AURORA | A vote on potential socioeconomic impact permits for businesses like liquor stores and vape shops was delayed until the Sept. 14 city council meeting so that adjustments can be made to the proposal.
Councilmember Alison Coombs asked for two agenda items to be delayed during Monday’s city council meeting: the socioeconomic impact permits and changes to the council’s decorum rules. Coombs told the Sentinel she received feedback about changes to both items that she wanted to address before council discussed and voted on them.
“I want to make sure we get it right the first time,” Coombs said.
Coombs said there are two potential changes for the socioeconomic impact permit, including maybe changing or expanding which convenience stores are exempt from the permit. The proposal currently applies to convenience stores that sell liquor or tobacco while exempting convenience stores that mostly sell groceries and large grocery stores that also sell liquor and tobacco products.
The other change would identify an exception process for centers with high vacancy rates if they can meet certain criteria, though the criteria is still being drafted.
Similarly, Coombs said she has suggested amendments for the decorum rules after hearing additional feedback on removing the one-hour limit for public comments.
“I would be open to a conversation about the unlimited period being at the end of the meeting instead of the beginning of the meeting, but I do think we need to have some period of time in which individuals can come address the council on the public record without the limitations that are in place,” Coombs said.
Coombs would also like to add language about the accessibility options for public speakers and require closed captions on the livestream of the meetings.
Other potential amendments would soften the proposed ban on public speakers for going over the time limit and moving when council members give their reports.
All of the proposed changes are expected to be on the Sept. 14 agenda.
Just more of socialist Coombs’ attempts to tell business how to run their business in a capitalistic system and to allow more of the activists silly comments over and over and over again. These changes under the disguise of trying to make the changes better as she sees fit.
We hear so much of her on each and every topic since her at-large election. Could it be she wants to be our next Mayor. Or is it that she has too many outspoken feelings on every topic under the sun that comes before Council? Time will tell!
Closed captioning would be nice but it would take a highly paid and trained person to catch the foul mouthed activists not to mention the uneducated, slurring, soft spoken activists that have been heard the past few years. No bang for the buck here, as I see it.
One wonders if this completely arbitary and capricious action catering to some social justice performative yet unarticulated “good” could, by a skilled attorney, be cast as a regulatory taking denying property owners of their reasonable commercial expectations and beneficial uses of their properties, or nearly so. Will the City Attorney defend that lawsuit, or will they hire at exorbitant rates an outside firm to do the work since they lack the expertise, in house, to do such litigation.