City Commission - Regular Meeting

The Dayton City Commission meeting will now come to order. Would you please rise for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. The invocation will be given by Commissioner Fairchild this evening.

On the occasion of our 250th anniversary, I found a poem by a Jesuit priest, a prayer for our nation. Loving God, on our 250th anniversary as a nation, Help us to be just, loving, merciful, grateful, compassionate, and above all, kind. Help our nation mirror the kind of people we want to be. And help us to avoid envy, cruelty, violence, boasting, prejudice, nationalism, scapegoating, and malice towards anyone. Help us to be loving as you are loving God. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, Ms. McClendon, may we please have a roll call? Mayor Turner-Sloss? Aye. Commissioners Joseph?

Aye.

Shaw?

Aye.

Fairchild?

Aye.

Beckham?

Aye.

May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the June 24th to 2026 meeting?

So moved, Your Honor. Second the motion, Your Honor.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the minutes of the June 24, 2026 meeting. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no. Any abstentions? Ms. McClendon, are there any communications or petitions this evening?

There are none, Your Honor.

Thank you. And this evening, the commission would like to recognize Commissioner Shaw for his 10 years of service to the city of Dayton.

Thank you.

So we have a gift for you. Oh, thank you. You're more than welcome. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Do you have any comments or anything?

No, it's just been a wonderful journey. It's great to be able to serve this community. It is a great community. And I have appreciated sitting here over these 10 years to watch it grow in such a meaningful way. We've got a lot of work to do. There's no question about that. But I'm very confident in the future for our city. And I appreciate working with all of you. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Congratulations. And this evening, I would like to call Ms. 16, and we would like to call Mr. Stephan Marcellus, Director of Recreation, to present the Lights in Flight event. I will tell you, Mr. Marcellus, there has been a lot of anticipation about this presentation. So people are excited, and they want to know where to go, and what time, and all of the particulars.

Okay, good evening. My name is Stefan Marcellus. I'm the director of recreation. And I want to thank you for letting me come here this evening to talk about lights and flight. Also, good evening to commissioners and city manager and clerk as well. I don't know if you can see that on the screen.

Not yet. I believe they're working on it.

One second. So I want to come here talk about life and flight so this year's a little special because we're celebrating America's 250th so we're doing that by having a parade this year the city manager challenge us with doing something different and so we're doing a parade and we have a firework show so Our parade starts at 12 o'clock in downtown Dayton, and we have over 30 groups participating in the parade this year, which is outstanding. We were a little worried because a month ago we only had five. So we were very scared, and now we're relieved for sure. But on July 3rd, we will be having our parade and our fireworks show. We'll start on 2nd and St. Clair, and then we will... We will go to Patterson and then end the parade right in front of Riverscape. So we are definitely looking forward to this. We will also have additional entertainment for the parade. We'll have street vendors there. We'll have food trucks. We'll have entertainment. We'll have a kids zone as well in Don Crawford Plaza. So it's really going to be a great event for families. We encourage everyone to come out. We want you to bring your water bottles because it's going to be a hot day. So definitely do that. But the parade is going to start at 12 and it's going to end at 4. So that evening, we'll have our fireworks show, which actually starts around 10 o'clock, or when it's darkest out. We'll be shooting our fireworks show from Kettering Field, which is located at 444 North Bend Boulevard. It is a 22-minute show. Last year, if you remember, we had a great show, and so we're planning on having the same great show, if not even better, this year. So a lot of people have been calling us, asking us, okay, so where do I view the show? And our answer for that is... wherever you think is best. We don't have a specific place for you to view the show, but we do want families to come out just a little bit early. There will be some road closures, so we want you to be prepared for that, and we want you to be in a great place to view the fireworks, and we want you to be able to get out safely. We encourage everyone to definitely know where the fireworks are being shot from and where they plan to view it from so they can come in, see the fireworks, and get out safely. But we plan to have a great night, a great day, actually, with the parade and lights and flight display, and we hope everybody comes out to view it. Just some of the other highlights. I just want to actually thank our fire department, police department, and our public works department. Without them, we definitely couldn't make this happen. This was, for us, very challenging because we had never done a parade before. We have heard that the city has had parades years and years past that the city has done, but we had nothing to go from to plan the parade. We were working with local partners trying to put this parade together, and we really hope the city will be proud of us once they see this parade. So that's the end of my presentation. If any of you have any questions, I would love to answer them.

Thank you, Mr. Marcellus. Commissioner Beckham.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Marcellus, for the presentation. I don't have any questions. Just thank you for the Recreation Department's work on this. Looking forward to participating.

Thank you, Commissioner Fairchild.

Thank you. This is exciting. I love the addition during the day. It'll be great. People come out and enjoy the community, build community, and look forward to the fireworks in the evening. Do we have an estimate on the weather for Friday?

So right now, I think the last forecast I looked at, it was going to be in the low 90s. There was a small chance for rain, but it's going to be a beautiful day. We don't know what rain means. It's going to be really hot, for sure. So we want everybody to be prepared. Have your water, have your fans, and pay attention to your bodies when you're out there at the parade and at the fireworks show. Great. Thank you.

Commissioner Shaw?

Yeah, likewise. No questions. Just want to thank you for the work. I know it's been difficult to get this done and organized and coordinated and all that. So good luck to you on the actual day, and I look forward to the show. Thank you.

Commissioner Joseph.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for stepping outside your comfort zone. You and your staff put this together. There was a time when the city had a number of parades, so I'm glad that we're reviving this tradition a little bit. And now you all, after this, will have the experience to maybe help others too. So thank you for doing that.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I just wanted to echo my colleagues, their comments. I'm very excited about the number of things that you've added to the firework display itself and just really allowing the families for the event overall to be family-friendly. So, again, kudos to you and your staff as well as our safety services, public works. I know all hands on deck. to make sure that this event is going to be a success. And from my understanding, this will be in fact noted on the city's website. There is a graphic that is circulating social media. So please share that with us so that we can make sure we push it out as well.

Yes, definitely look on the city's website for all that information. If anyone has any questions about the parade itself or the show, they're more than welcome to call our department line at 937-333-8400. Yes.

Thank you. And we want all of our residents, visitors to enjoy the celebration. But make note, curfew will in fact still be enforced. Absolutely. So that is from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. And so we ask that please, parents, guardians, All of those who will be participating in this year's celebration, please be mindful if you're under the age of 16, you need to be, in fact, accompanied with an adult. We will make sure that we are, in fact, enforcing our curfew. Thank you, Mr. Marcellus. Thank you.

Mayor, if I may, I know that they're very excited and they've done great work, but I want to point out that, remind everyone, it's July 3rd. Yes. We're missing a date on the slide, but it is July 3rd that we will be having our festivities.

Yes, it's July 3rd.

Thank you.

And I would note, too, that that's probably on the graphic, right? The date itself. Is this the graphic that you're using that you have in front of us?

Yes, but the date is definitely online. I don't know how it ended up missing. But anyway, July 3rd is the date. July 3rd.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Dickstein. Thank you. All right, and next we have a presentation for the monthly demolition update. I would like to call to the podium Mr. Steve Gondel.

was welcome back and rest of us in the room and and and and and and and and and and and and

I think this is a little more serious than we thought.

Thank you. Yeah, please. Mr. Gondo, if you wouldn't mind, please proceed.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, well, good evening, Mayor, Commissioner, City Manager. Steve Gondel, Director for the Department of Planning, Neighbors, and Development, with your monthly demolition update for the month of May. So now that we're being specific about dates, we want to make sure we're covering the right time. So for the month of May in our demolition program, again, we are looking at a goal of 334 demolitions for the year of 2026. In May, we completed 28 structures. Of those 28 structures, six of those were demolitions. using our ARPA funds, 20 of those were using our Ohio Department of Development funds, and two of those were using our federal CDBG funds. That number brings us up to a total number of demolitions of 97 to date. The bulk of those are ARPA funded, 66. with ODOD funds 29 and again CDBG at 2. We're looking at 29% of planned 2026 demolitions as we are at 42% of the way through the year. So staying fairly on track. One note is the CDBGs, the two of those demolitions, we actually fast-tracked those, and that was an opportunity to support our friends with the Conscious Connect and their demolition at the Lawrence Avenue site. We were trying to help them with their kind of kickoff of that new park over there in the Westwood area. Our team kind of pulled some maneuvers to get those two properties, and you'll see those later, demolished so that for the launch of that park, we'd have those out of the way. So that's a little bit of how those CDBG ones started. Moving on to our status of our piles, we ended the month of April with 24 piles. We, again, have not started our new contracts, and no piles were removed in the month of May. We did have four that were added to the count, so we ended the month of May with 28. Those four were at the following addresses, 2643 Germantown in the Lakeview neighborhood, 40 North Jersey in the Springfield neighborhood, 1116 Rosedale in the South Dayton View neighborhood, and 900 West 3rd in the Wright Dunbar neighborhood, which we all probably know was the Tasty Bird store. Some great news, if anybody went by West 3rd today, you may have noticed that work has commenced. They had about a half dozen trucks of debris removed by 8 a.m. this morning. I do want to note that the fencing that was put up and the work that is occurring out at that site is all done through the owner's insurance funds. There are no city funds spent on that work. I know that that was a huge source of interest for the community to get started on that. And so just noting that, you know, working with the owner and his insurance company from a May emergency demolition to July 1st, getting action on that is really an incredible partnership between public-private partners. So that is a really exciting thing to have an emergency demolition and have it already being cleaned up so soon. So we will see these maps shortly, but just the map showing where those emergency demolitions were. Moving into the planned demolitions that I mentioned, We had the map that when it does appear, you'll see that in addition to the locations in the city, there are two dots outside of the city in Jefferson Township. That is our work with the land bank through the ODOD fund. So we don't count those in our numbers, but I do show them on the map because it was work that was overseen by city employees, but those numbers don't go into our numbers. I just show visually to see where they are. So we added... Last month, we had 17 unique neighborhoods experiencing demolitions. We are now up to 21. Carillon, which had two demolitions, Northern Hills, one, Westwood, two, and Wolf Creek, five. Those are the four neighborhoods who had not yet had a demolition removal in 26 that had one last month. So 21 unique neighborhoods that are experiencing blight removal. Southern Dayton View continues to lead with 31 demolitions, while Santa Clara follows shortly behind with 14. Moving on to our structural nuisance. In May, we added 15 structures to our structural nuisance list. Nine of those were houses, three were garages, and three were commercial structures. Eight of those were for blight, seven of those were from fire. To date, we have 66 structures in our structural nuisance list added, 59 of them structures, seven garages. Our pipeline of note, our asbestos remediation, we had 39 properties in May complete the asbestos remediation. That brings it up to 108 for the year. And so all of those 39 were all through our state ODOD, Ohio Department of Development funds. Some before and afters that we'll share, 321 Bolander in the Carillon neighborhood. I do want to note that we also did 340 Bolander. So two homes on that same street in the Carillon neighborhood. Moving on to the Lakeview neighborhood, 358 Royal. Next was Edgemont neighborhood, 719 Ward. Further kind of working on that northern edge of the neighborhood. Next was 2011 West Grand in the southern Dayton View neighborhood. The before and afters look much better with the before and after photos. Just kind of reading them. And the wow factor is our 167, 177, 171 Lorenz Avenue in the Westwood. And that is a picture of both the collaborative effort within the city team the Conscious Connect team, and the neighborhood in terms of getting those houses down and the work that is underway. There's information on their website about that process of establishing a new park in the Westwood neighborhood. The future park will be located at the former addresses 151, 155, 159, and 163 Lawrence Avenue. That's where the park will be. These properties were just adjacent to it. That was a kind of a shared dialogue about how, you know, kind of, again, leveraging other investments and removing these so that it further helps the improvement of that park. Wrapping up, so to date. We have 66 of 120 ARPA-funded demolitions done, 29 of the 70 Ohio Department of Development-funded demos done, two of the 60 to 80 planned CDBG-funded demolitions done. Again, most of our ARPA budget is expensed or encumbered, and we have 51 months completed of this work with seven months remaining. So one thing to note, for the month of May, I noted that the bulk of the work was ODOD. We had 20 of the 28 were through that. That was another situation where those funds, like we had last year, working through a deadline from the state to get those completed by June 30th. So when talking with the team, we, again, prioritized those to meet a deadline and then returning back to ARPA-funded demolitions in the following months. So with that, I will cease any comments and answer any questions you all might have.

Thank you, Mr. Gondo. Commissioner Beckham, any questions, comments?

Thank you, Mayor. No questions, just thank you for the work on the Tasty Bird. Saw that update today. So we were all, of course, very eager to get that site remediated and back to normal for the neighborhood and surrounding area. So I'm glad it's done. Other than that, no more questions for me.

Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Fairchild.

Appreciate the update. Look forward to the comprehensive housing inventory survey and look forward to continuing this work. So thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Shaw.

Also, well, I do have a question. So about the Tasty Bird, well, thank you for your work. I appreciate the update also. But on the Tasty Bird project, do you have any intel? Are they planning on rebuilding that?

That I'm not sure. Our small bite was just trying to get them to first take care of the pile and then let them work with their insurance company on any rebuild. I'm not sure where they're going to go. But really grateful that they've been so cooperative with first erecting the fencing and then proceeding with hiring a firm to remove it. So it's just a huge win for that area. That's right. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you, Commissioner Joseph.

No further comments. Thank you, Mr. Gond. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the work and the update. I do have a couple comments. First, I want to acknowledge you and your staff for the work that is being done. And especially in regards to, I know it probably was lengthy, a number of calls, emails, all of the above to go with the Tasty Bird location. So thank you for your efforts there. A couple comments. Thank you for noting... 2604 Germantown. I'm so glad that that hit the list. Thank you very much. Question in regards to Rosedale and Lexington Avenue. If you can provide an update. From my understanding, there's a partial demolition there. Okay. There is great concern that is... That is warranted from many of the residents because of the debris and some of the other materials that are causing.

We'll look into that.

Yeah, please do. And then Home Avenue and J&J McGee, the former RTA bus barnyard, I believe that is. The location? Yes. There's some concern there and some additional cleanup?

So, yeah, that was, on that demolition, we had, that was an agreement with the EPA to where we were clearing the above surface structure, but leaving the foundation in place which is serving as a cap because that would have actually taken more money and more extensive like until we can get more funds to do a more thorough cleanup we at least wanted to get the the collapsing structure down and so we had done that actually in the three locations uh on the east side on Tacoma there and up off of Salem those were kind of like agreed upon like We'll let you take it down and leave the foundation for the time being while we work with our partners at the state and federal government to find more money to do the full-on removal of that foundation. So that's why that looks like that. And those other two locations were in the same kind of spirit.

Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that's the same information that you gave prior to. But there's still concern. There are a number of bricks that are still there on the ground. There are some vegetation that is still on the ground. And even with the Salem Avenue location, because you're right, the contaminations of the former dry cleaner sites, all of the above, we know that that's going to take some great remediation with that work. But if there is a better way for us to secure it, so one, that it can look... more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, being that both of those locations are on major corridors. So if we can find some way to make it look more finished, if you will.

Because we're actively looking to try to secure funding to do the full removal, but we can definitely talk about some intermediate steps to either further minimize kind of what's left there. Okay.

I appreciate that. And the last comment, I just want to bring to your attention again, and I know it's out of your wheelhouse, but if there's an opportunity, rather, to work with Public Works, whatever have you, one of the sites on Bryn Mawr in Oxford, it was a recent demolished site. And with that, the overgrown vegetation, the trees, they were not removed. And the concern is that that particular area is habitual for illegal dumping. And with all of the infill of the growth and the maturity of the trees, the overgrown vegetation, it is causing a screen, if you will. And so more dumping will start to occur.

Yeah, we'll work with Public Works to do a coordinated brush clearing there. And also we work to make sure that our contractors fulfill their obligation when they're doing the site of clearing all of that brush on the site. So if they missed any, they have to go back. But if it's something that's outside of that, we'll work with Public Works.

It's another area, too, on Broadway. It was a recent demolition, too. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ms. McClendon, are there any additions, deletions, or comments to the calendar this evening?

Yes, Your Honor. I would like to request the addition of legislation pertaining to the public hearing at the desire of the Commission. That is all.

Thank you. Ms. Dixstein, are there any additions, deletions, or comments to the calendar this evening?

Your Honor, I have no additions or deletions to this evening's calendar. There are a few items I'd like to highlight. Item two is a service agreement for $206,000 for the upgrade of playground equipment in Bomberger and Berkham Parks. So we're excited to be bringing that investment to our community. Item number three is a service agreement with NPower. We're continuing our partnership with NPower, who has a great... program training young people in IT, coding, etc. They have the job machine program that helps place graduates into careers and our IT department is thrilled that this partnership is continuing since we have been fortunate to hire some of NPower's graduates. Item number four is a service agreement with the Oregon Landing Zone LLC. This is a contract modification. It is to complete the landing space at the flight line is a shared common space privately owned by the Developers who did 53 McDonough, the motor car, not 53 McDonough, the $53 million motor car project in Oregon East. And these dollars for this evening are coming from the TIF that was associated with that project. It is a project TIF. This is the perfect kind of project for TIF dollars to go into because it does have to stay to benefit the project because it was generated from the project. It's not a 41 TIF, which is where the city's in ownership. It's not a remote TIF. It is a project TIF that supported this project. And there is a 10-year guarantee for the use of that park to be public. It's actually shared amenities, parking, walking paths, et cetera, that will support not only the motor car development ongoing, but will also support when the flight line comes on board. or, you know, becomes active. And so this is what, you know, using TIF dollars for public infrastructure improvements associated with projects is exactly the kind of stuff that we do. And sometimes it's property owned by public, and sometimes it's property owned by a private company. but it's about the use of the public infrastructure and the private entity is maintaining the public, the grass, the open recreational space as well as keeping the parking lot clean, et cetera. So the city does not have to do any maintenance on the property and is benefiting from this shared community space being developed. The other item that I would like to highlight is in association with legislation, Emergency Resolution 6942-26 and 6943-26, item numbers 8 and 9. This is a petition to establish a citywide new community authority. New community authority is a tool to help attract investment into the city. It is a... It is a tool that does not have boundaries. It is dependent on where projects evolve and where investment evolves and where there is strong market activity. Because what the tool does is it brings additional costs or fees, kind of like user fees, right? People who maybe get a hotel room or maybe buy a craft beer or whatever. So it has to have market strength and order for this tool to work because if you don't have room to come up and add extra costs, then it's not a tool that would be effective. So like many of our economic development tools, it is one tool out of a large toolbox that is not necessarily fit for every project, but it is a city-wide tool that we are setting up. So we have to identify a city parcel We also have a partner at the Montgomery County Convention Facilities Authority who wants to use this tool to help fund the headquarter hotel. So we are putting our flag in the ground in a parcel downtown. But it is something that we can take out to, you know, by Dunbar, if the project makes sense. We can take out all throughout our city because, again, it doesn't have boundaries. But I would like to call forward Cole Hetman and Joe Tuss to walk through a presentation to provide more information about how we got to this recommendation through a task force presentation. co-led by Commissioner Shaw, and what the next steps are with regards to this tool.

Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager. We're going to tag-team this particular presentation. The first piece, my name is Joe Tuss. I'm with JT Development Consulting, and the City Manager's Office engaged me to assist in providing staffing as well as analytical support for the Greater Downtown Dayton Fund Committee. That's a committee that was co-chaired by both Commissioner Shaw as well as David Mellon from PNC. Had a broad-based makeup of members so that you had Bob Murphy from the Dayton Dragons. You had representatives from the Downtown Dayton Partnership. You had representatives both Chris Kirshner and Stephanie Kanath from the Dayton Chamber, Steve Scurll was representing CareSource so that we had large downtown employer. We had folks from Citywide, both Shane Wilkin as well as John Gower who's sort of the elder statement of downtown development. We had both Chris Dimmick and David Kittredge from the Idea Collective, who are the owners and developers of Sueño and Tender Mercy, and do lots of restaurant and food and beverage consulting and interface with other folks in the food and beverage business in the downtown area. Carly Dixon, who is one of the owners of The Bright Side, so that we had someone who really is a participant in what I like to call the night economy. the events, whether it's weddings, whether it is musical concerts, a whole host of things. We had Gabriel Van Alst from Dayton Live, so that we had someone at the table who really has a broad sense of the arts and cultural institutions in downtown. Andy Horner was on the committee representing University of Dayton. Obviously with the development of On Main and the things that are starting to happen with the redevelopment of the old county fairgrounds, they are a key player as well as their partnership in the hub and the development of the arcade. Joe Garrity from the Port Authority, Scott Korndyke from the Entrepreneur's Center, and lastly, Steve Stanley, who was serving sort of a dual role, both he's a development consultant, but also was engaged in providing some assistance at the time we put this committee together with the Downtown Dayton Partnership. So a robust committee, lots of really smart people representing a broad swath of a community in the various sectors. So the purpose was really pretty straightforward. One was to look at increasing investment revenues in the greater downtown. And that was really driven back in February and March of 2025 when this first started with the fact that the Greater Downtown Plan was going to be updated through the Downtown Dayton Partnership. That's still an ongoing process, but it's our recommendation that we move this piece forward and bring this to you for your action in terms of the recommendations of the committee. The second thing is when we look at that, look at what sort of recurring and sustained revenue streams we might be able to derive and do that in a way where ideally it would allow for the potential to free up general fund funds. general government revenue so that they could be repositioned, reutilized, and leveraged in other areas of the community, particularly in the neighborhoods. The third piece of the puzzle was you can use these things as one-time dollars or you can use these things to leverage funding and create larger pots of money. Wherever possible, we are interested in looking at what are tools that we can use that actually can create leverage so that that dollar is worth more than just that initial dollar. And then the last piece is to try and do something that's going to build some sort of predictable, durable revenue so that for you as commissioners, for the city manager and the administrative team to be able to look at those things and bring you a budget on an annual basis that reflects some strong, repeatable, durable sorts of revenue streams that you can have confidence in and that the community can have confidence in as you look at how you might use those revenues for various downtown development. purposes. So that was really the task in terms of the charge. What we did is we didn't want to go to the answer without working our way through a process. So the first thing that we did was we looked at existing incentives and revenue streams because there's been a lot of discussion about can you take the current incentives and revenue streams and various things that developers use and take those and redirect them towards other uses. The answer to that, the short answer is, it's really not something that makes sense. It doesn't work, and the reason it doesn't work is because the nature of those incentives don't lend themselves to being redirected. Some of them are real estate tax abatement related, like CRAs. You can't take that money and move it someplace else. There's a whole host of tax credit incentives that developers use, whether it's federal, state, historic tax credits, low-income housing tax credits, whether it is tax credits through the various products that citywide development utilizes. So there's a lot of those things, but those are very much also project-specific. So that when we looked at this broad range of incentives, they really were not the sort of things you could very easily or effectively redirect. And also, they were really essential for making the development happen that has happened in downtown Dayton. So what we also did is we said, let's take a slice and look at it. So we looked at from 2020 through 2025. and said, look at somewhere between 14, 15 major projects, big ones, big developers, some smaller ones with independence, and let's see what that world looks like. And what's interesting is, there's this notion that the city hasn't effectively supported downtown development. I would submit to you that the data says that's absolutely not true. I mean, between 20 and 25, there's been almost $700 million of investment. Local participation and assistance in those has roughly been somewhere about 20% of that total value. So there's been a leverage ratio of about four to one. So that for every public dollar that goes in, whether it's tax credit, whether it's tax abatement, whether it is programs that are low interest loans through the Port Authority, that you've got a leverage ratio that runs somewhere between three to four private dollars for every public dollar that goes in. So that the analysis shows that the city has been not only a great partner in trying to assist downtown development, but has also been very prudent about how those incentives work. So the first thing is, recommendation is, keep those incentives for the developers. That's great. The other aspects that we're going to talk about are really not for the developers. They are for the broader downtown community development and needs that are outside of specific developer financing needs for the most part. So that What you end up with is how do you come up with some new flexible financing mechanisms that are really driven by the value that those private development investments make and also are driven by the users and the visitors. This is about how you derive a dollar out of, quite frankly, my pocket. You want me to be a person who comes to a downtown restaurant, goes to a show at the Bright Side, and you want to be able to generate some additional revenue from me as a visitor. And we think there is some significant potential over time to do that. so that the three recommendations that came out of this committee in summary is one as the city manager indicated you have the two resolutions on your calendar today those really get us to the starting point what we're asking you to do today is to be the starter at the race and get us started and pull the trigger on the starter's gun so that we can get started with this process. The second piece is we strongly recommend that the city consciously dedicate all of the current remote TIF revenue that comes from downtown development for downtown development. And what we would also recommend is that then allows you to offset funding that currently is general fund that goes into your development fund. So that if the remote TIF generates $1.2 million per year in rough numbers, that that be dedicated for downtown development, but that The development fund then really doesn't need $1.2 million for downtown development. That can be redirected back to needs that are outside the downtown and are the most flexible dollars you can have. So that's kind of the second one. The third piece is, here again, while this is a city-wide NCA, it's starting very small. This is really, while this is not a new concept, what we're proposing is really sort of a unique take on how you would apply this tool and use it. So that we would recommend strongly what I like to call a crawl, walk, run strategy, where you start small, you identify a couple of key pilots that allow you to set the thing up, Put together how administratively it's going to work. Learn from your pilots on the first couple of things you do. Understand where the strengths are. Understand where there's pinch points and potentially some things that you really, because there's always unintended consequences. There's always things that you, no matter how well you think it out, there are things that come up and you go, oh. we really should not do that that way so that the convention center is sort of one piece of that the second recommendation is about having the city adopt for downtown what i will call a corridor development strategy downtown has got a bunch of great assets but those assets are in various places in the greater downtown. And the challenge with downtown is the connectivity between those assets. So you've got assets up around the ballpark. You've got assets down around the arcade. You've got assets down around the convention center. But what are the corridors that actually connect those things? So the third recommendation is to pursue that and to look at doing an initial pilot project on the East Third Street corridor from Main Street out to Kiwi Street. Probably has the largest concentration of first floor food and beverage retail and night economy businesses in the entire downtown. These NCAAs are voluntary, so folks, businesses and developers have to agree to participate in them so that this will create an opportunity to look at a corridor strategy, work through a process with the business owners, and with the folks who are stakeholders, who are on the first floor, and really work through what that process would look like, what those development charges might be, and how those dollars would be used to improve downtown, and more importantly, generate specific outcomes and specific positive impacts for those businesses that in the end, what's the ultimate measure? Are there more people? Are there more folks coming to those businesses? Are they more successful in terms of their businesses? So those are our three recommendations that come out of this committee. Obviously, the NCA is the big one. I'll stop here and answer any questions before I turn it over to Cole.

I have a number of questions, but I am going to defer to my colleagues. Commissioner Beckham.

Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, Mr. Tusk, for the comprehensive explanation. Of course, we've been briefed on this idea and these proposals. I just want to clarify a few things. Ultimately, right, this is an economic development tool that is... position to create revenue, right, to the city. That revenue can then offset the general funding that we're already using towards downtown. And if I heard you correctly, those freed up dollars can then be targeted based on priorities of this commission, say demolition, right, or new housing. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. And it's project specific. So for a developer, they would have to voluntarily agree to participate. We're not forcing this on anyone.

That is correct.

And then just how common is this tool? Obviously, it would be new to the city of Dayton, specific to this organization. But how recommended is this for the type of growth we're trying to create?

Well, I don't want to steal your thunder. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yes.

So my name's Cole Hutman. Thank you, Commission and Mayor, for having me tonight. This tool is prevalent. It is not experimental. It's being used in 55 other communities throughout the state of Ohio. So it is a proven concept that is working and it's actually moving towards cities creating the NCA. Rather than it be project driven or driven by developers, the cities are taking interest in the projects. They are determining the landscape of the deal. They are creating the menu of the community development charges and are able then to bring this forth then to commission. Because at the end of the day, you as commission vote to approve these projects and these parcels to be a part of the NCA. Those are all my questions. Thank you both.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yeah, I'm curious to hear the presentation on the NCA, so I'll hold questions until after that presentation. Yeah, me too.

OK. All right.

You all?

All right.

OK. I will continue on. So I'm going to give just a high overview of the NCA, and then we'll be happy to answer questions. So what is a new community authority? A new community authority is an economic development tool authorized by Ohio law. It supports development within a defined area by collecting voluntary community development charges from property owners, which are reinvested in improvements and services that are within typically that same area. These improvements can entail public infrastructure, so safety for civilians, crosswalks. They can improve our lighting under our underpasses. It can improve public spaces such as parks, plazas. IT CAN EXPAND UPON PARKING. SO LET'S SAY A BUSINESS OWNER HAS ISSUES WITH PARALLEL PARKING. WE CAN PERHAPS LOOK AT MODIFYING PARKING SPOTS. SO A LOT OF DIFFERENT AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY HERE. AS I WAS SAYING, WHEN THE CITY IS IN OWNERSHIP OF THE NCA AND IS ACTING AS THE DEVELOPER, WE ARE ABLE TO LOOK AT DIFFERENT PROJECTS. and we were able to encompass many different examples. So some examples that I'd like to bring to the commission would be a mixed-use residential project. This type of project might prioritize streetscaping and pedestrian infrastructure. The NCA's Community Development Funds can be collected to then invest back into that project so that we are not using our general funds. Another example would be a commercial or hospitality development. Here we might need utility capacity upgrades. They might need access to water. They might be expanding some services. So there could be some assistance with the utilities and providing access to those. And then finally, we might have a creative or cultural destination, and they would benefit from improvements to the plaza, community facility services, those types of things. So overall, my point here is that the NCA can serve all of these scenarios with a single governing framework, which would be the NCA board. So the NCA board is made up of seven members. Three of the members are appointed by the city manager, and four of the members are appointed by city commission. Um, one of the, one of the four is the city manager who will be leading strategy then for the NCA trustees and the board. The NCA board is, um, they are in control of the process of looking over the parcels, looking over the community development charges, working through the details, and then providing their recommendation to Commission. Once this recommendation is provided to Commission, Commission grants the ultimate authority to either accept the parcel as part of the NCA or not accept, and maybe revise it based on your recommendations and your plans. WHEN WE COME INTO A MARKETING STRATEGY, WE ARE LOOKING TO MARKET THIS TO PROJECTS THAT BEST ALIGN TO USE THIS ECONOMIC TOOLKIT, AS SHELLY HAS MENTIONED. THIS IS JUST A SINGLE TOOL TO BE UTILIZED AND CAN BE PLACED WITH OTHER TOOLS, SUCH AS THE CRA, THE TIF, OR THE SID. SO THOSE ARE OTHER EXAMPLES. Sorry, moving right along. I want to explain then how do these community development charges work. Some examples of the community development charges would be a retail charge that would not exceed 5%. So it's up to the 5%. Another example would be a hotel charge. This would be up to 3%. An additional charge could be $1.25 per square foot on a retail space that gets collected, or there's a millage assessment of no more than eight mills as well. And that's all established within the NCA charter itself in the petition that's before you. So in order for this then to get to commission, we're first going to have the NCA be established. They're going to submit a consent form to ask to join the NCA. Because as Joe mentioned, this is all voluntary. We cannot force any property owner, we cannot force any business to join the NCA. They have to come to us with a deal. Once they come to us, we will then begin to negotiate the charges. They're going to select a menu. It could be a five-course meal, four-course meal. They're going to select different types of charges. We are going to work the community development charges to best fit the project at hand. An example of one such project could be a new gas station along 35. We have a lot of transient travelers. We have a lot of visitors that are on that. We could install a 3% community development charge on all retail and all products sold. We would have to get permission, though, from the developer in order to do that, and then those funds that are collected go back to improvements that the commission and the NCA board decide upon. We do have to disclose these charges to the consumer. So these are not hidden charges. There are state mandates, state laws that state that you have to post what they're being charged for. And I'm sure we have all seen an additional charge on our receipts when we've gone out and traveled to Atlanta, to Detroit, even to Columbus, the short north. Our partners right across the way are utilizing this. So we are technically missing out on an opportunity to provide an additional tool for funding improvements in downtown. And what's neat about this is it's a commitment from our business owners and our property owners. They are committing and reinvesting in their space, in their place, and in our city. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. I do have a couple questions for Mr. Tusk, but if that's fair to my colleagues, because I don't want to So the first question that I have is you mentioned heavy hitters, right? A think tank, if you will, in terms of the members that made up the initial board to review the NCA and to actually vet the process and all of the mechanics itself to go along with if in fact this is something that we wanted to entertain. The question I have is did you in fact have any neighborhood representation on part of that board?

In terms of

residents who live downtown yes i don't believe so okay and then the other question that i have thank you um let me say this as well i am very excited to see this come before the commission i think that the ncaa i know that the ncaa is in fact a viable a tool that could be used to help spark a lot of the development that we so desperately want to see in downtown, our corridors, and throughout our neighborhoods. And I think that this is, in fact, the right timing for us to do so. Again, I do have a couple of questions and concerns about how do we utilize this tool where it's equitable and there's fair and that we can really start seeing the development throughout the city. So you mentioned the three recommendations. So the first recommendation was, in fact, for the petition itself. Remind me again the recommendations.

The first recommendation is to move forward to establish and adopt the citywide NCA. And the resolutions you have on your calendar today do that because it is a petition process where a petition is submitted. It is then the first action is for the city commission to accept that petition as well as then you have to set a public hearing. Because it's no earlier than 30 days, no later than 45 days. But the goal is to do that as expeditiously as possible, particularly given the needs and the things that are happening with the convention facilities authority and the convention center as sort of the first participant that would be added to the NCA.

So with the first recommendation in the petition, it wasn't necessarily initiated by the first project.

The recommendation was to move this forward as a overall tool for downtown development. As part of the revisions and the updates to the Greater Downtown Plan, as well as in parallel, The convention center is moving forward with a fairly significant set of improvements, projects, development initiatives, both in terms of acquiring some additional surrounding properties, as well as trying to move forward to finalize the financing and move forward with a convention center hotel at the, I guess that's what, the southeast corner of? So you really have these two things happening in parallel. That's really more serendipitous than anything else.

Actually, Mayor and Commissioners, they asked us over a year ago, they wanted to set up their own NCA. And that's when we were starting to have conversations about how do we drive strategies that better align with our priorities and lift all boats forward. versus being responsive to developers. So we have been putting the convention center on... We put them on hold so we could do this work, and now they're circling back and coming back about the same time because they've been in the wings waiting for us to get done with our work. Okay. Thank you.

I appreciate that. And I... I apologize, I'm gonna go back to the, I have another question in the first recommendation, but please, the second and third recommendation.

Excuse me?

The second and third recommendation.

Second recommendation was to dedicate the revenue that's generated by the remote TIF, which is downtown development, so that what you would do is you would take that remote TIF money, which is generated by development downtown, and dedicate it to future reinvestment in downtown, so that you are driving the notion that The funds that get invested in downtown are funds that get generated by what happens downtown. And that then allows you to look at, if that's the pot of money you're gonna dedicate for downtown, it allows you to look at the development fund and say, how do we, rethink how we use that development fund because a portion of it was used every year for downtown development. How do we rethink that and look at how that might be utilized out in the neighborhoods because you've now got this dedicated fund that's generated by the investment in downtown.

Okay. And the third recommendation?

The third was to really look at, we spent a good bit of time looking at the investment that has occurred, where the assets are, and where the gaps are. And what we kept coming back to, every time we looked at these, we had multiple discussions, both at the committee level, as well as with the various staff that were working on it, is we've got a great collection of assets downtown, but the connectivity between those assets, is just not what it needs to be. In some instances, it's okay. In some instances, quite frankly, it's not very good. And the way that you really generate the dynamic sort of activity in a downtown is when, here again, using me, when I'm on Third Street at Swayno having dinner, what's the connectivity that's gonna get me up to the Schuster, or get me up into the ballpark district. And how does that work? I really don't want to have to get in my car, drive someplace else, figure out where I'm going to park, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of things that can be done if we have some revenue that is flexible and dedicated to solving those problems. And looking at the corridor, and also getting them the buy-in of those first floor businesses, we think is a really critical approach in terms of how you can identify what their needs are, get buy-in in terms of actually participating in the NCA, and then utilizing those funds to address those needs that are specific to that particular area because they are voluntarily joining. so that it creates the kind of synergy and the kind of connectedness that you want. And that is not easy to achieve. It sounds easy when you talk about it. It's much more difficult to do it when you're on the ground trying to make it happen.

Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to be very quick because I know my colleagues have some other questions. Okay. You have to establish the legislation that we have. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm tracking. The recommendation in which it is moving forward by all of the members that bring before to the commission for their support is to one, to establish and adopt a citywide NCA. The question that I have, though, is if we're establishing a citywide NCA, why do we keep referencing downtown? Why is the language not inclusive if, in fact, when you really go and deep dive into the documents itself, it's saying citywide, which we all want, right? We're all in agreement of that. But in the document, when you really do a deep dive and you look at the language, it's pointing out specifically to downtown. So I just really want to understand, if we're saying a citywide, why are we only identifying downtown in the petition in the language itself?

There's probably two pieces to that. Please. One is, and very simply, with these sorts of initiatives, you have to pick a place to start. Okay. Okay, and you also have to have a city-owned asset that you use in order to start. Okay. The second piece of the puzzle is, while it's called a citywide NCA, the reality is you also have to have the economic activity and you have to have enough market so that you can actually look at how you might generate additional dollars through community development charges. And downtown is the place where you do have that kind of critical mass. The goal would be in the future that critical mass is gonna start moving out along the various major corridors. Which then also is the reason why we're talking about a corridor strategy. So that if we can actually build a corridor strategy that starts to make sense, over time you should be able to take that strategy and apply it to major corridors that are not in the downtown. But it's gonna take time. This is not something that's gonna happen quickly. But strategically, it is, from my perspective, the absolute best tool and best approach that the city can take in order to start to figure out how you generate Different sorts of revenue. How you generate it from people who visit who are the users of downtown and of the city as opposed to the folks who all live here.

Okay. So when you mention... You mentioned in the petition and like... And thank you for that. I appreciate that. I follow you in terms of identifying a specific project, parcel, whatever have you. And we have MCCFA, which is the convention center, whatever have you. And then we also have the Fidelity Building, which is, in fact, under the possession of the city, city-owned parcel, whatever have you. But you mentioned East 3rd Street and Kiwi, right? That's a part of this conversation, right?

That would be the pilot for this corridor strategy. Okay. Here again, you have to pick a place to start. Okay. When you look at the corridors even in the downtown, If you look at that corridor, you have food and beverage. Right. You have actual retail, which is extremely rare in downtown Dayton to have a retailer who's selling clothing. Right. Okay. You have... what I like to call the night economy. You have events and music venues along there. You have service businesses there. You know, hair salons, etc. So that you have a broad range of uses. So that as a pilot, it is probably the best opportunity to figure out Can this work? How do you make it work? And how do you design something that really is responsive to all of those various users? Because they all have different needs, I would submit to you that if you work through process, you're probably gonna come down to some key elements. And that's probably where it ends up being a priority, and that's probably where funding would go from the community development charge. But it's really about, here again, you gotta pick a place to start, and I really am a strong believer that you pilot these things. You try to go too big too fast, when you have something that you need to fix, it ends up being a really big fix instead of a small fix.

So thank you. I appreciate that. So everything that you just noted, that same philosophy, if you will, that same notion could be applied to West 3rd Street. So in terms of the pilot, we have East 3rd to Kiwi. We also need to include West 3rd Street because there is great development that's happening on West 3rd Street. We have the Sims development that is taking place. We have the Soon to be the San Marco, soon to be we have Wright-Dumbart, we have all of the West Social Tap, we have Morgans, we have the Daily Dose Center will be cutting the river next week. So my ask is that, and for consideration, Ms. Dix-Teen, Mr. Cole, is that a part of the pilot for the corridor? That if we're talking about East 3rd Street, Kiwi, we also need to come across the river. And we need to also make sure that West 3rd Street is a part of that. The memorial's taking place. We have Magnus Capital, who is, in fact, they will be soon redeveloping the Zion, the first African-American memorial. Church in the area, the RTA Culture Center, prime for development. We have, again, the 41 veterans recipients that will be honored right there on that corner. Again, that's that connectivity that we're talking about. Mm-hmm. And so let's bring it across the river, and let's make sure that, again, with East 3rd Street, West 3rd Street, we can complement all of that work, all of that development, bring it right down to the core in downtown Dayton. So that will be my ask for that. The last thing that I want to... I'm sorry. Thank you. We want to make sure we're respectful. Thank you. I appreciate it. The other thing that I wanted to make mention to Mr. Tusk, and I know that you're well-versed in this, and I really do appreciate it. IF I HAVE MY QUESTION. OH, I KNOW WHAT IT WAS. YEAH, I GOT IT. SO, MY QUESTION IS IN REGARDS TO, YOU MENTIONED ABOUT THIS POTENTIALLY FREEING UP DOLLARS AND THAT WE CAN DIVERT THE DOLLARS, THE DEVELOPMENT FUNDS THAT WE HAVE CURRENTLY, RIGHT? SO, AND THIS PROBABLY IS MORE TOWARDS THE CITY MANAGER. Where is that commitment for 2027? Are we making that commitment to reduce our development fund for 2027? What is the leverage, if you will, being that How do we show the community that this is, in fact, a win-win for all of us? Which I honestly do believe it is. And I agree with everything what Mr. Tusk said. This is a tool that we need to exercise probably 10 years ago. But here we are. We're here now. And I'm very excited about it. But just what's that level of commitment?

So, Mayor, that was the point that was made in all of your briefings? Yes. when I talked about the fact that this would free up dependency on general fund, and it could create opportunity for us to shift into the community, the million dollars from development fund into community for housing, for demolition, et cetera, and said I would need policy direction from the commission. So that is exactly... the opportunity, and we will have more conversations so that I can get good policy direction for the 2027 budget. Thank you, Ms. Dixing. I appreciate that.

Okay, Ms. Jackson, we got work to do. All right, we got work to do. Thank you. I'm going to shift over, rather, turn it over to my colleagues. I know they have some questions for you both. So thank you, Mr. Tuss. I really appreciate it. Mr. Cole and Commissioner Beckham, excuse me.

Thank you, Your Honor. I think you made a great point in terms of our intention to extend this down Third Street. I definitely support that idea. But other than that, I don't have any more questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yeah, no, I appreciate the presentation. I'm curious. It feels like we've got like half a meal here. And just kind of the conversation, it seems like it generates more questions as we learn more about this. I was briefed last week and saw the petition just because of the the issues with the website on Tuesday night. So still trying to make sense of that. Is there any possibility to delay this so that we can get to a place where this is more better formed and we have a complete meal?

Excuse me. If that's a question for me, Commissioner Fairchild, again, as I said, we have been delaying this to the convention center, who's been ready to go, and that jeopardizes their potential closing for getting that hotel funded and moving. Secondly, we've been working with outside council to make sure that we are structuring this. This is exactly how other communities have structured moving forward. You start and then you organically grow. And so we have been replicating a large portion of what those other 55 communities have done, all with slight changes. The Short North is a perfect example. They are a mature, established retail. district with 50,000 students who are frequenting it every day. So they have, you know, the greatest example of something. But like cities like ours, our outside council who has been doing this across the state has helped guide us in how we start. So I don't know how a delay would help us do anything more. Because we have to now get it in place so that we can have conversations with the retailers and the service providers in the corridors. And that's the next step after we get it established and get the board set up so that we can start using the tool.

That doesn't make sense to me, because you just used the short north, and they had 100 businesses lined up before they adopted it. So they were able to have the conversations. You just said you couldn't have the conversations until we adopted it. That doesn't make sense, because we could have been having those conversations, right?

There is a marked difference between the short north in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio. We've been having conversations with developers. We've had some conversations with businesses. We are at a point where we want to try and align. What we haven't been able to do, because we need the direction of the commission with the remote TIF and all of that, is put the full package together to say, okay, what In the corridors, in Wright-Dunbar District, in East, what is it that you want? Because that's, what is priority? What's the high priority? Do you want Twinkle lights all around. Do you want better infrastructure? What is it that will make that connective tissue for you that we can negotiate so that we could then put it in place? The concern is that is a negotiation that looks different depending on who you talk with. And so getting the tool in place gives us the opportunity and the leverage to get attention WITH OUR BUSINESSES BECAUSE WE CAN'T MODEL 100 BUSINESSES THAT ARE ALREADY MAKING EX SALES THAT ARE ALREADY, LIKE THE SHORT NORTH, THEY HAD A DIFFERENT APPROACH BECAUSE THEY HAD A MATURE RETAIL DISTRICT. WHAT WE HAVE to do is go out and talk with our folks to bring along our retail, for the corridor strategy. We have a development that is ready to go, that is ready to close, that is a $60 million investment that will help bring more visitors and tourists to our city going to our amenities that is ready to go. And that's why we're asking to start this petition. The corridor study for us, or the corridor strategy, is coming alongside that. So it wasn't a... We had a different approach, but it is still very much a similar approach that many cities have used across the state.

It feels like a misstep. Because... You know, I try to talk all the time about downtown and the neighborhoods. It's an and. And this demonstrates, this feeds a narrative that it's downtown first and neighborhoods citywide when we get to it. And I think that's unfortunate that we continue to feed into that narrative. Tonight I'm being asked if the petition is sufficient. I know that an outside law firm has prepared this, but when I look at the financial plan and the feasibility study that are required by statute, those don't look like anything that I would consider a financial plan or a feasibility study. Are we confident that this petition is sufficient?

Yes.

Okay. Just some nuts and bolts questions. So let's say West Social, Table and Tap wanted to opt in. Would anything they collect from whatever service charge they would add, would that dollars then be allocated within the right Dunbar neighborhood?

Yes, that's the strategy that you're supporting with the corridors. You want to bring in the investment to try and help improve the corridor and help improve. That's part of the buy-in. That's part of the hook.

And the remote TIF's been mentioned several times tonight. Is that somewhere included in the petition, or is that separate action we'll have to take?

There is no policy direction, redirection that needs to take place with the remote TIF. It's been established. It's already maturing. It's just that the shift is about development funding going into the community.

Say that again.

There's no policy, new policy direction needed with the remote.

Please, excuse me, Ms. Dickstein. We want to hear everyone's comments. We want to make sure that, in fact, the commissioner, all of the commissioners, as well as Ms. Dickstein and even the presenters are heard. So I ask that we please be respectful. There was disruptive comments, laughter, if we can all cease. Please. And let's have a respectable, meaningful meeting. This is something that we all are desperately committed to hearing, and so I would just ask for the respect. Thank you. Excuse me, Commissioner.

Yeah, the remote TIF has already, there's no new policy direction. What we were suggesting is, because it is now mature, and it is generating about a million dollars a year, that there could be relief on the general fund, development fund, and that could go into the community. And that's what the recommendation was. And that's where the new policy direction would be required.

And where does the, how are the TIF remote, that remote TIF used currently?

It's being used in downtown projects.

Right. But the recommendation is to exclusively say that it can be used there.

It's to keep what's generated from investment and values in downtown in downtown to support more downtown improvements and the strategies. That's what the recommendation was about, but what that actually does is free up the general fund.

And so what's the actionable, how do we effectuate that recommendation?

You can provide direction about where you want the $1 million to go. You don't have to do anything. We've reviewed the legislation that's already in place for the remote tip. You could adopt a resolution that would clarify and show support of that recommendation. If you want to do something public, you could do that.

OK.

um you talked about the convention center and these three properties that we're going to adopt in we don't have any details on that um but if i understand it's necessary for their financing that we adopt this could you say more about that i'm talking specifically about the the as if we can if we delay um

starting this. First of all, they have charges that they've already approved that the developers approved, that the MCCFA has approved, and so the longer we don't put forward this petition and get this in place, they're missing out on revenue opportunities that they could be generating from those additional charges that they've already identified. And they've identified as a way to put forward or to fill the gap and to close on their project and start construction. So the longer we delay, and they need to have some of this tool has to be in place in order to get to their closing because they are going to be selling bonds themselves. And so there's all these documents that will be lining up to our closing. Our petition, our NCA, and if we don't get it in place, they can't have the assurances. Bondholders would require, banks would require, et cetera, because we haven't set our tool up.

Who will issue the bonds in that scenario?

The MCCFA.

The... And then the last technical question is, in the petition it says that none of the funds can go for private improvements, but they can go for community facilities.

So I'd like to call Tyler Bridge up from Bricker to help you answer the legal technical questions.

Hi there, great to be in front of you. I'm Tyler Bridge. It's great to represent the city of Dayton. We serve as your council. So I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. I can start with the first. Yeah. So did you get the question? Yeah, I did. So when we talk about tax increment financing, for example, we know that we can use those revenues, but we have to use them for public infrastructure improvements. And public infrastructure improvements are defined by the code. The same is true here. It's just a little bit different. It's much more expansive. So there's really four different buckets of things we can use new community authority revenue for. One is community land acquisition, community land development, community services, and then the fourth bucket is what you just identified as community facilities. Community facilities is a long definition. It's a whole paragraph in the code. But it's things like fixtures, equipments, and furnishings to be owned, operated, financed, and constructed under the chapter. But then we get into... public, community, village, neighborhood or town buildings, centers, plazas, auditoriums, childcare centers, recreation halls, educational facilities, healthcare facilities, telecom facilities, and then we get into bikeway systems, pedestrian systems, all of these things. So it's kind of everything that you know about tax increment financing, but blow that up. It's kind of TIF mega plus. It's just a less restrictive revenue source, so we can use them for many, many things.

And so in the scenario with the convention center and the hotel using service charges, Can those go to the development of their property?

Not directly towards the private improvements, but all the public infrastructure associated items that might come along with the development. Yes, gas, electric lines, energy installations, the things are very, very many. So it's a very broad list. acquisition of land, grading, dirt, things like that, moving dirt, all those kinds of things, yes. And it can also be used for debt service for those items as well. And I think that's kind of what we're centering on. So debt service, obviously we do that with TIF as well, where a revenue stream can be cooperatively assigned to pay debt service, same is true here. I can give you a concrete example of this in Washington Courthouse, which is not too far from here in Fayette County, small community that's having some development. They're having a number of residential developments there. The new community itself in that instance is issuing about $17 million in bonds, but it's being used specifically to pay for phase one and phase two of public infrastructure improvements needed for the residential development. And then each new residential homeowner, every single one of them, is coming and they're paying a nine mil charge on their property in addition to their current property tax bill, those revenues are then being assigned towards the debt service for the infrastructure for those folks. So in that community, they're saying, we have a citywide NCA in Washington courthouse, and they're saying, welcome to our community, new developers, thank you for coming, we're very appreciative that you're here. In order to take the burden off our existing taxpayers, we want you to participate in this program. And new is paying for new. New is paying for the maintenance that comes with new infrastructure as well, instead of current folks who are already doing enough, paying enough, and have been here for a very long time. That's their proposal. Another concrete example is in the city of Circleville. That's in Pickway County. It's about 60 miles south of Columbus. It's not inside the belt. They have a citywide new community authority, and their program is to say, we don't care if you're Sheetz, if you're Love's Truck Stop, if you're a residential developer, if you're D.R. Horton, we don't care who you are, we want you to join our new community authority, and then we're going to decide later. They do not have a financial plan in place about how they want to use the revenues yet. So I've heard a lot of discussion about two things. One, the setup of the program, and two, well, how do we want to use the money? We don't have any money yet, obviously. But in Washington Courthouse, they have the program set up. They're not leaving dollars on the table as developments come through, but they have not had this collaborative discussion yet about how they intend to actually, when the rubber meets the road, use the money. A third example, I came from a new community authority meeting five hours ago in Middletown. And they have a citywide, it's not a citywide new community authority, but it is a city driven, city started new community authority in Middletown. And so we levied a 2% charge on a Sheets station that is opening in seven days. Had they not had the new community authority in place, Sheets would have come in. And once the development is already there, once the property owner has already come in, it's much harder to start the program. The reason is because we have to come to commission or city council every single time we have any kind of addition to the new community authority. Nothing can happen unless we come to you and get approval to get that addition in place. So we just did that about five hours ago. Sheets Basically, pretty much the things that you buy at that gas station, they're going to have a 2% charge on that. There, they're pledging the funds over to debt service associated with what may or may not be an arena project. You probably have heard about that. But I kind of blabbered a little bit and went astray. So I'll stop there.

Thank you. That's helpful. I asked the city manager this question, but you're the technical. Looking at the financial plan, the feasibility study, those are sufficient to meet the statute?

Yes. So what you're seeing in the petition is something we've used probably 100 times across the state. Our firm probably represents... AROUND THAT NUMBER OF NEW COMMUNITY AUTHORITIES, AND THIS IS A PLAN THAT'S BEEN USED EVERYWHERE FROM THE SHORT NORTH NEW COMMUNITY AUTHORITY TO THE SHORT... CLEVELAND JUST STARTED A NORTH COAST WATERFRONT NCA FOR THEIR DOWNTOWN AND ASSOCIATED LAKEFRONT DEVELOPMENTS. WHAT THE CODE SAYS, AND I WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THIS, IS IT REALLY JUST REQUESTS A PRELIMINARY PLAN And that's sort of what it is. For a citywide new community authority, obviously we're not really here to project, we're gonna have this many dollars, we're gonna have this many people. We're making preliminary indications of how we expect this body to run. Because what are we doing? We're setting up a body, public, corporate, and politics. So we're setting up a political subdivision like a school district or like a joint economic development district. The city probably has a number of joint economic development districts. Those are independent bodies that you set up with your consent. And what the code simply requires is just a preliminary financial plan about what charges do we want to have in this thing? What minimums or maximums can we foresee having in this thing? And if you sort of imagine, The city of Dayton really was a pioneer in some ways about using new community authority because it was doing so for the Delco, it did so for the Arcade. And what you saw was that every private developer for every unique project was coming to you and wanting to start one of their own. And I think what the community across the state has learned is we don't really want to be in the movie Gremlins because once you start one, don't give it water after midnight, they start multiplying. And so that's kind of what the state has learned. And so really, in my practice, I do not see any more developer-driven NCAAs because the city has to staff the board. There's resources to do that. You've got to monitor these things. It's its own body, but this developer is sort of running it. Are they really running it? Is it working? And so communities are pushing back off of that and saying, no, we want to start our own thing. We want to lay out the general parameters. And that's what we're doing in this document. We're saying, let's start this thing as the broadest possible way we can with the broadest possible parameters nuance in ways where we can, because in the petition you see there are minimum floors to the types of charges, there's maximums. We obviously don't want to price people out. That is not a good thing to do right now in the world, especially with inflation and things like that. So we're setting up this very broad system, and it's sort of like the Constitution. And then what'll happen is, with the MCCFA, for example, they'll have to, and we're kind of running this at the same time, MCCFA is just the first property owner that says, yeah, we want to join this. And so you will have to simultaneously with this go through a process that takes a month about to formally process that addition. The MCCFA for that project will have to come back And they're going to have to record on the properties, all the properties in that development, a specific supplemental declaration. It's actually a covenant on the ground. And that covenant is then going to select from all this broad stuff and actually get granular for that project and how that project specifically works. So it's a little different. If we had a developer-driven NCA... we would come to you with everything because this is the exact project and that's what they're gonna do. But we're gonna get to all that just in a course of business. And then the other thing I would say is, we can start this thing, on this parcel, and that's sort of why it's downtown driven, just because we're picking this one parcel to start it on. But nothing happens until we come back to you. We may have to come back to you a thousand times over the next 25 years. It's quite possible, because every single property owner is gonna have to submit a consent. Because you're basically saying, They're basically coming to you and saying, yes, tax me more. I want to pay more to be here. So we're going to have to come back. And all those discussions about how you want to use the funds strategically, I would have probably no doubt that there's going to have to be some hard, very good discussions. And that's already on display here about the collaborative nature of how that will have to occur. But both things can happen. You can start the thing. And then if you don't do anything else, nothing's going to happen with it. So it's really within your power to do or not, even if we went forward with this stuff here.

My last question is around this. This structural relationship, we're creating a new political jurisdiction. I've been assured multiple times that that's strong by statute. The city is not liable for any of the actions of the NCA. In this new kind of model that everyone's moving to, which are the city as the developer, Has any of those been sued yet on that question?

We have not had any NCA be sued at this time. I would point out also that, and I said previously, the city has many joint economic development districts. It's basically the same concept. You're starting a public body that has the ability there to levy an income tax within its boundaries. You're obviously operating in a township to do that. But it's a very similar structure. I can't... You have 32 of them? Port authority. Port authorities as well. You're starting up another entity. The city also has the Energy Special Improvement District, which has helped to bring capital to the city for property assessed clean energy financing. That was a part of the arcade, I believe, with everything else we could probably bring to bear. But those are also examples of bodies where you're setting up a body and there's possible liability for that body. But the other thing I would say... Go ahead. Yep.

But in all of those examples, there's multiple partners, right? There's multiple jurisdictions who are coming and are part of that. IN THIS CASE, I MEAN, WE ARE SNC-NCA BECAUSE IT'S THE CITY MANAGER AS A DEVELOPER AND THE COMMISSION AS THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE. I MEAN, IT'S US, RIGHT?

NO, BECAUSE IT'S JUST A COMPLETELY SEPARATE BODY. IT WILL HAVE ITS OWN EIN NUMBER. WE HAVE TO SEND A LETTER TO THE AUDITOR OF STATE OF THE FORMATION OF THE BODY. It has to file its own Hinkle reporting with the auditor estate, so all of the audits that the city of Dayton's audited by the auditor estate, this entity will be completely and separately audited by the auditor. So we represent the city of Dayton, and if we were to represent this body, it would have to sign its own engagement letter with our firm in order for us to do that, because everything is separated. As to the question, you know, is there a legal question as to whether we can do this? Basically, to start the NCA, the process basically says a developer must submit a petition to the organizational board of commissioners, period. The developer is defined in the code, and the developer in the code says you absolutely can be a municipal corporation that owns property. And so that municipal corporation is just submitting, in this case, petition to the organizational board which is just the Commission and so we do not view that as being legally problematic and in fact as we've said but I would say all I can't say all because you never say all but I would say greater than 90 95 percent of all communities who are doing this or doing it alone I would also say that townships They're currently lobbying the state house to be able to do what you're doing because they can't. In order to do this as a township in Ohio, you have to, the way that we're doing it, where a township would do it on their own property and submit it to their board of trustees, you have to be a township with a population of over 5,000 in a county between 200 and 400. There's only 12 townships in Ohio that can do this in their own right as the city of Dayton can. The other thousand, you know, are trying to knock down the doors of the state house to do this. Why? Because they're scared that real property taxes, which is their lifeblood, not yours, income tax is yours, they're scared that that revenue source is going to be played with at the General Assembly. So they're trying to determine and find other stable revenue sources because their general funds are under a lot of political pressure. So you're, in a way, as a municipal corporation, at you know, advantaged in your ability to be able to do something like this, whereas many political subdivisions across the state are not able to do so.

In the petition that we adopt tonight, that's one that will be presented at the public hearing, or is there opportunity to amend between now and the public hearing?

Yes, there would be two things. So let me outline the process here. So as we said, the developer, who in this case is the city, submits a petition. The first action is that the commission is determining whether the petition is sufficient. And that's a general determination. As we said, we have to present preliminary items. After that will be three weeks of public notice of the public hearing. and your legislation sets the date of the public hearing. So that will be noticed three times in the newspaper here in town. And then the hearing just has to happen 30 to 45 days after we submitted the petition, which I think was last Friday. I think that's right. And so if we didn't hit that date for some reason, we would just have to resubmit it and restart. You'll have the public hearing and then the same day you'll have another piece of legislation which says we approve of the petition. So there conceivably can be amendments to the petition during that time. The second point I would make is, and I don't remember the number so please forgive me, but the code specifically says that the Organizational Board of Commissioners, you, can amend the petition in any particular So we interpret that to mean that language is very, very broad. So you're not locked into something with just this if we need to come back because of, you know, later on we have strategic planning exercises or there is, you know, a great public comment, which there conceivably will be in this collaborative process. You can come back later, even after you approve it, and amend the petition in any particular way. to align this program with the strategic goals of the community and the people. Thank you.

And just one comment in general. I think it's bad practice. for us to bring a piece of legislation that has to be passed by emergency without fully vetting it from the commission. And I think it's unprofessional. And I think that going forward, it really needs to stop. It does injustice to our citizens and to this body and to the work, the serious work we have to do. And so I just want to note my objection to us being briefed so late in the process and it being brought as an emergency that has to be passed this night. We've done this before and it's really unacceptable.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Shaw.

Yes. I feel like we had a very thorough vetting of this briefing, several briefings, back and forth reports. I appreciate your report that you sent out the other day, clarifying from questions that both the mayor and I think you had. It was enlightening, and I thought that it was very thorough and thoughtful about the way that it happened, what other communities are doing, how it's spelled out in the Ohio Revised Code. This is a tool, one tool that we can use, and what I'm most appreciative of is the conversation about being able to free up general funding to support the neighborhoods, which is what all five of us want to do. This is a good tool for that. There are some projects that are critically important for this community. And let's be clear, the economic development driver for the city and for this region is right here in downtown Dayton. And that's just a simple fact in how economic development works in communities all over this country. So this came out of a very thorough process, about a year long, where Mr. Tusk and myself and Dave Mellon led this process. A lot of questions back and forth and this kind of rose up out of those year-long conversations and I think it was a very thorough process. So thank you for that and thank you for all of your questions. I think they're really important to kind of get this all out and that's what this meeting is about. To kind of vet it and talk about it and that's what we're doing. I think that it's something that we need to move forward on right away because it's a very sensitive time. Critically important that we get this hotel going to support the economic development efforts of the CFA that was stood up through another very thorough process where we talked about the need for more hotel beds and more hotels in downtown to support bringing small and mid-sized conventions to this community, which will support the efforts that we do in all parts of the city, all of the neighborhoods. So I think we should move forward on this. And I just appreciate my colleagues for all of the questions and getting up to speed on this. We sat in briefings and had plenty of opportunities. I didn't feel rushed. I had all of the questions that I needed answered, answered at that time. I'm assuming that you had the same opportunity. So, you know, I'm ready to move forward on this. And I think we've had a lot of questions here today, so I'm going to leave it at that. But I'm very supportive of this effort. I think it's going to do tremendous things for this community and this region and our neighborhoods, and our neighborhoods. And let's move forward on this.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Joseph.

Thank you, Mayor. I think I said this last week or maybe in a hearing when we were talking about this is when I travel to other cities, especially bigger cities, and I'll pay for something, I'll see on the receipt there's a 2% charge or a $1 charge at a rental counter or a restaurant. I'm very excited about finding ways to fund improvements in our neighborhoods by using visitors' money. That's a nice tool. I appreciate everybody that's worked hard on that, including you, Commissioner. And second, the other point I want to make, a lot of good points have been made here, is that I think it's foresightful to make this citywide. And I know the mayor and I talked today. We're looking forward to those expansion possibilities coming up because I think there are other places that can also benefit from this. So I just want to make that good foresight to make this citywide.

Thank you all. I do have a couple of questions. I am so glad that you're here. Thank you very much for being here. Good to be here. I really appreciate it. And I, too, would like to recognize all of the members that served on the NCA, the vetting board, if you will. Thank you very much for your time, your commitment. Your expertise is greatly valued. Again, this was introduced to me some time ago. I do have one question that I would ask, a comment more so. Had we all been introduced to this a year ago, then I think that would have went a long way. I also believe that we could have had potentially robust conversations about having the strategy in place and not feeling rushed and not having to do legislation, emergency legislation. We could have all put... our minds together. At the time, I was a commissioner. Commissioner Beckham was, in fact, the senior policy advisor, which, in fact, he would have served in being a part of those conversations. So, again, I will echo Commissioner Fairchild's point, is that if we know there's something so vital and so important that could potentially do wonders for our community, let's engage early on. This is a lesson learned and my hope is that we adopt better practices. The other question that I wanted to pose to you, rather, the first question. So you mentioned sheets, great example. So the question is, Did sheets come to the municipality or did the municipality go out and, in fact, recruit sheets? How did that relationship, how did that NCA and that additional tax, how was that initiated?

Yeah, so in that community, because it was started on city ground, they didn't go to that property owner first. That was a program that was started, and then as development comes, and Sheet says, we would like to be here, we're going to build this there, then the city comes. So in the prior examples in Dayton, I think we're operating backwards from this, which is, no, no, no, we're going to develop the arcade. So the arcade comes, and it's a collaborative process all kind of in one bunch. But this is really different. it's saying as as with the community i just mentioned we're going to start this thing on one little tiny parcel in the city and then the new developers coming and then the city reacts to that and says oh well we want you to join our new community authority that's from a development context and i'll give you a couple examples so In Circleville, for example, they're just having residential development. And they've got a farm field or smaller plots of land. And I know that's different from the city of Dayton. But in that context, the developer is entering a marketplace where the new community authority has already been set up. And the community is saying, this is just what we want you to join this, opt into this thing. And one of the things that they do there, as the city of Dayton does, is sometimes they offer a discretionary benefit, like a CRA. CRA is a handout. IN SOME WAYS. IT COULD BE USED TO INCENTIVIZE A PROJECT, BUT IT'S A REDUCTIONARY TOOL IN REAL PROPERTY TAX REVENUE. BUT IT'S DISCRETIONARY. YOU DON'T HAVE TO GIVE IT. THE COMMISSION FOR A COMMERCIAL PROJECT VOTES UPON THAT AGREEMENT, AS YOU HAVE MANY TIMES. BUT IN THAT CASE, THAT COMMUNITY IS SAYING, WELL, IN EXCHANGE FOR THIS DISCRETIONARY BENEFIT THAT WE'RE GIVING, WHICH WE WANT TO GIVE, In exchange, you have to join our new community authority. Because when there's a contractual barter, you can require that someone do something like that. So that's the second instance. The first instance in Middletown, where I just came from, that was just, we have a city-wide NCA. We want you to do this. You're going to join it. And so they agreed to do that. The second instance in Circleville was we started our new community authority. We're negotiating with this developer about developing a residential neighborhood on this ground. Okay, we'll give you a CRA, but in exchange you're going to join our new community authority because we're going to keep some of the funds, nine mils, whatever it might be, and then we're going to use it for general fund purposes. Um, and then the last example was just the city of Dayton example where it's really developer driven so far where they're coming to your first. And so you kind of go in eyes wide open. But with this program, it's, we started on a city parcel and then if you don't do anything else, it doesn't go anywhere. There, there's nothing that happens after that. So really, it's going to be a new developer on the outside of town wants to build, I don't know, my favorite example is, what if you did have a KFC? I don't know if there's a moratorium on that. There might be. But in a community, you know... If you want to build that, that's fine. Great. But we'd like you to join our new community authority. You know, stuff like that. So I hope that answers the question. No, thank you. Directly, the question is, no, the new community authority was set up first, and then the city started to say, this is our thing. We want you to do it. And that's how they got them to do the retail charge.

Because the city in themselves owned that parcel, so that's why they were able to initiate that.

Yep, previously, right.

Okay. So, okay, I believe I'm tracking. All right, a couple more questions. So, and this may be so directed to, that's extremely helpful because what I was initially, my interpretation was that if you establish the NCA, then in fact, like if you make the petition broader, if you will, to include It didn't necessarily have to be project-based. My interpretation was that you could open up to citywide, whatever have you, and then if, in fact, there were additional projects, whatever have you, then you could go and garner that support. But you're saying unless the city themselves, the municipality, the developer, owns the parcel or whatever have you, the structure, they can't initiate that NCA for them to be included. And ultimately, they still have to opt in, whichever way it goes.

Right. I think you could do it either way, is what I'm trying to say. There's multiple ways to do this. But this way of doing this is just saying, we're starting this entity, and then as time rolls, we'll develop a strategic plan about where you want to do it. So the short north example... They had to have every single property owner consent to join the NCA. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to be done. So let's say you start this thing on the city-owned parcel just for now, but then the desire is genuinely that you want to do this along a corridor.

Yes.

you're going to have to go and have a meeting with every single property owner there and get their total buy-in. Because if you don't, it won't happen. You're going to have to have every single property owner come back to submit a consent. The commission's going to have to have a resolution that determines the sufficiency of the consent. There's going to be three weeks of public notice in the newspaper, and then there's going to be a public hearing, and then you're going to have to consider a second piece of legislation. APPROVING OF THE ADDITION. SO IF YOU WANTED TO DO THIS SHORT NORTH EXAMPLE, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO COME BACK AGAIN WITH EVERY ONE OF THOSE PROPERTY OWNERS, AND THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS WHOLE PROCESS ALL OVER AGAIN. SO WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS, If you did this today and you wanted to do a corridor later, it's going to all have to come back. Because if it doesn't, it can't happen.

Say that again. I want to make sure I'm registering. Excuse me.

So let's say you start. The latter part. We're starting this on a quarter acre. I don't even know if it's a quarter acre. It's just a flag in the ground. And let's say eventually, two months later from now, you want to start this program on a corridor. And I'm not totally well-versed in all the corridors. I have been over to the University of Dayton when I was about 10 years younger on one of the nice streets over there for St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, I know, right? But let's say you did that.

Okay, that's a great example because my colleagues and I have been talking about that.

It was a great time. But you're going to have to go to every single property owner along that street and say, do you guys want to do this? Do you guys want to create a zone here where we'll have a rider on beer? And every single one of those property owners is going to have to say yes. So I think both things are true. You're just starting this in the toolkit, and then we're going to have to have this long conversation later about how you want to run it. You've probably had a special improvement district before. Yes. And that program's a little different. You can draw a box and draw it creatively to force people to join it. And that is not true here. We cannot do it. Every tiny little parcel along that corridor over by the University of Dayton, if that's what you wanted to do with the 2% charge, would have to come back to commission and they would have to do this same process that we're running here all over again with public notice, public hearings, two pieces of legislation. And then after that, Every single one of those property owners is going to have to record on their ground in the Montgomery County Recorder's Office a supplemental declaration that says, I covenant and agree to pay these charges and so do the successor's owners to my property. So this is a process that's gonna have to happen. We're just saying, for now, this is a tool that we're gonna put in the toolkit for the city, and then we're gonna explore with our community members, with our corridors, with whomever else, how we're gonna do this, and if we're gonna do it, get the buy-in. If we get that, come back to the commission, do a whole process for a month, THEN THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO RECORD ALL THESE DOCUMENTS IN THE RECORDER'S OFFICE TO GET IT DONE IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO DO A CORRIDOR THING. THE OTHER EXAMPLE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT WITH THE SHEETS WAS JUST THE CITY HAD THE PROGRAM SET UP, THEIR POLICY IS, IF YOU'RE NEW HERE, WE LOVE IT, BUT WE'RE GOING TO TAKE NINE MILLS, REAL PROPERTY CHARGE. AND THE BENEFIT OF DOING THAT IS YOU'VE DONE TIFS BEFORE. The difference is you can only do a TIF for 30 years. These charges run with the land in perpetuity until this thing is shut down. And so it's just a revenue source that is going to be a covenant on that ground. Where that property owner, like let's say you did this for a Sheetz or something. I know you have a gas station moratorium, I think.

Yes.

I don't know, maybe it's something where you said, well, we'll lift our moratorium. You can build your Love's Travel Stop, but in exchange, you're going to join our new community authority and you're going to pay nine mils or whatever it's going to be, a retail charge on transient folks who come in and out. But they're going to have to go through the same process. You're just having so many things go on with this because it's a city. When we say citywide, we're saying we're trying to develop a master plan for the city to try to use this tool in many different ways. One of them could be a corridor tool with the retail charge like is in the short north could be. One of them could be like Middletown or elsewhere where they're saying, no, we want to do this for travel stop. We want to make sure our transient folks coming through town are paying a little something to enjoy the benefits we're providing. Another in Washington courthouse is if you're a new residential developer, you're going to come in and do this. Another example of using it, which we have in here for you, is we'll give you your tax abatement. That's great. We'll help you with the project. But in exchange, you're going to pay a little back to the community. There's different, many ways to use the tool, not just one.

Thank you so much, Mr. Bridge. I really appreciate it. This is extremely helpful. And just for the sake of time, I do have a couple of questions. And it's probably more geared towards Ms. Dixteen. So... So maybe you can help me with this. I think I answered my own question with that, so I think I might be okay with that one. Just really trying to understand the difference between the city and the municipal corporation with the appointments being the four for the legislative body, but then if you look at the language, it also notes that three of the appointments should go to the legislative body, but however, it's recommended that the three appointments go to the city manager.

So let me give you the alternative. When a private developer as the developer. That's why we get confused, right? The developer submits the petition to the organizational board, but the developer can be a private landowner. It specifically also can be a municipal corporation. The organizational board's just always you. In the arcade, for example, or with the DELCO, New Community Authority. I'll give the DELCO as an example. Crawford Hoying, as a private entity, submitted, as the developer, the petition to this commission as the organizational board of commissioners because of those facts. The developer, Crawford Hoying, gets three seats on that board. The city commission as an organizational board appoints three plus the legislative member. And so you only get four people. Crawford Hoying gets the other three on that board. PUBLIC BODY THAT YOU STARTED. WHY ARE COMMUNITIES STARTING TO NOT DO IT THAT WAY WHERE THE PRIVATE DEVELOPER SUBMITS THE PETITION TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL BOARD? BECAUSE THEY'VE LEARNED IF I'M THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION AS THE DEVELOPER, I GET THREE SEATS. AND I SUBMIT IT TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, THEY GET THREE SEATS PLUS THEY GET THE LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY MEMBER. YOU GET ALL SEVEN. AND SO THERE IS THIS LEGAL THING WHERE the developer is the municipal corporation. And we're just interpreting that to mean the developer gets three seats, we're allowing the city manager to appoint those seats because the city manager is really the executive of the municipal corporation acting on behalf of the commission with your grace. And then the code specifically calls out the organizational board of commissioners as the commission, you. And so you get three plus the legislative member. We just interpret there being a wall there between the developer, who is the municipal corporation, and the organizational board. So there's just, and I would say one more thing. You haven't seen this piece of legislation, I don't think. But as we said, the city's submitting this petition. You're evaluating whether this is sufficient preliminary economic development analysis, which is what the code requires, just preliminary. Then three weeks of public notice in the newspaper, then a public hearing. Then that last piece of legislation that'll come after the public hearing, it appoints the seven members. We include in the legislation all seven members for you to sign off on. So you're going to look at that and have ample time to say, I don't want this person to be the city manager's appointee. And I'm sure that that would be a collaborative process to determine. But you will see specifically in the legislation each one of those seven people. who would be nominated, and you would appoint them.

I appreciate that, Mr. Bridge. Let me hurry up and wrap up. So the other question, thank you for explaining the process, because I know that is my personal interest, if it's safe to say that. The corridors, I really want to see how, in fact, the NCA could really... which I know it is an effective tool, but I personally would like to see that development take place on our corridors to help with our neighborhoods, downtown development, whatever have you. But that's the piece that gives me great angst because staffing capacity, right? When you talk about adding the corridors, then that's additional bandwidth that... safe to say, I don't know if we necessarily have that. And being that if we were to adopt the corridors at a later date, how much staffing capacity do we really have to support that? And again, that's not towards you, that's more so to the city manager, but your explanation as to that lengthy process versus if we were to get it right the first time, right? If we were to say, let's do this citywide NCA and let's focus on the corridors, whether it's the one and two corridor, because again, that lengthy process of the petition and the three weeks of the public notice, the hearing and all of that and staff time that it potentially takes away from our council, which I'm sure there's, some expenses that go along with that. But how do we reduce that if, in fact, we were to get it right the first time? That's where my concern is. And if, in fact, we have the capacity, Ms. Dixie, because I am, as mentioned, I am supporting the NCA with some contingencies as to what, in fact, the other question is, again, who's going to lead this effort? Like, we know we have the board, but the board will, ideally, they would need staffing support, right? They would need staffing support. They would need... assistance with all of the various nuances that go along with that. And where would it be housed? Would it be housed in planning? Would it be housed in finance?

It's a separate board. There will be a president of the board that helps lead it. They will need some staffing assistance. We will have a staff person that we have on there to help with around collections. They typically need legal assistance as they bring on deals and projects and whatnot. But it's a completely separate board that does not land or rest in the city organization. Okay.

But again, just the amount of capacity. And that's the other question I have.

So let me talk a little bit about the core as we contemplate adding corridors. Okay. Because we can have a max on our board. Is it 16, Tyler?

Yeah, I believe that's right.

16 seats. Okay. And we couldn't do any less than seven. Seven's the minimum. And so the idea is as we talk with corridors and as we get interest... in adding a corridor geography area, and we get the buy-in from all of the property owners, that they will have a representative board member added to the board, so that they have a voice, they have representation, and they can be a part of that oversight group. And we can do that up to 16 seats. Okay.

I do read that.

And the whole reason, again, for going to the citywide NCA versus project is it takes a heck of a lot less capacity for us to manage a citywide one board looking at the city holistically versus a project, an NCA for every project. Okay.

As to administrative expenses also, I would say, you know, the meeting I came from about six hours ago now is that they, to actually meet the rubber in the road for how do you, the city of Middletown is not going into sheets and saying pay your 2%. The board of the NCA is going to contract with a third party administrator. Okay. like Bradley Payne or Incentive Review Group or just as would be done with bonds. I mean, there's someone else that's going to have to step in to do that. That happens all across the state. They're going to have an entity come in and actually do the management of that. Where is that paid from? It gets paid out of the charge revenue itself. So it's a self-sustaining system. theoretically, hypothetically, you know, if you set it up, where we've got this revenue stream, we're going to take, you know, 4, 5, 6% to pay for the administrative costs of actually administering the thing. But the benefit, obviously, with Middletown is, well, we could have just had Sheets come in and build their gas station and not have an NCA. How much money are we leaving on the table? I don't know. But in this way, at least you have, you know, 100% of something minus 6%.

Thank you. Again, as mentioned, I would just ask for, as we move forward this process, contingent upon the approval of all of the members this evening, is that we have... AN UPDATE, A REGULAR UPDATE. I WILL ALSO ASK THAT, AND I HOPE WE'RE ALL ON BOARD IN TERMS OF THE CORRIDOR. I THINK THAT NEXT PHASE, THAT CONVERSATION NEEDS TO HAPPEN SOONER THAN LATER WITHIN THE NEXT, I DON'T KNOW, Like, how soon can we get the corridors added? Is it the next 30 days?

No.

No.

Not possible. No. You know, I hesitate on the bar exam. All the questions that say always or never, don't answer those. But I think in this case, it's 100% no. Can't happen. Physically not able. And I think that's the key point to hammer home, is that actually you could do – you could approve – You could start the sufficiency of the NCAA tonight, and if you don't do anything else, nothing happens. Zero.

Okay. All right. So I want to know the next steps once we stand up the board and the charge in terms of how we get the corridors added. That's where I am in terms of where my support for this initiative. I understand. But again, this just goes back to Commissioner, bless you, goes back to Commissioner Fairchild's point. And I apologize for the number of questions. But had I had a conversation with you earlier, This would have been reduced probably about two, three hours. At least two hours because it's 8 o'clock now. But nonetheless, we're here. I really appreciate you being here. Ms. Dixie, thank you for calling Mr. Bridge up to answer those questions. Thank you to the work of Mr. Tusk as well as Mr. Cole. I really appreciate the work. I wish he was a part of the two-by-two. That would have gone a long way. But again, I would like to see the pilot of... East 3rd to Kiwi to West 3rd Street, I want to see that possibly sooner than later because I also think that we're missing an opportunity with the first four. That is a huge opportunity for us. There's major development, as you mentioned, on Main, Brown Street. How do we start that conversation now? And how do we make sure that it lines up before the first four come into town? WHERE WE KNOW THAT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE TRAVELING NEAR AND AFAR, THE HOTEL, THE LODGING FEES, THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE, LIKE, THAT'S AN OPPORTUNITY WE DON'T WANT TO MISS FOR 2027, ESPECIALLY WITH THE FINANCIAL CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS THAT WE HAVE FORTHCOMING, AS WELL AS THE VARIOUS DIFFERENT POLITICAL NUANCES THAT GO ALONG WITH THAT. AND SO MY ASK IS THAT WE MOVE AGGRESSIVELY IN THE NEXT STEPS TO ADOPTING THOSE CORRIDORS, EVEN IF WE START WITH THE TWO PILOT CORRIDORS THAT MR. TUSK MENTIONED. Thank you, Mr. Bridge. Thank you. Really appreciate it. All right. Ms. McClendon, are there any citizens that are registered to speak on calendar items?

Your Honor, there are four citizens registered to speak on calendar items. I would like to state there is a three minute time limit. As you address the commission, we ask that you state your name and address for the record. At that time, I will turn on the green light. When the green light comes on, you will have three minutes to speak. After you have spoken two and a half minutes, a yellow light will come on and you will have 30 seconds remaining to speak. When the red light comes on, you will be asked to cease your comments and to take your seat. To the audience in attendance, please be mindful this is a business meeting, and we kindly request that during this portion of the meeting, you refrain from any hand clapping, finger snapping, and conversation that will prevent the city commission from hearing the speaker's comments. I call to the podium Ebony Hastings.

1238 Wabash Avenue, Ebony Hastings. 6942-26. 6943-26. Why is this an emergency? We were not even explained what the cost is going to be. Why are we omitting the cost? This presentation appeared to be more rich, white developers with zero community benefit agreement. Joe Tusk confirmed that you all are, in fact, paying attention to our social media posts. When are we going to get the forensic audit of the 50K spending? Middletown, Washington Courthouse, and Pickaway are apples to oranges in comparison to the city of Dayton. Predominantly white neighborhoods, smaller neighborhoods, DON'T PRESENT US WITH APPLES TO ORANGES IN REGARDS TO WHAT YOU WANT US TO TRUST AND BELIEVE ARE BENEFITS FOR THE NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE CITY OF DAYTON. THIS GOES FAR BEYOND JUST WEST DAYTON AT THIS POINT BECAUSE POOR WHITE PEOPLE MAKE THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY AS POOR BLACK PEOPLE. OUR CITY OF DAYTON EMPLOYEES DON'T EVEN MAKE AN EQUITABLE SALARY. AND I'LL ABSTAIN FROM EVERYTHING ELSE, BUT SERIOUSLY, I ASK THIS COMMISSION TODAY TO PULL THAT 6942-26, 6943-26 FROM THE AGENDA. INITIATE LEGISLATION TO MAKE A MAYOR IN THIS COMMISSION FULL TIME. DECREASE THE CITY MANAGER'S AUTHORITY. THE CITY MANAGER IS, IN FACT, THE DEVELOPER. SHE SHOWS US THIS TIME AND TIME AND TIME AND TIME AGAIN. I WATCH HER MOVE PRIOR TO THE MEETING START. SHE SPEAKS TO EVERYBODY WHITE, SHE SPEAKS TO ALL OF THE DEVELOPERS, AND SHE DON'T LOOK OUR WAY. SHE WAS AT PRIDE, BUT SHE WAS NOT AT JUNETEENTH.

Thank you, Ms. Hastings. Ms. McClendon, may I? So, Ms. Hastings, just for the record, just for everyone in the chambers, there is no associated cost to the emergency resolution number 6942-26. This is the petition to set up the NCA so that, in fact, we have the... the legislation in place so that we can start identifying the citywide new community authority. So there is no cost that will be associated to the resolution, the emergency resolution. And from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, and please someone chime in, is that the reason why this is in fact an emergency because, and it is a fault, that there is concern as to why this is now just being brought to us. I get that. In terms of the conversation was happening a year ago, there was a lot of vetting that took place, all of the above. The concern is definitely valid. However, we have to make sure that, in fact, this emergency resolution is in place. is passed this evening so that we could fill the potential gap that is needed and that there is ultimately dollars that are left on the table with the development of the hotel. So I'll be happy to talk with you afterwards. I'll be happy to share any additional information with you. It is actually a very innovative tool that could be in fact used as a means for equitable development. And there is an opportunity for us to have those conversations, but we have to do our part as a legislative body to make sure that the direction is given to the city manager so, in fact, that is there. So my ask is that with the commission members, if we are all in agreement, that for the next phase, if you will, within... AN AGGRESSIVE TIME FRAME THAT WE LOOK AT THOSE TWO PILOTS, CORRIDOR PROJECTS, THAT IS EAST THIRD STREET TO KIWI, AS WELL AS WEST THIRD STREET. AND THEN, AGAIN, LENDING POLICY DIRECTION TO MS. DICK'S TEAM FOR THE DEVELOPMENT DOLLARS ONCE THIS, IN FACT, IS ISSUED. SO I HOPE THAT WE COULD BE collaborative effort on that and in agreement with that again I'll be happy to talk with you more in detail but there are ways and means and there is examples on how this model is in fact effective I mean we see it across the country and we're lagging behind honestly excuse me miss McClendon thank you I call to the podium David Kittbridge

David Kittredge, 244 Hadley Avenue. Talking about 694-2-26. I also did not know this was emergency resolution today. I think you guys have asked a lot of important questions. I think we in the east corridor over there feel very much the same as folks on the west corridor. We really just want to make sure that we're involved in the process of of what determines where this money can go. I've lived in several cities growing up where they've had different ways to do what this NCA does, and I've seen great benefits to that. It doesn't ask anybody else to... We're not taxing the entire city as a whole. We're just trying to focus on what can be done in the greater downtown corridor. I show my support for this with more information and more collaboration with the city as well as all the stakeholders downtown. Not just the building owners and developers, but the stakeholders of the businesses. So long as As those conversations are being had properly, I am a fan of what this could potentially do for the city. I show my support to that idea, but I am hesitant to say that this is gonna be a 100% success without the support of the community and all of their input on what they feel like are the beneficial needs to all of those businesses in those corridors. I'LL KEEP IT AT THAT, BUT I SHOW MY SUPPORT FOR WHERE THIS IS CURRENTLY AND WHAT IT COULD POTENTIALLY DO WITH SOME BETTER CONVERSATION.

THANK YOU, MR. KITCHEN.

YEAH, THANKS. THANK YOU.

I CALL TO THE PODIUM TIMOTHY FORBES.

Timothy Forbes, 1529 North Star Road, Dayton, Ohio, 45432. I'm speaking about the Indianola property of which I have expressed interest in obtaining. And here are the comments that I would make. Neither Dayton nor Montgomery County have temporary supportive housing for victims of domestic violence. Hear that again. Neither Dayton nor Montgomery County have temporary supportive housing for victims of domestic violence. Here's how I learned this. On the 24th of November in 2024, a member of my faith community experienced a domestic violence attack in the city of Dayton. It wasn't the first time, it was just the worst time. Police and the courts did their work with dignity and integrity. Artemis Domestic Violence Center provided that wraparound service support that we would have hoped. But when our daughters and our granddaughters suffer assault, and are removed from their residence, where do they go? I had no idea. They're placed in a motel room with two beds, one bath, no security, and the clothes on their backs for 30 to 60 days while the system starts incorporating and working out details. until housing can ultimately be found. There's no possibility in that scenario for them to cook or store food, there's no playground, there's no privacy, there's no personal space, and there's no security provided beyond a lock on the door. Here's what we offer to people that are rescued in the middle of the night from domestic violence. We offer them survival. Now, how have you allowed this to happen? How could you allow this to be the case? Why have you not provided, as eight other government entities have provided in the region, a safe place for your daughters and your grandchildren to go in the middle of the night? Why have you not provided solutions to better ensure their safety and the possibility of a genesis moment in our daughters' and granddaughters' violent journey? And I believe I can answer that rhetorical question You allowed this to happen because, like me, you had no idea that this crisis existed. It's very below the radar, somewhat underground. But now you do know that part of the domestic violence process has no advocate until now. And working with Artemis as a collaborator, the issue is now being addressed by me and a group of people. This is what I built my company to do. Naming our work in Dayton, we have brought forward the Longfellow Commons project. We were able to do a piece of work that was able to bring in other initiatives like for St. Mary's Development where we brought in housing for people in wheelchairs. The project at Indianola is a part of the solution to this. It's a part of figuring out how we can provide housing to the women and children that ultimately will need housing. It's a part of a larger plan, a bigger piece. I own one of the properties now. I'm doing two others so that we can find ways to provide adequate housing. I thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Forbis. Yeah.

i called to the podium carly dixon thank you that concludes speakers your honor thank you commissioners are there any comments to the city manager's recommendations this evening commissioner beckham i actually have none

Thank you. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yes. One, I respectfully disagree with my colleague here. I think a work session six weeks ago could have done a lot of good for this whole project. Could have helped vet the project. Could have helped move us forward and get to a place tonight where we were all rowing in the same direction. Given the... the situation people would not know that I am supportive of the NCA, but I am. I think it's a tool. and it's just at a tool i don't want to oversell it or undersell it but you wouldn't know that and and so i think it's a missed opportunity as i said previously i would like to say that i'd like for item four the oregon landing zone to be voted on separately i want to vote no on that i was part of citizens before i was on the group that worked around garden station And Garden Station was a park in that location. And we looked at the development and we asked for mediation to occur because you could see that there would be opportunity for a park. And we could not get the city that has a mediation program to work with us. to try to mediate that development with the park at the time. And so I'm going to vote no on that. And then finally, Mr. Reverend Forbus, thank you for being here. I'm excited to learn more about the work you're doing and that care that you will provide to the women and children who are in jeopardy. Last week I asked questions and I don't think I got an accurate answer if I understand our conversation today, Ms. Dickstein. I had asked, learning from our lot links experience, when we sell off properties that are nuisance or need significant work, OUR EXPERIENCE WAS IT WOULD BE HELPFUL IF WE HAD KIND OF CLEAR EXPECTATIONS OF WHEN THOSE PROPERTIES WOULD BE BROUGHT UP TO CODE AND IF THEY DON'T HAPPEN WITHIN THAT TIME FRAME FOR THE CITY TO HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO CLAW THOSE BACK. IT SEEMS LIKE THOSE WOULD BE BEST PRACTICES. THAT'S NOT TRUE IN THIS CASE. I WOULD JUST ENCOURAGE US AS WE GO FORWARD THAT WE WOULD LOOK AT DOING THAT. to protect us and the developer because we all know that when the developer takes possession of that property, the neighbors are going to then be looking for code enforcement to bring that property up, and I think it's only fair to the developer to have a clear expectation timeline of when that's to occur. So those are my comments.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Shaw?

I have nothing. Okay.

Commissioner Joseph, thank you.

Not near. Thank you.

Thank you. Very briefly, I just want to pull on that thread a little bit from Commissioner Fairchild's point. Thank you, Reverend Forbes, for being here. I, too, had the same questions in regards to why, in fact, there isn't anything noted for the sale of the real estate of the the parcel itself and what the ultimate provisions in the language itself, the clawback clause, whatever have you. What I would ask is that, again, I echo Commissioner Fairchild's point that that is noted. We've seen and have some scars from this. And that's not, that's no slight to you, Reverend Forbes, is the level of our due diligence as this legislative body. So I would just ask that With the development, if in fact we could have a timeline, have a complete understanding as to what the next steps are in the development of the process itself. Because again, to Commissioner Fairchild's point, that particular property has warranted a number of concerns. a number of aints. And so just really want to make sure that, in fact, we're protecting you as a developer, the neighborhood, and as this body overall. So thank you very much. And then the last thing, I don't want to be the dead horse, so to speak. I NEED TO HEAR MY COLLEAGUES COMMITMENT TO THE NCA AND THE PILOT OF THE CORRIDORS. I NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THAT'S ON RECORD FOR THE CORRIDORS OF THE PILOT FOR EAST THIRD TO KEYWEE TO WEST THIRD. IF WE START THERE, Again, just to have some level of assurance that we're all on the same page for us to do the necessary work. And then also for us to give the direction to policy direction for the city manager as it relates to 27 budget. Any commitments there?

You have mine.

All right. Thank you. Speaking to the mic.

Yes. You have my commitment.

Commissioner?

Yes. Thank you. It's a good idea to look into it. I agree.

I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing the recommendations forward. May I have a motion to approve the city manager's recommendations?

Your Honor, I move to approve the city manager's recommendations except for number four.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the city manager's recommendations. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no. Any abstentions?

Your Honor, I move that we approve the city manager's recommendation number four. Second.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the city manager's recommendations. All in favor say aye. Excuse me, calendar item number four. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no.

No.

Any abstentions? Ms. McClendon, could you please record the vote?

Yes, it has been recorded that all were in favor except for Commissioner Fairchild on calendar item number four.

Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Ms. McClendon, is there any legislation, please?

Yes, ma'am. First reading, emergency resolution number 6942-26, determining that a petition to establish the city of Dayton citywide new community authority is sufficient and complies with the requirements of Ohio Revised Code section 349.03 in form and substance, setting the time and place for a public hearing on the petition. Authorizing notice by publication of such public hearing and declaring an emergency.

Being declared an emergency, I move for the immediate passage of resolution number 6942-26. Second the motion, Your Honor.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the emergency resolution number 6942-26. All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Any abstentions?

second reading emergency resolution number six nine four two dash two six determining that a petition to establish the city of dayton citywide new community authority is sufficient and complies with the requirements of ohio revised code section 349.03 inform and substance setting the time and place for a public hearing on the petition authorizing notice by publication of such public hearing and declaring an emergency. Mayor Turner-Sloss? Aye. Commissioners Joseph? Aye. Shaw?

Aye.

Fairchild?

Aye.

Beckham?

Aye.

Emergency resolution number 6942-26 has been adopted with five votes in favor. First reading emergency resolution number 6943-26, determining the sufficiency of a consent to add certain parcels of real property to the city of Dayton citywide new community authority district pursuant to Ohio revised code section 349.03b4, setting a date for a public hearing on such one or more consents as required by Ohio Revised Code Chapter 349 in declaring an emergency.

Being declared an emergency, I move for the immediate passage of Emergency Resolution 6943-26. Second the motion, Your Honor.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the Emergency Resolution 6943-26. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions?

All opposed?

All opposed? Any abstentions? All right. We're getting there. It's late.

Second reading, emergency resolution number 6943-26, determining the sufficiency of a consent to add certain parcels of real property to the city of Dayton, citywide new community authority, district pursuant to a higher revised code, SECTION 349.03 , SETTING A DATE FOR A PUBLIC HEARING ON SUCH ONE OR MORE CONSENTS AS REQUIRED BY OHIO REVISED CODE CHAPTER 349. MAYOR TURNER-SLOSS? AYE. COMMISSIONERS JOSEPH? AYE. SHAW?

AYE.

FAIRCHILD?

AYE.

BECKHAM?

AYE.

EMERGENCY RESOLUTION NUMBER 6943-26 HAS BEEN ADOPTED WITH FIVE VOTES IN FAVOR. SECOND READING ORDINANCE NUMBER 32195-26, AUTHORIZING THE SELL OF CERTAIN REAL ESTATE LOCATED AT 25 INDIANOLA AVENUE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PURPOSES. MAYOR TURNER-SLOSS. AYE. COMMISSIONER JOSEPH.

AYE.

SHAW.

AYE.

BEARCHILD. AYE. BECKHAM.

AYE.

ORDINANCE NUMBER 32195-26 HAS PASSED WITH FIVE VOTES IN FAVOR. SECOND READING ORDINANCE NUMBER 32196-26, AUTHORIZING THE SALE OF CERTAIN REAL ESTATE LOCATED AT THE CORNER OF MAIN STREET AND HELENA STREET FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PURPOSES. MAYOR TURNER-SLOSS. AYE. COMMISSIONER JOSEPH.

AYE.

SHAW. AYE. BEARCHILD.

AYE.

Beckham?

Aye.

Ordinance number 32196-26 has passed with five votes in favor. That concludes legislation, Your Honor.

I will now open the public hearing.

Ms. Dickstein? Yes, I'd like to call forward Tony Kroger with our planning division to lead the public hearing.

No, we don't need to do all that. I need to see the slide so I can present, but we don't need to go through this again. Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Tony Kroger, Planning Division Manager. I would like to present for a public hearing for some zoning code text amendments related to group home and foster care facilities. This case arrives to you through our plan board. It is a public hearing being held today for three zoning code text amendments. One relates to the creation of a maximum number of foster care facilities permitted in the city of Dayton citywide as opposed to land use board. And then there's two much smaller text amendments that are just more maintenance and clean up. This board, this body may recall that when in October of last year group home legislation was brought to you, you had certain suggestions in terms of limiting foster care facilities to a certain fair standard that the city has the capacity for. And that's what this is all about. So we have a long timeline of group home legislation now nearly two years long, including various moratoria, The aforementioned October 2025 group home legislation that this board ultimately approved at the suggestion that brings us here tonight, that there ought to be a citywide cap on the number of foster care facilities permitted citywide. This particular text amendment has been to our plan board at a public hearing, and they recommend approval. To take a step back about group home legislation in the city of Dayton in recent times, over the last two years, group home engagement and presentations have occurred extensively. Three plan board meetings, including a work session, three informational sessions with land use boards and neighborhood presidents, three sessions held with regional partners and jurisdictions led by MVRPC, Group homes have been discussed or voted on at five different Dayton City Commission meetings, including the aforementioned moratoria. Several meetings and discussions with group home providers, input from Miami Valley Fair Housing, as well as local media coverage at a number of those events. So like I said, in October 2025, Dayton City Commission adopted an ordinance related to group homes. That did a lot of things, and that still stays intact and relates to this text amendment, which is really refining the number of foster care facilities allowed in the city of Dayton. So just as a refresher, that group home legislation that was passed, and still is all under moratorium through October of this year, or I'm sorry, August 4th of this year, I believe, yeah. But that legislation set forth certain application requirements for establishing a group home. That no foster care facility shall be located in the same block as a public nuisance. That the zoning administrator shall conduct an inspection before occupancy occurs. It established the 1,000 foot separation between group homes. It established the number of foster care facilities permitted in each land use area. It said you get the maximum number is 12 in west, 12 in northwest, 12 in northeast, and then 12 in the downtown southeast area combined. getting us 48, right? And also that legislation, by the way, clarified and recognized the need to provide reasonable accommodation for protected classes under the Fair Housing Act, which of course every city is held to anyway, but that is going to be important moving forward. So when we talked about the group home legislation back in October of last year, I think the commission was right on when they said, if we're saying that the city of Dayton is bearing a disproportionate burden in handling foster care facilities, which we know is true. That's been demonstrated in the record extensively by now. Dayton has more foster care facilities per capita than anywhere in the state. Not the county, not the region, the state. We understand the need for foster care facilities, but we shouldn't have foster children from Cuyahoga County being sent to Montgomery County. And so this commission said, you know, if we think 48's the right number, then 48 should be the maximum citywide. Well, as we had it proposed to you, Yeah, you couldn't have more than 12 in areas that already had more than 12 foster care facilities, but the door was still wide open in northeast and southeast and downtown to continue to add dozens and dozens of foster care facilities in Dayton, which at that time certainly the state had no problem doing. And so I think the commission was astute in suggesting that if we believe 48 is the right number of foster care facilities to be in the city of Dayton, 48 should be the maximum. And let's remember where 48 came from. If there's 600 foster care children in Montgomery County, which is the most recent number, and you assume five foster care residents per unit, proportionally to the city's population to the rest of the county gets you to 48. So that's a reasonable burden for a city, right? Not carrying the burden for the rest of the state, perhaps. And so that's how we got to 48. And I think this commission was right in suggesting we should improve our legislation, and that's what we're doing. Again, in the record is all kinds of maps showing the concentration of these facilities, not just in the city of Dayton, but particularly in northwest and the west parts of the city. So right now, there are 21 foster care facilities in west, 37 in north central, but then there's four in northeast and zero in downtown or southeast. And so, you know, this commission pointed out saying, you're still leaving the door open in all these other parts of the city, and where do you think all these new facilities are going to go if they can't go in west or northwest? And I'm going to get back to that foster care component, but a couple other quick things. This text amount would delete a redundant definition for community residence foster care because the same definition already exists in the code elsewhere for group home, foster care. Similarly for community residence operator. That's code maintenance. Let's not get distracted by that. But back to the bigger picture here of what really was asked of staff and administration to bring to you. There's three standards both plan board and commission are to consider when thinking about zoning code tax amendment. The first one says, is it consistent with the intent and purpose of the zoning code? And so when I look at the intent and purpose of the zoning code, I see things that talk about compatibility between different land uses and protecting the scale and character of existing neighborhoods. And while maybe if one foster care facility might not be inherently incompatible, a certain saturation of such, including those with group homes, can certainly impact character. It impacts markets. It impacts neighborhoods. It impacts city resources. You know, the purpose of the code, facilitate development of land uses in a comprehensive and equitable way, equitable distribution, right? And in this case, I think it's not necessarily equity among areas of the city, it's equity between the city of Dayton and the rest of the state. Standard number two talks about areas that are most likely to be affected by such change. In this case, it really would be avoiding now an influx of new foster care facilities in Northeast and Southeast. And standard number three says, and this is the final one, says, you know, when you're considering a zoning code text amendment, are you doing so because of changing conditions? What's changed? What's caused this? I think what's really changed is we've, well, continued, leading up to this, continued saturation of group homes in the city of Dayton. But also, you know, staff and city leadership understanding the call on resources that such a concentration of group homes, group homes of all types, have on a city such as the city of Dayton. And so, planning along with our partners and the city manager's office, city commission office, certainly Department of Police, Department of Fire, all are saying we have to be mindful of the call on resources, the disproportionate burden that we're carrying. So tonight is not the final vote for this zone and code text amendment, but ultimately when such occurs, you will of course have your typical alternatives to approve the ordinance, to remand it back to plan board, or to deny by taking new actions. I think we are bringing you what you asked for, so we hope it's the first of those three options. That's all I have for you. Any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them. If not, we can move on.

Thank you, Mr. Kroger. Commissioners, do you have any comments, questions on the public hearing this evening? Commissioner Beckham.

Thank you, Your Honor. None at this time. Thank you, Mr. Kroger. Next.

Thank you. Commissioner Fairchild.

I just want to reiterate, I know in the last conversation it was really important to balance State law that guides these homes, fair housing, and I forget the third, but there was kind of three prongs. And it was kind of a delicate balance. Have we hit that?

I think so. I mean, at the core of it, foster care is not a protected class. A lot of the question is whether the 1,000-foot separation threads the needle between a reasonable regulation. We think 1,000 is reasonable in terms of preventing saturation of all types of group homes, right? So we're not capping the number of sober living facilities because we can't. It's a protected class. But we think $1,000 is reasonable, and our Department of Law feels that could stand a test. Thank you.

Commissioner Shaw.

I'm good.

Thank you. Commissioner Joseph.

I just want to add my thanks, Mr. Kroger, to the responsiveness to this. I think this is a good solution, and I appreciate, actually, Commissioner Fairchild for the suggestion. Excellent solution. That's all, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kroger, to you and your staff. We really appreciate it, and thank you for bringing it back before us.

Sure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. I will now close the public hearing.

Point of order. Were there any citizens who wanted to speak?

There are no citizens registered to speak.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Ms. McClendon. So what is the pleasure of the commission? Move forward. Thank you. legislation, Ms. McClendon?

First reading ordinance number 32197-26, amending and repealing various sections of the revised code of general ordinances relating to the zoning code and declaring an emergency.

You're on ordinance number 32197-26 being declared an emergency. I move for its immediate passage. Second. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve ordinance number 32197-26. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no. Any abstentions? That concludes legislation, Your Honor. Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Ms. McClendon, are there any citizens who are registered to speak this evening?

Yes, Your Honor. There are 13 citizens registered to speak. I would like to state there is a three-minute time limit. As you address the commission, we ask that you state your name and address for the record. At that time, I will turn on the green light. When the green light comes on, you will have three minutes to speak. After you have spoken two and a half minutes, yellow light will come on. You will have 30 seconds remaining to speak. When the red light comes on, you will be asked to cease your comments and to take your seat. To the audience in attendance, please be mindful this is a business meeting and we kindly request that during this portion of the meeting, you refrain from any hand clapping, finger snapping, and conversation that would prevent the city commission from hearing the speaker's comments. I call to the podium, Noah McAllister. Thank you. Alec Johnson.

Greetings, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Alec Johnson, and I live on Linden Avenue just south of Dayton's Eastern Hills. Elon Musk, former head of the government wrecking ball known as Doge, is in the news having become the first human being worth $1 trillion. While appalling, it underscores the transformation of capitalism into what can be best described as financial fascism. As for the rest of us citizens, we are subjected to a socio-economic system in which meeting our needs depends on mechanisms that thrive on their suppression. I repeat, we are subjected to a socio-economic system in which meeting our needs depends on mechanisms that thrive on their suppression. The socio-economic system is capitalism and the mechanisms that thrive on suppressing our needs are features of what is collectively known as austerity. In 2022, Clara Matai made history with the release of her first book, The Capital Order, how economists invented austerity and paved the way for fascism. Its many revelations include that World War I obscured both the largest capitalist crisis of the 20th century and a fascinating history of class struggle very relevant for us today. That laissez-faire capitalism was incapable of satisfying the economic demands of World War I, Crossing a formerly inviolable line, state governments took over major industries. This re-politicized the formerly naturalized capitalist class relations. Responding to this historic moment, Europe's working class began to seriously shake the foundations of capitalism. A group of financial technocrats succeeded in helping capitalism survive this crisis by promoting pure economics, and from this theory went on to create a set of policies collectively understood by the term austerity. Austerity, Clara Matai writes, is a political project arising out of the need to preserve capitalist class relations of domination. It is the outcome of collective action to foreclose any alternatives to capitalism. It can thus be subverted through collective counteraction. The study of its logic and purpose is the first step in that direction. With so much important civic activism underway, introducing a discussion of austerity might seem to compete with anti-war and working class-led liberation efforts championed by the GDPC, DSL, PSA, and others. This is not the case. The dialogue I hope to spark will open a new front that's already adjacent to and paralleling those efforts while enlarging the gaining ground working class and oppressed people will increasingly find themselves on. Understanding austerity is step one in undermining its ability to confound liberation struggles as it has done for more than the last half a century. To oppose austerity is to champion authentic democracy with enlarged consciousness and deeper understanding. In closing, let me point out that New York City, under Democratic Socialist Mayor Mamdani, completed a budget that was a historic departure from austerity. New York City doesn't have a monopoly on DSA-aligned mayors. With the assent of Mayor Shanice Turner-Sloss, those voices opposed to the tyranny austerity imposes have much to hope for from the civic engagement that will follow on this subject. Mayor and council members along with the public are warmly invited to join our first dialogue on July 11th at 2 p.m. in conference room 1B at the Dayton Metro Library's main branch on 3rd Street. The second session is scheduled for July 18th at the same time library and conference room 3A. Everyone's invited. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I call to the podium Christopher Lockett.

Christopher Lockett, 309 East Bruce, Dayton, Ohio, 45406. It's been a very powerful meeting today. I learned a lot. I was very enlightened. I feel empowered because of the enlightenment. A great evening to you all, Mayor, Commissioners. I love you. So I know that hearts are still heavy in the community. Mine is too. Emotions running high. You can feel the energy. It's hard to celebrate the wins when people feel like they steady losing. So yeah, we over 100 days with no gun violence in our area, the North Riverdale area of Dayton. But people are still suffering from gun violence across the city. So I got mixed emotions about everything. But again, I'm coming here because I believe in this staff, this council, that y'all building with the right community leaders and that we can get it done. I just want to encourage the people that understand that it's a process. It's just a process. And sometimes when you're going through the process, you go through these ups and downs emotionally, physically, mentally, even spiritually. You know, I'm a survivor of struggle. You know what I mean? So I know what it feels like to go through the storm. And you can focus. We got a choice. We can focus on all the darkness around us, or we can focus on that little bit of light that we see at the end of the tunnel. I just want to encourage the people in the community that, you know, with this council working with community leaders like Felons with a Future, the Orange Men, Brave, We Build in Resilience Against Violent Encounters, Official Network and Chill. Fudge Foundation. These programs by us partnering with this council, I believe that we can make the change and see the change that we're looking to accomplish in Dayton. So I encourage all my people in the community to just stay in the fight. Stay in the fight. Yes, hold these councilmen Hold them accountable, but make sure that you're holding yourself accountable and making sure that you're doing everything in your power and your household, your neighborhood, your community to be the best that you can be and put your best foot forward. And that'll help out. Gotta remember Dayton is a, Dayton has been innovative to the world through aviation, music, art, technology, And we're going to be an innovation for reducing gun violence as well. I believe in that. So power to the people and power to you all. And shout out, I didn't get to publicly shout out and give congratulations to the police chief for his new position when I came down a couple weeks ago. But shout out to him. I heard he went the metal down. I won't hold that against him.

Thank you, Mr. Lockett. Thank you. I call to the podium Ebony Hastings.

Ebony Hastings, 1, 2, 3, 8. Wabash, I have a no. Last week I spoke on the budget review and submitted written comments. I stand by that record. Four out of five shootings with injuries in the city last year happened in West and Northwest Dayton, the same neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s, the same neighborhoods that lost 15,000 jobs when NCR left. The geography of disinvestment and the geography of violence are the same map. This is not coincidence. That is a policy choice made over decades, and it can be unmade the same way. Scale up Cure Violence. Chicago cut killings by 52%. New York cut shootings by 63%. Every dollar invested saves $41. Fund four to five sites in the next budget cycle. One pilot is not strategy. It is a photo op. Restore the priority boards. In 2014, the commission voted 4 to 1 to consolidate them. Commissioner Lovelace dissented and warned that citizen engagement is the lifeblood of democracy.

He was right.

Your own community engagement manager admitted last month he hears from the same 1,000 people out of 140,000 residents. The Citizens Assembly stumbled on this statement. ON THIS FIRST TOPIC AND HAS BEEN PAUSED, WEST DAYTON NEEDS A PERMANENT ELECTED GEOGRAPHIC VOICE IN THIS BUILDING, NOT AN APPOINTED BOARD, NOT A LOTTERY. RE-ESTABLISH THE PRIORITY BOARDS, FUND THEM, GIVE THEM REAL ADVISORY POWER OVER CDBG DEMOLITIONS AND EVERY INCENTIVE DEAL IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD. Our housing, demolish the grade 5 properties, give Dayton residents first right of purchase on grade 3 and 4 homes. $1 acquisition, forgivable rehab loans up to $75,000. Five-year owner occupancy deed restrictions, build resident wealth, not investor portfolios. Because embedded mental health counselors in West Dayton rec centers and Dayton public schools during the 4 to 10 p.m. window is exactly what the research says works. The evidence is clear. The map is clear. The choice is yours. Dayton has been consistent since 1913 of racism, of anti-black agendas, even with black mayors and commissioners being voted into office. The city manager influences the presentations. Trust is lost in buckets, gained in drops. I am appalled that addicts are a protected class and not our foster children. Thank you, Ms. Hastings.

I call to the podium Sully Wilson, Jr.

All right.

My name is Sully Wilson. I live at 1721 Manor Place, Dayton, Ohio, 45406.

Is it okay if I read this for him?

Okay.

All right, please. Thank you. The reason I founded Blind But Not Broken is not on a whim. I became blind four years ago due to a medical event following COVID related vaccination complication that changed the entire course of my life. The experience did not stop me. It pushed me into advocacy. As an advocate and community leader here in Dayton, Ohio, I have been committed to day to day street level support for individuals who are often overlooked. Blind But Not Broken was created to serve those in need, those who are struggling, those who are rebuilding, and those who are trying to regain independence. We are not about handouts.

We're about hand-ups.

We are about helping people stabilize their lives, regain confidence, and move towards independence, dignity, and purpose. Recently, Blind But Not Broken joined forces with Lucky Resource Center to form a United Disability Alliance collaboration. Together, we are working to bring resources, advocacy, and direct support to individuals with disabilities, those experiencing homelessness, and those re-entering society after incarceration. Our goal is simple, to bring everyone to the table. My morals and values are rooted in independence, love, faith, God, and family. I believe that when we remove division and political barriers, we can actually begin to solve real problems in our communities. This work is not about politics. It is about people. Where there is a need in our community, there must also be a response. We cannot do this work alone. We are asking this committee, along with partners outside our community, to stand with us and support this cause. Together, we can help people live, thrive, and strive. And finally, I must speak on something deeply personal. As someone with a felony background, I face repeated barriers, even while trying to secure something as essential as a guide dog. I have been denied access time and time again because of my record. But a felony does not erase humanity. It does not erase need, and it should not erase opportunity. I'm asking this community and this commission to partner with us to break down these barriers so that people like me, people who are working hard to rebuild their lives, can access the tools and support necessary to live independently. Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your commitment to this community.

Thank you, Ms. Luckey. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

Thank you. Stephanie Luckey?

I know you need to tell them.

Hello, I'm Stephanie Lucky. Address is 1031 Bethune Circle, Madden Hills neighborhood. Good evening, commissioners and mayor. I want to thank you all for appointing me to the HRC board. Congratulations.

I really like it so far.

I am a proud Jim City gym mother. a daughter of Dayton, an entrepreneur, and a community advocate. I'm not here today as a Democrat or Republican, but just a person today. I went to Melissa Best Daycare on the same street where the Boys and Girls Club is being renovated, still serving our youth. I believe our neighborhoods deserve more than survival. Before people see my heart, they often see labels. On paper, I'm a melanated woman, and I'm a person that struggled with learning disabilities in school. I also have a felony in my past. But those words don't tell you who I am. They don't tell you about the doors that close before I could even knock. They don't tell you what it feels like to fight for opportunities while carrying individual invisible barriers every day. People talk about social determinants of health, but in real life it's simple. Can you find safe housing, transportation, food, healthcare, and a job that sees your value behind your past? And when you are black, when you live with a disability, when you have a record, those barriers just don't add up.

They multiply.

I'm not here for pity. I'm here to be seen. And I'm here because I believe in hope. I believe that hope shows up through second chances, through community, through people willing to rebuild together. And that's why I support the Renew Miami Chapel Plan, not just as a development, but as a restoration, restoring opportunities, dignity, and trust in our communities, not just projects. When people in our community, in my community, think about projects, they think of DeSoto Bass, they think of Residence Park, they think of Arlington Courts. They don't think about Phoenix projects or things that they know nothing about. They're not in the rooms for these plans. So real renewal doesn't start in plans. It starts on the block. It starts at home. It starts in churches. So I'm asking us to think differently about access. If we are investing in our youth, in our recreation, then every child should have real access, not just to programs, but to possibility, whether it's bikes, Golf clubs, sports, trades, or technology opportunities should not depend on income or zip code. I know that the Omega CDC has plans that's been going on for 20 years, and I feel like that all of our churches need to rise even higher, opening their doors beyond Sunday to become safe spaces for mentoring, recreation, workforce training, and neighborhood healing. Thank you. Commissioners and mayor, invest in the people already doing the work on the ground. Partner with grassroots leaders who are inside these communities every day. Because when one home is strengthened, a block changes, and when a block changes, a neighborhood rises. So I leave this with you today. Don't just fund projects, fund people. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lucking. I call to the podium Mary Suga Miner.

Mary Sue Geminer, 1418 Arbor Avenue. Good evening. Good evening. In May, I came before you expressing concern at the silence between October of 2025 and April of 2026 about what was presented as a breach of security of the automated license plate readers, the flock cameras. Now that some of the audit logs are being released, we see that even the press conference on May 1st was a little misleading. While there did appear to be an increase in immigration-related queries in the summer of 2025, actual access nationally goes back to the very beginning of the camera's use. There are some entries from 2023 and 2024 in what has been released so far. A quote from the 2023 surveillance technology report. An internal audit found no violations of the automatic license plate reader policy regarding training, data collection, data access, data protection, data retention, or public access to the system. The exact same wording is found in the 2024 report. They could not have looked at the data access in any kind of internal audit and written those words. They either lied about what they knew was happening or they lied about conducting an audit. And when I say they, I mean the entire chain of command from the officers doing the work to the majors, the deputy chief, the chief, the deputy city manager, and the city manager. This is not entirely the fault of one major. As the city manager herself noted in the May 1st press conference, these are, quote, egregious violations of policy. I hope your investigators will uncover the truth. And I hope you will have the courage to hold all those responsible to account. This also makes me wonder what kind of auditing is done within the Dayton Police Department in general. When the Professional Standards Bureau is asked to look at a situation, are they thorough? Are they accurate? Or do they lie? Speaking of the PSB, how is the Reginald Thomas investigation going? We haven't heard anything. I'm sure it's not complete, it's not been that long, but it would be nice to know that someone is really working on it. And I will also repeat my question from several meetings ago. Is the Independent Accountability Auditor investigating the killing of Reginald Thomas? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Mary Sue. I call to the podium Talis Gage.

First thing I want to say is she is terrible.

Second thing I want to say is she's You're terrible, too. Joseph, you're terrible, too. Mary's good to see you. Fairchild's good to see you. Beckham, good to see you, too. We need more rec centers. I said that thousands and thousands of times again. We went from eight to now three. We need to work on the youth. We need to work on the young people. We need to just be more focused on the youth, more focused on the youth. Anything. I mean, I know you tell me about programs we have, man, but when I was growing up, I could just go to the rec center or the YMCA or the Boys and Girls Club. Not just the Boys and Girls Club. And I could go when I felt like it. At six in the morning with the old heads. Or I could go in the afternoon with the youngsters around my age or younger. You know what I'm saying? But I could go when I felt like it. Like I said, they got weight rooms, water aerobics, all these different things. We need to get on that, man. That's serious. And like I said before, Dayton's so small, it ain't like Cleveland, what I'm used to. So this could be a city, a great model for what other cities could copy off of and utilize themselves. And we could get it right. And Shaw, I don't care about none of that. I don't even want to finish talking to y'all because y'all make me sick.

Thank you, Mr. Gage.

I call to the podium Sharon Screech.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Sharon Screech. I live at 515 West Grand Avenue. I WOULD FIRST LIKE TO ADDRESS THE COMMISSION ABOUT THE MAYOR'S FLIGHT PLAN, THE APPLICATION. IT'S RIDICULOUS. IT ASKS FOR MY EDUCATION, IT WANTED ME TO UPLOAD A RESUME. WHAT DO WE NEED THAT FOR? IF I'M A RESIDENT OF THIS COMMUNITY, WE HAVE TO LOOK AT EVERYONE. A SENIOR THAT'S RETIRED IS NOT UPLOADING NO RESUME. We have, that has to be gone. It should be, you should have just a willingness to serve your community. I felt like I was applying for the city of Dayton. The way this commission is going, I would never want a job here. And my son works for the city right now. I advised him today to quit and find him something else to do. Because this is, I would never want to work for this body. Ever. Mr. Shaw, you're behavior today was terrible. It was terrible. For the mayor to say this, for you to rush to emergency, to do something on an emergency, that was never an emergency. This NCA should have never been an emergency. That Dayton Convention Center has been here forever. I will be 54 in a couple of weeks. It's been around my whole entire life. Downtown Dayton is not a priority. It never has been. I don't even know what they redid the arcade for. It looks nothing like it did when I was growing up. Ain't nothing in there. I just went in there over the weekend. There's nothing in there. What is in there for us to look at? Get rid of the building. We keep putting money in this downtown, and I don't care what you say about this NCA. I don't care what you say about it. It all comes back to downtown. They say in the next few years we're going to spend a billion dollars downtown. All this housing. Who's going to pay for the housing? I'm trying to figure out who can pay $1,400, $1,500, $1,600 worth of rent. Oh yeah, I know. The city manager can with her $300,000. I am tired of it. I am tired of this commission. We have... felt disenfranchised, not listened to. Y'all went ahead and approved this NCA. Ain't thought about nothing, nothing being said in here today. It's not a good idea at all. I don't see. We haven't even managed the funds we already have to these communities. What is the NCA going to do? It's going to show up right downtown. All that development is going to show up right back down here, especially if we keep her as a city manager. And we have a good day.

Thank you, Ms. Greach. I call to the podium Mrs. Carmela Ickpot.

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Mrs. Carmela Yigpat, residing at 150 North Ward Avenue here in Dayton. This is a special message concerning the logic of love. Quote, history is calling for reconciliation, compassion, love, service, and sacrifice. Today's problems cannot be solved by the logic of power. but only by the logic of love. These are words from Dr. Mrs. Haksha Hamun. She is the co-founder of the Heavenly Parents' Holy Community and actually many other organizations. This message reminds us that many of the world's deepest problems, such as war, division, hatred, loneliness, broken families, and social conflicts cannot be permanently solved through force, wealth, authority, or political power alone. The, quote, logic of power, unquote, seeks to win over others. It often asks, who is stronger? Who is right? Who has more influence? How can we control the situation? On the other hand, the, quote, logic of love, unquote, asks different questions. How can we heal? How can we understand one another? How can we serve? How can we restore relationships? Throughout history, lasting peace has never come merely from victory over an enemy. Lasting peace comes when hearts change, when forgiveness replaces resentment, and when people learn to live for the sake of others. Reconciliation means choosing to build bridges where walls once stood. Compassion means feeling another person's pain as if it were our own. Love means giving without expecting anything in return. Service means using our talents and resources to uplift others. Sacrifice means placing a greater purpose above personal comfort. The future that Heavenly Parent, meaning God, desires is not a world where one group dominates another, but a world where all people recognize one another as members of one human family. Real change begins not in governments or institutions, but in individuals' hearts. When one person chooses love over anger, understanding over judgment, and service over selfishness, the world becomes a little closer to the ideal dream. Oh, okay. Thank you. All right, I was almost finished, but anyway, I'm very grateful. Thank you so very much. Let us love one another.

Thank you, ma'am. I call to the podium Zakiya Sankara-Jabbar.

Zakiya Sankara-Jabbar, 2426 Jerome. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I want to first by saying, in the name of Allah, the Beneficent and the Merciful, I give condolences to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the loss of his wife, Khadija Farrakhan, the mother of the nation, and a black woman of such honor and grace that represented black people internationally very well. And that's a good segue into my comments here today. Because we have to have a moral conversation at this point. You all have heard everything. You didn't receive the emails. You've read all the petitions. And it's become apparent that there is a lot of power IN THIS PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL RIGHT HERE THAT SITS IN THE CITY MANAGER'S SEAT, THE CITY MANAGER, MS. DIXTEEN, OKAY? AND THERE'S SOME QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ASKED. BECAUSE THE COMMUNITY, FOR YEARS, HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING AT THIS PODIUM, AND THIS ENTIRE COMMISSION, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MR. FAIRCHILD, FOR THE MOST PART, HAS TURNED A DEAF EAR TO THEM. People have done everything in their legal power, in their mental power to get you all to move, to have the courage to do what's necessary. I've got some questions for the city manager because see, I need to know what happened to you. I need to know why you have a heart of coal. Because it does not seem you have a beating heart. in your body, a humane heart. Because it's been the policies and practices of this institution, of this body, that has caused the death of too many Daytonians, particularly black people, particularly black men. The violence that we see in our community is a direct result of redlining, disinvestment in particular communities. The entire city of Dayton is feeling it. Yes, Eastside is feeling it. Everybody is feeling it. But in particular, when I see a picture of the ATF full of working age black men, that has been arrested because they've been forced into an underground economy. The last time I was here, I told this commission that I didn't see any black men on any of the jobs that y'all got out here. All this money y'all spending, the taxpayers money, where 38% of the people are blackness paying taxes in this damn city, okay? And y'all spending it on everybody but them. This is a crime against humanity. You have allowed one person to allow crimes against humanity and I need to know who's protecting her. Who got the power to protect her? Is this a sovereign country? Is it a sovereign country?

Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Javar.

You will not get to retire and go off into the sunset. God is still on the throne, baby.

Your time is up. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Javar. Call to the podium Kenya Akbar. I believe she left. Kimaru Watinza. I believe he left as well.

That concludes speakers, Your Honor. Thank you, Ms. McClendon.

Ms. Dixteen, do you have any closing comments this evening? I have one closing comment. It's a correction, Mayor. The curfew is effective for anyone under 18. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I wanted to make sure that I noted that. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Ms. McClendon, do you have any closing comments?

Yes, Your Honor. City of Dayton offices will be closed on Friday, July 3rd in observance of Independence Day.

Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Commissioners, do you have any closing comments? Commissioner Beckham.

Yes, John. I just want to thank Mr. Calvin Wynn for organizing the peace rally in March that occurred Saturday afternoon. The mayor was there and joined that walk as well. It went well and I just encourage the rest of our community to keep stepping up and taking ownership of our neighborhoods to do the very, very needed work of reducing violence across our city. As I always say, it's going to take all of us. So I just want to thank him for organizing and look forward to more efforts from him and his partners. So thanks. Those are my comments.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yes, it's been a long time since Mr. Marcellus was up presenting, but I will remind people that on Friday there's many opportunities to come out and observe the Fourth of July, including the street fair at Riverscape from 11.30 to 4 p.m., the parade at noon, and then the fireworks at 10 at Kettering Field. So invite people to come out for all those opportunities. And I have selected my book for the mini-read. And it will be The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. And it's a small book, but reflecting on the Declaration of Independence. So my habit every year is to read one of the founding documents, and I think this book will be a good companion. I invite other people to join me. And I want to thank Debbie Chess and then Ben Murphy, a collection specialist. at the Dayton Metro Library who helped identify the book. And then there's another book I'm interested in. In August, I'll be reading To Love a Country by Dominic Erdorzain. And then in September, one of the books that Mr. Murphy identified has a title, Obstinate Daughters. Don't read too much into that. The subtitle of that is The Rebels, Riders, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution. So that's my September reading. And I invite you to join me in the mini-read and wish everyone a meaningful observance of the Fourth of July.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Shaw.

Thank you for that. The West Dayton Branch Library will be hosting a digital literacy basics program for anyone looking to build confidence using computers, smartphones, and the internet. Join them on Thursday, July 10 from 4 to 5 in the West Dayton Branch Library's tech room. This program is free and no prior computer experience is required. That's all I have.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Joseph.

I just want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. That's all I have, Mayor.

Thank you. I'll be very brief. I want to thank all of the staff members that presented this evening, Mr. Dongle, as well as Mr. Cole, and Mr. Marcellus, Mr. Bridge, thank you as well for being here, Mr. Jotas, the entire NCA committee that was here this evening. I appreciate everyone who stayed this evening. I know this was a pretty lengthy meeting. I appreciate everyone's comments, their questions. As noted, I'll be happy to have additional conversations. Thank you, Ms. Hastings, for your comments, how you reply. You sent me an eight-page email, so I am taking my time to make sure that I thoroughly address the email, but duly note that we're all on the same page in terms of making sure that we are funding the CVG program, the Cure Violence Initiative. And so we're having some internal conversations as to how in fact, and where in fact, I should say, those dollars are going to come from being the number of challenges that we're having. And again, it's not isolated to the city of Dayton. Some areas are doing better than others, but again, these are conversations that we're having. And then with that being said, I will happily have a conversation. As much as I know about the NCA, I do believe that is a tool. It is not the silver bullet, so to speak. It's not going to be the end-all, be-all. But it's an opportunity for us to review when you look at comparison, other municipalities, other areas who have been successful with this model. It's an opportunity for us to review it. Duly note that there is, in fact, a public hearing that is scheduled for July 29, from my understanding, at 6 PM in the chambers. So it may be a good opportunity to learn more Again, I'll be happy for whatever it is that I know, which I know very little outside of doing a deep dive from what has been provided to us. I'll be happy to have those conversations offline as well. So thank you. And then in terms of the audit. The audit, in fact, for the under $50,000, from my understanding, that information is, in fact, on the website. But I'll be happy to direct you to that information. Again, there was no cost to that legislation that was noted, calendar item number nine. Mr. Kittredge, I appreciate you being here for his comments. And again, the goal is, and I'm So happy and thankful for my colleagues and your leadership and your commitment to make sure that we're looking at the pilot to expand it from East 3rd Street, Kiwi, on to West 3rd Street so that we can, in fact, make sure that there's equitable development and really see, to your point, to Ms. Creech's point, does this really work? Is it advantageous? Is it fruitful? Are we going to see the development that we all desperately want to see here? in our corridors, in our neighborhoods throughout the city of Dayton overall. Mr. Forbes, thank you for being here. Mr. Johnson, it's good seeing you. Thank you for being here. I need to get that information from you. You mentioned July the 11th at 2 p.m. I want to know, too, and I'll speak with you after the meeting, but if you can pass that information to us as well, that would be extremely helpful. There is a group of community leaders Coalition members who are, in fact, leading some efforts with some, if you will, stop the violence peace campaigns. And it is in collaboration with We All We Have Foundation with Mr. Calvin Wynn, who, as mentioned from Commissioner Beckham, he coordinated well-attended march, peace march, stop the violence march in the southern Dayton View neighborhood. Again, it was well-attended. So we really, truly appreciate everyone that came out and thank him for his leadership for being there as well. But also note that on July the 11th at the Restoration Church, there is, again, the Stop the Violence, a march or a day of hope, I believe. And that is from 1 to 4 p.m., 904 Verona, Verona. Vernon Avenue, excuse me. Getting Southern Day and View and Residence Park mixed up. But more information about that is to come. And Mr. Wilson, appreciate your comments and your advocacy. Duly note, and I understand that Mr. Wilson and Ms. Lucky had a meeting today with Mr. Davis and provided some additional assistance and support. in terms of linking and collaborating with his efforts with the Access Center as well as the Entrepreneurial Center. So any further support that we can provide with that, making that connection, we're happy to do so. So thank you, Mr. Davis, for attending that meeting and to making that connection. Ms. Lucky, again, thank you for your comments and your advocacy for Miami. chapel in the planning district or the plan for that neighborhood. Ms. Gminer, thank you for raising your concerns before us. And again, as noted, the audit has already been released, or I should say the first half of the audit. There's more work that needs to be done. And again, note that I am in favor of a full investigation so we can find out all of the particulars of who, what, when, and how. So more to come on that in conversations will be had. Mr. Gabe, Thomas Gabe, appreciate your comments. And I want to note, too, that I think there is... There's a level of awareness and education that we need to do a better job with as well as the organization overall because there are a number of programs that are available. How many of you have, and it's a rhetorical question, how many of you all know that the YMCA is actually offering free programming as well as membership for any teen in the city of Dayton? So the YMCA is offering programs. There are a number of programs through the Dayton Recreation Center that is available. And so, again, we do know that there is work that needs to be done in terms of the recreation centers that are available in the city of Dayton going from 8 to 3. But there are avenues. The Boys and Girls Club hopefully soon will be online. knowing that they are under construction. And then there's work that are being done from Sunlight Village, the work that's being done there. The Fudge Foundation, they're doing some great work in Miami Chapel neighborhood as well. So there is work that is ongoing, but more work needs to be done. I'm not negating that by one bit. Ms. Screech, again, thank you for your comments. Note that the call for the resume is, in fact, optional. But it is also a tool for us to use to align your skill set and whatever expertise that you may have so that we can utilize those expertise for the various different committees that you may serve on. So again, it is not a deal breaker. It is, in fact, optional for individuals to upload their resumes to the application itself. And then again, as mentioned, more information about the NCA. I'll be happy to share that information. Ms. Camilla, thank you for your comments. Ms. Kira Jabbar, thank you for your comments. And thank you for noting the passing of the Honorable Farrakhan and the passing of his wife. I thank you for uplifting that and appreciate your concerns. And I'll be happy to answer any additional questions that you may have offline. So with no further business, come before the commission. This meeting is now adjourned.