Ghiz on Food Truck Parking
Council voted 7-1 in favor of councilwoman Quinlivan's pilot program to provide city owned parking lot space to mobile food vendors for a fee. The disenting vote was from councilwoman Ghiz. While she sorta had a libertarianish point on the government not being involved in any way of supporting small business, her one constituent who complained of not knowing about the food trucks apparently lives in the back room of his bar. There have been articles about this in the Fishwrap since mid-March.
The rest of her arguments were pretty hollow. Sidewalk seating, city taxes, workers comp, etc are all covered already. If she felt these businesses were operating illegally, she should be calling the cops. Complaining about DCI fees when she had no answer on the issue of the vendors paying or not but their having the approval of DCI was pretty bizarre. Bearing in mind that it is a pilot program that requires review in 90 days & 365 days inspires me to say, "Give it a shot". We need to experiment once in awhile. I think, frequently the conservative mindset is more mired in fear than conviction. Ghiz seems to have made up her mind regardless of any facts. Hers is not the type of leadership we need.

The 6/23/10 meeting can be found here, eventually.