City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the June 10th, 2026 meeting in the Fond du Lac City Council. First item of business is roll call, which is done electronically, and I will declare a quorum is present. Mr. Mullin is absent. The next item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, which is followed by a moment of silent reflection. I ask you to rise at this time. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And up next, we have our introduction of our new community development director, Mr. Moore. I believe the floor is yours for that introduction.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, everybody. Great to see you. Just a quick review. We had a recruitment for about seven months find a new community development director. We interviewed a number of people, had a lot of great candidates. And tonight I wanna introduce you formally to Juliana Stowes. She was chosen from among many and started a week ago Monday. So she has been, as they say, drinking from a fire hose. And I thought you might like to hear from her directly. So Jules, I'll give you the opportunity to introduce yourself.

Thank you. I'm very excited to be here as part of the city team. My family and I have relocated to the wider area and are very excited to get introduced to the area and to continue to learn about the exciting work that is ongoing in the community.

Thank you very much. Welcome to the team. All right, and with that, we'll move on to our consent agenda. And that would be, just a moment, I'm gonna refresh things on my iPad. But just so we know, the consent agenda finalizes the proposed actions for the meeting. That would be May 27th, 2026 minutes, and the list of claims dated June 3rd, 2026. I'm gonna take one second, reenter my password, and then I'll hopefully get things started here, if my fingers can allow me to type. We'll see, wish me luck. Nope, see, that's what I get for talking out loud. No, just kidding. I know the suspense is building for everybody. Oh, I got in. Okay, we can continue. Thanks everybody. All right, now with that being said, let's go ahead and move forward to that. And if there are no questions or corrections to the consent agenda, at this time, I'll entertain a motion. I see a motion from Mr. Zimmerman and a second from Ms. Mayweather. Thank you both for the motion and second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. Thanks everybody. And now we'll move on to audience comments, which includes agenda and non-agenda items. Our presiding officer, which is me, will limit speaking time on the agenda items to two minutes, and items noticed on the agenda will receive five minutes to speak. Ms. Hefter, do we have anyone wishing to speak?

Excellent.

And Mr. Gallier wishes to speak on the Greenway Arboretum. And for that, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. Just a heads up to the friends and visitors of the Greenway Arboretum that work will be done on the Greenway along the riverbank during the next several weeks. And the river trail will be closed from the overlook to the north end. There may also be some other trail closures along the way as heavy equipment is used. and there will be some staging of big equipment in the prairie while this is ongoing. We also have to be careful to collect the endangered species which is growing in the bank along the river trail. and right now we're on hold because we have fledgling red-bellied woodpeckers at the north end of the woods, and we have to wait until they're out of their nest. So construction will begin after that. You'll see heavy equipment out there, and this will probably be ongoing for most of the summer, but at least for a couple of months. So we appreciate everybody's patience and enjoy what trails that are open on the Greenway or come now quickly before they close them. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Gallagher. And with that being our only speaker at this time, we will conclude audience comments. And now we're going to move on to our action items, which is first by the city clerk with the items noticed dated June 4th, 2026. We're talking about the annual alcohol beverage license renewals, and Ms. Hefter has that introduction for us.

Thank you, President Heisler. Alcohol licenses run from July 1st through June 30th of the following year. Renewal applications were mailed on April 8th to all current license holders that will expire on June 30th, 2026. Licenses that include a change of agent or officers have had a background check performed by the police department, and all license applications were published in the Reporter on May 27th, 28th, and 29th for the purpose of notifying the public of pending action and to invite comment. All licenses have been inspected by the fire department and building inspections. No license shall be granted to any license holder for which any money is delinquent and unpaid to the city or to a licensed wholesaler. The list provided to you includes all applications that met the first deadline of May 14th and are in compliance and have no outstanding debt. City staff recommends approval.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hefter. At this time, are there any questions from council for Ms. Hefter? Seeing no questions, I'll entertain a motion at this time. We've got a motion by Ms. Beralt and a second by Ms. Mayweather. Thank you both. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Hefter. And now we'll move on to action item B, which is resolution number 9245. That's a resolution pertaining to the compliance, maintenance, and annual report for the wastewater treatment and resource recovery facility. For that, we turn things over to its superintendent, Mr. Schepke.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much. This is my annual report. Compliance Maintenance Annual Report is essentially the wastewater treatment plant portion of the city services, the report card for it, where the DNR takes a look at a variety of categories to make sure that our operation is up to snuff and also performing as it needs to to provide high quality water to Lake Winnebago. Various categories throughout this annual report pertaining not only to our successes and efficiencies at the treatment plant in terms of water quality, it also factors in review of capacity, both in flow and treatment capacity, and how we currently stand. Takes a look at our biosolids quality. Our biosolids are the remaining solids left over at the treatment plant, the fertilizer that we produce. takes a look at our staffing, making sure that we have adequate staffing to perform those services, as well as ensuring that we have certified operators working at the treatment plant. It does take a look also at the financial status of the treatment plant and the collection system. It digs into energy efficiencies and questions the efforts that the city and treatment staff are doing to review those energy efficiencies and make improvements. And then it also takes a look at the collection system and all of our efforts that are done out there, not only from a maintenance standpoint, but also from a repair, replacement, addressing I&I. For those of you that aren't familiar, that's inflow and infiltration. It's essentially rainwater, groundwater getting into the sewer that comes to the treatment plant. And that poses a lot of issues for us at the treatment plant and in the collection system. And so all of these things are evaluated. We're graded on each of these categories. And I'm happy to report that we received a 4.0 out of four. Oftentimes, year to year, we are docked a few points for capacity from a flow standpoint. So wet years, maybe we're not receiving that high of a grade, but for the most part, we maintain a high level that way. I think it's a true testament to the staff, not only at the treatment plant, but also throughout the city. Our engineering staff that works diligently in the collection system, construction and maintenance division, they're the ones that do all of the maintenance in the collection system. our financial staff, making sure that our I's are dotted and T's are crossed and that we're in sound financial state. So I'd like to thank everybody that's involved in that process to receive a perfect score. Following that, I'd like to give a little bit of an update, some of the things that have been going on in the last year. Start with projects. Anybody that's been in Lakeside Park in the last 12 to 15 months has seen a lot of action happening at the treatment plant. That's the installation of a biosolids dryer. So we're taking our current biosolids and we're running it through a heat dryer to make a high quality product. If you've heard of Milorganite before, they sell that at Menards. It's a fertilizer from the Milwaukee treatment plant. It's very similar to the product that we're gonna be producing. We're also taking the biogas that's produced through the digestion process and we're cleaning it to natural gas quality and gonna be injecting into the pipeline and selling the gas, not only to the local utility, but also we'll be part of various markets and God willing, we'll be a revenue generator for the city. We will be able to reuse all of our gas that's produced that hasn't been something we've been able to do at the treatment plant. So it'll be great to see the return on our investments there. Some of those things regarding that project, we procured a lot of that equipment. So for me, anyway, working at the treatment plant, it gives a little false hope. You see a lot of the equipment already installed, but we are still a ways away. We're on schedule for this fall, starting up. And from that point on, hope to be operational early 2027, but we'll see how that goes over the next three or four months. We are installing a silo. So we'll have some storage for the dried product. You'll start seeing that being erected as soon as next week. It's pretty tall, so it's gonna stick out. You'll see it when you drive by, but that's gonna provide us roughly a month of storage. Currently, we don't have any storage for our material at the plant. And that helps a lot with logistics and hauling and working with contractor to remove that material from the site. Phosphorus has always been a hot topic. I'm kind of sick of talking about it. You're probably sick of hearing me talk about it. We have made a lot of improvements over the last 10 to 15 years and really ratcheting down on our phosphorus discharge to the lake. We're being told our new permits should be issued this fall. And as part of that, we're getting a lower limit. So that's where our efforts over the last 10 to 15 years have been and gonna show in meeting our future limit. Optimization at the treatment plant continues even today when we're removing 90, 95% of our phosphorus that's coming into the treatment plant. We're also working with Fond du Lac County Airport. We're doing a water quality trading program, excuse me, a project where we are taking typical agricultural crops out of production and we're planting native grasses. We also installed some grass waterways to address some erosion taking place and some gullying. Vegetation is established so when that permit is active we will be generating credits and we will be able to use those credits to offset times when we have a lot of wet weather where those phosphorus numbers may be elevated and we'll struggle to meet that at the treatment plant so we can offset some of that with those credits. And I guess I'd like to end on talking about staffing at the treatment plan in particular. I've been pretty fortunate this last year to be fully staffed for the most part. We are starting our fourth year of youth apprenticeship program through the Cooperative Educational Service Agency. So we have local juniors, seniors in high school that come for a 450 hour youth apprenticeship program at the treatment plant. This year we have one in operations and we have one working in the lab. So we're We're branching out local high schools and involving students interested in something science related, giving them that hands-on opportunity with the goal that they'll stick with our industry as a future career. This last year we were awarded the 2026 Partnership Award, which is an exceptional mentorship and guidance for youth apprenticeships, empowering them to grow and excel in their career journey. So it's kudos to my staff who are involved in mentoring those high school students and teaching them what they know. Something also unique for us this year, our first youth apprentice was from Elmira High School. Kara Coogie is her name. She is now a student at UW-Stevens Point in the wastewater program. We have hired her on this summer as our intern. So our first youth apprentice has come back for an internship. So it's pretty cool to give her that opportunity and hopefully she sticks with it. And lastly, I just want to thank my staff for all of their efforts. Day in and day out, bad weather, good weather. Having their work site disrupted tremendously with the project and still keep plugging away. So I appreciate all their efforts and thank you very much.

Great update as always, Mr. Schapke, thank you very much. Mr. Biber, I'm gonna go to you first.

I had a couple of questions. The grading for the 404 is commendable. Who does the, is it an outside organization does the grading for that or? Is that part of the system that records all that?

Yeah, DNR has a software system that has a report in it and you need to complete it with the data and information that you have for those various categories. You enter that and then it automatically scores you.

Cool. And then a couple other ones, this youth program for apprenticeships, very good. How long have you, I didn't get, how long have you guys started that?

This is our fourth year now. So first time we're going to have two youth apprenticeships.

And it's 450 hours?

It's a minimum requirement through the CESA organization in order for them to get their school credits. They need 450 hours minimum to achieve that.

And then to Chris Johnson, was that what we were talking about the other day about you're helping wastewater with the phosphorus discharge, developing plans for that? That's more of a stormwater quality. Okay, stormwater quality.

Thank you. They do have their own phosphorus TMDL like we do. So similar.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Baralt, you're next. All right.

Well, thank you so much for all of those exciting updates and also congratulations on an excellent report. I just had one question I wanted you to talk a little bit about on page 33 of the report, you talk about the biosolids and that there's a struggle to get land and landowners that wanna take it. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that and like, what are the benefits that landowners would see if they would use those biosolids?

Yeah, certainly. The issues with land is biosolids, while beneficial to the soil and a great fertilizer, it does have odors is one thing that it has. There's things that you may have seen in the media about PFAS or P-F-A-S. Those are manmade chemicals and a lot of things that people use on a daily basis, industries use. I know the EPA is working to get those chemicals out of production, but they are called forever chemicals and that is they do not degrade. And they leach off of things that we use on an everyday basis so it can end up in the water. And that's just another thing that's come to be a concern because there's nothing in conventional treatment, waste water treatment that removes that material. So if you have a lot coming in, it ends up oftentimes in your biosolids. And that's, I would say, the most fresh in people's minds that are listening to the news. And biosolids in particular is getting a bad rap that all biosolids are contaminated with this material. And while it is true for some communities, analysis, any analysis we have done to date, our levels are very low. low beyond the point of needing to do anything in the eyes of the DNR. God willing, that continues. But we will need to do more monitoring for that in our next permit, both on our effluent that goes to the lake as well as our biosolids. So we'll continue to monitor that. Wastewater treatment, wastewater, biosolids, the stigma is always there. And it is a great source of nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, some potassium. The class of material that we produce now, it's a little more difficult to deal with. You need special equipment to be able to spread it on the land, and you need a lot of acreage because of the quantity. With the drying, we are reducing the volume that we're going to produce, and it becomes a higher class in the eyes of the EPA and DNR. It's a better product. You could put it in your garden. And so the hope is that that will open up more opportunities, but You know, regardless of the better product, you're always going to have those concerns by landowners or people that want to use the material. Beyond nutrients, it's a great soil conditioner. Helps with water holding capacity. And the nutrients that are in the biosolids are slow releasing. So those nutrients don't just disappear after a year. They remain in the soil. So it does have a lot of benefits to the farmers and certainly has helped the farmer that we've worked with for a long time.

Well, thank you for all that information. Just knowing we're a big agricultural county, hopefully we can get over some of that stigma because it sounds like there's some really great benefits to it. And just knowing we've made this huge investment, it'll be exciting to see the future of what we can do with those biosolids. So thank you. And that's all I have. And I know I told you when we were walking in, too bad Mr. Mullen's not here. I'm sure he'd have some really in-depth questions for you, but that's all I had.

He knows how to get a hold of me.

Yeah, that's true. Thank you, Ms. Brough. And again, great presentation, Cody. I'm so glad that you, I really appreciate the fact that you not only did the recap, but also gave us kind of the highlights of the year in review, because we don't get to see you enough around here. So we appreciate the fact that you did that. I think it speaks volumes about your staff and the quality of the organization that you run, that you've got kids that want to come back and continue in the program. So that's, I think that's the best thing you could possibly say is that we enjoy it so much. We want to be back again for another apprenticeship opportunity. That's really cool. Thank you very much, sir. And I'm sure we'll be in touch with more biosolids updates because that's a big project. I'm sure we're going to hear more.

Yep, definitely. Thanks.

You bet. And with that, that ends that action item, which, oh, we do. Oh, I'm so sorry. We need to get you, the whole reason you were here was a motion from me. That's not even fair, Cody. I'm so sorry. Okay. Thanks, Tiffany, for the catch. I appreciate that. Now I need a motion. Who's got that on the floor? Joe does. Thank you very much. Joe caught me and so did Tiffany. Thank you both. Good save, both of you. Let's do this thing. Let's vote, please. That's a yes. All right. We are passed unanimously. Sorry for the hiccup. Thank you, Cody. All right. And with that, we'll close out of our action items tonight. Thank you again, both. And we'll move forward to the input items for this evening. And I'm gonna go ahead and move on to input item A, which is the development update, which is presented by Mr. Moore, our city manager and our director of administration as well. Mr. Moore, floor is yours. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm gonna talk about housing tonight, and I'm going to do it in a way that some of you will recognize as review and others of you will recognize as new information. And so for those of you who are getting the review, bear with me, but I wanna make sure everyone's on the same page. Also, I wanna start by saying we have great news. The point of this presentation is to deliver that great news. What's different about 2026 and housing investments compared to 2024 and 2025, we knew going into the capital improvement plan process for 2024 and for 2025, who our partners would be in creating new neighborhoods or expanding neighborhoods. For the CIP in 2026, we didn't. And so, One of the points of the great news is we have identified two partners who have agreed to move forward with us to create more housing in new neighborhoods this year. And that's what I want to talk about. I also want to share some details, as I said, in the form of a review so that everyone's on the same page. Let's go to the next slide, please. These have been established facts through our own local analysis and macro analysis as well. So we're talking about single family housing, apartments, condos, duplexes, etc. We're talking about people who own their homes, people who are tenants in their homes. One thing that I think you all know generally, perhaps intuitively, is that the price of houses in Fond du Lac has gone from what had been considered incredibly reasonable to now being considered very expensive by some people. And that's due in large part to the supply and demand imbalance. Some of you were here when we did the housing study, some of you weren't, so I'm going to Go back and review that ever so slightly so that we again all have a common operating picture about what that told us. Next please, Maggie. So we did this two years ago. Next. And I just picked off some high points to help emphasize some of our perhaps vulnerabilities in our housing market. At the end of 2023, you can see that we had a vacancy rate in our rental properties of 1.5%. You should not get below 5%. And so when you have less of something than you should have, the price starts moving upward. And that's what we've seen in Fond du Lac. So our vacancy rate for apartments is incredibly low relative to the norms. Next, please. Here we're talking about affordability. I'm not gonna go through all of these numbers. I'm just gonna summarize for you what is on the left circled in red. Our median sales price in 2023 was $220,000. What we are explaining here is that for affordability purposes, a family ought to be making about $88,000 for that to fit in their budget. And just as a review, when we talk about affordability, it's 30% of a person's gross income that's being expended on housing, and that includes utilities. When you factor that in for a $220,000 house, you'd like to see people making about $88,000 for the family. In Fond du Lac though, the median income in 2023 was about 60,000. That's the difference. So one finding was that the houses had gotten expensive to the point where the median income was not able to afford them. What we're explaining below that is we're taking the same data and talking about the price of homes. So for our median income of about $60,000, you would like to see a median sale price of about $150,000. But again, it's 220. And so those two points are showing you those imbalances and what we're trying to address in terms of affordability by increasing the supply of houses. Next, please, Maggie. The takeaway here with all these numbers is what I've outlined in red in that rectangle. So the conclusion was based on what we foresee in terms of people that will be moving here and growth in the job market, et cetera, plus the existing demand already, an anticipated need of 700 new homes for people to buy. Next, please. and 850 for people to rent. So that's a little over 1,500 residences that we identified that were lacking and that we will need over the next few years. Next, please. This was just released. There was a study done at Harvard looking at the price to income ratios around the country. And I thought this really sums up what we've experienced in the last decade or so in Fond du Lac. So you see roughly 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, the price to income ratio was about two. In other words, you made 50,000, price of a house around here would be a hundred. I'm just roughing it out. That's changed significantly. Now it's three and a half times income. And that's what you see listed there in the column under 2024. What people have really felt though is the change. You see that's almost 60%. If you look up and down that column at big cities and small, you only see one that increased more than the city of Fond du Lac, and that's in the Racine area. We were more than Chicago, more than Minneapolis, and much more than the United States in terms of where all of us were 10 years ago and where we are now. And so the people have really felt that. Next, please. So I want to talk about what I described as great news. In the southern part of the city, you see where I have placed a circle on Police Memorial Drive. We have a partner who's going to build multifamily residences there. On the northeast part of the city, you see I have a rectangle titled houses. We have a partner who's going to start building residences in an area that had been planned for a neighborhood many, many years ago, but it had not come to fruition until now. Those three other icons I've put on that have homes in them are the three projects that have been funded in the capital improvement plans of 2024 and 2025, where we're doing infrastructure. And Mr. Biber, Ms. Mayweather, what I'm talking about is we're partnering with the private sector in which the city is doing almost all of the infrastructure work, the utilities, the streets, curbs, lighting, et cetera. The hope is that that reduces the price of the development of a house, brings down the sale price of a house for people who will eventually buy it. But even more basically, it's to spur the creation of houses, to build houses. And so that's what I'm gonna talk about tonight, those two specific projects we've identified for 2026. Next, please. First one is Police Memorial Drive. This is a bird's eye view. On the right corner, that's the, you're looking down on the new Compere Financial. And on the left side, you're looking down on the edge of SSM. And Police Memorial Drive hasn't been there that long, but this piece of property in the middle of those two points I just described has a ton of potential for housing. And we finally found a partner who's willing to exploit that potential and do a project. So let's look at what that will look like. Next, please, Maggie. What I've outlined in white is phase one, and that's what Trish is gonna talk about later when we talk about money. This would be a mix of multifamily apartments and also in the upper left, a different style of housing to accommodate people's different desires. This is a really great outcome. I think that you will hear some concerns by the people who live what I would say are downstream of this property because they worry about flooding. This construction, though, will actually improve what has been a somewhat challenging circumstance with flooding on occasion because this will be an engineered solution rather than the farm field that you saw there that sometimes provides a lot of runoff without any sort of storm ponds in the area. So that's proposal number one. Phase one would build those first four buildings. Next, please. So there's a range of between 48 and 64 units that would go in the first phase. You can see what the rents are from studio to three bedrooms. And by the way, those fit nicely into the market here. that we are going to support this project with about 1.1 million, that's 275,000 per building for infrastructure, et cetera. Phase two will unfold as demand drives it. And so we will talk more about that later when we get to that point. But phase one breaks ground this year, next. Now let's move to the northeast part where you see the houses area. Next, please. On the left side of this graphic, you see the words Ducharme Parkway. There is a Ducharme Parkway that's west of 151, runs back through the neighborhood toward the high school. And on the right side of this graphic, Hunter's Court is occupied. That's a built-out neighborhood. This has been plotted for many, many years, and now Valido Homes has stepped forward and said they would like to develop this with us. And so what I've outlined in blue here is essentially the first phase, which would include about 20 houses. All the infrastructure, meaning the streets, lights, utilities, et cetera, would go in at the front end. And then that neighborhood, as demand drives it, moves from east to west. Next, please. So that's Hunter's Grove, named a long time ago. You can see some of the details with that. It would start with some spec homes to drive interest, and you can see the types of homes that would be built there and what the target sales prices are. On this one, the city would be in for about a million dollars for infrastructure, et cetera. Tricia will explain the sources for that. and then phase two, again, will be driven by demand. Next, please. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Davey, our CFO. Tricia.

All right, thank you. So to bring these projects to fruition would require a couple of things from us. The first would be to enter into developers agreements, and then the second would be to fund the public investment. On the next couple of slides, I'll go in a little bit more detail on the three sources that we have for the public investment.

Next slide.

So first up would be the first funding source would be affordable housing funds. So state statutes for TIF allow us to extend a tax increment district with council approval for one year and then place that increment that was generated into a separate affordable housing fund. The state does place some restrictions on how the funds can be spent and that we can only use it for housing. And 75% of the funds need to be spent on supporting housing development where the rent or mortgage cannot exceed 30% of the gross monthly income of the household. And then the remaining 25% can be used to improve just the general housing stock. We did start accumulating these funds in 2021 as we've been closing out different TIF districts. And we currently have a balance in that fund of $2.4 million.

Next slide.

So the second source of funds would be city share of closed TID funds. When we do close a TID district, it's very rare that the expenditures exactly match to the penny, the revenue or the increment that has been generated over the life of the TID. So there are usually some surplus funds that are left. So when the TID is closed, we're required to take those funds and distribute them back to the four different taxing jurisdictions. With the city share, we've placed ours into the capital projects fund for future projects such as this and to fund these types of things that we need. And our current balance in that fund is 800,000. And then the last item that we have was in our 2026 capital improvement plan. There was a line in the CIP for $1.1 million related to residential infill development. And then that was approved by a council as part of the 2026 budget. So those funds are all ready to go. Last slide. So this is a summary of the outcomes that we can achieve with these two fantastic development projects. We'll realize an increase in both multifamily units and single family homes, not only in the near term, but in the future. We already have the funding on hand or programmed into our capital improvement plan. So it's making us well poised to assist in facilitating these development opportunities. That concludes what we wanted to update you on. So we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you, Ms. Davey. I'll entertain questions from council at this time. I'll go to Mr. Biber first.

I've got a few questions here.

We'll start with... Am I speaking? Scoot that mic over. All right, scoot it over. There we go. Perfect.

The one down off Police Memorial Drive to start with, we do, I am very much for housing development and all, but on these here, that whole area is, what was that, what is that zone for? Was that an office park or what's the, what was the original intent of that whole area with, you've got all the, you know, Grande, you got all these other businesses, big businesses there.

Right. The development was the overriding driver for us to build that street because that was inaccessible before we built that street just a few years ago.

And initially- That's the police memorial drive.

Yeah, that's the newest street in town in terms of one created from scratch. So the overall driver was development generally, Initially, we thought it would be commercial, but it's turned out to be an opportunity to put residential there. And so a plan commission has heard that and approved that as a opportunity to build residents in that area. I think it's a good fit too, because there are so many people that work in that area. I think that those multifamily homes there will be quite in demand.

And then is any of that section eight housing or no, is all going to be? No, that's all market. Market rent.

Yeah.

And then to the development on northeast side of town. Hunter's Grove. What are we talking? Is that section eight partial that it sounded like or no? No. What's the affordable housing then part of it? Besides building smaller houses.

That's really what it is. Okay, that's what I want to make clear for me. Because we're using those terms these days. Developers are using those terms these days because it's become such a make or break part of the conversation. If they build homes, if they build big homes, they know folks can't afford them. So they need to find the right size for it to be affordable. So it's not affordable as in low income, it's affordable in the normal lingo.

I just want to make that definition.

Yeah.

And then I've seen a lot of platted for houses, then to the left of that, between that and 151, that'll be the commercial portion of it?

All houses. At some point, Ducharme Parkway will... not only be on the west side of 151, it'll be on the east side of 151 as well.

I'm just, I'm saying right along 151 is how far is, I can't see with this picture, how far is Johnson & Johnson?

Oh, gotcha. Maggie, could you roll back to that Hunter's Grove? It's that graph, yeah, right there. So, Mr. Biber, if you left that neighborhood once Ducharme is built and you turn left, meaning going south, That's probably about a three-minute drive to the ramp.

Oh, it's just a little bit the next exit up. Yeah, yeah. I got you. And along 151, they've got some weird, not weird, but, you know, different forms there that are not like lots. So what is the plans there for that front right along 151? Nothing right. Are they going to put retention ponds, or what are they going to do for that?

There'll be ponds out there, but I wouldn't even start to guess where.

I'm saying I wouldn't be against being commercial development.

Sure, sure. Yep, yep. And by the way, if any of you drive out that way, if you're going north on 151, you see there where it says Ducharme? That street's already stubbed out. You can see. Because that land has gotten so overgrown because nobody's been out there for years. That's really like the benchmark for you if you're out that way. That's where it'll be.

I know you're out now, but I just was... familiar with here, but not close to Johnson. Sure, sure. And that's not, it's going to be for affordable housing and they're just making sure on some with their incomes, what were you saying, Trace, Tricia?

So for part of the funds, if we were to use those, yeah, we'd have to make sure with the 30% requirement, but it's 30% of the individual. So if I moved out there, it would be 30% for me, it'd be 30% for you. So it would be a different target for every person that would be out there.

Right, okay. All right, thank you. Thanks for clearing that up.

Certainly. All right, thank you, Mr. Biber. Other questions from council? Not seeing any other questions. I just wanna tell you how excited that I think this is gonna be because as somebody who has been looking for a house in Fond du Lac for quite a while and who's saying to himself, it is expensive to live in this town. We're gonna do what we can to make that happen and work out better. So we're excited about the results of the housing study and some of these great things that have come to fruition. So I'd like to just very quickly recognize former council members that have been a part of that and all the planning that's gone into making this happen. over the course of the last several years. Thank you both very much.

Mr. Heisler, just the cherry on top is the city's partnering with the developer at the county campus. And so that's another 90 units. So all in what we've talked about tonight with those, we're at about 260 units that are either ongoing now or going to be started here in a couple of months. So all really, really good stuff.

Yeah, great outcomes and fantastic progress. Thank you both very much. You're welcome. With that, let's move on to our final input item for tonight, which is a draft ordinance for the Fond du Lac City-County Building Board. John, the floor is yours. All right.

Thank you, Mr. President. So back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the county and city got together and built this very building that we're in today. And After various prior governing bodies were established, the current city county building board was created in the 1980s. The board is responsible for maintaining this building and creates the annual budget for that maintenance. Currently the board has six members, and so to avoid tie votes, a seventh member would be helpful. So in conversations with the county, We believe that specifying a public member for this board would be helpful. So we drafted the ordinance for your consideration. Under this proposal, these the board would review all applications that are sent to the city and choose one person to appoint to the board. So this is just an input item. So after everyone has provided feedback, then we'll bring this back to city council at a subsequent meeting. With that, I'd entertain any questions that you might have.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that. I'm going to go to you, Mr. Zimmerman. I believe you're on that board, correct?

I am. Thank you, Mr. Heisler.

You betcha.

I just wanted to say I believe a seventh member is needed because we are in a stalemate right now with a vote and we have no way to break it. So that seventh member is needed. I also like the process that was, I got to talk to Deb earlier today that it's going to be an application process and the board is the county and the city can look and we can pick somebody and hopefully we don't get a stalemate. So all for the seventh member.

So thank you. Well said Zimmerman, thank you. Ms. Broth, floor is yours.

Thanks, that was part of what I wanted to address. So thank you, Mr. Zimmerman for pointing all that out. So my other question is about the safety building part of the draft ordinance. Cause I'm assuming the original ordinance, because we used to have the police department, I believe as part of this building and the police department is no longer here. I'm just curious, do we need that part of the ordinance or how would that work? Because it's generally just the sheriff's department that's left housed here with the sheriff's department and the jail.

That's right. Yeah. So I, from my understanding, that was just the old name of the prior iteration of the board. And so I think that would come out to get that updated.

Okay. All right. That's all I, Oh, Mr. Moore, did you have a, okay.

I was just going to add that in 82, there was a board form to manage the building of this building and all the finances. There was also the safety committee. And then wisely, the city and the county joined them together to create the city-county building board. And so some of that language is still floating around in there. And the safety committee language is that.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Ms. Brown. Mr. Biber, it's yours.

How is the seventh person going to be chosen and by who? Because you got county and city. Applications. They'll send it in, but how do they, who determines who?

It'll be appointed through the other members. So the remaining six members will decide.

Three and three, correct? Yep. Okay, that's just one. Thank you.

That's a good process for sure. And I want to thank you both for the work on that. You know, just as a reminder for everybody, you know, as city residents, we're paying 100% for that because they're paying the city portion and the county portion. So hoping that we get a really great couple of city residents that will be able to maybe apply to that board. That'd be a nice thing to do. And with that, we'll close out of that input item. And I think at this point with no other input items left, we can entertain a motion to adjourn. That took you a while, I'll take a second. Andrea's got a second, thank you. You gotta yell like he does for that. No, I'm just kidding, you're good. All right, this is not debatable, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously, great meeting everybody. Thank you very much, we're adjourned.