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Session 1863 <br />December 16, 2002 <br /> <br />Preservation Commission and the Historical Society. He has written many publications <br />about the City. He was elected as an emeritus member of the Historical Preservation <br />Commission. He keeps that on his long and short resume. For many years he received <br />the agenda and minutes of the meetings and he monitored those and tried to attend <br />whenever he thought there was an important issue. Since Lehman Walker has been in <br />charge, he has not been able to do that. He has contacted two times about this. One <br />time he was told that he was unable to submit additional copies of plans because of <br />regulations. Mr. Hamilton said he would get them for a couple of months and then he <br />would stop. More recently this has caused a problem with the moving of 201 Westgate <br />to a new site on Pershing. In investigating this further, he believes that he may not be <br />getting minutes because no minutes are being published. This is a very alarming <br />situation, because all of our advisory commissions under the Sunshine Law should have <br />a written record. Mr. Walker is keeping a record himself, but it is not being distributed or <br />voted on by the commission. As a result, Mr. Walker sent a letter, regarding 201 <br />Westgate, which he had decided to approve a different setback than was voted on by <br />the commission, because the issue regarded balancing the historic setback against the <br />preservation of the tree on the property. As a point of fact, Mr. Hamilton had attended <br />that meeting and the sense of the commission was exactly the opposite of that, which <br />was the tree should not be a governing factor, but it should be the historic setback that <br />should regulate. He also reported that the architect had presented a drawing with the <br />wrong setback. New drawings were requested. He feels that the Commission should <br />have had a chance to review the new drawings, but Mr. Walker decided not to have <br />another meeting. <br /> <br />Another failing that has occurred with not having minutes is that no annual report has <br />been made to the state for the past two years. This report is essential to maintaining <br />University City's status as a certified local government. The CLG program is mandated <br />by the Federal government and administered by the state. Municipalities that have <br />good preservation ordinances that are designated CLG's by the National Park Service <br />have a claim on part of the state's annual preservation funds. In the past, University <br />City has been a leader in the use of those funds, in particular, the commission published <br />two outstanding documents, The Design Guidelines for 20th Century Buidlings, which is <br />used all over the state now and the other is University City Landmarks and Historic <br />Places, which is the most comprehensive list of historic buildings of any municipality in <br />the County. Without this designation, we stand to lose those funds for future projects. <br />CLG also allows us to provide training opportunities for our commissioners. This is <br />critically important right now, since we have three brand new commissioners. Many of <br />the others have little experience also. <br /> <br />Generally, he feels it is the utmost important that we get our Historic Preservation <br />Commission back on track. <br /> <br />Ms. Welsch asked the City Manager to look into this matter about minutes not being <br />taken and what happened that would cause them not to be distributed. She knew that <br /> <br /> <br />