thank you please proceed and share your screen uh commissioner when you began you said there
were a lot of opposition from the uh well 13th democratic ward and also council person bass
Okay, thank you.
Councilperson Bass has taken a position of opposition,
and we have a letter of opposition
with 13th Democratic Board.
Thank you.
I'm going to share my screen now.
are you able to see my screen uh we don't we do now we do now thank you very much uh commissioners
i submitted a host of exhibits uh today uh which contain uh 56 uh documents um i'm going to uh go
through the salient documents at this time. First, I would like to refer you to the...
You make it just a little bit bigger. It's hard to read. Just a little bit.
That's fine. Yep.
I'm going to refer you first to the refusal, which is actually a referral.
My client applied for event space for under 50 people to have events in this building.
I want to give you a little background about my client now and about the building.
My client has been leasing this building for three or four years.
She previously ran a daycare here, which served the members of the community.
Once the pandemic came into effect, it was really no more, it wasn't viable anymore to operate as a daycare.
She then sought out another use, which is an event center.
I'll have my client give a little testimony later on in regard to some of the representations made in the letter of opposition by the ward.
We applied for application of appeal.
We filled out the project information form.
We have a copy of the deed.
We have a clear tax balance.
We have the new lease, which I didn't have an opportunity to get everyone to sign, but
I will submit it to the board shortly.
The lease is for three years.
Long lease.
Here are the legacy events terms and conditions.
I'd like you to note that it's only a six-hour rental.
We would like to operate seven days a week, but generally the events are on a Friday, a Saturday, or a Sunday.
The event space is rented from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. only.
The event ends at 8 p.m., and there's a cleanup from 8 to 9 p.m.,
and we have represented to the community that trash would be removed from the premises after
each and every event. There will also be an attendant who works for legacy events who will
be present throughout the entire event. They will let the people in, and they will govern over the
exit of the events. Now, the types of events that we wanted to have here, and I'm going to scroll
all the way down. We offered this to the community. We didn't really get much cooperation
out of it, but I did prepare a proviso that I attached to my presentation here, and I just
really wanted to go over it very quickly, and then I'll continue. We really limited what we can do
here in an effort to garner support from the community. Number one, we said we would have no
alcohol in this space. Number two, no food preparation on the premises, which means
there'll be no cooking or anything like that. Of course, one may bring in food, but food will not
be prepared at this site. We will have an attendant present at all events. We will have no live music
or no disc jockey, no bands or anything of that sort. The trash will be removed from this facility
after each event by the proprietor. The hours of operation, and that's a typo there, I apologize,
are 2 to 9 p.m. The uses we would like to use this space for are baby showers, birthday parties,
networking events, bridal shower, and different types of classes. We also offered the event space
to the community free of charge for any community empowerment event and an example of what we
consider a community empowerment event credit repair services um social service um information
social service information services and things of that sort by any non-profit organization.
I'm going to scroll back up at this time.
Here is a picture of the event space that we're requesting. It's a three-story building. It has
an apartment which which is presently occupied on the top and this is the uh event center here
it is in a commercial district and i would like to know that we were given a referral and not a
refusal here is basically the event space it's just a straight shot back uh you uh come in through
the front door and I will go over the plans there is a back door and a backyard and there's a
bathroom on the side here it's not much to it this is another picture of the space basically
we set up tables for if it's a community meeting we set up tables for that if it's a birthday
shower or something we have the setup of the tables and chairs as desired by who's ever renting
There's not much to the space, but there's another picture of the inside of the building.
And here's a picture of the bathroom that's located inside of the building.
I have provided some pictures of the street that it's located on.
It is a commercial district.
It is Germantown Avenue.
There are some empty spaces, commercial spaces on this block.
I believe there's about five active businesses currently on this block, at least on our side
of the street. Across the street is a church. Basically, they have services on Sunday and
maybe a Wednesday night Bible study. Here's another picture of the event center.
additional pictures of the rear of the block you see there are currently some
vacancies there is a store on the corner and there is a additional a daycare on this block
that's just another picture of the area and you can see it is a commercial area
these pictures were taken during the daytime and as it looks here there is a suitable parking
although in the commercial area parking is not necessarily a requirement. Commissioners I
had two meetings with the Civic Association I prepared the flyer I sent it out I
met the requirement of sending it out certified. There was 129 pieces of mail that was sent out.
Interestingly enough, at the first meeting, myself, my client, and four neighbors showed up,
and no one from the civic association showed up to this meeting of interest is I wanted just to
show you one other document it was clear to me that the civic association didn't want to meet
about this property I contacted them by email on 21 different occasions trying to get a meeting
I finally get a meeting and no one from the Civic Association shows up at the meeting.
After having a discussion with the Civic Association, I was told that it was just a
misrepresentation, a misunderstanding. I really didn't believe that to be the case. I believe
it was intentional i would also like to say that the association that was assigned to this was the
rco uh coordinating excuse me the coordinating rco was the nicetown cdc um the 25th ward did show up
to the um meeting and they did issue a letter in regard to what happened at the meeting which
I don't have the letter attached currently, but I'm just going to back up a little bit here
and show you that there was a second meeting which we noticed and attended
and show you that there was a second meeting.
i don't really know how many individuals attended this meeting i'd like to note that there was a
no sign-in sheet and there was not a record of the votes being taken at this meeting now during
the meeting there was some concerns from the community we did adequately try to address the
concern and that is evidenced by the provisos that we tried to not that we tried to the provisos that
that we were willing to agree with.
The individuals at the meeting,
there were some in support of the application
and there were some against the application.
The individuals who were against the application
indicated that there was some loitering in the community
and that there was a lot of trash in the community.
We respectfully indicated to the community
that there is a bar on the corner called Limitless.
And that's where the loitering comes from.
And that's where the majority of the trash
in the area comes from.
And again, we agree to remove the trash from the facility
after each event.
I did not go over the plan with you.
I just really wanted to bring it up very quickly.
I showed you the picture, but I didn't show you the plan.
Basically, let's move this over a little bit.
I think we understand the plan by, you have already showed us photos of the inside.
Yeah, it's just a basement, and this is the basement plan, and then we just have a straight
shot you enter from here to the facility you can walk straight back you have a bathroom
i think there's a tv on this wall and back here you can exit the rear of the building
uh commissioner i would like to present a little testimony uh from my client uh miss
nikita mathis yep miss mathis are you on the line
nikita
we see her with her hand raised
hi yes i'm here could you could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
yes nakia n-a-k-e-a last name is mathis m-a-t-h-i-s and sam
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Proceed, counsel. Ms. Mathis, are you the proprietor of Legacy Events?
Yes, I am. And Ms. Mathis, did you previously operate a daycare for the community at that
location? Yes, I did. And how long did you operate that daycare? For three years. And why did you
closed the daycare? Once COVID happened, I kind of had to pivot because the parents were not
really bringing the children back because I think parents weren't really feeling safe at the time
with the spread of COVID and everything going on. And Ms. Mathis, did you decide to change to use
and open up an event space? Yes, I did. And did you hire someone for permitting?
Yes, I did. And can you tell the board what occurred?
So I did find a gentleman who was supposed to do all of the paperwork, zoning, hired attorney, do everything for the event space.
I paid this gentleman. He came out, did paperwork. I paid him $10,000 to be exact by the time all the costs came.
Once I realized that some time went by, he said, you know, everything is good to go.
I'm just going to send your documents to you. I've been, you know, reaching out to him,
reaching out to him, trying to get documents from him. Didn't have any paperwork. I'm like,
well, where's all of my documents? Where's the paperwork? No emails are coming through.
We didn't have any community meeting, any zoning, you know, what's going on. All of a sudden,
his social media disappeared. Phone is cut off. Nobody can locate him. And so I was just.
phone is cut off, nobody can locate him. And so I was just, you know, out of my money and no
change of usage. I then had a friend of mine who worked in L&I to check for me to see if the zoning
was changed. They said, no, everything is still zoned at the daycare. Nothing was submitted,
nothing was done. So then that's when I hired Ms. Treat to go ahead and get the process started
once again for us and uh miss mathis did you ever receive a violation or anything for uh
operating um the event center no no and have we been going nobody told nothing i just
i'm sorry say it again and have we been going through this zoning process for almost a year now
Ms. Mathis, did you attend the first community meeting?
Yes, I did.
And would you agree with my representation that no one from the Civic Association attended
the meeting?
Yes, I agree.
And would you agree with me that there were actually four neighbors that showed up at
that meeting?
Yes, I agree.
And did we discuss the presentation with the neighbors at the first meeting?
Yes, we did.
And were the neighbors generally in support of your use?
Yes, they were.
Ms. Mathis, did you attend the second community meeting with me?
Yes, I did.
Were there some neighbors in there at the meeting in support of the project?
Yes, there were.
And were there some neighbors there against the project?
yes there were and were the main reasons they were against the project was for the loitering
and trash yes did you hear anything at the meeting concerning any density no did we address the
problem or the concerns of loitering in regards to providing an attendant to let the individuals
out of the event space at the time of exit?
And did we discuss the problem of trash,
indicating that we would have the trash removed
from the premises after every event?
That's all I have for Ms. Mathis at this time.
And at this time, I can take any questions from the board.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Elaine Colbert.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Elaine Colbert.
E-L-A-I-N-E-C-O-L-B-E-R-T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
I'm a resident of Bristol Street, and we were made aware of the last RCO meeting.
So the neighbors that were made aware attended that meeting.
any meetings prior to that we didn't know about okay um for this venue this venue has already
been open and some of the neighbors on the block witnessed the uh persons that were renting the
venue they were sitting all on neighbor's steps eating food drinking uh smoking we you know
the way they were even parking they were taking up you know two parking spaces for one car and
we are all senior citizens on this end and we have to come out and I'm not the only neighbor
on here so I'm quite sure someone else can say about their experiences as well
um we had to come up and clean up after you know they've gone and when we were at the last meeting
and we talked about the trash we were talking about the trash that they leave on west bristol