City of Saco, Maine – “Unofficial Unedited YouTube Transcript” of the February 22, 2021 Saco City Council Meeting greetings and welcome to the saco city council meeting for monday february 22nd 2021 like to call the meeting to order at 6 31 pm let the record reflect on all counselors of president including city administrator brian canara at this moment in time i'd like to invite everyone to join us in the pledge of allegiance under item three of the tonight's agenda the flag is behind city administrator camera i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone [Music] there's nothing under general tonight item five committee correspondents to council are there any committee correspondents at this time no committee councilman yes thank you mr mayor um just want to let everyone know that uh the board of directors of shuttle bus zoom or transit b-s-o-o-b as it's now referred to uh is moving forward with our process for the executive search for the new executive director of transit and there have been weekly meetings and bi-weekly meetings moving forward to facilitate to that end thank you councilor menthorne any further committee correspondents moving on uh to item six which is public comment city administrator can rather we received any public comment for tonight's meeting yes mr mayor i have one uh written statement i'll read into the record now thank you this comes to us from kelly archer 185 bradley street sakura dear mayor council members and city administrator i'm kelly archer living at 185 bradley street i not only love sacco but i am in love with the city of saco i am in full support of save sacco neighborhoods unofficial spokesperson phil hatch's comments presented to you for your consideration and deliberations as i've repeatedly shared with you and the planning board for several months due process is now being followed by staff and or council recommendations it began last spring with unilateral staff driven and or written items in the r5mu i2 pr and master plan developments the planning board and council has not received full disclosure or as i say both sides of the coin for your due diligence and making your informed decisions for the city of saco is unfair to all of us concerned i am disheartened at the lack of no master plan development training prior to the city's first master plan application and i urge you to consider a moratorium of master plan developments or a growth management ordinance to slow all this down please answer our questions we want to learn be educated and understand we need to heal collaborate and respond to each other uh respectfully as we're all in this together thank you for your deep and reflective consideration uh to all that has been voiced by so many people for so many months blessings to all of us as we endure these growing pains thank you kelly archer 185 bradley street that's all i have thank you thank you city administrator kanrath if there's members of the public who would like to speak to the city council please use the raised hand feature of the zoom platform or star 9 if using a phone and you'll be unmuted to speak to the council again i remind everyone to state their name and address for the record keep to the three-minute time limit first up is bruce reed bruce you've been allowed to speak please state your name and address for the record and present your three minutes of comments accounts thank you mr mayor and members of the council can you all see me we can hear you okay well i don't need to be seen necessarily i just wonder i don't see a video screen um i realize that this is a three-minute public comment period uh as you know i represent the john flatley company and you know the development that they're involved with uh councillor archer's mother just had a letter read into the record on this particular project were the counselors able to read the submission letter that i put in your packets can i see people nodding your heads i'm glad to hear that um i've been representing the john flatley company for a while now they didn't need an attorney to engage me until uh mr bannon came on behalf of the neighbors and mr bannon and i have been around the horn numerous times over the last 30-some years i just want i'm speaking at this public comment time because it looks very much like with the number of people that are lined up to speak that it may become a public hearing which which we would like to participate in but you're obviously not advertised for that i just in my letter i told you we have experts prepared to address the zoning amendment issues these are basic uh issues that the council should hear before making any decisions on an amendment or a zoning change you should be able to hear from this is a targeted zoning amendment let's not play games here this isn't about changing a zoning district in saco it's about us it's about the john flatley company and our development we're very well aware of it we're very well aware that we're sitting in front of a planning board that voted 7-0 to change the zoning on us mid-stream so it's been very frustrating and i just want i know my time is limited here but i want to make sure that you hear from us we want a fair shake here what kind of a message does this send to any developer coming into saco for any reason come on in play by the rules meet with our planning staff get opinions from your city council el on that jim cats your figures get opinions but ignore them all and change the rules midstream that's kind of the way we feel we're being treated right now all we want is a fair shake and we're prepared you can see in my packet we're prepared to show you what the mdr looks like as compared to what the mu4 or your your mu5 amendment would look like we want to be able to show this in a fair setting so when you get to the agenda item later down in the agenda tonight we would really appreciate your your consideration of giving us a fair chance to put out to the general public now all the all the comment thus far Page 1 of 23 has been what you're going to hear for the next however many minutes this goes on it's all about people in the neighborhood can't stand the concept of a development like this well come on this is what your comprehensive plan said this is what jim casey of ficus your city council said doesn't jive with the amendment the mdr amendment it's designed to give open space yes the buildings are taller i heard phil hatch on channel 8. i tried to get a hold of the reporter myself he called me he said something about what if they were three stories tall well okay let's have a discussion about that let's not just shut us down and try to pigeonhole us back into the mdr so anyway i i know i'm limited to three minutes here and have a lot of other people to speak but we just want to be treated fairly have a fair chance to we have experts here who will give you traffic school studies we've got we had a team meeting the other day we're in master plan development phase okay we're not even in sight plan yet and we have i asked one of the uh chief engineer chair brandon how far along are you he's like 80 done with the project yes we're going to get a change as we go if we aren't even the site plan yet so we have really been spending a lot of money a lot of time and again please let's not fool ourselves or the public this is about one project this isn't about zoning and soccer generally it's one project and it's time that we had a fair shake here thank you thank you bruce up next up next we have phillip hatch phillip you've been allowed to speak please go ahead and unmute and then state your name and address for the record and present your comments to council thank you miss mayor do you hear me okay we can hear you okay thank you my name is phil hatch i live at 19 evergreen drive i want to read into the record an email a message that i had sent to all counselors and our administrator and mayor included in tonight's city council meeting agenda is item 9 k it contemplates a vote for a first reading of a proposal to support an amendment to the zoning ordinance you approved on january 11 2021.