Council - Regular Meeting

one that drops down the hill and has that wicked hill. Call the council work session of Monday, February 2nd, 2026 to order at 6 pm. Ask the uh secretary to call a role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Barentos. Councelor Blosser. Councelor Fitzgerald. Councelor Holap. Secretary. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spike here. Councelor Blosser. We have a quorum. Fitzger. All right. Everyone's here. I'm going to go ahead and call up Charlie Mitchell to talk to us about economic and community development annual update part two. Sheriff.

Right. Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Um, this is the riveting sequel. We'll go ahead and call uh to the part one that you saw a couple weeks ago. Community development annual. I got a ding on that one. That's good. Um for whatever reason, this uh monitor here is not working. So I may be looking here. I may be looking here. I may not be looking at you. I apologize for that. Um again, so this is a second part of our department. Uh we're going to be cover excuse me, covering building economic development and urban renewal. looking here and we'll jump right into for that again. So this is a second part of our uh to building division um economic development.

So our building division is made up of our building official two inspectors and our permit tech. There's a nice photo of the four there. Um as you as you I assume you all know you know the purpose of the building division is to enforce our building codes. Uh make sure that buildings are built safe. Um, and really it's all about an act of public safety. That's how we kind of look at it. We're there to um keep structures sound and keep the people in them safe. Um, really it's all about hearing like an echo Emily. So we kind of look at it. We're there to um our building structures sound and keep the people

like 10 second delay. and act.

Um here's some um kind of some stats and some accomplishments uh over the last year. Again, this is kind of looking back at the year 2025. Um we we've been in a state of transition with our staff since our last building official retired at the end of 2024. So after a pretty exhaustive search and several rounds, we ended up advancing one of our inspectors, Chris Richel, to the building official position. that then opened up his existing position. So, we had to fill that position as well. Uh, and then meanwhile, um, David Wilson, our other building inspector, was promoted to building inspector, too. So, there's a lot of learning and changing and just, uh, a lot of transition. I think we're in a different much different place uh, right now than we were uh, one year ago. Um, we also got an award, which is kind of cool. our permit tech won the uh the state statewide permit tech of the year. Um so that's pretty awesome. Um and just a lot of u professional development that occurred during the year as we kind of ramped up our staff. Um you can see our stats there for plan reviews and permits um and CFOs and all that there. Um then on the next slide, well actually before I get to that, um this is just kind of a bit of a narrative of some of the takeaways from the last year. Um, probably no surprise at least to councelor Schilling, but you know, we're starting to turn a bit of a corner, I think, in Dallas where we're going to be going up more than we're going out. And we're going to start seeing a lot of, uh, denser housing projects, multif family, multi-story, um, apartment kinds of complexes. Uh, those are still kind of rolling out. Um, we never know exactly when they're going to hit the ground. we only know when they come in and get their plans approved and when they get their their permits, but their

actual um construction start dates is usually due to some other factors that are internal to those to those companies. Um so we're seeing that um and I think I would predict this year and probably the next several years we're going to see um a lot a lot more of that. This is kind of our um look back uh of previous years in terms of permits and inspections and valuation. Uh on the next slide I'll go into a little bit of explanation of uh why it appears that we're trending down. Um we definitely peaked out in 23 in terms of building activity. Um since then things have slowed due to a variety of factors such as uh for a while the issue was um uh building materials availability and cost and then it was um and it continues to be uh interest rates etc. So, u there's just kind of a bit of a lull and a slow in the uh construction economy, but we're also seeing all this um um development coming online on the commercial side and on the multif family side.

Question about the the right-hand bar chart. Yeah. Is that is that um are those those dollar numbers u reflect what was actually built, what permits were issued? What what's that actually? The valuation is the valuation of the permits that were issued at the time that they were issued. Not necessarily the time they were constructed, but the time the permits were issued. Uh that's the valuation number. Yes, Carlos Kelly, is there a cap on how many homes can we be built within a year or is it strictly related to the economy?

There's no cap set by any city code or policy. Uh it's usually based on yeah the economy. Um in some communities it's based on land supply. We don't really have that issue here in Dallas. So it's purely based on on the the demand in the market. Yeah. Um this Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you mentioned that building is down because of availability of of product and interest rates and things like that. Why would it why would we be seeing uh more of an uptick in apartment housing than single family housing for those two reasons? What's the discrepancy there?

You want to do you want me to answer that? I mean, I understand usually likes to answer those types of questions. So, I'll give him the opportunity. Materials and interest rates, they're not the same. Or

so on a residential project, you're looking at I'm just going to start with a typical starter home. We've seen the starter homes go from when I moved into town be under $100,000 to today a 12,200 foot to 1300T starter home is around 426. You take the interest on that and the down payment on that and it's not affordable. It's not attainable for most people. So what is attainable is a smaller deposit on a rental and so there we see a large demand for rental housing because that's what so we want more rental housing in Dallas home ownership.

That's the I'm just telling you why you're seeing this way. It's not that as a city council is paying for the supply the materials and somebody's paying the interest rate on those buildings. So I don't I don't get why it's if you do the numbers the unless you're selling the houses and you can't discount the houses because that's the cost of the house. But when the businesses are making their investments, the commercial pro the the apartment complex affordable housing play into that too.

Okay, let's define affordable housing. Are you saying affordable housing as far as government government subsidized housing? I don't know of any project that is government subsidized besides Pulk CDC. The Pulk CDC stuff. Yeah. So that's like to go or whatever that's put their subdivision up on James How they've they've got their business model and it must be profitable for them to go ahead and build the the apartments. That's why and you're seeing it. It's not just Dallas. I mean it's Salem and it's Woodburn and then all the way up through Portland, Eugene. All of them are seeing large swaps to

the living now. And it's I mean I cringed because and I'm I like being able to get people into houses and so Well, I'm just wondering is it does the do the materials and the interest cost less for an apartment building than it does for a single family home? Yes. Less per unit. Yeah. Per unit. Per unit. Yeah. But so it isn't lack of material and it isn't because the interest rates are lower. It's because that's the preferred is what's people into rentals.

What's what they can afford what people can afford to move into. I mean, I've got a son and daughter-in-law that live with me as they're putting money away for their first down payment and that we're seeing a lot of I I completely understand the unaffordability of homes, but I was just curious if if there were more material available for apartments than there is for homes. Okay. Cuz the way that you made it sound was lack of materials. We can't build that. What I stated was a year a year to 18 months ago that was an issue. It's not an issue today like it was previously. Oh, a year ago, but it led to the slowments too. So, right. It led to the slowdown. Okay.

I'd say it's probably two to three years ago for the materials and we were seeing the sheets of oriented strand board were running $80 a sheet. Today, they're back down to 112 a sheet which is affordable. But unaffordable. Yes. when you put them all together. And I'm not suggesting we're going to see a complete turn where we're going to abandon the construction of single family housing. We're just seeing a rise of um a multif family and there hasn't really been a lot of market rate multif family housing built in Dallas for quite some time. So, uh I think what the developers are seeing is a pent up demand and they're finding ways to meet that demand.

I've got a question on that slide on the right or that chart on the right. We cannot assume that the dollar amount in the bottom right I can't see what that is 35 35 million998 that's not necessarily what property tax values went up because some of those are not necessarily those are just like permits for an electrical service and things like that where the property didn't I don't know what the correlate I mean there is there is a correlation between valuation and property tax revenue but I don't know if I try to make that correlation solid. This would be about 50%.

Yeah. I wouldn't say that the the values that you're seeing there are what the the county assessor will assess those properties at. Um that's what the the permits as they come in. There's an evaluation that the um that's determined based on the construction value of those projects as they come in. A tax assessment is done in a whole different way by a different agency even, right? The city doesn't do that. And so the county does that. Um but yeah, you're um you're probably looking at what the real cost is to to build those um units. Residential properties um for taxes in Dallas um are less than 50% of the real market value. Um and so you're probably looking if that's 35, you know, something in the 15 to $17 million range for assessed value.

But not one of those $35 million is a residence or an apartment. It could be just someone adding a fan or adding a component.

Well, and in reality, a lot of what we saw this last year in 2025 was a lot of commercial, not necessarily a lot of residential. And commercial also applies to things like the hospital and the schools, which was a lot of the activity. Those entities don't pay property taxes. So again, that messes up your correlation model as well. Charlie, before you move on, I just want to um maybe respond to one of the comments that Councelor Fitzgerald made, which was um there's not a preference by the city for the housing types that are being built. Um I would say that the city the city has an ample supply of single family residential or low density um residential land in the city that's available. Um we also have land that's available for medium and high density housing. The the preference is on the the private side, right? what are the developers willing to build today? And so that's what we're seeing, right? That swing from for years it's been single family residential. Now it's swinging the pendulum over to the multif family residential. Um but the

it's driven by the market and what the developers are able to, you know, they look at a number they look at the number of different factors and say what are what are we going what are we going to make profit on, right? right? Are we going to make profit building single family houses and selling those or multif family and managing that um or selling it to someone that will manage it? Right? Um so that's a decision that's made by the developers and not by the city. The city has land available for both. Um we're that's our job is to open up that land, make it available, make it serviceable with utilities. Um and that's what we're we're in the business of doing. the uh system development charge, does that change regardless if you have uh apartments or residential homes?

Yes, the rates are different for multif family versus single family and but I'm not the expert on SDC. So, if you have detailed questions, maybe Brian can help me out. Um, in particular, probably who pays. I would imagine that that the builder pays system development charges. Yes. But that doesn't get tacked on to people that are um paying for the rent or

they they pay those fees at the time they pay their building permits. How the owner developer absorbs those costs and recoups those costs, that's that's entirely up up to how their business model works. I would imagine they would pass those on to their renter in some fashion. They're not just going to eat those costs, I wouldn't think. Ultimately, uh, are we losing money as we go to, um, rental apartments as opposed to residential homes? Does the city lose money from system development charges?

Like, no, we're not losing we're not losing money when you build a single family versus a multif family. Um, they're charged different rates and that was determined when the methodology was established for those SDC's. Um and so no, we're we're recovering what we anticipated whether they build single family or multif family.

Yeah. And and in fact, you could also say you could make the argument that our fee structure is based on, you know, rateayers and there's more rateayers per acre in an apartment complex than there is in a single family subdivision. So from a from a revenue perspective, looking at it that way, not just property taxes, we could come out ahead. But again, as Brian said earlier, there's no policy at the city level that any of you have established that says we're prioritizing one type of development over another. Just want to make that clear. Are we even able to do that? Doesn't the state mandate kind of how we

Yeah, I mean the state the state says that you need to have certain supplies of land available for the different types of housing. um you as a council could, you know, create incentive programs that might entice a certain development over another, right? Um you have a few affordable housing policies. You could create more of those if you wanted to see more affordable housing, government subsidized housing. You could create um you know some incentive programs around market rate single family over market rate apartment if you wanted to. But we can't really create roadblocks.

But yeah, you can't create roadblocks in you can't create like a moratorium on a certain housing development type like a multif family. So, so to take that one step further, in order for us to want if we want as a city council more single family houses, we would have to pay to increase in incentivize that some way. Is that correct?

Yeah, I think you know, you don't necessarily have to pay them. You know, you could create development standards maybe that are easier to um that would result in cost savings from a development standpoint. So, that could be an incentive, right? I've you know maybe not require um you know so much glazing on the front you know the house or something right so less windows um you know different articulation stuff like that

would I add something too on uh just maybe this will add a little bit of clarity on the subject of SDC fees um profit and loss isn't really um a thing with those because they're collected based on what we think it's going to cost us to build that street or that sewer line or whatever. It's going to cost this much. This is how much we need to collect. The only time, and those fees, of course, don't go into the general fund. They go into, you know, fenced funds. It can only be used for what they're used for. The only time that that um that there's anything like that that happens, and we haven't done this in quite a while now. We've done it a few times in the past, but not recently, is when we decide to forgive SDC fees to encourage a particular development to go forward. In that case, we build whatever it is we're building on our own nickel rather than getting reimbursed by the developer. And that's sometimes used as an economic incentive if you want to, you know, stimulate a certain type of development. We haven't done that in a long time. We've done it in the past, but not recently.

All right, good discussion. Um, the next slide is just kind of a narrative that explains a little bit of what we've been talking about. So, you know, we're this is a this is feedback from our from our staff that the difficult economic environment led to a decline this last year in residential building. Um so there was fewer applications for new single family dwellings. Um but we saw an uptick in larger commercial projects and um it's just worth noting that the single family dwellings offer a faster turnaround and so those the the the the horizon between plants and the middle and construction is a lot shorter on single family dwellings than they are on these more complex larger whether they're multif family or whether they're commercial. So that the the valuations aren't immediat as immediately uh visible. Um, also again just because of that time lag, um, even though we have a lot of projects in the queue right now on the commercial side and on the multif family, we don't know, as I mentioned earlier, when we're going to see those and so they could be a year or 18 to 24 months out. And so there's there's a there's just this time lag. Um, also just just another note, the last bullet is just talking about our our staff time actually is is about the same because there's there's um just as many inspections on a multif family project as there could be on a on a single family project. And so just because a project is larger doesn't necessarily mean that there's more um staff time going out there doing inspections. Here's just some of the uh kind of more visible projects that we were involved in. And you'll notice um most of these uh that um are commercial with the exception of the one down at the bottom which is the Forest Ridge phases five and six. And so um we got Carson Commons which was an affordable

housing project by the Pulk CDC. Uh Pulk County Behavioral Health which obviously is county government. Uh Forest Pass Brewery. uh the city's public works building, um West Valley Industrial Park, um high school stuff, and then again the Forest Ridge project. So, those are some of the some of the more notable projects that we inspected last year. Uh that's it for building. Before I go to economic development, is there any other questions on on building division? If not, we'll plow ahead with economic development. Um so um one of the one of the programs and strategies we do with economic development is what we call business retention and expansion on a proactive basis. And so what this means out in the field is that we're proactively calling on our local businesses and sitting down with them and having conversations with them, checking in with them, making sure that um they're happy, healthy, and growing. And sometimes we do surveys, sometimes we do calls, sometimes we do visits, sometimes we do emails, but we're just trying to continually just it's like that customer service model of uh that it's more cost- effective to keep the customers you have than going out and trying to get new customers. Um and we partner with uh with folks like the chamber and the downtown association uh with this with this effort as well. Um, next is just a a graphic, a data set that talks I know the the mayor actually Oh, spoiler alert. You mentioned this in your state of the city podcast today a little bit, but

stay tuned. Stay tuned. Yeah. Um, but this is a a graph that compares um um business metrics with Dallas as as a community and the state as a whole. Um, and you'll notice in particular if we look at um, this last year, which is the year that we're talking about, um, Dallas saw a 1% increase in new businesses in 2025 and the state actually saw a decrease as a whole in the same year. So by that metric, um, last year, you can we can so we can say that Dallas outperformed the state as a whole in terms of businesses.

Charlie, yeah. Do those numbers include the tap house that went away and synergy that went away in the last month? Well, those would have been in 2026. I don't know when they went out. Well, yeah, I don't know. We don't get data on specific businesses. This is from a third party source. This is not us counting them. So, we don't know which businesses were counted and which ones weren't. I could say Synergy is not done yet. So, they're right they're still in business. They're not closed all the way yet.

And this is also net change too. So if you're losing one and gaining two, you've gained one, right? Another data set uh for you. Again, same kind of comparison. Um this is looking at uh jobs and you can see that um we rebounded pretty quickly out of the pandemic recession. Um and the state really hasn't as a whole. It's been struggling and so um you can see that um for the most part we were both on the same trajectory leading into the the pandemic but we emerged out of it very differently. So that's that's good for us and we should be we should be proud of that. Um and again this is another data set that looks at um how businesses are how they're sustaining themselves and how viable they are after they open because it's one thing to open a business but it's one thing to be open again and five years later or six years later. Um, so this looks at just that kind of that survivability rate and you can see that we're at, you know, just about 96% going back to 2019, which is which is pretty good. Uh, some accomplishments. Uh, this is still in progress. The former ride aid building is transitioning into an ACE hardware. Uh, they plan to move in, open up, uh, hopefully first quarter of this year is what we were told. Um, we're still making progress on the Lock Rail node master plan which was adopted. Uh, the sewer projects phase one is done. We'll be going into phase two over the next couple years. Um, we'll be looking at reszoning uh that as it develops and we'll be creating that new mixeduse zone here real soon. And we even haven't

talked a lot about this, I know, at council meetings, but you know, we've made a concerted effort for the last four years, five years into really strengthening our local partners of the DDA and the chamber, and we're beginning to see that really pay off. Both of those organizations are very solid and uh healthy organizations now. And um the more uh healthy organizations like that are, the more healthy we are, the more healthy the community is. So, um, we're real happy that those partnerships are really working well. Um, that's not the case in every community and it's certainly not the case of where we were when we certainly we're just coming out of the pandemic. Those those organizations were really struggling and so we we're we're supporting them in different ways now than we were supporting them four years ago. Um, our team of two, one and a half maybe if you count me as a half I guess. I don't know. Um, we have we're both certified. So, Tyler and I are both certified now. Um, Tyler certified in the state. I'm certified internationally. Uh, that's that's a pretty powerful team you have here. So, you should be should be proud of that. Um there's also this uh community gift card program that um we we get a lot of return on a very little investment on this, but it's essentially it's a it's a virtual gift card program, digital gift card program, and we're continuing to see uh popularity and usage and it's at its core, it's really a shop local campaign. It's giving people that extra reason to spend their money uh in their lo into their local businesses. And this is a good project where we've partnered with the cities of um Monmouth and Independent. So it's not just Dallas. Um

get people can uh we have an expert on that program sitting right behind me. So he could talk about it a little bit. There. Sure. I am so glad you asked that question, counselor. You paid me to do so. Oh, I wasn't supposed to say that.

So, how the YFY program works, it's very unique. So, the YFY gift cards are not physical gift cards. It's a digital gift card. So, someone will go onto the site, um, purchase a gift card. It operates similar to, you know, a Visa, Mastercard, um, you know, gift card that you can get at Safeway, Walmart, where you put a value on it, you can use it anywhere. Uh the difference between a gift card like that and a gift card like thefty program is that one it's on your phone so it's digital only which saves the card processor that we work with money which saves the business's money as well. Um and the other part about it is it promotes us shopping local um because that card is locked to only being able to be used at businesses that actively opt into the program. Um, so someone buys a $50 gift card at Safeway, they can use that anywhere in the world. Um, but you buy a $50 U gift card that that $50 spent at participating businesses in PK County. Um, and so that's the ins and outs of how the gift card system works essentially.

Where do people find out about it? Is it promoted, advertised somewhere?

Yeah. So, when we have a BOGO program, which is buy one get one, um we work with the downtown association, the chamber, um the visitor center, as well as our neighboring communities, because this isn't just a Dallason project. Um it's for all of PK County, and we work um with our partners over at YFY to promote the program on social media. Um we provide resources to the businesses to for them to promote it on their pages as well. Um and this year, we've done a refresh of what the card looks like. You can kind of see the updated look there. And what that photo actually shows is every business that signs up gets a window cling. And so when someone's walking into a business, if that window clings there, they can use the gift card there. And using a YD gift card is just as easy as using any other card. Um, so if you have an iPhone, you can load the card onto your Apple wallet, scan it at the cash register like you would any other card. Um, I just learned today from Yifty on our check-in call that you can do the same thing with Android phones. now. So, it's very exciting. Um, and again, it's a seamless process for both the customer um, and for the business. And it cost nothing for the business to participate in the program. The only thing that they pay um, is the transaction fee that they would pay anyways if it was a regular gift card or a regular credit card. Um, and kind of just to show a little bit of the impact, um, when you were asking that question to Charlie, I pulled up our

I was I was going to next ask about metrics. Is that where you're going? Yeah. Okay.

So, we we just did a BOGO program over the holiday season which ran from November 20th um to January 3rd. Um and over that um program, we offered three different um three different levels of BOS. Um so, if you bought a $20 card, you got $10 back. Um if you bought a $50 card, you got 25 back. And you bought a $100, you got 50 back. So, someone making a $100 purchase of a Y50 gift card is getting $150 that they can spend at local businesses. Um, and so what we saw over this campaign is in just our BOGO time, we had about $4,000 worth of gift cards purchased, which resulted in $2,000 of BOOS um being provided. And so this the results I got were from January 15th. And so from January 15th, um the past 30 days before that, 1.4 or $1,400 um was spent here in PK County. Um and then in the past 12 months, um $7,000 has been spent in PK County. Now again, that's countywide. It's not all in Dallas. Um but a lot of that money is being spent here at small businesses um in Dallas. And so that

when did it start? When did the program be launch? program launched, I believe, either late 2020, early 2021. Um, the program was originally funded with some ARPA funds that we received from the federal government from COVID. Um, and so we still have we still have some of those funds in there. Um, and so we'll be running some other BOS um, this year with our partners. Um, and then we're working with the chamber and our other partners to see how we can get other businesses and organizations involved to help replenish the fund so that we can continue um, promoting shopping locally with these gift cards. If you had craft, would the curve be going up? Is it is is usage increasing over time?

Yes. And the and the investments that Yifties made into making the cards easier to use has really helped with that. Um, and so when the program first kicked off, um, the cards admittedly were a bit harder to use than they are now, but now that you can use it like any other gift card or credit card, the usage has been super um, and we're really excited to see, you know, the further improvements that they're going to make um, to the program itself and how we can continue to work with our businesses to get them to just sign up and be able to utilize the program, too. That's That's all I got on the FDY program. That's what I wanted. Thanks.

Thanks, Tyler. Now, we're all experts on the FDY gift card program. All right. Uh, next we uh talk about tourism just a little bit. Um, we again are our partners with our tourism agencies, which is um the Dallas Visitor Center, Explore Dallas. um transient room tax money flows through the city and then we disseminate that out to those organizations that actually are in the business of attracting visitors uh to our community. And so uh we're continuing to refine that, continuing to improve it. A lot of room for improvement, but I think we've made some good progress over the last year in terms of our metrics and uh with content visits, uh videos, etc. So just um it's a work in progress u but I'm real happy with the progress that we've made and again as we strengthen those partner organizations this is only going to get better. All right that's economic development. Now we're moving into urban renewal somewhat related but separate. Um and we'll talk first about which I think everybody is pretty well up to speed on which is our probably our biggest urban renewal project currently which is at 791 Main Street downtown. on the former Bank of America prop property. Um, as I think all of you know, we're currently in an exclusive negotiation agreement with Tokola Properties. Uh, that's moving along well. We're just a few months into that. Um, I know they have a team assembled. They're doing a lot of data gathering right now because really what what they're trying to do is their due diligence to see if this project is going to pencil on their end. Um, and if it doesn't pencil, there's going to be a funding gap and we are going to have to look at if that funding gap can be closed. And so we we won't know what that is yet for a few more months. So that's that's exciting. Um, stay tuned for more on that. A little bit about our downtown grant program. Those of you who

are u actually all of you are on the urban renewal agency, so you all kind of have a insight into this. Um this is just a breakdown of the number of projects that were approved this last year um by different so there's two different programs. There's a small projects and then there's a larger building improvement grant project. So you can see there the value of the projects the grant money that was uh allotted to those projects and there's a good return on investment. Uh this particular table doesn't show that ratio but uh it's a pretty solid good return on that investment. you know, but if we look at um granting 68,000 and returning 98,000, that's that's not that's not bad. Uh the other big uh urban renewal project, which is in the other urban renewal district, the South Dallas district, is the mill site. Um not a lot of tangible uh visible work going on there now other than just a lot of behind the-scenes work as we're trying to grapple with um costs and relationships around how we get what is likely going to need to be the first part of the project done which is the um the Ash Creek relocation project. Um no small potatoes there. It's a you know $40 million plus project. So, we're having lots of internal and external meetings uh with the property owner and the state um just trying to determine how we should proceed with that project. So, I would anticipate as the year goes on uh you'll be hearing more about kind of what we're thinking we need to do uh with regards to that. One of the big questions that's on the table right now really is um what role does the city play on this project? What role do the private property owners play in this project? And so that's kind of where we're at right now. Uh just some more bullets on some um some progress, some accomplishments made in the South Dallas

district. Uh Asentech continues to grow and expand. Some of you were able to join us. We did a a tour of that facility earlier last year. Uh really saw some amazing um things happening inside that building that you don't really appreciate when you drive by there. Um, but there's a there's a lot of money tied up in equipment in that building. Um, most of you are probably aware that the hospital also continues to invest and grow and it just seems like about every few months um they're they're submitting uh some new application on some new uh expansion project or investment. So, they're continuing to invest pretty heavily um in the Dallas market. And so, as we this this urban renewal district is still young. It's only a couple years old and so it hasn't really accumulated a lot of funding yet. So we haven't really spent any money on anything. We're beginning to have discussions with the the South Dallas on you know what what are some programs that we could roll out uh when we do have the funding ability to do that similar to what we do in the downtown providing business grants, developer grants, infrastructure projects, etc. And that's it. So happy to answer any other questions if you have them.

Micah, go ahead. I just wanted to make sure we clear up that we're not spending $40 million on the mill site right now cuz people in the community think we're moving forward with a $40 million project. I just wanted to make sure. It's a good point. Um, first of all, we don't have $40 million to spend. So that's the first thing. Um, on the record. No, I Yeah, that's that's a good point. Um and again we're we're still deciding what what is our role I think in that in that phase of the project. Um yeah

to be more specific with that there are multiple aspects of of the realignment of that creek. Um we know that the city's going to be responsible for the two crossings of the creek underneath Main Street and underneath Yugalo, right? Those are our rights of way. We have culberts there with bridges. um those need to be widened and replaced. And if um even if they're not relocated, they need to be widened for flood capacity. Um and those are those two bridge replacements are very expensive. Um tens of millions of dollars each. Um well, probably at least 10 each. Um so we know that's going to be on our dime. Um that's a future down the road. Uh when we have the funding to do that, we'll do that. But um the actual realignment of the creek on the property itself, that's where, you know, there's not benefit necessarily to the city. The benefit is predominantly on the property owner. And so there's conversations ongoing there. And that's where where Charlie's alluding to of, you know, how that takes place and what are they willing to spend and, you know, how do we get there? So, but no, we're not spending any money. We've not actually spent any city money or urban rural money from the city on the mill site up to this point. Um the only money that we did invest was a grant that we received from the state of Oregon um to do a master plan for that site. Given the fact we don't have 40 million and I'm sure the state won't have 40 million, are we in any conversations with our federal partners' office like Andrew Selenus or

Yeah, we've we've taken both um uh Representative Selenus' field staff as well as uh Senator Mkeley's field staff um through the mill site have shown them that project what needs to happen. So, we're in conversations with them.

Councelor Shane. Yeah, since we're talking about the South Alice district and this is triggered by that last bullet. Obviously, the Millside is the 800 pound gorilla in the district right now. Um, and as you said, you don't really have any funds yet but to do much with because the district is so new. Um but in terms of opportunities, leaving the millside aside, what else um what other businesses or entities or opportunities exist in the in the millside for future exploitation? Aside, excuse me, in the district for future exploitation hillside aside,

right? It's a great question. Um we haven't really identified anything concrete uh at the moment. Um we're looking for those opportunities to partner um and they haven't emerged. Um we've been we've been contacting individual property owners in the district um to basically invite them to the table to talk to us about their future development plans and so far they just haven't been very receptive. So um I think they'll they'll get there but well it's early days yet. I just wondered if there was if there's anything happening and sounds like what's happening is us trying to get people interested right now.

See yes. Yeah. And again, as you've noted, most of the focus has been on the mill site proper. You know, I'd say 90% of it. It's the heavy hitter. Yeah. Questions for Charlie? Not. Thank you, Charlie. You have any other business before the work session tonight? If not, we'll adjourn at 6:41. See you at seven.