City Commission - Regular Meeting

little pictures.

They come around and they take your picture when you go.

I actually love that.

Which they want you to buy more. Buy more pictures or buy more pizza? No, more pictures. And I thought that was so nice. I was like, oh my gosh, so cool. We get a picture of our little excursion. And then they're like, buy more. Buy more pictures. I'm like, no.

How about more pizza? I'll buy those half frozen ones and bring them back with me.

It was so good. Thank you.

That's my favorite, but All right, it's 6 p.m.

I'm going to call this meeting to order. If everyone can 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. Okay, first on the agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda. Commissioners, do we have anything we'd like to add or take away from this evening's agenda? Hearing none, I will move on to public comment. Is there anyone joining us this evening that would like to make public comment to something that is not on this evening's agenda? If so, now is the time to come forward. Not on this evening's agenda.

You're welcome to correct me if I go that way. My name is Scott Damon. My address is 435 Lakeside Drive, Southeast, East Grand Rapids. I just wanted to just think about like the overall macro approach to a mobility plan. I think that, you know, I've been around East Grand Rapids now for four years, and I always really looked at the unique character of this community with the campus-like setting. I think that's why Wendy and I have been very hands-on with the PUD and other things that are going on. The mistake happens is trying to shotgun solutions for certain things, putting band-aids on things, and not looking at the macro plan. And I think the ball that's getting dropped here is taking a step back, taking a breath, and looking what a mobility plan looks like in East Grand Rapids, because you have an incredible opportunity to have a micro scooter, whatever these things are called, micro mobility climate, traffic climate, walking climate, that's going to unease a lot of burden. The other thing is just, I think about this all the time. Obviously the PUD always stays in my mind. I look at going back to the PUD, there wasn't a parking problem, and now we're stepping into a parking problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to make public comment to something other than what's on this agenda? Thank you. Welcome back, Dr. Patterson. I missed you guys.

Patterson, 2104 Gorham Drive, Southeast. I had a pre-conversation with city staff. I've been watching on YouTube. I can hear great. I can't see that. When I'm here, I can see that. I can't hear. equally well all the people. So I asked if there was that movie theater loop thingy that my audiologist said I should beg you guys to put in place, and I'm told no. So I understand from the last meeting that there are some extra bucks floating around. If you could enhance the sound system to, oh. Hey, I can talk forever. What do you want to talk about? Is your timer not working?

I have it going on my phone.

Okay. Uh-oh, I'll hurry up.

Charlotte's trying to find new batteries. It's not working.

So anyway, if you could... When you work on the sound system here, make sure you include that. I would really, really, really appreciate it. After decades of babies screaming in my ear while I'm looking in their ears, you know, job hazard. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Pattison.

Yeah. Yeah. No worries. Thank you. So public comment to something other than what's on the agenda. Is there anybody else that would like to make public comment to something besides what's on the agenda at this time? Okay. Hearing none, I will close public comment and move everything up here to the report of mayor and city commissioners, including committee liaison reports. And I can start with Commissioner Skaggs. Do you have anything this week? Not this evening. Thank you.

I'm gonna keep it fast just because we have voting tomorrow, but voting tomorrow, so if you haven't voted yet, come in tomorrow for the primaries, that would be great. I would also be out there to support as we move into the new year and we have some time to focus, not only working with with our live stream and our screens. I think we have some work we can do on that and also maybe ways to chop up the YouTube videos a little bit better so that people that can't be at these meetings can better digest what we're doing in here and we can get that out a little bit better for other people. So sometime down the line, that'd be great to look at.

Great, thank you. Anything else? Yeah, nothing for me tonight. Okay, thank you.

Nothing to report this evening.

Nothing down the line? Just on the note of, Election day tomorrow a thank you to our city clerk miss par mentor and staff for all the work that goes into to ensuring a safe and secure election here in East Grand Rapids Nothing to report, thank you

Nothing for me other than, yeah, exactly. Thank you to city staff for everything you've done. And Lori, I know you personally have been here for 10 days straight, 11 days straight, every single day. So that kind of dedication is just amazing. Thank you and your team. I know that you're not doing this alone. So thank you so much to you and your team for everything that you do. It's a big lift and we appreciate it.

Just a reminder, again, as noted, tomorrow's Election Day. Additionally, the polling place that's normally at the Performing Arts Center at the high school has actually been relocated here in room 105, lower level, due to the high school construction. So we will have signs out and directing people to come to the community center. But we did have to make that adjustment because of high school construction. And then lastly, as was known before, Lori has been working nonstop for about 15 days now.

15, okay.

And has just done an incredible job. Voting earlier went really smooth. We had a little bit of a glitch with the criterion, but we got around that. So kudos to Lori, her team, Public Safety, Public Works for working through that. So that's all.

Yeah, and even that little glitch wasn't a glitch. I talked to a couple people that voted and everything was really smoothly and well communicated. So thank you.

Good. Wonderful.

Thank you. Okay, then we can move on to the regular agenda items. The only thing on the agenda is to consider adopting a resolution to place a bond millage request on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot for debt issuance is up to $10 million. And that introduction is by City Manager Charles. as soon as he gets his computer going.

Okay, here we go. So many color pages.

The screen glitched when you did something. Oh geez.

Can we blend the auditors again?

Yeah.

Okay, we're gonna run with it. So, I wanna update the commission on kind of where we are design-wise. The presentation I was gonna give is actually gonna be found on your packet. It was the presentation from Fishbeck that was shared with the community July 22nd. So, design-wise, we, working with parking deck designers from Fishbeck who specialize in this kind of work, working with our partners at the schools. We went through a number of iterations to identify issues with the potential deck as far as related to school operations and just general operations. We also then got into a bigger conversation and analysis on pedestrian pathways, things of that nature. So what is currently designed and has been cost estimated is a deck with 240 spaces. The 240 is a number that conceivably we could pull back. The upper level was extended all the way to the north just to take advantage of that space. Depending on if this project proceeds or whatnot, we'll refine that. That could be a potential snow storage area for the upper level. So that's part of the reason that design was done there. We had targeted as a design threshold of 220 spaces, plus or minus. We ended up at the 240, as I noted for as before. I think it's going to be one of those nights. OK. um so um with that said um the other thing that was significant um design decision was to pull the northern wall of the deck back from the northern park property line allows for a 10-foot pedestrian path from bagley into the plaza area out the outside the swim area as well as providing some not vehicle access, but access for the businesses on the north side. The overall design, we have, we requested that OAK, who's the school's general contractor, then provide updated estimates based on the design view that was articulated. And in your packet, it was pictures of Kind of the, actually I think it's five different variations of the proposed deck. Option one being the most expensive with the nicer facade with quite a bit of brick work, et cetera, all the way down to option five, which is a very utilitarian design, a little bit of brick here and there, but gave us a range. OAK then went out to, various subcontractors they work and whatnot got actual pricing and then provided that to us last week. The low-end 2026 cost is about $15 million. That's for the Spartan design. The delta between the option five, which is lower cost, option and option one, which is the nicer aesthetic, better aesthetics, that it's about 1.56 million. OAK then went through the exercise of trying to project out what the cost would be if we bid in 2027, what the cost would be in 2028. That gives us the high-end estimate of just over $18 million for the deck as designed. based on that analysis and talking through and looking at the city's financials, the bond resolution was prepared for the 10 million to account for 2028 and giving us a potential contingency. So if this does proceed and we end up issuing debt for this, then we will hold off on a bond sale until such time that we have bids in so we could size for her to actual cost versus trying to borrow ahead. So with that, I had laid out in my memo kind of next steps for the commission. I can answer questions about the proposed design. I can also be able, hopefully, address any things. But we had laid out, or I had laid out, excuse me, in the memo that kind of next steps Does commission feel that it's in a place to make a decision this evening? Do you have enough information? Do you have enough information? I'll rephrase that. And then to that end, if we are going to place this on the November ballot, then we would ask for a decision in regards to that. They do have some alternate resolutions for the commission to consider, but maybe I can answer your questions and then kind of get a sense of, commission feel like they're in a position to move forward with the consideration of something. So with that.

Okay, perfect. So with that, we'll take some questions from the commission then?

Yep.

Okay. Then yeah, at this point, just with that general introduction and overarching introduction, we can take some questions for Manager Charles if anyone has them from the commission. Any questions?

Just asking for maybe an update from, have you had contact with the schools since and can confirm that, well, this is a couple of different parts of the question, but I'm wondering if you have confirmation from the schools that they have enough funds to move forward with a two-story deck? Knowing what the price point's at, do they have enough money? I see that there's a couple different options here to consider tonight, about $8 million, $9 million, or $10 million. So upwards of $10 million, if that's going to be the 50% contribution, do they have $10 million in the bank to be able to guarantee for us to feel confident putting something on the ballot?

They have the estimates that are comfortable that, yes, they're in a position to proceed.

With that two-story deck, I'm sorry?

No, with the project as designed. In regards to the two-story deck, I can't speak for the schools on that.

Okay, so safe to assume then if they have the funds to be able to match on the three-story, they should...

I'm not going to speak for the schools.

Any other questions for Manager Charles?

Follow up to that question. So it's my understanding that if we decline to put this on the ballot and put it before the city, and if the school district does decide that they want to move forward with a two-story deck, it would still need to come back to us because there are some right-of-way issues that we would, or some right-of-way that we would need to cede to them. Is that correct?

So, correct that the, to gain a good level of Optimization for the deck as far as lane with things of that nature The design accounts for us Allowing them to build three feet into our public right away And what would that what would be the mechanism?

Here before the City Commission to make that determination. Would that be another resolution? Would that be a there? What is that?

Yeah, so there would have to be an agreement between the city and the schools we would work with city attorney and our bond attorneys just to make sure we have the appropriate tool, whether it's a lease agreement or something of that nature, but there will have to be some sort of agreement between the city and the schools to allow for that construction within the three feet.

So just to recap, if we were to say no this evening, it's likely based on what could In order for it to be built, it would still have to come back to us for another decision.

For it to be built as designed so that they have the greatest efficiency. They could build without the city's right-of-way, but talking to the parking deck engineers, there are some efficiencies that they lose that would as far as being up a number of spaces per level, things of that nature because of that three feet.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, as a follow-up to that, Manager Charles, if we were to say yes tonight, is that approval for that right-of-way baked into our approval this evening, or would that also still have to come from? No, that would still have to come back because we've not developed the document. I just want to kind of, as somebody who prides themselves on sharpening my pencil and figuring out the financial impacts of all the decisions we're making, especially large and consequential ones like this, My neighbor came to me tomorrow morning and said, so you guys approved the parking garage. A, how much is that gonna cost me individually? But B, how much did it cost totally, right? How much is it gonna cost the city in sum? Where can we find that in the presentation? I'm talking about the construction costs, the maintenance costs and the costs of the stoplight, kind of all-in, summary, pro forma, summary number?

So we have not included, and the $18 million does not include the traffic light, which we've reserved $500,000 for. We've obviously not done any design work or things of that nature, so that's a placeholder in regards to that. The $18 million is the all-in costs for the construction of the deck. And then within the proposal presentation from July 23rd is on page six is the routine maintenance costs that they have. Fishbeck has identified $55 to $85 and $20 to $26. That includes a number of kind of general maintenance repairs, things of that nature. In addition then, there is another 95, 150,000 for more extensive re-caulking, resurfacing, redoing the surface of the deck. As I understand it, some sort of epoxy covering, things of that nature. In our conversations with the city of Grand Rapids, they, you may forget the exact number off the top of my head, but they have a price per spot that they use for their various decks and when we do that math out at the 240 space, it's about 160,000 a year. That gets us a combination of doing daily maintenance, operations, electric, et cetera, as well as then having, starting to build reserves so that when those larger capital funds Our expenses come at us every so often and within the proposal or excuse me the presentation from Fishbeck from July 23rd They talk about what when where what we see at seven ten-year replacements 2025 You know things of that nature and that's on page seven of Fishbeck's presentation to the community from July 22nd So long-winded answer We're about 18.5-ish. Part of what drives that variation is, again, if this is to proceed, then refinement on total number of spaces as well as the decision on the architectural features. As I noted, option one, which is the most robust, if you will, has been priced out at that 18 million.

Any other questions?

Who's responsible for the annual maintenance costs? Is that going to be split 50-50 between the school district and us?

Assuming it's a partnership, that's an operational assumption that we're operating under right now. As we get, again, if a decision is made to proceed And if it's placed on the ballot and the voters do approve, then we'll move into development of some sort of intergovernmental operations agreement. State law allows for cities and schools to enter into intergovernmental agreements to be able to conduct these type of activities.

Commissioner Smith.

Thanks, Mr. Charles. There was a communication sent today or late yesterday, I don't, I'm not sure, about the funding through the Neighborhood Road Fund from the state and how that collection is going and what we're seeing from FY 25-26. Can you talk a little bit about that as we're working toward this decision and how those dollars are flowing in or not?

Yeah, so as we... discussed last meeting about do we do a voter approved, voter approved bonds or do we issue what's referred to as limited tax obligation funds. Those are general fund dollars. The city anticipates based on the 2025 road packaging fund that we'll get additional dollars from the state through what's called the neighborhood road fund. And I don't have those numbers exact numbers off the top of my head. but we do anticipate roughly about a half million more in gas and weight taxes coming to the city. When the bill was passed, initial MDOT projections said we'd probably see by the end of the state fiscal year, which is the end of September, a couple hundred thousand coming to the city and then achieving full funding starting in 20, their fiscal year starts October 1 and runs October 1 through September 30 for 26-27. Based on an update we received from MDOT last week that they have not collected enough revenue to fill all the pots that need, that they're statutory obligated under law. Things such as Bridge Fund and others in that email was a kind of a bucket. It showed where it goes. Local road agencies are the last to get their money. Based on what that email as well as conversations with the Michigan Municipal League, we're not anticipating any funding this year and we'll see what happens next year. A piece of the funding from the state was a new tax on marijuana. Those collections, from what I understand, are below target and there is an ongoing legal challenge for that. So.

Thank you.

Mr. Charles, just two follow-up questions on going back to the maintenance. You said it was roughly about $160,000 a year. Is that in total or is that, you're speaking to that would be our share?

No, that'd be in total, I'm sorry. So we'd be looking at approximately 80,000.

Great. And then the other follow-up, I just see on the... On the second page of your memo, it looks like we have an average of $73,000 and some change on the annual debt service. What term is that based off of and then on what number?

So that is a 20-year bond issuance. The $73,000 is per million borrowed. And that is based on projections from the city's financial advisors who ran that project. that analysis out for us, which is something that is needed for any potential millage language. So 73,000 times 10 annual debt service is 730,000. If you go to nine, it'd be eight times 73, nine times 73, four, depending on the level of debt. Makes sense.

I think so. So so are we you what should I be?

Yeah, we're thinking about it more like a 10-year term No, Ted 10 years 10, excuse me 10 million at 20 years based on current interest rates Generates annual debt service about seven hundred thirty thousand. I understand.

Thank you. Okay Yes, thank you Hey just to remind me because this is going back a little bit, the two-story deck that was also proposed, how many total spots was that? Do you remember? I should remember. 150-ish, he thinks. That's right. Where did that put the schools compared to, because I know this was on replacement.

That had a net gain from Assuming that the are with a lot net loss and they're all built out the end of 71 72 spaces The two-story deck got him a net gain of 70 to 80 spaces is over what they have right now before they started pre-construction Sorry, can I clarify that I thought it was that the deck would get them to the same level of parking that they had before construction started and With a two-story, that gets them a net gain of like four, right?

That's what I thought. Yeah. I think the number you're talking about is the net gain over what it would be if they did nothing, the net loss of what they would do if they did nothing.

Yeah. It's essentially a push is what I remember hearing on the two-story deck. Same. Correct. I'm sorry.

Same. A two-story deck would get them basically where they were before construction started this summer.

Yeah.

Okay.

Is that with sharing the spots with the community as well?

Is that still with having the... Like what they had in May at Bagley and Senior Lot and wherever else to get to that number would be a two-story deck required at Bagley. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay.

And thanks for clarifying that.

If we could just stay on the few of the financial aspects. I still had a few questions on. I'm sure residents took note and the rest of the commission did as well that the millage, the basis points for millage changed from July 20th to today. And it was noted in the the agenda item that it was due to interest rates. I just took a quick look at the 10-year yield from July 20th to today and noticed that the increase in millage basis points was up roughly 32% from 0.4 something to 0.6 something. Again, it's in the documents. I don't have the number right now.

I'm pulling them up.

Again, looking at the 10-year yield, it went up, but not by a factor of roughly a third, which is what the millage basis rate went up. I'm curious to know how, if interest rates went up by a much smaller amount, how the millage basis amount went up by the amount that it did.

Give me a moment here. I have to pull this up. So the numbers quoted or provided to us by our financial advisors are based on the municipal bond market. So they scope out for this type of proposal. They go to where is the market at at the time of generating that bond run. So based on 20-year note, or excuse me, 20 year bonds. And then with, I'm trying to pull this up real quick.

I'm not getting there.

That the interest rates quoted in earlier this year as of 7-14-2026 was 3.91. And then the rate that was quoted for this was, again, my apologies, I gotta get to the right sheets, that, ah, come on. 4.1, he thinks, hold on one sec, I gotta get to the right, make sure I'm on the right page. There it is, okay. Yep, it is 4.13, so went up about 20, 25 basis points. So we went from 3.91 to 4.13. Okay. And that's like a 20-year municipal bond?

Correct. Rate, market rate? Yep. So again, the mills on that same time period went from 0.4995 to . Commissioner Hunter. 0.657. So that's a far different proportion. That's not proportional. It's not linear.

So two things with that analysis is the analysis that was done for as of July 14th was $8 million being borrowed. And then the... amount that was in the initial run that was provided mid last week was at a 10 million. So you had a combination of interest rates rising and then a recommendation to go from an $8 million issuance to consider up to a $10 million issuance. So you had two things collide at once is more money, higher interest. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Schwartz, you wanted to add something? I was just trying to say that. Any other questions for Manager Charles at this point?

I have some questions, sure.

Are we saving questions about

the document that was presented to us this afternoon for after public comment, or are we asking questions?

Yeah, right now, just on the introduction and the overarching project agenda item, and then, yeah, then I'm going to go to public comment, and then we will discuss that. Okay. If we get there.

Okay, so what do we know about loading and unloading time for the parking deck, especially when it's at capacity?

So if it was peak capacity and everyone tried to leave at once, obviously our wait times are going to be higher. Talking to, speaking with Feshbeck, general average day, et cetera. Actually, a question came up a couple weeks ago at the session. And I remember at that moment that Fishbeck had to go back and do that analysis. So the initial numbers that I recall, and this is subject to Fishbeck confirmation, 30 to 40 minutes.

And that's at capacity for the three-story?

Yep. And again, let me put a large asterisk by that number because that was predicated on our, that number was... different sized deck, et cetera, at that point. So I'll put an asterisk with that.

Okay. So what do we know about the impact on level of service for Bagley Avenue and other surrounding streets and intersections with the addition of this deck?

So our traffic engineers, Progressive AE, did a traffic analysis and that's what has led to the recommendation of a light to be installed at Bagley and Lake because particularly with anything over two stories, their analysis showed a really bad level of service. By moving, by installing the light at Bagley and Lake, that gets us into our normal operations range of DDE for busy intersections.

And a reminder of what the scale for level of service is A to F?

Yes, A to F. A being get through, everyone gets through the quickest. The F being those very slow longer wait times waiting to clear the intersection.

So at a D or E level of service that's still going to take a bit longer?

D and E are going to take longer but that's as far as when our traffic design and considerations that anything in that D range is acceptable in part because it helps provide natural traffic calming and slows people down.

So this is kind of getting to, one of the things that comes up most often when I talk with residents about the proposal is are students going to use it? And what do we know about, and or what thought has gone into how do we incentivize students to use it given there's a fairly, a not insignificant loading and unloading time plus level of service on that road

One of the things I think has been discussed quite a bit is this exact issue and part of the reason there are discussions about do we keep going up to four stories and it was our recommendation not to get any bigger than we're at just for those type of things. Where's that magic point where making sure it gets the utilization for the investment. The more spaces, obviously, longer times and things of that nature, but that question in regards to will the students use it or not is something that is a combination of answers to the question. One is making sure it's sized appropriately, but then The other is, what kind of other parking management strategies then do we look at within the Gaslight Village area, both within the business district as well as our adjacent residential areas? But your question is something that was discussed quite a bit. I don't know, Laura, or anybody wants to speak to that?

A follow-up question to that, I guess, is have we had, Have there been conversations, surveys, anything of students and staff that have presented this and said, what's the likelihood that you'll use this or not?

I can't speak to that of what the schools have surveyed on that type of question. My understanding talking to school administration when they were doing kind of surveying students, teachers, and when out parking was a consistent theme and question or concern raised by both students and teachers.

Can folks in the audience nod or shake their hands in response to that? Has there been any focus groups, any questions, any surveys?

I really never got able to. Yeah, no. Let's keep it up here.

Will we have an opportunity to ask those questions of them at some point?

That's something, those are questions we can pose to them, absolutely. I just don't have that level of knowledge of what was done. And I would not want to speculate on .

I mean, along those lines, I'm sorry if... Go ahead. Okay. I mean, a question came up this past week about the somewhat suspicious nature of Being the site of the parking garage. I mean, there's two other park. There's three other parking areas on the site plan None of them were suggested to have a parking garage So number one, I think a lot of residents would just be led to believe I'll ask or address it more as a statement than a question that this is to help Gaslight village, although the GVBA sent us an email today saying they didn't want to take a position on whether they supported or or didn't support the garage, but I see three other spots where a parking garage could have been built and that would actually help with micro mobility because it's further away from Gaslight Village. It would help with traffic flow. It would keep us from having to do another stoplight. Were those three other areas discussed by you or the schools to put a parking garage there versus where it is?

So the schools did analyze other options and within the Hackett, I believe is the initial May presentation to the community groups. And there was discussion in both at the May meeting in the community and amongst the committee. They did. They looked at doing in the senior lot part of their Some size limitations come with that as well as other design considerations of putting a deck right in front of the new high school. So there is that. They did evaluate looking at actually going underground in front of the high school, did some design work on that in between. Capital costs, operational costs, things of that nature, they moved away from that idea. Another potential option is placing it on the track, but in their view, that community asset is so important not to reduce the size of the track and not impact that asset. as they looked at, and then I think the third site would be maybe the internal location. Is that what you're thinking about, Commissioner, when you say the third? Yeah. Again, when you get into building design, the size of that area to support a deck would have to go much taller if it's even feasible to do. There is efficiencies to decks that the smaller the footprint you give it, It really drives up your cost per space. And again, this is within the main presentation was that kind of discussion, which I cannot put my hands on at the moment.

Yeah, and with all due respect to the work both entities did to get us to this point, I think, of course, the buying decision happens when we are sitting here looking at the price tag, right? So we tend to want to... like with any buying decision, go back and look at every single aspect of it that led us to this point and maybe question and analyze some things that only appear at this point in the process. You know, I guess the other thing that I heard from residents was in order to clear up space, there's certainly a great amount of green space here, which we appreciate and love. But, you know, could there have been a place to go to a second or third level, right, with some of the other areas of the footprint so as to allow for more, you know, space for parking? So these are just things that, again, we as, you know, commissioners, as we go out into our, you know, neighborhood and conversations will inevitably have to have some kind of, uh, you know, answer for, and I suppose this is probably the best place to get some of those answers. So thank you.

Any other questions for manager Charles?

I've got a few more, but I will see if anyone else wants to pop in.

Okay.

Um, On the topic of the GBBA letter and the last meeting that they held in the discussion there, their biggest concern is how will this be enforced? If the first level is reserved for community use and to support our gaslight businesses, what assurance is there, what plan is going to be in place to make sure that students aren't parking on the first level because it's easier. And this is on the heels of a feeling of frustration around current enforcement in Gaslight for students who violate the two-hour parking and so forth.

The exact answer is we're still refining the operational model now that we had the kind of agreed upon design of this is what it's going to look like. What does that mean? Is it a combination of signage? Is it a combination of assuring, again, if this is a joint public or, excuse me, if this is open to the public during the school day, how do we assure that the spaces dedicated for community use are not taken up by students? We talked through a couple operational ideas. Both parties understand that enforcement is gonna be needed. The design does allow for future gating of the facility. The kind of what's things of that nature will be in place for that so if that ends up eventually being a solution we have the ability to Or the design has the ability to accommodate that future change But this evening the exact here's that exact operational idea or model that we have We're not there yet

Another question that I get a lot and I've heard before that it's not yet determined, but do we have an idea about whether or not parking will be free or whether folks will have to pay to use this garage?

Again, the operational model is having free day-to-day use parking of it.

For both students and community members?

I can't speak for the students, but for community members.

And will the addition of these 240 spaces in the garage have any impact on how required parking and the gaslight development is calculated?

I don't think so because we have modeled and required for the Gas Line Investors Project that they provide enough parking for their project. Any addition of expansion beyond what would be required for the project will We'll get there. But those, but the way the approval was written was to assure that they have enough capacity for their development.

Does that capacity take into account publicly available spaces in the vicinity?

No.

Any other questions?

So follow up to that would be then if we're looking at the overall parking system and we add a 240 space parking deck here and then they continue with the build as presented, we have way more than enough parking given the studies we've seen about the availability of parking.

I think the question of amount of parking, The question for downtown business district parking becomes a question of not only number of spaces, but then a question of level of service and ability to park at a level of service. A, again, similar model. A being the closest to where the designated area and then all the way to I believe E also as well. I think we kind of noted some maps within the parking analysis that we provided commission the last meeting.

Can I ask a follow-up question on that? Because I think that assumption is based on the potential garage just straight up adding to our system parking and You know at least what I thought we've been discussing is Putting this potential third, you know this the city having this third level on the deck is to shift parking From surface from streets to the garage, which doesn't add to the system it's moving parking to prioritize mobility goals by putting in bike lanes and focusing on community assets. So I don't think it, it doesn't add parking spots. It's just where they are.

But I don't think that there are like 240 spaces currently on the street in the area, right?

Well, but the, the Delta between what's now is about 70. So we're talking about seven, you know, well right now being like may before construction started with the schools, that's like around 150 spots that we're talking about. So building the garage gets us a net gain of 70 to the system, which is what gives us the flexibility to remove surface parking. and street parking to implement the mobility goals that we just simply haven't been able to move on because our options are take away street parking, which is unpopular without an alternative or to cut down trees, which is also unpopular.

Then when we've talked about that, we haven't, we haven't gotten to the point where we've made a commitment to say, yes, if we build this garage, then we will remove these spots. And I think that's that level of assurance that we'd want to go into it with a hundred percent.

What does the master plan say to all this? I mean, during the last negotiation last year, I mean, we were essentially making the case for something that wasn't as spelled out in our master plan of the previous iteration, 2018, I believe. So making a case for something that wasn't necessarily in the master plan. as defined as what we saw came to be in the final site plan. In this case, we're advocating for something where the language is pretty clearly spelled out, if I'm not mistaken, that we're not prioritizing taking away street parking. Is that in the master plan or did I miss something? Did we have a... a gauge from our resident saying it is indeed unpopular and we have to remove it because of something that's written specifically into the master plan or?

So, and I don't recall the exact language on parking within the master plan. That, but I can speak to is when the city developed its mobility bike action plan, 2021. Um, yep. Um, we identified various corridors, um, for not only what we refer to as the share, uh, shadow network, which is more in the residential areas. And then we identified for the corridor for Breton from the Southern, uh, property line, probably only boundary line to, um, to Lake Street and then Lake from east to west basically of both having dedicated bike lanes in that area that would result in the loss of on-street parking. As you may recall, we did have a conversation about this at the strategic planning session earlier this year. Is that something that we wanted to proceed to proceed with at this time? So and the direction from the Commission at the time was let's Excuse me. Let's put this on pause for the moment So long-winded answer is I don't remember what the park match plan says specifically to parking an exact language in it both in the 2018 iteration as well as the recently approved amendment, but part of what continues to be ongoing analysis and discussion is how does the community want to move forward in regards to these type of questions?

Can I answer your question, Commissioner? Yeah, I heard it stated that it's very much ongoing conversation and discussion. Thank you.

I was just looking for a little bit of clarification since we're talking about the master plan. I've been proceeding with an assumption. I just want to make sure it's true. The school property is not subject to our zoning or our master plan ideas, right? They can essentially do what they want. They could put up a four-story deck if they wanted to. I mean, assuming easements, whatever. just like they get to operate independently under Michigan law, is that right?

Right. So under Michigan law, school districts are not subject to local zoning. They are not actually building plans. Their overall designs, plans, et cetera, all go to the state of Michigan for approval. The local communities do not have a say on anything, basically.

And Attorney Huff, is that consistent for projects that we're helping to fund?

Yeah, I mean, I would agree with what Commissioner Schwartz would. They can go to whatever height they want to do, so it's not under control.

But we're not violating either the spirit or the language of a master plan by funding a project that even though it's on school property or, I mean, would the case be the same for somebody wanting to do something on their own individual property if it's not consistent with the master plan? But I mean, again, we're helping to fund it. So even though it's on school property, does that give the project carte blanche to violate the master plan?

I'm not sure I understand your question, but once again, the school can do whatever height they want. Whether we participate in the funding or not is a different question. And whether the master plan addresses that is my guess. The master plan does not address that because locating parking on school property has never been under consideration before. Thank you.

Any other questions for Manager Charles? Okay. Then at this time, I am going to move on to public comment. At this time, we will open up public comment to this agenda item. and I just request that everyone please keep their comments to three minutes and please remain respectful of neighbors. I know that there's people on both sides of this issue and let's just remember we're neighbors and we want the best for our community. So please be respectful in your comments and your actions. Thank you.

Wonderful.

Welcome Mr. Anderson.

Jerry Anderson, 435 Edgemere. I'd first like to, Brad, I was just doing pencil calculations back there. Your question is good. How much is it costing a household? And really quick, $10 million, 5%, 20 years, $16 million. That's going to cost the people of East Grand Rapids. Maintenance, over 20 years, $3.2 million. Put in a traffic light, you're right about $20 million total cost. We have 4,000 households, more or less. So you're talking about $5,000 per household in East Grand Rapids to have this parking structure. So the question is, do you want to spend, as a household, $5,000 over the next 20 years to have a parking structure in East Grand Rapids? It's a judgment question, but that's the question that's being asked. Second point that I'd just like to bring up is I don't hear talk about security. I don't have kids this age now. I have grandkids that are coming up through the system. I don't know if I want a 17-year-old girl who gets back from across the state at a sports competition at 11 o'clock at night. Do we want her going up to the third floor of a parking deck to get her car before she goes home? That's an individual question also, but it's something that should be seriously considered. What's the security like for this? And my last point is, once again, just the absurdity of this discussion when two years ago this commission approved raising a parking deck less than a tenth of a mile away from the one that we're now saying that we may need to fund. It's just, it's a weird situation that we find ourselves in. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Next, please. Would anyone else care to speak to this agenda item? Dr. Patterson.

Nancy Patterson, 2104 Gorham Drive, Southeast. Thank you for your time. I watched the discussion about the parking garage on YouTube live two weeks ago, and it struck me, just as Mr. Anderson said, how absurd the residents were saying, we don't have enough parking, and other residents bringing up and you guys bringing up the traffic evaluation saying, you got plenty of parking, you don't need any more. And here, I'm hearing more information. Well, there were some discussion, and I totally missed that at some point, about getting rid of parking downtown and scooting the cars downtown somewhere else so that I won't get hit on my bike. Well, yay that. I feel like I'm walking on ice and my feet are going every which way and I just don't have a firm grasp about why you think it's a great idea, if you do, to fund that much money that Mr. Anderson threw out at us for for a very long time, especially in view of the rising costs now. And the lady I gave my summer tax check to last week, I did some theatrical fake tears. Holy cow, you know, I've been here 13 years and my tax bill has doubled and that's with a 5% cap. What if some of the people coming in I really, really don't want another millage, but it's an interesting discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor. Anyone else? Welcome.

Bob Gilligan, 735 Bagley Avenue. So I'm kind of the newest member of the neighborhood. I just moved in about three days ago. So ironically, it's maybe a good move. It seems nice so far, but I'm able to observe some things maybe that other people Don't see and I and I didn't know when I when I purchased the place but watching these trucks come in and I can say it's kind of the lifeblood of this of this village, you know that they they're Providing, you know goods and services to all these these businesses throughout the day and it's continuous even into the night and I've observed the traffic patterns just with normal traffic So we're not talking about any added thing that little street that little bagley two-lane street and you have both ends of it and literally it stops when those trucks go there's only you know that's only one lane and that's for two two-way traffic they have to find their way around those trucks i mean i'm concerned and and sincerely i really am concerned that this is really going to mess up this beautiful village that you have here this this thing and i know a lot of money has been spent already on this planning a lot of it already seems like it's done to be honest with you but um but i just am concerned that this could be a worse situation than anyone would know because you feel like you've done oh we we did these studies and we did these traffic studies and the traffic light's going to solve all these problems but Yet no one really knows. And then you're stuck with it. So all of a sudden now you find yourself in a situation where it's completely a mess coming in, coming out of Bagley, the whole thing. It just becomes a huge problem. And I don't think it really solves anything necessarily. And I'm listening to a lot of assumptions about things and numbers and everything like that. So it's a little perplexing to me just to listen as an observer. And of course, I would rather not see this happen. But I guess that's what my comments are.

Thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Gillian. And welcome to the neighborhood. Thank you.

welcome hi my name is anna nielsen 739 bagley i'm asking you to reconsider building a four level 240 car parking garage on a residential street that is already struggling with traffic congestion would love to invite you guys over to our street when those trucks are there school is going to be in session soon would invite you over in the morning when i'm trying to leave for work Uh, there are 15 homes directly across the street from this project. And unlike many of your neighborhoods, um, we have almost no setback from the road. So essentially the sidewalk is basically at our front door. Traffic is already a problem during school drop off and pickup students regularly cross the street and outside of the sidewalks. Um, adding 240 additional vehicle trips every day creates a serious safety concern for students, residents, and drivers. The proposed garage entrance and exit would also be located very close to the shared entrance of our drive, creating additional conflicts and delays for homeowners simply trying to get in and out of their homes. What's especially concerning is that these issues were identified by Progressive in their November 15 letter. I'm going to submit that again because they do have a proposed shuttle route in that. So I'm going to give the whole thing. They warned that concentrating parking into a single structure with one entrance and exit would likely create traffic backups before school and could take 30 minutes to an hour to empty after school. They also noted that people may continue parking on surrounding streets rather than using the structure because it would be more convenient. More importantly, progressive companies did not recommend building a parking structure as the first solution. They recommend proceeding with additional parking improvements, exploring a busing pilot, and if needed, expanding the middle school parking lot. They stated that because of the cost and complexity of the parking structure, it should only be considered after other options have been fully explored before moving forward with the 10 million parking garage. Uh, the city owes residents a transparent and comprehensive discussion of the alternatives that were considered the analysis analysis behind them and the reasons they were ultimately rejected. We want to know that all proposed alternatives are being fairly evaluated and objectively. I think it's a fair question to ask if parking is truly an issue. Why are we here in the first place? The city once had additional parking capacity in the former two-deck structure. That capacity was lost after the upper deck was ultimately removed. Had the parking structure been properly maintained and preserved, I don't think we'd be here today. Many Bagley residents have called East Grand Rapids home for more than 20 years, and all that time, they've never seen a proposal that would place such a significant burden on such a small group of homeowners. A four-story parking structure, and I wanna be clear, it's like four stories because we start with level zero, would cause a lot of safety concerns, noise concerns, lighting, et cetera. So I just want to submit that. And I also want to submit the middle school parking, which was estimated at, I think between 1.5 and around $1.5 million. I'd like you guys to consider that. So I'll submit both of these now.

Thank you, Ms. Nielsen.

Thanks.

Next, please. Welcome back, Mayor.

Good evening, I'm Niall Deems, 701 Laurel Circle. What seems to be going on here is a piece of putty and you all are kind of squeezing it, trying to make it fit in something you can approve. And when this first came up to put up $100,000 and spend three months looking at it, one of the commissioners said, well, I don't mind putting up a little money so we can study this and see if it's a good idea. But it's just gone on a straight line, straightforward to completion, and now it's in front of you. Except it's hard to tell what the proposal is. And I think you ought to consider that, because I don't think if you... If you're doing your due diligence review and you're scrutinizing, you haven't done it. I would never turn in a legal brief that was this uncertain. If I was in the Navy and handed this to my commanding officer, I wouldn't be in that unit anymore. I'd be gone. It's not ready to be reviewed, to either be voted up or down, if you think about it. And the real issue is not all the things you're talking about. It's what I, first of all, I think, what I've hardly heard is East Grand Rapids is the most heavily taxed property tax community in Western Michigan, probably the whole state, maybe except for a few suburbs in the Detroit area. We have a very heavy tax burden. Our citizens don't like it. And no one's asking about, oh, well, let's see, yeah, this is just seven million. Oh, it's jumped to 10 million, ha, oops. And now what will this cost? We don't really do a full analysis here like you do if you're getting a mortgage. It doesn't say, oh, what will it cost you when you're all done paying for it, which is something over $15 million. I don't know what, because at $7 million, it was around $11 million or $12 million. And so now we've added $3 million, and that's how much. And we've got something over $200,000 annual costs, because we have over $150,000 in maintenance. Nobody's talked about security systems and the policing and taking care of the place by your security. That's not even in there, let alone, we don't worry about a traffic light, it's only 500,000. This is just money, you know, the piggy bank's gonna get empty. Now, if you think about all the numbers that are floating, this is a three-level parking deck, oh, but it has four levels of parking. and you were going to give one level for the city, and the rest would be the schools. Oh, but you were going to split the cost 50-50, and it sounds like you're getting 25% of the parking. I'll try to finish shortly. Yes, thank you, Mayor. The numbers are just moving around and floating, and you're on the short end of every one of them. The schools are pretty good negotiators, it does seem like. but we're trying to massage this to keep them happy and we're trying to rush it through to get on a November ballot. Finish sorting it out so you know what you're voting on. It's like your budget and you didn't have it in front of you when you voted on it.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm gone. But I also think there's, Besides that, you're now just asking about the three foot encroachment is only now. And you have your merchants, five merchants are losing the access to the back of their property. No one seems to care about that. Now let me just offer this up because I suggested it to the city manager and the superintendent at a meeting. The city manager kind of waved me off with his hand wave as he does, as there is a statute about that, that adverse possession can't apply against the schools. But I did check it up in Michigan Real Estate Practice and Forms, a copy I happened to have in the house. I otherwise didn't do any legal research. It was a 2018 version, if anybody cares. The adverse possession statute was in 1988. So yes, but I don't know if adverse possession that was in effect and had vested in 1988 was terminated, which is what those five stores would have. Secondly, there was a case in 2009 that allowed acquiescence and stated that they're not throwing out all the other equitable claims that might exist. I think you have so many issues here that aren't known. I don't know how you're gonna vote on it tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else here to make public comment at this time?

And I welcome the new resident. I can only imagine if he were involved in the PUD development and had an idea what the impact of traffic disruption is going to be.

Welcome, Mr. Damon.

He would be floored. Scott Damon, 435 Lakeside Drive. I think that there's so many moving pieces with this, and the former mayor summed them up real well, but number one is the city involvement. Should the city even be involved in this matter? Then there's the deck itself as a mechanism. And Commissioner Groff bringing up the fact that it could be potentially 30 to 45 minutes to unload. Let's just be ultra conservative and call that 20 minutes. You think high school students are going to hang around for 20 minutes? You're going to have yourself a bridge to nowhere. It's going to be a complete embarrassment. And then there's the funding mechanism, which has a lot of ifs, ands, or buts. Everybody here is engaged because they care about a positive input. Like I mentioned in my early remarks, we have a unique opportunity for something very special here. And I think we just need to take pause and do that at the right time. The tax bill. I think there's 13 different line items on the tax bill. And I didn't know that, you know, one of the residents says it's 2x in her time here. It's incredible. But, you know, the area supports the schools. The sinking fund didn't need to be re-upped. Its son said it was approved. Gracious by the community to support the schools then we have a hundred and fifty six million dollars I think that was the number to build everything and that wasn't enough to include parking And so now we here are here at a bailout plan So I say point number one should the city even be involved in this matter as it is a standalone project on school property I say no to Commissioner Schwartz's comments about an overall mobility plan completely agree with that This just isn't the project for it Commingling of funds. I think it's this other very very tricky thing So there's really messy to have the city school involvement, but keep in mind everybody wants a great outcome in this community the bond proposal itself It's another tax and spend and to vote yes on it today is a careless act of fiduciary responsibility There's no doubt about it. And those are all the comments I have. Thank you for hearing me out today.

Thank you. Mr. Damon. I Welcome back.

Thank you. Anna Moore Butzner, 2311 Wealth Street SE, Department 34. I just have some comments about the way that these kinds of things develop. I understand that there was a committee of three commissioners and three school people. Three being the magic number, because if you have four, you have to ‑‑ it's open meetings, as I understand it. So these people apparently have met and discussed this ad nauseum, and Every time I come to these meetings and you all are asked, do you have any committee reports or liaison reports? And everybody's, nope, not tonight. Well, I think maybe the public would like to have known all this was going on instead of some of the commissioners showing up last month and find out there's this huge proposal to build a garage for $20 million. This just brings me to the point where I feel like the big decisions are being made behind closed doors. And that's not right. You know, this is a democracy. We the people. We want to know what you're doing, how you're getting to a decision. Not just waltz in here and rubber stamp it. And that's kind of the way I feel about it right now. And I've been coming to these meetings now over a year, and it's not right. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Buster. Welcome back, Mr. Decker. Thank you.

David Decker, 925 Belle Claire. A few months ago, back in May, the city tore up Belle Claire for good reason. Very inconvenient for about a month. And now that street is great. All of the former sump pump holes going through the curb. now go down into the new storm sewer laterals that were placed beneath the street the city taking our tax dollars and working through the neighborhoods improving things for the neighborhoods and i sit here tonight and i hear the 15 folks that will be impacted by this parking garage and there's nothing good in it for them It just doesn't seem to feel right that that much should be placed upon those 15 houses, those 15 residences to bear. It just doesn't seem right. I also did a little calculating. Effectively, there's 48 really good parking spaces on the Bagley parking lot right now. And if you change that to 240, you get a net 192 parking spaces. It costs 18.5 million. So that's about $96,000 per parking space, which when you kind of do a little research about parking structures, that's really the high end. You can't spend much more than that. It's a lot of money. And five, 10, 12 years from now, what's it going to look like? And what are we really going to need? Are we going to need 240 spaces there? Because things are changing. Just look up and down the sidewalks and the streets and what's going on. You guys know it. It's small, micro, a lot of mobility. So is this really what we want to invest 18 million? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Decker. Welcome.

Thank you. I'm Brent Slay. I live at 757 Bagley. Most of you know my feelings about this project. I won't reiterate all of them. But I have a question for you, and that is, what if it doesn't work? What if it is the disaster that some of us think it will be? I'm reminded of a story. My old friend David Maney, who used to be a commissioner here for many years, and Maney Field is named after him. And that is when we first moved to East in 1975 and lived here 25 years, moved out to Thousand Oaks, which is the golf course development that David basically built. And there was a conservation easement before the golf course for 20 feet back. You couldn't do anything with it. Couldn't disturb it. Couldn't cut down trees or anything. But people did. People would cut down trees. And David would go to them and say, you know, you're not supposed to do that. People would say, I won't do it again. And I would ask you the same sort of thing. What are you going to do if this is a mess? Are you going to tear it down, start over, go back to a surface lot? I just hope that you will, if you haven't considered what if it's a worst case scenario. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Slay. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Stuart Citrin. I live at 2615 Oakwood Southeast. And I'd like to follow up on Dave Decker's comments about the parking lot. Most issues, I think, are going to center around this proposed traffic light on Lake Drive. Think about these kids going to school in the morning and people going downtown taking Lake Drive, people going into the parking lot on Lake Drive at the light, making a left turn, a right turn, people coming up Bagley from the south. as well as the north, I think you're looking at an impossible situation here. There's about, the distance from Lake Drive to the entrance, the proposed entrance, is about eight car lengths. And how many cars are gonna be lined up? Cars making left turns into the parking lot. And all of these things are gonna be impacted by the same results at the end of the day when they're going out. I just think you guys need to really think this through And as I think I said earlier on, you need to talk to Scott about sacrificing some of the property he has and making this thing work for everybody, students, citizens, people that own these stores, et cetera. Anyway, do your best to make the right decision.

Thank you, Mr. Citron. Anyone else care to speak to this agenda item? Welcome, Ms. Baxter.

Hi, Mayor, staff, city commissioners. I wanted to follow up on Mr. Citrin and a couple of the comments other commissioners made here. You've been entrusted by the people of East Grand Rapids to make the right decisions for the community going forward, to preserve the character and charisma of the community and work with progress. You can't do that without data. You can't do that without information. You can't do that without a way to pay for this. You can't do it with unanswered questions. I'm encouraging you, as all these people have encouraged you, to listen to your residents who are giving you data-driven information, asking data-driven questions that are valid, that are reasonable, that are rational, that aren't self-serving. They're talking about the entire community, not just the Bagley Street. You can't make good decisions without data. That's guesswork. And when you're spending this kind of money that the people of the community have entrusted to you, That's malfeasance. So there's no rush to do this on the November ballot. You could do more investigation on this. Listen to the residents. You could put it on the May ballot. There is no rush. There is no reason for you to go ahead without data. So I'm encouraging you to get data so you can make the right decision. We all live here. We all want to make the right decision. But you can't just have all the same people telling you all the same things to do things without listening to people who have contrary opinions And the people who are going to be most directly affected by this are the residents on Bagley. It's not fair to them. They are residents here in this community, too. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Baxter. Mr. Citron?

I'm back. Can I speak for another three minutes? Actually, it's... One comment, sir.

Three minutes for the evening. Oh, seriously? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, that is protocol.

You did this to me earlier.

Did I? Okay, I don't remember that. My apologies. Thank you. So you're going to let me talk, right? Thank you, Mr. Citron. You have made your public comments. Thank you. If anyone else would care to make public comment, now is the time to do so. Who has not already made public comment? I'm just following protocol. Mr. Citron, please. You're supposed to be the mayor for all of us. Thank you, Mr. Citron. Thank you, Mr. Citron. Thank you, Mr. Citron. Would anyone else care to make any comments tonight for this agenda item? Hearing none, I will close public comment and bring it up here for further discussion. The list of options, options for the city commission to consider, I think prior to that, what we can do is ask any additional questions now that we've received our public comment. So any additional discussion or questions to city manager, if that's okay with you, Shay? Okay. So at this time, are there any additional questions from the city commission for the city manager regarding the proposal? Anything we've learned from public comment?

I have one question, Madam Mayor. OK, thank you. I'm just wondering if this gets put on the ballot, gets voted through, would we be then expected to pay or be putting in more than 50% if we are putting in a half a million dollar light at Bagley? Or is that factored into the total contribution?

It's not factored into the total contribution. The discussions we've had is that the schools also have to do additional building modifications, specifically to the truck loading dock that's adjacent to the pack. If you look at when you're in the Bagley lot and look to the south kind of corner, you'll see a delivery area there. That has to be completely reconfigured to allow for deliveries if a deck is built. And what was discussed was we project that to be about a half million. We project the light, again, that's a high-end kind of reserve number. We haven't done any design work. So that's that kind of 50-50 split. Okay. Thanks.

Any other questions?

One follow-up question. The question in regards to the two-story deck was net gain and the observation would be a net gain of four from prior to construction conditions is correct with this two-story.

With the two-story?

Yeah, I've been looking at so many different decks I've lost track.

So I do have another question as taken from public comment. The comments that we heard about the adverse possession statute and raising the possibility of businesses losing access that they currently have to their business, has there been discussion about that? Is there going to be liability there in terms of loss of that access?

We looked into that case and that statute and determined that there is no situation upon which a municipality can be, can have its property taken by adverse possession.

Could you say that again? I couldn't hear you.

I said we looked into that statute and the case law that had come out and the reaction to that case law that was made by the state legislature and you cannot have adverse possession against a municipality.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you. Any additional questions at this time?

Yes, quickly. Related to that, so there will be some loss of access for three of the businesses, it looks like. How is that going to be addressed? Was there a plan put together at this point?

Specifically and that's in part why the northern edge of the building was moved back from that property alone to allow for access their access issues are primarily questions of Trash pickup as well as there are parking spots behind Jose babushkas. Yeah, there's like before yeah They would not have the access that kind of access anymore in regards to vehicle access and By pulling the the deck back the 10 feet which was done combination of the pedestrian access it also helps with some code issues that As far as the trash access they would be able to trend Migrate to a cart solution as it's done another downtown urban areas Our downtown areas I should say excuse me

Thank you. Anything else? So if I'm understanding this, Manager Charles, so the options, we have the six options before us for the items to discuss and consider this evening, correct?

Yep.

Okay. Does everybody have the six items in front of them from the memo? The ones that we got. Okay.

earlier today. Yes.

Wait, were these from earlier? No, this is from the packet, not from earlier.

Right.

Yeah, this is from the front of the memo. It's actually on the back page.

It's about whether we decide tonight, defer, do something else.

Yes, correct. There are six options. So the first option is to decide to adopt the bond resolution at $10 million or a lower amount. Second option is to defer action and request more information. The third option is to decide not to proceed with the ballot question and use non-voter approved bonds. The fourth option is direct staff to develop other funding options for a future decision. The fifth option is to decide not to proceed with the project. And the sixth option and final option or other options as decided by the Commission. Of course, keeping that door wide open. So I guess process-wise, we can just do a straw poll. Is that okay to proceed, Mr. Huff? Just to decide to narrow it down to which option we're going to discuss, do a straw poll on the... Yeah, I mean, obviously with that many options, chances of discussing all six of them are probably minimal.

So I think you need to determine...

But a straw poll is an okay process to... Because no formal vote has to be taken on all these options, correct? So just a straw poll?

Right, to see which ones you want to discuss first or in what order.

Sure, okay. Should we discuss first? Sure, yeah. Do you have any? Yeah, go ahead if you want to start the discussion. Which of the options are appealing to you? And then we can do a straw poll.

I have. I have a lot to say if anybody's surprised at that. And I'll be a little long-winded and I have lots of notes because I wouldn't want brevity to be confused with being unprepared to make a decision tonight. I thought it'd be helpful to start with a reminder of like why and how we got here because I understand that folks are coming in new to this in some cases and I just want to back it up a little. you know, as has been repeated a lot, this started because the schools have a parking problem in that they are experiencing a loss of parking capacity with the new high school design. So in trying to solve that problem, they asked to work with representatives from the city to explore some solutions. One of those solutions being a parking deck on Bagley on their property. Can folks hear me? No? Okay, I'll move the mic closer, thanks. And thanks to residents for reminding me. I don't know where Dr. Patterson went. So is this better? Can everybody hear? Okay, thank you. Now I have to move my screen. Okay, so. A two-story deck, as we've talked about, would give them the same high school parking spots as they have pre-construction, as of May and before this year. So at the same time, the city has its own version of a parking problem. As residents have stated, according to all the studies that we have done, we do have enough parking capacity in the Greater Gaslight Village area to serve our needs. However, what we've noticed is that the open spots are not frequently where people want them. Parking is often spread out. Those prime spots get taken and, you know, who wants to park at the middle school to have dinner at Olive's or circle the block four times just to run into Bagel Kitchen for a quick order? At the same time, the city does not have much to work with. We're a built-out city. We don't own land and none is for sale. And we are dependent on the 220 spots in the DNW parking lot to make our system work. At the same time, our community is struggling with how to improve pedestrian safety as it relates to the use of e-bikes, scooters, and other modes of mobility. Dedicated lanes for those are ideal, but come at a cost. In most circumstances, that means making tough choices like do we cut down trees in right-of-way or do we get rid of on-street parking to do so? We also have calls for a Bagley and San Luis Rey and Lake intersection, including repeated pleas from our crossing guards, our school crossing guards to put something there to help in safety, getting kids to school. So here we are with this proposal and this proposal being a three-story deck with split costs. And to be clear, the schools have already set aside funds for their share. As a commissioner, For the city, I see this as an opportunity and not an imperative. And I think a lot of people are aligned on this idea. This is an opportunity. I don't think this is an imperative that we must do. With this proposal, what we are buying is not more parking, but a better use of our space, our very limited space. I see this as an opportunity to stack parking, reallocate existing surface parking for the community use. I don't know when or if we'll ever have the opportunity to use land that we don't own in this way. And there are a lot of reasons that I see this as a worthwhile investment personally. I see this as meeting our master plan and bike mobility goals. Our community values safe pedestrian passage, putting in a light, centralizing cars, adding dedicated mobility lanes moves us in that direction. We have the GVBA asking us for help with parking. I do know that they didn't endorse this idea, and I don't want to give that impression. It's built of many people with different ideas, but they are asking for help. And moving free parking to a garage in the heart of Gaslight, I think it's a no-brainer that it will help alleviate the pressure on wealthy streets. Another benefit to make this a worthwhile investment in my view, it reduces reliance on our private parking. Again, our system only works because of a DNW lot being open. This is a school property, which is not subject to zoning, and this parcel has never been on our radar as a solution because we don't own it. We have a really interesting opportunity here, and I think it's worth teasing out. I also want to point out that traffic studies have been done. And it looks like there has been some confusion on this point based on some emails that we've gotten. But we did have traffic studies specifically done regarding this deck and utilization and level of service. And talking about level of service D or E, that is optimal in the eyes of traffic engineers talking about built out communities like this. It slows down traffic so that people pay more attention. And it's a better utilization of our space and roads and keeps everybody safer. So let's also talk about the alternatives. A lot of talk has been given to alternatives. And when we consider alternatives, I think we need to frame it in the right way. The city does not have alternatives. We don't own this land, any other land in the downtown area. This is not the city thinking about other things we can do. The school may have alternatives. A couple have been floated. Personally, I'm not enthusiastic about them, but I do want to address them. One of those solutions was moving the tennis courts at the middle school. This would lead to covering green space at the back of the middle school to replace those tennis courts. It also would take away a unique amenity that we have as a community where we can play tennis looking at the lake. All of this for a lot that doesn't really help our citywide parking solution, our situation in Gaslight, because again, that's a far away parking lot for needs that we're talking about in Gaslight Village. We've also heard an idea floated from Commissioner Hunter to cut down some trees on San Lou Ray and put in some perpendicular parking. I think our community values are tree-lined streets and I could not support cutting them down to put dense parking in a residentially zoned neighborhood. If our singular goal was to add parking spots throughout the city, these might be worth further consideration. But I think we can do better, and I think we can do better, and I think the point is not to add parking, but to condense parking so that we can maximize the space that we do have in Gaslight. We also need to consider the downsides, because of course there are downsides. Obviously the cost, which we have talked about and is definitely worth further discussion. A few other downsides I think have been floated. Of course, the lot would be offline during construction. That is a downside and it would be a short-term pain felt by neighbors, including me, a block to the south. Also increased traffic on the block. We did hear from parking experts who talked about this being a reasonable solution, but I don't want to discount the impact on those neighbors because that is real. I've also heard people talk about long-term, what happens when we have fewer cars, how will this be utilized? I think, again, we can look at reducing the on-street and surface capacity, moving parking to this lot so that we can focus on other community amenities if that situation comes up, like putting in, as we see in a lot of communities, bistro seating in parking lanes, expanding sidewalks, or using the space for additional mobility solutions. I also wanted to touch on a hot topic. There have been references to the Gaslight Investors Garage, and I think it's important to point out that that garage was to maintain parking for their PUD. It's not for the entire city. And I would so much rather than talking about what they will do and what they won't do and the ifs and the whats, have a parking garage that belongs to the public, that we control, and that we are not reliant on third parties. Overall, I think of this as a long-term investment and a chance for residents to invest in our micro mobility and safety goals. For me as a resident, it's a huge opportunity and one that I would vote for. As a commissioner, however, I am not comfortable moving forward this unilaterally. As a commissioner without community input, Putting this on the ballot lets residents decide if they value these improvements for the city, and I'll respect that decision either way, which is why I am in support of further discussion on a ballot initiative for this come November.

Thank you. Would you like to go next, Commissioner Brock? Let's go down the line here.

I'll be fairly succinct. Big outstanding question here, and there are a number I think of outstanding questions. But the big one is, are the people that we intend to build this garage for going to use this garage? And knowing what I know about child and teenage development as an educator and a mom, I suspect they're not gonna like this option, given the loading and unloading time, the traffic and level of service on that road. But I could be convinced otherwise. But I need to see data that's gonna convince me otherwise, independent focus groups, surveys, things that give us some level of certainty that we're building it for a purpose. Which brings me to the timeline piece, right? And another issue with the timeline is that I talked about this months ago when we talked about authorizing the design process. And I was very clear that we needed robust community engagement to bring the community along with this rather than to just sell them on an idea. We have done some. The next step then is providing in anticipation of a vote really robust voter education. And given the timeline that we're looking at, I am not sure we can do that and answer all these questions in that time. November seems like a long way off, but absentee ballots for the November election will be out, what, Lori, like end of September? Third week of September. Right. So next month, right? People will be voting on this next month. And we look at it in that way. I truly came into this meeting wanting to say, let's take the most democratic pathway and let the voters decide. And I do believe ultimately we can get there, but I really would like to see us take a bit more time and get some answers to these key questions. And so I'm looking at option number two of this six item list, which is defer action this evening, get more information and then look at potentially next May.

Sure. Thanks to everybody who's in attendance tonight and especially members of our school board and EGRPS community. Thank you for the work done so far like I said earlier to get us to this point of having this dialogue. I think I'll start with the number of what which option I believe the City Commission should pursue in order to take next steps on this and that would be actually you know, for number five, again, I think like commissioner rock blazac, I, I want to find a democratic and, um, you know, beneficial outcome for the entire community that includes city schools and residents. But I just don't really see a path forward and I don't wanna be disingenuous in saying that I think that there is at this point. I said in the last meeting that I think we're very fixated on this idea as some commissioners have said that there are no other ideas as solutions that is concerning to me. Again, we're very fixated on a one choice solution and I don't think that feels good for any of us coming from sort of a, you know, a well-resourced but also academically rigorous community, right? I think we enjoy that critical thinking exercise. I'm certainly not preaching to the choir right now at all. Please don't take it like that. I just think the process of elimination for us coming top down on this process has not, I have not felt that and I know I echo that sentiment from several other residents. I think we should be clear, we either have a parking problem or we don't. I think there's a lot of language around trying to use this parking garage for some other reason than just simply increasing spots. I think that when I look at options one, three, and four about anything that includes the word funding, I'm struck by the fact that all the dollars that we're talking about here are yours as residents, whether they're bonds, state revenue, Property tax revenue that we've been able to save and store or deploy I mean these are all the balance sheet is is yours as residents So I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference for me there You know and again on the on the parking garage itself right we have the same amount of exits and we have four times the number of spots maybe more than four times and And so we have an unloading time of approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Again, we cut that in half to be fair. So let's say it's even 15 minutes. My son didn't wake up more than 15 minutes earlier than when school started, let alone being able to leave from our house on Hall Street, which is a minute and a half drive, to wait 15 minutes to get to the top of the parking garage, they're all showing up at the same time. So if we have a unloading problem, we probably have a loading problem and school will not start on time. I'm not sure if anybody's brought that up yet. If they have, and I'm just thinking about this sort of off the top of my head, please feel free to check my thinking on that. So again, I would just say that I heard from a client of mine, financial planning client who owns a shop in downtown Grand Haven. discussed this and discussed the merits of a downtown Grand Haven parking garage recently. Again, their school is not downtown, all things considered, but their comment was that for Coast Guard, 4th of July, all the other events that bring people to downtown Grand Haven, people walk from miles away to the downtown area where they do these events and they love sitting on the front porch interacting with the people that are walking the many blocks to get to the event. People will stop and talk to them. Again, we do that on Friday nights six or eight times a year. I've got a friend who is from Zeeland and they came to watch Zeeland West versus EGR a couple years ago and they parked You know, our football team's never said, hey, you gotta get a parking garage because nobody's coming to the game, right? We're walking a mile to come to Lowell versus EGR when it's here. And the cars are parked all the way down by me on Hall Street. So this is part of the deal here, right? I think for a lot of you long-term residents, this is just our special sauce. Mobility is gonna become even more of a topic and a trend. It already is in downtown Grand Rapids. Deprioritizing the automobile, prioritizing getting our steps, interacting with our community. Going the other way into prioritizing automobiles takes us further away from a lot of the community goals, if not explicitly written into the charter and master plan of the city of EGR. So again, I've enjoyed this topic. I just can't see any other option for me right now besides number five.

Thank you.

Commissioner Skaggs, are you ready to speak to this? I'm making some notes as I'm thinking. So as I'm listening and thinking and working through this myself, I feel like the reasons not to move forward are based on questions about the students and the schools and what student behavior is going to look like. And not the question of, is this a worthwhile investment for our city when students aren't part of the equation, because you know, that's quite a few hours of the day. Um, and is it a worthwhile investment for our city to have access during the school day? And my views are very, very similar to Commissioner Schwartz's. I think that her statement covered all of my thinking. So I don't want to belabor that point. But again, I'll reiterate what I said last time, that I think that this is a cost versus value question. And that's really what I'm thinking through. We had a clear picture of our community's values when the schools were having the conversation about the track and where to locate it and whether to move it. And the community spoke loud and clear that they wanted the track to remain in the gaslight area next to the school and not move across the Beltline. That's great. That's wonderful. It's a wonderful amenity for our community. It also further limited the space that we have available to use for parking solutions. I'm glad that we're going to have a track and not a parking lot. I'm also glad that we're going to be able to maintain tennis courts and not have a parking lot at our middle school. And if you look through this packet, there actually are quite a few of the designs that were evaluated and ultimately not chosen to move forward in here. And for various reasons, they didn't work. So I find myself in a similar spot with commissioner Schwartz. Like I said, that I'm willing to continue this conversation toward adopting a resolution today. Option one. Yes.

Thank you.

My turn?

Yeah, sure.

It's really hard going this late after everyone else talks because everyone said all the smart things already. So I will just hit a couple points. I just want to reiterate, This is, the schools came to us looking for a partnership. They have a problem to solve. They are short 146 spots because of various problems when they were designing on the safety of moving their parking under the deck. So I'm looking at this less like us just deciding to build a parking structure ourselves and us being able to partner on a shared solution on those off hours when the students aren't there. I don't think it's my job to determine if the students are going to use those spots. I don't think it's my job to even say if it's going to be all students. Maybe they're going to put staff there. It'd be lovely to have covered parking where they're not brushing their cars off in the winter. I don't know. They can figure out how they want to use that. I'm looking at this like, is this something is this an option that we want to use uh the off hours to help the city out and the gaslight area out for solving some parking problems um like commissioner schwartz said and i've harped on in the past the dnw lot is not ours we do not control it it is 40 of our street parking right now and i don't like the idea of not having control over most of our parking for our city um I like the idea personally as a voter to give ourselves the flexibility and kind of build a foundation for our mobility program. This allows us to not add spots. I would not be for adding spots. I am for moving spots and allowing for bike lanes, allowing for better sight lines. I drive down between Wealthy Elementary and the middle school every pickup and drop off. I had a kid in both and you lose a lot of sight lines when you park SUVs along Lake Street and you have a lot of kids going across the road on a lot of spots there. I don't love that. I would love the ability to do something about that, but I'm not just going to take parking away from the city and from the residents without giving them another option. So I would never be for just pushing this through with our own money and doing it unilaterally up here and voting for a $10 million bond that we would just take. In the same way, I wouldn't be for not letting the people make that decision if that's something they would like to do or not, because it is buying us something. It's buying us the ability to not pave our track, to not pave our tennis courts or the grass behind the middle school. All that land is super important and gets our people outside, gets our kids outside. Both my boys are practicing sports on those fields on Monday nights most of the year. Like luckily they're not right now because we're in the middle of summer. So I support this to put it on the ballot, to let the people decide. I think we have enough time to let the people that are clearly in opposition to this to make their case for why they don't think this is a good idea, and for people and for voters to look at this and decide if it's a good idea and it's a good spending of their money or not. I think that's a fair way to do it.

Thank you. So option one. Yes.

All right. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, everyone. So many great thoughts tonight here from our attending residents and from my fellow commissioners here offering so many different angles to see this. I appreciate the work that has gone into this discussion over the past several months. I also value our partnership with the East Grand Rapids Public Schools and recognize that we've accomplished a great deal together over the years. My hesitation tonight isn't necessarily about whether a parking structure is ultimately the right decision or right solution. My concern is that we're being asked to place a question on the ballot before we have enough information to clearly define what we're asking our residents to decide. Throughout our discussion with the schools, I've heard two different messages. At one point, we were told that the schools could move forward with a two-story parking structure on their own, whether the city participated or not. And then more recently, we've heard that updated construction costs may have changed that picture. Today, I honestly don't know which of these is true. And I think that's a critical question that deserves an answer before we ask our residents to vote. Because if we don't know what the schools are prepared to do independently, then we also won't know how to interpret the results of the election. So if voters reject the proposal, what exactly are they rejecting, right? Are they saying that they don't support any parking structure at all at that location? Or are they simply saying we don't support the city borrowing money to add a third level dedicated to public parking? Those are two very different questions that could lead us to two very different policy decisions. Without knowing the school's intention, I don't believe we'll have a clear understanding of what our residents are trying to tell us. On the other hand, if the schools can tell us today that they intend to move forward with a two-story structure regardless, then the question becomes much simpler. Instead of asking residents whether they support a parking deck, we're asking something much more specific. The schools are moving, for example, the schools are moving forward with a two-story structure. Should the city partner with them by finding a third level dedicated to public parking? To me, that's a much cleaner question. Residents would know exactly what they're voting on, and we'd know exactly how to interpret the results. If the answer is yes, we move forward as partners. And if the answer is no, we'd still understand that voters may simply be declining the city's financial participation, not necessarily rejecting the entire project. At this point, though, I don't believe we have enough certainty to present that question to the public. For that reason, I think the prudent course is to defer action until we receive a definitive answer from the schools regarding their plans and financial commitment. I'd want to continue being a good partner with their schools, but I also believe we owe it to our residents to ask clear questions that produce clear answers. For those reasons, I'll be supporting a deferral, which is option number two on tonight's agenda. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. So yeah, I think I agree with you, Commissioner Wesley. There's been a lot of good conversations. We've had a lot of good insight. You know, for me personally, I've spoken to, I've met I think with about six resident groups over the last couple weeks. And very dynamic groups with lots of different opinions. And as engaged as these residents are, we're so lucky to have that. Even these groups within themselves couldn't agree. Is it beneficial? Is it not a benefit? And at the end of each of these sessions, what I heard more than anything, the pros and cons that people either like the ideas or don't, the mobility plan or the worries that we've heard tonight, like, is this a bad decision? Is this not going to work? The what if that I think what somebody did and mentioned in public comment. But what I heard at the end of all of these meetings was, let us decide. And that is something I think that in this case we can do legally. We can let the voters decide. And to Commissioner Burdick's point, the people that are opposed, we hear you and we know that there's concerns and there's some people that are strongly against this. So let the people make their case and let the people decide. Like I said, I've met with many, many residents on this, people who can't decide among themselves. But what they all did say at the end of these outcomes was, please let us decide. And so for that reason, I would be in favor of option one as well. So given that, I think that there are four commissioners that are in favor or three commissioners that are in favor of option one. And then we had two in favor of option two, and Commissioner Hunter was in favor of option five, correct? So procedurally, Manager Charles, we then discussed option one.

So there is interest on adopting a resolution. We have those prepared for you. We do have updated resolutions. Roger Swets from Dickinson Wright, who is our bond attorney, is here to help answer questions. You'll see... six different versions, but the real differences are the amounts and then the language itself. And what I will refer to as option B is the addition of noting that the bond proceeds can be used for pedestrian safety, as well as incorporating that not only in the resolution, but then into the proposed millage language. The other option or other variant is version C which just says public parking and references the traffic light. It does not discuss the pedestrian aspect. been working with Mr. Swets over the last few days now, refining the language based on commission input. So for version B and C, there are an $8 million option, $9 million option, $10 million option. I was asked to prepare these alternatives in regards to If we don't want to go at 10, can we go at eight or nine? One thing that Mr. Switzer and I have talked at nauseam is that as far as tweaking language tonight, resolution, we have some flexibility, but the bond, excuse me, The millage language itself is something that we don't want to tinker with too much if that's something that the Commission wants to tinker a little bit. So I will defer to Mr. Swets in regards to that. And part of the reason for the non-tinkering is the millage rates associated with the approved resolution or something that we have to get right. This speaks to state law about municipal bonding, et cetera, without getting into too much detail. So with that, if commission has a preference for option B or C, I think start with that and then...

Okay, so just to clarify, option B has a pedestrian safety language? Correct. Correct. And option C does not include that language?

Correct. Where is A, B, C? Is it the document we got? Yeah, that's that document that you got an hour ago.

We're considering A to be the first resolution that was in the packet.

Yes.

Thank you.

On the matter of timeline, I have to raise a significant concern that we walked in here to 20 new pages of material. that we haven't had time to review.

Are we supposed to be taking a vote on the different options this evening?

Essentially, do you want the pedestrian safety language included?

I haven't read the language.

Okay.

I don't think any of us have, quite honestly.

That's the decision though. Do you want pedestrian safety language included or not included?

This is why I opted for item number five because none of us have read the language to know whether we want it or not.

I've read it.

I've read it. So we got an email about it what this afternoon right?

Yes.

Like we I have heard concerns raised in this dais and recognized and respected that we cannot have that discussion about something tonight because we haven't had time to consider the material and this is one of those situations where we have not had time to consider this material. It's something to say Do you want pedestrian safety or not? Of course we all want pedestrian safety, but where did this language come from? What are we actually saying in that language? I mean, this is a big concern.

I mean, furthermore, I believe that to be just consistent with the rest of the process, we get a work session with a limited number of school board members and city council members, city commission members that get us thus far without, at that point, having the right amount of information. So the process is... You know, we're kind of broken at this point.

With all due respect, I was able to read it.

It came at 4.30, Madam Mayor.

I'm just saying, I said with all due respect, I was able to read it. Is there anybody else that was not able to read this information?

I didn't have time to read it, unfortunately, either. The public has not had time to read it. the public has not had time to read this information either, which is another concern that's been raised about us discussing things before there's been ample time for folks to take a look.

This is the same. We will discuss this, please. Thank you for your input. We are having a discussion. Thank you.

So this is building off of the resolution. And on language, that was part of the agenda, correct?

Yes. That's what I understand. Yes. Yes. That it is an edit. These are just edits, yes.

But there's significant edits. I mean, there's significant implications behind whether or not we move forward with this quote unquote pedestrian safety language because even reading that paragraph, I don't know what that means and what we're guaranteeing and what we're going to be using funds for. I don't know where this language came from. I don't know who requested that it be worked on.

I had to answer your question of the modifications were requested by various commissioners after I issued the packet. Which commissioners requested it? So then the working with bond attorney, he's reviewed it, has found the language to be acceptable from a legal standpoint, not discussing process or policy, but...

Regards to I'm sorry without due respect. Could I have the chatter in the back so I can hear to take notes, please?

Thank you So, can you please share which commissioners specifically requested this language in these changes and why we did not receive it prior to this afternoon I was one of the commissioners who reached out because I was concerned You know as I've said in multiple meetings I wanted a Could city manager Charles answer the question? Well, I just thought I'd speak for myself, but if you're not the only one, like I just want to know the full scope and then. Sure.

Commissioner Skaggs had additionally reached out and then I did have a couple of conversations with the mayor in regards to what was being asked.

So I've also heard it said up here many times and not up here that direction is given to the city manager by this body, not by individual members of this body. And that's another issue that I wanna raise here in terms of process.

I think that's why it's for discussion today.

But again, a good discussion allows time for us to read, digest, ask questions beforehand, et cetera, and for the public to have equal access to see this. That's why we publish these agendas at least four or five days ahead of time.

So all I'm saying this evening is from legal review that the language is in order. The decision to approve it, consider it this evening, to defer action, to consider, if you would like, a potential special meeting, the only deadline that we have at this time is one of the August 11th deadline to submit any language for the November ballot. That, as I think I discussed at the previous meeting, has to be done by August 11th.

And I think process-wise, The only reasonable solution is that we have a special meeting. And I would also request that that be a joint meeting with the school board so that those questions that have been raised tonight that can't be answered can also be raised.

Is this question, though, just about whether we adopt a resolution? I don't think that the school board weighs in on whether we adopt a resolution or revise bond language. I mean, I respect your comments, but I also respectfully disagree with, I mean, this topic, this draft is here. I think engaging today on these different versions is the same thing as us coming today saying, hey, I think I want to add this here. What do you guys think? I want to add this here. And that's what's here. It's not, this is the version to vote on. This was a resolution and a bond language that was made available to everyone. Let's discuss it. Let's have at it.

But though we are looking at the language here, we have not taken a vote tonight. There's a straw poll, but we have not taken a vote. And so I think for all of us, reasonably, ultimately the vote goes into all of the things leading up to it.

And just for a point of clarification, did we have these eight options in our last packet?

You had options for, the packet itself included the $10 million option. Friday, I had sent the commission

Maybe I could ask a better question. How many options did we have last packet? How many of these eight did we have? You only had the $10 million option. So we had one option last packet, but yet I'm being told that this language was in... So the one option became eight options, and right now, in the moment, I'm expected to vote for my constituents and taxpaying neighbors on the language that has changed from one option to eight without having read the language?

I think the permutations that are relevant here are like, one issue I had was I was like, 10 million's a lot. And respecting that we may have to make a decision tonight on this language, I said, what can we do so that we can have a reasonable discussion on the dollar amount? And I I think it's prudent that staff prepared different versions for us to look at. So many of these versions are just substituting the number eight, nine, 10. The other permutation is, do you want it to say resolution authorizing ballot proposal for public parking facility and pedestrian safety bonds? Or do you want it to say resolution authorizing ballot proposal for public parking facility bonds or just for parking facility bonds? So it's not like, There's extensive eight different versions. It's just what dollar value are we good with and do we want to say specifically that this includes pedestrian mobility solutions? It's a lot of legal like red line looking stuff, but I don't think it's that complicated.

I can understand how from your perspective having requested this and having an idea in your mind about what those permutations might be that it's not lot to discuss but as someone walking in again to 20 new pages of material not having had all of that background not having been involved in the request this doesn't feel like a clean transparent process and

Yeah, like what specifically, and I'm going to ask this rhetorically because I don't want to know because I'm not really open to having a vote on this, but for instance, if I was interested in learning about this, what specifically would be constructed under pedestrian? What am I buying when I say yes to pedestrian and micro mobility safety infrastructure and related expenses and improvements? Again, I don't want to know because I already told you earlier that I'm option five. I guess in being sort of somewhat prescient in my choice there of number five, this was the sort of thing that I'm concerned about. A rush timeline with a severe lack of information and transparency on the topic. I see a lot of people nodding.

I would argue that the concepts that you see reflected in the options presented here have been discussed on this dais week after week after week, every time that this concept has come up. Commissioner Schwartz has brought up the idea that we consolidate parking, that we ensure that we move forward with a structure that allows us to take parking off the street in order to further our mobility goals. That's what this says. It's nothing more than that. It also emphasizes that it's a public parking facility, not a parking facility that belongs to the schools. It's public. It's for all of us. Like that's what's in here.

I, again, I recognize that from your perspective, it doesn't seem like a big deal. And yes, we have had this conversation about the possibilities that this opens up. But that's one of the unanswered questions in moving forward here is that we don't have a design to show this is how parking will move off of the street. This is how improvements will be implemented.

This gives us the opportunity to do that.

But I think that in order for me to get behind this, I need to have an idea of what that's going to be because that's going to present a whole new layer of issues, right, with For example, I don't think the GVBA would be in favor of removing on-street parking. So that's something that we would have to work through as well. Which is to get to kind of the big point of, and the reason for publishing materials like this ahead of time is that, I mean, part of the process for me is talking to residents about what's in these materials. And that opportunity has not been provided in this process. showing up this afternoon.

I hear your concerns. I hear Commissioner Hunter's concerns. Are you making a motion? Are you considering making a motion to postpone this agenda item? Is that what your intent is?

Sure, I can make a motion. So I will move to hold a special meeting on or before August 11th to continue this conversation. Second.

So we have before us is a motion to table this agenda item.

Postpone.

Postpone. Thank you. Not table. Postpone this agenda item and for a later meeting. So any thoughts on that? We can just have a quick thoughts and then we're going to take a vote. I will just say I'm going to be gone after August 5th. Okay. Thank you. So that's okay.

Same. Actually, I leave on the 5th as well.

Okay, Mr. Wesley.

What is the question if I'm in your favor?

Commissioner Groff has and there's a second by Commissioner Hunter to postpone this discussion for a later date.

Yeah, I'm in agreement actually with postponing just because again what I said earlier before and really for kind of two reasons. I think one we want to digest this a bit more in my and I do would have maybe I would ask maybe Commissioner Groff-Blazac if she would you open to amending uh the postponement i guess uh the way she's phrasing it by including and inviting what you said earlier which is the the school board or school officials to be able to be there to make the conversation more fruitful so we can actually have true answers um you know per what my my hesitation was in the beginning so but i would be in favor of postponing do you have anything to add i will be leaving for family vacation this week so in in terms of

being able to attend and actually having quorum. It sounds like, um, I would rather just keep discussing tonight.

Okay. So all those in favor of postponing this to a later meeting, say yes.

Yes. Yes.

Opposed.

No, no. All right.

Thank you. So that motion did not pass. It's not postponed. We're going to have the discussion this evening.

Thoughts sure thoughts of it can share if it's okay. So so just now quickly looking at the two Two proposals here one including, you know pedestrian safety and the other one not I feel like we're taking something again. We're Already, I feel like we're confusing the residents with the by by rushing it something to be put on the ballot and by adding As much as I do agree in many ways with, you know, the things I've spoken with Laura Sidebar as well as, you know, pedestrian safety in general, I feel like it just could be, it just could cloud even more the, the, how we may interpret what they're saying yes or no to and it may also continue confusing, further confusing our residents from making a sound decision because, you know, there are, So that's my first thought. And the second thought is that I see that there's an $8, $9, $10 million potential of an ask here. And I'm just gonna reiterate my hesitation going, I don't know why we are considering putting something on a ballot if we don't know if the school can actually match 50% if we decide to go, yeah, it's gonna cost nine million each. Do they have the additional two million in hand? Because they know they have seven million set aside. And that answer has not been answered yet. And so I really feel that we really need to get some answers from the schools to understand where they are so that we can make sound decisions. And until then, I feel like we're just, speculating and guessing and it doesn't feel right to put something on a ballot. I think it's rushed and premature.

Can I clarify something? I thought it was stated that the schools have the matching funds over seven million. I thought the question asked earlier was whether they would do a two-story deck on their own and do they have the money for a two-story deck? Money for a two-story deck is a different number than going halfsies on a three-story.

So it's my understanding, talking to school administration, that they have the ability to match for the project.

Okay, thank you. The ability to match us going 50-50 on the three-story?

Correct. Up to a $10 million project, right? Yes. Or would it be a $20 million? Sorry.

So the $10 million... The reason it was written for $10 million was to provide contingency because we are looking at conceivably not putting this out to bid, depending on design decisions, excuse me, late 27, 2028. So the thought behind the $10 million was to assure that we had an appropriate amount of resources. If the project proceeds, bids go out and the bids come in at $15 million, then we would only size the bond sale for that amount because by then we have numbers in hand.

Sure, that makes sense. Thank you. I was wondering if we know the $10 million, up to $10 million, let's find out that two-story deck. costs are now it's looking at more like a 20 price tag which isn't out of out of line as a potential and so that means that both sides we would be able to borrow an up to 10 million i'm just my concern again is if there's hesitation from the schools from being able to have set up cover a two-story deck for maybe let's say um eight million i think the number kind of moved on me but whatever that might be for a two-story eight nine it gives me pause to think that they could match a full 10. And so that's just, again, if you have confirmation that 100% that they could match up to 10 million, then great. It feels like I haven't gotten 100% clarity on it and I just keep asking the question until I feel like I have that 100% certainty. So I apologize for the redundancy. No, I understand.

So the task at hand, is to discuss the language options, correct? That's what we need.

I just, yeah, if the commission is interested in moving forward with the resolution, just need, we can answer any potential, or excuse me, any questions you may have on the resolution, either version, and then the commission deciding the 8, 9, or 10 number.

So Commissioner Skaggs and Schwartz, I know that you both had discussed or had thoughts about this pedestrian safety language. Did either one of you want to kind of talk about your thinking with that?

I'm so sorry to interrupt. Before we get into the description of the language and the explanations thereof, I was just hoping to follow up on the previous vote and just offer my comment as to why I voted no. I just want to state for the record again that we were sent an email at 423 today. While the language is similar, we have eight options in front of us that because of my personal and work life, I did not have a chance to review. We have eight options ranging from eight to $10 million and pedestrian with language, pedestrian without language that I don't feel comfortable having the rest of the conversation on this evening. I know we've already had that vote, but I think that this is quite honestly a low point for the Commission in my experience in being here. I think that city leadership should probably take a close look at what decisions we're making in terms of the financial and fiscal long-term health of our city. This is actually because I probably work in the environment, a concern that I fielded very regularly from clients and have actually met on at Morning Bell restaurant a few times with a group of concerned residents. Because of those concerns I don't feel comfortable having the conversation myself personally anymore for the remainder of the evening won't be voting on it won't be participating in the conversation and will Excuse myself from the rest of the conversation.

Thank you So either Commissioner Swartz or Skaggs were you going to start with that conversation I guess can I real quickly I Yes.

Real quick. I've tried to be really quiet through a lot of this, but I just am having a hard time figuring out how this is any different than if we got the original language and then requested edits like we do all the time on different things we're voting on. It feels like we're doing that.

Yes.

Just we vetted it through our bond lawyer, right? Correct. I mean, we could call him up and make a bunch of, Hey, how about this? How about that? And we'd probably get some, we'll get back to use. And I, it sounds like commissioners were trying to get ahead of that where we could have a pertinent conversation and focus on their ideas and have them actually vetted and not have a, well, we think that's okay, but we have to get back on you. we have like their ideas that they could have saved, brought up right during this resolution time right now and talked about, and then we would have gotten a, yeah, it sounds good, but we have to get back to you. And I think they were just trying to get in front of that. I don't want to speak for them, but it seems like they were just trying to get in front of the, like, let's, here's my ideas. Let's see if they're vetted and if we're even allowed to do it as opposed to like adding new information in last second. That's how I'm taking this, but I didn't do it, so.

I'll be happy to say a few comments. Sure, thank you. I read the resolution and felt like the ballot language didn't match the resolution or, honestly, the conversations that we've had over the last months. So I spoke with Shay and only Shay about some ideas that I had and if it could make sense to add that the structure is public and that uh pedestrian safety improvements are part of the goal of the overall comprehensive plan of what we would like to see done by having this facility available in our city that's it so here's here's an issue with that is that

by virtue of these drafts being presented to us based on conversations that were had between individual commissioners and the city manager, that cuts off, in a way, additional input from others. If we had all come with the $10 million thing and you would raise the issue and said, hey, could we stay public here? That's a conversation where we're all on equal footing. But here, it kind of cuts off pathways, I think, for us to enter this conversation with other ideas or other ways of approaching it and to have this conversation out in the open where we're, again, we're all working with the same information. And this comes back to, again, it's tough for me to reconcile this principle of the relationship between this body and the city manager in terms of how direction is given. And direction to move forward with providing drafts to us is not given by individual members of this body. It's made by collective decision. That's our work.

I would say we are all on equal footing because we all get the same packet and we all have the city manager's phone number and are welcome to call him. And I think that like right now we are having the conversation. So like have the conversation.

And I would also say that we're all on equal footing because in multiple meetings, as Commissioner Skaggs brought up, we have all cited pedestrian safety as being a goal and walkability and our mobility function. So these are edits that in my reading, enhance the language and put more focus on if this if the people want to have this built and vote in favor of this the city is stating that also pedestrian safety concerns are part of this and whatever bodies are you know in 2028 in the future that we are stating now that pedestrian safety concerns need to be addressed as well and the addition of the word public

Couldn't we, if we weren't comfortable going off of this new language that was approved and vetted, we could be revising the original one that we've had for the last four days in the packet, right? This was just vetted stuff as options that we know are vetted and are good. There's no reason to say that we couldn't do what we do a lot of times, which is say, I wish we could change this, or could we change the language within the one from the packet a while ago? And we'll probably get the, maybe, maybe not, we can vet it, we can look, or we can go with one that we know works because it's been vetted right now. Both are still open. We can still do that. If there's ideas that like someone on the commission has that they'd like to see changed on the ballot proposal that was given to us Last week in the agenda, like, let's go, let's talk about them. I'd love to hear them. That's like what we're up here trying to do. I want to hear everybody's smart ideas and I will take credit for ones that I can.

Yeah, I don't think these are take it or leave it ideas. And I want to express appreciation because I think this is actually helpful to facilitating further discussion because it has new ideas out there for discussion. We don't have to do this. We can work from any other, but I would like to work on it now and have these conversations. So I don't know if we wanna, like, I'm happy to say, I would like to include the word public parking facility, and I would like to include and pedestrian safety in that language for all the reasons that we've discussed here and that I have personally stated, which is that for me, this is not about, adding parking, it is for improving pedestrian safety with mobility solutions. And I want to be explicit in this because these projects take time. There's a good chance I won't be here for portions of this project. And I don't want any good intentions that we have up here to be changed later by a body that says, well, it didn't say we had to put in the light, or it didn't say we had to do these things. Like, let's be clear. Let's be clear on what we do and don't want. And let's look at what is in the resolution, whereas, to make sure that reflects what we want. And let's make sure that the bond language tells voters exactly what is intended with this. And I would be remiss if I let a bond language go out that just said, hey, do you want to put some money towards a parking facility? For me, it has to include that light at Bagley. It has to have pedestrian and micro mobility safety infrastructure included. So that's why I'm a strong advocate for the versions that reflect public parking facility and pedestrian safety bonds. And then I don't know how we want to go about this, but I'll just throw out my thoughts on the dollar value as well. You know, looking at these, I know that we are only so far down the design process and there are decisions to be made and not made if you don't have committed funds. There's no point in throwing bad money after good if we aren't going to go forward with the deck. When we look at how much this deck will cost and investments. I am not actually comfortable with a full $10 million value. I don't think we need to do that. I would rather dip into other funds. I would be more in support of a $9 million bond and would like to hear from other commissioners on their thoughts on that as well. But just sharing my thoughts so that we can start working on reviewing the resolution, whether it's the red line, green line version, or the one that's in the packet, which is the same thing with other thoughts added. Like, let's get this conversation going.

So you are in favor, just to be clear, the version B version?

Yes, that references pedestrian safety.

Okay, referencing and public parking.

Public parking facility and pedestrian safety, yes. Okay.

Part of my thinking when I was providing feedback, just to put it out there too, is that when a person walks into a ballot box where they have their absentee ballot and they are reading this ballot language, I want the ballot language to be very clear to them about what it is that they are voting on and what we intend, like Commissioner Schwartz was saying, to provide should this funding be approved. My sense would be more in the $8 million range. I will also admit to being very surprised when the packet showed up and it was a $10 million ask when we had been talking about seven to eight. I can say that based on the way funding is coming in to the neighborhood roads fund through the state, I do feel I do feel like it is doable to go out to the voters and ask whether this funding is something that they support because it's just not coming in the way we originally expected when that initiative was passed by the state legislature. So, yeah, I'm more at the $8 million level and figure out from there what we need to do from a general fund standpoint.

But from version standpoint, you are in favor of the inclusion of pedestrian safety in public? Absolutely, yes. Oh, version B, okay.

I can chime in. I think version B is key because I think that that is clear for this commission and what we're signaling this is used for. Parking students is not what we're doing this for. That's for the schools to do. What we're doing is we're asking our people if they would like to kind of partner with the schools and use that shared parking spot. As I've said a few times, I'm feeling a bit like a broken record there, but I do think we... The schools and answer one way or the other like we owe the schools Hey is the city gonna come along on this or not? So I support B when it comes to the the funding I think it's super important to remind Everyone that this is not this is an up to number. This is not we're going to write a check for all nine million dollars I think it's super pertinent to make sure that we are doing it as efficiently as we can. I have no reason to doubt that our city staff would not do it as reasonable as they can. But I do understand that like we don't have soil samples yet because we haven't gotten that far down the road. Like maybe it will be, maybe like I would assume that we're planning for the worst and hoping for the best when it comes to things like foundations and construction materials and I would expect that us as a commission and the schools together, we would be keeping track of that spending and making sure that we aren't overspending, overbuying. But having the runway there, if something comes up, makes sense to me that $9 million range seems like a conservative number that maybe we only do need $7 million and that would be lovely and I would applaud that. And I hope that that's the case, but I don't want to have to go back to the citizens again and say, whoops, we don't have what we need. We had that kind of happen with our parks millage where there were projects that we wanted to do that we couldn't get to. And I know I worked on that parks millage. And after the parks millage, I remember kicking ourselves on Parks and Rec going like, man, we should at least ask for more. Just to see if people want it or not. I'm not asking I'm not saying we're gonna spend nine million bucks I'm saying let's ask the people if they want to do that if they're willing to go up to and including nine million if if necessary but for them to know that we are there to do what's best and to do it as Frugally and as efficiently as possible, which I have no doubt our city staff will do That is the one like you brought up a point

when you're talking to people and asking them, do you want to do this? Let's just ask. That's why I was glad to see this additional language included because, Commissioner Skaggs, to your point, I think this more clearly defines the goals and makes it, you know, reading things at the ballot is not super intuitive necessarily. It's very a lot of legal ballot ease. And I think that this helps residents make a better choice. with this extra language included, just spelling out public parking facility, the light on Bagley, traffic signals, that bonds may be prepaid prior to maturity. And so I think there's a lot of additional specific language that makes this easier to interpret, in my opinion. As far as the dollar amount, so that being said, I prefer version B as well. Just the more details we can give the voter that, you know, they're busy. People are busy. You don't always read all the bond issues that are on. And November is going to be a very busy election. So I think that spelling it out for people and making it easier to interpret when they're making that decision is always a good thing. To your point with the dollar amount, I like the up to safety net and, of course, Hopefully we wouldn't have to spend nearly that, but you never know. Like we said, we're talking about monies in 2028 and who knows what's going to happen. Things just keep going up, up, up and up. But go ahead.

I was just, no, finish and I was going to say more.

But we did discuss. Manager Charles, right, that the opportunity, there are certain dates that if the future body decides that they want to pay it down, there are certain dates. Not necessarily, not like a mortgage, is that what I'm saying? Right.

No, we will, as we do with any of our bonds, include early call provisions.

Okay. And does this happen cyclically?

No. So when we write, when we put the bonds out for sale, we put in the... notice to sell that we retain the ability to call the bonds generally it's one time roger remember generally anytime after on or after the 10th year yep so um so we'll write it at that which gives us the best opportunity for better rates um if you shorten that window then um bond buyers um put a more of a premium on because they can kind of read, oh, they're going to try to do this in five years. So it will be a one-time call window. And any time after that, 10 year, is that, you might remember that.

Right. You can do it, you can, any time on or after the 10th anniversary. And at that point, you could do it in part months or more than once, or you

I'm just more swirling around. I love this stuff. This is like the part of this job that makes me the happiest. There was a lot that Commissioner Wesley said that resonated with me when he was talking about how we don't have the clarity from the schools on if they would build a two-story or not. I don't think we do. But I also don't know if it's our... I don't know if they owe us that. They don't owe us to say what they're gonna do with their parking structure or not. They're asking us if we'd like to partner on a three-story deck. It's up to them to decide what they wanna do if we vote this down or vote this up. If they wanna do a two-story deck, go for it. But again, then it's back to their property. They're looking for easements. We can have that discussion again at that point. If they'd like to signal or if they'd like to come out between now and when we vote on this, that there will be a two-story deck either way and give that clarity to the voters, I think that's totally their call. I would think that'd be a good idea to do that if I was them. But I also totally get, I don't know if we have the ability to sit up here and be like, you have to let us know what you're going to do with your land and your parking for your students. Or before we're going to go and do something. So I get your point. I think it's a great one. It really did resonate with me. I was sitting here trying to crunch it. And I think it makes a lot of sense. I just don't know if that's something that they're obligated to give us. I understand that it might help, but I don't know if they're obligated to give us that.

Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. Thanks for the support. I guess I'm looking at it from always, and you know me, I'm a small business owner, so I always look at these deals like a business owner, and I think that, you know, What you said makes a lot of sense, but the way I look at it is that I would never go into a blind partnership where the other partner is not solidifying where they are in the partnership in terms of how much they can bring to the table. And especially when it was the prospect partner's idea in the first place. So I was looking for some concrete answers and where they were. And I think that things fall in a little bit easier on our end. So the conversation would be different if we knew that they were doing a two-star deck, right? Overseas men, the light, those things. But the question is, we don't know. But I do have a follow-up question. I realize I'm a little outvoted here. But I have just more of a legal question that popped up. And this may be directed towards Mr. Huff, if you don't mind. I was just thinking, if the schools, well, Well, when I started this office, I was just thinking if the schools would agree with the language calling it a public parking facility, considering the deck wouldn't be 100% publicly owned, nor would it be available 100% of the time to the public, you know, at least two out of the three decks. And then further, the asset and a land it would sit on would not be owned by the city, but rather the school. So I just, I was wondering, like, if this is not a 100% true title, is it okay for us to add the word public? Is it okay to add the word public to the title of this from a legal standpoint?

Thank you commissioners. So what the ballot proposal is referring to is what the city-financed infrastructure would be. So, you know, what Manager Charles and I have discussed is this is school-owned property, but we're not going to spend city money on something that would then be owned and controlled by the schools. So if you can think back to the playground bond issue we did a number of years ago, That was a similar situation, and so Mr. Huff, a city attorney, and his colleagues drafted an agreement with the schools to provide the city access and rights and certain control over the parts of those improvements that were going to be financed with city funds. So we'd be looking at the same thing here. There needs to be an agreement with the schools that would give the city certain rights and jurisdiction over the parts of this that are financed with the city. Now as to the question about public, I think that depends somewhat as to what the intentions are as to whether or not there would be parts of this that were Recorded off and not available at all to the public or is there going to be? You know more shared access throughout the facility I think at a minimum if you want to call it public parking you would need to be comfortable with the fact that the portions of this facility that are going to be financed with city money would be open to the general public and You know if that's not the case we'd want to back that word out but if you're comfortable that that's going to be the case then I think it's appropriate to say that you know, the city finance part of it would be a public facility. I appreciate it. Thanks.

And I think currently, today, we don't have any sort of use agreement even in place with the schools where it's, I think it's just more just conversation, right? Like, hey, if we build this three-story deck together, the last I heard was that the first story The main floor would be dedicated for public open to the public at any time the top two Decks would be reserved just for students and for school use during school Hours, but then would be open to the public outside of school school time. So So that was my understanding. That's why I just wondered if I just want to make sure that we were okay legally because it is Only one-third of the deck would be truly 100% public. And again, we don't have anything in concrete either. This is just part of the conversation. So that's why I asked the question, is it right to say that? And I want to make sure that I have the right information so when residents ask me, I have a eloquent answer to give back to them. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

That's a good question. Thank you. Did you have any thoughts on version? like with the pedestrian safety and public or without?

You know, that's why I'm not I'm not a legal expert. So I lean on the experts, you know, but I but that's what struck me is like, who are they going to look at this as a hundred percent parking? I didn't know how the schools I'm not sure if this was vetted with the schools to see what they thought. If this is if if you know, if that's true. And just off the top of my head, I was thinking, oh, maybe I don't want to confuse it either saying, you know, partial public parking. So I just thought I'd throw this out there for discussion or at least have another voice there to say, like, hey, this might be viewed a different way, and I don't want to further confuse the public any further that they go, oh, this is actually a school thing. A couple other things I do like, though, I do like, well, out of the two, again, I mentioned that the whatever resolution, version C seems a little bit cleaner. I do understand what Laura was trying to do by adding some more language in there about the, you know, carving out some more used for that dollars. But I feel like, again, this might be a little cleaner version. And I like that the version, this version, what is it, C? Yeah, version C still has the traffic signal at Bagley and Lake, which I think is an important piece. And from what I understood is that if this does come to fruition, that we would probably have to put in a light at Bagley. And so we're just articulating, saying, this is what's going to happen if you say yes. Those are my two cents. But again, I know I'm a bit outvoted here, so I'm just adding additional commentary.

So in your thoughts, version C is a cleaner version.

In my thoughts, version C is a little cleaner. I do appreciate the hard work that the two commissioners did to think through this. And then I do understand where they were going with version B. B. But that's just my decision. And again, maybe my decision or my thought would be a little bit different if I had more time to digest. But just at first glance, this is where I'm at.

Okay. Any other thoughts?

Why is version C labeled compared resolutions with without pedestrian language?

So what I did was took the drafts and compared it back to the very first resolution that we had.

If I could just, sorry, clarify that. The with without is confusing me.

I'm sorry.

That's a typo.

So it's compared resolutions without pedestrian language? Oh, whoops.

Oh, that's okay.

Okay. So from what I can tell in the few minutes up here that I've had time to look at these and compare them, that the only difference between B and C is in the title. Is that accurate?

The title, and then there are some additional... Let's see. Looking at this.

Now, therefore, be it resolved.

Yeah, so the difference between B and C is, I think, simply the title to the resolution, the title to the ballot proposal, and then the language that says that it's the intent of the commission to spend a portion of the bond proceeds on pedestrian and, oh, I forget the word, micro. Micro mobility. Micro mobility. Yeah. Infrastructure improvements, so. Really, the main thing that you're saying if you go with version B is it is our intent to spend some of the money on pedestrian and micromobility safety infrastructure.

So given that we have not had a conversation about the use of these funds or the use of these bonds and millage to pay for pedestrian improvements, makes this seem misleading and disingenuous to add it at the last minute in version B, to call them pedestrian safety bonds, to say we're going to use some amount of them because that has not been the purpose of this millage since we've been talking about it. Yes, we've raised questions, we've chatted about it would be nice to remove the on-street parking, et cetera. However, when I look at the sentence and the new sentence and the one, two, three, third paragraph that says, whereas shifting a portion of existing city parking capacity to the proposed public parking garage would allow some street surface parking space to be reallocated. We cannot say that with any level of certainty because approving this millage does not authorize the removal of those parking spots. That's a whole separate process that we're going to have to work through at this table. And so I don't like the idea of at the last minute trying to say they're gonna do something that we haven't talked about them doing with any level of certainty. Yes, we would all love to improve pedestrian safety. I've tried to raise that issue a number of times. Residents have tried to raise that issue a number of times. We do need to take that up and figure out what our plan is going to be. But putting it in here at the last second, I fear is a, will be perceived as a deliberate way to sway voters about what they're voting on, right? Yes, everybody wants to vote for public safety bonds, but that's not what we've keyed the amount to. That's not what we've keyed these conversations to. That's not what the school district asked us to do, which we've been reminded is the original intent of this whole process. And so I feel very strongly that we can't do that to our residents and try to promise something that we cannot deliver with this.

I strongly disagree with that framing. There's no attempt to try to confuse residents about anything. I think we've been very clear talking over these past meetings and in months and years about the struggles that we have with our micro mobility goals. Like we don't have the space. We have to make tough decisions and have had to play with those about what do we do? Do we cut down trees and right-of-ways? Do we get rid of on-street parking? This gives us... the flexibility to pursue those goals. And frankly, in ways that were not possible to us before this opportunity was presented. And I won't pretend to have all the answers today because by the time this garage is built, we can't know which spots are going away today. It will take two plus years to get this, even if the voters say yes. And again, this is a voter value proposition. that I'm comfortable with letting people make a choice on. But if they want to go forward with this, it's two plus years before this garage is online. And then we can look at utilization. We can see which spots are used. Our community will look different in two years. So let's let that happen. And in my mind, I want voters to decide whether they want to bias the possibility to use other parking spots that exist today to further those goals. This is no trick. And in fact, putting this language in is to make sure that that goal persists, even when we aren't sitting here. I think it's the opposite of how you are framing it.

I would agree, if I may, that what it does is it ties the hands of how the money will be used and forces some of it to go towards pedestrian safety. We might not have every answer of what that looks like today, but it will require that some of the dollars go to pedestrian safety and infrastructure improvements.

Just to add, I think my... If I could respond to those first. So I do not disagree that it may provide the opportunity for us to do some specific things in the gaslight area. But it... is not, number one, it is not the only opportunity that we have to improve pedestrian safety and micromobility around this community. Like I said, that is a conversation we need to have and we've been needing to have full scale. What does that system look like? What are the hard choices we're going to need to make? The intent for this millage was never about safety. And in fact, with some of these unanswered questions that we have before us, for example, if students are not using this garage and we see instead what they're doing is they are scrambling at the last minute to take advantage of spaces that were not intended for them, et cetera, then there's actually like a net negative in terms of pedestrian safety here. And Again, all conversations that we have had in the community, I don't think there was anything included in the public engagement sessions about public, about pedestrian safety. None of this has been communicated or discussed. And it may not be the intent to mislead our residents, but I fear that it will have the impact that it will mislead residents with this language.

I have communicated and discussed it from here. We can disagree, but I have communicated and discussed it from up here. I have discussed it with other commissioners. In every conversation that I've had with residents since the start of this project, the first thing is why in the world would we pay for a three-story garage for students? And then we start talking about what it actually is and the possibilities that it buys us with freeing up space for these micro mobility solutions and moving parking so that we can focus on improving our surface, that's what people are excited about that I talked to. Granted, we're talking to different people, but they want this to accomplish those goals.

Was there any content included in the public engagement sessions about pedestrian safety and the use of these funds for pedestrian safety?

There was not.

I don't know that that's really like a relevant question because like you said everybody wants pedestrian safety.

That's right, but the way that we've presented this millage to the community up to this point including in our official joint public engagement sessions has not included this and it would be great to make double use of this, but there's no plan tied to it. We don't even have a plan in our minds up here about what that will look like. Like I've said, in order for us to move on that and use these funds, those are going to be separate processes that we have to go through. We cannot guarantee anything through this mechanism. I appreciate that you see this as an opportunity to potentially do that. And I've agreed with you on that, that this is the possibility that we can potentially do that. But I've also said repeatedly, but what is the plan for that? And for us to now say we're gonna use funds for that purpose and still not have a plan and have not talked about that in public in the context of this is very problematic.

We have a mobility plan. and we can build off of that. I think we have different feelings on how to move forward and that's okay. I am okay with having some uncertainty, knowing our goals, asking the voters, is this something you wanna invest in? And developing those plans. I don't wanna spend two years coming up with the perfect plan, watching circumstances change, watching the schools say, We've got to come up with solutions. I appreciate your desire to have the perfect plan that everyone's on board with. I just don't see it as feasible here. And I am seeing the possibilities. I am seeing the data. I am having the conversations. And I am seeing the public say, put this on the ballot.

It is a step too far to say that I'm up here demanding a perfect plan. What I've said is that we have no plan currently. We have a mobility plan. But that is guidance. That is something that we've used for guidance. And when each thing comes up, we discuss those details and we make decisions about those individual projects on a case-by-case basis. So I'm not looking for a perfect plan. I think, again, to encapsulate what I've said is we need to be overly transparent, overly communicative, and this is not accomplishing that.

So you're in favor, then your preference would be version C without the pedestrian safety included in the language. That would be your preference. Is that what you're saying? Just to sum it up.

I mean, I would say that I haven't had enough time to really fully digest these and say that I prefer any of them. So I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer to that question. Okay.

I think those points have been made clear. Does anybody else have anything to add at this point? Any questions for the bond attorney? Why he is here patiently? Thank you. Any other thoughts?

The only thing I was gonna maybe add is just, I'm also looking at this, as you know, I've talked to many commissioners about, and I've spoken about this too, just the optics, but also then the end result. If the end result, we put something on the ballot and it gets voted down, how do we interpret that data? And if the more, I want to preface by saying I really appreciate the idea. I think, Laura, this is a really smart idea of including the additional use of the money to have that in there. And I agree with some of the things that the agenda idea, the agenda of, you know, increasing micro mobility, safety and all those things. And I agree with all of those things. I just, I feel like it, again, it clouds it a bit more, even more than it already is that I'm even comfortable with. And so that's my ultimate questions. Like now it's just another, variable to interpret if it does get voted down. Are people saying, hey, I don't want a ramp? Or are they saying, hey, I don't want you to remove street parking to move that into a deck? Are they saying they just don't want to spend any money on micro mobility infrastructure? I know there's a few people that are like, anti doing that for whatever reason. But it's even harder for then me to interpret and for all of us to interpret. And I guess I'm just trying to protect us a bit because if it doesn't go through, if it fails, then we're back up here. The school still doesn't have a solution. And now I feel like our hands are going to be tied to go, well, hey, now they're like, OK, what if I partner with a two-story deck? If they vote this thing down, we can't, as a commission, go, yeah, OK, yeah. What the public really meant was that they just didn't want us to spend additional money on a third story. They still want a deck. So then that justifies us to partner with the schools on a two-story deck. I think that that'd be not interpreting what they're saying 100%. It's a bit frustrating for me. I understand you have some really smart people up here, and maybe I'm not doing a very good job of articulating my stance, but I guess I'm just trying to ask that we all look at the big picture of what is going to happen. If it doesn't pass, where are we left and we're going to be in a harder position? The schools will be in a tougher position because of it. And I understand that the time is of the essence for the schools. I want to accommodate them, but again, You're right. They don't have to give us answers, but it would be really helpful for us then so we know what we're asking from the community.

I think I totally get like, it's weird here because we're on the opposite side of this, but I can resonate with a lot of what you're saying here. But I think where we're separating, at least in my mind, I'm not speaking for you, is I think regardless what and why I support this is we're giving direction. If this gets voted down, that to me is a very clear statement from our community that they don't want to partner with money for a deck. They just don't. It's not a priority to them. Or maybe the priority is to look at different ways to move people around downtown and move students downtown. All of a sudden, that opens up. That gives direction to the schools to say, well, shoot, how do other people do it when you can't park cars by a school? Because there's plenty of schools where you can't park cars around in a lot of major cities. They'll have to look that way because they won't have our help or they'll have to solve it on their own. And that's OK. The way I'm looking at this is it gets voted down. I'm getting direction from the people on what they want and what they don't want. And then I will move in that direction. That's kind of how I think we're really similar on this. It's just I guess I'm not fearing the results of the vote either way. If it gets voted down, they can have some really cool conversations about partnering with public transportation or carpooling or busing. There's a lot of different ways to move people around cities. What we're deciding is, is it worth our $10 million? to make cars a possibility for people to get students downtown. And if the people say no, I am fine with that. But I think the worst thing we can do is say maybe and make them not able to make a decision either way. I think things are happening. Change is happening. I don't think we can make a plan Like speaking to Commissioner Grofblazek, I am so with you on a plan for mobility. I will say, though, that the world is moving. We have a decision in front of us. And by the end of November, we will know what way the people want us to move. If they choose that they don't want this, then I think we have a lot more focus on where they want us moving on mobility than what we currently have. What we currently have is the schools that need some help, or don't need help, but they're offering us an opportunity to partner with them. They can solve, they're big boys, they can solve their parking problems with lots of other ways. There are other ways they can do this. They're asking us, Hey, I don't know if you're going to get this shot again, but if we do it that we could do a deck, if you all want to do it together, is that something you'd be interested in? And what I'm saying is let's give that to the voters. They voted down. And if they voted down, we say they didn't want it and they don't want to deck. Okay. Let's start looking at different ways. We can move people around our town. I'm comfortable with that too. I think we are in agreement.

Thanks for clarifying, Ryan. I think my concern is, I love the idea what you just said. It's like, hey, if it does vote down, the schools will have to find another alternative solution. And hey, we tried. But my concern is that it gets voted down, and then the schools go, hey, OK, instead of a three-story deck, let's just do a two-story deck. And we just need some help, and let's partner in that regard. And I think that our hands will be tied where we just cannot touch it anymore, where if we slow things down a bit more, we could become good stewards and good partners in some sort of solution. So I think that's the only deciding thing. But I think we're in agreement that if it does get voted down, our hands are tied. We cannot do a deck. And I just want to make sure that that's clear to the school. But again, I also don't know how everyone's thoughts, if they all agree with that either. But I just want to make sure that that is... I'm seeing it correctly, but I think, yeah.

I hear you on that. I think it'll be another very different and bigger conversation because, right, like how do we interpret I like to keep things simple and I could say like, no, it's the voters didn't want to spend, didn't want to spend more tax dollars to participate in this. But it's a really valid point. Like, or was, did, was that no, if it's a no, was that no, like a don't give them anything. And we, we won't know. And I think that that will be a very fresh conversation and different type of engagement. You know, this, we aren't, deciding tonight whether to go forward with a parking garage. We're deciding whether we wanna have residents weigh in on this so that we have direction so that the schools have direction. These are just real factors. I really like hearing from everybody because I think we just have different comfort levels with unknowns, with making plans for the future and how we interpret things. It's fantastic to have these different viewpoints Like you said, Commissioner Burdick, I appreciate Commissioner Graf Blazek's perspective. Like we should have a mobility plan. Yes, and I know that we've all been working on it. I know it's been frustratingly slow. I also know that it would be really helpful to know if there's additional capacity in our system to do those system-wide mobility plans. So there's a chance in November, if the answer is yes, And we can proceed with how many parking spots are we talking about here and start extrapolating where we could shift parking to put in mobility lanes. We can have those very real conversations on how to build a more productive system rather than the piecemeal retroactive things that we have to do because we're in a built-out system. But you're totally right, either way. And I don't want to say I don't care. I care very much about the direction of this. Personally, I think it's a good idea. I've made it clear how I intend to vote. But I completely respect that people might not want this. And that's OK. And we can adapt. We can go forward. We all live in a community. We can work together. It's fine.

And so to that point, all really good points, and thank you everyone for weighing in. We do have the issue at hand, which is which version do we prefer and which dollar amount do we prefer? So with the pedestrian safety language and public parking included or without that, and then what dollar amount? That is the decision that is before us right now. So if any, I think we kind of went down the line. If we can recap, that was a little bit ago. But I think, Commissioner Skaggs, you were very much in favor of pedestrian safety, language being included, and public parking. Yes. And the $8 million amount. Commissioner Burdick, you were the same, but up to $9 million.

Yep, with the caveat that we will spend as much as we need and no more. Right.

Commissioner Wesley, did you want to weigh in on, I feel like what you were saying is you're not comfortable with the public safety piece, pedestrian safety piece being in there.

Exactly. And then the question about the public, the word public, but so, but again, I, I don't really, I.

So you have a preference of version C of between.

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Did you have a preference on dollar amount? I, you know.

No, I have no idea. Okay, so I had... And just for clarification, so if... let's say this goes to the ballot, whatever version this is, it gets passed. But then if something, like the schools decide to go in a different direction on their own or they cannot afford to do, to match, we don't have to take anything, right? We're not doing it. We don't have to.

No, the bond, and I'll keep my eye on Roger to make sure I'm not going to get yelled at, is that it just authorizes. It doesn't require... Is that?

That's correct, yes. Everything will come back to this commission in the future. There will be an agreement with the schools if this goes forward. There will be construction bids that you'll have to approve. And then finally, when you get to the point of issuing bonds, there will actually be a much more extensive resolution that lays out the dollar amount, the number of years, and all the particulars. So, yes, it will all come back to you. I would also point out that because of the specificity in the in the ballot question about this being on the site that it's going to be on, if that site's not available to you, you know, it's really not going to be possible to do a project.

All right. Okay.

Well, thanks for the clarification.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

I'm sorry to try to

I know we're kind of backtracking, but I was just rereading the language, and I have a question about the first paragraph of the resolution, the first whereas. I'm noticing in the resolution that it doesn't specifically say, like it does in the actual bond language, that it's a portion, and I'm wondering if either I'm misreading it or if we need to say like regarding a possible public parking facility project for the city in collaboration with the school district, because right now it just reads as us doing it there.

I think that's fine if you'd like to add that. know as i said before i think that the focus of what you're doing is the city portion of it um so i'm okay with the way it reads but if you think that's if you think that's clear it certainly doesn't hurt to be as clear as possible also the recitals are not really the operative part here it's the ballot question that's the really strict part which is why i feel you've got a little more leeway in tweaking the the whereas clauses as opposed to the ballot language itself

You mean you don't think the public reads all these resolutions? I'm just kidding.

Getting hungry and a little slap happy. The whereases are more general expressions of intent, whereas what goes on the ballot is what's going to be legally binding.

Okay. I'm fine either way. I just wanted to make sure that we're being careful today. Okay.

If you did want to clarify, I think that's fine.

So I think everybody has stated where, where they are. Did you have you waited on dollar amount? I'm sorry.

I do lean towards 9 million again with it being on the high end, which is why I also suggested that language about prepayment and have been digging into that because that is, um, I know it's not binding language. I know what the word may means, but I want, I would love for us to be able to use, as Commissioner Skaggs has pointed out, like new funds that come in or, you know, if we have new revenues coming in from Gaslight investors, like pay this down. So, but yeah, I don't want us to be in a tough situation to have it be at 9 million or at 8 million and be in a tough spot. So I prefer, sorry, I prefer up to 9 million.

Okay. So version B and up to 9 million. Okay. Oh, thank you.

Just one thing I thought might be helpful at that point. It's up to, as you're also right, but also if this gets approved, if the bonds get issued and if the city is paying this debt over 20 years, you're not obligated in any one year to fund all of it through a millage debt levy to the extent you have other funds available in any given year. the city commission could decide to use those and then adjust the debt millage down. Now, if you don't have other monies available, you do have to levy the debt millage, but you are free as a policy matter in any given year to decide to pay part of it from other funds.

Okay. Thank you for that. Great information. Thank you. Thank you. So at this time, is there further discussion? I feel like people have been pretty clear. Is there an appetite to make a motion?

I would move to adopt a resolution to place a bond millage request on the November 3, 2026 ballot for a debt issuance of up to $9 million with the language represented in version B. Is that a clear motion?

I second that.

Are we ready to go through a vote, commissioners?

Can I make a real quick comment?

Absolutely.

I just want to, because there was a lot levied tonight of transparency. I feel like this is that. This is us up here talking. I know this isn't a work session on the schedule, but I want to thank everyone, regardless of how they vote on this, and I hope that this can be seen as that transparent. This is us chopping it up up here. This is us talking about it, talking why we're motivated about it. There's certain things where, like Commissioner Wesley had mentioned, I let the lawyers do it because they're the lawyers and I'm not with a law degree. But I really, really hope that this doesn't come across as not being transparent when we're up here having these discussions, talking about it, not only just for this resolution, but like what we're trying to do with it. Because I think more than even a lot of votes we make, that was done tonight. We talked about not only what we're voting on, but kind of the larger motivations on why we're trying to do this and what we're asking for. That's just what I have to say.

Thank you. Any other comments?

I'll say before we vote that it I want us to be a good partner to the school district. I want us to collaborate and find great solutions for our community. I want to understand the preferences, the perspectives of residents on various things. And I want us to always keep in mind that intent and impact can be very different things. And I'm just, I'm really disappointed in the process tonight in being provided this new material at this late time to make a really important decision, which has cut out the opportunity for us to have meaningful conversations about this significant shift with our residents.

Any other thoughts?

Yep. So I'm, I'm sorry. I know a lot, a lot of talking time. I appreciate everyone's opinion and I, you know, I echo what Commissioner Burdick said so it is good to be able to have this discord and have a lot of this is behind the scenes and sometimes it's nice to have this public so everyone can see that we are not always in unison. I will be voting this down just but I want to be I want to make it known that it's not that I don't want the public to be able to weigh in. I just think it's too premature to put something for the public to actually have clarity on what they're exactly voting. So that's how I see it. But if we did have something, I would absolutely want to have the public weigh in. This is one of those opportunities where we're not, like I said earlier in a couple of meetings ago, we're not handcuffed by whether it's a legislative or an administrative This is a very easy thing that we could put on the ballot. So again, I'm torn. I wish we did have more time to digest and to have a few more answers. I think there's a lot of unknowns. So that's why I'm voting it down. But if we had something concrete and something a little bit, I think a little clearer, then I would have loved to have this be on the ballot where the public can actually weigh in.

You brought up a good point, Commissioner Wesley, about if the voters say no, what are they saying no to? And I think we've had that conversation before, just casually. And we might not be able to determine exactly what they said no to at the ballot, but I think that's where... That's the great part of what we do. And that's where the rubber hits the road for me. Like I said, I've met with multiple resident groups. And these groups within themselves were divided. And it made for really meaningful and robust conversation. And just going forward, I know, at least what I'm doing, hopefully doing, is just kind of keeping a tally. Well, so-and-so said no because of this reason. And so-and-so said no because of that reason. I think that's part of our job is to continue that engagement. and to continue listening and speaking with residents. So if they do vote no, we will have a better understanding of why and then have a better understanding of how to move forward in mobility, in many other things too, in how to partner with the schools. But if it's also a yes, you know, having those conversations too. So, I don't know, it's just we had had that conversation previously and it's like, how do you segment it out? What are they saying no to if it isn't a no? But I just thought of that. It's just those conversations we're having and kind of taking mental notes and also physical notes on, you know, what the residents are wanting and not wanting. So I don't know. That's the meat for me. And that's where I find the most enjoyment in what we do. So just. Thanks. Sure. Any other thoughts before we go to a vote? Okay. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Opposed?

No.

I abstain. All right. 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. Okay. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? All right. This motion, meeting's adjourned.

I will stick around.

I have nothing to do. It was down there. I was. It was down here.

It was somewhere.

Lori, did he help setting up anything?

No, I'm just going to go home and try to get some sleep before I got to be back.