MONROE - Bad online reviews of Charlie's Bark Park, Belleville, gave at least one city council member pause to authorize the city to execute final approval of the company's $80,000 loan through the city's revolving loan fund Tuesday at a Common Council meeting.

Alderman Brooke Bauman said she had concerns about the business that wants to set up a second site on Monroe's west side, after reading some unfavorable reviews online at the urging of a constituent.

"I'm all for economic development," Bauman added, "but I want to make sure it's a good fit (for the community)."

The resolution before the council was to authorize the city's Revolving Loan Fund Committee to establish the final terms and conditions of the loan, which is to be administered by Sugar River Bank. Negotiations of the agreement were still ongoing as of Tuesday.

On a vote of 7-2 by the council, Charlie's Bark Park will get the final terms approved for the $80,000 loan from the fund's committee. Bauman and Jeff Newcomer voted against the motion made by Reid Stangel and seconded by Tyler Schultz.

City Administrator Phil Rath explained the applicant and business owner, Chad Fahey, needed to close on the property sale by Dec. 16, before the council would meet again Dec. 17. The loan and approval by the city plan commission is needed to complete the business plan going forward.

Rath assured the council that the Revolving Loan Fund Committee "has taken some due diligence," has requested more information for the application and is asking questions.

The committee is not trying to rush the application through, he added, and is "still doing due diligence."

Charlie's Bark Park met with the city plan commission in September, but its approval was delayed because the services were not listed in the current code for the light industrial zone at 4th Avenue West and West 6th Street, where the business was looking to locate. Charlie's Bark Park was to offer doggie daycare, overnight boarding, grooming services, behavioral coaching and training, as well as food, supplies and adoptions.

The city went through the process of amending the city code to include animal boarding facilities as a conditional use, from a request of the Plan Commission to the recommendation of the Judiciary and Ordinance Review Committee and finally to full council approval. Conditional use status gives the city leeway to add restrictions on a business before granting its use of a particular piece of property.

Some of the negative reviews for the business presented by Bauman can be found on Yelp.com. Yelp, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, is an American company that operates an "online urban guide" and business review site.

Three of four reviews recommended by Yelp gave the business a poor, 1-star review during 2012-2013. The fourth review, from 2010, was a 5-star. The four reviews averaged a 2.0 average out of a possible 5.0 rating.

Twenty-two other reviews on the site were posted from 2011 through 2013, which Yelp did not recommend and are not factored into the business's overall star rating.

Of those 22 reviews, two gave the business 1-star and one review gave a 4-star rating. The rest were 5-star ratings.

According to Yelp's website, reasons why a review might not be recommended included being posted by a less established user; seems like an unhelpful rant or rave; fakes (such as originating from the same computer) or suggests a bias (such as ones written by a friend of the business owner).

Yelp noted "many are real reviews from real customers who we just don't know much about and therefore can't recommend."

Most of the review addresses list a Green County or Madison regional municipality.