- I'm calling the October 23rd, 2025 meeting of the Blooming Historic Preservation Commission to order.
- Tonda, will you call the roll? Certainly. Duncan Campbell. Karen Duffy. Here. Drew Heron. Here.
- Jeff Baker. Here. Jeremy Hackard. Here. Ernesto Castaneda. Reynard Cross. Here. Sam DeSolar.
- Melanie Duesner. Here. Daniel Schlegel. Here. We have Quorum.
- All right, next up is approval of the minutes. Do we have a motion? I'll move to approve the minutes.
- Okay, do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. We'll go ahead and take
- a vote on the minutes. Jack Baker? Yes. Jeremy Hacker? Abstain. Ernesto Castaneda's not here.
- Renard Cross? Yes. Sam DeSolars not here. Melanie Dusner? Yes.
- Daniel Schlegel? Yes. Minutes have been approved. Excellent. Next up, we have staff review for COAs.
- We have one staff review certificate of appropriateness tonight. That is item COA 2569. The address
- is 210 East Gilbert Drive in the Matlock Heights Historic District. Petitioner is Mary Ellen May. This
- is a 1955 ranch house that has undergone some exterior
- changes to fenestration and I set back from the street behind a stacked stone wall. The proposal is
- for the installation of an array of rooftop solar panels. Staff approved COA 2569. The proposed rooftop
- solar array places panels on contours that fit the pitch of the roof. Because the current roofing material
- is asphalt shingle,
- There is no additional concern about damaging or obscuring more significant character-defining roofing
- material. So we'll move on to commission-reviewed certificates of appropriateness. So in this section
- for the COAs and demolition delays for each item, the Historic Preservation Program Manager will first
- present a staff report. We will then hear if the petitioner has any additional information, followed
- by a round of questions from each commissioner. We ask that petitioners, the public,
- And commissioners refrain from speaking until addressed by the chair, unless the question is directly
- addressed to them. If a member of the public or petitioner wishes to comment please raise your hand
- until recognized by the chair, me. Once a motion is made we will then open up discussion of the item
- for members of the commission. We encourage all commissioners petitioners and members of the public
- to be civil and respectful at all times.
- Our first commissioner viewed item of the evening for 212 West Kirkwood Avenue in the Courthouse Square
- Historic District. Petitioner is John Walker. The petitioner and I met earlier today, and he requested
- that this item be continued as he'd like to make some changes to his proposal. So the petitioner,
- I believe, is not present tonight. So if they're not present, it automatically continues. Yes. Mm-hmm. OK.
- Okay. Moving on to the next item, COA 2571. Oh no, I got the wrong address there. It's in the agenda.
- Okay. Address is 407 East 4th Street in the Greater Restaurant Row Historic District. Petitioner is
- David Kamen.
- This is a request for retroactive approval for the installation of a chain link fence at the side of
- the property. I see here. Is the petitioner present? Yes. In September 2025, a chain link fence was
- erected between 405 and 409 East 4th Street to non-contributing properties in the Restaurant Road Historic District.
- While the fence meets planning code for the area, and I believe the petitioner has spoken with the planning
- department, before this was brought to my attention, I was brought to the attention of staff that a
- COA had not been issued prior to construction. You'll see that there's a letter from the petitioner
- in the packet, which I hope you had a chance to read. Mr. Kingman, is there anything you'd like to add? OK.
- Staff recommends approval of COA 2571. While the Greater Restaurant Route Historic District Guidelines
- do not offer specific guidelines for fences not located at the front of a property or associated with
- outdoor seating area, this new fence is nevertheless visible from the public right of way.
- It is understandable then that this may lead to some confusion over whether or not this alteration would
- be subject to commission review.
- Considering that this proposed proposed fence does not obstruct the street facing facade of the building
- On either side and that chain link fences are common in this district staff recommends a retroactive
- approval All right, thank you Noah any comments from the public All right, Jack do you have any questions Yeah, the
- I don't know if I can phrase it as a question, but the gentleman says he wasn't told by any other city
- department that he needed to get a CLA. And he didn't think that given the location and type of buildings
- involved, it might require one. I guess I have to ask just no one along the line said anything about
- needing a CLA for this fence.
- And if that's the case, then I'm inclined to be quite lenient about the retroactive approval of the
- fence. That's a question and comment at the same time. Do you have any other information about the,
- I guess, interaction with the planning department? I met with the planning department a couple of times
- after this was brought to my attention. And I had met with the petitioner.
- Beforehand, I think, I don't believe that they were looking at the district die lines, which again,
- is somewhat confusingly phrased. I think the question was more whether or not this would count as visible
- from the public right of way, because it's not on a street facing facade. And that space between the
- two buildings is not an alley, even though there's an alley in the rear of the building behind the lot.
- Melody, any questions? Yeah. Bernard? Firstly, is it visible from the street? Right. Oh, yes. So does
- it matter whether it's on the street-facing side of the building, or is it attached to the building
- and is visible from the street? What's the standard? Well, it is visible from the public right of way,
- which is why there needs to be review.
- where some of the confusion comes from is in the district guidelines. On the guidelines they have relating
- to fences, they say that a fence should not obscure the street-facing facade of a building, which is
- where the language about street-facing facade comes in. Also, the section on fencing is tied into the
- area on outdoor seating and fencing areas.
- Okay, so just a question. If the guidelines for the district does not speak to a thing, do you still
- need a COA even if it's visible from the public right of way? I'm gonna see if I can find the language
- here. Okay, so the guidelines do apply to all exterior alterations visible from the public right of way.
- including a new construction of principal or accessory structures or other structures visible, subject
- to view from the public right of way. Okay, so even though it doesn't speak to fences, it is a structure
- that's visible right away. My next question would be, is the petitioner here? Yes. How long have you
- owned the property? I think around
- 14 years, maybe a little bit more. Right, and in 14 years, you've never come across anything that would
- lead you to believe, well, to know that you're in a historic district. No, and I don't want to throw
- my architect under the bus, but we were pretty careful. I don't want to even mention his name, but I
- had the architect look into it and he said, you're good. Planning, as Noah said, said you don't need a permit.
- I had even met with Tim Klatt to make sure that there was no other escape hazards and this and that.
- So I try to be careful that that's what happened. If somebody would have said, come here, I would have.
- This is only the second time we've been in business, sorry. Let me see, the 49th of the year,
- 50, no, it's 51st year, something like that. And I've only been, I think, in front of you guys once,
- and it happened to be this year too, because we had at 1st Street, 1017 East 1st Street, the city handset
- fixed something, and we fixed it. And I didn't know any better, and we came here,
- We actually did it right, though. We fixed it nice. We had fixed it right. You see, whereas I could
- appreciate the first time you made an alteration and not recognizing that you're in a historic district.
- You came here and you went through the process. I would think that the second time you're making an
- alteration,
- into a building, something would say to you, you know, let me make sure because of this previous experience,
- let me just make sure that I don't have to do this thing again. That's my first point. My second point
- is every year almost, I get something from hand in the mail about being in a historic district,
- you know, a little postcard, right? Almost, you send them out every year, right?
- and you've owned it for 14 years and you've never gotten a communication from Han, that little postcard
- that Han sends out that says your property is in a historic district. You've never gotten one.
- I don't know. Obviously, I don't remember one. Can I say one more thing? Sure. If it's in Elm Heights,
- our last case was in Elm Heights, we will check because I know it's now historic as it may be. So I
- do know that.
- Here, like I said, we checked it. I would hope at some point, either hand or city planning would bring
- it up when we inquire about things. It would make things a little bit easier. Because if we inquire,
- they're a body of the city. They are working in the same building, so it would have been a question
- for somebody to say, hey, you got a historic issue here.
- You know, that's my last question. Got it. Karen, question. I don't have any questions. Daniel. Drew.
- No, I don't have any questions either. I don't have any questions either. So would anybody like to make
- a motion? Any questions online? I already asked for questions earlier. Oh, you did? Nobody's online.
- Somebody else pop up motion to approve 25 coa 25 71 Is there a second I'll second Okay, let's talk about
- it Jack. Do you have any comments? No more comments melody? Do you have comments? No Bernard
- Whereas I can understand that not everyone experiences the city is the same. I just, as a regular homeowner,
- just doing a repair on my home, came to find out really quickly two things. One, that I was in a historic
- district. And secondly, within Bloomington, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
- And I learned that really quickly. I got a permit to demolish a structure. And days later, I got a letter
- stating that the structure was in violation and I was going to be fined because the porch roof was falling.
- And it was approved for demolition. The fire department came and wanted to do fire drills on the house
- because it was going to come down.
- So there are at least two departments in the government that knew that this house was slated for demolition.
- But Hand was sending me a letter stating that, oh, the porch is falling, so you're in violation, and
- they're going to find you. And I learned that within the first three years of living in Bloomington.
- I find it difficult that you can be a property owner in Bloomington with two properties in historic
- districts, one of which
- you've owned for 14 years and had no idea that that property was in a historic district. I find that
- difficult. And well, I would certainly recommend that this be treated as a violation and whatever sanctions
- that are seen fit to apply to the situation.
- be applied. Sorry, you've been here already. You've had the experience. Something should have said to
- you, hey, before I do this other thing, let me check with Han. Let me check with the HPC. Karen? Yeah,
- I'm done. OK, just want to make sure I don't want to interrupt. Karen? I don't have any problem with this.
- going through being approved because, well, for several reasons, I think the nature of the placement
- of the fence on the alley and the guidelines between the position of it not being across the front.
- It's at the back. I had to look twice to even find it when I went to check it out. And I can see why
- somebody would say,
- you don't need to have this reviewed, and particularly with the guidelines being confusing. So I would
- not advise my colleagues to assign any kind of a violation and would like to see it approved. It seems
- a great solution, and it's nice and neat and tidy. It doesn't harm any adjacent structures. So that's
- all I have to say.
- Yeah, I agree with what Jack said earlier and what Karen said. Yeah, I'm kind of in that same agreement
- while I have some agreement with what Renard was saying that there should be some way to find out. But
- he then also had other advisors stating that it wasn't going to be a problem, which then lead to a lot
- of other miscommunications in that part. So the fact that it was done in a neat and orderly fashion
- along with the standards that it was required, I don't see a problem with it at all.
- Okay, as for me, I think this speaks to something we've encountered a few times where someone talks
- to one part of hand and gets one answer, but it's not the right answer. And that seems like that happened
- again. So I feel like they were checking in with folks, and I was confused on the guidelines when I
- was reading them too, thinking that these sort of changes only apply to a historic structure with a
- conspicuous change. And this is a non-contributing structure.
- There's another section where it talks about, well, actually it needs to, you also review a structure
- from view from a public way. So I was kind of misinterpreting what these things were. So I can understand
- where the petitioner is coming from on that. Okay. I think that's the end of the comments. So I think
- we're ready to vote. Sure. There's a motion on the floor for COA 2571. It's been moved and seconded.
- Go ahead and take a vote. Jack Baker? Yes. Jeremy Hacker? Yes. Renard Cross? Yes. Melanie Dusner? Yes.
- Daniel Schlegel? Yes. That motion passes 5-0-0. All right. Moving on to demolition delay. This is another item.
- that we saw at the last meeting where the petitioners told me that they will not be attending this meeting
- because they're still taking time to assess the structural stability of the limestone and structural
- steel loading dock at the site and trying to figure out whether it might be moved to a different location
- at the site. So as I had mentioned in the previous meeting on October 9th,
- they would like to come back on November 13th. Do we need to make a motion to move that? No,
- it'll automatically be continued. Okay. It's easier to see it now. Yeah, I got some better pictures.
- I think the one in the packet you have here is a little clearer.
- Well, I'd rather than be fully prepared to talk to us. Yeah. Muddle through something. So then next
- up is the designation. Yes. Okay. So this item has been publicly noticed, um, in the, in it with an
- advertisement in the Herald Times, uh, more than 10 days prior to this meeting. Um, this is for an item
- that was voted for designation, um, at a previous, uh, commission meeting.
- and because of the requirement for one having a map and an ordinance to send to City Council and two
- for having, you know, proper prior notice. There's going to be a second vote on forwarding the staff
- recommendation, map, and ordinance for 115 East 12th Street, the Ivan Adams House to Bloomington City
- Council to vote for designation as a local historic district.
- Just in terms of process for this, Noah will do the staff report first. We'll let the owners have any
- comments at that point. Then we'll open it up for public comment. We ask that people, when they're making
- their comments, limit your comments to three minutes in length. Then after that, we'll go through and
- do the commissioner questions. We'll take a motion, comments, and vote. Does that make sense? Okay.
- All right, go ahead. The property at 115 East 12th Street qualifies for local designation under the
- following highlighted criteria found in ordinance 9520 of the municipal code 1A for having significant
- character interest or value as part of the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the city,
- state, or nation, or is associated with a person who has played a significant role in local, state,
- or national history. The case background
- 115 East 12th Street is a gable-front, one-story California bungalow that retains most of its original
- features but has been recited in white asbestos board. The house was first owned between 1927 and 1945
- by Ivan Adams and his wife Gladys. Ivan ranked among the most prominent local stone carvers whose work
- includes the Bloomington Courthouse World War II Memorial, the IU seal at Foster Quad Dorm,
- contributions to the columns and frieze on the Fine Arts Palace for the Chicago Century Progress Exhibition
- in 1933, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, the 21-foot statue of Our
- Lady of Lourdes Hospital at Camden Hill in Camden, New Jersey, sorry, Indian Hill in Camden, New Jersey,
- and various other statues of the Virgin Mary and Catholic Saints for institutions around the country,
- a monumental statue of
- him marks, sorry, a monumental statue of his, marks the grave of Gladys and himself at Rose Hill Cemetery.
- Adams' Herald Time, sorry, Herald Telephono-Bituary in 1968 describes him as one of Monroe County's
- most famous stone carvers. And in 1977, local carver Ronald Wampler described him as one of the greatest
- stone carvers in the area I've ever known.
- After Adams moved out, the house was rented out for the next 30 years to a number of tenants, most of
- whom did not stay longer than several years. One of the most prominent occupants was Robert Quirk, a
- professor of Mexican history and editor of the American History Review. He was a recipient of the Frederick
- Jackson Turner Award for debut books by historians and lived at this location from 1955 through 1956.
- In 1977, the house was the first Bloomington residence of James and Susan Butler,
- founders of Butler Winery. From 1987 through 1991, the home was the residence of opera student Judith
- Barnes and visiting lecturer in Spanish, Anthony Kerrigan. Kerrigan won the National Book Award in 1975
- for his translation of Miguel de Namo's Agony of Christianity and a senior fellowship in literature
- from the National Endowment of Humanities for a lifelong contribution to American letters in 1988.
- He was the first to translate the Spanish writings of Jorge Luis Borges into English and taught at both
- IU and Notre Dame while living at 115 East 12th Street. For a property to be eligible for listing under
- this criterion, several considerations must be met. Firstly, in most cases, the person associated with
- this property must have made their significant accomplishments at least 50 years ago.
- And secondly, the property must be associated with this period in their life or career. Anthony Carrigan
- has been widely acknowledged for his contributions to Spanish literature. However, there are other properties
- associated with his career more than 50 years ago. So it would be difficult to make a case for designating
- the house in which he lived from 1987 to 1991. Susan and James Butler established one of the early Southern
- Indiana wineries, as well as the Indiana Wine Grape Council.
- They left this house in 1982 when they established their own winery, and their contribution to local
- history is more closely associated with the Butler Winery property. Stone carver Ivan Adams lived at
- this property for a good part of his productive career while he participated in the carving of public
- and religious monuments, both locally and nationwide. He is locally recognized as one of the most prominent
- stone carvers in southern Indiana limestone industry, particularly as the number of stone carvers dwindled post-war.
- He moved in 1946 to 2921 South Roger Street during the later part of his career where he built a house
- and workshop, neither of which is still standing. The exterior of the building at 115 East 12th Street
- has been fairly unaltered from its original appearance. That is an excellent example of a small 1920s
- California bungalow. I have not in the past.
- Okay. Okay. Anna, we don't need to read the full ordinance now, do we? No? Okay. All right. So, property
- owners are here. Would you like to make a comment? The new property owners are here. Hi, I'm John Butler.
- When this whole thing started out, this house was going to be demolished and we've been fighting it
- ever since August and the
- people who were going to demolish it decided that they didn't want to deal with us anymore and so they
- decided to sell the property to us. So now we're the owners, unlike the guy from the Gillette commercial,
- I like the razors so much I bought the company. So we're very excited to own the property. We are very
- excited to get it designated. We think it is a wonderful example of Bloomington history and we hope
- to have it preserved forever. And I think it's a
- a monument to Ivan Adams, and it would be great if we could preserve it in his memory. And to show that
- greatness doesn't have to come from granite countertops, that a modest structure can produce a wonderful
- resident. That's my statement. All right. Excellent. Thank you very much.
- So next up, we'll have public comment. I think we'll start with the room first, and then we'll go online
- just to keep it orderly. I ask that you keep your comments to three minutes. We'll time it up here,
- and we'll let you know when your time's up. So does anybody in the room want to make any additional
- comments? All right, go ahead. State your name for the record. My name's James Ford. I live a few doors
- down from this house.
- I'm very excited that there might be a historic building designated on my street and I'm excited to
- learn more about Ivan Adams and I'm hoping that one day you can acquire something that he actually made
- and install it in the house so that visitors can learn about him and see his works. That's it. All right.
- Anybody else in the room have any other comments they'd like to add?
- Stick your name. Steve Ball. 1981, I bought the house two doors west. And the houses were needing some
- work. And over the decades, I've seen this. I wish I had taken pictures of what it was like compared
- to back then. And the houses are all very similar along the way. And I thought it would just be kind
- of an eyesore if this was gone in some kind of thing. A thing. It wouldn't be like this thing.
- So I'm happy to be here to support 115. Excellent, thank you very much. Tonda, do we have anybody online
- who wants to say anything? We have Judith Barnes online. I'm not sure if she wishes to speak or not.
- She is unmuted. Judith, do you want to say anything? Sure, yeah. OK. I mean, I just want to say that
- I'm delighted that the house is being considered for designation. And I want to thank everybody on the board
- commission and everybody in the neighborhood and the butlers who have really brought this movement forward
- and also to say that I had no idea that an illustrious sculptor lived in the house and it's completely
- delightful and as a sculptor myself I feel a kind of a kinship
- And so thank you, everyone. I just wanted to, although I don't have a vote, I just want to say that
- I'm thrilled that it's being considered. And would like to correct the record that we lived in the house
- until 93, not 91. Well, my husband, Anthony Carrigan, died in the house in 91. But I lived there until 93.
- OK. Thank you, Judith. That's all. Thanks, everyone. Do we have anybody else online? We do not. OK.
- Seeing as that, we'll turn to the commissioners for questions. Jack, do you have questions? First question
- would be, what form would a motion take? What recommendation to forward to the Common Council? Make
- a motion to recommend and issue the address for historic designation to the Common Council. All right.
- Yeah, my comment is that I think this, if this would be passed by the Common Council, it would serve
- as a sign that things can be done with these houses. Largely, nothing has happened good. And this is
- something that, even this single house,
- stands out in a square in protected, one small protected area in town. I think it sends a signal that
- things can be done and times are changing and maybe would encourage people that are otherwise uninterested
- to be interested in these houses and to want to preserve them and perhaps to even form neighborhood
- group, neighborhood associations for protection.
- once they really understand the danger to these neighborhoods by a single house being taken out. It
- used to be, before we had neighborhood associations in this town, it was in the 90s who could get a
- permit and
- take a house down in two, three days. It happened fairly commonly, and that's why a number of neighborhood
- associations were formed, and I believe that's why we have demolition delay today. There were a couple
- of very well-known homes that were taken down that displeased a lot of people in town and caused demolition
- delay to come along, and it's been important. We talk about neighborhood rules sometimes infringing
- perhaps on the neighbors, but at the same time, those rules were written by people in those neighborhoods,
- and they are protecting themselves. Where we don't have good protection has been these sort of outlying
- homes that are not part of other preservation groups. So this could send, I think, a good signal.
- All right, so question and comment from Jack. Question, Melody. Question, Renard. Karen. I have a question for Noah.
- In your research on him, on Mr. Adams, did you find any reference, and there's often not much recorded
- about, you know, just simple workers, right? But as to whether he went through an apprenticeship, a
- formal apprenticeship training as a sculptor that exists, those kinds of things in the stone industry,
- but a lot of
- people just kind of worked around. He had gotten started as, unfortunately, I don't remember which mill.
- I think it may have even been, let me turn back to our other demo delay. I think it was the mill down
- the street that, you know, we still have this remaining structure from Johnny's Stone Company. So we
- had started there just cutting blocks to size and then moved
- fairly quickly onto sculpting, but who specifically he trained under, I don't know. He worked to some
- extent with Harry Donato, but he was a little older than him and a little more well-known in Bloomington,
- but they were more of contemporaries. Thank you. Daniel, questions? No questions. Drew, questions? No
- questions.
- I don't have any questions, so I will entertain a motion. I move we approve the designation of 2503.
- Recommend it for historic designation of the common council. That one too. Is there a second? So Melody.
- All right. Let's discuss this. Jack, anything else you want to add? I've discussed. Thought so. Melody.
- No, nothing I need to add. Bernard? Well, I'm in full support for designating this house and preserving
- it as a historic structure. I'd like to think of it as Ewington's own little east wing that we're. It
- doesn't balance the scale, but I think we should strike one back for the good guys. Sure. Karen?
- Well, I'm in favor of it because the limestone industry was so fundamental to Bloomington's history
- and economic development and contributions across the country. And to my knowledge, there's not any,
- maybe I'm wrong, but there's no formal recognition of any particular stone worker. Sometimes companies
- get mentioned
- I did my master's thesis on a local stone worker. He was not a sculptor, but, and he's talked to me
- about older sculptors and, you know, people working in the industry and how it, and that knowledge just
- doesn't get out to people. And I would like to see the city of Wilmington recognize a person like this
- who has made a mark across the country as well as contributed to the industry here.
- One, I want to say congratulations on being the new owner. That's much easier to work with. And I just
- want to say I want to echo what Karen and Jack said. I agree with your comments. Those were great. Drew.
- No other comments. I think for me, I think the most appropriate way to honor this gentleman would be
- with a historical marker where he did his work next to one of his monuments or something else that he
- built. With that said,
- Um, I will be supporting this going forward. All right. That brings us to the end of the comments. So
- I think we're ready for a vote. Okay. So we have a motion on the floor for HD 2503, which has been moved
- and seconded to designate or to send to council for historical designation. We'll go ahead and take
- a vote. Jack Baker. Yes. Jeremy Hacker. Yes. Raynard Cross. Melanie Dusner. Yes.
- Daniel Schlegel. Yes. And that motion passes 5-0-0. Do I need to read the thing again? The full text
- of this. I read it last time. Do I need to read it again? For the forwarding to council. Oh, yeah. You
- know what? Go ahead and read it again. OK. Make it official official? Yes. All right. Today, the HBC
- declares that the property located at 115 East 12th Street
- meets the following criteria for local designation referred to in the staff report. 1A has historic
- character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the
- city, state, or nation, or is associated with a person who played a significant role in local, state,
- or national history. Consequently, the HBC recommends its historic designation under Title VIII of the
- Bloomington Municipal Code to the Common Council with the attached map, which is in the report.
- And it's already under interim protection. So we don't need to do that part. Okay. Excellent. So we're
- done with that. So congratulations. It'll go to the common council next. Next up, we have old business
- violations. Yes. So as far as violations, there was a question over, well, one, the fence on 4th Street.
- which has just been resolved. There's also the ongoing conversation by the windows at 702 East Kirkwood.
- Anna and I have both recommended that a fine be levied. So we've written up a letter to be sent out
- for that. And that was what was discussed at the last meeting that was denied. Yeah. One of the petitioners
- has since emailed me back
- saying that a friend of hers in town was going to drop off some subsequent application. I haven't seen
- that yet. I got this email today. We have drafted a letter for levying a fine. Are there any other violations
- people want to bring up? Not that I'm aware of. All right. That moves us on to new business. I forgot
- to turn that off.
- Anybody have any new business they'd like to discuss? All right. Hearing none, are there any final public
- comments that anybody would like to share? There's a question. Can I have a question? Yeah. I'm curious
- how one looks back in the records to find out how a particular demolition delay ended up going forward
- or not. I've looked through agendas.
- meetings, I can't find any information on a particular one. Is there a database, or is there something
- I have to send to somebody about it? I do keep a log of cases that come to HPC meetings. So that includes
- stamina delays, COAs, designations, and some other things. So an email to you about one particular one?
- Yeah. And then another thing you can do is, once you get that specific meeting set, you can
- view the recording online if it's a more recent meeting and you can see the discussion that's happened.
- Sorry, just a follow-up question. Is the log that you keep just for you or did it precede you? Gloria
- started it. There may have been, I think there were some attempts at doing it before her, but the furthest
- back I have consistent log is 2023.
- Any other public comments? All right, hearing none. Well, we have commissioner comments before public
- comments. Oh, I had asked for commissioner comments, I thought. Sorry. And I think you went new business.
- Oh, apologies. All right, commissioner comments. Sorry. Well, yeah. I'd just like to make something
- clear about the issue with 212. I didn't have a problem with the fence.
- I've had it coming with a lot more COAs than I have. But for persons who have been here longer than
- a day, you'd know that I have an issue with retroactive COAs. And I have a particular issue with retroactive
- COAs in cases like this one. The gentleman came to us before. And I have a recollection of saying, OK,
- fine. The next time you're going to make an alteration to a building,
- speak to, I'm not sure if you were here. It could have been Gloria. No, it was him. Right. I said, check
- with the person at hand. Because he came with the same story. Oh, I checked with this, and I didn't
- hear anything from that, and so on. And I'm saying, OK. But there is one authority that you will get
- the definitive answer on historic properties. And he came, and it was the same story as the previous time.
- I know if I stay here long enough, I'm going to see him come back with the same story again, and we're
- going to fall for it as a commission. At what point do we say you have a responsibility as a property
- owner? How do you own a property for 14 years and not know that that property is in a historic district?
- I was trying not to use certain adjectives to describe my feelings about that position that he held.
- But that is ridiculous. That is the height of irresponsibility. And we cannot continue to let people
- come before us and get away with, oh well, you know, planning this and well zoning that. 14 years he
- owned it and this is not the first time he's been here. That's it. Okay. Any other comments from the
- commissioners?
- Did I miss anything else? Thank you for bearing with me and sharing this today. Hopefully I did seem
- proud. So with that, this meeting is adjourned.