Dive lease hit by another council delay

LACONIA — The Dive is going nowhere fast for at least a couple of weeks.

For the fifth time since mid-April, the City Council on Monday grappled with, but deferred, approval of a proposal to allow the floating bar and restaurant to lease an expanded section of the City Docks in Weirs Beach as its home port.

After an hour of intense debate and parliamentary maneuvering, the council voted to delay the execution of a lease pending a second public hearing on changes in one part of the tentative agreement. That hearing is now scheduled to take place on June 22.

The sticking point was new wording in the proposal regarding handicap accessibility.

City Councilor David Bownes insisted that the new language was significantly different from what was in the tentative lease that the council saw at its May 26 meeting when it scheduled Monday’s public hearing on the lease. Since the city only received the latest terms on Friday and  councilors did not get a chance to see the document until hours before the meeting, Bownes said a second hearing was necessary. Otherwise, someone could challenge the lease on the grounds that the city had failed to follow proper legal procedures, he argued.

Mayor Andrew Hosmer and City Manager Scott Myers both disagreed with Bownes’ opinion. Myers told the council that the city’s attorney also did not consider that the new language amounted to a substantive change, and so another public hearing was unnecessary and the council was free to vote on the lease at Monday’s meeting.

The council approved the lease on 4-3 vote, with Hosmer casting the tie-breaking vote, but minutes later Bownes made a motion to delay implementing the lease pending a second public hearing. That motion passed 4-2.

“Call me stubborn,” Bownes said regarding his insistence that the second public hearing was necessary.

But Hosmer feared that this latest delay could jeopardize plans for what he sees as a beneficial public-private partnership.

“This will have a chilling effect on people doing business with the city,” the mayor said after Bownes’ motion for the second public hearing passed. “It’s a mistake.”

Councilor Tony Felch, a firm supporter of the Dive proposal, was also irritated.

“It’s been going on for 2½ months,” he said, referring to the misgivings and objections that various councilors have raised, causing multiple revisions to the lease.

The council on Monday approved revisions to the City Code to allow the city to lease space at the City Docks and also to permit alcoholic beverages to be consumed on vessels that have a lease arrangement with the city.

Councilors Bruce Cheney and Bob Hamel strenuously opposed the Dive lease Monday. Cheney, from Ward 1, said he was against the city leasing out dock space. Hamel, from Ward 5, said he was afraid the arrangement would come back to haunt the city, and that a future council would have to deal with the problem.

Bownes repeatedly said he was not against the lease itself, only the procedure that the council was following. He said he planned to vote in favor of the lease following the June 22 public hearing.

Councilor Henry Lipman voted to approve the lease. But then voted in favor of Bownes’ motion for a second hearing to reduce the city’s legal exposure in the event of a lawsuit.

The lease would have been executed a month ago, based on a vote at the May 11 meeting. But days afterward it came to the city’s attention that the part of the City Code dealing with wharves prohibited the city from leasing dock space or allowing consumption of alcoholic beverages on boats tied up at the docks. So on May 26 the council set a public hearing on amending the regulations to clear the legal hurdles to the Dive‘s lease.

Roll call

Vote to approve the lease:

Yes: Lipman, Mark Haynes, Felch, and Hosmer (breaking the tie).

No: Cheney, Bownes, Hamel.

Vote to delay implementing the lease, pending a second public hearing:

Yes: Cheney, Bownes, Lipman, and Hamel.

No: Haynes, and Felch.