Remarks by Alissandra Dramov
66 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 3
Sure, Mayor. Thank you. My comments are actually going to be quite brief. I agree with Victoria. This has been an incredible Carmel collaborative effort. The community group that came together was just amazing. It was a two-year, quite labor-intensive process, and Marnie was a key role. in that whole group and the process. And I think it's tremendous. I think this is something very positive. It's huge. It's a very big accomplishment and I think we should celebrate it and I certainly support it. As we heard from the Toomeys and others, obviously it's a planning document and it's part of a…
Could I just interject? Yes. The whole purpose of our resolution back in 2024 with the previous council and the whole reason the AHA group formed was to take the parking lots off because the public outcry. They didn't want it and the neighbors were concerned. They didn't want it and Sunset Center was concerned. So now we're going to turn ourselves around in a circle and go back to where we were? It makes no sense. You're trying to get the parking lots back in because you want to help your developer friend.
I had a question on the language on one of the next slides. It's the one that talks about the food purchased in grocery stores. It's clear like this, most food purchased in grocery stores is exempt, but we could also put most food.
Most food purchased in grocery stores is tax-exempt. Just put it tax with a dash exempt. Does that make it a little bit clearer? I mean, it's fine, but I'm just trying to make it a little bit clearer.
If we put a dash, though, it wouldn't count.
But it won't really add a word, because if you put a dash, it's still considered one word.
No, if it's in the dictionary, as a dash between it, it really does count as one word. It's not two. It's fine if we leave it. I'm not trying to get into the weeds here.
I don't mind doing it the way Hans suggested, but I am worried about the time because we're still talking about choosing the firm. We're not even actually talking about getting candidates yet. So I do feel we do need to move on with that.
Actually, I would rather not because I didn't write notes on what we were saying.
I'm questioning then if maybe we should just do a special session with just this topic, and then we can bring the three firms in rather than doing it at a regular council meeting.
Well, that's what I'm saying. Yes, a special meeting with them in person.
Thank you, Mayor. I agree with a lot of what Jeff said. I do believe we should keep moving forward and not pause or slow down, because we do have momentum. And just the thought of stopping or slowing down a project, harm us as a city and certainly it would make us lose credibility with these firms because it always has been quite a process. And just to fill the public in on a little bit of what happened is Ken from Public Works had been part of our group initially. And so we did review, I believe, at least three firms, possibly four, early on with him. And then when he left in May, Shari came…
It's 10 o'clock. It definitely was a mix. I didn't finish what I was saying. Pardon? I didn't finish my sentence.
I just wanted to confirm what Jeff was saying is that it was a mix, that some of them did have the subcontractors as part of their proposal.
Sure, if that's the direction we're going in. I mean, we've been very responsible, very thorough.
I agree. And if it comes to, we're tied with the top two and can't make a decision, I could see us saying, let's go take it to the council.