Remarks by Rene Champagne
129 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 6
- Play at 4:28:02
“Before it comes up, how are you going to secure those portions of the fence?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 4:57:50
“Yes, thank you. Good presentation. I'm going to take a moment. before I get into questioning you to make a comment about someone who spoke already. Who questioned the integrity of people on this desk? You did not? Please, guys, we're not.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 4:58:10
“I misunderstood. I thought you were questioning our integrity. And I was going to really get upset about that. But seeing you corrected it, fine. OK.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 4:58:24
“All right, so I just want to point out to the public and everyone here in the room, and O3-13 actually expressly approves the marina to dock ships up to 362 feet. Is that not correct? That is correct. So there's no issue about a 243-foot dock. cruise ship or river boat or large vessel whatever you want to call it that that's a given it's approved correct okay I do have questions though and I don't please interpret the questions to mean that I lean in any direction on the eventual vote understood I'm not going to not going to contend that the comprehensive plan is prohibits cruise ships…”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:01:25
“I'm asking to get to the point of approving as a development process internally to the city, how do they conclude that? They, not you, unless they went to you and asked you for your opinion, how did they come up with that conclusion?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:01:50
“What did it cover? What did the planning department approve? Just a zero foot riparian or did it cover a cruise ship operation? It had to be one or the other.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:04:08
“That means it does not approve a cruise ship application. No.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:05:14
“I have a lot of questions. This is just the beginning.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:05:19
“I'm sorry, but I'd rather clear the air. This is important. You ask the questions you have to. And try to calm the voices out in the community so they understand what's going on. The first question was whether we were approving a cruise ship operation or not. The answer is no. We're approving the setback, period. Okay. Then the question becomes, the first cruise ship, as far as I was able to research, docked at Rosemarina December 22nd, 2023 or thereabouts. I may be off a day or two, but it was December 23, okay? Did you and Dan have conversations with Rosa Marina about this ship coming in in…”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:06:27
“Okay. Then there was no approval for a cruise ship coming in because 20 – 03-13 does not approve cruise ships. Is that correct?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:06:45
“So therefore, just follow me here, we didn't approve cruise ships. So are we saying Rosmarina self-decided they could bring in cruise ships, never got an approval?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:07:07
“And we should get that answer because now we're on the topic that is most concerning to the city population. Who approved cruise ships? When did they approve cruise ships? Show me a document approving cruise ships. There's no such document.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:07:37
“Oh, boy, I'm going to argue that. That's fine.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:07:50
“The comprehensive plan and the land development code specifically require, okay, I'll go through these again. Traffic considerations, circulation, access, parking, noise, public services, compatibility, capacity, size, timing, and effects on public health, safety, and welfare for a small town environment. That's what the Comprehensive Plan Land Development Code requires. And what we're saying, we didn't even consider it. In fact, we didn't care. Bring in the big ship because the length was approved. The length was approved. There's no doubt about that. What we do with the passengers on is in…”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:09:02
“But Dan just said before you, no, that wasn't. He didn't get into that. There was no approval process.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:09:15
“All right. Let's get to the nitty-gritty. What is the specific approval process that allowed them to bring in cruise ships to Markham Island?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:09:32
“I contend that you're wrong. That's fine. Because the comprehensive plan and the land development code requires certain things to be met.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:10:01
“The cruise ship, first cruise ship came in in 2023. The site plan wasn't reviewed by the planning board until 2026. That's three years later. So a retroactive approval?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:11:33
“Let me continue. During So let me clarify again. Did you have any conversations with Rosa Marina before the first cruise ship arrived in December 2023? No. They didn't come to you and say, hey, we have this cruise ship coming. We'd like to alert you. So let's talk about what you're going to need. They did not have any of that.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:11:57
“Interesting. Fascinating, I should say. So there was no consideration of the frequency that they would now start bringing cruise ships in. No conversation.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:12:18
“I'm trying to focus on us to determine how we agreed that they were approved. And I'm not hearing it yet. But we did not take into consideration, hey, this ship is going to have 100 plus people on it. And that leads to a lot of other things in the comprehensive code and land development code that need to be addressed. There was no conversation to that.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:13:09
“You're saying that the biggest boat in the marina at that time, 180, 190 feet. So a boat or ship 50% larger in size with more passengers on it than any other ship that is in the marina didn't trigger a need to talk about what's going on here? This thing... was so much bigger than any boat in the marina, didn't prompt anyone to say, hey, let's look into this. Because the comprehensive plan and land development code have all these conditions that have to be met. And they're not met. There wasn't a discussion about them.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:14:19
“It's called a code requirement. It's called an comprehensive plan and a land development code, which were not considered for approval.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:14:36
“Comprehensive plan and the land development code don't have to be considered on anything any landowner wants to do.”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026
- Play at 5:15:29
“Do we know that they're going to have 13 visits in the month of December?”
City Council · Sep 10, 2026