City Commission - Regular Meeting

That was it. I still, when I'm impatient, like waiting in line, I still bounce back like you did. Well, I still do.

And if you do a run, he'll tackle you.

If you do a run, he'll tackle you.

It's the weirdest. I want a video of that. That's so funny. Well, yeah, who wouldn't? I think yours might be now. It is, yeah. Six o'clock, I'm going to call this meeting to order. If everyone could please stand and join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

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, first on the agenda is the approval of this evening's agenda. Commissioners, is there anything we'd like to add or take away from this evening's agenda? Okay, hearing nothing, I will move on to public comment. Is there anyone joining us this evening that would like to make public comment to something that's not on this evening's agenda? If no, yeah. If you would like to do that, now is the time to come forward, please.

Good evening, everybody, staff, ladies and gentlemen of the commission, chief, mayor. My name is Judith Baxter. I live on Hall Street. And I'm making a comment on a non-agenda item, and that is the scheduling of a vote on the Waterfront II concept plan today. The agenda came out on Wednesday before the Fourth of July holiday, which gave most citizens essentially today to review the agenda item, to review the packet, and come here and attend the meeting. very very short notice on an important agenda item in addition to which the last mailing i got on this agenda item was a postcard from the city regarding public interactions and open houses on this project april may and june so that's essentially 90 days for public comment on this project and i simply think it's unfair to the citizens to not give them any time to comment to digest the proposal, to look at the agenda packet in one day after a federal holiday. And most people I think missed the agenda item going away on a very important holiday. So I'm going to ask the commission here to consider postponing any vote on that agenda item for one month to a month in August to give the public a chance to look at this concept plan or to look at the proposed concept plan. Any give any more feedback to its commissioners if they see fit. and give the public a chance to digest that information in the proposal. I do want to take time to thank Mr. Melville, who was very kind and patient with me when I saw this on the agenda item to call. And he gave me an outline and a little background on the project and what's being involved here. And I'll save those comments for public comment on the agenda item. But I do want to say that I think the short notice votes without ensuring that the public has a chance to review the material, absorb the material, have some comment on the material is unfair to the citizens. And it doesn't reflect, I know what the city is trying to do here and intends to do here for the good of the city. And it's just simply not fair to the citizens. So I ask the court to consider moving this just one month, a couple of weeks. That means this has been in the public eye for 120 days at most from April, May, and June when they had those public meetings to another meeting to observe the material. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else care to make public comment to something not on the agenda? No? Okay. Then at this time I will close public comment and bring it up here to the report of mayor and city commissioners, including committee liaison reports. And I will start with Commissioner Burgett. Do you have anything?

All I've got parks and rec met, but we'll be talking about it later. So I'll save all updates for item 11.

Perfect. Thank you.

Same thing with the finance committee we just met. So we have two agenda items we'll discuss at that time, but I also want to say happy 4th of July, everybody.

Wonderful. Thank you.

I Don't have anything this evening I'll just say the u.s. Men's national team plays tonight at 8 o'clock They do So go USA

i have nothing to add other than we got super lucky with the weather this past weekend and i just want to thank city staff and all volunteers that made saturday such a special day and the rain held off the weather just worked out great and it was just a beautiful day and i hope everyone had a great time and a safe happy holiday and welcome back and thanks for everything again with the city staff go ahead okay uh just a couple quick things um as known before uh thank you to

All the volunteers, the city staff, public works were getting everything set up for public safety, for managing what is a very large event. The Parks and Rec team just does an amazing job. People sometimes don't realize how long they're here that day. We had Parks and Rec staff here starting at 6 and not until after everybody left town, well, after, I don't know what time, the last X you sent me, Saturday night, but... And giving up time with their own families to make sure that our event is... Yeah, so just an amazing job. And then lastly, a special shout-out to City Clerk Lori Parmenter. She helped coordinate the Trailblazer run on Saturday and was here bright, bright, bright and early on... It was supposed to be a holiday for her, so I absolutely just want to acknowledge the Trailblazer, which was a fundraiser for the foundation, 380-ish runners, I think it was. All right.

376.

376. I said ish. But just a great event. So that is all.

Great. And also to add, Laurie was here coordinating that on not only a holiday, but her anniversary. So happy anniversary.

Thank you. Sure.

Okay, that being said, we'll move on to the regular agenda items. First on the agenda is to consider electing a president to serve in the absence of the mayor for fiscal year 2026-27. And that introduction is by Manager Charles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Wrong meeting. I was going to say Madam Chair. Both. Pursuant to city charter, the first meeting in July, commission elects a president to serve in the mayor's. absence for city commission meetings. So it's that time of year.

Wonderful. Okay, great. And I want to say Commissioner Swartz has filled that role. Thank you so much for the last two years, right? Two years? So thank you for all you've done. So yeah, we can open up discussion or nominations or motions.

I will nominate Commissioner Burdick.

Do we have a second for that?

Second.

Wonderful. Okay.

Thank you.

Mr. Burdick, is that something you're interested in taking on?

I can step in and take the role, hopefully never to have to do it in any absence that isn't scheduled.

Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for the nomination. And thank you for volunteering to do that. We appreciate it. Any further discussion or comments? Okay, great. Then we can go to a vote. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Yes. Any objections? Okay. That motion carries. And again, thank you, Commissioner Swartz, for your past service. And thank you, Commissioner Burdick. Great. Next on the agenda, we have to consider the mayor's recommendation for the board and commission appointments.

that introduction again by manager charles thank you madam mayor the uh before your list of uh appointments to parks and rec planning commission zoning board of appeals border review um and the library commission um not a lot of applications this year so um discussing with the mayor she's recommending the following um appointments as laid on the memo so just you know We need a motion to approve the recommended appointments from the mayor. I move to approve the recommended appointments.

We have a second. Wonderful. Any conversation?

I say thank you to everybody who's applied and has been serving and volunteered to continue to serve.

Takes a lot of time and it's appreciated I was gonna second that as being on serving with them on Parks and Rec Lan and Larry Fisher couldn't be happier to have them coming back and then border review Merrilee is a treasure So I'm very happy that she's sticking around and I'm looking forward to meeting Zach.

Yeah, great. Wonderful Okay, so all those in favor say yes. Yes any opposed? All right motion carries Next on the agenda, we have to consider the purchase of winter maintenance road salt through Kent County Road Commission, contract number 2650 for fiscal year 2627, and authorize the deputy city manager of public works to authorize success two one-year renewals in accordance with KCRC within approved budgets or approved amended budgeted amounts currently at 7.41 per ton for fiscal year 2627. That introduction is by deputy city manager, Mr. Lefebvre.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and city commissioners. Everyone's exciting item for this evening is we're thinking about Christmas or winter in July. So we are preparing for the seasonality of our public works operations. As is noted in the memorandum, we partnered this year with 12 local units of government or government agencies. I say that because Grand Valley State University is a partner to this collaborative effort as well. We've put in all of our salt quantities together and the KCRC handles the main contract with piggybacks allowed as part of that. So our total regional share with tonnage of road salt for this coming winter is estimated to be 64,100 tons. East Grand Rapids portion of that is 1,200 tons. And as I laid out in the memorandum, just to give a little background, on road salt and why that matters and what we do. So really our approach with the Public Works Department is really our strategic application of salt at appropriate locations, times, and conditions, balancing the effectiveness for safety and also environmental considerations. So we have reduced, even with several winters being above average, we've reduced our salt usage just by utilizing some technological advances that are on the market, whether that's from tracking routes in certain areas like hills and intersections, also pavement temperatures. By tracking friction coefficient on pavement, we can do that now. Those types of things have really helped us to do a better job of providing a higher level of service, but also reducing the amount that we use for our streets. As far as the pricing goes, I outlined kind of the last number of years. And you can see that fluctuation, obviously that's a supply and demand component there too. So we're basically reset with the current price at $78.41 per ton to about where we were in fiscal year, 1920 and 2021. So overall in that period of time, we're still in a good space, even with an increase here from last year to this year. The last thing I would just add too, is that we do take lake sample testings too, not just reducing what we use, but also just making sure that we're not having a negative effect on our watershed. So we do do testing for chlorides and sodium in Reeds Lake. And then we report those on our website too. And all those readings and results are all in compliance with EPA part 201 limits. So if there's any questions on this exciting item, I'd be happy to take them this evening.

Any questions?

I just wanted to thank you and highlight the reduction of 200 tons of salt going down on our roads, not just for lake health, which is a huge one. It always feels really icky when you have to put it down and it could go in the lake, but then also for all of our gardens and all the rest of the runoff that we produce. So in making it being cheaper, which is great, it's even better that it's not going into a runoff. So I appreciate that.

Any other questions or comments for Mr. LaFayette? Wonderful. Thank you. Just in the off chance, is there anyone here that wants to make public comment to this agenda item? The road salt? Okay. Come forward. Now's the time to do so.

Thank you. Just briefly, and I didn't see the packet in the information, but I wondered if there was any consideration of using sand in combination with any of the salt or

Um, is that your comment that you'd like it to be considered?

Let me ask. I'm sorry. I was wondering, I didn't see it in the packet of information and I was wondering if salt or sand had been considered for use in, uh, cutting down our salt usage for the purposes that were described described. I'm very appreciative to see that the salt has been reduced so much. I just wondered if sand had been considered an alternative. I've gone down the hall, what I call the hall street Hill into the swampy area. And I don't know if that's all county or East Grand Rapids, but they shoved that all right into that marshy area. So there is salt going into that area. So I just hope that that has been considered as maybe an alternative or in combination with the salt for the plowing. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Baxter. Anyone else care to make comment to that agenda item?

Okay.

We'll bring up here for a motion and a second, please. So moved.

Second.

All right. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we'll consider approving a one-year vertical alignment contract renewal with East Grand Rapids Public Schools for a cost of $50,000 for the 2026-2027 school year. That introduction is by Parks and Recreation Director Mr. Melville. Thank you.

Yes, good evening, Madam Mayor and Commissioners. Yes, before you this evening is the request to renew potentially the vertical alignment agreement. Over the last eight months or so, I've been able to work closely with Mr. Josh Shattuck, who is our vertical alignment expert coming from the East Grand Rapids Public Schools. I'm sorry, that's super loud. Happy to give a brief update and answer any questions you might have about the renewal So just as a brief history as you may recall Approximately a year ago the city explored hiring a staff member to help with vertical alignment initiative which was one of the City Commission priorities that came about from the strategic planning session and ultimately the decision was made to pivot and to contract a in collaboration with the East Grand Rapids Public Schools for one of their team members, who is Mr. Josh Shattuck, who is a high school teacher and also the varsity football coach, to accomplish the vertical alignment goals that had been established. And so over the course of last summer, athletic staff from the high school and team members here at the city helped develop some key deliverables that we felt like were the year one goals to be accomplished through this pilot program. And when it was approved last July, we were able to hit the ground running in August and to start accomplishing some of those goals. And just as a brief summary, so a few sports were selected. So football, field hockey, basketball, baseball, softball, and track were identified as the first sports to receive attention from this program. Some of the key deliverables of those efforts were to be handbooks for families, really to give them a roadmap for their athletic experience here in East Grand Rapids, so sharing what the experience would be like for those athletes at the younger levels, which programs they could participate in as they move up to the middle school level, More information and then ultimately as the kids graduate from middle school moving up to the high school program. Also more support and training for our middle school coaches and for our youth coaches was one of our key deliverables. Some work related to football camps and creating more opportunities for those athletes. And then doing some investigation of some new program opportunities such as a club level basketball program. And I'm happy to report and as outlined in the memo, we've made significant progress on those goals last year. Certainly this is a wheel to be invented. We did research when we started and weren't really able to find another community that's doing this same level of work. At least not anyone willing to share their recipe for success. And so, we started with a lot of brainstorming and collaboration with the varsity coaches who are our subject matter experts in town, relying on Coach Shattuck's experience as an athletic administrator, And so we really started by taking a look at safety and some of the low hanging fruit opportunities. So we did either create or update emergency action plans for all of the facilities that we have in town. The high school had them at the high school level and we did have them for most programs, but really just wanted to make them more aligned so that any coach or any program having an activity at a facility could operate emergency protocols in the same way. We were able to implement the roadmaps for success. We added those to a webpage on the Parks and Recreation page. So when new families move into the district, or maybe as families have their athletes grow up and look to new opportunities or have interest in a new sport, they can go to those program guides for a resource. One of the things that I'm the most proud of of this program, although that list is long, is we did create the East Basketball Club. We were supposed to investigate the opportunity to potentially do that in the future. And that's something that we were able to investigate and implement and execute a full club level program for 115 basketball athletes in East Grand Rapids last season, which surpassed our expectations. And then also really some of the work with the training of the middle school coaches and having more alignment from not just from a philosophy standpoint with X's and O's, but the training and development of the athletes at the lower levels. We were able to implement some of those initiatives. And then lastly, the last point I'll add is that we did add strength and conditioning as a program area of focus. We identified there's a lot of families in East Grand Rapids that want to make sure their athletes are doing the appropriate strength and conditioning and agility training. The high school has hired a full-time subject matter expert in that area. And so he's been able to provide us guidance on the roadmap for success from a physical development perspective for East Grand Rapids athletes. And they've even implemented some new programming this summer for starting at fifth and sixth grade athletes. So I won't read through the list of highlights, but there certainly have been a number of them, not just goals being accomplished. But, you know, we've had some tournament champions from that new East Basketball Club this year. Our numbers for some of our training programs are just incredible, like more than 200 athletes doing basketball training multiple times a week through in June and July. and some of the strength and conditioning programs that I had outlined. So we've had a lot of success to date, but there is still work to be done. So as outlined in the memo, we are proposing for some new sports to be added to the list of programs to receive the same level of effort and attention and development. So the cross country, volleyball, tennis, and water polo are being proposed for key deliverables for this upcoming year. along with the same level of benchmarks that we had for the programs from this season, but also fine tuning and refining the programs that have been developed. Like, for example, I know this upcoming season, the field hockey program will have an interim coach. It's so working to make sure we're supporting the coach in that way and helping connect families in the appropriate ways. And then with the refinement of some of the other programs like the East Basketball Club, we had a really successful first season, but certainly can level up and do things differently and make refinements to just improve that overall experience. And so in order to do that, we would potentially have to have the contract with the East Grand Rapids Public Schools renewed. So that's why it's here before you this evening. But I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Wonderful. Thank you for that. Any questions for Mr. Melville?

I sat in the, so I sat in the finance subcommittee and I did a, I feel a really good job of drilling Mr. Melville with a lot of my questions and specifically around the concern of going, you know, this is an employee of the schools, not of the city. We're supplementing the schools with this added, you know, want to make sure that this is the right, no offense at all to Coach Chaddock, make sure that as the right person, it has the right bandwidth to, to carry, to do the, to continue doing, offering the, hitting the deliverables that we're creating, coming up with more ones. I was pleased to hear that, you know, it sounds like he is doing those things. But, and I think ultimately it kind of boiled down to going, hey, I asked Mr. Melville, are you happy with the success of this program? Is this something that you think that it's worth the city putting $50,000 in to help Keep this program going and if this is the right guy, so right now I think the answer I would I got is it's a yes I love that it's still a pilot program and we're still refining and we're still understanding and again like we mentioned in the subcommittee We really won't know the truth Fruits of this labor until we get some of the kids all the way through the system to see if it's working but um I think that's that's the gist of the the recap of our conversation there, but um I But yeah, overall, I think it sounds like it's, I'm glad that it's heading in the right direction. I was a strong advocate for it in the beginning. And I wanted to see this thing kick butt. I love seeing the kids stay in our system. I love that we are getting more competitive with club sports, which I see a lot of kids now going that direction and we're losing them. And I love the idea of having a streamline all the way through high school so that it gives the full experience for our kids going through high school, middle school, high school, like the full, like kind of, yeah, the full school athletic experience instead of losing them to a club sport.

Does anybody else from finance want to comment? Since it was vetted through finance first.

I have a whole thing, so if you have something you want to say.

My questions were, are staff happy Is Mr. Shattuck happy? Is he enjoying it? And are parents happy? And all of the answers to that were yes. And Mr. Shattuck apparently brings a lot of enthusiasm, which is wonderful to hear. Staff is enjoying the relationship, not hearing anything negative from parents. So that feels like, for me, an endorsement to keep going with this in the second year.

And then mine are all anecdotal personal observations because I have two kids that are both in sports and are both using all of these things right now. So what I can say is like, for instance, the club basketball, when we kind of set out to make this position, that was kind of one of the things we were looking at as like a, we lose these kids. They go do our rec stuff, but then they like to play with their friends, but then they have to go to different teams and play with strangers or kids from other towns, and all they really want to do is play higher level basketball with the kids that are focused on basketball. So establishing that in a year and then being successful with it is amazing. That will help. It builds community, that builds friendships for life, It teaches our kids all of the sports lessons that we want them to do. Yes, thank you, more of that. As for the weightlifting, my seventh grader going into eighth grade is doing it along with all of the football programming. It has been very clear on times which you need to be with a seventh and eighth grader on when to show up and when to do things. And on top of being a safer way for them to learn how to lift weights because you don't want to just dump them in a weight room, it gives them a couple days a week where they show up and they all get together and they do this together and then that just turns into a whole day of doing things together. It's what we're looking for. He will leave for weightlifting and he won't be back until that evening because he'll be playing wiffle ball or going fishing or you just put all these kids in a room together. They do something great, they do something athletic and then they have the whole rest of the day to spend the time together. I don't know how you measure that or what's tangible about that but I don't have to drive them there. And I don't have, they ride their bikes there. And then when it's all said and done, they are together for the whole rest of the day and they're not sitting in front of TVs. Huge win. And I don't know if that's a way you can really evaluate that. Lastly, in the fall with this East Basketball Club, we had a situation where lacrosse had always had the gym at this time. Basketball was so populated and they needed gym time. in the past there wouldn't have been a really good way to like who to call, like who to call. We lost our gym time, who to call. So they all, uh, they all call me cause I'm involved in lacrosse and they know I'm on the city commission. And up to this point, I wouldn't have had a great answer. Um, having a coach Shattuck in place there as kind of a middle man to be able to take those and kind of mesh those sports together and find a time where they could work together, where maybe one guy comes in a little early, another guy goes out a little later and they can make it work for everyone is, is great because otherwise it's like, we don't want East to be like a, who do you know? We want it to be where everyone that's here has an equal opportunity to get the same access to the facility is the same access. Um, regardless of if you know me or if you know someone else in town, that's involved with the schools uh we want that to be fairly democratized and having shadow complaints to do that um just made that easier it made it less accusatory it it preempted a gym time fight and it just it it was very very successful so in those anecdotal observations from me throughout the year it seemed like a like a great success i'm excited for it moving forward I think water polo is such a good one. Our waves program is crazy good. And we have all these kids that swim a lot and they're great at it and giving them more outlets to do that and throw a ball around sounds like a great idea. So I am fully in support of moving forward with this for another year.

Great. Are there any questions or further comments from Mr. Melville?

I have a question. Thank you for sharing all the great outcomes from year one. I'm curious, is this is a one year renewal? Do we anticipate that this is going to go on past the second year? And kind of what's the long term projection for for this work?

Yeah, certainly with the progress that we've had this year and knowing that even with the year two deliverables, there still are some sports that aren't on the list. And so I would think that if the success continues to grow and we're able to not only accomplish the goals on here, but some of the ones that we can't quite measure yet, such as the increased maintenance or, you know, keeping kids in the programs for longer. That's one of the goals is just keeping kids involved, which we'll be able to measure over time. Certainly predict, you know future years of this as With something new like this and again without other communities having a roadmap for us to follow I do anticipate just like we did this year pivoting and and finding opportunities to change directions a little bit based on the community needs that That likely will happen again as we move forward. So I would I'm not able to track the exact trajectory of the program to give a number of years, but I do see that this being a program that will continue to grow and will continue to, it needs maintenance over time, right? Even now at the end of the school year, we were making some changes to things that we'd implemented in the fall because we learned things and so it'll something that will be continued to evolve over the next couple of years.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Melville?

Thank you.

This time I'll also open a public comment to this agenda item. If anyone would care to make a comment to this agenda item, now is the time to do so. Okay. I'll close public comment and bring it up here for a motion and second, please.

Move to renew the middle school sports vertical alignment agreement for an additional year. Second.

Any further comments, commissioners? Okay, then we can go to vote. All those in favor say yes.

Yes.

Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Next on the agenda is to provide staff with feedback related to their preference of middle school athletes, athletics, pricings, option one, two, or three as outlined in the memo. That introduction again is by Mr. Melville.

Good evening again, everyone. As you may recall, at the last city commission meeting, I had presented two potential options for middle school athletic fee registration pricing. And based on the feedback from the commission, we have come back this evening with options three and four for your review. and I'll certainly walk through those, but just as the brief recap for everyone. So the middle school sports program is operated by the Parks and Recreation Department. Historically, since the city took it over in the mid-2010-2011 timeframe, we've endeavored to have the program be cost neutral, so looking to cover the cost of the program in some administrative time, but to keep the costs affordable for the families who have athletes participating in that program. And really, the impetus for this discussion is related to the recent increase in cost that are associated with not just this program, but all similar programs. Fees for athletic equipment and for officiating fees have gone up over time, as most things do. And then also, we've identified the need to increase the coaching stipends for the middle school coaches, just to help retain and also recruit new coaches as vacancies come up. to make sure that we're in alignment with the fees being paid to other coaches in other area districts. And so when we started doing that, we took a look at our old model or our existing model for setting the registration fees for middle school athletics, which was essentially in a nutshell, we would take a look at the total costs for each individual program. So for example, the boys basketball program, We would take a look at the officiating costs, equipment costs, coaching stipends. We'd package all that together and then take a look at how many athletes participated in that program and set the price for the following year. And in doing so this year, with some of the cost increases for equipment and supplies and also the coaching stipends, we noticed that the impact of that increase was larger for some programs, particularly those that had lower enrollment. So for example, you may recall last meeting, we talked a little bit about the water polo program and also the boys swim program where some of those lower participation numbered programs saw a larger increase in costs from last year to this year. And so the Parks and Recreation team kind of took a pause and noticed that more dialogue needed to take place before that decision was made to continue on with that method for setting registration fees. And so the Parks and Recreation team took a look at what other can't say municipalities, but other entities who run middle school sports fees, how they set their pricing. And so at the last meeting, we did share that flat rate cost or the the flat fleet fee model where Every participant pays the same fee. That's what the high school does. That was another potential option. And we presented those two to the commission. And then I'll talk a little bit more about the options three and four that were developed based on the feedback. And so what I heard at the last meeting was certainly the understanding where the current methodology It leaves a little bit to be desired. And also, the flat rate fee option for everyone, there's certainly pros and cons to that. And so the idea of a more of a demand weighted pricing option was brought up by the commission. And so I did prepare that as in your packet there for, I kind of ran out what those numbers would look like based on the feedback received and what that demand weight in pricing would be is the sports that have higher participation levels. So if they have more athletes involved in those programs, we would divide them into different tiers. So the programs that had the most participation like track, for example, would be considered a tier one sport those participants would pay a small premium for participating in that program. Sports that were kind of in the middle of the road and had an average number of participants would pay the actual cost of what it cost to operate their programs and then the sports that had a lower participation numbers of so lower demand would receive a small subsidy or discount on their registration fee to maybe help promote participation in that sport. I mean so that's what option three in your memo or in your pocket is outlining is so I took a little twist on the the demand weighted pricing and combined both boys and girls programs because that was another thing I heard quite clearly at the last meeting is the desire to have alignment between boys and girls basketball, for example. And so when I was able to combine those programs for all of those that have both boys and girls offerings, it did change the tier system a little bit, but track and cross country are still near the top and basketball is actually another one that is near the top for most participation. So as you look at the option three there, those three sports are considered in the top tier. Their registration fees, as noted in that first column, the light purple column where it says registration fee after the expenses are combined, that's what it would cost, the exact cost of participation. And then as you work down the row there, you'll see the weighted amount. So it's just increased by 10% because of some of the higher numbers associated with those sports and the associated registration fee for those programs. And then if you look at that middle grouping of three, so the boys and girls swim and dive, boys and girls tennis, and then volleyball, those are the programs that were kind of in the middle of the road of participation. And so no price adjustment was added to any of those programs. And then the lower tier or the third tier, the soccer and water polo, those programs did receive a 20% reduction in the registration fee based on actual costs. And so as you can see in the lower right-hand corner of that file, the total net revenue is close to zero. It's not exactly zero, but if we start to adjust the numbers too much, we'd either be a little bit higher or lower. But that did accomplish quite a few of the things that I heard from the Commission last time is, again, having alignment in both genders for each sport and then having the different lens of equity related to that program. I did develop a fourth option as well, just based on some of the feedback that I heard from the commission that I think does also accomplish the goals that you were looking for. And that's outlined on the option four. And this is kind of a tweak to our existing model where registration fees are based on the actual cost of the program. But under this model, we did combine boys and girls programs when they exist, so for all sports except for volleyball. For now, the boys volleyball is growing in the area, but we don't offer that yet. But if you combine the expenses and then the coaching stipends for both boys and girls athletics for each respective program, it helps balance out some of the cost disparity that we saw underneath our existing model. So one of the examples is for boys and girls basketball. Right at the top, that first column there, the fee based on costs, the boys program historically has been, what is that, about $30 cheaper than the girls program. And that's just based on actual participation numbers. Boys teams are always full, where girls teams might not always be full. But if we combine the numbers and the expenses and everything and come out with an average cost per program or per registration for that program, it really does start to balance out the cost of participation. And I think one of the biggest ones to look at is the boys and girls swim and dive program. And so that's the fourth one down on the option four, where under our current model, due to participation numbers, the boys' fees would have been $530 this year, where the girls' program would have been $253, so half the registration cost. But as we, under this model, if we're combining the options, you can see there the average cost of $328. It really starts to balance it out, and under this model, It doesn't have large increases like the flat rate model would potentially have for some of the athletics or some of the programs such as track and cross country. So I know I'm not making this easy on you because there are certainly a variety of options that even further than this, we were brainstorming different ideas that could have be brought before you tonight. But I do think that certainly leaving option one off the table, options two, three, and four all have their merits. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have specifically about any of the options. Before you. Okay.

And then also for some clarity, and this is just how I was reading it, this agenda item says to provide staff with feedback. Just to clarify, staff is looking for a vote this evening, correct?

Yeah. We would like a decision. We're coming up on registration next week. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that the commission was aware of that. Okay. That being said, were there any questions for Mr. VanVleet? I'm sure there's a couple.

Go ahead. Please get some information about, I know City Manager Charles, we traded a couple of emails about this and this came up in our last conversation, but regardless of which model we go with, how will we be addressing family need where we need to subsidize those registration fees or families need that? Thank you for bringing that up.

So one of the other developments from last time when I presented is a more formal commitment from the East Grand Rapids Schools Foundation through their friendship fund. So I was able to collaborate with Anthony Morey, the assistant superintendent at East Grand Rapids, who helped facilitate discussions with the schools foundation. I mean, actually, for the first time ever in our program guide that we released last week, there's verbiage in there outlining that families with demonstrated need can request funding from the school's foundation through their friendship fund. They have developed an online form that families can fill out with their information. the sports that they're interested in, and then some of their financial related questions, such as if they qualify for free or reduced lunch, and if not, helping provide that information to them as a resource to become qualified for that. And so the foundation has committed to help cover the costs for families who demonstrate that need. And the reason for the form is that it does allow for city staff to be notified of when a family would be eligible for that funding. And then the school district and the city, as we've done in the past with other scenarios, will work out the registration fees for those families. The foundation will be paying for those directly to the city.

Can you say just a follow-up question? Do we know more about what the qualifications are? Is it like if they do not, for example, do not qualify for free and reduced price lunch under those federal guidelines, is there some other qualification they have to meet or is it a bit more open-ended and flexible?

It is a little more flexible than that. They have expressed that they share the same desire of the commission is that to have the registration fees not be a hurdle for participation. But I know that that is a clear benchmark for them. But anyone that maybe does not necessarily qualify for that, they would still like for them to reach out because there certainly are unique scenarios or circumstances that could be considered.

Thank you. Thank you for looking into that from our last meeting. So thanks for clarifying that and making that public too. So that's great. Thank you.

We had mentioned in the meeting as well about that. Is there any way we can add something on registration about throwing some money back to that school foundation? Like a donate or how do we make sure that that's funded? Yeah. Or we can't do that. Can we not do that?

Yeah. Soliciting.

Yeah. Like when you sign up? It was a question because I know it didn't come up before in Parks and Rec.

It's a great question. That's why I looked over at the attorney and went, we get into the solicitation questions, we have to be careful with that.

Totally understand. I just know in club sports that comes up all the time. They're like, hey, do you want to throw some money at?

I can make that answer easy. Currently, our software does not allow for that. uh that was a question that i asked of them for a different reason um and so um and for the time being uh we cannot but um but and then for the future subject to the problem for another time were there any other questions for mr melville commissioner wesley go ahead no question it's just more comments so but um but i mean do you want me to comment now or i guess uh

Maybe we'll do questions so Mr. Melville can sit down at least briefly. Sure.

I think I have one more question.

Okay, great.

Can you talk about how the high school operates their cost structure? You know, there's been so many good ideas and, you know, thrown out by commissioners, thrown out by staff, and I could go back and forth. I think a lot of them are good options, but I'm trying to understand what's most consistent. And so I'm understanding that high school sports are like the flat fee across the board. Is that right?

For all high school sports that are school funded, they are the flat rate of $250. There are some high school sports that are not funded. They're more of like a club level sport that are supported through like parent fundraising, et cetera. And they set their registration fees based on the costs to operate the program. So it is a dynamic answer, but for... for interscholastic that are covered through the school there at 250 flat rate is the consistent cost for those.

Okay. And I know it's not your wheelhouse, but do you know if there are any complaints? You know what I'm trying to ask?

I, I have not specifically heard of any, um, not that I generally would, but I know that that model, um, is pretty consistent, um, in high school sports now that, um, that cost, um, The 250 that we have in East Grand Rapids certainly is not the same in every district, but generally speaking, a flat rate model is pretty consistent for high school athletics.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Melville? Okay, thank you. Okay, at this point, I will open up public comment to this agenda item. To anyone who would like to make public comment, now's the time to do so, please. Welcome, Mayor.

Hello. I'm Nile Deems, 701 Laurel Circle. I apologize for getting up on this. I did not come here to talk about this tonight. I didn't even know it was on the agenda until I saw the evening news right after the Portugal-Spain soccer game was over, and this was on the news. And I saw the prices that might be charged to play the middle school sports and I almost rolled off my couch. I think the idea of this is backwards. This is a school program. The schools were happy to ask you all to join them in a public parking lot. I remember when the school said we're gonna dump our middle school sports and the city took it over to save it so the kids would have something for middle school sports. And it might be time to ask the schools, hey, why don't you jump back in the pod? We're running your program for you, and we would like it to be subsidized a little bit. I also think the idea of trying to make this program pay for itself is backwards. I think there's a significant incongruity between the next item in your agenda of spending $500,000, $600,000 to make it easier to go around a nature area and then charge the fees that are being considered to play middle school sports. And I think realistically, what a lot of parents do is look at that and go, eh, it's too much. And they don't turn around and apply for help something else. You're charging 250, 350, whatever to play a sport, and yet you're gonna spend five, $600,000 to make nicer trails in a nature area. I don't get it. I think you need to back this up. The goal is to have as many kids as you can playing sports. To do that, you've gotta make it as simple and easy. This program, as I listen to it, fails under the law of KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. It has all sorts of things. I wouldn't imagine that you're paying stipends to middle school coaches. That floors me. Now, I have my own attitude on these things, but I really think this is being discussed and headed in the wrong direction and should be rethought. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Would anyone else care to make public comment to this agenda item? OK. I will close public comment and bring this agenda item back up for a motion and a second, please. And then discussion.

What are we motioning on? Do we have to pick one? Oh, yes.

So discussion first, and then we'll pick one.

Mayor, I might. I don't know the right process for this. I just noticed we have an email from Commissioner Skaggs. She emailed it like half an hour ago with some comments.

Oh.

Okay.

We're butting up against open meetings. Yeah.

Okay. I didn't know how that plays out.

I saw it come through and I...

Okay. Never mind.

Did you have any other thoughts you wanted to add?

Oh yes, I have my own. Yeah, sure. So I, first of all, I want to thank all of the work that's gone into this. And I think we've all, all of our hearts and brains are in the right place in trying to make this accessible to the most amount of kids and also trying to make it make sense for everybody. I agree with former mayor that It'd be great if this was no cost. We are where we are right now, but if there's any way that we can talk about how to make that a reality in the future, let's look into that. So when I look at this, I'm between the two. There's the option two of the $250 per participant. I like the simplicity of it. I like that it's consistent with the high school. You know, I do worry that somebody who's been used to playing middle school sports and paying $150 is now suddenly paying $100 more. And that's what leads me to also see a lot of merit in the plan that was proposed by Commissioner Wesley. You know, it's, when you look at, you know, comparing that low cost sport of track.

And just for clarity, it's option three?

Three, I'm talking about option three, yeah. So when you have like a lower cost sport like track, they're paying slightly more, like $10 more, I think, when I was looking at it. And then, you know, your higher cost sports like water polo get subsidized, you know, like 70, 70, 80 bucks, which could mean a lot to a family. So I think there are really pros and cons to both. This is so wishy-washy. I would be happy with either. And it's hard for me also to comment on it because my kids are three and five and this isn't something that, you know, I have that personal data point on either. But I think I am leaning a bit towards the flat registration fee for the continuity with the high school sports and knowing that that has been well-received or at least not, you know, there aren't strong statements out there saying that it's not a good option. And we can also return to this next year, correct? If things don't pan out the way that we would like, or if the scholarship opportunities are not taken advantage of, or if there are barriers to them that we are not anticipating. Yeah, that's kind of where my head is at right now. This is a really challenging one because I think they're both, Serious positives to both options.

Anyone want to weigh in? Sure.

I don't mind chiming in. So yeah, so last Commission meeting, I did present a third idea. Didn't mean to confuse or add, to kind of stir the pot, make it more confusing. But I thought it'd be the, it was the happy medium between option one and option two at the time. Option one, again, being the payment is reflective of exactly the cost of the program. But unfortunately, I realize that the cost of the program is not only just the equipment and the use of the space that goes into the cost and coaching, but it's also because of lack of participation, it becomes a more expensive sport versus something that is higher in demand purely based on larger numbers, divide the total cost into a larger number, you have a smaller, everyone pays a little bit less. So I thought the fairest way is to create a tier system and to say, okay, yeah, let's take the top tier sports and then charge a bit of a premium there. the middle tier sports keep that right where it is cost what the cost is and then the and that way we can supplement the bottom tier sports because again we want to reduce the barrier of entry and if it is a financial situation then Maybe some of those sports like water polo that someone would have loved to do but it's outpriced for them, now it makes it more achievable for them to do this. The other thing I was trying to avoid is the optics of going with option two, although originally I thought that was a great idea and keeping it nice and flat, it doesn't truly enter the equity situation and specifically if we're thinking looking at track where you know at the time we we would be up charging someone playing track 71 to 73 percent more of what it would cost and I know there was discussions a couple weeks ago when we were talking about this thing you know speculating, thinking that there are these certain sports because it's cheaper that certain kids from certain financial level, maybe some hardship will gravitate more towards the cheaper sports where the more pricier sports are kind of looked at as like, oh, that's the, you know, that's like where the rich kids can go and all that. And again, I'm trying to level that playing field so that we it's more approachable, more approachable. But if it's, if any of that is potentially true, like, okay, well, if the cheapest sport was track and that's because that was the cheapest. So then the kids who are coming from families with more financial hardship are just going, Hey, we want to keep you active. That's the one you're going to go into. I think it'd be. And if there is that stigma of saying, okay, water polo is kind of the rich or more someone who has more financial liquidity or availability to them, to play for those sports. I guess I'd have a hard time sleeping at night to say, hey, yeah, we're going to charge you another 71% to 73% more to pay for the other kid who could potentially afford it. Like Commissioner Schwartz said, it's a tough one. We took this on, and I think I also understand and know that this is something that we took on as a city to try to keep this program going when the schools lost some state funding and couldn't. So we're trying to be, we don't, we're trying to, we're not making profit, but we don't want to lose any money while we do it. And so I thought, again, option three was an eloquent one. I appreciate Mr. Melville for weaving in the combination of all genders to have that weighted into it. I thought that was eloquent as well. And I see there's not too big of a disparity between option three and option four. So I think we're heading in the right direction. Because of that, and not just because it's my idea, but I do believe that option three is the fairest still. Based on this, it's... the the calmest of waters from both sides where the the the most highest demand sports is we're not asking too much of a premium compared to um and yet we can also offset the cost of the ones that are less popular because who knows maybe they might become popular and this whole thing might change in a year where we're moving things around again and again i'm just kind of following what happens in general economy you know in the stock market you know the there's premium things and people will pay a premium for uh for something uh that we have no problem filling rosters and the ones that we want to be filled if we're having a struggle we somehow figure out a way to discount it to get more people into that in a perfect world i'd love to see all rosters completely filled and i think option three is the best way to do it

Okay, thank you. Did you want to weigh in at all?

I mean, I think it's such a 49-51 issue between option two and option three. I really do. So thank you, Derek, for putting all this work into this. To the former mayor, I am so with you. Free sports would be way, way better. I will say as a person paying for a lot of sports right now, these are still far more affordable than the non-city options. So I appreciate them for keeping this somewhat more approachable than club sports, which are insane. Man, I don't know. I could go either way. I think they're both good options. I think both of them are a step in the right direction from option one. I think no matter what, we should look at it moving into the coming year. After one year of this, we should revisit it, see if we like it and if it's working. No matter what, we should have... we should make it very visible, even maybe try to be proactive with reaching out to people who do get subsidized lunches and let them know that this is a program that's available for you. Like Commissioner Wesley said, like boost numbers, like get kids playing as many sports as we possibly can. They'll learn great lessons from them.

So you don't have a preference necessarily?

It's like right down the middle. I could go either way.

Did you have anything you wanted to add? I do. I still, as I did two weeks ago, feel very strongly that option two is the most equitable direction for us to move in. And I think that there's a couple of things to consider in making that statement. First of all, we just spent a couple of items ago, quite a bit of time up here on the dais extolling the virtues of wide participation and accessibility for youth sports to everyone. And having a flat fee and knowing ahead of time what that sport is going to cost I think brings down a lot of uncertainty for folks. And we have to consider as well that even with the scholarships available, and that is fantastic, I'm glad to see that we're getting that baked into the system, it still requires families to make another step to make that ask, which is not always an easy thing to do. And so the price tag can still be a barrier if we're seeing widely variable price tags. And then when we dig below that price tag, that's where I think we really uncover the issues of equity, is that equity is about providing for folks what they need, not providing the same thing for all folks. So when we look at the cost disparities, I recall from our last discussion, for example, between we keep naming track and water polo, they have different needs in terms of taking care of students' safety and training. And so we don't need to have lifeguards on duty for track whom we have to pay. We don't have to have two coaches on duty for track as we do for diving. That's just the nature of the sport and the nature of protecting the kids who are participating in it. And so I don't see that then as students and families who are participating in track as subsidizing water polo as an approach to community care. And so, you know, I come back to, again, just the flat rate fee is the, I think most obvious, simplest, most equitable approach that we can take at this point in time.

Thank you. Okay, so what I'm hearing is option number two, option number three, and then option two or three, and option two or three, correct?

So I'll motion that we move forward with option number two.

So did anyone have anything else they wanted to add? Should we have a motion? Did you make a motion?

I just motioned that we move forward with option two.

I didn't call for a motion yet, so I just wanted to make sure if anybody else had anything else they wanted to add.

So we do need a second, so...

But I didn't call for a motion yet.

I was still on discussion.

We can hear your motion, but I just wanted to find out and make sure nobody else had anything else to add to this discussion first.

Just a point of clarity. Are we providing feedback or are we actually deciding?

We need to, unfortunately, we need to decide this evening. This goes live Thursday, so we need to know what we're doing.

Okay. Okay. Go ahead. You want to make a motion? We'll make a motion in a second.

I motion to move forward with option number two, flat rate fee.

Do we have a second on that?

I will second that with, I don't know, do I say, I'll just save it for discussion. I'll just second it.

Okay, great. Then we can go ahead with discussion then.

Yeah, I think, you know, for the reasons that I mentioned before and To Commissioner Burdick's point, this is like so borderline for me, but I like the consistency with high school sports. I like the ease of administration. I will be curious to see and would like to see feedback from staff as this registration process goes, to see feedback from residents, to make sure that people aren't feeling like they are priced out, especially those who are used to paying less for track and track and cross country. But ultimately I think this is the barely the one to try this year. And I'd be happy to return to it next year.

Any other thoughts before we go to vote?

I respect everyone's opinion. I still do believe that option three is best. I think again, as reiterating, I do believe that we are asking athletes and their parents who are playing less expensive sport like track to pay an additional 71 to 73% more to cover expenses elsewhere. I know that with some of the water sports, it requires two coaches instead of one. I know that there's direct costs to these things. And I think it's, So I think it's fair to pay your fair share with the type of sport for what you're getting out of it. For example, I know that with track as well, my kid did run track as a part of the parks, I believe. And there are certain sports where you're buying and you get in the uniform, you get to keep these things, and some other ones, the one he played, and you have to give it back. So it made it feel even more like, hey, what am I paying for? So again, I think the number three, option three, is the fairest way. it kind of achieves both sides of the coin. Option two, I think is, in my opinion, I think it's a mistake, but that's just one voice up here.

So I have a follow-up question on that. I don't know, because that's, so what you were just saying is not all sports are necessarily treated the same. Some get to keep the uniforms, some don't. Is that-

I would get maybe lean to Mr. Melville, but I think that's what my understanding was.

So it's not necessarily across the board. Some sports. It's the same thing. I'm just curious.

Correct. Yeah. There's differences across some of the sports. Like for example, boys and girls basketball, we have a set of uniforms that the city purchases. They get to use them for the season and then they give them back for track. I forget the exact terminology, but the penny that they're wearing is something that isn't as durable as a basketball jersey is, so the families purchase them and use them for the season, and they can reuse them. I think they're $15, if I'm not mistaken. So there are some situations.

So it's nothing that through this fee, though, some are getting to keep uniforms and some aren't.

Not through the registration fee.

Okay. So they're paying for it outright if they're keeping it. Okay. I just wanted a little clarity. Just make sure.

Thanks for the clarity. And maybe I'm mistaking the parks stuff. Parks and rec stuff. That could be also. But I do know, though, that there are more coaches in some things, more things have direct costs like pool maintenance and that kind of thing versus track and tennis shoes. Again, I'm trying to be as fair as possible with and understand there are costs that we are now taking on this endeavor to continue middle school sports and of course, driving trying to continue middle school sports and making them prepared and ready for high school sports, which we just voted on a second ago. So I think I do see a huge importance with this but I do. But I also want to make sure it is truly fair. And I think, again, if I had issues between two and three, three is more fair than number two. On the surface, two sounds nice because it's all one monolithic price, one fat price. But maybe it's not fair to the individual parent who's paying for one sport over another. And I'm just concerned that they might not feel they might not feel as as fair as some of us feel about option two in my opinion.

Right.

I think I can justify option three to explain to them why it is where it is. And again, we are achieving some of the some things we're trying to do which is supplement some of the like the least, the less populated sports or less like sports, because we're not, by cheaping it or supplementing it a bit to make it more achievable. And again, we may find that there might be an uptick in registration from that. As Commissioner Schwartz said, you know, this is, we'll find out as we implement something is to see and continue to revisit. So, but again, I'm, and I guess my background is in sports has been in my world for, 20 years. So that's why I feel very like, Oh, this is the, this is maybe the path. And I've dealt with parents and players and people paying. And, um, I've, I've seen the headache and I'm just trying to anticipate, um, the holistic like, uh, view from all sides, uh, to make it as fair as possible for everyone. Right.

Thank you. Did you want to weigh in at all anymore?

I don't. This is so tough because two is way better than one. And now that this has become a binary vote of do you want two, voting no on that is saying keep it how it's going, correct?

Well, no.

Then we'd come back and go.

Which one do you want?

Which one do you want? Yeah. So if I may. As I note, unfortunately, we're up against deadlines and this is, we had run this previously through finance and through Parks and Recreation Commission, so the 250 approach. As Commission considers this, as I said, we're literally two to three days away, three and a half days away from opening registration. We're definitely going to keep an eye on it, see if we, see any kind of shifts in, oh, that's having an impact. If something shifts that catches our attention, nothing precludes us from revisiting because we'll open winter registration later this year. And so if we start to see a trend now, regardless of what the commission decides, then that's something we'll definitely keep an eye out. If we see consistency in numbers, we'll report that. If we see, oh, we had a truly unintended consequence, regardless of the choice, then we still have that flexibility to revisit it before the winter goes out. The other thing, too, is just kind of a note. Commission, we typically don't come back and ask the registration question, how much are we going to charge, because we've had that model in place in regards to actual costs and whatnot. It's not been an issue. The only reason we're here today is that we are changing to be competitive and Make sure that we are providing quality coaching for our middle school students That change on what we're paying for and that goes to the stipends for the coaches Point being is this is not a forever decision by any stretch of the imagination And we will definitely keep an eye on it regardless of the choice but to your answer Commissioner Burdick's question if

This is no an option two. We would look for another motion for a different option, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Do you understand? Is that clear?

Yes. Okay. It doesn't help. Does staff have a recommendation of an option? Derek, do you have a recommendation of one that you like more than the others? No. They're both fine. Oh no, I get that. I just am always looking for expertise, which is really hard here because Chris is an expert in my mind in youth sports from doing it on a professional level. I also can understand the arguments that are coming from the other side of the dais of consistency and lining up with high school sports. And I'm feeling really silly about waffling on this so hard for something that I think both are pretty good solutions for, to be fair.

So yes, you're on the spot here.

I would say to answer the question, I think I'm the one that came up with the list of pros and cons for each of them. And so I do see advantages to both, but I don't lean hard on interaction. That's yeah, that's plenty.

Okay.

No other comments from me.

Okay. Then we can go to a vote on option two. Um, all those in favor for option two say yes. Yes.

Yes.

Okay, all those opposed? No. No. All right, option two. All right, motion carries. Next, we have to consider approval of the Waterfront Park phase two conceptual plan and authorize city staff and consultants to proceed with final design efforts. That introduction, again, is by Mr. Melville, but you got a chance to sit down.

Yes, thank you. Just gonna get the presentation pulled up here for you all.

Yeah, what's the deal with these slides? Because they seem to bog my computer down like, whoa, the map ones.

The large files.

Okay, yeah, so included within your packet this evening is certainly a significant amount of information related to the waterfront waterfront park phase two, and the community engagement process that we completed earlier this summer. But I felt like it'd be easiest to walk through a PowerPoint presentation with some brief information about the site, a little bit of the history, and then bringing us up to date as to where we are today. So I will do that. And I am joined here by Leah Bechtel from the Avon Marsh team. So she was part of the project community engagement team and helped guide the community conversations and the updates to the conceptual plan that we have a final version to share with you this evening. So just some of the quick things that I'll cover, like I mentioned, the history, some of the funding sources, a summary of the public engagement, and then the timeline that we have completed, but then also before us. But just so we're all on the same page here, so Waterfront Park is the parcel that's outlined in red on the map there before you. So it does have property on the east side of Reed's Lake Boulevard, and then also on the west side of Reed's Lake Boulevard. The parcels that are on the east side were developed as part of phase one of the project where the boardwalks and the kiosk and the seating areas, and then also a small portion of phase one is the existing parking lot on the west side of Riesig Boulevard. But the remaining portion of Waterfront Park on the west side of Riesig Boulevard is largely unimproved at this time. So just I won't walk through all of these but there certainly is a history to Waterfront Park. It was privately owned in the past At one point in the 70s. The property was clear-cut So most of the trees were cut down some of the existing or some of the wetlands that were existing at the time were filled in and there was a proposed residential development that Obviously did not occur The city did acquire that property on the west side of the road in the early 90s. I was able to find documentation. It was the largest ever DNR grant award at the time where the DNR helped assist the city in funding to purchase that property with potential for future project elements to be added. So dating back to the late 90s, waterfront park improvements were included in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan for the first time. They weren't quite as developed as some of the plans that we'll talk about a little bit later this evening, but there was ideas and discussions in the Master Plan in 1998 that was further refined through a public engagement portion of or public engagement process that was completed in the 2007-2008 timeframe. So through that robust engagement process, that's where the plans for phase one were developed. A plan for phase two that I'll show you on a slide later this evening those came about from that community engagement process and really the part of the impetus for that was needing to have plans and project elements for future grant applications for additional DNR funding Which leads me to in 2008 the city did receive a DNR grant for the phase one of the project And then the phase two has been in the conception or the parks and recreation master plans since that time As a reminder we did apply for a DNR grant for last spring and were recommended for funding. And that kind of brings us up to date to where we are today. Just a brief photo just to show. So the photo on the left was taken from a historical aerial photo that we found from 1967. You can see the property outlined in red. You can see the trees that are present on the site. You can see kind of a depressed area to the northwest portion of the property, which is the existing wetland. And then there are some other wetlands. They're hard to see, but that was in 1967. And then the photo on the right was a historical photo that we found that shows the property after it was clear cut. And you can see the wetlands were filled in That certainly is indicated on the photo showing there. A little bit more of the history. So in the 2007 timeframe, when the community was doing its public engagement, the city did hire the King and McGregor Environmental to complete a botanical evaluation of the property. And that assessment did verify the findings of the property had been filled in In the past, it certainly was a disturbed habitat. There was a significant presence of non-native species, very low vegetative quality, and they did not find any endangered or threatened species of concern. The city also renewed or updated that assessment in 2021. And the same findings were present. There's quite a bit of invasive species on that site, which is typical of a site that's clear cut and then left for nature to do its thing where sometimes invasive species can go in and take over a site that is open for growth. So these photos here just show just a brief summary of what waterfront park phase one, some of these key elements, we have the boardwalks that go out into the lake. There's boardwalks through the woods, not shown on these photos are there are portions of gravel trails that traverse through the property. So like compacted trail surfaces. And then also there's like the overlook in the kiosk seating area shown in the photo on the lower right. And then these photos are from our grant application actually that I took last spring. the you can see the existing parking lot on site. And then there is a current cut through through the middle of the park that connects Reeds Lake Boulevard and lakeside. And then the the lower right photo just represents or just there is a lot of woody vegetation in the property, a lot of which is invasive species, like buckthorn and other non desired vegetation. So why phase two or why now are some of the questions that we've received through the community engagement process. And just as a reminder on some of the slides previously, the waterfront park improving the site has been continually included as a priority project. That comes from the community so through the Parks and Recreation master planning process we have surveys and ask for input from residents on what they would like to see improved in the park system in the community and we ask for things spanning from program improvements all the way to what park improvements you would like to see and so this has been in those plans in some fashion Since 1998, this project was listed as a priority project in the Parks and Recreation, Parks Improvement Millage in 2021, specifically for trail development and potential parking lot expansion, and as noted, the recent grant award from the DNR. So I know the topic of project funding will come up. This is just the brief summary. So there is a remaining balance on the parks improvement millage and approximately six hundred and four thousand dollars. subject to potential interest earnings. The $500,000 of that was committed by the city commission as a match to the DNR grant application. So the way the DNR grant process works is it's a matching grant. So however much money you're asking for, you must match that amount. And we pursued the largest option for the grant program, which was $500,000. And so the city did commit 500,000 for that match. And then certainly if there are any additional costs in excess of the grant funds and the committed funding balance from the millage, that would be up to the city commission for direction on other revenue sources. So just to talk through the design process a little bit. So as noted, the city did hire Avon Marsh, a local, planning and engineering firm who has helped guide us through the process. They submitted a request for proposals and were selected from a very competitive group of firms looking to work with the city. And so they've been helping guide us through the community engagement and updating the designs. Certainly the city staff has been involved through that process. We've had a variety of public engagement sessions and the conceptual plan or the concept development phase has resulted in a number of changes based on the community input. So as a brief summary, we have had multiple in-person sessions both here in the commission and out at the park. This photo is actually showing one of the sessions that we did have out at Waterfront Park where we were stopping community members on the Reeds Lake Trail and asking for their input on the conceptual designs. To notify the community of these sessions, we did send postcards to every household in the East Grand Rapids that had the dates and times of the sessions, along with a QR code to the project webpage that we did develop. We sent those postcards twice. So we had one round of community engagement in May, where we sent all that information about the May sessions, and then we replicated that process in June And we again sent postcards to every household just trying to make sure as many people could be notified as possible. As outlined there, we did have an online survey as well for both of those phases. So when community members come in, see the materials that we had prepared for them, explain any design changes or just the initial concept plans, And then the online survey, they were able to go complete that and share their feedback on the design related to changes they would like to see or what they liked or didn't like about the conceptual design. And I should note as well, too, that our most recent five-year parks and recreation plan was completed in 2025. We had a survey that was part of that plan as well. and we had a question on that survey related to what properties or what parks in the city would residents most like to see updated. Manhattan Park was number one because that was before we had completed the recent renovation project, and Waterfront Park was number two on that list. Now, that question did not ask specifically what would you like to see, but it was highly ranked as desired to be improved. So going back to a little bit of history, so this image here is showing a conceptual design that was developed in like the 2013 time frame. This project, again based on that feedback from the community around that time, identified wetland restoration and trail development as some key potential features of a parks improvement project at this space. There was an expanded parking lot shown on this design with 47 new parking spaces in addition to the existing 18. And then some native tree plantings and invasive removals along with the outdoor classroom space was identified. And so this plan has been around for a while, was part of previous Parks and Recreation master plans. The city actually submitted a DNR grant application for this phase two, but was not awarded funding. And so it's been sitting since that time. When we started the first round of community engagement this spring, rather than starting with this design, which looks quite refined and complete, we felt like we would receive better feedback and input from the community to show a more conceptual nature, something that doesn't look as finished and polished as the previous design. It still has all the same key elements with the wetland restoration, trail development, and potential expanded parking. But this is what we used to start the conversation with the community on. And this is what we showed at that first round of community engagement in May. So we received quite a bit of feedback on this design. the potential for a waterfront park improvement during this process. And so following that first round of engagement, city staff and our consultants at Avon Marsh collected all the feedback received, read all of the surveys, and tried to come up with potential design changes based on that feedback. And so this design that you see here now was refined to show some more detail. This design was presented in the June, at the June community engagement sessions. A couple of changes that came about from feedback from the community. Number one being, and I should add as well, this design also incorporated some survey data into it. So we were able to collect survey data locations, GPS locations of trees that we felt should be salvaged during this project to maintain on site. And so some design elements were moved around to work around and save those trees. But other changes that we had heard from the community is that, and I'll scroll back and forth just to give you the idea. But the wetland, for example, on this iteration, we preserved a buffer between the road and the wetland as compared to this design here where it was kind of connected to that channel. That was directly related to feedback that we heard from the community that having a vegetative buffer would preserve some of the quaintness and quietness of the park and wouldn't make park users feel as though they were on Reeds Lake Boulevard if they were walking along the wetland. There's the idea of an island within the wetland was included on here. People that would be walking the trails could cross the boardwalk and kind of literally be on an island in the wetland there. There was some further refinement to the pathways of the trail system that is being proposed. And I should add as well, some of the routes that you're seeing here are trying to utilize some existing trails that have been formed over time, despite the usage of the park. But knowing that if that's where people want to use the space, trying to create some established trails that mirror the usage. You'll see the more refinement shown on the parking lot. So there's 20 spaces shown here as an addition to the existing parking. So we did hear from quite a few community members that felt like the 47 spaces on the previous design was not as desired. So we did scale that back. For your full information, and I outlined in my memo as well, is certainly one of the hot topics of this development. Certainly not unanimous feedback, but a variety of feedback across the spectrum of interest in parking, either no parking or certain level of parking being desired. And then a lot of the other project elements were maintained. So certainly still the native plantings, a removal of invasive species, and then the the site amenities would be preserved or that were on the previous iterations. And another one of the bigger changes here is on the east side of the road. You can see letter K. That's the proposed playground area. That is one thing that we heard during the first round of feedback. So on this iteration, the playground area is the letter J in the middle of the screen there. And we heard a lot of feedback that that would be better suited for the east side of Reeds Lake Boulevard. It would be more out in the open. It would be adjacent to the Reeds Lake Trail, which a lot of people would stop and utilize a playground as they're walking the trail. And so that is why it was moved to the east side of the road here. And then I am going to switch screens here just so I can show a larger version of the most current plan. So I can zoom in a little bit more just to, so this is the most current plan. It's the same rendering that's included within the packet and then also out on the board and it's on the Waterfront Park page. I will scroll because I do have it zoomed in right now just so I can highlight some of the key features, especially for those in the audience to see those. So so working from the south to the north, you'll see here this be here. This is a proposed walkway that would help connect the trail system to the lakeside reads like Boulevard intersection. There is a small parcel here on the corner that is not included within this this plan development. And so this pathway is showing as conceptual that could be adjusted to interface with any other future pedestrian or road projects in that area. But it's just trying to connect the property to Lakeside Drive. As I scroll north here, this will show you a better idea of the parking lot. So as noted, the existing parking lot, which is this lighter shade of gray here, there's currently 18 parking spots at full capacity. And one of the pieces of feedback that we heard through the community engagement process and we actually noticed as well when we're out at the park is having a parking lot that would be pulled through where you wouldn't have to back up and go out the same entrance was brought up as a potential positive of parking lot expansion, but it would remove a couple of parking spots. So what we're showing here, although there's 20 new parking spots shown, it's a net positive of 17 because we would have to lose a couple of existing spots. You'll see this yellow rectangle thing here. What that's showing is that if the schools were to have a educational classroom or like a field trip to come out and learn about wetlands or the environmental features of the site, they could pull up and drop off kids here, but there still would be a pass-through lane where cars could get around them while they were dropping off. There is a majority of the parking is proposed to be angled parking. However, down in this southern portion here, this would be like parallel parking that could double as vehicle with trailer parking. That was something that we had heard through feedback throughout the process. As I scroll forward or to the north, I should say, I'll still highlight the playground area still showing there on the east side. Make a little room for myself here. And then I just want to point out some of the other features that we have on site. So the J here is something that we had heard from the community that although the playground area would be better suited on the east side, that there was some people that really liked the idea of some elements that look like environmental features, like a log or different things that kids could climb on. That would potentially be a location for that. The letter H here is showing some signage, so we have some wayfinding signage for the site. And then I'll scroll a little further north to capture the north end here to talk about the rest of the site. So the light green dashed lines, those are showing potential pathways that could be a paved pathway, like an asphalt pathway. And the reason for those two segments showing it differently than the blue dashed lines, which would be like a more of a crushed limestone pathway, is that cut through from the east to west. We see that that's an existing pathway that is utilized, so it could receive higher usage than the other trails on the site. And then there would be a connection to a letter Let's see the letter. I got to find the thing on here letters this letter C area The greater C area there, which would be the outdoor classroom. So having a paved Section of trail that would get you to that space however, a majority of the the trail system would be the it's being proposed as like a compacted gravel The idea of the island is still showing, but one of the main removals from this design element, you'll notice here along the west edge of the property, there's a dashed gray line. In the previous iteration, we were showing that as a potential trail. We heard quite a bit of feedback that the benefits of that trail location It wouldn't really match the site and would take you out of the nature portion of the property. So that's showing as maybe a potential future pathway. But what we did do in this design change is created some loops. So you can see it distinctly here, but then also it's hidden by the tree cover here, but there's a light trail loop here. So that would provide users an experience instead of doing an out and back walk, Through the park they could have a trail loop or change their change their pathway each time they go out And have a different experience Some of the other key features which are consistent across all of the designs Would be some letter F. You see those spread throughout the site that would be like a viewing platform or in the case of the letter F that's adjacent to the trail and the north or excuse me the The connection, I'm drawing a blank on the word there, the connection from Reeds Lake to Fisk Lake, the water channel there, that could be a potential fishing platform. So that's why that's showing right up against the water's edge on the north end. It is angled to try to promote the best views possible back there behind the DPW building. And then as needed throughout the site, there are some boardwalks. So it's a majority of the trail system would be like the compacted gravel like I noted, but in areas that would cross wetlands or in close proximity to wetlands would have to be like an elevated boardwalk or something like made of wood for those seasonal fluctuations of wetness.

Is that what that is at the top, the FEI? Is that a boardwalk?

Yeah, so that would be one example of a boardwalk. That would be the largest one that goes out into the wetland with that viewing platform on the southern end of that. So I'm going to zoom out a little bit as well just to kind of give the full picture and, again, trying to preserve viewability. So there are quite a few similarities to the original design from the 2013 timeframe, but there were a number of changes based on the input we received from the community. The addition of the playgrounds or the play space area, the parking lot, the reduction in the number of spaces, again, is noted based on the feedback and certainly still currently I'm sure we'll hear that there are different different opinions on the addition of parking there, but largely the main project elements dating back to the community engagement in 2007 and 2008 with the restoration of the wetlands, improving the vegetative quality of the property through removal of invasives and the planting of native species, and then the development of sustainable pathways throughout the park are certainly still present in this design. as compared to the original design. So I will switch back over to...

There we go.

So just to give you an idea of the project timeline, so yes, this evening we are requesting for your input and potential adoption of this as the final conceptual design, which would allow for the Avon Marsh team to move forward in the design process, working on further engineered drawings, allowing us to move forward in the design process so we can work with Eagle for wetland permitting that's required. Those would be two of the next steps as part of the further developing the the plan into more engineered drawings, we'd be able to have firmer cost estimates that would be directly associated with the elements of this project and ultimately final design in 2026. We do have to have any final design does need to go to the DNR for approval. before we go for bidding, so there is a DNR review period ensuring that our project elements are meeting the spirit of the grant application and the key project elements. Once the design is final from a design and constructability perspective, It would come back to the city commission for your final review and approval before the project would be bid in either late 26 or 2027 pending all of those items remaining for 2026 lineup with potential for construction next spring summer timeframe. And again, there's still a lot of work to be done because we're just wrapping up the conceptual stages. Staff and our consultants at Avon Marsh are working diligently to keep us on the schedule. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. As noted, Leah from the Avon Marsh team is here as well that could potentially answer questions as well.

Thanks for being here, Leah. Thank you. Great. Does anyone have any questions? Anyone want to start? Go ahead.

I have a quick process question just to make sure I understand where we are. So the vote tonight would be to approve this with or without comments, and then they would develop a final design that would then come back to us again. Is that true?

That is true, and that final design would include cost estimates related to the improvements for your review as well.

So kind of like Manhattan, would that be like A, B, and C kind of options, or do you think it'd be, you don't remember how it was like a few different options rather than just like this is it?

Yeah, so for Manhattan, we kind of merged those two processes. So we're kind of at the A, B, and with the A and B stage now. Whereas the first round of community engagement, we are starting with the A and we move forward to B and then to C. But to your point, there certainly is the option for feedback from the commission as to requested changes. So potentially approving this with changes that you would like to see.

Okay. I have one more question. I'll see the rest of the comments for after public input and our discussion time But what is the surface type of the parking lot? Are we gonna continue on with those permeable pavers?

Yes, so that has not been decided yet so that certainly would be an option when we start looking at cost estimates and have a price we could have a price for both of those options and that that ultimately would be one of the decisions for this City Commission

Sorry, I have one more question. Is there bike parking in this plan?

There will be bike parking as part of this plan, yes. It's actually a scope item for the grant that we have bike racks.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Is now an appropriate time for me to give the kind of parks and rack committee rehash of this and some of the things that we're being focused on in that meeting? A couple of things that were focused on in the park and rec meeting was what surface that crushed limestone surface and to make sure that it would still be ADA compatible for just different types of mobile users to be able to use it. That was important while still being quiet enough that the birders would not spook all the birds away. Another thing we had talked about is making these walking trails exclusively and not having them be bikeable, not having them even be runnable, but make this a walkable trail system and very, very discourage different forms of transportation on these trails as more of a nature walk. So that was brought up a bunch. This was kind of cool. I hadn't thought about it this way. So I think I should bring it up. But one of the, kind of cool teaching things when we talk about schools coming here that I hadn't really thought about was this will be an example of an area that was nature, and then it was completely raised and filled in. and then it was brought back to its original form. And I think that process and teaching the kids of the process of being able to take something that has been previously raised previously filled and previously kind of ruined by, by people and bringing it back and restoring it to where it was at and, and, teaching the kids that part too, not just, hey, here's some wetlands, but here's a way that we're able to restore these things could open a lot of minds on when they see an old plant on the side of a river, or they see a beach that's been ruined with a paper mill or something, or an old power plant. It kind of opens minds to be like, it doesn't have to stay this way. And that can be part of the curriculum as well. I hadn't thought of that. I thought that was a really cool other way that this can be used for a teaching opportunity as well.

That's great. Yeah, that's why I've always liked that classroom aspect. And I know that the classroom or kiosks have been in the plan since the 2000s plan. And I always thought that that was, you know, those teaching moments are important. And that's, yeah, I didn't think about that. That's a really good point. I have a follow-up question on Commissioner Burdick's question. So the discussion about making the trails walkable only and no bikes and no e-bikes and whatnot, Where does that go? When does that decision get made? Is that just, in the end, part of this process? Was it made by Parks? Is that the recommendation? I'm just curious where that is.

It was a discussion item, but wasn't voted on or a recommendation, or wasn't necessarily voted to bring forward to the city commission. But it's certainly something that could be further discussed. I mean, subject to just review by the rest of the admin team.

Yeah, I was just curious, because that's an interesting That's an interesting thought. So I was just curious.

And it's not alone. Like we were talking about it during that meeting, the gravel ones on the other side that are this kind of crushed gravel. Yeah, that one right here. Those are no bikes right now. They say no bikes on them as well. So it wouldn't be, I mean, it's already incorporated in these waterfront park that we have these gravel paths that are not bikeable. So it wouldn't be something new.

Interesting. I have one quick question about the Playground K. Was that part of the initial grant proposal, the playground aspect, or was that...?

The idea of a playground had come about as part of the Recreation Master Plan, but the playground was not included in our grant application because it wouldn't have provided us with any additional points. And so we left that off the application, but as a community, we're allowed to do additional things.

That was my question, if that would, because I didn't think it was included in the proposal. So I was, did you anticipate that and getting pushback from that? So no, you don't push back?

No, and to the contrary, I did already, I talked to the DNR grant team ahead of the community conversations about that to make, just to make sure that we weren't talking about something that wouldn't be permitted and And they said as a recreational amenity, they would be supportive of something like that.

Okay. Great.

Great. Thank you.

Mr. Melville, is the DNR grant final, do we have that locked in where we set the final details or is this something that we still need, it's still potentially something that we could lose?

So the way the DNR process works is the city will at a later date will sign a project agreement. One of the terms that the DNR for this particular project will have is we have to have our EGLE permit in hand before we can sign the project agreement. And that's something we have a pre-application meeting with EGLE scheduled. It's on the books for some time in the coming weeks. but we have to have a final plan of what we're going to do and what proximity to the wetlands before they'll issue that permit. So it's been recommended. The project is, the funding is there, but we have to work through the steps in the process before we're able to fully execute that project agreement, which really confirms the grant. Understood. Thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Melville?

I do have a few questions. First of all, this looks beautiful. I would love to go. Just hang out in this tomorrow. And I'm curious, first of all, because it is so beautiful, it seems to incorporate all of the entire wish list, I think, that we've heard people bring forward and that we've talked about. And that feels like a very tall list of things to fit within this budget of about $1.1 million. So what degree of certainty do we have that we can get close to this level of work on the concept plan within that budget?

To this, at this time, I can't give that level of certainty just because we haven't done cost estimating as part of this project. When we had applied for the DNR grant, we had some previous bids for projects similar of this nature, and we had applied like incremental increased pricing for inflation, et cetera. to those, but we don't have an updated cost estimate with some of these amenities. In particular, like the playground area was not part of that cost estimate that was used for the grant application, so that would certainly be above that project budget. But the Avon Marsh team will be helping us work through that and getting updated cost estimates And, you know, throughout that process, we'll be able to make adjustments. So if, for example, at 30% design, we have a cost estimate and have to make some decisions of changes or adjustments, reduce the scope of something, that's something we would certainly bring back to the city commission for review.

So I guess process question then to pause there. My question is for you, Director Melville, just a second. If we are to move forward with this concept design this evening, can we give direction related to, I mean, I guess the answer is we can, but I guess the question to toss out there is their appetite to give direction related to budget. And if we find that cost estimates are running over a certain amount that we need to revisit before we get to a final plan.

I would hate for us to get to the...

I'm sorry, was that directed at me or was that a question? It's a question, I think, to all but also an implication that I would hate for us to get into a position where we have a beautiful plan at the end and then it's like, well, we're $2 million over and we've got that sitting in the general fund. Let's do it without monitoring that along the way.

So that as we go through that design process and we'll have kind of various check-in points, some of this is what does EGLE on their permit gonna say we have to do, not have to do, or that's an unknown. So just from an administrative standpoint, if we're at a, oh, we're like $2 million over, we'll be back very quickly. If we're in that, option of, and where that threshold is, we'll know it when we'll see it, but we're very sensitive to the budget, and we've targeted 1.1 million. We have the 600,000 in the parks fund, from the bond proceeds, so that's cash in hand, the $500,000 grant, anything above and beyond that, It'll be a value question for the Commission if it comes back and says we need another hundred thousand At what level does the City Commission want staff back or as we do with other projects we have a good sense of yes, we can do this Multi-million dollar change. No, that's we'll be back before that we get into that bandwidth of you know 5% off or 10% variance and you know, depends on what that five to 10% gets us. And some of those right now, especially in this bidding environment, we're seeing stuff all over the map. Um, and that's, uh, this may even be a, we go out to bed and we think this is our number and hello, you know, we get a surprise positive or whatnot. A lot of times with projects like this, um, we'll also bid alternatives of we want this, this and this, and if we get good numbers, we'll throw that in. Um, so,

So basically, you're just going to keep us informed as we go? Oh, absolutely.

No, absolutely.

I kind of hear that like 5% to 10% potentially over is a trigger note or?

That's gut reaction right now tonight. I don't put a lot of thought to it.

Seems reasonable. Yeah, sorry. And if I don't mind, just to add more to that, I think just going through construction projects, typically when you start to see yourself going over budget, You you it's called value engineering, right? You start to look at the things that what could you tweak to still keep an element but or find it maybe a cheaper way to achieve it or You start to prioritize and go maybe we can't have that just yet and maybe something that might push be pushed to a phase three I don't know but I'm assuming that this is no different than any other No different than whether we're building a water main road Park conversations around Manhattan some those conversations are

Commission never saw because we do rely on our consultants to say, okay, if we tweak this, this, we can get across the finish line, things of that nature.

I do have a couple of additional, but if you want to carry on on that.

Well, I just had another question, but I... Go ahead. It's moving topics. I don't know if we want... Just one thing I want to say about the learning classrooms I think are so cool. I think... And when I saw learning classrooms, I thought, oh, maybe this might be another eloquent way of being able to team up with the schools and with their... Have there been consideration or thoughts to talk to them and seeing if they were interested in offsetting some of the costs by helping contribute towards the cost of these learning classrooms, knowing that they should, we'll use them and should, I think they're great, it's a great tool. Has there been thoughts or have you had a conversation with the schools and that maybe could end up be another way just to offset a little bit of the costs?

So generally speaking, school dollars, whether it be bond proceeds or their operational dollars, whatnot, have to remain within school facilities. So for them to do that, that'd be some sort of private fundraising effort or would not be a, and that's a statute limitation, not a. policy choice. Okay, thank you. That's too bad.

So going back to the address briefly or Commissioner Burdick, you mentioned the discussion around accessibility and the crushed limestone. Can you speak a little bit more to the level of accessibility that that provides and or to go a step further, how will we incorporate universal design principles into the final plan that we see to make sure that everyone can enjoy this beautiful resource?

Yes, so that's one of the things that I like about the DNR grant process is that they take a close look at that as well and so the elements will have to be ADA accessible so the crushed limestone trail or whatever that surface type ends up being will be ADA accessible and the other project elements that we have throughout the site like the parking lot like Essentially, if there are areas that are going to be accessed for this, we'll have that accessibility. And that's an important part for us, not just because it's a DNR requirement. Right.

Great. Which brings me to my last question, the big one, parking, which I know I've raised before when we've talked about this. I know, you know, Commissioner Hunter has talked about it as well, and we've heard from the community, and we see the parking lot surface area more than doubled here with nearly a double in the number of spaces and i don't see that need or that desire reflected in the public engagement feedback that were provided here and in fact we could talk to the things that i've heard speak against using utilizing park area to expand parking especially and now i hear and i can return to you know the argument that this makes it more accessible for people to come to and we're having this larger conversation about increasing parking in the system and what is the level of service and the radius for someone to get from potentially a new parking deck to this park and I think the accessibility is met. And it's gonna be a real, so this is not a question, this is a comment, it's gonna be real tough for me to say yes to this concept plan when I see so much expanded parking here. I'd like to see that narrowed back down and preserving preserving that land, which I know is not high quality vegetation, but if we are restoring other parts of the vegetation, why would we not also do that there instead of building surface parking?

Yeah. So that certainly, um, as I noted was not, um, unanimous feedback on, on the parking lot and Laurie, can you turn the document cam on? Cause my charger decided I didn't want to charge, but I, I came prepared. So part of the some of the design changes that we had throughout the process were directly related to the feedback that we received from the community and the original design that I showed earlier with the 47 spaces we heard quite clearly not just from people that didn't want any parking at all but people that were okay with some degree of parking but not quite that much so the The 43 spaces did scale down to the added 17. Included within the packet is the survey results from the second round of engagement where we asked a targeted question, essentially asking people to what degree of parking would they be okay with. 35% of people did not want to see any added parking. And then the question was zero to five or six to 10 new spots or 10 to 20. And there was a degree of support for some level of parking. I was surprised that question was saved for last because I thought this would be the first question tonight. And so certainly that's something that staff and our consultants are looking for feedback on. We feel like the current proposed parking lot did not only scale back in size, but did address a number of the concerns that we did here. So we did preserve a vegetative buffer in between Reeds Lake Boulevard and the parking lot to try to preserve some of the nature-esque components of that site, included the center island that would be planted with vegetation. But certainly the scale of that parking lot is certainly up for discussion by the Commission. We just felt like it was close to the middle of some of the feedback that we received. But as I noted, and I'll continue to express that, it certainly is one of the most debated portions of this site. Typically speaking, when we are adding park elements or when any community adds park elements to a site, some degree of accessibility in the way of access is included. And so we were just trying to find that balanced approach.

Yes, and I do hear that. And it just seems like the least we were if we were to add parking anywhere in the system and this is not just obviously a parks and recreation conversation right that our park lands would not be the place where we would want to utilize public property to do that especially like i said when we're talking about adding parking and gas light and we've got a very large surface lot just north of here that is accessible via trail and our rfb crossings across this road so Seeing as this is still quite accessible via other parking options, like I said, it's a very tough yes on expanding parking to this degree.

»» I actually have a related question on that. I know this is, as we talked about, a heated point for a lot of people. I thought I remembered that adding parking was part of our grant, the reason why our grant was what it was. The DNR wants to see us increasing access to parks, and so part of that is to provide additional parking. Am I remembering correctly?

So a couple of things. Yes, an expanded parking lot was included as part of our grant application. We did not commit to any sort of scale of parking lot expansion. So we didn't say we're going to be adding this many of spots, et cetera. I have had subsequent conversations with DNR staff after us receiving the recommended award. specifically related to parking. It was at the same time as the playground conversation, and they can't give me a number to say, oh, well, if you scale it down to this number of spots, we'll still approve the grant. How it would work is that we come up with our final design, or at least our final conceptual design, and then submit it to them, and they could reject that or accept that. through that conversation. I know that one of the minimum requirements would be the ADA accessibility and adding at least some ADA spots to help with that access, but they couldn't give me a number to say, we'd still approve it if you did this amount. Okay, thank you.

I had a follow-up question on that, because that conversation sounded familiar. So they, can you just explain to me why they requested the expansion of the parking lot. For what reason was it in their interest to expand it?

Yeah, some of the reasons being, so actually when the property was acquired, the potential for expanded parking on site was part of it, which obviously to some degree was accomplished through phase one. but generally speaking, during grant application process, accessibility to the site and access are criteria for points, and so they look at proximity to bus locations, walking distance from schools or neighborhoods, and then parking is one of the things that they look at, and so it is like a point-based criteria that they, So it is for accessibility for people. And access as well.

Director Melville, if I could, I've spent time with former staff, kind of a crossover, and former Manager Donovan and former Parks and Rec Director Bunn advised that the existing lot was a huge tension point, but it was a requirement for accessibility to the site itself because I think some of the things we're talking about was while parking somewhere else and getting on a trail may work for anybody in this room, it does not certainly for all users of infrastructure. And so they basically, I think to Director Melville's point, that was basically the smallest that the city could construct it and get the grant dollars for phase one. So I think we'll see something similar again, but it'll be that touch point there too.

But I do wanna come back and just clarify again though, parking is not the be all and end all of accessibility. There is accessibility for folks who have different mobility needs and then there is accessibility in terms of the larger conversation about how do all folks get to the park. And while parking may provide us some points, it's not all points. Correct. And I also recall previous conversations where this has come up at this table and saying parking is still something that we have to work out. It's not a settled thing.

Sure. The last thing I would just add is Similar to some of the discussions we had with Safe Routes to School, we're playing with rules that are at different agency levels. So the state agency levels have different way of dealing with these things than we might, and the federal government does too. But when we're commingling those funds together, we have to balance everybody's needs, including those who are also giving us funds. So that's the challenge sometimes where staff is kind of caught in the middle of all this, and it's not quite as clear cut as what maybe our preference would be.

Thank you. Are there any other questions for Mr. Melville?

No questions, just more comments about parking.

Go ahead.

I didn't know we were doing comments.

We can let you sit down then. If everybody has some other questions.

Thanks for your concern.

Thank you. Did anyone have any questions for Leah directly since she's here this evening? No? Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here and thank you. Okay. So at this point we can... open it up to some public comment, and then we will further the conversation up here. So if you'd like to make public comment to this agenda item, now is the time to do so, please. Thank you.

I've been anxious to come up here and address this because I was on the Parks and Recreation Commission back when this Phase 1 plan and Phase 2 plan was conceived, working with Mr. Bunn. And I can tell you that this is a nice, and I want to thank again Mr. Melville for his presentation and historical. But it's glossing over a lot of the issues that went into the Phase 1 development and the parking aspects of this. There's a lot of wish lists on this development and in this concept plan and this proposal. A lot of those items that were on that wish list, such as any additional parking, were vetoed vehemently by the community and part of not and why that was not presented in the grant. There was an absolute objection to playground equipment. This was designed to be a passive nature park, not a playground. And so adding playground equipment is a mutually divergent term from a natural passive green space area. You can't have playgrounds, you can't have paved over parking, you can't have trails everywhere and have a natural space. It's not conducive to wildlife, it's not conducive to natural growth so those were items that were on a wish list that were voted against and vetoed vehemently by the community at that time i would point out to the court i would point out i was going to say to the court but i will point out to this commission that there's i think he said 18 parking spaces currently in addition the concept plan adds an in and out drive out So you're not only adding 17 more parking spaces, but you're paving over that driveway that goes in and out of the parking lot. So that's another destruction of green space in that area. In addition to the 17 parking spaces that are being added, you're adding a paved driveway. And that's going to be a problem because there are going to be people using that for U-turns when they go down Reeds Lake Boulevard to get back to Gaslight or if they're looking for parking over Roses or those fishermen with their trailers going in and around looking for parking turning around through there. And that traffic is not conducive to a natural space either. So you're adding 17 spaces of parking for 38 spaces and you're adding a driveway. So it's not just parking spaces, it's pavement. So I think the commission has to look at what is your intent with this park? Our intent with that park back then was to keep this a passive nature trail park, not playground, not playground equipment, not landscaped golf course type of a park. but a passive nature park. Every accruedment or every amenity was thoroughly discussed and voted against when we worked out this initial plan for phase one and phase two. There was big discussions about that boardwalk going out into the lake, also from a liability perspective for some boat or hitting that thing. And you want to keep your space absolutely accessible to those people who want to see the nature park, but you also have to consider the wildlife, the natural green space that you're trying to protect. If you're trying to restore wetlands, you can't restore wetlands on a parking lot and you can't restore wetlands in a playground. So I'm asking you to keep that in mind when you consider this plan. The costs here are interesting too, because if you've got 600,000 left in a millage, what do you do when you spend all that money? How is that going to get paid back? How is the interest on the bonds going to get paid if you empty the coffer on the millage? And I think that's something to be considered also. Looking at the numbers, and Mr. Melville spent a lot of time talking to me about it, and again, I really appreciate it. Of that survey, there were 82 people that commented on that, 82. 35% of that saying they were against any increase in parking means 28 people. Four people are the ones that said we want 20 spaces or more of parking. Now that parking, there's no data saying that this is parking for use of the park. It could be parking for Gaslight Village, Roses, or everything else. So you have to keep in mind what you want to do and what you want this park to do. We wanted it to be a passive nature trail park. So I encourage you not to move forward on this concept plan for the reasons I stated in non-public comment, that the public hasn't had a chance to look at any of this data. It came out over the holiday. We're here because we happen to see it on the agenda. And this is worth time. Our group looked at this for a long time, not just 120 days from the April meeting, May, June. The last June meeting with public engagement on this thing was two weeks ago. And now it's here in front of you asking for approval of the concept plan. I like some of the thoughts some of the commissioners were talking about, about paving and thinking of the native species, the non-native species, but this was totally designed in the entire history of this area as a passive nature park without a lot of trails, not a playground. and not a big paved parking lot, you can't have them both. It's destroying the green space that we're trying to restore. Thank you very much for your time. If anybody has any questions, I was there. I can answer them for you. A lot of them have been answered up here, but I'm more than happy to talk to anybody about this part. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Baxter. Does anybody else want to make public comment?

Hello, I'm still Niall Deems, 701 Laurel Circle.

Welcome back.

And this is why I came tonight. The presentation suggested they'd incorporated a number of comments they got from the meetings. Surprise, they did not incorporate my comments to them. My comments were pretty simple. It was mostly less is better, leave it alone. I think the city has some money and this is a way to spend it on some parks matters. And you got a grant from the state, so now what do you do? You got a million one and here we go. And oh, there's invasive species there and they're low quality. Well, that's what happens when a natural area restores itself after, I believe it was Mr. Gilmore was building condos there. flattened it, now it's done pretty well for the last 50 years, bringing itself back. But now we have a proposal, and we're not concerned with those invasive species. We want to put in a bunch of structural improvements. And I heard outdoor classrooms, gathering space, bike racks, paved pathways, limestone pathways, benches, platforms, parking. It seems to me we're putting in a lot of human invasive things. And if we really want to watch this area restore itself from what it was in the evolutions Commissioner Burdick talked about, we try and leave it alone to let it keep going back through those natural evolutions. And therefore less is more the less you do to this area the better we really don't need i tried to count all these little letters i got lost i didn't have enough fingers and toes uh there's 20 there's more than two dozen you know i think a large number of these if not all of them can be gotten rid of and if you need some walking trails to get through so some students can look and see what it's like. Those are walking trails. The rest of this is just to bring in more and more people. And I'm not sure this is a nature area that needs more and more people. That would be invasive. And I think you should steer away from that and go back to less is more. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Would anyone else care to make public comment to this agenda item? No, sorry. Okay, at this time, I will close public comment and I will bring it back up here for further discussion. Commissioner Wesley, you wanted to go ahead.

I appreciate it. Well, yes, I guess since we're talking about the topic of parking, I had some thoughts. You know, again, I've been sitting on the commission for five years now. I know that like we have a lot of priorities and a lot of things we hold near and dear. And, you know, nature is one of those things that we hold as one of our top priorities. But then earlier this year, I remember us talking about, you know, Safety first, maybe top priority. Both safety and kid safety and mobility plus nature, they're all up there. But sometimes we have to choose one, especially if we're landlocked. And that is the other argument about why the schools want to build a parking deck. And the argument is there for going up instead of out. And knowing that the service parking is significantly cheaper per space than the proposed ramp that the school wants us to help them pay for, which is, I thought somewhere, again, I don't know if this is right, but $200,000 per space or something like that, or maintenance, I don't know. It was significantly expensive compared to the cost of service parking. So I looked at this place and although I don't want to take away from green space, what I've learned is that the majority of this, if not all of it, is invasive plant species that really won't be missed. We could use permanent pavement systems like I think we already doing, but even maybe even better to reduce or eliminate runoff. And so again, also anticipating, you know, some of the arguments are there about why we want the parking deck versus Versus not saying, hey, we don't know what's going to happen at D&W. We don't know what's going to happen with more parking. Knowing the level of service that we provide for parking is low. We have parking, but it's not perceived like we have parking because some people prefer just to see the front door to where they're walking. Otherwise, it's too far to walk. Doesn't really match the walkable feeling that we're all pitching at the same time. So anyway, as I digest all of that information, I kind of keep going back to that safety first. And I guess I'm going to, I've been saying this for a while, but again, I think that in terms of safety, the boat ramp, this is separate, but it needs to go. I've been saying that. I think it needs to go. Tell me how you really feel.

So anyway.

Whose phone is that?

That's like my kid playing a YouTube video through my phone.

Anyway, I do believe that has to go. I've never seen a community where we have a boat launch where we have two sidewalks that go, like pedestrian sidewalks go through this thing. I think it's an accident waiting to happen. And I think the first phase of that is if we moved trailer parking outside of the city and made it a little bit more difficult for them to be there in anticipation of us potentially moving the boat launch. So one suggestion I have is that with the parking that we have is to have a certain number of parking spaces that were deeper to accommodate those trailer slots. And I'd love to see them, see us remove them and I guess forbid them to be parked, taking up two or three spots in our gaslight space, which again, really makes it a lot harder for, you know, harder for people to patronize our small businesses there. So with the parking, again, I don't, me personally thinking that, you know, I would love to see those additional parking spaces, at least those deeper spaces be in there. Does that mean that we have to add a few more spaces or can we do it within the footprint that we have? I don't know. I'll leave that up to the experts and the engineers, but my two cents, and I guess this is kind of a long winded way of saying, I'd love to see us add dedicated trailers, instead of just like the parallel ones, but like something that's deeper so that they can actually pull in. And I don't know what that number is, but I'd love to see that happen so that we can then start to think about removing that from the gas lights area. Other than that, I love, I like that the whole thing looks really pretty. I like it a lot. I like the, my kids have gone through MISC camp as part of the school system that's here, that we do that as one of the events that are field trips. That's the word I'm struggling for. They had a great time. And then I was there as chapter one for three years as my boys went through. And then they had those outdoor learning activities those classrooms and it was awesome. And it got them out into nature and the elements and they learned a ton more. And I think that, you know, even where maybe a classroom that has hospital lights in there and it's maybe harder to focus. If you're out maybe in the elements and it's more tangible, I think that's just another different way of learning things. And so I'm a huge advocate for that. And so again, I like everything I see. The only thing I'm saying is that the parking, I think we're missing a huge opportunity and to think on a bigger scale. And I think we do need to also consider about what does happen if D&W goes, hey, we're going to start monitoring our parking. What happens? I'm not sure what's going to happen with the school if the ramp's going to happen. We have a big question mark of what's happening over here at Gaslight Development. So this is an opportunity, again, we're landlocked, but this is our land. We have an opportunity to really think through maybe what do we need and what's the best need. And again, thinking about not only nature and how do we preserve that as best as possible, but how do we also think about and incorporate safety?

Did you have anything to add?

Yeah, I've been raring to go on this. Cause I didn't have any questions. I just have comments. I, a couple of things, one, and I'll try to be brief here. I learned some things today. One, I had no clue what a mean coefficient of conservative and score was or an FQI. So those are new words for me and my Scrabble game. But what they essentially say is, the land that we're trying to redevelop is in really bad shape. When it was raised and when it was filled, it really affected what was there and what we're trying to restore it back to kind of shows up in those scores saying that the quality of flora in there is very low over what we should expect it to be in that area. So with that said, I am super in support of everything on restoring. They've done a great job identifying it's almost half of the species out there are invasive. Like got to get rid of those. I think classrooms and things are great. I am going to be a little bit of a broken record here with parking. I really don't like more surface parking personally. I much support stacking it. I don't like putting it, taking green space away, recreation space away for car parking spots. I do understand, though, that we have a grant and that some of the points are based on that. But I would highly encourage, at least my personal opinion is, as we bring those spots down as low as we're able to do while offering as many mobility solutions as possible. And also, I do, though, like that it goes around in loops. Because if you ever watch people try to pull out of the square little parking lot we have now, It is very much akin to Austin Powers movies of the past where it's like a 20 point turn. And that's not a very safe way to do it with little kids around loading it onto cars. So I'd love to see some way that we could have some sort of a pull through there and angled parking. I know it's just one of those things that for a DNR grant, we might have to have some. I'm here to encourage us to try to get as few spots as we can in the most harmonious way possible to satisfy that grant request. Because as Commissioner Groff-Blasek mentioned, we do have a very large lot just down the street. And I understand that's not for everybody, but that's surface parking. So that's where I'm at. Great. Any other thoughts, comments?

Thank you. So I'll try not to say too much that's repetitive, but I'm very enthusiastic about this plan and the way that it rejuvenates the woods and the wetlands and we get rid of invasive species and plant native plants. I'm excited to hear, I didn't know that we were doing this, but the GPS location of the specific trees that are worth keeping, that's fantastic. It takes a long time to plant a tree, right? So let's keep what we do have. that provides those habitats to our native species. So reading, you know, I went through and I actually read all of the survey results. And I think the universal sentiment in this community is to protect our natural spaces because we like to engage in them. People love to see nature and be in nature. And I want to commend staff and our vendor for coming up with a plan that I believe emphasizes engaging with nature in a quiet and respectful way. Um, I, I do want to point out that the playground options, if it's been five years of me up here begging for, um, toddler friendly playground options. And it's not because I just want to pepper our community with playgrounds. It's because a lot of people don't realize this, but if you, during the school day, if you aren't in that school, you cannot use the playground. The only playground in the community that little kids can go to is Manhattan. And I love Manhattan park. I love what we've done with it. Um, but it's not super friendly for your two, your one to two, your three or four year olds. So having, you know, I look at that space that's J the J space in particular and the proposed images like that is it. If you've been to Maggie Daly park in Chicago, they have that natural space. That's just fogs to walk on. It's like little like teepees of trees. My kids adore that space. It's, we want our kids to be in nature. And I think instilling that love in them right away by giving them those things that they're not, it's not bright orange. They're not shiny slides. It's not swings in those spaces. It's parents can stand around and talk and engage and be a community. and let their kids do some risky play, climb on things, be in nature. I love it. I didn't even know that there were going to be the two playground options with K over there also. As we think about K, I would ask that we consider looking to places like Frederick Meyer Gardens as a reference point, where it's their tree house structures. And within it, my kids love this. There are examples of different types of tree. You touch the bark. There are signs that say what type of tree it is. And so they're learning and they're engaging. And I, you know, let's foster that love of nature, um, without being the bright blue and bright orange, which are more appropriate on a school playground or Manhattan park, but like, please keep it to natural elements, um, in, you know, both of these facilities. I know we talk a lot about parking. I also saw in the survey results that people were asking for more parking for this space, including for baseball games. We're all going to have different feelings on this, but I think with permeable surfaces in this area, this iteration shrinking down from the initial proposal, I think it provides a good balance. I really like the in and out. People don't have to turn around. And it does let us get buses in there so that our kids can come from schools to those outdoor classrooms to engage further. But I also respect other people's perspectives on this. And if there's some flex and reducing a few spots to get there, I'm not close to that at all. I'd like to really emphasize bike parking. You know, we're talking about not having these trails be open to bikes. So let's make sure we can get there on our bikes, park it and engage off of the bikes. And for me, it's a hard no on any trailer parking here. I do think we need to pursue, we need to discuss, and I have emphasized at length at different times, get the trailers out of parallel parking, middle school, DPW, wherever, but I would not be in favor of any trailer parking here. So I think that's all of the notes that I had made here. Thank you again for everybody who's worked really hard. Thank you to the community who has participated in all the different engagement sessions to all the different iterations of the master plan to get us to where we are today.

Thank you.

I will just I think quickly summarize what I've already said is that I have telegraphed this I think over the last year or so that we've been discussing this that the expansion of parking is going to be a real A real sticking point, and it continues to be so. And, again, I will just gently push back and say that, yes, in the survey there are always going to be some people who say we would like to have more parking. Parking for the baseball field should be up at the DPW where the field is. More than not, as we've talked about, folks do not want to see an expansion of parking here. And I remain concerned about just the scope of this concept plan given the budget that we've talked about, which that's not a sticking point in terms of me moving forward. I think that that will come out in the wash. We also don't have a motion on the table right now, so I'm not sure what interest there is to discuss before a motion is made, whether we give direction to scale back the parking here, or if there's even appetite to do that.

So let me offer an observation. So Director Melville, correct me if I'm wrong, kind of the Pinch point for this evening is the discussion on the wetlands permit. Getting that process going. There's obviously a mixture of opinions and we have two commissioners missing this evening as well. If commission takes action to say overall concept and I'm thinking the wetlands specifically that a motion to approve the concept plan with direction to bring back Had a future discussion on parking alternatives, if you will, kind of potentially ABC and kind of get locked in a little bit more. We'll continue to converse with DNR. But if you have that enough direction that this is the wetland area, these are the areas that we would need the permits for, does that keep us kind of on track, if you will?

Yeah, I believe that to be true the majority of the conversations that we'll be having with the Eagle are related to work in and around the existing wetlands and also the establishment of the proposed restoration of wetlands. I was quickly just trying to pull up our our wetland survey that we had done, I know that there is some level of degree of wetland proximity, like the ditch that runs along at Reeds Lake Boulevard. But I believe that we could potentially have the conversation with the Eagle, with the Eagle, that this is subject to be scaled down in size, related specifically to the parking lot. But if we were to have support for the amenities to the north of the existing parking lot, that certainly would go a long ways in our permit efforts with EGLE. I just can't say with certainty that they won't have something to say about the proximity to the ditch on Reed's Lake.

I think we can continue to move forward with this agenda item tonight.

So... Go ahead.

That wasn't me. Oh, I thought... No. No. Oh, I'm... Oh, okay.

It was... I did not say that.

It was something in the audience.

Were you finished with your comments? Yes. Okay. I think for Maya, I think, first off, I love the plan. I think it's a great concept plan. I think it looks great. I saw it years ago in a slightly different variation from Fred Bunn years ago. I was also part of the community foundation project when the former Mayor Seibold and Fred Bunn started to do a fundraising project to get this going. So I know the community has had this in its sights for years and years. So seeing this I think is exciting and I think everybody involved did a really, really great job. And also back to the invasive species piece, anyone who has done buckthorn poles, we know that once you're in there, what's currently there, it's all you see. It's overwhelming. We go on these poles and it's like you identified it first and then you have to kind of re-educate yourself. And then once you do, you turn and you're like, wait, this is all that's here. And it's overwhelming. It's been overwhelming to me several times on these poles. to actually get some native species back in here where they belong I think is just exciting. I love the island. I think that's intriguing. Just well done and thank you for your work on this. I know that there's lots of questions and lots of conversations about parking. Parking, parking, parking. And I know that in our community there's a lot of different projects that are potential projects, what ifs. I think Commissioner Swartz did a great job, said it well when she, you know, I've heard people talk to me about it's too much parking. And I've heard equally the same number of people say, no, there's not enough. How are people going to get here? People that don't live here potentially, how are they going to get here and access this beautiful project? So when I hear that, I kind of think, well, maybe there is a balance here. But more than that, I know that staff, Doug, you've been speaking to this for years. And Derek, you've been coming up to speed on this for years. Over a decade we've been talking about this and there is a grant and I would not want to do anything to jeopardize that grant. So for my money, I trust staff that have been through this project to know what that tipping point is, to know exactly what is needed because at the end of the day we need to fulfill the obligations of the grant and parking is part of that. It's been made clear. I would hate to jeopardize ourselves with this grant by you know, eliminating too much parking. So for my money, I trust staff to know what that need is and what that tipping point is, just because you've been around this for a lot longer than we have. And I know that, you know, Doug, you're pretty familiar with this. So, yeah, my concern is that we get this grant, that we can make this happen, that we can make it accessible for our neighbors, for our kiddos, and get this done, because it's been around. This idea's been around for a long, long time, and it's exciting that we're this close. That being said, that's where I am on the parking. And I trust staff to make that decision and to bring us the best option. So that being said, can we have a motion and a second on this agenda item?

I would move to approve the Waterfront Park Phase 2 conceptual plan and authorize city staff and consultants to proceed with final design efforts, incorporating the feedback provided by commission today.

Second.

Okay. We can go to a vote. We've all made our statements, so we can go to a vote. All those in favor say yes. Yes.

I do have a question on that, though, in that I have heard incorporating edits, but specifically I've also heard that we can focus north of the parking lot. So does including what we've discussed here today mean that we are moving forward with what's north of the parking lot or the thing in the entirety?

We are voting to move forward to the final concept plan, correct? Is that what's on the agenda?

Yep. So what we heard this evening is the majority of the commission has indicated that if we have parking as little as we can, I guess is the best way to describe it, what that means. Etc will digest and there's a couple unknowns in regards to How much does you how much do we need to for Eagle to get the permits? Going and whatnot and that's something we'll be endeavoring here very quickly and so staffs take away of the motion is Everything north Is acceptable the question is the size of the parking lot? which may or may not impact water, wetland permits. And that's something we'll be getting feedback from EGLE as quickly as we can. Something arises that we've got to come back and say, no, we need more specificity from the commission. We'll be back. So, so. Great.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay. So we can go forward with a vote. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Yes. All right, motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have, thank you also for being here, Leah, for this song. We appreciate it. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have the approval of the consent agenda items. May I please have a motion and a second to approve tonight's consent agenda items? So moved. Second. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Great. Motion carries. Next we will move into an executive session. And we can probably just stay right here in chambers. And this will consider entering into a closed session to receive updates on collective bargaining in accordance with Section 8C of the Open Meetings Act. And to do that, we need a motion and a second, please.

So moved. Second.

Great. Roll call vote, please. Yes Yes Yes And we will not be Voting on anything so we will not be coming back into session. So this meeting is adjourned. Thank you again Thanks a lot

I do not know how my phone turns off.