City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. so so Thank you. so so Bye. Thank you. so so so so so so This is the first time I've been to a place like this. This is the first time I've been to a place like this.

begin our caucus session for this evening. I'd just like to call council's attention to the agenda, and we can go over if there are any questions, starting with items for final passage. I believe we have four items for final passage this evening. We have the ordinance. around the historic designation, and then we'll also see that property again under our old business as we had tabled, and there's an easement, but this is for two different things. But is there any questions on any of the items that are before us tonight for final passage? One question I did have, and this is, I should have asked it probably the last one, but I'm just going to, could you help clarify, I guess just how under item number four, how it's written, which budget item is the spot shot or list? Because it's like 280,000, 280,000 in that first one.

I'm probably going to need Lisa to come up to the mic and help me with the budget line item. Sorry, Lisa.

Okay, so you asked what budget that's coming out of?

So under the final reading, like number four, just when we're looking at, just for clarification, which item is the 200, like which budget line is the 280,000 coming from?

Yeah, that's coming out of the police budget in the general fund.

So Lisa, you're showing two numbers here. Is that one in and one out?

So yeah, the, uh, 36 42 is the revenue account number and the four zero seven eight is the expense count number. And that's out of the police department.

And those are still the ones that we're hoping that we can get covered from community partners. Yes.

And we have some assurances. We don't have anything written, but we feel very confident there. Yes.

Do any other council members have any questions while we have Lisa up here on that one? Thank you.

Sorry, Lisa. Thank you.

All right. Then looking over at items for first reading, do we have any questions on – we have three items for first reading. This is one typo in that. But any questions – Just some appropriation of funds. There are no questions on those ones. Do we have any questions on old business? Just for clarification, not sure if I'm hoping everyone did on council saw the email that we received from attorney check, just kind of explaining just some of the easement process, like when, when we get it, uh, and, and what it's going through in a reminder that we had tabled. Items number two and three, just to get more clarification, which I believe we have received from council. We had approved originally an easement for forefoot. That does not meet the ADA requirements for the easement section, and so the one that was before us. Go ahead.

The easement was for four feet from the building. But six feet is what would be the pedestrian walkway. That's fine. So when they talk to engineering, they prefer five feet or more. So that's six feet qualified. okay but then the business center came back and said wait a minute can we get five feet from the building and then when they went through it they still had five feet left instead of six and that engineering says that's okay as well okay so so the first one did qualify fine it's just the business center said hey if i can get a little more space for my chairs and tables because it's a mccoy's um

And I think that also had to do with what is required by the liquor license or the liquor board.

Yeah, there was something from the liquor control board was involved. However, I don't know anything about what they require or if it's just a suggestion. But from engineering's point of view, the five feet still meets the pedestrian walkway requirements for ADA. Okay.

And then just so we know for clarification, I mean, just for public, but then also for council, that five feet does not include, like they're not measuring any part of the easement or they're not measuring any part of where there is the shrubbery of the plants. So that five feet that is still open is not being blocked off by.

Right. So if you have, I think everyone has a diagram. So that middle part, so where the brick is to the curb is not counted. And you'll see there's like an orange line at the very front. That's the five feet of the pedestrian access. And then the yellow line to the building is what would be the easement. So the easement's just this part. So...

The dining area will still leave five feet walkable Yes, right, that's that yeah Yeah, it's it's exactly how he stated is my only concern with it Is it moves it out another foot into the brick area? Which is in and of itself was not a concern and I discussed this with the solicitor to it seems they have cutouts for planners there to along there I think we Yeah, it seems like they have like a cut out for like a tree or planner and it might narrow up in there. And so I don't see it as a deal breaker. Uh, but it won't, it will not. Everyone should still know what they're voting on. It will not carry the five feet completely if that's the case.

That middle row, where that...

So according to the diagram, the five feet is... But I think what happened is the letter from McCoy's submitting this new request, I think they said, hey, if you need more feet, the brick is still available. But this is where I had a discussion with Andre, and I was like, well, wait a minute. One, you can't use the brick area. That's not what's supposed to be used, and it's not supposed to be used because of... And from the diagram, it does look like there's, like, a broken area in the brick that's kind of square-shaped, which... I assume it's for trees, shrubberies, plants, whatever it is, it's still a barrier if you're in a wheelchair, period. So they can't use that. But that's why I confirmed with engineering that as long as there's five feet width of access, that's apparently the minimum that engineering wants. So it could be more than five feet, but five feet here is the minimum, and that's what they have.

Do we know, with the building that's happening right next to it, the Renaissance Center, how... If they've got the sidewalk condition set up so that people can still pass through, do we know how that is?

It's okay. I was there and witnessed everything myself. Matthew actually came out because he saw me with my picture and was very generous of his time to talk with me. And I had my picture with me too, just like this. And it was fine. That orange wall and everything, that's not on his property.

OK. So any questions from council? Are we feeling comfortable with those? They've been pulled from table, and so we'll be voting on this day. Any questions? Are we comfortable? OK. And then we have the 7 o'clock hearing, and so we'll get into everything that's going to be under that. That is, again, under that waterfront conditional use. The difference between this one and the other two public hearings that we have had is this one is not within – it's along the waterfront, but it falls out within that jurisdiction at the bayfront. So the same things where we could ask for those – special conditions, we're not able to ask for that, it's my understanding, on this property. So it's different and a little bit more straightforward, but we can get into all of that when we have the public hearing. Any questions on that one?

I propose to that, Dr. Titus. I propose to that. I think Jeff Johnson from the zoning committee sent a letter forward to us looking forward to so that traffic pattern should at least be discussed or considered.

And I think it's a great question. So this one was received prior to the, to the hearing. So we can still be considered is, um, with that letter, do we read that during in, do we just include it in like what would be the appropriate use? Just,

in the past. I've just said you've received a letter from Jeffrey Johnson and include that in your minutes as an exhibit. You don't have to read the whole entire letter. Just to make sure that's part of it.

You can't handle how you want to handle it, but it should be made part of the public record.

So it's something, because today is just the public hearing part of it, so there'll be a resolution prepared for next time. So in theory, before you vote on your resolution next time, you would have read the letter, understood it, and all that stuff.

Right, because all that will happen here today is the hearing and you'll get the field to ask a few questions, but we're not voting on anything.

So with that, then, is there any questions on anything that we see under new business?

This time, so it's part of it.

I need to see it. I have an appointment next week. So any questions on anything under the new business?

I just wanted to just bring one thing up for the water reserve. That they're changing over from Clearbridge to Vanguard. It's going to save, I think, a lot of money for the pension funds and the water reserve. as far as their fees. It was like 50 that Clearbridge always had and charged us. And basis points or something like that. Right, right. Yeah. And then Vanguard is like three. So that's a money savings rate there.

And this is the fund in which we're able to do more investing. And so we want to see more of that being able to grow versus being spent out in fees. And with the growth, the one company is doing better than the other company. And so this was just something that the advisor had brought forward. And I think it made a lot of sense.

And I think we should just call it what it is. I also think that it was underperforming and that it was not meeting the benchmark. And so the fees in and of itself are not. But as a pension fund manager, if you're not hitting the benchmark, then we should always be evaluating and bringing in others to consider.

Under contracts, I did want to look at item number one, the environmental and design research landscape, architecture, engineering, and environmental services contract for a consultant. And I was hoping we could just get a little bit more insight around that.

Certainly, Dr. Titus. I asked the planning department to just brief me quickly. So that is, we received a grant and are now engaging a consultant to do a review of our firehouses in terms of their historical nature and the purpose of that is to see if we can open up additional funding sources to do capital improvements there. So this is a consulting firm to do the analyses and with that analysis in hand it will allow us to go after further grant dollars for capital improvements at our firehouses.

Is that $50,000 coming from the grant that we received?

Yes. So this is the contract to engage the consultant. We already received the grant.

Any questions from anyone on Any other questions on tonight's agenda?

No, I'll keep it.

All right. I have a question I can bring up. For the good of the city, I think everybody knows where Ainsworth Field is. Do we? Okay, Roosevelt used to be right behind the wall. Would we be able to get money for Ainsworth Field if we declared it

Historical site so I can actually answer that we I we've had really good conversation I want to thank the planning department because they're being very proactive in this the city's received some complaints about ainsworth field But as everyone at this table knows city does not own it school district owns it so we while we're concerned It's not our property to take care of even though in the past we have helped support the school district the planning department has been engaging in some conversations with the school district about this and and determining whether we could do some sort of operating agreement together that we could agree that we will both commit to supporting Ainsworth Field, not financially, but to go for grant assistance. My understanding is there's been conversations with Senator Laughlin about a potential RCAP grant and some other things. So planning is kind of looking at this as part of our parks plan to see whether we can at least have an operating agreement with the school district. Again, not committing us financially, but just saying we support the effort and supporting some additional grant dollars. So we are, and for those of you that don't know, there's actually an event Friday night in support of Ainsworth Field at the field at 4 p.m. So if you're interested in supporting, but yes, we are being proactive in supporting the district in their efforts. Yep.

lady from the the erie high boosters baseball booster a little bit of history uh ainsworth had fallen into total disrepair back in the days when i was athletic director over east high i made the promise that i'd bring it back and we didn't do a whole lot we got some painting done and things like that and we opened up upstairs so that we'd have an announcer and just charged people a buck, and it cleaned up. It was really nice, and it just kind of slowly slid into the sunset again. And it's unfortunate, because that is a historical site. Babe Ruth even played there. I'll fall back if you want to go. I think that's on second. I don't know. I just thought the historical designation might bring in extra funds.

Babe Ruth retired in 1934.

No. It played second base.

We have a presentation tonight by the mayor, too. We just have some updates and a summary of some of the findings and recommendations from PFM. We'll have a more in-depth one in September, but wanted to start going into some of these things because we have a lot we're going to have to do in the next few months. So to get us started here.

Thanks, Dr. Titus. So all of you know that I told you PFM was coming back to meet. to talk about their recommendations. So they were here about a week ago and they presented to me their recommendations, what they're talking and thinking about. And so what I intend to do today is just provide you with a summary of those recommendations to get your feedback. So if there's anything on here that you initially are not in favor of or you want more information on, obviously you'll need more information before we make any decisions. We want to give feedback to PFM so that, as Dr. Titus noted, they can come back at the end of September and do a full report and proposal to us. So I'll just take you through this one sheet. We have it up on the screen. I know it's probably hard to see for the public. But the recommendations are broken into three groups. The first group is a short-term list. These are basically the things that we announced we would do in April and May, and we did. So six position eliminations, a request for community support for public safety costs, and then that departmental review to kind of tighten our belts. All of that has been done, and I think as we have discussed, it bore fruit. We find ourselves on track to reduce that deficit by $3 million, which was our intent. And so these are all the actions that have already been taken. So moving on to what's next, we have some midterm budget actions. This would be for the balance of 2026. So as we begin to build next year's budget, these are the things PFM is recommending. We are looking at additional position eliminations, but I want to be very clear that those would come through retirement or through the elimination of vacant positions. PFM did point out we have quite a few vacant positions in the budget that we continue to budget for but don't fill. By eliminating those with some thought and some strategy, we can assist in closing the budget gap. And we also have some retirements that are coming that we don't intend to fill. So there will be some elimination there, but just the retirement. We're not looking to lay anyone else off. This is just about retirements and vacant positions. We'll continue to look at those budgets. I will say the staff at City Hall, they understand the assignment. Everyone is being much more careful with their dollars, and so we'll continue to do that as we build the 2027 budget. I want to be just completely transparent with the public and with all of you to say, I can't imagine a scenario in which we don't include a tax increase in the 2027 budget. What that tax increase is, how much, we're not ready to talk about yet, but I think it's important for us to lay the groundwork, and PFM is saying there will need to be one in 2027. We're also, as you all know, working on that negotiated agreement with Erie Parking Authority. We are going to have an executive session, I believe, Dr. Titus, and we can talk about the details of that negotiation and executive, but we intend to have that completed by the end of the year. We're also looking at some prescription drug and health insurance plan changes for our management and non-bargaining employees. We will have to go to our collective bargaining units for this eventually, but it's not fair to go to them without management and non-bargaining doing it first. So we will be exploring prescription drug and health insurance plan changes for management and non-bargaining employees this year. And then the last one on that midterm list is we are considering a pension obligation bond to trigger an MMO recalculation in 2027. This is complicated. PFM is suggesting that we could do a bond issue, but it's essentially a paper bond. We would lend to ourselves and pay it off immediately in order to trigger a recalculation of our MMO. As you know, our MMO is our minimum municipal obligation payment for our pension. Typically, there's a cycle. Every two years, that number is recalculated based on where the pension is funded and what the actuarial numbers say. So right now, we won't have a new calculation go into effect until 2028. If we wanted it sooner, because we expect it to go down, because our pension has been well funded, we could do this bond issue to get this recalculation. We're not sure it's worth it. It would cost a little money. PFM has done a presentation to me and the controller on this. But it is something that they're going to come to talk to us about in September. And it might be worth it because if our MMO goes down, we might be able to lower the EIT rate for our residents, which would be a win for them. Yes, sir.

It just sounds rather disingenuous to say that our pension fund is healthy and we didn't put $8 million in there, the actuarial cost to put in there. And now we're being asked to float a bond to write that in addition to we're certain to have a tax increase. And so I'd like to know how that... Well, I'm going to have to do it here because I don't want to make the evening any longer. But I fully have a lot of questions about that. On first impulse, I'm like, no. to be honest with you. We certainly need to talk about that.

Absolutely. It's very complex. What I did not want to do is leave it off of here and then bring it to you later and have you say, well, you didn't tell us about it first. PFM will go into much more detail when they come in September.

No, I'm really grateful that we are communicating like this up front. I want it all to be up front like this. I don't like surprises. I'm like my mother. They tend to trigger a negative reaction for me. And so I like when you bring it out here and put it up front so everybody can be in the same room. You want to know what's really going on. Get everybody in the same room. I don't want to hear somebody say, oh, this or that. And I know that people will have questions as we move further along this road, but I want to right here and right now register that that's like a red flag moment for me.

So again, we'll have lots more information on that coming from PFM. Any other questions about those midterm actions? Okay. So then longer term, so this is beyond. So these will be things we take into consideration as we build the 27 budget, and then the long term are beyond that. So again, from PFM, The discussion around modest annual tax increases, I think, and obviously council, we need to do this together, but in my personal opinion, letting our taxpayers know that a percent or two will come every year that they can count on rather than enormous jumps and then none and then jumps. I, I think that we owe it to them to just be steady and true. But that's something we can discuss. PFM is certainly suggesting modest annual tax increases rather than these jumps all around. We will continue to advocate for the removal of the local services tax. As we've discussed, that power lies with our state legislators, but it could significantly help us with an additional $3 million worth of annual revenue. So we will continue to advocate with our state legislators. All of them, by the way, Representative Mirsky co-sponsored this bill, so he's very aware. That would support public safety costs. We're also continuing to explore an additional hotel tax with the county executive and our state legislators to also support public safety costs, particularly along the Bayfront. We will continue to engage in purchasing and contract review. I will tell you that many contracts here at the city have auto-renewed. And that is dangerous when we're not watching everyone. And so we are really engaging in a full review of our contracts and we will continue to do that. We are considering the sale of Downing Golf Course that is coming from PFM that they feel we should at least consider what a sale would yield for the city. We are considering a debt restructuring or we will need to consider a debt restructuring and or a dedication of one-time revenue. For example, if we did do something like sell Downing Golf Course, Could we use that one-time revenue to pay down our debt? Because we know we are facing a debt cliff in 2033. We need to start thinking about that. And so either restructuring that debt or using one-time revenue to pay it down. The last two items on the page are probably the ones that will require, in addition to the pension obligation bond, these last two items I think require the most discussion. So first, exploring additional headcount reductions. and or health insurance plan changes with our collective bargaining units. What we're saying is this. As we enter into additional contract negotiations with our collective bargaining units, we need to put everything on the table. And everything on the table is headcount reduction, which I don't think any of us really want, or some negotiation around prescription drug or health insurance benefits. So we will be entering into our negotiation with our firefighters in 27 with our police union in 2028. And with the others asked me, we have an opener in the contract that we could open it to have some of these conversations. So we are not saying we are going to reduce head counts. That's not what we want and it's not what we intend, but we do need to have these conversations with our collective bargaining units to talk about some changes to prescription drug and health insurance benefits. So that's not for this year, but it's coming in 27 and 28. And then lastly, as you all know, we need to continue to consider Home Rule Charter to adjust the EIT rate for general fund. I want to be very clear. We have major questions to answer in this area. The most important one in my mind is the impact of Home Rule Charter on our police and fire pensions. This is unanswered right now. Part of the reason it's unanswered is because Erie has very unique benefits in our fire and police pensions. So we can't just look at a place like Lancaster and say, well, it didn't affect them, so it won't affect us. That's not necessarily the case. Our pension benefits are different than theirs. So we've actually engaged outside legal counsel to help us answer this question, because we do not feel it is responsible to move forward with that conversation without having a firm answer. So we are finding that out. We will bring it to you. And then we can all decide, you will decide ultimately, whether we continue with that process. We know there are other concerns as well. We know council members have raised concerns about Home Rule Charter. I put it on this paper, again, just to say this is everything that's on the table. This is everything that PFM is suggesting we consider at this point.

Councilor Horton. Thank you, Dr. Titus. Again, I'd just like to enter into public record in regard to the Home Rule Charter. I'm completely interested in hearing about the revenue side of it, but there's a lot, a lot. She echoed the biggest impact, and I agree. In fact, I raised that same issue back in January or February with our controller about the fire and police pension. And I also raised this issue and will continue to raise both. And that is the impact that it will have on the BIPOC community should they attempt to move to a voting, electing city legislators by district. I look at it akin to the gerrymandering move that we just witnessed in Missouri and Mississippi. And I'm going to vehemently oppose any attempts to do that. So thank you. I just want that on the public record.

So this is a lot of information, and I know it's just the overview, the high-level view of this. But are there any questions right now, knowing that this was a lot that we're just kind of digesting right now?

Go ahead. I lovingly call them the Schumber taxes. You never raise taxes. But he raised fees. What are you going to do with those fees? If we raise taxes and raise fees, is that going to happen to us?

We haven't done the budget yet, so I think that's a conversation for all of us, and I think I'm looking for feedback. So if what I hear from you is, if we are going to do a tax increase, we don't want to increase fees, then that's direction for us as we build the budget.

I'm just speaking for the older folks on a fixed income. I understand. Thank you. Point of information, Mr. Chair. I think that this is a team. I don't think that they're the mayor's or city council's. I think that budget belongs to her until she hands it to us. But any fees that were approved were approved by this body. Any taxes that's approved are approved by this body. And we're going to be honest about the conversation. We need to be honest about all of it. And to the mayor's point, she says, here it is. And so I want to put that out there. Here it is, too. And the good thing is we get another swing at it this year. It'd be like our Super Bowl. The budget's coming in about 60 days. I start rubbing my hands.

I just had a comment, and I just wanted to highlight, since I've been on council for the last four and a half years, the majority of the hires that we've done have been for the police department. And 40% of our city budget comes from, I mean, goes to the police, the budget. So my question is, when you say... Eliminate through retirement. Are we just gonna hold off on new hires? Is that gonna be a conversation? We're gonna have because in the past I've said that that's the approach that we needed to go while we had revenue But everybody was so adamant on we need to hire we need to hire because there's so many retirements then we see some people don't retire and And they wait quite some time until, you know, the new year and then they get a big lump sum, but that's besides the point. Um, so I just, is that a conversation we're going to have just because I'm going to work with each of the department heads about the vacancies within their departments.

And I will say this, Dr. Titus and I met earlier today and we, Dr. Titus suggested that perhaps the police budget be presented to council a little earlier than the regular budget, because there might be some questions there and we might want to have a little more time. I spoke with chief Laura today. He's fully in favor of that as well. So we will work with Lisa to make sure at least the police budget you have a little earlier so that you have plenty of time to review and we can have those conversations. Thank you.

I do want to say this.

I'm sorry, Dr. Titus in just kind of overall, I know that this is a lot, but I, I feel when I saw this and, and heard this from PFM, Most of this is things that we expected. There's not a boogeyman here. There's not a huge, scary, you know, I think many of our employees have been sitting with a little bit of holding their breath, wondering what's coming. And I don't think anything on here is so terrifying or drastic. I think these are all things we can discuss, we can manage, we can explore, we can make decisions. So in many ways, I think that this can calm everyone a bit to say there's a path forward. We have some hard decisions to make. We will keep each other and the community informed as we do this, but this isn't, we can do this. We can find this path forward. So in some ways, I think this is comforting to just have out there and know the direction we have to go.

I love the information. It enables me to make a more informed decision.

One of the things that I would request that when we are talking with PFM, if we could have them look at the amusement tax, not just the tax structure in and of itself, but also how we're collecting, and just kind of revisit that, because I think that there's room there. I think that there's... I think we've not done a great job in collecting. And I think that there's a lot of, there's a decent amount of money that's left out there around this. And with the event permitting and how we're collecting. And I'd love some of their insight on the skills games with the new legislation that came out. Because I don't want us to pass an ordinance. I would just love to see what their insight is there. Sure.

I'll add that. I'll add that and give them that feedback for September.

Dr. Titus, because I was going to ask about the skill games too, and to your point, we don't know what's going to happen with the state thing. I just assume, I'm of the mindset that we put a mechanism in place until, and that we don't wait, and that we look for means to continue to collect revenue if it's legally permissible or until they do come with. Because that thing could draw a lot. What happens if it doesn't come to a resolution this year and we've wasted another year of potentially getting revenue that we previously started receiving. And that's a discussion I'd like to see.

There are a few municipalities in Pennsylvania who've passed a couple amendments to their existing ordinances around skill games. One capping how many machines are allowed to be in a place. but then requiring the licensing entity or those who sell the machines to actually have to inform the municipal body of when those machines are installed, which would assist our staff in being able to go out and collect the revenue on those machines.

And the reason I really lean towards that way is because it's more to be considered than just the revenue portion of it. I'd like to see some type of density zoning so that they're not all flooded in my neighborhood. That they got a mini casino on the east side like they do on 10th and Martin currently. You know, it's like a parlor in there. So we, I think we would be remiss if we didn't do something uh in lieu of just waiting for the state to work it out maybe they work it out before we get there but the 90 120 day period will be before we get to the budget and before we get to those things and certainly if we have something in place by the end of the year during the budget because they may not have it resolved by the end of the year

If I could just speak to the end of the 120 days is October 15th and the type of legislation that Tyler referenced. I did note Pittsburgh before the decision came out June 15th was passing something and they wound up still passing what it was and it was similar limitations on the number of machines and the registration of the actual vendors. So those are, so I have the Pittsburgh one to use as a model actually.

Yes.

So that's something I think, so I think after October 15th, if there's nothing definitive, I think that's something we can put on the November or December agenda for sure.

Yeah, I like that and turn the check.

The other, I guess, then request I would have is I know we're looking at, we've just made a hire around the zoning and just reviewing some of the existing zoning. This might be something that I think that we should add into as we're just around the points that Councilor Horton made around density and

No, I want to thank the mayor and our solicitor. All of y'all, y'all already too, but I want to thank the mayor and the solicitor and Lori. Uh, you know, we did some, I seen some and I seen some behind the scenes stuff working during the celebrate Erie week where we, we have potential issues in the community. I saw how the interaction between the department, especially events. I saw the moving events. I saw it up close and more, more personal than years past where I wouldn't have paid any attention. Uh, the police department, the presence, the presentation, I liked it. It was spread out and walkable, not crowded, you know, uh, so kudos. I just want to take the opportunity to say thank you. Thanks to you and your team.

And I will take a moment to just... I was there volunteering. It's a very stressful volunteer assignment that I had, but it's okay. We made it work. But I got to witness a lot of the interaction with our police officers and community members. It was pretty eye-opening in a lot of ways. I had... What I witnessed a lot of very well-tempered interactions with some of our residents intentionally being very antagonistic to our police officers. And they maintained their composure and they stayed very calm in these interactions that I was witnessing despite it being incredibly hot, incredibly long days. So I just wanted to commend the chief and your police on the ways they interacted. There were some other interactions that I witnessed. that were not the police officers, though they looked like the police officers, and I was worried that the police officers were going to be blamed for some of these other security individuals who had been hired, and their interactions were not kind or professional. But I commend just the interactions that I witnessed.

I will just say, Dr. Titus, and I was going to save it for my report, but no one is here by then. So I have to say, I mean, Councillor Horton, you're very kind. I did nothing. The solicitor did nothing either. Sorry. The team did everything. Public works, I can't, there are not enough words to say everything that they did. The police, of course, you know, so many of them for such long days. Like I said, keeping it safe so people could have fun. interacting, as you've noted, Dr. Titus. Fire department also, you know, here. We had electricians up from wastewater treatment plant. I mean, it is a full-on event. And then I need to say, you know, Dave Rocco, God bless him in his golf cart, you know, making it, holding it down. Hunter Lytle, this was his first year as head of Celebrate Erie. It was incredible. We had bumps in the road, but pulled it off. It was a great experience. Learned a lot. Had, you know, Hunter kept it together. The cafe board, who are volunteers, you all know, 501, separate 501c3. Those are separate board members, all of them. And then I have to say the mayor's office. I mean, Lori, yes, but Tori Williams and Liz Reyes and Wooji Ahmad were here every day, all day long. And so they made it happen. And I don't know how I feel about Celebrate Erie. It's a lot. It's a long three days, but I think our residents love it. And we see them all out enjoying each other and enjoying our city. And I just, the team was amazing. And so every bit of thanks goes to them.

If I heard the, I've heard several, observations, I won't even call them complaints about it, but there was nothing for the young people to do. They used to have games where you could win something or that type of thing. And so I get all of that. But there was some disrespectful kids down there. And so I'm going to echo your sentiments in regards to our finest There was a lot of restraint, a lot of professionalism. But the biggest thing was there was just a lot of kids with nothing to do, just walking. Kids and not so much kids. I'd say from like 14 to 19, 20, they were just kind of out there.

We did have, and I know this is a little bit of a shift here, is Mr. Kissel is here. And if we are okay, he just wanted to give a little bit of what he had observed with the planning commission who had met, planning and design around the hotel. And since we have a little bit of time, if counsel is okay, I'd like to just give him a moment to kind of share with us. If you wanted to.

Thank you, Council President, Mayor, and Council people. Just to bring you up to date for the last, since 2013 and present, You've heard a lot about the Scott Motel deal. Yesterday, the Planning Commission voted on that deal with the second hotel. There are no public parks in any of that land down there. The documents that you have before you, the letter from the state budget secretary, The $5 million grant application that the city made to the government and accepted by the government for $5 million, stating seven pocket parks that were supposed to be in these documents, or in the documents. But as of yesterday, I explained all this to the Planning Commission. They put nothing in that document. Council has nothing to do with it this time. You did what you heard before and you heard everything that was, I use the word, promised. We got nothing. So the citizens have received nothing. They call it green space. There's no park atmosphere other than Maybe you want to put a blanket down. They do show some benches along the sidewalk. They have used up what the parks were designated on that plan. One was a half acre that they took away and put the putt-putt down along the water's edge. The second half acre park was at the beer bar. That was taken away. and there are no other quarter acre parks put anywhere on those nine acres as originally shown to council. So I just want to bring you up to date on that. The attorney here made a statement that the business agreement, the business plan didn't hold any water, that's my words, he didn't say that, but that because of the document, which I think is a legal document because it's the one that granted the five million dollars that the city put in for the Scotts. So the city was physically responsible for the paperwork and it's all there in black and white. And the acceptance of the check of five million dollars was for that development on the first hotel. The second hotel which is on the same property as where I presented what I'm telling you yesterday to the Planning Commission, that they're getting $7.6 million out of the new CRIZ program for that project, plus another $200,000 low citizens loan, plus they received $254,000 for a piece of their property on the southern part of their land. There's basically 12 acres there. Three of them are not usable because they're in the water, but four acres are on the south side where all their parking is. The other five acres is a current development that's been going on. The only green area left that I can, and it's in that document, is suggest the possibility, if they're gracious enough to do anything, is between State Street and the beer garden. There's a nice little slope piece of property there. There's a walkway down below that maybe some picnic tables or something could be put in there for somebody walking up and down State Street, somebody wants to eat a sandwich, that they could use that area. I think it would also help the Scots because I don't know if they can take alcohol off of that property or not. That's up to the Liquor Control Board. But I just want a brief counsel. You have no more to say unless you file something, and the attorney will, I'm sure, advise you on that, on what that agreement states. But I still feel it's a legal document. $5 million was given to the city with the city's signature, and I would like, I believe I put in for a, information for that and I don't think they could find the grant. I may be wrong on that but I would ask council to look into reading how that grant reads and why after all the testimony you heard that everything would be okay when we do these things or they would do these things, we get nothing. And I think that would be part of the enhancement of living in Erie with the rates, what you're talking about, doing certain things, that this would be a little bit of an amenity that could be looked at, even a private individual doing what he said he was going to do and he did not do it. So I thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Councillor Horton. Thank you, Mr. Kissel. I did watch the planning meeting yesterday online. So I got all of that and kind of heard most of it. I agree that we haven't necessarily gotten the return on our investments for some of the waterfront development. I won't go back down that road. And so the gist of it, Mr. Kissel, was this private property is what I was left with, and we can't really pontificate to him. And I understood, because it kind of caught me too when you said, oh, this was a business plan, but I do know that if it's not in a contractual document, then it didn't happen. And it was just, so the other thing, the reason I'm only speaking about it now, or speaking about it now is because This north-south iconic entranceway that the PennDOT plan was the very first thing, almost on the very first page. What are you going to do with State Street? And that came up yesterday, too, in a lot of the conversations. And I maintain that all the nice things that we do on the Bayfront, those people are going to go in that hotel. They're going to use the pubs down there. They're going to eat the food down there. They're going to go into the hotels down there. They're going to go back and take a shower, and then they're going to come out of Mr. Scott's hotel where he's got passes to Splash Lagoon and coupons for his eateries in Summit. And they're going to go east and west on the Bayfront. It's supposed to be a parkway, but it's a highway. They're going to go east or west to the casino. They're going to go to Mill Creek where the skating rinks are, and they're going to go to Summit where The casino is. More eating offerings. And so we're building up to try to get some of that stuff to come up to Hill. And even if it does, it's like a three or four month. It's like three or four months out the year you're going to really realize something. And just to be clear, the convention center will never turn a profit. And Erie County residents, whether you live in the city of Erie or any of the other 37 municipalities, we're on the hook for every piece of loan that they take out on that bond. And they will not pay taxes into perpetuity. And if there was anything that our state representatives could carry back to Harrisburg for me, would be to try to get that millstone off of local municipalities next when it comes to the convention center authority. I mean, they have a billion dollars in assets. Just think about it. Think about the revenue that we could derive off of some of that. And the RCAP money has done really, really good things. Like I said, it's Don John, Barry Plastics, Kep Jerry Park, double A baseball here, did some hockey stuff. So it's been really, really good things. But out of the $340, $350 million that has been deposited in Erie County in RCAP money since 1986, the vast majority of it is going on the Bayfront. And I just don't see where the neighborhood where I grew up at who will never be able to afford those hotels at the foot of Sassafras and parts west. I don't see where they're, I see where it's almost like they're going to relegate them to a lifelong position of essential worker. And so it's a lot to consider. But we have already taken the action required by council, so it's nothing. We move on to a different issue at this point.

In closing, I would say I'm not against the project. I never was. I'm just against what the carrots were held up for the public to support it, which you've done. But in the end, you didn't get what you thought you were going to get. And the citizens didn't either. And that's primary. They could have at least given a few amenities to the public after getting nearly $13 million in gifts from the state. So I thank you for your time and your interest.

Dr. Titus, I did go to the Planning Commission as well and I spoke to the architect and the planning board and I did comment that we did want benches and the architect did say there are benches in the design. And also I talked about a four-way stop at Holland and the front street there, the canopy sidewalk, and bird-friendly glass as well. So I did mention that. What I would like to say is that empty space that we have next to Smuggler's Wharf that is owned by the Port Authority. I was in Quantico, Virginia the first weekend in August and we went to a family-friendly place that was called the yard and just in a small scale we could sort of do what they set up food trucks and the port authority could really you know plant grass there and interchange food trucks out every other week and they had bean bag toss games for the kids and there was a brewery there but In essence, I was talking about the food trucks. And that area there is large enough to do that. Ice cream, refreshments, what have you. And grass and picnic tables. They had all kinds of tables, not just one kind. And they even had a little area for music with a music auditorium.

Maryland, can you make that happen?

Please mention that at your next airport meeting.

So to Mr. Kissel's point, because this ain't the first time that we've been, you know, they say all the flowery things to get you across the finish line. And with the way that the careers went was wrestled from the city, in my opinion. I think this is the perfect time for us to have the community benefit agreement. because other than that, we're going to be right back here. And so if they want to do those things, it should be something binding. And I'd like the mayor and her economic development team to consider inviting a couple of other people and have a conversation around community benefit agreements and zoning.

Yeah, and I guess I'll just say this dr. Titus. I know the time is up two things councillor Horton first of all dr Titus asked to have the CRIZ authority come for a study session with Council so we discussed that this morning getting that on the calendar and Secondly as dr. Titus, and I discussed in that vein for the most part I hear mr. Kissel talking about the our cap that was given to the Scots many years ago But for the most part the city is not putting money into these projects the CRIZ authority is and so really what we need to do is speak with the CRIZ authority and put some pressure there and to have those conversations about agreements with them because that's where the money is and that's where the leverage is. And so I think when we bring them for that study session, I think that should be part of our conversation.

I think that we should have an informed approach and not just have a presentation. I think that we should be prepared to have some specific ask or to at least get a cooperative agreement or MOU at the very least, for something tangible that's binding. If it's not binding, it's just a pocket part promise again.

Yeah, I agree. So as we get ready to reset here and go into our public meeting, I just want to make you all aware that I'm going to call for an executive session. I'm going to do it before we go into public comment because we have a public, we have a hearing tonight. So there's just some updates that I would like for us to hear. And then we'll we'll go into the public comment part.

Thank you. Bye. so so Bye.

Thank you.

Bye. Thank you. so so so so

Roll call of the City Council meeting of Wednesday, August 19th, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. Council Members Titus.

Present.

Brzezinski. Here. Flores. Here. Horton. Present. Hull. Yes. Shaw. Here. Council Member Troop is absent.

At this point we will stand for a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Dr. Titus, I would like to mention my friend Lisa Hall Norton who passed away. We laid her to rest last weekend. She taught for 40 years at St. James School and four of those years were the principal And her mother, who had pre-deceased her in death, had taught for 39 years in the Erie School District as a kindergarten teacher. Thank you.

Thank you.

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

I have a motion to accept the minutes from the Wednesday, August 5th City Council meeting and bills for payment on August 21st and 28th. Council Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Wharton? Yes. Hull? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Titus?

Yes. At this time we do not have any presentations this evening. Is there anyone here for a repository sale? Hi. Did you happen to submit any information into the clerk's office prior?

No. I came. I didn't know.

That's okay.

I'm going to need a copy of your license when we get done. No problem. Thank you.

So we usually have a few questions, but if you could just introduce yourself and then tell us about the property and then your plans for the property.

Okay. My name is Renee Beckford. My plans for the property is...

Which is? Could you know the... The address? Yes.

It is... 739 East 8th Street. Right? Okay. Do you need the parcel number?

You can give it, but I will tell you I won't know it. Do you need it? Yes? We can get that from you after, but if you just give us that physical address, that's actually what's going to help.

Okay, yes. So, Aerie, Pennsylvania. My plans for the property is to actually build on it. So, to build a one-family residential property there. That's it.

There's a list of questions on the podium if you could answer them.

Oh, on the podium.

I gave bad instructions.

Well, it's a piece of land, so it is vacant. Well, not really. I just saw like two cars on there and a tow hitch that's there. The condition of the property is there's a tree in the back, but in the front the lawn is definitely cut. And like I said, there is two cars and a tow hitch on there. So no one lives there. I don't think there's any need for maintenance as of yet, since someone is cutting it. And no, I haven't had any code violations in the last three years.

Do you currently reside in the city of Erie?

No. I am from New York, but I've been staying in Lansdowne, PA. Okay. For a little bit.

Do you own any other property in Erie?

No.

Do any other members have any other questions?

I mean, not so much a question, just a comment. I know you said you wanted to build a single-family home. I just want you to be very aware that you need to go through the zoning and the city.

I checked with zoning just to see what it was zoned for, and it is residential.

Okay. That's our biggest concern is that we always feel bad when people buy property and then whatever they intend to do, they're not able to. And then also with the yard currently being maintenance and the vehicles being on there, I'm wondering if a neighboring... is currently using. So you might have to do a little bit of foot ground to go to the neighbors and find out if someone is using them to let them be aware that you're going to tow the vehicles and then you'll probably be responsible for the maintenance of the lawn and then snow removal in the future.

Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Titus, is there a time frame for having this house?

Well, the person that I'm asking to actually get the money from He said at least starting maybe December, January, I should be able to start. So he has an architect that's actually going to help me with the drawings and everything like that that they would need.

So what we'll have you do then is we'll have you get your address and stuff so we can get that, and then there's a packet of information that we'll fill out, and then we can disperse that to council. We won't make a decision today, but that way we've got the information, and then we'll review that as well, and then we'll vote on that next time.

All right, great. Thank you. I'll just write my name.

Is there anyone else here for a repository sale? Anyone else here for a repository sale? Anyone else here for a repository sale? At this point, I am going to call for executive session to discuss personnel and legal matters. So if counsel can head over to the side room here.

so so Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. so so Bye. Thank you.

To our public meeting, I just wanted to announce that council met in executive session to discuss personnel and legal matters. And then we have a few moments before our public hearing, our hearing will start. We have about five minutes. We could, can we go into the hearing or do we need to wait those five minutes? Cause the next thing is to open up to public comment and that's.

I would say, is everyone here for the public hearing that needs to be here?

The parties, the nine ships party?

City Council reconvened at 6.54.

I think we can go into it. Are we going to do the same models we've done in the past, whereas they will present first, testimony from the public will be second, and then third, council will ask questions of individual people and they can come back up? Yes. Okay. I think with that model, I think we're good.

We could have people stand, too.

Do you want to call for those who would be sworn in?

Okay, Erie City Council, pursuant to Section 306 of Official Ordinance 80-2005, as amended, cited as a revised zoning ordinance of the City of Erie and proper legal advertising, will conduct a public hearing approximately seven to consider testimony regarding the request for waterfront conditional use submitted by porter consulting engineers on behalf of enterprise development center of erie county and the nine ships company for the construction of a new 75 000 square foot light manufacturing facility with accompanying office space and site improvements located at 1318 east lake road erie Okay, anybody that's going to give testimony, can you please stand and raise your right hand, and the stenographer will give you an oath.

And then just to remind council, we'll take the testimony and then hear from anyone who was sworn in, and then we'll ask questions at the end. Thank you.

Good evening, council. My name is Cooper Moore. I'm a planner here at the city, and I'm the staff liaison to the design review committee and the planning committee. just to introduce the waterfront conditional use application and inform you that both of the design review committee and planning commission have reviewed and recommended the project for a public hearing at city council. And I'll turn it over to the project team for a short presentation.

Good evening. My name is Jake Yatsko. I'm with Porter Consulting Engineers. This is Ashley Porter. We're here on behalf of the Economic Development Center of Erie County and Nine Ships Company to present Nine Ships Company building and site development for waterfront conditional use. This is at 1318 East Lake Road, which is the former Hammer Mill and International Paper site. Before kind of getting into the application and the drawing package, I'd like to give you a little bit of background of Nine Chips Company and some of our community outreach efforts that we've had prior to this meeting. For those unfamiliar, Nine Chips Company is a parent company of three locally established companies here in the county. First is Modular Engineering. They produce and manufacture bedding. Modular buildings like guard shacks or custom shipping containers. Again, they're at 18th Avenue on the west side of town and Cranberry Streets here in the city. Also, Corporate Glass. Corporate Glass is located at Milfair and Westridge Road in Fairview. They specialize in glazing, glazing system fabrication. And the third company is ME Construction. They're an interior fit-out company here. They do a lot of work here in the region. It's the growth and success of each of those three companies that had the ownership group reach out to Tina Menjean and the County Redevelopment Authority looking to invest in our region here. And what we have in front of you here is a 75,000 square foot light manufacturing office and warehouse facility, again, in the Eastlake Road community. As far as our community outreach, we've worked with the city zoning and the Department of Neighborhood and Economic Development on setting up some information sessions here. So we had two information sessions at the Boys and Girls Club. over on East Lake Road, one during the day, one in the evening. I thought those were successful. As a result of those, Father Pascaro, who's the pastor at St. Ann's Church at... East Avenue and 10th Street he invited us to one of the neighborhood watch One of the neighborhood watch committee meetings neighborhood watch meetings in June again, I thought it was a good opportunity for us to give information about the project and to Just provide day-to-day operations of what nine ships company would provide I I'd also like to mention that Father Passaro, following those meetings, provided a letter of support to our team. I don't know if you have that, Cooper, available.

I can pull it up, and I can also share it with counsel.

We don't need to go through it now here, but it was a nice letter of support that he provided to us in response of those meetings that we had. With that said, I'm happy to go through the drawings here. Let's see how this works. First plan here is our pre-existing conditions plan. What this does, it shows a former hammer mill and international paper site. On the right side of the page is East Lake Road. Underneath the buildings there running left and right or north-south is Hess Avenue. And again, you can see here the former manufacturing facility on the site. This is the existing conditions plan. This shows what is there today. On the above Hess Avenue there, we have residential properties east of that and above that. There is a mature tree and landscape area that is within our property, and then also remnant asphalt and concrete from the former facility. Here's our proposed site plan. What we're trying to portray throughout this presentation is that we want to give a natural fit in the community and a natural transition between what is residential property on Hess Avenue and then into what is a heavy manufacturing zoning district on the east side of our property. So what we show here We are going to, and you'll see more in later drawings, but we have a very natural buffer, which we plan to supplement with landscape berms, trees, some thick greenery to provide some screening.

Before we move on from that slide, I did want to discuss why the configuration is the way it is. why we have a long roadway, a long narrow band to a wider expanding property at the northern end of the property. And for a bit of orientation, just to the up direction on the drawing, or the east of the property, are the three stacks from the former hair mill, international paper company, powerhouse area. So we're pushed all the way towards the lake because this is a separate property owned by ECDC for from the SB3 heavy manufacturing industrial park. What they own is a flag-shaped piece of property that has a narrow strip from East Lake Road all the way to the north, and then there's a larger parcel. So the only place for building development is in that northern expanded area of the flag. The long, narrow area is the only access to public roadway and therefore we're utilizing that for the new roadway access. In that narrow strip of property, we have pushed the roadway as far eastward as we can within that property to provide as much buffering to the adjacent western Hess Avenue residential properties. As Jake mentioned, the area along the northern boundary of the Hess Avenue properties, the southern boundary of this site, there's some mature Growth of trees. It's fairly dense. There is an existing chain link fence which is various states of repair and what we're doing with the The existing trees are leaving the mature healthy trees there and then we're supplementing that with earthen mounds and Landscapes to buffer any of the open areas so there are several open areas which are which are shown in along those eastern edge of the Hess Avenue properties, those dark green areas to the south, right behind what used to be the Hair Mill Credit Union, which is now the Area Community College building. So there's some open areas there. The property along East Avenue also is wider at East Avenue that is along the bulk of the northwest direction. So that gives us the ability to push the roadway, hence the roadway being further east as it is on East Lake Road. And then it comes to the west because the property narrows down. So in the full length of that property, we've pushed as far eastward as possible. In the area immediately adjacent to East Lake Road, We do have some landscaping, additional landscaping there. There are some mature trees that we're leaving in that area as well. And then once you move to the northernmost piece, the large flag where the building development is itself, we have a parking area, and the full extent of that parking area is buffered in accordance with the ordinance, but we've gone beyond to provide an earthen mound with a mixture of shrub and tree landscaping so that any parking there wouldn't have headlight glare into the adjacent properties. And to speak to the public outreach, we coordinated with the city planning office initially to get appropriate contacts and so forth. We made those contacts, initially had a daytime meeting at the Boys and Girls Club, then opened up a separate evening meeting Both of those were attended by half a dozen initially to, I think, a dozen or so in the second meeting. Then the neighborhood wash meeting was very well attended. Not because we were there. I think they have a great attendance normally because people are interested. But they were interested in the development, which we reviewed. There were questions and comments. They were regarding traffic and the proximity to the property line with the driveway. and we explained just what I did explain now about how we've done our best to move within the property that's owned as far away as we can, provide screening where we don't have a natural current screening, and that the traffic we have looked at, the traffic movements onto East Ave, that's a two-lane roadway with a bike lane, so the traffic that's associated with this development as the employee traffic. They currently, at their largest projections at this time, it looks like, which would be 50 units a year. I'm sorry. It would average to about two tractor trailer loads a day. So that's material coming in, taking the units out. Jake mentioned the The units that they produce are modular. It's like shipping containers that they turn into modular units. It could be offices, crane cabs, that type of thing. So it's not a heavy industrial use. It's light manufacturing. This is in the waterfront district, of course, which we think serves kind of as a buffer or transition between the residential zone and the heavy manufacturing zone of the SB3 industrial park. I want to give a little bit of orientation as to why we didn't have the building down by East Lake Road because the property doesn't allow that. We're working within the configuration of the property that we have.

Move on to the drawings here. Many of these drawings are able to better show some of what Ashley explained here. This is our pre-existing conditions and photograph plan here showing some of the mature trees that we have. You can see in this in this drawing, many of the trees that we're going to, again, we're going to keep as many as possible. This is our landscaping plan. It shows a section of what we propose the landscape berms to look like, the tree types, and then many of the zoning ordinance requirements, as well as how we plan to intend to meet those requirements. This is our site rendering. Elevations. First floor plan, you'll see here we have kind of mixed use on the first floor plan. Much of this area will be used as warehouse. Top left corner there, that piece that branches out, will be used for office. On the second floor will only be office for second floor. The warehouse area will be one usable floor, but two stories tall. Sight lighting plan. This is intended to show the locations of the lights that we've picked here. We've picked lights to help reduce any night sky pollution. And also, we've positioned the lights in a way where it would not spill over any residential properties.

That might be...

Last one here, photometric plants. This provides the foot candle levels at each location as a result of the positions of the lights that we have here. The only other thing I wanted to mention, Matt Puz, the zoning officer, and I have been in contact throughout. I believe we meet all the zoning requirements with the exception of the small corner, kind of bottom left corner of the site there. The thick black dashed line is the existing bluff. So there's a 25-foot bluff setback that we've met with the exception of about 20 or 30 feet of fence in that bottom corner. So we intend to meet those zoning requirements, and we will revise this plan prior to the next meeting.

The point there, the fence is what's not allowed in that 25 feet. We're just on the fringe of that with the last few feet. What we're going to do is there's really no purpose to the northern fence as long as we have the western fence down over the bluff far enough that we don't get pedestrians or unwanted visitors there. So that northern fence isn't really needed and we'll pull that from the plan. The other thing I did want to mention, there is currently an existing chain link fence along The western property line is in various states to repair. There's holes. So we will be repairing that fence so that we won't have unwanted or incidental folks coming in and out. So there will be some protection there. The roadway access to the site will be gated. The gate will be placed off of the roadway far enough that we could cue a truck that cue a truck that would come in and perhaps the gate wouldn't be open yet so there won't be any staging on the roadway. That was a real concern with how we handle traffic. If a truck arrives and the gate's closed, what do they do? So we pulled the gate back from the roadway so that they can get off the road and not block traffic in that manner. The operations of the site will be fully within the building. There won't be any fabrication operations or light manufacturing outside the building. As Jake mentioned The large rectangular portion of the building is primarily a modular engineering fabrication area. There's some fabrication in the northwest corner of that that Corporate Glass will work with their product. And then the office area is the smaller area to the northwest, which is a two-story office area that will house all three entities, administrative and design staff. Happy to answer any questions or clarify any points that we made.

Is there anybody else that wants to present?

I just had a couple questions. Now, what road are you going to be doing, the north-south or the east-west road? Are you going to be using the road off of Eastlake Road at all?

For the entrance roadway?

Yeah.

The entrance roadway is the dark gray roadway that will... access East Lake Road on the southern end and end at the building. That's the only roadway we're doing. We're constructing as part of the project. Now previously there was an entrance into the Hair Mill International Paper Company site at 3rd Street. We're not using that entrance at all. There's actually a gate there that we're removing and replacing with permanent fence so that that isn't even a potential access. The road will be curbed so there's no side entrance but it's It's north-south from East Lake Road to the building.

Okay, so you'll be going past the school? Or is that off?

So the school on Hair Mill Drive? Yes. Yeah, so Hair Mill Drive is to the east here. It's actually off of this drawing. It's eastward. Okay.

So the charter school, it won't be affected at all?

No, it's separated by substantial distance from that Hair Mill Drive. So the entranceway, this driveway, enters the corner of Hess and East Ave. There's the former Hair Mill Credit Union, which now is Erie Community College. There's a green lawn space.

Right where the sign was. Yes, right where that sign is is the entrance driveway. So you're going to be going back down.

So then substantially beyond that, going in the east direction, is Hair Mill Drive, where the school is, which is right across from the Boys and Girls Club there that we had earlier.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah.

If we have other presenters, we'll bring them up just in case some of this might get answered too before we go through and then we can open up to council. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else that's going to testify or present? Just want to make you were you sworn in yes, thank you.

Hi. My name is Jeff Johnson I live at 509 Hess Avenue, and so I'm based but buttered right up. I'm right behind you sir or the youth Institute and so some of my questions I sent to the clerk the main one was I am concerned about the traffic on East Lake Road there and that turning in there and I And so they say two a day of semis, but business are made to be grown, right? So two a day now might be four a day. It might be more than that as the business grows, right? So my concern is he mentioned about they're closed, but a semi is here. So a semi pulls in, parks. Semis don't shut off, so they idle. That's right behind my house. So I'm concerned about that. I don't know if any traffic studies are involved or anything like that. There's not really a turning lane that can be done there. Where they've got Hero down there, they have a similar roadway, but they have a turning lane and all that. Right there at East Lake Road and Birch Court is the other road there. There's not much room. So I'm just concerned because when GE lets out, that's a raceway. And then when GE goes to work at the raceway and people come traveling back and forth, that's actually no such thing as a 25-mile speed limit there, which I've complained to the police department many, many times, but you know how that goes. And then the second issue I was having was my dog got skunked like three weeks ago. So for 35 years, all that land is like a wildlife refuge. So they're going to just bulldoze a rose through this wildlife refuge that's been there for years. So where's all this wildlife going to go? Backyards. So I'm going to have more skunks, more raccoons. There's deer back there. There's coyotes back there a couple years ago, but I think they moved on. There's owls back there. There's all kinds of animals that live back there and have been living there for years and years and years. And I'm not sure how that's going to Are animals going to move one way, or are they going to move into everybody's backyards on Hess Avenue and move from there? I'm not sure if there's a study or who would be in charge of wildlife like that, but they're going to get disrupted, and I just don't want them disrupted into my backyard. I already have problems with animals from there. So those are my two concerns that I had. The Porter Company's been very open and transparent. I asked them for something, they usually give it to me, that I can study it and stuff like that. I think it's a good project, it's just I'm concerned about my living and stuff like that, my privacy and all that. So I just wanted to make that on the record so people can look into how that's gonna affect everybody else on Hess Avenue. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment?

I was not sworn in.

We can get you sworn in up here.

Can you raise your right hand? Why am I raising my right hand?

To be sworn in.

But I'm not swearing on you.

I'm on the test. Just a test, yeah.

Freda, will you tell the truth? Nope. You're not going to lie? Nope.

Okay.

So I am also concerned about the quote, least amount of removal of vegetation is possible. It's a little bit vague. And I did see that they're going to plant non-native forsythia and juniper. Why? There's plenty of good native shrubs and trees that can be planted. And in fact, they show they're going to plant large trees, which on the whole, It's better to go with something smaller. They survive better and they catch up much faster than planting large trees. But I would like to see some effort to minimize the amount of clearing. As the man in the neighborhood knows, there's ample wildlife. And has that even been assessed? Also, I see two big glass walls. Are they going to use bird safe glass on those walls? The market house can, people doing the market house can help them to have the specs on designing with bird safe glass. Really trying to discourage people from putting in big glass walls without bird safe glass. I'm not sure how much pedestrian traffic there is in this area, but should there be a four-way stop there so that people can cross safely? Thank you.

Excuse me, Freda, can you state your name for the record?

Freda Tepfer, T-E-P-F-E-R. It's nice to see you without that thing that the other guy used.

Anyone else here for public comment? And not public comment, sorry. Let me rephrase that. Testimony? I was sworn in.

Were you sworn in? I was sworn in already, yeah. Bob Strasser, Aries Lower East Side. And I've been involved with the Night Ships Project from the beginning with Ashley and all the others. They had the information meetings, which I've attended them. And they've answered my questions and anybody that attended that. They've been upfront about everything. I think they really, really do want to be a good neighbor for the east side. And this is a start for a property that's been sitting vacant for a long time. They're willing to work with the citizens the city, the planning, all that. I think they're looking to go above and beyond with things. They've talked with some people from the, I think it was Ken Nixon from the school district about, and some of the technical schools about education and training for students here in Erie so that they would look to employ citizens of Erie and maybe prioritize east side people, which is really, really needed. I can't stress, you know, a lot of you hear me come every week. every month and speak about the areas east side and the lower east side. So I really think that this could be a catalyst to get other things, other businesses and projects going which we know the city needs more businesses that are going to be paying some tax and revenue so that we don't have budget deficits and things like that. So I strongly urge you all to vote and approve this and then we can hopefully move on to other things because I don't think they're going to be a problem at all.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else here to provide testimony? We just have to get you up to the mic and get you sworn in.

I just have a couple questions.

Excuse me, can you state your name for the record and pull the mic towards you?

Thank you. Maria Chilovich. I just have a couple questions. One, this light manufacturing, what does it entail? And I thought there was a hearing on a data center. Now, is that part of this? I mean, you can talk about landscape and the construction and all that, but I want to know if it has to do with a data center. And secondly, are they getting LERTA for 10 years? I want to know if they're getting exceptions for taxes. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here to provide testimony?

Ed Kissel, I'm the current Erie County chairman of the Coastal Zone area.

Did we get you sworn in, Mr. Scalia?

Yes. Just to bring council up to date, I would like to see if the developer would agree to a small easement on the backside of that property, which would give a beautiful view of the lake. I see their offices are on the backside. That is not a far area away from the Erie Land Lighthouse that's located over on Lighthouse Street. And eventually throughout the years, there may be a trail or so that would continue on from the lighthouse in an easterly direction over towards Four Mile Creek. Lawrence Park, tying those communities together. So this is something to consider. Also, I don't know if they're going to be discharging, how much water is going to be used out of that facility. Hammer Mill had a large sanitary sewer line put in a number of years ago. for discharges of their wastewater to the Wastewater City Disposal Plant. The smokestack, I don't know if they're going to have any type of emissions coming out of that building. Those are things I'm sure the residents would be concerned with per the Coke plant is not a far throw away from all that area. So that's what I would ask if the developer would look at. an easement for additional access as time goes by. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else to provide testimony? At this point, then, I will open up to council members who may have questions for anyone who has presented tonight so that we can go ahead and ask. Does any members of council have questions? Council member?

Dr. Titus.

I'm going to turn it on, Fred. I have to keep it low in case I say something to Ed over here. Jobs. How many jobs are we talking and are they family sustaining jobs?

We have one of the owners here with us who can speak to the some of these questions directly.

We like to get it straight from the horse's mouth.

Could you just provide your name? Sure.

My name is Fred Teitman, T-E-I-T-M-A-N, and I'm one of the three owners.

Last name again?

Teitman. Mr. Sir.

First of all, let me preface my remarks and my questions by saying thank you. Because we are looking for people to invest in Erie. We want to be a welcoming business environment for Erie. And specifically, we welcome investment on the east side. A lot of times we come in here, we do these things, and people say, I'm going to have 30 jobs, I'm going to have 40 jobs. And then we find out they're $10, $11 hour jobs. My question is, how many jobs do you anticipate having? Because I know you have a current from the three companies. You'll be shifting those. How many new jobs, I should say?

So we currently employ over 100 people in the area today in the three companies. We're looking at doubling that over the next three to five years. So another 100 jobs.

I'll be looking for a job in three to five years.

I'm just kidding. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, what are the wages like?

So they vary. So we have one part of our company is a union carpentry company. So their wages are pre-negotiated, scale up based on experience. But then we also have fabrication jobs, welders. We also have finishers and painters. Then we also have glazers. But these are well-paying jobs.

It sounds like they're trades. They are. They're trades jobs. I know the Carpenter Union business agent is no longer local. And so how would you go about getting local hire? Or is that something that you would consider?

So there is a trade school in Pittsburgh that does a lot of the training for the carpenters. We have not had a shortage for ourselves on finding carpenters. We're the largest employer of carpenters in the area. So our business, we do... A lot of work for all the generals. So we're out there every day finding new talent. We develop the talent and we promote the talent. So probably three to six of our top leaders have started as a trades person and then they get promoted up.

So, you know, Eric Dixon. Yes. Eric's a great guy. Yes. And that's a great partnership that they have, the union apprenticeship program. Absolutely. And lastly, I would say that within that footprint is the former Wayne School, the ECAP building. And I believe they have a construction training thing. And although it's not union training, It's not union yet. Would there be opportunities for some type of training outside of the union? Or do you have a PLA with the unions that will prohibit that?

So we do divide business.

Like on the job training?

Yeah. So job training, the carpenters go to Pittsburgh to get their own training. The glazers and the welders, we train them on our own. So we pay for that training. We've recently partnered up with the NWIRC to also find additional training. that we might not be able to provide the expertise, but we'll partner with someone that can. So all those things are working. I'll mention that on the modular side, every time one of our welders passes a weld test, they get a raise. So we've incentivized them to continue to learn and to grow and to get better. So we've built in that training and the incentive already.

So you can hire... blazers and what else on your you can hire them yourself we're training them we do yep so we certify and qualify internally for those we will bring in third parties when necessary yeah absolutely and I you know we appreciate the commercial for the carpenters union my son is a union carpenter price and so they do turn out good products thank you

So my question would just be because we are hearing of the water scarcity that is slowly approaching all areas, especially rural areas, and with the concern of the resident, is your company a data center?

No, we are not.

Okay. All right. Thanks. That's great to know because I know there's a lot of concerns going on. And then the water runoff, I know Mr. Kissel had mentioned.

I can speak to that. And to give you some background, I've been a consultant on the hair mill paper company site since 1979. At a prior company I worked for, and for the 30 years we've been at this company. So I'm very familiar with the operations that were there prior, the water usage and where that went. The use of water at this facility is just house usage, restrooms. There is no process water. There's no wash water for parks. It is solely for the break room use and restroom use here. And the discharge of that will be to the public sanitary sewer. The stormwater runoff is being designed in strict accordance with the city's requirements, as well as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requirements. There is an existing stormwater pipe on this property that discharges to the lake, which we'll utilize. So we aren't adding any additional pipes to the area. And we are significantly reducing impervious area over what you saw on the old hair mill site. This portion of the site was the warehousing area. So when the paper was made starting on the east side of the site, it progressed to when it became paper and was stored on this side of the site. And therefore, one of the questions a lot has been about the contamination. This is one of the areas of the property that didn't have soil contamination. The covenants with the DEP are are very minimal here, just moving the soil, but no environmental issues. So our stormwater is solely from the roofs, the parking area, and then discharged to the existing

Okay, and I have two more things. I wanted to question the wildlife because I do know that when there is a large development, the surrounding neighbors do have an influx of unwanted pests, whether it's rodents, whether it's skunks, whether it's, you know, what else? Possums, I believe, is a big one that people have mentioned in the past. Deer, coyote. So what are we trying to do to try to minimize as much of the invasion into the residence? Because we don't know what's there and what has been able to collect that property as their habitat. Because, I mean, we've had coyotes. We have geese. We have turkeys. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if there's owls in there, as they mentioned.

Well, one thing we did was we did do a search of the Pennsylvania database to make sure there was no endangered or threatened species on the property. So we found that there were none in this area. As far as protection of the property owners, we have a site that's overgrown. We will be repairing the fence area to seal up any of the holes that are there now. So that should help with some of the animals that would migrate through the fence. The other area to the east of the site has grown up as well, so we anticipate that some of that migration will be to the eastern inward portion of the site. But it is a developable site as that progresses and moves on. So our protections are trying to secure the fence so that there's no direct access and then clear the, and we are leaving as many mature trees to the downhill side or the west side of the property along that fence line as well. So I don't have an answer for the, where they're going to go, but our efforts will be to protect the properties as best we can.

And then the last thing is the native plants. We do have some environmental conscientious residents who do bring up the need for us to plant more native plants before the development starts to try to mitigate any of the issues of evasion plants coming in. And Ms. Stepford is really great at advising and even being a reference on what plants would be great and thrive in this environment. So I just want you to be really aware that she might be the only one who's vocal. but there are a lot of environmentally conscious people who will be asking about why we're not planting native plants. So just be aware of that, please.

And we are aware of that. We did select plants that we felt were dense at the upper and lower levels because we were looking for screening. However, we're very familiar with native species. We're open to discussing that with the residents. We're more than happy to accommodate that.

Thank you.

Dr. Tynes, just one more question. Maybe two. In regards to the wildlife, you stated you have no way of knowing where they're going to go, but I kind of reject that premise because we have a lot of experience in developing along the East Lake Road and putting in the Bayfront. We know exactly where they're going to go, and they're going to go into the residence yard. There's not really a lot of places for them to go north, and I think it's a fallacy to think that they're going to take a trail to go east or west when their house is sitting there. So my question would be, while you're mitigating, while you're fixing the fence and all of that, has there been any thought of putting traps down or contacting someone, catching a release maybe, because the gentleman expressed some, they're real concerns. I live on the Lower East Side, and yeah, they're real concerns. So maybe we can have some talk about it offline before we bring this back to a vote. maybe you and that gentleman or Father Jerry, whom I know very, very well, should really address some of that stuff to the degree that you can.

And I didn't mean to say we didn't know where they were. They're going to go east or west. None of these animals are going to swim in the lake, we're sure of that. But there is an open area to the east where they'll most likely migrate to. But we're happy to speak with professionals on advising us on how to deal with that. Yes.

They're going to go east, west, or south.

Correct. And all those are residential areas.

Pretty tight over there, and so his concerns are very real, and I don't want to sit here and act like we didn't hear what he said. I want to put it on the record to make sure that you heard what he said as well.

I've talked with Mr. Johnson several times. This evening was the first time we talked about the They're concerned about the animals. So we would certainly address that.

And the 6th Street corridor is really tough all year round. But there is some schools and Boys and Girls Club there. It's tough to make a left turn if you're facing north, hoping to come west. It's tough to make a left turn if you're facing south and you want to go east. ROUNDABOUTS AND EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON NOW HAS DIVERTED ALL OF THAT TRAFFIC THERE. YOU HAVE THE EAST MIDDLE SCHOOL THERE. YOU HAVE THE J-CAT CHARTER SCHOOL THERE. YOU HAVE THE E-CAT BUILDING THERE. YOU HAVE THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE THERE. AND THE SEMI-TRUCK TURNING THERE COULD PROVE TO BE A LITTLE CHALLENGING ON THAT PARCEL OF LAND. SO I WANT TO JUST SPEAK TO THAT AND PUT THAT ON THE RECORD AS WELL. I UNDERSTAND.

Thank you, Mr. Tytum, for coming in today with your family as well to give them the experience of how to go about doing things. And I attended the St. Ann's Neighborhood Watch where there was a presentation. And if you got Father Proscaro's affirmation, that's pretty awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just a couple questions on my end. I just want to note that around the idling semis, I know that we're here for very specific parts of the Waterfront Conditional Use Ordinance, and that's not one of them, but I do want to just take note that that will affect the residents, so that's more of a policy, in-house policy. Just a little bit more curious around the lighting, because that will affect quite a bit of the residents, just being mindful of how it's turned, where it's turned.

the lighting along the roadway. All the lighting is night sky friendly lighting so we don't have up glow. We're very careful about the photometrics and the placement of light so there is no light level increase beyond the property line to the Hess side. We're very cognizant of that. We don't want the site glowing like you see some of the Walmarts along 79. You can see the glow coming. That isn't this site. We're very cognizant of that. And we don't want any overcast lighting into the adjacent property. So that's why we ran the photometrics, and we're very careful about that.

And then to reiterate one of the questions that was asked around tax abatements for the development, I know that is outside of the purview of the ordinance, but just wanted to ask that on behalf of the resident.

So as part of the program, the tax benefits that are available to the owner will be taken advantage of. So this is a Very costly project. The entrance road to this site, this is unusual in that we have this long of an entrance road. The entrance road itself is $2 million. We have a $15 million project here. So trying to make that as palatable as possible, those programs would be taken advantage of.

Thank you. Any other further questions from any members on council?

Can I take one more statement? I wanted to clarify. As I misstated earlier about the number of trucks, currently there are five trucks a week, which is less than one a day. And they do about 100 units a year now that they would increase to 300 units a year, and we have projected that, which that gets us to that two trucks a day average when they are at their peak production.

Well, thank you. Sir, again, for continuing to keep your business in Erie. Absolutely. We recognize and we thank you for all the years that you've been in Erie, and to move it to the east side I think is phenomenal.

We're proud to be in Erie, and we appreciate the community support, the city support, the county support. This is actually a cool meeting. I like to hear all the feedback, so appreciate it from your team as well.

Thank you again. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, if there's no other testimony, we can go ahead and move to close out the public hearing section.

Yeah, if there's no more testimony, we can close out the public hearing and move into public comment.

All right. At this point, then, we will move into public comment. And just as a reminder... Go ahead, sorry. Yes, thank you.

The court reporter may be excused.

Yes. So just as a reminder for public comment, please clearly state your name and your municipality for the record. You'll have five minutes. Please be mindful of that time. And just also be mindful that when we're in this space, the acoustics are pretty horrible. And so if we can be quiet while we're in the chambers, that will allow us to hear and those who are online to also hear comments that are being made. So again, please make sure you're signing in. You'll have five minutes. State your name and your municipality clearly for the record.

Hi, my name is Cindy Treiber. I am born and raised in Erie, currently live in Edinburgh. If you could indulge me, I have a recording that I would like to play. It is upsetting. There are a few cuss words. I have spoken to the parents in the room who have children to let them know.

You're like your son don't want to see you. Real bad. He just told me, like, they gotta get him out of there before they end up killing him back there. They keep messing with him. I didn't think, I didn't know it was him back there that kept doing that to him.

How can I get him out of there?

I don't know, Ted. He said, I think you should, you gotta get you a lawyer to get down here. Soon, like tomorrow. They said they was sitting there tasing him with the shield for like a half hour to an hour.

They kept beating on him and beating on him. They hit him with some tranquilizers and shit.

They said they was beating on him until he basically

I'd like to introduce you to Jeremiah Russell. He's a 21-year-old currently incarcerated in the Erie County Prison. And while I understand that the county prison is not your jurisdiction, he is a resident of Erie, his family is from Erie, and the county is within Erie limits. Jeremiah was a state-qualified wrestler and excelled at football and basketball. These are things that his mother would like you to know. He was an excellent student. He is a talented musician with viral exposure of some of his music. He is a brother that helps take care of one of his disabled brothers. He is wise, considerate, and a good son and friend. And he now sits in jail being abused and tortured with taser equipment for upwards of an hour. He is being restrained in what is called a torture chair. whose history dates back to medieval times and is now used to immobilize prisoners for extended periods of time, causing severe pain, restricted breathing, and spine damage that the United Nations have classified as a form of torture. This is in Erie County Prison. This phone call that you just heard is from an inmate who called his mother a portion of a phone call to tell her what is going on with her son. Up until today, nobody had seen Jeremiah for two months. We had no proof of life. He was being beaten, and we had no idea if he was okay or not. Because somebody, the last time somebody saw, they went to his cell, saw somebody immobilized, unresponsive, laying under a blanket, and could not even determine if it was him or if he was alive. We have a real problem going on with our criminal justice system. And I think we have all spoken about this. This young man is 21. Like we all have brothers and sisters and children whose high school record, I mean this is not someone who you would think we'd be sitting here now talking about being immobilized in a torture chair. They strap you to a chair, put a spit bag over your head, and leave you there to break your spirit, to cause severe pain, and to immobilize you. This kid is not in here for murder. He's not in there for any violent offense except getting into a fight with someone and an altercation with a law enforcement agent during the breakup of that fight. That's it. That's it. His family needs to be proof of life. They need a video of him. They need to be able to see him. The last time his mother drove up here from North Carolina, she came to the prison to see him and the guard told her, before she even gave him her ID, he doesn't want to see you. She said, you don't even know who I am. Well, he doesn't want to see you. She said, go check. She came back. He said, yeah, he doesn't want to see you. And at that point, asked for his ID. When she called the county executive and made her aware, Ms. Vogel was not very helpful. When she called the warden, the warden literally told her, that the gentleman who reported this didn't really see anything and he has now been pulled into the warden's office to be reprimanded. The warden also on the phone call, this is obviously her statement, the last thing he said to her was, well then put me in jail if you don't like it. What are we talking about? What are we doing? Like this is a human being. When one third of the population has a criminal record, can we really afford to be having these kind of conversations? We need help with this. We need people to speak out. We need your guidance and your voice.

Thank you. Thank you.

Can you hear me? Yeah, my name is Charlene Freeman. I'm Jeremiah Russell's grandmother. They had Jeremiah in jail for a whole year. Before he got out, they had him in the hole for a year, doing the same thing to him for trespassing in a backyard. He's been going through mental problems for a while after he got out of school. I've been trying to get help for him at St. Vincent's. They let him wander off, and it started to get worse, the mental problems. So they threw him in jail, and we didn't see him for a while there either. His father was visiting him. One day he just got out and came to my house. He didn't even look the same. He looked like a wild person. He was making weird noises. I was like, what's wrong with you? He flipped out in my house and ran away. Next thing I know, he was back in jail again. So we was trying to go see him, and they said he didn't want to see none of us. So another guy called me saying that my grandson was being abused very bad in Erie County Prison. The lawyer, I tried to talk to the lawyer. She said she didn't want to go in there. I said, why not? You're the lawyer. She just hung up on me, and I didn't know what else to do. When someone needs to do something, they seem like they don't care. That's all.

Thank you.

My name is Michelle Dovershaw, City of Erie. I'm going to touch on a couple quick things real quick. I know last meeting y'all talked about possibly limiting where people live that can speak in Erie Council. I think if that's the case, then we need to take it back to where the Erie police have to live inside Erie. because if they can live somewhere else and come work here and do the things that they've been doing inside of the city limits, then we should be able to talk. Because if I move to Wesleyville, I still work in Erie, but for now it could be, oh, well, you work here, you can speak, but next year it'll be no. Erie is Wesleyville. Erie is Lawrence Park. Erie is Mill Creek. I don't know anybody that says, hi, I'm from Mill Creek. They say, hi, I'm from Erie. With that being said, another thing I wanted to bring up is the PCCP, whatever. I guess that's down the drain. And now we have the Mayor's Council on Community Trust. I want to know who's picking. BECAUSE I GOT CALLS LAST NIGHT FROM CERTAIN PEOPLE THAT WERE ASKED BY CERTAIN PEOPLE TO BE ON THIS COMMUNITY TRUST BOARD THING, BUT IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME PEOPLE. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET DIFFERENT RESULTS. THAT'S THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY. doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And if you've got the same five people on that committee, that committee, that committee, she's going to get left out, he's going to get left out, he's going to get left out. I am tired of the opaqueness. What happened to transparency? Everything is being done in secret. And then when people call me about stuff, I get a hold of people up here to ask a question. And I get, I don't know what you're talking about, Michelle. So then that means it's being done privately. And that's a problem for me. So on to the more serious matter. McKeemara Jackson Jr. On 8-8, he was walking down the street. His only crime was walking while black. I am sick of people that look like my sons, my nephews, being accosted by police because of the color of their skin. Now, I have worked alongside some of y'all up there for a very long time. But some of y'all will never know the fear of when your son calls you crying, saying, mom, I got pulled over. Please come here. Terrified. I'm done. And I'm demanding answers. And I'm demanding justice for for everybody who's getting pulled over. who's getting drug out their car, for who's getting beaten and chased, and for police to run up on the sidewalk to run somebody down. He's on a bike? No, I'm done. And for anybody who knows anything, I'm letting everybody know now that there is a new thing in town, and it's called the Justice Recovery Project. It's for justice that heals, not hurts. We're not going nowhere. And we're demanding answers. Not next year. Not next decade. We're done. And we're putting everybody on notice. We're not going anywhere. And we want justice for people who look different than a lot of the people that sit on this board. Thank you. Thank you.

I got some more paperwork, but my name's Mike Renssel. You guys know me. I'm from East Springfield, born in Erie. I just want to talk to you today about my tenants. And I wanted to share with you guys, I know you know about the young man that damaged my one rental property. But when that was going on, they've been targeting me, and they went down to my other rental property where my other tenants live, right on the very block. An elderly woman lives there. I got a letter from her. She wrote... A guy on drugs came in and kicked in her door. He's a white guy, 35, about 5'9". The woman was in her 70s with her biracial granddaughter that's like 15, just the two of them versus him. These are the same group of men that had targeted me with the Confederate flag. I just want to let you know. Caused over, I think it was $2,000 damage to my house in like three minutes. I had to pay Window World $2,419.12. And that law enforcement just ignored me. And I wanted to say I tried to get into the police station twice and they would not let me in. I was one time, I just want to let you know about that. They won't talk to me. I went to the front here. I was able to get a captain, not a captain, I'm sorry, a deputy chief Janice on the phone with me. And I told him about this man that was ripping apart my house, trying to get money from me. He told me it's a civil matter. He said, when a guy comes to my rental property with a machete, holds a knife to my tenant's throat and face, and evicts them at knife point. I told him all this. I told him the guy confessed to having murdered people.

I seen blood on his sneakers.

I'm saying he robbed a person right next to my rental property. An elderly man. And I've seen that with my own eyes for $18. Also, another guy got robbed there off a bicycle. And I don't know that, but I only found that out from the girl that works at the shop. The same guy robbed two people that I know of. Or one eyewitness. I wanted to say, I have two tenants, their leases are ending in... around March. They've been with me a long time. One's over 15 years, and another one's been about 10. They're both African American. They're children growing up in my house. I told them I can't afford to be a landlord, because this is getting crazy. I lost like 30 grand this year. I currently rent this really nice apartment to her for $665. I told her I'm going to have to raise her rent a lot. I said, I don't think you can afford to live here no more. She looked at other apartments. The comparator of mine, she's telling me between $1,100 and $1,200 for the same apartment, basically, in a similar neighborhood. I don't want to raise her rent like that. I just can't afford it. The police just turned their back on me. I want to tell you something what this guy did, Mike, to me. When he beat me up, I talked to Nolan, and I told him everything that was going on. I told Nolan, these guys are selling... fentanyl, and they're going to kill somebody. A few years later then, a guy dies of fentanyl at my property. Mike knows I know he's the guy that sold it. I'm just saying, he does not like me. I got the PFA system involved with Chad for putting a knife to his aunt's throat. He also pulled the knife on his grandmother. They had a criminal charge on him. He never showed up to the hearing, so he never got convicted of anything. He's in jail now. They're still going to get me. Mike told me he's going to stomp my face in. He's the one that beat me before. I'm weaker now. I got a fake knee. I cannot survive another fight with him. Physically, I think he could kill me. He's stronger, and I'm getting older and weaker every day. And he's been off of drugs. I think he's been in jail. He looks healthier than ever. And I just had a conversation with him. They want money from me. They have drugs. He's mad at me because I made sure Chad got put away. The Erie police turned their back on me. I also want to let you guys know I ran into a woman on the Lower East Side. She came with me. She had an eviction. She said, Mike, I'm going to school. I need an apartment. I said, well, you have an eviction. She says, it's for nonpayment. I check her out. I said, it's fine. This is many years ago. I'm just going to let the history with the police. I go over there one day. I'm going to go to mow the grass because that's my job. I hear her yelling and screaming. I look up through the, she lives in the second floor and I look up through the window and I see the door kicked in. She's yelling for help. So I call the police that there's a domestic disturbance and the door's been kicked in. They told me it was a landlord-tenant conflict. And I says, I'm not having a conflict with her. I says, I believe she's in a domestic situation with her boyfriend. Needless to say, she was held in my apartment, beaten. Her arm was broken. Her face was all busted up. He did more than just physically assault her. Thank you. She was held in my apartment for multiple days. The police have repeatedly just turned their back on me. I just want to ask one thing. Could I have a meeting with the chief of police and you, please? And I got to some people I'd like to come with.

I want to not... Sir, we'll have to set this up afterwards. I apologize. Okay.

Thank you so much. I have someone I want you to meet.

My name is Freda Tepper, and I live in Erie. Last year, I was part of a group of people calling people whose ballots were undeliverable. I don't know how many there were in Erie County, but... People who have undeliverable ballots is because the address was wrong, because they moved, because maybe they're college students and they changed dorms. Mail-in ballots are not forwarded, period. They're not forwarded. They come back undeliverable. If the address is wrong, the apartment number is wrong, the dorm building is wrong, the snowbird has gone away, It comes back undeliverable. So I'm asking people to go and check that their registration is current. The last day to register before the election is October 19th. Officially, the last day to apply for a mail-in ballot is the 27th of October, but they're advising people to apply by the 19th. So if you know there's a place on the form for requesting a mail-in ballot to put the address where the ballot is to go, you need to make sure that's a current address where you know that you will be in October or, yes, it's October when you'll get the ballot, that you'll be there to receive the ballot. That's very important because otherwise you lose your right to vote. I'm concerned that... The Zoning Hearing Board voted, I believe unanimously, to deny a variance to the people who wanted to put a bar on Hampton and West 21st Street. They published a public notice saying that the Zoning Hearings Board failed to provide a letter, official letter, informing them of the denial and therefore that the denial was not valid and they believe they have a permit. of variance. Myself and another person concerned about this, we have yet to have a response. I've talked to Matt Puz several times, but it's unacceptable that this should happen. There are people paid to be responsible to do that, and this should not happen, and they should not be allowed to deny the denial of the variance. I'd like to acknowledge the effort of the people working on the Renaissance building and the Erie Downtown Development Corporation previously, the Warner Theater and the oh gosh, can't think of the name of it, who provide alternative sidewalks. And with the help of Cathy, the Renaissance building provided a ramp when there wasn't a ramp previously. It should be the norm. It shouldn't be special because somebody out of the goodness of their heart did it. If sidewalk closures would have these sidewalk bypasses, we wouldn't have to have signs closing off entire blocks when there's just a short area. in the middle like the cathedral did. I heard during the caucus you were talking about not raising fees but raising taxes. The reason why you should raise fees is because the not-for-profits who are really not non-for-profits have to pay those fees. And I want you to think hard about not doing that. Right now, there's a lot going on in the world. The Department of Justice is saying they do not have to enforce the rights of people with disabilities to live in community, to receive home and community-based services. And they are not going to uphold the Supreme Court decision. They're not going to enforce on it. We need to have our voices heard. You need to call your senators, your congressmen, and tell them that you are concerned you want to support home and community-based services. There are bills in Congress right now. I am concerned that there's a series of housing events going on around the county, and the one for Erie is September 1st. And there's a really wonderful soul rhythm and blues musical event planned just about the exact same time. And really there's a lot of the same people who should be at both of those events. I know the housing event was advertised a long time ago and the rhythm and blues one only recently. Is there any way to fix this? I'm concerned because at the meeting of the Planning Commission yesterday, the chair of the Planning Commission didn't abstain from voting because he works for the firm that did the design work, but he didn't recuse himself from the discussion. And he had a lot to say during the discussion. If he is a member of the design firm, he should not be participating in the discussion. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Maria Chilovich. I'm here for a couple different reasons. I received an article from out west, Nevada. I'm one from California. People that sent them to me about Erie, Pennsylvania. And it has to do with the housing market and the rental market here. First of all, Erie ranked second in the country for the highest... costs for homes and rentals based on per capita, based on income. Now why is that? Secondly, there are apartment rentals that people are going to. They're looking at the same apartment, and these apartments are still not rented, and they're collecting $40 and $50 fees. I think this has become a scam. And they're not renting these places. And I hope these realtors or these people are sending out notices as to why they are rejected. Because that's something the Attorney General should look into. Then you have the sports arena up in Mill Creek getting busted with the PROSTITUTION TEACHER, LAWYERS, AND I GUESS NOW THEY'RE WORKING THE BAYFRONT. IS THAT WHAT'S GOING TO COME TO A TRUMP EPSTEIN FACILITY ON THE BAYFRONT? Your people need to wake up. You need to be paying attention. Now, I don't know if the cops are on some of these payrolls or not, but from what I've heard, that one hotel on the south side of the Bayfront isn't what you think it is. And I think Nick Scott owns that one, too. And he's nothing but a front man, in my opinion. You guys need to either you know you're working with the mob or you don't. But you better start looking into what's going around in this town. And as far as the Bayfront, again, Nick Scott, you scam people in the city of Erie. You do nothing for the people in the city of Erie. You do nothing for the kids in the city of Erie. But you want that tax dollar, and you'll give it to everybody and their brother that wants to build a shop and stay for 10 years and then hightail it out of here. You need to have some recommendations, and you need to get with it. Because you're not. You are not at all. People on the street know more than what you people know. And that's for damn sure. And I happened to be at the Bayfront when one of these people approached me for a cigarette who got thrown off a boat. You think I'm kidding about this? I'm not. And as far as the housing market, look at what you just screwed the veterans out of five, six homes. You gave them to non-profits to make storage facilities. What is wrong with you people? You need to get it together. You need to either get with it or get out, one or the other, because this is just going nowhere fast. And you keep wanting to block the bait from the citizens and the kids that you can't even go down there and go fish anymore, where older people love to go sit at the dock and fish. They can't do that anymore because of what you've done. And you took that infrastructure money for the VA houses, and what'd you do? Give it all to the Bayfront to screw up the whole roadway? Because that's what it looks like. I'm telling you, you people either need to get a grip, get out, but you better start because I'm going to start contacting Harrisburg, and I'm going to have the enduring general here to investigate what's going on at the Bayfront. Because no little kid that was down there for an event or whatever should have to be subjected to anything. And now with ships coming in here for these tours, what, are we going to have kids start missing because they'll be taken off some boat and dumped in the lake when they don't comply? I'm telling you. Get a grip.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dr. Clayton Bradshaw-Middle. I live in Erie. My pronouns are they, them. I wanted to come here today. I wanted to raise concerns about the fourth ordinance that's on passage today. Sorry, there's no water fountain. Yeah, if you don't mind. Sorry, didn't mean to.

Sir, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.

Yeah, Dr. Clayton Bradshaw-Middle. Yeah, okay. Sorry, thank you very much. So I wanted to raise some concerns about the ShotSpotter subscription that's on the agenda for passage today. Regardless of how the subscription is paid for, which one actually, from what I heard during the caucus, sounds shaky and not actually collected yet. There are some legitimate issues with the technology, and I want to urge the council against renewing this subscription. So a quick overview of ShotSpotter, in case anyone's not familiar with it. It's a system of audio devices that are placed around Erie that pick up gunshots and report them to police. The result is a slightly quicker response to gunfire. While in theory this might be good in terms of providing medical care, but that's not, again, why people put it in, it actually leads to a lot of other issues when it comes to policing. Studies from the city of Chicago's inspector general, from the Innocence Project, from a variety of other places, have shown there's no impact on the root causes of gun violence, nor on occurrence of gun violence. It has been referred to by some critics as essentially fancy policing theater, also really expensive policing theater. And it does not contribute in any meaningful way to preventing gun violence. For this reason alone, cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, who have far bigger budgets than Erie, and also larger issues with gun violence, have decided to cancel their subscriptions and no longer use them. In addition, using ShotSpotter for evidence has led to multiple wrongful arrests, because it can't do any more than identify that a gunshot has taken place, cannot create evidence that proves beyond a doubt who actually fired a shot. Essentially, it wastes police time in investigations of gun violence instead of looking for things that could actually prevent this. In fact, shot spotters actually led to police shooting suspects who have been later exonerated. So there is the potential here beyond just the theater to actually cause harm in communities around Erie rather than protect them. In addition, I'm kind of curious where the microphones are located. There's a tendency by ShotSpotter and by police departments to disproportionately place them in communities of color, which creates false representations of gun violence statistics, and it leads to additional over-policing, which we have heard the results of today. We began with examples of what over-policing has led to, and there's plenty of literature out there on that subject. Then there's a whole problem of the fact that it uses AI algorithms to detect and determine the difference between helicopter blades, gunshots, other similar noises. And these algorithms have proven inaccurate at times. And again, police are sent to investigate something that might not actually be gunfire rather than spending their time on something that could be helpful. ShotSpotter CEO claims that these algorithms are simple math that could be done by hand. But then, one, why aren't they? And two, As we've seen with AI in other spaces, these algorithms lack human nuance and often harm marginalized people disproportionately. I can go on, I can provide a lot of facts and statistics and stories about people who've been harmed by ShotSpotter. In fact, John Oliver did a really good job of this a few weeks ago when he talked, because this is right up there with like flock cameras in terms of concerns around like AI usage for policing. But I also don't want to waste too much of your time So I just want you to either vote down paying for this subscription or at the very minimum, if it's possible, I'm not entirely sure of the rules, delay it until you can actually get maybe a better study done or something that shows if this is going to be helpful or is this something that could potentially harm people in Erie, which is the bigger concern. Because even if it's going to get paid by somebody else, if it's harming the community, then it's something that we shouldn't be putting on our streets. All right, thank you very much.

I just wanted to echo what the previous speaker said. I've been following ShotSpotter for years in larger cities. What they said is completely correct. It shouldn't even be a hard decision. It should not be renewed at all. It's inaccurate. It creates violent confrontations with police. Definitely a bad idea to renew that. There are a couple of things I wanted to speak about today. Number one, I'm going to continue to bring up the trip to the war summit by the Mayor, County Executive, and Infinite Erie. I've stated on public record that the function of the summit was the corruption and pro-genocide tendencies of the officials welcomed in headlining the event. The cartel-like nature of the military-industrial complex and no talk of we need jobs will silence criticism working with those who funnel billions of dollars to corrupt war contractors who kill people overseas and surveil and kidnap people in our communities. I also laid out the connection between Israel and its testing of technology and weapons on Palestinians that are outsourced to our police, military, DHS, and ICE. Many collaborators were at this summit. Can the mayor even say the words, free Palestine, without having her connections cut off? Is it a scary thing to say? If we were alive during the Holocaust, would you speak out against it? Would you be at events with people carrying it out with U.S. tax dollars? This issue is directly connected to the militarized blowback within our community. I'm serious. This deserves a direct response. What's different about this Holocaust that's being carried out? You're telling me that you had to go to a pro-war summit which did nothing but boost pro-war, pro-surveillance, pro-genocidal propaganda because Erie needs jobs. There are no other avenues for jobs in Erie. What is the job the people killed by weapons of war ratio were aiming for in Erie, Pennsylvania? What caused Erie to need jobs? Why is Erie poor in the first place? Does prioritizing private capital interest for decades have anything to do with it? I was at a Jefferson event about the old coke plant location and had to counter a man in a suit who was excitedly advocating for advanced military drone technology to be tested at this location. If no one was there, who would counter that, right? Officials here always talk about, well, we already have so many defense, aka endless war contracts. It's normal. Yeah, that should not be normal. Do you think that should be normal? Advocate for your love for war contracts then. Be open about it. Tell us how these contracts have benefited the poorest areas of Erie, Pennsylvania. I was here a few months ago where I predicted this was exactly what the mayor and Infinite Erie were going to do with the naval shipyard. Have you spent one second of your administration calling out the most wealthy or connected in this city and pressuring them to unionize their workplaces? We have hundreds of millions of dollars going to projects to do absolutely nothing to help the poorest areas of Erie. I spoke about the police presence and tower cameras at the Elm Street Walmart in a previous meeting. Any updates on this? Was anything done to fix this? What are the responsibilities of the city government to protect the people living in the community from AI surveillance and targeting by the police and private corporations? LVT produces the cameras used at this Walmart location. These towers have sight lines way over the parking lot into the surrounding community. Go there and watch what groups of people make up the main customers going into this location, the neighborhood it's in, and why someone with bad intentions might want to surveil them. This is a description of LVT's website, how they describe it. LVT's agentic AI brings new possibilities to security solutions by giving you the ability to detect behavior, personalize deterrence, and speed up investigations. These capabilities are reshaping what is possible, helping businesses move from reactive to proactive security. LVT markets itself as a militaristic, pro-corporate surveillance tool that can use AI to protect crime and amass data on people to prevent it. Does that seem normal to you? Does the city council or mayor know how many systems like LVTs, Phlox, or any other AI-based ALPR technologies exist in the city? Are you aware of how and why this data is gathered on community members and what crime they have prevented? When it comes to the guy who came here from Philadelphia, moving on, from private financial management, and was given an immediate press conference, full support of the city council, has any research been forwarded to the community regarding his and his company's background? Why should the community trust him and his organization? From my perspective, PFM is named after a main strategy that the International Monetary Fund uses to strangle countries in the global south with loans in order to exploit labor and resources for multinational corporations. This perhaps can be shrunk down to what PFM aims to do with the City of Erie. Perhaps the City Council and Mayor can provide factual data that PFM represents the good of the people, not private capital investors, and the maintenance of segregated and poor community in Erie. Thanks.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here to speak during public comment?

Yes, Bob Strosser, Erie's Lower East Side. I guess I first want to try to address some of the issues that we've heard tonight. First about I'll go into one I do a lot of research in and have worked with is the artificial intelligence and technologies. And yes, there are going to be some negative things as part of the learning curve and as we go through the singularity, which we probably already are. So you're not going to stop artificial intelligence. It's the cat's out of the bag, the genie's out of the bottle. We're just going to have to learn to live with it and adapt with it and hope that it works with us for the good of mankind. Yeah, there may be some evil applications that have to be countered, whatever. My view on it is if the race is between the United States and China, I think I still want the United States to be the one that comes out the winner and uses it for hopefully the betterment of mankind. If that doesn't happen, well, then we'll all go through it together. But we're not going to stop it. You can say what you want about the data centers and all that. You know, there's some good and bad. And if people are afraid of it and say they don't want it on their lands and stuff, well, guess what? Someone like Elon Musk is going to say, all right, we don't need your land. I'll put them all up in space. And then that's what they're going to do. So it's going to go through. So just try to learn it and understand it the best you can. And I'll probably talk more about this stuff in the future. But I guess I'm getting tired of a lot of the negative things that are coming down about that and also the negative stuff that's going on regarding law enforcement, particularly our Erie Police Department. We are putting them in a very, very dangerous situation with everybody ganging up on them. Yes, there are going to be mistakes made at times. It happens in every police department throughout the country and throughout the world for that matter. But I know, because I used to be a police officer, and for the city of Erie as one of the police departments I've worked on. I know the training that they go through and the advancements that have taken place since then. I don't believe that there are any officers in the city of Erie that go to work every day and think, hey, I'm going to take my anger and stuff out on a black person or a Hispanic, okay? there's things that happen and until you've been a police officer and experience the different things one of my advice for the committee that you're putting together to study things is we need to educate people and even the police department to do a better job and getting the citizens to realize that when a police officer gives you a lawful command, you should follow that command. Because if you don't, then things get out of control, okay? You might make a sudden move that they interpret, maybe you have your phone in your hand and they interpret that as a gun. They want to go home to their families and stuff at nighttime. And I really think, you know, you could look at the George Floyd incident and a lot of others throughout time here, that 95% of these things would be avoided if people just listened to the lawful commands that they were given by the police officer. And if there was a mistake made, it can be figured out at the district justice level or with their attorney or when the trial takes place. So I myself, you know, and I worked in social services, social work also for 30-some years, so I know the other side of that. And when you try to replace... put police officers and their work with social work it's not that it's it's just not going to work you put not social worker in extreme danger when you combine the two you have a social worker with the police officer in those things it might it probably is a better situation where you have a police unit like the crisis unit uh... that's trained in the social work things and knows how to bring the other additional resources that Myself, I'm pretty fed up about all the ganging up and stuff that's going on on the Erie Police Department, and I'm going to speak up for them. I'm not going to say that they're perfect. There are situations, and each situation has to be looked at individually and gets determined by the district justice or the district attorney. Thank you. So I may have more in the future. Thank you. Have a good night.

Is there anyone else here for public comment?

Hello, my name is Deanna Chatfield. I apologize for walking out. I would like to know who's in charge of hiring the police officers we have and the people that work at the county because the amount of violence I've seen in this city after not just me, but multiple people coming up and talking about, we need to change this. We need to change this. It's not being changed. And on another topic of the police and everything, I want to talk about the PALS program. They are very selective on who they bring into the PALS program. The PALS program is supposed to uplift the youth. I understand it's hard to do something where you only have this many spots open for it, but why do I see the same select few kids in the program? Why do I never see a new kid? Why is it always the same kids? IT'S UNFAIR TO THE KIDS WHO WANT TO BE IN THE PROGRAM, BECAUSE THEN THEY'RE ON A WAITING LIST. AND THAT WAITING LIST IS PROBABLY WAY TOO LONG. BY THE TIME YOU TURN 18, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THE PROGRAM. SO MY QUESTION IS, WE NEED TO CHANGE THAT. Another question is, who's hiring these police officers? And I think we should get together and have people who are here who have questions like this and get a ride through with the officers. And I'm not talking, I want the officers who don't have the cleanest record. Because I feel like if we were to put people in charge of doing ride-alongs with the public and everything, you guys would put people with the cleanest officers, cleanest record, like, there's a problem in your EPA and we need to fix it. Because the youth, another thing, the youth, I was told that there were going to be countless youth programs by the end of this summer. There are going to be more youth spaces for us this summer. I don't see anything. What, the Boys and Girls Club? That's it? That's mainly for 12 and under. High schoolers don't want to sit around and be here and sit around and just play basketball all day in a gym or be locked up in a gym all day. We want to have things to do. What, we have Presque Isle skating? But what, that's like only on the weekends. Then you have Watermere. But who wants to go to Waterman every day and get on the same ride every single day? Not me. Not anybody that I know. So we just need to start investing in the youth and investing on who is hiring the police officers. Because then again, why is this black man getting beat in jail? Why are youth, why are black people scared to go out into their community and to have fun? I can't tell you the amount of people I've seen posting on their stories talking about, I don't want to go to Erie Days because I don't know how the police are moving. There were countless people riding bikes throughout Erie Days and I just seen the police over there cackling with each other. I asked, I said, hey, what's the bike regulation? Because there's not supposed to be any bikes here. Oh, they just can't be on it. But there's guys riding electrical bikes throughout it. We really need to see who we're hiring, and we need to make sure they're not lazy. I apologize for what I'm choosing to say, but it's the truth. We need to get on top of this. This is sad. Very sad. This is not the community that I was told about. Anytime anybody asks me where I'm from, I go, from Erie, because... What am I supposed to say? Oh, yeah, we have Walter Muir, and then we also have police who beat on people. Yeah, we have a police who killed a man. Like, what am I supposed to say? What have the police done for me? Like that man was saying earlier, he has someone who's breaking into his house, and the police are just ignoring him. We need to get these things fixed. We need to get people who actually care about the people in this city in the police station. We need to stop being so selective. I don't see many people my color in them uniforms. I'll be completely honest. I don't see many people in the fire department with my color of skin in those uniforms. So why is that? And then we need to start cleaning up the streets. I'm talking about cleaning up the trash. There's no way that we should have needles on the street laying where kids walk every day. It's a shame. It's disgusting. What are we teaching the kids? Oh yeah, this is a needle. You just got to walk past it and ignore it. It's not going to go away. We need to find things to fix these problems. I feel like we've voted some people in this office and they have done absolutely nothing for us. And it's enraging. Thank you.

Thank you.

I also want to say I'm a United States Navy veteran. I have many family members that are police officers and serve in some capacity with serving the community. As far as data centers, I have friends also that work in data centers, some design data centers. They're also in that world. So I just want to say that I'm extremely proud of everyone that comes up here and speaks with all the information they have, they're not just against it, they're just giving all the information that they have, presenting it, and just bringing awareness to what needs to be considered and the dangers of it, if you will, and the dangers to the community, the fact that they won't benefit us in any way, shape, or form. And I have friends that are in the industry as well that would admit that as well. I'm new to Erie. I came from Illinois. I saw the data centers, and I saw the damage that they did there. I moved here because of the community, the smallness, if you will, of it. the shops that it has. To bring data centers here, I think would be just, it wouldn't do any service to it. As far as AI, AI has been around forever. Yes, it has. They're releasing it now at a larger scale. And it is dangerous. And as far as foreign nations getting to it faster than us, that's unwarranted. That's not even an issue. So to speak on that, it's just... It's someone that... It's to not have the information they need. As far as policing, I will say that as a military member or someone that follows orders, I think with policing, what we're saying is... If you're going to swear to an oath, my oath is to the people. And if I am there to protect them, I need to protect them. So their life comes before mine. If I'm going to address a situation, I need to think of them before I think of myself. And that's what I did in the military. That's what everybody I know who serves, serves that way. And I also heard that we give 40% to the police department. What if we decrease that number, not by much, or maybe by much, and afford more to programs that would help the youth, help people to keep that out of there? I'm not saying to strip the police department. I'm just saying to incorporate that percentage to programs that would help and maybe you know, help the community, if you will, to inform them of different things, civics or programs that would help with trades or just giving them opportunities that are available to them. Afford them the opportunity to learn more about AI, if you will, because we know that some people need to learn more about that because they're misinformed. Just things like that. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here for public comment?

Hello.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm going to make this really short. I know it's late. Could you just give your name? Sure. My name's Andrani Foster-Samuel.

And your municipality, sorry.

But I teach in the area school district at Erie High School. Hi. So I'm going to make this really quick. So I'm here tonight on behalf of, I hate to bend this. I'm here tonight on behalf of a former student of mine. His name is Makimra Jackson, Jr. And he was brought up earlier today by another speaker. He was, I want to say, accosted while he was walking in the street, broad daylight. Just the woman who filmed the incident stated that she didn't see him do anything wrong. And he was searched, he was detained, he was put in a holding cell, his mom's out of town, so I'm just pretty much here speaking on her behalf and his as well. It's really sad. It was sad for me to see, because I had him as a freshman when he first started at Erie High. And I saw him graduate, I saw him grow up, and then just finish school, excellent kid, everybody loved him. And just to see that happen kind of broke my heart, because I care about all my kids. That's why I teach. Yeah, I just wanted to bring that to you guys' attention. I think it was really unfair because I know him personally. As I said, I taught him for four years and I've known him really well. His mom is an excellent mom. She really cares about her kids. And just her being so far away, you know, I could just hear the pain in her voice when I spoke to her. And yeah, I hope that this just stops. It needs to stop. He's just one of many that this is happening to, and I don't know why. And it needs to stop. The police need to be held accountable. There has to be some kind of accountability so that this stops. And if there's no accountability, then there's no reason for anything to stop. It's kind of like a bad kid, right? If you don't teach them consequences, They're not going to learn anything. So unfortunately, some of us adults, we never learn accountability for whatever reason. And so we grow up and maybe on the outside, we might be adults, but on the inside, we're still thinking like a child. We still have the mentality of a child. So I really think that it's important to recognize these things and not just look at the exterior. say well oh this is an adult or oh this is a cop they must know what they're doing that's not always the case we have to judge on a case-by-case basis and on an individual basis and that's it's just the reality of the world that we live in right it's never what you see on the outside it's what's on the inside that counts so Yeah, that's all I'm going to say. I'm just really hurt by what happened to him because he's a good kid and his family deserves justice. His mom deserves justice. He deserves justice. He did not deserve to be treated the way he was treated. Thank you.

Dr. Titus, can I just ask a question? Ma'am, I'm sorry. So can I ask you a favor? So in the back sitting, she's going to raise her hand. She'll have a card for you. Can you just get in touch with my office? We've not heard this name before tonight. So I want to make sure that we help if a complaint needs to be filed, that one is filed. So if you talk to her, she'll give you the information and then we'll be in touch to make sure that can be done.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Is there anyone else here for public comment? Anyone else here for public comment? Anyone else here for public comment? Okay, this will conclude the public comment section.

Ordinances for final passage?

I'm sorry, I'm going to go into what this is always a really abrupt transition to go from having our community members be up here, be raw and be vulnerable immediately into the business part. So we need to get through the business part so we can get into our council reports so that we can then respond back. It always feels very obtuse for us to do that. But I do need to just call it out. And I apologize. Go ahead, Lori.

Ordinances for final passage, Council File Number 16625, Official Ordinance 452026, an ordinance amending the City of Erie Zoning Ordinance to designate the former Foreman Block property located at 1013-1015 State as historic structures pursuant to Article 7 of the City of Erie Zoning Ordinance and to amend the zoning map to reflect such designation. Sponsored by Council Member Horton. Seconded by Council Member Schaaf. The Council File Ordinance 16-625, and now known as Official File Ordinance 45-2026, be finally passed by City Council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Pohl? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Titus? Yes. City Council pass Official File Ordinance 45-2026, finally by Ye 6, Nay 0. Council File Number 16-626, Official Ordinance 46-2026, an ordinance amending City of Erie zoning ordinance designate the William and Mary Spencer House located at 519 West 6th Street, Erie, Pennsylvania as historic structure pursuant to Article 7 of the City of Erie zoning ordinance and to amend the zoning map to reflect such designation. Sponsored by Council Member Horton, seconded by Council Member Schaaf, that Council File Ordinance 16-626, and now known as Official File Ordinance 46-2026, be finally passed by City Council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Poole? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City Council passed Official File Ordinance 46-2026, finally by Ye 6, Nay 0. Council File Number 16-627, Official Ordinance 47-2026, an ordinance appropriating the sum of $435,000 from unappropriated fund balance in the liquid fuels fund for the expenditure thereof. Funds will be used for the supplies and consumables for the 2026-27 winter season. Sponsored by Council Member Schaaf, seconded by Council Member Horton. The Council File Ordinance Bill number 16-627, and now known as Official File Ordinance 47-2026, be finally passed by City Council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Pohl? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City Council pass Official File Ordinance 47-2026, finally by Ye 6, Nay 0. Council File Number 16-628, Official Ordinance 48-2026, an ordinance appropriating the sum of $280,000 from unappropriated and unanticipated revenue for the expenditure thereof. The contributions from the local businesses and used to fund expenditures associated with the City of Erie Police Department's ShotSpotter subscription. The system provides real-time alerts to assist officers with a quicker response time. The expenditures are associated with the Erie Police Department. sponsored by Council Member Horton, seconded by Council Member Shaw, that Council File Ordinance Bill No. 16-628, and now known as Official File Ordinance 48-2026, be finally passed by City Council. Councilor Horton.

Yeah, I'm a strong advocate for this. I heard what the young man said, and I did some research. And I understand that in a lot of cities, urban areas, they are disproportionately, in most instances, placed in minority neighborhoods, or i.e., high crime neighborhoods. And I want to say that I lived in Los Angeles. I've probably been through 40 of the 50 states. And I've been around long enough to know that this is Erie and not Chicago or Detroit. And Erie has a footprint that lends itself to a tool like that. I also happen to know firsthand of a couple of specific incidents where spot shot were very important in solving the crime and setting up crime as a former police officer who comes from a family of law enforcement officers, I think that any tool that would lend itself, and oftentimes it's the first step in holding someone accountable in an environment where people don't always want to come forward or witness or cooperate for a myriad of reasons. But I know right here in Erie, if you want to know off record the two specifically that I know spot shot was there. And they were very, very recent. They were able to get there and make an arrest on scene. And the other one, there was no witness. They were able to pinpoint it right to in front of the residents. And they were able to knock on the door and go in and get the perpetrator. And I think that any tool that steps in the right direction of holding someone accountable When families don't always get accountability, it's just not shots fired, but when there are people actually hit and killed. I think it can be a first leg of accountability, and we should use any tool at our disposal to hold those who would fire or discharge firearms in public spaces safe. in prohibited places. And so I'm strongly, and I'm asking my colleagues, I'm asking you, would you support us in this office? We're all aware of what goes on in the city of Erie. The gentleman wants to know where some of them are located. I know where a couple are located. We certainly can talk about it. But I strongly... I'm a strong advocate for spot shotter, even with the equity issues. Again, here is just almost the perfect footprint where you could actually wrap your arms around it, where you can obtain some outcome-based measurement. And I'm not looking at this myself personally as a permanent fixture in our tool belt, but I think it deserves some merit to consider and see how it goes. So thank you.

Councilor Brzezinski?

what he said.

Yes, this year a colleague friend of mine was shot in broad daylight and killed with another person who she was with in Chicago and I don't know when I was reading you know they had not found the killer but perhaps If they did, they would have caught the person because she was a young woman who had a family and was the sweetest person on earth. And it just broke my heart when she passed away. Thank you.

I just wanted to make a comment that as somebody who is always questioning additional expenses for the police department, as I've been on council these last four years, that in my time, the spot shotter has not been funded by our specific city budget tax funds. They've been funded by grants from the federal or state government. Now, as I've been on council for four and a half years, I know that when it comes to public safety, we receive funding from the state and federal government every year for grants that we apply for. So I'm not against this. And I also know that with us trying to get the local business and the nonprofit sectors to give us a little bit more help with funding, finances that they are more willing to give us money for public safety so these funds specifically are coming from local businesses that we've gone to and said hey you're not paying what we feel as though is the full amount of taxes and we're going to have to either increase or find additional means to receive funding would you help us pay for something for the police and this is how we've been able to get these funds so i'm not against it i'm going to continue to question additional expenses for the police because as i had stated in the set in our caucus forty percent of our yearly budget goes to our police department everybody loves the police everybody wants to be safe but when it comes time to make sure that we have the funds to pay them Everybody puts up their hands. So if we don't want any additional tax increases for property taxes, we're going to have to question 40% of that budget is going to the police and everybody wants to feel safe when they're in the city of Erie. So what do we do? Advocating to the local businesses and getting their buy-in is how we're trying to do the pasting. But at the end of the day, I know that we're going to receive additional funds in the future from the state and federal government for this. So I'm going to continue to question, but I also want other people to question it as well.

Thank you.

For me personally, I agree with a great deal of what my colleagues have shared. I know that violence is on the rise. We know that there are many families who've endured unimaginable harm. We know that there are specific members of our community, specifically black members and brown members of our community, who are over-policed and targeted. I support and I understand the best that I can as somebody who is a white person. However, I'm still not in support of this of this technology because of the harm that it's caused and some of the faulty data that it has provided. So even though I support and understand what my colleagues are presenting, I will be voting no as I don't trust the specific company. And with that, we'll go ahead and call for the vote.

Councilmember Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton?

Yes.

Pol? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Titus?

No.

City council pass official file ordinance 48, 2026. Finally, five days, one ordinances for first reading. Council File Number 16-629, an ordinance appropriating a sum of $10,000 from unappropriated and unanticipated revenue to be received from a community partnership grant administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the DCNR, and providing for the expenditure thereof. Sponsored by Council Member Schaaf, seconded by Council Member Titus. The Council File Ordinance 16-629, having been read, is hereby adopted on first reading by City Council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Pull? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City Council, read and adopt Council File Ordinance 16-629 by Ye 6, Nay 0 on first reading. Council File Number 16630, an ordinance appropriating some $25,000 from unappropriated and unanticipated revenue for the expenditure thereof. Its contribution is from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, acting through the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, PHMC, and from the Keystone Historic Preservation Grant. Sponsored by Council Member Schaaf, seconded by Council Member Titus. The Council File Ordinance 16630, having been read, is hereby adopted on first reading by City Council. Members Brzezinski?

Yes.

Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Pohl? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City Council read and adopt Council File Ordinance 16630 by Yays 6, Nays 0 on first reading. Thank you. Council File Number 16-631, an ordinance appropriating the sum of $25,000 from unappropriated and unanticipated revenue for the expenditure thereof. The contribution is from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, acting through the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission, PHMC, from the... FFY 2025 Certified Local Government Grant. Sponsored by Council Member Schaaf, seconded by Council Member Titus. The Council File Ordinance 16631, having been read, is hereby adopted on first reading by City Council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton?

Yes. Pohl? Yes.

Shaw?

Yes.

Titus? Yes. city council read and adopt council file ordinance 16 631 by yay six nay zero on first reading this takes us to old business we've already done items number one so we need to move on to item number two and three We have a resolution sponsored by Council Member Horton, seconded by Council Member Schaaf. The proper city officials are hereby authorized and directed to enter into an easement agreement with J&M Group, Inc., 1013 State Street for an outdoor dining easement, index 15-2002-206. The dining area is within the State Street right-of-way in accordance with the drawing submittals. The dining area's footprint is 5 feet wide by 27 1⁄2 feet long. Discussion? Voting on the resolution, council members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton?

Yeah.

Pol? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Titus? Yes. Resolution passes, yeas six, nays zero. Number three, proper city officials are hereby authorized and directed to enter into an easement agreement with J&M Group Inc. 1015 State Street for an outdoor dining easement indexed 15-2002-207. The dining area is within the State Street right-of-way in accordance with the drawing submittals. The dining area's footprint is 5 feet by 27 and a half feet long. Discussion? Voting on the resolution? Members Brzezinski? Yes. Flores? Yes. Horton? Yes. Poole? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Titus? Yes. Resolution passes, yeas six, nays zero. This takes us to new business.

At this point, I'd like to call for a motion to move the balance.

Motion. Second.

Motion by Councillor Poole and a second by Councillor Flores. Are there any separations? No separations, Lori.

Okay. Voting to move the balance of the agenda. Members Brzezinski. Yes. Flores. Yes. Horton. Yeah. Pohl. Yes. Schaaf. Yes. And Titus. Yes. Resolution all pass. Yay six, nay zero. This takes us to committee reports.

All right. We'll go ahead and start with Councillor Pohl.

It was a busy couple of weeks. I'm sorry, I couldn't get through everything. It's a busy time of the year, I guess. The Port Authority received the Paysetter Award from the U.S. Department of Transportation for international shipping through the Great Lakes. That was given to them on the bayfront uh... at a press conference last week for the continued uh... success with that uh... attended uh... water reserve aggregate pension meetings uh... last week where on the agenda with a different uh... I'm sorry, the manager for their investments, switching from Clearbridge to Vanguard. And what that did, just doing that, was to lower some of the fees that they were being charged so the pension could build a little more. uh... status with a steady session uh... with pal program and they explain more because some of council had questions on how they're how they are and it doesn't really cost us any any money uh... g the officers are involved with that get paid their portion from the city uh... just as officers uh... the rest is uh... funded by either grants or people that uh... donate to them uh... through fundraising or uh... the drug and alcohol program through the county and they fund a big portion of that i think they do a lot of good The one woman that came up said that some kids are falling through the cracks, so maybe we can take a closer look at that to see how we can better serve all the kids. We had a press conference. The county had a press conference last week for the Erie County Opportunity Zone 2.0. And that's... goes together with the county, state, local, and federal government. They're all in support of that, and hopefully we can get things moving again and again with housing a lot of the county, not just city, but countywide. Celebrate Erie was last weekend already. It seems like it takes a big buildup and a lot of work, and then it's over. But I think this year, I've been through a lot of celebratory working and not with either the chalk walk or information or whatever through the years. And this is the first year for this administration and for the team that ran it this year. Dave Rocco will be missed next year. Hopefully, maybe he'll come back to supervise a little bit. But I think it went off very well. I like the earlier start times on a lot of things and the earlier end times. And it was more spread out this year. It didn't seem as congested. And I'm sure that the board will take everything into consideration and make adjustments as needed. Also on Sunday, I attended the Guns and Hoses softball game, their annual softball game that is a fundraiser for mental health awareness in Erie. And it's sad to say it wasn't well attended, but the bear threw out the first pitch. That was exciting. There was a lot of talent between the two teams. Sorry, Chief Trott. He had it off here. But your police department did win the game. And that's it for this.

Thank you. Councilor Flores?

Thank you. I just wanted to say that, you know, with summer winding down, we start getting back into the swing of things, and sadly the summer months do go by so quickly because we have so many different things to participate in, and we get invited to a lot of things, so sometimes we're able to make it to everything, but sometimes we're not. So those of us who were able to make it to Celebrate Erie, it was a great, refreshing event, and you can just see how much the community enjoys the access that we bring to them, whether it's vendors. So hopefully next year's food vendor options are a lot better because I heard that some people weren't too happy about it, but they did like the layout of the stage and things of that nature and the ability to walk. you know, sporadically all the way down State Street was nostalgic for people, I guess. I guess that's how it used to be. I just wanted to say that, as Freda had mentioned, the last day to register to vote is October 19th in order to participate in the November 3rd general election. Now, with Pennsylvania, our generals are open to everybody, so you're able to be Democratic, Republican, and Independent, so please make sure you're participating because this is going to be a big one. um i wanted to just be mindful and bring awareness to fire safety we've had quite a few fires and i did see over on the news this past weekend we had another one a mobile home was completely taken out so i just want us to be aware of the fire safety With us having a lot of dated housing, that sometimes we might think that our electrical grid can handle more than what it can. So just... If we could prevent a tragedy in our own homes, let's just make sure we're doing the work. Because once you... have that tragedy you're kind of just picking up the pieces and i've seen a lot of people have to pick up pieces lately and that's devastating in itself i also wanted to say can we please be more conscientious of pedestrian access and safety when we are driving with school picking up we're going to have to be more mindful for students who are not paying attention to us but we have to be paying attention to them i do see a lot of adults that just come into the roadway at a green light so it's just If we can prevent a tragedy, let's prevent a tragedy. I know that they have the right of way, and we know that we have the right of way in a green light, but let's just work together because Erie is small, we do know everybody, or we know of everybody, so let's just do our part to keep our community safe.

And then this week, the Seawolves are back in our city.

We have some home games. Tomorrow is Thursday, so they have their two buck beers and hot dogs. And then I just wanted everybody to be aware that on Saturday, they are going to be giving 1,000 fans a football jersey. That says the Seawolves on it. So if you make it to a Seawolves game, you might have to be there a couple hours early to get your jersey. But it is something nice to have. They do a really great job of giving merchandise to incentivize their fans. So that's a great way to wind down the summer. I do believe it is one of the last home games that we're going to have. So if you're able to make it to a baseball game in the city in August, it is a great experience. And I do recommend that you do that. And that is all I have to report.

Thank you. Councilor Brzezinski?

Thank you. Normally I should have said this before the pledge, but it was too raw, I guess. Anybody who has worked at GE in the last 50 years knows the Kabasinski family. We lost Eddie a couple days ago. He was one of the middle brothers. Butch, Lenny, all of them worked at GE. Michael was the youngest, and he decided to become a policeman. He retired as a captain out there in Mill Creek. No blood, but definitely family. And there's a lot of folks out there feeling kind of sad because I bump into people that I never even thought about a connection. I went to a party with a bunch of old guys celebrating their 80th birthdays from prep. I was just sitting with one of the guys that I didn't really know that well. He told me he retired from GE. I mentioned Ed's name. He knew him. Anyway, that's enough for that. Other than that, I asked a question about Ainsworth Field, and I again just mentioned it again because I want the folks to become really aware of it. There's a lot of things that could be done in the past year We talked about renovating it. We fixed it up a little bit. And now it's kind of going the other way. Kids shouldn't lose a field like that. It's a beautiful place. The question I asked was, if we designated it as a historical place, would we be able to get some type of finances, grants or whatever, to bring it back to its glory? Roosevelt School isn't there. That's where you hit the home runs off the wall and they came back at you. but it's still a beautiful place. There's tennis courts over there also. We can't let it die, and I, for one, will keep on bringing it up so it doesn't go away. My mind is slipping. The head of the baseball booster is very high. They're in on it, too. They're going to have a little thing. Mayor, what, 4 o'clock on Friday? 4 o'clock on Friday. If you're around, stop and see it, but Don't cry. It'll get better. It was a beautiful, beautiful field. Thank you much. That's all I got. Thank you.

Councillor Horton.

Thank you, Dr. Titus. There has been a lot going on. So let me just start off by saying we attended National Night Out, which is always a great thing in the community to see people come out and neighbors being neighborly with each other. I only made a couple of them. Years past, I've tried to make as many as I possibly can. Over at the county, I had like seven of them that were in my district alone, but I only attended two this past year. We had a redevelopment authority meeting redevelopment, discuss a potential project on 22nd and Holland towards German where they're going to build six homes potentially. There's a lot of I also will just combine the two because the planning commission, they skirted some of this in the July meeting as well and they came up with two different types of homes. One is more of a They call it the Clevelander and the other one I forget. But the Clevelander is like a branch-style home. It's ADA modified. The other are two-story. They appear to be. There was some discussion about moving the window to make it more balanced. The yard seemed to be rather small. But the thing that really jumps off the paper at you is new construction costs. And new construction costs... to build one of those units are like $380,000 of new construction. And so we know here in the city of Erie what our median income brackets are. We know what's up on 22nd and German and Holland currently. And so even with all the grants or ways that they're figuring out how to supplement it, We know that no one can afford a $300,000 house for the people that they're lending them to, so they're going to try to get them down to $169,000, which is really still kind of... So they have to weigh some things as far as new construction and rehabilitating or remodeling. I think if you're going to spend $100,000, $300,000 on a house, that can be remodeled for $120,000. I think we ought not to move so fast. It's going to be kind of complicated because it's tied up in the community land trust, which is actually getting ready to start resuming meetings. I know it's kind of a big thing. It's backed by Infinite Erie. We also talked about it, like I said, at the planning commission. So I've got to watch and sit through the presentation, the video slide deck a couple times, and I also had the opportunity to review the hard copy of the thing that was distributed to me. I'm excited about redevelopment authorities reaching out to community partners, such as Zeri's Black Wall Street, who has expressed an interest in acquiring and developing properties that can support home ownership and neighborhood I just want to digress a little bit back to talk about the community land trust. And I want to be very, very open and honest with all of you. Black homeownership in Erie County and the city of Erie is abysmal. Stem, they're criminal. And so the community land trust might work in other neighborhoods, and we're going down that road. But when I purchase my house, I purchase my house or homes lock, stock, and barrel. And this seems to be like a glorified savings program in that they have a 99-year lease, which I don't see as home purchasing. I think that if a person should leave that lease, they cannot get market value for their home. They can only withdraw the equity that they built in that home. And so when you talk about black homeownership, the two don't kind of run together and stuff. And so I also thought two years ago when they were talking about creating this nonprofit that you didn't have to reproduce the will. I thought that the housing authority certainly has scattered sites. So it kind of looked like a land grab because I'm old enough to remember when people from the neighborhood can go down and buy purchase homes from the tax sale until we brought the land bank in, and now they get what's left after the municipalities, authorities, commissions, or whatever, grab them, and so then you get the blighted, the worst of the worst. I thought that created more home ownership opportunities than the community land trusts. And you don't have to take my word for it. If you don't know a lot about it, You should go down and try to inform yourself about because something about a 99-year lease and you're calling it home ownership just don't go together. They don't have the rights to the land, the mineral rights, or any of that. And I bet you if you own your home, none of that stuff ever impacts your home ownership. And so if a person's family or whatever gets it, they could be there 25, 30 years. And whatever happens, hey, we have to leave that lease. And the market value could be way up here, but they'll only be able to draw their equity. And the reason it's like that, I should explain, is so that you can keep the rental prices down in a community and that we don't have out-of-town purchasers or speculators such as we have already coming in, gulping up all the projects. So it's not a perfect thing, but it is something that they're, going down that path, and it's going to come before us, and so you should educate yourself on it. And what else did I do? I went to the PAL study session. I attended the Planning Commission meeting by Zoom yesterday, and I learned some stuff there. I'm still kind of digesting that.

I'm going to have to go back and look at that again.

And finally, I did go to the Parking Authority meeting because where my vibe is these days and I will be attending and I will not be sitting there being quiet and I do understand the negotiations that we're under but I do intend to be fully in front of that board and their director reminding them of the status and the business that we have at hand and how very important and imperative it is that we do not delay but that we take care of it and we deal with it right now and finally I said some of this in caucus. I mean, I don't have a legality to stand on, so to say, because they're an autonomous authority. But I request it, just to put it on the public doctorate, that I don't think that they should be. I ask that they not consider any new capital improvement projects and that they not consider purchasing any more parking ramps. or make any major decisions until we rectify this situation. And I feel so strongly about it because their debt is our debt. Anything that they do, it falls back on us. And I can't... I think that if we're going to be good partners and good teammates and go down that road together, we need to have some mutual understanding about how this business is going to be conducted, and we need to be made whole. So thank you for that. That's my report. Councilor Shaw.

Thank you, Dr. Titus. I went to celebrate Erie and had a lot of fun. Thank you, Mayor Devlin and your administration and Hunter Lytle and the cafe and Dave Rocco and the firefighters that were there with the fire truck that the kids and people could see. maybe get hyped up about firefighting and the police of course were there and all the sponsors that made this event uh... happen I saw the Saturday night and the Sunday uh... evening performance and thought the bands were awesome and amazing i attended the city planning commission meeting on tuesday where i spoke uh... the erie land bank meeting where i spoke on monday uh... last thursday was parking tow and review board and to the solicitors meeting also last wednesday The Zoning Hearing Board has a new president. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, I believe. You were the former president, and now the new president is Ms. Selena King. And thank you for all the board members on all of the boards because we know you do not get paid this is all volunteer time and some of those meetings can be quite lengthy yesterday I was at the sewer authority meeting which was at 11 a.m. the study session on PALS I attended and I believe they said they have like a thousand kids so that's awesome. I do know two thousand kids. I do know some individuals who are a part of PALS and they really really like it. so I'm thankful for that program. The Erie redevelopment is getting the lead out of homes and they still have uh... grant money available if you are uh... as someone who has people young people in your house or young people uh... who are regularly at your house you can get that that out of your house that is definitely uh... something very much needed. I'm looking forward to celebrating my Polish ethnic heritage at Zabawa this weekend. My husband is a car enthusiastic person and he works on our Thunderbird that he has that he got during COVID and that really helped him. And so now he likes to show it off Mondays at Liberty Park for people who Of all car enthusiasts, it's not just antique cars. They have roadster cars, Porsches and Jaguars or whatever. It's just nice walking around, listening to the music. This Friday, the... Mr. Lyons, who sponsors the car event on State Street for Friday evening. If you want to see a lot of different kinds of cars and makes and roadsters, this is a fun family event that has cars from 4th and State up to 13th Street. And... Carol Troop, Mo's mom, at Odessa's Place has an event on Saturday, and it's called Odessa's Place Ministry Annual Back-to-School Supply Giveaway. August 22, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Location is 628 West 18th Street. And if you would like to donate or volunteer, you can contact Mo Troop or her on Facebook. And my friend Daryl Craig has the Blue Coats event that... is also at the same time here at Perry Square and last year uh... they had over five hundred people in attendance throughout the day and they gave away twelve bicycles and they raffled off five hundred dollars in gift cards and offered free food by way of a food truck and the blue coat team is there and They had ice cream last year, and they had a band last year, Familiar Spirit, and their highlight of the day was giving out 150 book bags filled with supplies that were given away. So it's all great. It's the Back to Basics Back to School Bash that is... So both of those events are on Saturday, August 22nd. And they're also, the back to school bash on Perry Square is also at 11 to 3 p.m. So we have our first day of school coming up next week, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday, public schools start August 25th. And thank you, Jasmine, for mentioning baseball. I'm going to the Seawolves game this week. I was at eight Great Tuesdays on Tuesday, and I have been attending those. And That's definitely a great free place to be. Sure, you get scanned, but that keeps you safe. Lately, we've had a group of high school girls or girls in their 20s or something but it reminded me of myself because I hung out with a group of kids when I was younger back in the day and we'd like to do things like music so it's for people who like music and like the sunset and enjoy resting and relaxing so I hope people, I've noticed as I drive by East 6th Street near Parade, there is that beautiful park with the community artists that involved the community into designing that park. And we had the ribbon cutting not too long ago. It goes from 6th Street to 7th Street. And as I drive by, I notice people sitting on the benches. because I am all about having benches. So thank you. I did want to say something. We have to be careful driving. I'm really looking forward to when I turn 65 by the end of this year and getting a bus pass. So I was driving on Parade Street this week, and I was on the inside lane. The person next to me on the outside lane decided to do a u-turn right in front of me to go the other way We can't do that That is not a legal move and also Bayfront Highway There are speeders there, and it's always at night, so you can't see them too clearly. And people race. I see it. They race each other. And today, and I'm not saying this to belittle anyone, but again, you're not allowed to do this so try to find a different kind of transportation but there was a person again on the bayfront highway and that little tiny I don't know what even to call them they have it's a motorized vehicle minibike my brother had minibikes back in the day And it's really, really low to the ground. And this was an adult, oversized person. And they're not licensed. And no helmet. And the Bayfront Highway. And that's how people's lives are taken. You're putting everybody in a dangerous situation. I know the sad times that we live in about just getting on these motorized bicycles and motorized anything to get from place to place. I hope everyone has a great beginning of the school year. As a former teacher, if anyone wants me to go and say rah-rah as they come in from school, get a hold of me and I'll try to be there. I like to give high fives out. Thank you.

Thank you. So the convention authority meets tomorrow at 3, and then the airport authority meets the following week at 12. So I will have more on both of those to report out at our next meeting. It is our back to school. Several counselors have talked about that. So just being mindful. I have the honor of being chair of a nonprofit. This year alone, we've received almost three times the amount of requests for assistance that we've ever received in the past. And we're a small nonprofit. We're not able to meet those needs. So our community members are clearly hurting. And I know that we have a lot of nonprofits and just a lot of individuals who step up and really try to help. I commend everyone who's doing their part. THIS IS MY CALL TO ACTION ON NOT JUST THE NONPROFITS BUT ALSO OUR LOCAL BUSINESSES TO PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE EXTRA, TO PLEASE BE HELPING REACH OUT TO SOME OF THE TEACHERS WHO I KNOW ARE BUYING SUPPLIES FOR THEIR CLASSROOMS. OUR COMMUNITY IS HURTING IN A LOT OF WAYS AND THIS IS ONE WAY THAT WE CAN BE GIVING BACK TO A LOT OF OUR STUDENTS AS THEY ENTER INTO THIS SCHOOL YEAR. I DEFINITELY HEARD THE and continue to hear the call out around community policing especially when it comes to PALS and just wanted to reiterate what we had said in our study session that PALS is one part and we know that PALS also needs some fine-tuning with with how the programs are, how students are selected to participate. The goal of that study session was to really lay out how is PALS funded so that when we go into this budget cycle that we have a better understanding of where the money is coming in and where the money is going out. But that in and of itself is not community policing, and I know that the administration is on that same page and will probably talk and touch on this as well. That's just one small piece of this. And so we've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of work to do. And then, so that I'm not misspeaking, if you wouldn't mind, Mayor, when you are giving yours, if you could just touch a little bit on the current state of the committee that we had the meeting with last week. That would be wonderful. And then we do have our housing town hall. We had a resident who did touch on. It's very unfortunate that there are a couple overlapping that I think that there would be residents who are going to want to be at both of those. The housing town hall, September 1st, Tuesday, 6 to 8 at Strong Vincent. It will be for homeowners, future homeowners, and also tenants to learn what programs do we have available in the city, but then also how to be a good neighbor and then to know your rights as well as somebody who is renting. seeking to buy and then in closing I know I talked about this last time but I have to keep touching on this with my with my day job I see it firsthand with the amount of individuals who are losing access to their insurance we've easily we will easily in the city of Erie have a few thousand of individuals who no longer have access to to medical benefits, which is going to further exacerbate many of the crises that we're talking about here, interactions with police, interactions with different systems that we have here, because that's what happens when people don't have access to medical care and the services that they need. HEALTH IN ALL CAPACITIES STARTS TO DECLINE AND SO AGAIN THIS IS A CALL NOT JUST THE NONPROFITS BUT ALSO THE BUSINESSES THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE A FULL COMMUNITY EFFORT OUR BUDGET AS WE HAVE PUT ON DISPLAY IS VERY CONSTRAINED AND WE ARE PRETTY LIMITED IN WHAT WE PROVIDE HERE MANY OF THESE SERVICES COME FROM THE COUNTY AND THROUGH THE COUNTY BUT THEY ARE ALSO ON UNLIMITED FUNDS SO IT IS GOING TO TAKE ALL OF US to start addressing and to show up for our neighbors and those around us, making sure that we know what is happening in the houses beside us, that we're checking in, especially on our elderly neighbors, those who live alone, to make sure that they have transportation, they're getting access to the things that they need. And I know all of us are hurting, but this is definitely a time for us to be connecting with our neighbors in a very strong way. And with that, I will go ahead and conclude my report.

Just dealing with the waterfront conditional use, I'm going to send you guys an email probably by Friday so that we can talk about when we want to do that, also to deal with the resolution we need to draft, and if there's any thoughts of what you want in that. Okay, so I need you to be kind of watch out for that, and I'd ask you to please respond. I have some other emails I'll send, but I'm not going to mention what they're about.

Thank you, Dr. Titus. Council, a couple of updates. I want to start with the school theme. I really am proud of our Employee Activities Committee, who put together a school supply drive. If you've seen it around City Hall, they've been collecting from employees. So really grateful to them and their work. This is just extra that they take on, and we appreciate them. On the topic of employees as well, we are having an employee picnic for the employees of the City of Erie. It's going to be held on September 4th, so we're going to be closing City Hall at 2 o'clock that day. We think it's appropriate on a Friday to allow those that can, and not all of our employees can. We certainly have some of our employees who can't leave their post, essentially, but for those who can, we'll be celebrating with them actually out at Downing Golf Course, which we own, and so that will be a good way to celebrate our employees that afternoon. And lastly, on the topic of our amazing employees, I just want to add my thanks on Celebrate Erie. You've all thanked them, and I talked in council, but One group that I don't think was named here in the main meeting tonight was just Public Works. Incredible amount of work by streets and by our electricians and just incredible. So I really want to say to them and to all the employees who worked so hard for Celebrate Erie, we certainly appreciate you. We did have this week our Change.org Civic Dialogue. You might have seen some of the work on Change.org. We did the... topic that came to the top was affordable rental housing. So I kicked off this week an online conversation that change.org facilitated with about 100 residents. I just did the opening. They then facilitated and then will send us the comments and that's to help us inform policy around affordable rental housing. So more to come on that, but it seems to be very well attended. The participants were chosen at random. So hopefully we got to hear from many different voices. I did participate last night in a town hall with the African American Concerned Clergy. I want to thank Pastor Ryan Gaines and the other African American Concerned Clergy, as well as Pastor Anthony Harris from Shiloh Baptist, which hosted. It was a really good conversation about the well-being of our black and brown community. We had a whole bunch of topics that we discussed, and they'll be asking me to return in about six months to report out on the things we talked about. So I want to thank them. hosting me and for those that came I thought it was a really good conversation. I want to finish here by the topic of policing and yes Dr. Titus I want to answer the questions first of all with regard to the name that was brought up tonight I know everyone knows that the the concern around the the prison is not our concern I mean it's not under our jurisdiction that does not prevent us from asking questions so I will be asking questions of the County Executive actually already did while we were sitting here. So that is one I want people to know. We will be asking questions about that resident. The other one who was approached by the city of Erie police. I want to ask people to please file police complaints. The only way that we know that these things are happening beyond social media videos is when complaints are filed formally. So I just want to remind everyone that is the way it's posted on our website. The process is there. The form is there. You can do it on the phone, in person, online. please, if you have a concern about how someone was treated by the police, the only way we can deal with it is if you file a complaint. And I want to address the topic about the Mayor's Council on Community Policing, I'm sorry, on Community Safety and Trust. Yes, we convened that council a little over a week ago. Dr. Titus was there along with Councilor Horton as the police liaison. I was doing a rough count while I was sitting here to make sure I had the numbers. Roughly 24 people were invited to that council. Of those, 15 are community members, so nine law enforcement, 15 community members. Of the 15, seven are people that have been participating in the old version of the other administration's councils. Eight are new voices. We reached out to those new voices based on them reaching out to us, or recommendations from others, or just the fact that we felt we needed some different and new voices. So just want to be very clear about that. We have not released the names of those folks, because to be quite honest, this work is intense and sensitive. and we are coming around a table to build something together and in the first meeting which was almost two hours long we just scratched the surface of beginning to have very very difficult conversations and so outing people and naming names before we even know who is going to stay with us does not feel appropriate so no one is trying to hide and if you know we can have a conversation about it But that's why we haven't been public about who's on this, because everyone's still deciding. And we heard from some of the members of that council, from the community, they're concerned about participating with us. They're concerned it might lead to them being targeted. They're concerned about how they might look in their community. So we are trying to be respectful of everyone. And I will tell you, and you can ask Dr. Titus and Councillor Horton, these were not easy conversations. We are scheduling the next meeting for the first week of September, and we will keep going. As I've said, there are three focuses of that council. Number one, to review the policy and practice of the Erie Police Department. Number two, to provide a forum for incident review. When we have an incident like the Kevin Sparks case, we can bring it before this council and we can review it together. And thirdly, to create a strategic plan to implement long lasting ways to develop trust in our community. So we don't just come around tables and talk. We talk about how to change culture. how to go out and build trust, how to deal with our recruitment issue. We are going to rely on this council to bring us solutions. And that is the work of the council. It is just beginning. And I want to close by saying this. Something that came up, I think, in that first meeting that was very relevant and really touched me was we now are, we are functioning on the history of so much that has come before us. And that is the reality. And so when we sit and come around a table, we're not just bringing our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences, we're also bringing all this history into the room. And peeling that back and trying to address Many, many, many years of mistrust and distrust takes a minute. And it's difficult, and we're facing it, and the conversations are tough, but they're honest, and they will continue to be. And I know, I know the community is impatient, and I know people are fed up, and I understand that. But I have to tell you, it's going to take us a minute to try to deal with all of the accumulation that we have right now. You can give us grace or not. That's up to you. I understand. But the work is happening. The work will continue to happen. We will continue to report out on it, and we will continue to answer questions about it. But I want council particularly to know. that we are addressing those things. And lastly, I didn't say but want to say, I want to add my wishes as well for the first week of school next week. I was honored to speak at the convocation for Erie's public schools yesterday as an alumna, parent, former employee, all of the things. It was a great honor for me to be there. And the message I gave to the teachers and the employees of Erie's public schools yesterday was the city of Erie is counting on you. We need you to do better than you've ever done, to work harder than you've done, Because our kids need you and our city needs you. And I feel as mayor, it is my job to say that. And that was the message that I relayed. So I was glad to be there. And I wish them and all of our students a wonderful first week of school next week. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, we will go ahead and conclude tonight's meeting.

City Council adjourns at 9.40 p.m. Council Members Titus, Brzezinski, Flores, Horton, Pohl, and Shaw.