The group now falls under the Historical Commission
By Barb Pert Templeton
A recent meeting of the Marine City Commission had officials agreeing to realign several groups in the city who are all about working to preserve and restore historic places in town.
City Manager Scott Adkins introduced the topic at a May 2 meeting stating that there had been several discussions recently about the 300 Broadway Committee. The questions fell to whether it should be disbanded and placed under the city’s Historical Commission rather than reporting to the city commission.
Adkins said the 300 Broadway Committee was originally created by the city commission to bring together interested parties to come up with plans to address the renovations and funding at 300 Broadway, less formally referred to as ‘old city hall’.
“Under the ordinance that we have in place it is the primary purpose of the Historical Commission to oversee historic preservation and other historic activities at Heritage Plaza and 300 Broadway,” Adkins said.
Marine City Commissioner Sean O’Brien.
The idea would be for the city commission to disband the 300 Broadway Committee and it would act only as a recommending body sending their ideas on to the Historical Commission who would then report directly to the city commission.
“The hope is to be able to streamline it, because as it is right now and the way it’s set there are multiple parties,” Adkins said. “The Historical Commission is really that group as established by city ordinance for historic preservation and specifically old city hall.”
Overall, the discussion was simply about trying to streamline the process and have better coordination and communication and have 300 Broadway as a working committee.
“No change for any purpose as far as advising and recommending, they gain no more powers, they lose no more powers and it also could potentially cleanup the marching orders of the Historical Commission,” Adkins said.
The idea is that the Historical Commission will be taking the lead as far as developing a business plan and they will be able to dole out and frame some responsibilities for the committee. All together the city currently boasts the 300 Broadway Committee, Friends of City Hall and the Historical Society.
Adkins then deferred to the thoughts of City Commission Brian Ross who serves as a liaison to the groups.
“It was in my recollection not a take over by the Historical Commission but more just reporting and recommendations would come from the Historical Commission,” Ross said. “The support at the meeting was largely to keep the 300 Broadway Committee as it tied together all of those groups and gave each of them equal voice, if you will.”
“A working committee under the historical commission,” Adkin said.
“Correct, yes keep it a working committee don’t dissolve it, but just shift the management,” Ross said.
He added that he has no issue with that plan and in fact everyone at the committee seemed pleased with that idea.
Marine City Commissioner Brian Ross.
City Attorney Robert Davis said he’s been looking at the issue for quite awhile and with so many groups involved the city commission has to know who’s responsible for actually making recommendations directly to them.
“What I’m concerned about is cross representations to the commission looking for commission votes,” Davis said. “The city commission has to have one entity down there among all these that is the reporting entity to you for decision making purposes.”
Having the lower groups is fine but the city commission has to make sure only one entity comes to report to the board and Ross said that would be the Historical Commission.
Commissioner Sean O’Brien said he attended part of the recent meeting with committee members and he said some on the 300 Broadway Committee who aren’t city residents had concerns and felt they might face a loss in roles because they can’t serve on the Historical Commission.
“This structure still allows them to participate in the preservation of 300 Broadway, participate in it’s life as well as be able to move recommendations and information formally up the chain of command through the Historic Commission,” O’Brien said. “So, they can still participate, their voice is still heard and for the public’s knowledge this preserves their participation formally within the system.”
Ross then made the motion to dissolve the 300 Broadway Committee under the city commission and place them under the Historical Commission. The commission was unanimous in their approval of the change.
