The Zoning Board of Appeals met on October 23, 2012 at 7:00 PM at City Hall to consider a single conditional use application for JoJo's Restaurant & Tap House, approve prior meeting minutes, and receive general public comments. The meeting was chaired by Jim Racheff, with all five voting members present. Staff recommendations and public testimony guided the board's deliberations.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the October 23rd 2012 meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals. A little background for the folks in the audience tonight. We members of the Zoning Board of Appeals are all volunteers. We are appointed by the mayor, and those appointments are confirmed by the Board of Aldermen. There are five voting members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, and we have all five members with us tonight. Also who might be taking uh uh part in uh tonight's activities are some of the city staff that support the activities of the of the zoning board. Um to my right and to your far left, uh all the way on the end is Mr. Jeff Love. Uh he is a uh planner uh with City of Frederick. Next to Mr. Love is Ms. Rachel DePo. She is an assistant uh uh city attorney uh with City of Frederick. And sitting next to Ms. DePo is Ms. Gabrielle Dunn, and she is the current manager now, she's the division manager of current planning. We've got to get shorter titles. That was kind of confusing. For me, not for you guys. Uh and then uh to my far left and to your far right is Ms. Lee Ortiz, she is the office manager for the planning department, and she also supports the zoning board of appeals. Um just for everyone's information, all of tonight's proceedings are being recorded. Um if you uh are going to speak before the zoning board of appeals tonight, the first time when you approach the microphone, uh, we ask that you give us your name and address for the record. Um if you happen to leave and come back to the podium, if we could just uh remind us of your name again. The reason for that is that all of um any decisions of the zoning board of appeals, uh any member who who feels aggrieved by one of our decisions has the right to appeal those decisions to the uh Circuit Court of Maryland. And that one way helps the judge who's reviewing the case identify who happens to be speaking at any time. Proceedings for tonight's uh cases or case. Looks like we only have one on the docket. Uh I'll call your case. Um at that time, I will ask for the staff report. Staff will read the report into the record. At the end of the staff report, they will make a recommendation regarding the case. Um their recommendation is one criteria that the board uh uses in consideration uh in tonight's deliberations, but not the only consideration. Uh following that, we'll ask if the applicant has uh anything to say to elaborate on the staff report or clarify anything that happens to uh have been in the in the staff record. Um following that, we will see if there is any public testimony, anybody from the public who would like to testify regarding the the matter. Following public testimony, we'll give the applicant um a final opportunity for closing remarks. After that, we will close the public testimony um portion of the proceedings. Uh just for everyone's uh information. According to our bylaws, a motion before the zoning board of appeal takes four votes in the affirmative to pass. So we need four out of five votes to pass a simple majority doesn't do. If uh anybody has any uh cell phones, if you could set them to silent or to vibrate, that would be great. Uh do we have any questions about tonight's proceedings? Okay. Uh seeing none, uh, we have a couple of housekeeping matters on the agenda, and then we'll get to tonight's case. Thank you. First order of business uh on the agenda tonight is uh approval and review of the August 28th, 2012 minutes. Members, you have those minutes before you. Um I'd like to move that we table the approval of these minutes to our meeting of November, please. Okay.