Maplewood council member brings back topics from national meeting: Airbnb, race relations

Maplewood City Council could take on two issues in a work session meeting as a result of a national meeting that Ward 3 council member Shawn Faulkingham attended.

Faulkingham reported Tuesday night at the council meeting on his attendance at the National League of Cities meeting in March in Washington, D.C. He said it was his third or fourth time going, and he hopes to continue.

After the council meeting he mentioned two topics from the national meeting that he hopes to talk about in a council work session.

He was part of a panel discussion on what he called a “shared economy” — Uber, Lyft and Airbnb as examples. “We’ve had Airbnb (Airbnb.com) here. A lot of cities are trying to figure out how to deal with it,” he said. “So how does a government deal with safety issues, fairness to hotels…”

He said the mayor of Colorado Springs led the discussion. “A lot of what he had to say was real sound because these companies aren’t going away.”

Maplewood Plan and Zoning decided at its last meeting that Airbnb qualifies as a bed and breakfast, which Maplewood code prohibits. The commission decided not to recommend changing the code.

“Do we think the (current) ordinance deals with it effectively enough, or do we need to craft something that takes care of that?” he said. “We don’t want to be behind the curve.”

He also went to a talk on race relations, and how municipalities treat some lower income people. It became a shouting match between the panel and audience when questions began.

“It’s hard when you get people from all over the country, every kind of economic background together to talk about that—I don’t think they expected it to turn out that way,” Faulkingham said.

“It’s something that we need to look at and make sure everything is good. I talk to residents all the time; I’ve never heard really a bad thing about the police force,” he said. “I just want to make sure everybody is aware of it—that there’s nothing we need to deal with here in Maplewood.”

The Maplewood City Council could talk about the two issues in a work session meeting if one is called for by the mayor or four council members.

Faulkingham also said President Obama spoke to the national group. “That was cool. He’s a normal Joe,” he said.

The city council also gave final approval for Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken to operate at 7434 Manchester Road. The restaurant will be open seven days a week; Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and  Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Owners Jim and Jane Zimmermann said they plan to open in the summer.