Board discusses property, event issues

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The Board of Aldermen had multiple discussions that highlighted the City Council meeting Tuesday at City Hall.
The board discussed a request from Gotto Investments, LLC, for financial reimbursement for a newly constructed house at 807 Crestview Lane through the city’s builder/homeowner program.
The Gottos recently completed the construction of a new house and have approached the city requesting reimbursement through a new development program. The city has advised the Gottos this is not how the program was intended to work as it could open up requests for reimbursement to include all housing in the city previously constructed. Currently, Perryville offers full reimbursement for approved projects before construction begins and a 50 percent reimbursement for projects already started. The reimbursement criteria did not include or foresee a reimbursement occurring for houses already completed.
“In this case the house is finished,” City Administrator Brent Buerck said. “It’s a slippery slope because if you start incentivizing completed houses, how far back do you go? There are 3,400 completed homes in Perryville.”
The agreement of the board was to reject the Gotto’s request.
The other discussion regarded John Brown’s request to close city streets for a Fall Crafts Festival. Brown talked with the board about the festival in December.

Several years ago, John and his wife, Jill, owned JB’s Custom Furniture. Their business was located at 115 North Jackson. They approached the city and asked if they could close a portion of the street in front of their business and host a fall craft fair. The city readily agreed and the event was successful. They have since moved away from Jackson Street and closed their storefront in town. The City allowed John to host the event last year but drew some criticism about letting a private individual close an unaffiliated city street to host a for-profit event.
The board offered that the event be put under the Perryville Downtown Revitalization group because he is a private citizen. The event will not happen for another year so the board agreed to work with Brown so that he could have his event.
This matter was referred to the Downtown Perryville Advancement Committee for their consideration and input.
There was a strong belief among members that all events occurring downtown reflect upon their organization and, as such, should be coordinated through their organization.
Brown proposed to the Board he would do an independent event and give the proceeds to the park system.
With that in mind, the DTR committee suggested he host his event in the park instead of closing streets downtown. In order to ensure consistency and quality, it is the group’s recommendation and preference that downtown events be coordinated through, or sanctioned by, the Chamber or DTR committees. The city will continue to work with Brown under these parameters.
In his Administrative report, Buerck discussed the city’s vehicle replacement schedule. He also discussed the city will purchase tree grates for the trees on the Downtown Perryville square.