City Council - Regular Meeting

call this uh alternative city council meeting monday august 10th at 6 p.m to order we'll take a moment of silence please stand for the pledge allegiance to the flag

Can we have a roll call please?

Councilman Beatty here Councilman butterball here Councilwoman clinic here vice mayor Ellis here Councilman it gets here Councilman Kelly. Mayor Pacifico is absent.

I will begin tonight's meeting with presentations first on board is disaster recovery information and funding. Mister rally oats public affairs specialist for the small business administration.

Good evening. Thank you so much for your time this evening. My name is Riley Oates. I work with the US Small Business Administration in the Office of Disaster Recovery. We are currently responding to the July 5th and 6th severe flooding event here in Blair County. This is our primary county. The Small Business Administration provides two different types of programs. The first is a physical damage program for renters, homeowners, small businesses, and nonprofits. We cover up to $100,000 for renters and homeowners and personal property loss, up to $500,000 for homeowners and damages to their real estate, and up to $2 million for small businesses and nonprofits for damages to their real estate machinery equipment supplies inventory our second program is for small businesses and nonprofits it's an economic injury disaster loan program so the cap for small businesses and nonprofits is two million dollars between those two programs The economic injury program is a working capital loan, covers ordinary and necessary working expenses for small businesses. So anything that they have to pay for, whether their operations are in motion or not, Be that their gas, electric, their payroll, which is a big one, their mortgage, their rent, something like that. The deadline for physical damages is September 21st of this year. The deadline for our economic injury is April 21st of next year. That gives businesses time to assess their damages. When we are looking at applicants for our loan program, we're not looking at their credit score. We're looking at their credit history. Have they taken loans in the past and did they repay them? And are they able to repay them now currently? The Small Business Administration offers some of the lowest rates available beyond a traditional bank. So for homeowners, it's as low as 2.875%. For a small business, it's as low as 4%. For nonprofits, it's as low as 3.625%. So our loans are up to 30 years in length. So over that long term with that low interest, we can get payments down to be affordable for fixed income and low income families. one of the benefits of working with the small business administration and why we encourage everybody who's a survivor to apply is because we offer 12 months no interest 12 months no payments on the loans so if you are applying with your insurance company if you're waiting on some other kind of funds to come through you can apply with the small business administration you can take that loan you can get the repairs started immediately when your insurance claim settles you can use that money to pay the loan back there's no cost to you We do not cover secondary homes. We don't cover personal boats or recreational vehicles. We do however cover like Airbnbs, rental properties, income properties, businesses of that nature. For anybody who takes a loan with us, we can provide up to 20% of their damages as additional funding for mitigation. So if they want to flood proof their basement, if they want to get storm windows or reinforce their roof for storm damages, wind damages. We can provide funds for that. The risks that you mitigate don't need to match the damages that you incurred. So if you had flood damage but you have a wind risk, you don't need to use the money to flood proof your basement. You can use it for something else. For anybody who had 40% or more of the value of their property or 50% or more of the value of their structure damaged, we can refinance an existing mortgage. That's about it for what I've got to present. Do you guys have any questions?

Okay.

I have none. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Second presentation will be at 9-11, 25th anniversary event, Dwayne Bordell and Tony DeGaulle.

Mr. Ellis and members of council and guests, my name is Dwayne Bordell and I serve as the chairman of the 9-11 Memorial Service, which is going to be held this year on September the 11th at 7 p.m. at the Jaffa Shrine. If you recall, 25 years ago, three airplanes left out of the New York and Boston metropolitan area and then a fourth out of Washington into the cities of New York, Washington, and close to home, Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This is the third time that I've served as chairman for this event, the 15th, the 20th, and now here it is. 25 years later, and we remember that vivid day. So as a result, on behalf of the city and the county, we are holding this memorial service at the Jaffa Shrine. It's open to the public, no cost for admission. We have a complete program, and our speaker this year is Mr. Pat White from Hamburg, New York, who happens to be the past president of the Friends and Families of Flight 93 in Shanksville. Congressman Joyce will also be on the dais. And Carolyn Donaldson is serving as our Mistress of Ceremonies along with an array of entertainment. Here to tell you more about the program itself is our Public Relations Director, Tony DeGaulle from the Altoona Johnstown Diocese.

Thank you, Dwayne. And yes, when I came in, a gentleman here thought something was going on with the diocese, and I told him I'm moonlighting. So hopefully the bishop will indulge me tonight. First of all, I want to thank you for having us, and I salute all of you for your tremendous community service. You're all a blessing in our town, so thank you for all you do. Yes, as Duane said, we are eagerly preparing for our event on September 11th at the Jaffa Shrine. As he mentioned, Mr. Patrick White of the Friends of Flight 93 Memorial will be the keynote presenter. We also have a great deal of musical entertainment. a young woman by the name of Victory Brinker, who is known for her role recently on America's Got Talent. Not something I typically watch, but I think a lot of people do, and I think that will be a wonderful part of the evening. We also have many local musicians, musical groups playing the Altoona Community Chorus, the Blair Concert Chorale, the Orpheus Singers of State College, so many community musical groups will be present. Also, a very, very special part of the evening is what we call a walk of honor, in which we invite all local firefighters, police officers, and emergency workers to be present, and they walk into the building at the beginning of the evening, and we salute them. Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott is heading that up for us and tonight we certainly extend to all firefighters, police officers and emergency workers to be part of this. We also recognize the work of local religious clerics in our area knowing how important they are and they are part of this as well. This event is something that is very important to us every five years. You know, as I was telling this young reporter from the Altoona Mirror earlier, I certainly remember where I was on 9-11. I was a television executive at WTAJ, and that first plane hit the tower, and my first response was, it's an accident, it's a fluke. Well, a short time later, I saw on TV as it was happening another plane hitting, and I knew it was by no means an accident. Then, a short time later, the Pentagon. And then, close to home, in Shanksville. And I think at that point there was a fear among all of us, what is going to be next? None of us knew what that day was going to continue to hold. It was probably one of the most consequential days of my lifetime. And it is important every year to mark this anniversary. And here in the city of Altoona, we do it every five years. So we certainly extend an invitation to all of you present tonight and to every resident in our community to be with us on September 11th at the Jaffa Shrine. I also remember about that day and the days and weeks to follow the incredible national unity. What a remarkable coming together, no matter your political party, no matter your faith affiliation, we were all Americans. How far we've come 25 years later with the division. So it's important to recall that time in our history as well. So, again, we invite everyone to join us September 11th at the Jaffa Shrine in Altoona. As Dwayne said, there is no cost. Just come and join us and be part of us and our commitment to never forget what happened on September 11th, 2001. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tony. The final presentation for this evening is the 2025 audit by Mr. Dan Bradley from Young Oaks in Brown County.

Thank you Mister Ellis. First of all, I'd like to thank you as counsel for your continued confidence in our firm. We greatly appreciate the relationship we have with the city. I'd also be remiss if I didn't thank Mister McGuire and the remaining staff, but most especially Jim Garrett for all the courtesies and cooperation they extended to us during the course of the audit. It was much appreciated, so thank you. With that being said, I believe you all have a copy of the audit report in front of you, so I'm gonna just quickly walk you through the audit report. The first four pages of the audit report represents our opinion on your financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025. And the city earned what we call an unmodified or a clean opinion. Pages 5 through 12 is management's discussion and analysis. This is the document put together by Mr. Garrett that talks about what happened from the city's perspective for the year ended December 31, 2025. Going on to page 13, we have our statement of net position or the balance sheet. This shows all assets and all liabilities of the city. And the governmental activity shows a net position at the bottom of that page of $500,835,000, of which $507,571,000 is your net investment in capital assets. There's another $3,357,000, which is restricted. And the unrestricted portion is actually a deficit of $10,094,000. Going on to page 14, the statement of activities. If you look at the governmental activities column, the third number from the bottom, it shows that the city actually had a very positive year, $21,678,000 increase in net position for 2025. The more important part of the statements or the more informative part of the statements actually begin on page 15. This is where we have your governmental funds. This only shows the city's current assets and current liabilities. If we look at the general fund column, the total fund balance for the general fund is $20,155,000, of which $17,009,000 is unassigned. The far right column shows our total governmental funds, and the total fund balance there is around $51,686,000. Page 16 tries to reconcile what we just looked at on page 15, that is the total fund balance to the total net position that we showed you on page 13. And you can see that the changes result primarily from our capital assets, an increase of $559 million. A REDUCTION BECAUSE OF OUR NET PENSION LIABILITIES AND OPEP LIABILITIES OF AROUND $57.5 MILLION. AND ALSO LONG-TERM DEBT IS A REDUCTION OF AROUND $54,500,000. GOING ON TO PAGE 17, THE STATEMENT OF REVENUES, EXPENDITURES AND CHANGES IN FUND BALANCE. AGAIN, IF WE LOOK AT THE GENERAL FUND COLUMN, THE THIRD NUMBER FROM THE BOTTOM. It shows that we had an increase this year of around $1,727,000 of fund balance. Again, a very good year for the city from that perspective. Going over to the far right, the total fund balance increase for all governmental funds was around $4,972,000. Much like page 16, page 18 tries to reconcile that change to the change that we saw on page 14. The primary differences, once again, are capital assets are greater than depreciation by around $2,821,000. Repayments of long-term debt were around $5,335,000. And there's a reduction in our net pension and OPEP expenses of around $8.3 million for the year. PAGES 19 AND 20 TALKS ABOUT THE CITY'S THREE PENSION PLANS. THE TOTAL NET POSITION FOR ALL THREE OF THOSE PLANS TOTAL AROUND $128 MILLION. AND THE INCREASE FOR THE YEAR WAS AROUND $13.9 MILLION. THE LARGEST PART OF YOUR FINANCIAL STATEMENTS IS ACTUALLY THE NOTES. THEY BEGIN ON PAGE 21 AND CONTINUE THROUGH PAGE 89. I TALKED TO JIM EARLIER AND TALKED ABOUT GOING THROUGH THESE IN DETAIL. JIM TOLD ME THAT WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA. So I'm not going to do that with you folks, but rather just want to highlight a couple of things. On pages 36 through 38, there's a lot of details there about the city's lease with the Altoona Water Authority. On pages 38 and 39, there's a lot of details about the city's capital assets. On pages 43 through 52, there's many details about the three pension plans that the city administers. On pages 63 through 75, we have a lot of details about the other post-employment benefit liabilities that the city has for the police and the fire. And then finally, on pages 76 through 83, we have a lot of details about the city's long-term debt. The next section, pages 90 through 144, is 10-year historical information on all three of the pension plans, but also on the other post-employment benefit plans. This is all required by the GASB. So again, you have 54 pages of information required by the GASB about your pension plans and your OPEP plans. I do want to just take one minute of your time to look at pages 145 through 147. That's the budget to actual comparison. And if we could look at page 145, if you look at the general funds budget to actual comparison, you'll notice that the final budget was a balanced budget. That is, there was no anticipated increase in fund balance for the year. If you look at the actual results, the actual results actually had an increase of around $1,727,000. So again, a very favorable year for the city. Again, due to your conservative nature and the fact that, again, you were cautious with spending and those kinds of things. So again, a very favorable year. Pages 148 and 149 are combining statements for your non-major governmental funds. Pages 150 and 151 is a combining statement for the three pension plans. And then finally on pages 152 and 153, we have your schedule of expenditures of federal awards. It shows that for the year the city spent about $7.6 million of federal financial expenditures. We're required by professional standards to look at 40% of those. We actually looked at around 78% of those. The two major programs we looked at were the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery program and also the home program. And the only, we had two findings related to the cities. These are listed on pages 160 and 161. If there's any questions at all about the audit report, I'd be more than happy to answer at this time.

Dan, would you be able to, in non-accounting terms, clarify for our friends in the media what it means for a clean opinion to exist?

What we mean by a clean or an unmodified opinion is that there's no material modifications or there's no material misstatements in the audit report. That is that all the numbers have been audited and that, again, there's no material numbers that are different from what we've audited. And again, materiality is an important concept because we don't audit to the penny on every one of these accounts, but rather we establish a certain level and say below that level is considered immaterial. And based upon that, there's no material misstatements that we identified.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

Thanks, Dan. We will now open the floor for public comment. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Approach the podium. Speak directly into the microphone. State your name, address for the record, and you have the opportunity to speak at this time.

Good evening, members of council. My name's Dan Stuckey and I live at 106 Halleck Place, out in the living section of Altoona. And within a neighborhood, we have a small grass triangle. Basically, it's roughly 70 foot by 60 foot by 50 foot. Where it's at is, if you turn off of Ruskin Drive into Halleck Place, just a block down from Ruskin Drive, that's where this small triangle is, you probably would recognize it better with two rather large pine trees that had been there. Well, about five or six years ago, I came before council and the mayor, and I wanted to cut down the largest Pine tree there. It was in bad shape. And I was going to replace it with a flagpole and another tree of choice of the shade tree commission. And eventually, a lot of time and effort was finally turned down by the shade tree commission because they don't want the tree taken out. Well, between then and now, probably like a year, year and a half ago, both those pine trees did die. The wind tore them apart and they had a, I think it was a sewer line or a water line come through there and it must have ripped up the roots and they died. So now I'm back before you to try and get this flagpole put up. And what appears to be standing in my way is a part of the adopt a medium program which was a copy and paste from I don't know where. But in that it says as far as flagpoles, there has to be a fall zone of one and a half times the height of the flagpole. So in this case, if I wanted a 25-foot flagpole, I'd be 37 foot away from the road. Well, I think this fall zone in this program here, I think it should be eliminated. You know, it just doesn't make any sense. You drive around the city, coming here to this meeting tonight, you ran across, you know, well in the cities there's thousands of trees, telephone poles, street standards right next to the roadway, which present much more of a safety hazard than a flagpole. So I'm asking you to look into this and to strike this from this program. I'm not doing this just because I want to do something. I've done a lot of work into this, especially in the first time here. It's going to cost me around $500. A flagpole, it's going to be much more sturdy than a flagpole you'd just buy at like Sam's Club or someplace and put in your front yard. It's wall thickness is about double of what they are. It's going to be about three inches in diameter versus standard one is two inches. There will be a solar light attached to it. As far as the succession of it, this will come with me. What happens with this flagpole recessed into the ground will be a receiver, and the receiver will be cemented in place, and one or two guys can just lift this flagpole up and take it away. I already have somebody that would be glad to have this. Right.

Mr. Stuckey, your three minutes are expired. Okay. I'm sure the staff will be reaching out and we can figure out what we can do to help you out here.

If there is anybody that would like them, I'm not familiar with the neighborhood. I do have pictures here. If you'd like me to drop them off, you could sort of scoot them around, y'all.

You want to hand it? Can you hand those to Dan? Can you hand those to Deputy Chief Snyder, please? Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dan.

Thanks, Dan.

Devin Saylor, 1515 25th Avenue. In February of this year, council had a work session. Among the many topics discussed, it was the first public conversation of an urban camping ordinance. According to Councilman Ellis, he and our city manager went to Pittsburgh to get some ideas on how to deal with the homelessness issue. They said they had spoken with their officials and sought to create an ordinance that mirrored the Pittsburgh urban camping ordinance, one that above all else would not become a means to criminalize homelessness. You see, when I sat down and I researched the Pittsburgh urban camping ordinance, I found that if this council did copy their advice, it was upside down, backwards, and in braille. The ordinance you might have actually pulled from was the City of Pittsburgh's park ordinance, which established no camping in public spaces or parks, which is one paragraph and doesn't include any language about fines or penalties. The actual ordinance of the City of Pittsburgh, known as the Final Encampment Policy Memorandum, the first thing it does is establish plainly that the ordinance is about respecting the unhoused. It establishes a procedure on identifying an encampment, giving proper notice, what constituents an immediate cleanup, what constitutes an immediate cleanup, and even how the homeless person's things will be collected and held onto until they find housing. In addition, they get a seven days, at least seven days to leave or make accommodations with a social worker, which given our system here, I would assume that would be very helpful because the options for temporary housing can be shifting. That ordinance sounds like a goal, that its goal is to help folks off the street while offering grace and dignity to their situation. And this one also does not mention fines or penalties. So what does the city of Altoona's urban camping ordinance do? It first establishes the definitions of what urban camping is, public property and personal property, so it can immediately tell you that if you are car camping or storing your belongings in a public street or a public park, you can face a fine or up to 90 days in prison. If you are caught sleeping on a bench, sitting on a sidewalk, you can face a fine and or 90 days in prison. I have heard a lot of mention of social workers, and the ordinance does not mention the word social worker, not one time. The definition of criminalization is the formal process where certain behaviors and actions or groups are turned into crimes by law or by strict law enforcement. If you create a law that makes homelessness unlawful, I'm sorry, but this ordinance sole intention is to criminalize homelessness. And no, the truth, all right, how about this? I think the best case scenario here is that why don't we use the bits and pieces from the ordinance that I just mentioned from Pittsburgh and implement that. It offers grace. It offers dignity. Remove the fines. Remove the penalties. I think that if you offer people a better living situation, now I understand not always, but generally they're going to want to go to that housing situation. And that's just my two cents on the matter. So thank you guys for your time, and I appreciate it.

Please pick up your trash.

Oh, I will.

Yeah, my name is Dan Casey, 417 North 12th Avenue. There's a couple expenses that has occurred recently around here. Now, when the big boy come to town, it used quite a bit of water. Now, was that picked up by a volunteer or some organization? And the second one is that when the detectives and everything had to go to New York, How was that covered? Does anybody know that and give me an answer? Or the public an answer, really. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for your time and for your service. My name is Dwight Kennedy. I live on Reservoir Road in Hollidaysburg. I've been a Blair County resident for over 50 years. I'm a Vietnam veteran and I'm now a retired school teacher and financial advisor. As you likely know, multiple Pennsylvania municipalities, including many in our area, have passed ordinances that apply to ICE agents, formally prohibiting municipal employees from participating in or using borough resources for federal civil immigration enforcement unless required by federal or state law, a court order, or a judicial warrant. My questions the council members is if and how an ordinance can be brought to the out to the city council for consideration. I'm not looking for an answer at this time just your consideration. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is John for one for one Apple Lane. I'm here to talk to you guys about my repository bid on 13, 14 and 16 on North Fourth Avenue. I'm not a developer or a flipper investor. I'm just somebody, a resident renting, looking for a place to call home. I left the Baltimore area a couple of years ago to be up here with family. My sister and nephews, grandmother, extended family. Everybody is up here in the city. To better understand the layouts, Frank, the other gentleman putting in a bid, he owns two pieces of property bookended by, was it 1326 and 1318, and I own 1318, and we're both bidding on 13, 14, 16. I learned about the repository bids and the judicial and all those in March, started researching it, and saw that there was a property that was on the repository list as well, and then a neighboring property on the active judicialist. So I registered and showed up to the auction, placed a bid uncontested, and when I went to pay for that one, put in my repository bid for the same amount. It had been sitting for a year, so I didn't think that there was very much interest in it. My plan is to join the two lots, build a house, and do as much of the prep work as I can as a resident, and not somebody super skilled with heavy equipment. I'd like to build my future here and hope that my bid gets approved and hope you all have a good evening. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

GOOD EVENING.

MY NAME IS TONY DELEY. I WAS HERE LAST MONTH AND BROUGHT UP A CONCERN REGARDING DANGEROUS SITUATION WITH OVERGROWN TREES ON WEST HOLMES AVENUE. I'M HERE THIS EVENING HOPING I CAN GET SOME KIND OF FEEDBACK IN THE FORM OF AN UPDATE ON WHAT'S BEING DONE IN THAT REGARD. but also to let you know that last time I emphasized the safety concerns of this, well, there's a retired couple who owns a property behind us that also adjoins this right-of-way, and the tree that fell on our backyard, took out our fence and stuff, came from their, I guess their side of the right-of-way, and we notified them about it, and their realtor, just so they were aware of it, and they disclosed it to the buyer who had just place an offer on their house after it being on the market for a year. Upon learning about the tree situation on that right away, the buyer withdrew their offer. So it's an economic impact as well. I have called in and asked for an update. Haven't heard anything. Nobody's come around to do anything that we're aware of. So I'm hoping that there's going to be an update either now or later in the meeting. I'll hang around for that and would look forward to that. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Major Chris blessing the Altona Salvation Army located at 1813 6th Avenue i'm short so um taking the time just to thank the city and its officials over the last five weeks um we've encountered through our 24-hour hotline 19 individuals who were unsheltered 17 of those individuals have been put on the course for housing and sustainable living some of them transported back to places where they have places of care We just want to take the opportunity to thank the Altoona Police Department, the Altoona Fire Department, other members of councils and city leaders for taking it so seriously. We are moving the needle and I can feel it. And I'm liking the collaboration among city officials and agencies and caring citizens. And the two that didn't go were ones that absolutely refused to follow the process and everything. But the conversations at tables are really good on how we care for them. So I just want to commend citizens and the council and our emergency services for the fine work that they are doing to house unsheltered individuals. So thank you very much.

Thank you for your work. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Major.

Caleb McCoy, 1327 30th Avenue, just right up the street here. I just wanted to come up, I'm running for office at the state level, but as part of that I'm going around and having lots of conversations with lots of people. And I've also put my phone number out for people to be able to call if they have concerns. Something that has started to come up over the last couple of weeks is I've gotten a couple of phone calls and I've had multiple people when I'm knocking on doors bring the question to me about flock cameras it seems like there is certainly a percentage of our citizenry here who are pretty upset to learn that there are license plate readers that have already been installed in our city without really much public discussion of that from what I understand we have Less than a dozen. But it is something that I would be curious. It's not something that is being addressed at the state level as far as I know. But from what I understand, several cities around the country have been implementing limits on those or they are doing things to make sure that citizens are protected and that their privacy is being respected. I would be curious if that's something that y'all would be interested in putting together some sort of ordinance or resolution for. That's my time. Thank you.

Thank you, Sir. There's no more public long comment will move on to resolutions that he clerk.

Item A is approving the minutes of the Altoona City Council meeting held Monday, July 13th, 2026. Item B is awarding the prospect pool bathhouse renovations to Clark contractors of Bedford in the amount of $696,313.85 and further authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. ITEM C IS ADOPTING THE REVISED CITIZEN PARTICIPATION PLAN FOR THE CITY'S HUD COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT AND HOME INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS. ITEM D IS AMENDING THE 2024 CDBG PROGRAM TRANSFERRING $1685.28 FROM THE PREVIOUS CANCELED PLEASANT VILLAGE ROOF REPLACEMENT PROJECT TO THE EXISTING Homeowner roof replacement project. Item E is awarding a demolition bid for 613 North 7th Avenue garage only to Leckie's demolition of Johnstown in the amount of $5,100 payable from the city of Altoona altogether. Altoona fund and further authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. Item F is awarding a demolition bid for 226 Beach Avenue to Leckie's demolition of Johnstown in the amount of $10,300 payable from the City of Altoona Altogether Altoona Fund, further authorizing the City Manager to execute all documents and the City Clerk to attest to same. Item G is approving a repository bid in the amount of $300 for property located at 1604 North 8th Avenue. to kent tonkin of el tuna and further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form item h is approving a repository bid in the amount of one thousand one dollars for property located at twenty three twenty one where's the avenue i don't have the avenue on it hold on a second i'll have to look it up just missing it sorry It would be 2321 West Chestnut Avenue to Jose Volney de Souza Matos of 2515 West Chestnut and further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form. Is there anything that needs to be pulled for a separate vote?

No. I looked into these and the paperwork seems to be in proper order here, just so you all know.

Hearing none, we'll call for the consent vote. Councilman Beatty? Yes. Councilman Butterbaugh? Yes. Councilwoman Klinich? Yes. Vice Mayor Ellis? Yes. Councilman Ickes? Yes. Councilman Kelly? Yes. And Mayor Pacifico is absent, and the vote passes 6-0.

Thank you. City Manager updates?

I just have one thing that I'd like to say. Tragically, in the early morning, Saturday morning, Lucille, the fire department, arson canine, tragically passed away from a medical emergency. So if we could keep the fire department and Justin, the handler, in everybody's prayers.

Thank you. Can we also see that some of the topics brought up in public comment will be followed up on by staff?

I can't hear.

I'm sorry.

I asked the city manager to have some of the items brought up in public comment to be followed up on by city staff.

I didn't hear him.

The city manager.

What I had said was, tragically, in the early morning hours of Saturday morning, the fire department arson canine tragically passed away from a medical emergency. So I'm just asking that everybody keep Justin, the handler, in everybody's prayers. And yes, I will. Anybody that had a question, I'll answer some questions after. And there's a couple that are going to need some research, so I'll get with you. But I can answer most of the questions when we adjourn.

Thank you. Council discussion items. Councilman Kelly.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Ellis. I just would like to extend on behalf of the Jaffa Shriners our thanks to the police department and the fire department for their quick response on the incident that occurred on July 14th. You know, a month earlier we had a big celebration celebrating the building being placed on the National Registry, and then exactly a month later we had a break in, some serious vandalism, and what would have been an attempted arson, which could have been very tragic, and the police and fire department responded extremely quickly, and we are very thankful for that. So, kudos.

Thank you. Councilman Nickus.

Thank you, vice mayor. I do want to take a minute and commend our finance department here as well as city operations in general with another strong performance here given the audit. It wasn't that long ago that there were some challenges with city finance and operations, and I think it's really nice to see the city in a much better position. Subsequently, I would just caution that I think it's important that we be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, but at the same time focus on not jeopardizing providing services, whether it be public works or code inspections, police, fire, that we're able to work toward meeting those continual needs. Major blessing. I do want to thank you again for coming tonight and for your continued work and partnership with the city over the last number of months. I can speak. I think I'll speak for everyone here, even though it's not my role. But you and your organization have been a tremendous help to the city over the last couple of months. So thank you again. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Butterwell.

Nothing at this time. Thank you.

Councilman Beatty. I'd like to thank the Altoona Fire Department. We had an incident in our home while we were away and they were very timely and saved from a more dramatic end than we should, we could have had. So we appreciate their timeliness and their care, you know, in our home while, you know, they were there and a major blessing. I also want to thank you for the work in getting you know the homeless resettled and that that's something that the city council is working very hard to make sure happens in a timely manner. Thank you. Councilwoman Clinton.

I guess I'll also thank major blessing. He helped me with a homeless person that walked into our church one Wednesday evening I called him, and he was on vacation, and he sent somebody. And we got that gentleman back to where he needed to get to. So thank you, Major. The other thing I wanted to thank was, Jamie and the events that have been happening downtown which we've had a lot of response and I really appreciate it. It's so nice to see everything that's going on downtown. So Jamie's our main street manager and I appreciate that and appreciate the night out that the police department, the fire department, everybody came together and that was a nice event also. So just thank you to all.

Okay. Speaking as a council member, I do want to thank Major Blessing, someone that's been actively involved in the homeless fight for the last three years. And he and his wife stepped up and took on the responsibility of being the 24-7 hotline recipient. They get the calls when the police or anyone in the community runs into a homeless person. That filled a huge gap in what we're trying to do. We're now waiting on funding for the homeless coordinator, but in the meantime, Major Blessing and his wife stepped up to do that. Mayor Pacifico is on vacation. He asked me to read the following. So if you just bear with me for a minute, I'll go through this. Downtown Altoona has been bustling with activity this summer, and it has been wonderful to see so many residents and visitors enjoying all that our downtown has to offer. We hosted to midweek music events, both of which were very well attended this past weekend. We also held the first art walk, which was a tremendous success and drew a great deal of interest in precipitate participation. I'd like to extend a special thank you to Jamie, our main street manager, for all of her hard work in making these events possible and working to bring energy and excitement to our downtown. I also want to recognize our summer work program participants. All summer long, these young folks worked hard to keep our downtown clean, welcoming, and looking its best. Their last day was Friday and we celebrated their efforts with a pizza party in Jamie's office. We are grateful for the time and effort they put into making a difference in our community. Finally, building on the success of the Art Walk and several other projects currently in the works, I will be establishing a public art committee to guide and advance the city's commitment to public art. Public art is about far more than simply placing beautiful things in beautiful places. It can be a powerful tool for strengthening downtown Altoona's identity, all of Altoona's identity, in supporting neighborhood and downtown vitality, encouraging economic development, interrupting interpreting our history and creating a stronger sense of place. This committee will be responsible for developing a long-term vision for public art in Altoona advising on potential installations and locations coordinating community input and identifying opportunities to integrate public art into the broader city planning and revitalization and that's from the mayor. With that we'll move on to questions from the media. No questions. We will now adjourn.