After four years, Dawn Oesch said goodbye to her post as President of the Downtown Business Association during Wednesday's meeting.
Elections of new board members and officers took place during the meeting and Andy Brindisi, owner of Brindisi's Restaurant was elected President for a two-year term. The only contested race was for vice president between Roger Goldsmith, owner of Crafters Gallery and Melanie Dallas, owner of Sloppy Kisses. Goldsmith took the seat with 22 votes. Also joining the executive board is Jeff Clark, manager of Ameriprise Financial Services as treasurer, Jeremy (JJ) Buechner as secretary and three new board members: Jasper Alexander, chef and co-owner of Hattie's Restaurant, Timothy Holmes, co-owner of Wheatfields Restaurant and Joel Reed, executive director of the Saratoga County Arts Council.
In other business, Sonny Bonacio, owner of Bonacio Construction, addressed members of the DBA to discuss development in Saratoga Springs and quell hard feelings about the prospect of paid parking downtown.
In 2001, City Council made a comprehensive plan for Saratoga Springs in order to bring activity and revenue to downtown. This was the first time the city called for a "minimum occupancy" of a least four stories in order to capture the population density of historic Saratoga Springs. In the mid 1800s, there were 25,000 people in the city.
With new developments such as the expansion of the City Center, more people will be coming to downtown and there are currently no plans for new parking spaces.
"We are inviting people to our city and we'll be upsetting them when they are getting tickets due to lack of parking," Bonacio said. "This is not a popular discussion, but the worse thing we can do is nothing."
Some of Bonacio's suggestions include parking decks on Woodlawn Avenue and Maple Avenue, paid parking on Broadway with an amount of free time and cheaper paid parking on side and back streets. If there was a surplus of cheap paid parking, people wouldn't spend as much time driving around looking for free spots.
"People will go where they know there will be a spot for them. We also want to turn over the prime spots on Broadway. We will get people in and out which benefits the store owners," he added.
While some residents are placing the blame on Bonacio for the frenzy that the idea of paid parking has caused in the city, he assured the DBA members that no decisions have been made.
"This isn't 'Sonny's Paid Parking,'" he said. "The city asked for ideas for this situation."
Saratoga Springs is a victim of its own success, he added. While downtown competes with the shops at Exit 15 every day, people are still coming downtown to shop and the city needs to accommodate the shoppers with ample parking if it wants to continue to compete with Exit 15.
"People ask all time, 'how do we get more free parking?' The answer is we don't. We have to find another way," Bonacio said. "The solutions are difficult to come to though. This will require compromise and we need to learn how to work better together."
In other business, Sonny Bonacio, owner of Bonacio Construction, addressed members of the DBA to discuss development in Saratoga Springs and quell hard feelings about the prospect of paid parking downtown.
In 2001, City Council made a comprehensive plan for Saratoga Springs in order to bring activity and revenue to downtown. This was the first time the city called for a "minimum occupancy" of a least four stories in order to capture the population density of historic Saratoga Springs. In the mid 1800s, there were 25,000 people in the city.
With new developments such as the expansion of the City Center, more people will be coming to downtown and there are currently no plans for new parking spaces.
"We are inviting people to our city and we'll be upsetting them when they are getting tickets due to lack of parking," Bonacio said. "This is not a popular discussion, but the worse thing we can do is nothing."
Some of Bonacio's suggestions include parking decks on Woodlawn Avenue and Maple Avenue, paid parking on Broadway with an amount of free time and cheaper paid parking on side and back streets. If there was a surplus of cheap paid parking, people wouldn't spend as much time driving around looking for free spots.
"People will go where they know there will be a spot for them. We also want to turn over the prime spots on Broadway. We will get people in and out which benefits the store owners," he added.
While some residents are placing the blame on Bonacio for the frenzy that the idea of paid parking has caused in the city, he assured the DBA members that no decisions have been made.
"This isn't 'Sonny's Paid Parking,'" he said. "The city asked for ideas for this situation."
Saratoga Springs is a victim of its own success, he added. While downtown competes with the shops at Exit 15 every day, people are still coming downtown to shop and the city needs to accommodate the shoppers with ample parking if it wants to continue to compete with Exit 15.
"People ask all time, 'how do we get more free parking?' The answer is we don't. We have to find another way," Bonacio said. "The solutions are difficult to come to though. This will require compromise and we need to learn how to work better together."
Main Menu
Leave a comment