7.03. We are going to shut this meeting down. I really, truly appreciate you all for coming out here. This is what we signed up for and hearing from our residents and also business owners here in the city. Again, our job is to work with you all to make sure it's fair and equitable for all parties.

Can I say something? As being part of the committee, I second the motion to further have discussion with the Mayor on the matter. So it will be on record. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilor Hurst.

Councilor Hurst has his hand up.

Just really quickly. That's all right. It's not a big deal. I know you want to end. Hopefully you all can hear me. I appreciate you all coming out. My recommendation, Mr. Chair, would be for you to put this on the agenda for our next regular city council meeting, which I believe is in a couple weeks. And then at that point in time, we can rescind the provisions or postpone the provisions that are of issue for however long we want in the event that the mayor chooses not to instruct the DPW and anyone else who can issue fines to not issue fines, right? In the event that he does not do what it is that we want and will request of him after this meeting. So to the extent that we can legislate it, you know, at our next regular meeting, great. But at the very least, we ought to put it on the docket so that we can rescind some of the provisions that are of issue if necessary. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know it's a tough meeting. I've been in your shoes. I appreciate everything that you're doing.

Thank you for those recommendations. And Chris, if you can just help us put that on the agenda for the next meeting. I appreciate that recommendation. Thank you, Councilor Perez, for that as well. We good?

We are not good because there were two recommendations. Councilor Perez recommended that it stay in committee. Councilor Hurst recommended that it go to the regular city council meeting. So whoever is on this committee needs to vote on whether it's going to the regular city council meeting or if it's going to stay in committee.

So Councilor Perez, I recommend, I'm more than willing to hear your feedback on that. I'm recommending that we go to the full council body to have more discussion. And if we decide to go back to the committee, but I'm recommending that we go to the full city council body.

My point is, without having a feedback from the mayor, what is it that we gonna be discussing in the next council meeting if already the ordinance is in place? And he has to make that executive decision. So if you could clarify that, then we'll make the decision.

Yeah, so if the mayor decides not to invoke his powers, we'll still have the meeting. If they say he does, then we can cancel it on the docket. But I want to get it to the full city council body.

I don't have no problem with that then. Um, we should hear from the mayor before the 27, hopefully. So, yes, no, I'll second that motion. Thank you.

Thank you. So, all in favor all in favor. The committee is the committee favor. Are you in favor, Casa Perez?

Yes, it's my microphone. Yes, I am in favor. I second the motion, so I am in favor.

It is 7.07.

We are adjourned this meeting. God bless you all.