Council - Regular Meeting

[music] [music] [music] Gagger dead Scott, do you need to help me to tell you what's going on here? Go ahead.

Okay, welcome everyone here. We're here for the organizational meeting of the Grand City Council. We're going to start with holds of offices. [snorts] Ashley's gonna go to you. Okay, we'll go side by side. Raise your right hand, please. I do solemnly swear or affirm that I'll support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this state that I'll faithfully discharge the duties of mayor in and for the city of Grand Haven, County of Ottawa, and state of Michigan according to the best of my ability.

I will. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause] I was going to make you repeat that.

Do it one by one or all together? All together. All together now. All together. Raise your hand, please. I do solemnly swear that I will support the not support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this state and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of city council member and inform the city of Grand Haven, county of Ottawa, and state of Michigan according to the best of my ability. I will. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause] [applause] I didn't repeat.

I know. I thought that's when she was going to have you though. Now you're like, where is that on a script that we can [laughter] That's what I'm saying. I thought we That's when I was like, I better start listening. So, wait, this gives you your own private [laughter] door. Perfect. All right, we will call this meeting to order. Would you please call the role? Council member Dora here. Council member Fritz here. Council member Calio here. Council member Lion here. Mayor Manetsa

here. That brings us to our approval of the agenda. I would like a motion on the approval of the agenda and I would like to add a call to the audience which is customarily done on meetings and was not on this one. Could we get a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make that motion. I'll second. A motion by Fritz, second by Lion to approve the agenda. And if we could get a motion to amend the agenda to add a call to the audience. I'll make that motion. Okay. Second. Motion by Lion, second by Fritz to add. Call to the audience. Because this is an addition to the agenda after the fact, it takes a mo minimum of four votes to approve. You please call the role on the amendment. Where in the agenda is the call to the audience being added?

It's going to be item number 4.5. Okay. Lion, yes. Fritz, yes. Dora, yes. Calio, yes. Manza, yes. So now we need to approve the amended agenda.

Fritz, yes. Lion, yes. Calio, yes. Dora, yes. Manza,

yes. All right, that brings us to our call to the audience. Anyone who would like to address council, please come forward, give us your name and address, and uh you'll be limited to three minutes of speaking time. Good evening. It's a pleasure to see the new members of the council. Uh what I'd like to do is just talk a little bit about the uh mayor prom position that's going to be uh voted on shortly, I believe. Um it's been my opportunity uh while in Grand Haven to be members of a number of uh committees and so forth. I attend the council meetings, BLP meetings, and often the planning commission. And what I'd like to uh mention is the kind of person that I'd like to see have the uh mayor prom uh position. And I think a a key um attribute of that person would be they need to be a great listener. They need to be extremely eventempered. they need they need to be uh an expert on subject matter, have a lot of experience on it. And um I guess I'd like to say that one person I've worked with who meets all those uh attributes is Mike Dora. I've worked with him on uh when the we were doing the energy issues on Harbor Island. Uh spoken in front of uh the planning commission a number of times. watched him uh sort of heard cats on some meetings. It does an excellent job on all of it. And I urge everybody to vote for Mike for Mayor Prom. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Who else would like to address council at this time? Seeing none, we will close the call to the audience and move on. We have three items of new business this evening. Maria, would you bring those up? New business item A, consideration by city council of a resolution electing a mayor prom. Okay. So we So I need a motion to begin the process of selecting a mayor pro Tim. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Motion by Fred, second by Lion. So Marie, would you kind of recap the process here?

All right. So right now the floor is open for nominations for mayor prom. All four council members are eligible to be nominated for mayor prom. What will happen is we'll take nominations. We can have as little as one, as many as four. Once we have no more nominations, we will close the floor. If there is only one nomination, that's who will move on to be your mayor prom. If we have more than one nomination, I have paper that you can write the names on of who you would like to be mayor prom. And based off of uh the votes of those pieces of paper, that will determine who is your mayor prom.

Okay. And then following the ballot, we would need a formal motion to appoint that person. All right. Then the floor is open for nominations. Who would like to propose a nomination? I I'd like to nominate Mike Dora for uh Mayor Prom. Okay.

I would like to nominate Sarah. And are there any other nominations? Hearing none, I'll close the nominations and we will vote. Yeah, thank you. Council member Mike Dora has the most votes.

All right. Thank you. So then following this process, we would be looking for a motion to appoint Mike Dora as the mayor prom. I'd like to make a motion to appoint Mike Dora as mayor prom. Is there a second? I'll second it. Are there any questions on the motion? Please, Could you please call the role? Fritz, yes. Dora, yes. Calio, yes. Lion, yes. Manza, yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Mike Dora is appointed Mayor Protown. Brings us to our next item of business. Consideration by city council of a resolution appointing a representative to the harbor transit board. Um, we're a little less formal with this, but I guess I would open the floor for who would like to do this job. I would I'm going to put my name out there. Um,

working with the business who works with Harbor Transit very often, we've actually spoken with them about already trying to have a representative on their board. So, I think just having all the knowledge and activity that we do with them on a pretty regular basis, I'd love to continue working with them to to make that even better. Okay. Are there any other nominations? I'm good. Hearing none, I would ask for a motion to appoint airline to be our representative on the Harvard Transit Board. So, moved and I'll second it. Motion by Dora, second by Fritz. Any questions on the motion? Please call the role. Dora. Yes, Fritz. Yes, Calio. Yes, Lion. Yes, Vanetsza.

Yes. Thank you. And finally, item C, consideration by city council of a resolution appointing a representative to Nora. Uh, is anybody interested in putting their name out for this? I will. Okay. [snorts] Calio has her name in. Anyone else? Anyone else interested in doing in being nominated? I I work with them currently through another board that I'm on. So, if you want to, that's fine. Well, hearing no others, I would entertain a motion to appoint Sarah Calio. I would like to make that motion. And I'll second it.

Okay. Motion by Lion, second by Fritz. Please call the role. Lion. Yes. Fritz, yes. Calio, yes. Dora, yes. Manza, yes. Okay, then we have an item of discussion. Ashley, do you want to lead on this?

Sure. So, um, annually as part of our budget setting process, which we've reviewed with you previously, um, we do look to host a city council goals or strategy setting session, uh, in order to better understand as a staff year priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. Um, so we look to typically schedule that mid December. So, we're looking for dates this evening in order to get that on the calendar um, to feed into the setting of our line items in January. Okay. Is this a like night night day? Does it matter? Like is this going to be like an afternoon or a morning? It's the prerogative of council. Historically, it's been an evening meeting. Okay.

That seems to work better with schedules if it's in the evenings.

I think if there's availability the week of December 8th between meetings, I am not in the country. Okay. Okay. When will you be back? The 15. I'll be back for the meeting on the 15th. Okay. I'm hoping the week of the 15th. I was like, does the 17th work for everybody? Wednesday nights seem to be my most available evening. I can make that work. I usually make anything work. It don't matter. Yeah. The what what else was going on on the 17th? Historic conservation commission district meeting. Is it here

at 5:00 pm? They'll have to make room for us, won't they? [snorts] Yeah. So 12:17 is works for most people, everyone. Mhm. What time? Time? 6 p.m. 6. Got it. Okay. Okay. All right. We'll make that work. That's an important part of the process. And by that time, and you're you're going to be um publishing a ser a citizen survey again that's coming out very shortly.

Yeah, the survey will go out this week. Um and we'll have the results of that as well as a year and review short presentation prior to your setting of the goals. Um just to hopefully better inform some decision- making. So, all right, more to come. Is there any other business for this organizational meeting? If not, I will adjourn this meeting and we will reconvene at 7:30. Thank you. You know, lots of time. We have lots of time. [laughter] We did that way too fast, guys. Chitchat was I was for

Fritz here. Calio here. Lion here. Manza here. Uh we have no one to do the invocation this evening. So we will please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. [snorts] We have no appointments or reappointments this evening. So, it brings us to the approval of the consent and regular agenda. Can I get a motion?

So, moved in and I'll second it. Motion by Dora, second by Fred. Are there any changes to either the consent or regular agenda that anyone would like to make? No. Seeing none, then please call the role. Dora, yes. Fritz, yes. Lion, yes. Calio, yes. Manets,

yes. So, that brings us to the call to the audience. This is first of two opportunities. This time, members of the audience may address council on any item whether on the agenda or not. Those addressing council are asked to provide their name and address be limited to 3 minutes of speaking time. Council will hear all comments for future consideration will not have a response at this time. Those not physically present who would like to call in may dial 616-935-3203. Who would like to address council?

Good evening. Jim Hagen, 400 Lake. Um, I saw the uh strategic uh meeting date is has been discussed and so forth. One thing I'd like to see discussed during that meeting or even before is how to step up commun communications with the uh people in Grand Haven. Um, recently we changed our website. Previously we were able to have emails for everybody and have multiple recipients and attachments with any email. To me that was extraordinarily beneficial. Now the form does not have multiple recipients or you cannot attach uh you cannot u have an attachment. Uh I think there's only one department in the city that allows an attachment. Now that's public safety. I think it should be we should be able to do that. Uh you know have multiple recipients and attachments to all departments and the form should be modified. I mean, modifying a form, I've worked with forms in my past life, and they're not extraordinarily difficult. They're not that expensive if if you know, people can't do them themselves. There's plenty of people who can modify forms, and there's a bunch of thirdparty uh uh apps that you can just interface. So, I'd like to see that uh reinstituted where we can do that. And then also, I would like to uh have some kind of replacement. We got rid of Cclick Fix. I don't know if how many people used that but it was an extremely beneficial application. It allowed us to have a uh submit issues and then have a a work uh path I guess and accountability and people who submitted could see what was happening whether it was accepted rejected and uh when it was finished and uh what the resolution was. Thanks very much.

Thank you Jim. Who else would like to address council? Jason Rogers, Grand Haven Jeepfest. Um, just here tonight to answer any questions. A lot of changes we're proposing this year, so just wanted to be available to answer any of that stuff this evening. Um, and thank especially Aaron. Um, Jeepfest wouldn't exist without Aaron. Um, she was instrumental in getting it started and so we're very grateful for her help and looking forward to how she continues to help in her new role for us. So, and I know um Mitch Newberger is here from the uh uh advocacy center as well and wanted to share a few things.

Thank you. Hello. Um well, thank you Jason and Jasmine and uh Grant Haven Jeepfest and this council. Uh I obviously hope this moves forward for the sake of the Children's Advocacy Center. Can I appro Can I give am I allowed to approach? if you have something you could you could give it to the clerk and they would give you they'll just be distributed to us so you guys can see those and keep those.

Um so I'm Mitch I'm with the Children's Advocacy Center of Ottawa County and we serve all Ottawa County including obviously Grand Haven and I just wanted to share a little bit about uh what we're doing, what we're up to um and how much we rely on community support especially from from fundraisers like Jeepfest. So uh about one by the time of their 18th birthday about one in 10 children will be sexually abused. Um we exist because of this reality. Uh we started about 25 years ago uh to address this through intervention and it has now expanded to prevention as well. Um just last year we reached 19,000 kids in almost all Ottawa County area uh elementary schools. Just three there were three small schools that did not participate in our prevention program. Uh and we served about 750 victims of abuse at our center in Holland. Um when abuse is reported, we build a team around uh the child, including law enforcement, child protective services, doctors, therapists, advocates, and prosecuting attorneys. Um and we're with the kid uh every every step of their journey. So, we are sort of an intersection of healing and justice at the Children's Advocacy Center. Um about half of our operating budget does come from private donations. Uh I mentioned, Jeepfest is a big part of that. uh and looking forward, we want to continue to expand beyond elementary school prevention. There is a big need in middle school and high school, especially with the uh increased technology. So, I just want to share a little bit about the Children's Advocacy Center. Thank you for your support and um yeah, we appreciate it.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Who Who else would like to address council? We have no public hearings this evening. There will be another opportunity to address councel at the end of the meeting. I would like to point out that we had two meetings ago we had a public hearing on the uh commercial rehabilitation act exemption certificate. We're not taking public input on that tonight unless somebody wants to speak during the call to the audience. Seeing no one coming forward, I'm going to close the call to the audience. That brings us to our presentation. Shandi Poppy.

Hi there. Shondi Poppy, executive director with DDA. Thanks for having me this evening. Um, uh, for those of you I that are new, um, we have what is called a principal shopping district assessment in the downtown develop.

That assessment's been in place since 2011, um, with a timeline for us to do a renewal every 5 years. So the renewal is coming up for us to um start that process now um for it to take place in fiscal 20126 July 1st. Um so tonight is our first presentation to give you kind of just some background information and some information on what we've decided at the DDA. Um this will be the first of six meetings that I will be attending to go through this process between now and February. Two of those meetings will include some public hearings um for the district and the parcels that are in the district. Um we're still finalizing some details of um what that looks like. Uh we've done it um in the past obviously back in 2021. Um but we're making sure that we've got all of the details so that you guys that we do what is right um in the next uh five steps. So, I don't have all the answers if you have questions about that, but I wanted to give you a quick um presentation on what this is and what it looks like moving forward for us. There we go. So, the Downtown Development Authority and Grand Haven Main Street is actually three organizations in one. Our board oversees the downtown development authority which was started in 1975, the accredited main street program which was um established in 2005 and then the principal shopping district assessment which was established in 2011. All three of those are overseen by the board because they all reside in the same district boundaries of the downtown. This is an outline of each of our neighborhoods in that DDA. The highlighted gray um parcels are

commercial properties that pay into um the principal shopping district. As you can see, we have very limited funds to operate our organization. $45,000 of the DDA comes from our 2.0 millillage, which with Headley has been reduced to 1.5778 on a base value of 28 million. Um that will not change for us until our TIFF bond is paid off in 2035. So that will remain steady or continue to decrease with Headley. Um and then our PSD funds that come in currently from all property owners um is roughly 95,000. And then any additional funds that we is through fund development and fundraising efforts like wineabout winter is one of our um fundraising events that we do. We currently use all of our principal shopping district funds um for the activities of Main Street committees. We do not use it for staffing or um you know like our office rent and things like that. So these activities directly affect the businesses that pay into the PSD. So, it's events and event marketing, marketing and advertising and um public relations, public spaces and beautifification um including the flowers, the banners, um holiday lighting. Um we have a fund reserve that we set aside a little bit every year just in case we have at the beginning of the five years, we take in a lot more in the PSD funds um due to property transfers and things like that and um billing situations. um more so than what we take at the end of the five years. So that fund reserve is just to make sure it balances out and we can still have that money um year after year. Um and then we have we pay for administrative services that we we hire the city to do our accounting, our

HR um and a variety of other services, our IT, things like that. If we were to hire it out to um private firms, it would cons be considerably higher for us. So we we love working with the city in this capacity, but those fees are also paid through principal shopping district funds. So you can see kind of the breakdown. The majority of what we use um is for marketing and marketing and special events. So special events really is um falls under the same category. So we're advertising our businesses. when we have events, people come downtown or visit our businesses um in the downtown area and we use most of our funds for those those uh activities. The Grand Haven Main Street DDA board um has gone through we've spent several months um doing a lot of uh research and looking into how we can increase our funds. We've also had a considerable amount of inflation cost that we are looking into to find more sustainable practices so we can lower those costs but until we can make some changes in the downtown our cost to operate are a little bit higher than um normal and that's changed dramatically in the last three years. Just the cost of flowers in the downtown has gone up um double in three years time. um we are looking at ways that we can make that a more sustainable practice, but until we've finalized that plan, we we will continue to do flowers. Hopefully, this will be the last year, but um until then, we've we've got some increased cost. So, we um the DDA voted and approved um this this month to request a 2 penny increase on all square footage for the entire DDA district. Um so each area c our core properties center town noncore and our

service areas um to accommodate those increases that would give us roughly um $20,000 more in operating expenses for the activities that directly affect the businesses that will be charged. So that looks like an average increase of $67 per twostory building. So it's it's maybe 34 33 $34 on a business owner per year for the next 5 years. So not dramatic um increase for them, but it's a dramatic increase for us to use collectively. Um so this is a proposed breakdown um of where we would spend that money. uh the only added um we've added a couple um thousand to each category but we added a new category. So under the main street um model we have four committees we have promotions organization recruitment and retention preservation in place. So, organization um promotions and preservation in place have all received funds to um kind of take care of the activities that they do. So, events, marketing, branding, and beautifification. Um, but we've added $4,000 to um, org and recruitment and tenment, excuse me, recruitment and retention so that we can fund the activities that we would like to do there as well, including business education. Um, including the activities and the things that we're doing down in the first block. Um, as you guys know, kids night has been very successful in the first block and we've um, not really had the funds from our PSD to support that. So this would help us to support that. Also in 2011 when this was

initially passed a portion of the administrative fees were used for administrative assistant. Since then all of that money has come out of fundraising to um have an administrative assistant. We have not had an administrative assistant since 2020. And I would love to have an assistant. Um, we've got a lot of big projects that are coming to downtown and coming to the district and we I think we can just do a lot more for our businesses if we have that. So, we've kind of allocated um a portion of some of these funds to pay for a portion of an administrative assistance salary. Um, there this is not final. Um, this is a very fluid budget. the budget. It's been done in the past where it seems like it seems very rigid, but it's really not. It as times change and it's can change considerably since 2020, we can look at this budget every year in February and March and change it as needed um with some flexibility in where we need to focus um so that we're best serving the businesses in our in our district. So, this is just a proposed um look at how we're going to accommodate or break down um that those funds when they come in, but we'll probably finalize where these funds go and what we budget for come February. And as you can see, it's very similar, but it's um a little bit more even on the administrative side than it is on the marketing side. And we again, we can change that if we need to. This is what the budget looked like. I know this is very small print for those in the audience or those at home, but um this was what was budgeted um for the fund use since 2011. Um it's kind of hard to break down where it's actually

been spent, but the reality is is that it's almost it almost lines up ident identically with how it was budgeted um over the years. So, the DDA has been very responsible in how they've spent that money and making sure that they're spending it where they're asked to spend it. Um, you know, we've we have a new website. We didn't do that in 2021, but we did do it in 2023. Um, and those funds were used there. We've we've consistently spent in marketing. Marketing has changed a lot. You may know this. A lot of people used to market in print and a variety of other things. Now, digital advertising is very popular. So, we've got some adjustments to make. Um, so we're no longer doing TV uh advertising, but we are getting people on the radio and doing um things like Main Street Spotlight every Thursday on WGHN and a variety of other different things. So, it's very flexible in how we spend it, but we've been consistent in where we spend it. So we spend it in our advertising, we spend it on our events, we spend it um you know in our in our uh landscaping and beautifification. We also spend it um in our administrative expenses. So um this helps support events uh for our downtown. A lot of these events unfortunately no longer happen, but we're consistently trying to find new events that draw traffic to the downtown. We've had some really great things that have happened over the years. Wine About Winter is one of our most successful events. Sidewalk Sales is our typically our highest sales event for our retailers, surprisingly. Um I think a lot of people think Christmas is, but it's it's actually sidewalk sales. Bones about town is a new event that for us that's been very successful. And then first block events like um yoga in the morning. Um we've also done a lot of work on um beautifification in the district. We

have pollinator pocket gardens along um Franklin Avenue. Uh we have new banners that distinguish each neighborhood and their areas. This came with our new branding that we um received from National Main Street. We are working on our flower beds. We've been able to support historic preservation for events um for like the the celebration of 100th anniversary of Cold Tipple. Um and then we along with grants and a donation um we were able to get new holiday lighting for downtown and then our continued success of the banner program to hang banners throughout the community. We have new branding like I said that we received from National Main Street, but we've been able to use it to really establish um a lot of programs that we have and do the advertising that we've um been working on. So, we have our new tote club days. We've been giving out totes for many years, but now we can attach this to an event. Um, and everybody's walking around with tote clubs that have our name on it. Um, new cornhole boards for the first block that we were able to um secure with, uh, you know, to advertise our district. Um, and then a variety of different advertising that we've done in um, magazines, um, and digital advertising online. So, thank you so much for letting me present to you tonight. If you have any questions, I'm happy to take on some questions.

Anyone have any questions or comments for Shandi? I have a couple person that was on the committee, so I probably should have less. Um, how has the response been so far from the DD? We have not um we met with the downtown um uh merchants group. We also met with the center town um group and we've had no negative feedback whatsoever. There has been um some people want to know more about where we're going to spend that. Like I said, we will talk more budget items and and maybe change those allocations come February. Um but there's been no negative feedback about the two penny increase whatsoever. I have not heard a thing. So

that's great. It's good to have the support. Um, something else came up and I can't remember if it was at the meeting last time or just in a conversation. Is there a way to update our documentation so that like when the hotel is done when projects like Peerless are done, they actually get roped in before the next 5-year period is happens so that we don't so the PSD can grow quicker than waiting for the, you know, cuz the hotel is going to be done in 27. The next PSD won't happen till 2031.

Yes. So, we we've worked really hard. Um Dana and I have actually met with the assessors, the county assessor's office. Um she's um double checked with the city attorney um to figure out how to do that. So between 21 and now we we've had some properties that were missed. So, moving forward, we know part of the public hearing or the six-step process is that you will approve the role um which is all the parcels and all of the properties that are going to be current for the 26 um renewal of this. So, in 27, uh, what we'll probably have to do is every time there's a new property or a new development that increases the square footage, we will have to come to city council and approve those properties to be added to the role. So, there would just be a public hearing for those properties. So, you won't be reapproving the entire district, you won't be reapproving the entire role, you'll just be reapproving those those properties. And we'll do a public hearing for those properties. and we probably come just once a year um to do that.

I'm glad that's being worked on. I think that will really help the district in the long run. Yeah. And we haven't really had a lot of new properties um prior to the 2021 renewal. Um so 21 was, you know, this five years has been a learning curve, I think, for the DDA just in general. But now that we've figured it out and we know, um we're trying to ask the right questions and make sure that we get that information. But we think we think that's that's how it's going to go. Great. I mean, with with the hotel here, the growth and center town that's going to be coming, that's that's exciting and hopefully it'll be a good benefit. Yeah. To the DDA. Absolutely. Anything else? No. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you um for the presentation and everything that you've been doing to get this up and going and including everyone. So, appreciate it. Thanks. I just want to say thank you Shanti. Um what you at first when I first came in in 2011 I think it was I was kind of hesitant back then but after [snorts] seeing what has been going on and how it's prospered and made the downtown a little bit more vibrant and in all our shopping districts and what you've done to them and make it so much better. It's definitely been a big asset for us

and seeing what you have done and what the plans go even bigger and better is even better yet for me I like to see. So I want to say thank you for all your hard work and for thank you for the presentation and I'm I'm pretty much in support of just got to see where the numbers come out and how you do it. But that's good. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. Yeah. Of course, I sit on the DDA board, so I've been watching the process and like Mike, I was here in 2011 and for every renewal since. Um, as far as the uh the two cent increase and future properties coming along, one of the things about the 5-year period was the stability that it offered that doing this every 5 years, you could kind of set your budgets and figure things out in advance and that it helped. But then and for 10 of those 15 years, there was very little growth in the downtown. So it was fine. Um but this isn't responsive to inflation because it's based on square footage rather than property value. Yes.

So asking for a bump in the rate is there's only two ways that the income from the PSD can grow. One is through larger buildings and the other is through bump the rate and it's a small bump and I don't think that'll be a big burden. Obviously everybody has burdens and that it's never welcome but it be put to good use. The other piece and and you know I appreciate Aaron bringing this up was about um what do you do about new properties coming along, right?

Yeah, I think we'd be hesitant to completely reopen the role and start this process and do it all over again every couple of years. Probably you lose the stability and it would it would draw a lot more questions. But if we can do it building by building maybe once a year look at where we're at and just add them to the role because otherwise the assessment role is static. you you adopt it for its term. It doesn't change no matter what. A building burns down, they still get assessed. New building gets built, they don't. It's it's just it is what it is. So, that's kind of the way it was designed to be. But having the flexibility, but since we're now in a growing stage in our downtown, it'll be it'll be helpful going forward. And hopefully as new development comes online, we won't need another bump in rates in the future, but we'll see what it looks like. We've had a lot of inflation the past two or three years and this clearly hasn't kept up and even your regular 2 mil which is now 1.6 mil

that declines every year by one or 2% because of Headley and there again it can't grow because you're tied into a baseline value. So we're very limited locally in how we raise funds. This is one of those ways we can do it for the uh for the DDA and we all want a healthy vibrant downtown, right?

So good work. I appreciate all that. Um and I think that uh you know the process will continue from here. I think the next step is for the um city manager to order a survey and study and then we'll have to ask for then we'll have a public hearing and then we'll tell her to proceed and get an assessment assessment role. There are five steps beyond this and every time we do an assessment we have the same five steps they're in. For those interested they're in chapter 10 of the charter. Yeah. It's all spelled out. So, well, thank you for your presentation, for the thoroughess of it, for everything you're doing at the DDA. Thank you. And I think that things are looking good. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Any other comments or questions? Okay. Thank you. So, there was no action for us this evening. It was just the presentation. That brings us to our consent agenda. Marie, would you please read that?

Item A, approve the bill's memo in the amount of 1,217,58.11. Item B, approve the 2026 city council meeting schedule. Item C, authorize the city manager to submit a Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program Grant application in the amount of $60,000, provide matching funds in the amount of $60,000 to be reimbursed by the Grand Haven Lighthouse Conservancy, and authorize expenditures in the amount of at least $120,000 for inner lighthouse improvements. And item D, approve the itemized bid proposal from Wagner Enterprise of Troy, Michigan to refurbish and realign the interior surface of five fiberglass chemical storage tanks at the Northwest Ottawa Water Systems Water Filtration Plant in the budgeted not to exceed amount of 157,52268.

Okay. Can I get a motion on the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Fritz, second by Calio. Uh any any comments or questions on any item here? We actually got uh to see the tanks they were going to refurbish when Eric gave us a tour of the water treatment plant. Okay. You're finally refurbishing. Yep. That's the water we drink, isn't [laughter] it? Yes, it is. Good work on that. I noticed there are no minutes in the consent agenda. Will they be coming at our next meeting? Okay. All right. Can you call the role, please? Fritz, yes. Calio, yes. Dora, yes. Lion, yes. Manza,

yes. Brings us to our first item of new business. Would you please read that? Item A, consideration by city council of a resolution to approve a commercial rehabilitation act exemption certificate at 1445 Columbus Street, parcel number 70-03-21-477-017 with the legal description of lots 2223 and 24 CO LS add pursuant to public act 210 of 2005 as amended. The Brownfield/EDC board recommends approval and administration recommends approval. Can I get a motion on this? So moved.

Second. Motion by Fred, second by Dora. Um Dana, would you like to bring us up to date on this?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. Um, so before you is a second part in a multi-step process to potentially approve an uh rehabilitation exemption certificate for property at 1445 Columbus on the east side of the city. Uh we have a developer that is looking to uh remove um two existing buildings and construct a multi-story building with 45 residential units um housing units of mix of studios, one and twobedroom apartments. Um they we held a public hearing in October to consider the abatement request um for this project and uh we had no comments at that time. Um but during that discussion there were some questions from city council that we then uh ensured we followed up on. Um one of those uh was related to the budget. Uh we did have a third-party reviewer look at the project uh leading up to that public hearing process and they had indicated that while there was uh a but for need uh exemplified in that project meaning that the incentive was indeed um looked at as necessary in order for uh the project to be viable, financially viable. Um they wanted us to take another look at ensuring that we had a tailor budget budget for this particular project. Um so we did follow up with the developer. Uh we ensured that what they had submitted uh aligned with the actual budget of the project. Uh we were able to verify uh that information and so we're bringing it back to you for consideration. Um also uh the initial certificate request was for a 10-year abatement request. Um but uh based on communications with the developer and plant Moran and the EDC and BRA board that abatement uh will actually be instead you should be considering it for eight years um with an estimate of uh roughly $638,000.

Um but I should note that as an estimate um the taxes would be frozen for that u potentially that 8-year period. Um and we don't know over the lifespan of that exactly what that total amount will be. But again, I just want to clarify that that's uh for an 8-year term. Um, I do want to highlight and I highlighted in the memo that the project does meet our economic incentive policy in a number of ways, including our master plan goals to broaden housing options across all price points um for our residents throughout the city and significantly redeveloping or revitalizing an underused site. Um this is an exciting project for the east side of the city and um we do have the developer here this evening. Peter Olazuk is here if uh city council has any additional questions for the developer.

All right. Thank you. Peter, would you like to make a comment? Congratulations to the new members. Uh I do not obviously this has kind of been a a process that's almost spanned a year at this point in time based off a site plan and kind of where we started. So I appreciate your time. Obviously all the help from the city and the staff uh plant Moran obviously did a very thorough audit of everything on this project. So um obviously hopefully this is uh successful this evening and we can kick this thing off and get rolling and ideally get it done in 2027 spring. So here to answer any questions you might have or give you a puzzled look if needed. So Okay. Well, make yourself available then. I certainly can. Thank you very much.

All right. Um, I guess I open up to the floor for council. Who would like to go first?

Jumping in at once. Jump right in. So, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about my concerns about tax abatements for projects that don't include more uh let's call it workforcepriced housing. Um I think that you just mentioned Dana that

we are looking at that this fits one of the requirements that we're looking for in our economic development as far as having different pricing. Um but really it's functioning within a lot of the apartments that we currently have. Um I'm a little confused I think on the budget part of it. So the budget that we still received in the packet is based on the plant Moran um description and saying that this seems like a but for um consideration. However, it's based on a different geographic location and a different budget.

I can clarify that. So, so in the plant uh Moran report, excuse me. Um yes, uh they did include a note saying this was a comp basically project was and I'm summarizing or paraphrasing um that they would ask us to go back and make sure that we get final draft budget numbers from the project from the developer. and we did receive those. So, it was put in the packet within line with the exemption request, but it was dated um October 22nd. So, that was an updated budget from what Plant Moran saw. Those numbers did align with what Plant Moran saw. And when we spoke, staff spoke with Plant Moran previously, they did indicate that given the experience of the developer that they're a builder, that they didn't anticipate really the numbers to change. But because it was a cotton project, they encouraged us to make sure that we had something that was um looked at again and that was specific to this project. And so that's what the developers resubmitted to us which did align with what was in the report. So there wasn't a change which plant did indicate that they didn't expect really much of a change if any at all um just given the experience of the developer and the project.

Okay. And again my concern is is that I guess when we are asking for you know tax abatements and my first question is always what value does this bring to the city? Um I'm very concerned that if we don't find you know if not this project when if the if not this property what property will be ones that would be more workforce cost aligned. Um the city is very limited in its property. Um and the pricing of this is I think what I what I saw was is it $1,400 for a studio up to $1,900 for twobedroom. Um that seems cost prohibitive for a lot of the people that we're considering, you know, that need need housing. So, and I it's a double-edged sword because first of all, I absolutely say, you know, when you're doing a business, ask for anything because you should. It's our job as city officials to understand how that fits in with our larger scope. So, I there is no there is no issue with me with [clears throat] you asking for um a tax abatement. I just think that if we are not really diligent about looking for other ways to um be able to develop in this town without giving away proceeds from an additional tax base, particularly when we just asked the people of the city to um to approve and and they generously did a 2 mil uh for our public safety. I think I think it's a big ask. The other part of it is is that because you're a developer

who's knowledgeable and has done many projects, I'm assuming that you wouldn't roll the dice on this to say this is the only way this is feasible. Um I I would love to have seen if there was other more creative options besides asking for a tax abatement, particularly to get to a $1,900 two-bedroom. So,

if I might just real quick, just to give a little bit of clarity on kind of your affordability or attainability in Ottawa County, 80% AMI uh is actually 1,500 bucks uh almost 1,500 bucks a month in rent. So, to to say it's not actually like the objective of attainable housing, I don't think that's a fair and safe assessment based off of what Ottawa Countyy's metrics are in today's day and age. So, just wanted to provide some clarity there. completely appreciate your opinion, but just to kind of provide some context in regards to cost of living uh relative to kind of the county. So,

and I very much appreciate that and I was looking at the housing next um document that we were all at that meeting and I and I really do believe that we are all trying to figure out this very complex problem. This is not unique to this city. This is not unique to this municipality. Um, and there is a huge need for the $1,200 and under properties. And um, that is all all through Idaho County.

And when we see that there just isn't hitting that price point in this this area, my very big concern is if not this property, what? Um, and so that's that's my my big concerns with this this item. Okay. Who else?

Um I I supported this presentation in housing at the planning commission level. Thought it was an excellent idea. Um we all are well aware that entry level housing in Grand Haven basically doesn't exist or work for um it it is just not here. um every time something comes on the market, it goes for thousands and thousands of dollars more uh than sometimes even the listing price. Um so I I looked at this as a way to kind of make up for a lack of some of that. Um the hesitation that I had somewhat similar to yours, uh it's great to have your taxes frozen for 10 years or eight years in this particular case. However, the city doesn't get to freeze their expenses or their employees wages or any of the associated costs with doing business as a city for the next 8 to 10 years. So, as our costs increase and this tax stays the same, pretty soon you have a huge void that the money has to come from somewhere. Um, that's our job, I guess, to figure out where it's going to come from. But, um, I would hate to lose a project like this, um, because of that. So, I'm going to support it. um this time around and I just I'm hesitant to support a lot of these because like I said the money to make up the difference has to come from someplace. So there doesn't seem to be another vehicle of which we could use at the present moment. I don't believe.

Yeah. I'd like to reiterate what both of you guys have said and I sat down with Pete last week and talked and I mean one of the things I first said was when this when this project very first came before planning when it came before everybody we were talking about workforce housing and and the hope that that's what this would be. Um I I don't know how people can afford rent in our town right now. Um it's really really hard. Um, and I am one of those people, as that's been brought up before, that is I'm bar I mean, I work for a nonprofit, right? I'm not bringing home a lot of money. I'm one of those people that needs this a this available. Um, and you probably wouldn't think that. So, I I'm very much wanting um opportunities for for lower rent housing in our community. Um, I also am super excited to see something like this come to the east side. Super excited to see

more housing come to the east side. Um, and within walking distance of a lot of great places. Um, I love that. Uh, so I'm I'm excited for the project. I I wish we could work toward um some some way workforce housing in this community. And I think we need to continue to push that. Um, and Mike, like like you said, that the costs don't stop. No.

Um, I mean, when planning commission was going through this, when we were talking about this, was was six years looked at? I mean, did we ask plant Maran to do any other review to say if we add six years instead of eight, would that change things um drastically in the review? We didn't in the review. No. I'm good. You're good. Mike,

you're right. Housing is uh a very difficult situation in Grand Heaven. I've seen that people buy houses in my neighborhood for 300 and some thousand dollars to tear it down and build another house for at least 700 to a million dollars. So, it's it's atrocious. But the thing is trying to get uh housing that's affordable. I grew up in the north end of town down here and my parents I tell you what they they scrapped for everything they got and u housing I think my dad paid $11,000 for his house back in 1950 something and so but it's still you go out there now buy a house that you think would go for 150 200,000 and all of a sudden you're out bidded it's $350,000 the little house next door to me. It just went for over $300,000. It's It's a small little house. I mean, it's small. Housing in Grand Haven is very difficult. You can't it I think having a a complex with more housing over on the east side and bringing in more people over there and making it more vibrant. I think it's a good idea. I'm I'm I'm going to support this. But that's one of the tools that they have to use to get to the point where they can make it viable. Otherwise, if you went on there without any support, it your rent would be even higher yet. I would because cost of materials, everything is really high today. So, um I'm in favor of it, but you're right. Money's got to come somewhere. And I'd like to see the east end. I'd like to see it be a little bit more vibrant. I'd like to see some more people there. And if we take the opportunity to do that for we're not going to change the values of our property here. I mean face it we live in a very unique area

that our property values are very stable back when we had a downturn. I think we were only second place in the state that didn't really have a big major. The only place that was better than us was Traverse City. So, it tells us something that we're in a very unique area and to get housing is affordable. We need to reach out to our neighbors, Spring Lake, Granven Township, the ones who have all these large mass areas that they can afford to put in some smaller stuff. You know, they can put that in there so people can live here and and enjoy it. But it's very difficult right now. Cost everything is so expensive. So, but I'm going to move forward with this. I'm going to say yes to it.

All right. And uh of course Mike and I sit on the EDC board. So we looked at this in early October. This is when we realized that it really is an 8-year request, not 10. So if we go forward with this, we'll have to amend this to specify the eight years because it's not in this motion. But it is important. Um it's in the nature of incentives that we look at a project decide whether or not this project will do good for the city whether it's worth the city participating in in any way and we look for this but for condition that's we have plant man do the analysis and say well if without the incentive it's unlikely to proceed without the incentive getting financing would be tough it would be expensive to build and it either wouldn't happen or wouldn't happen within the parameters that we think and in order to preserve the the proposal as has made to us the incentive becomes important in fact it becomes a qualifying condition for for it to move forward that's the idea behind the plant maran study is to identify whether or not we would be we whether or not there's a very high likelihood that project would fall through and nothing would happen there. If nothing happens there, then of course the taxes remain exactly where they are now. And even though our costs go up, there's no extra money to be made on taxes. With the frozen taxes for 8 years, it doesn't go down, but it doesn't go up and the demand for services is higher. But at the end of that 8 years, it suddenly jumps. Suddenly all that value goes on the tax roll. And so by being patient for that to come forward, then we do get we do realize that. And we've seen this happen a few times where incentives have rolled off from properties and we've suddenly seen income from that uh increased income that had been abated is suddenly in full force. So eventually it does pay for itself. In the meantime, yes, there's less money coming in than than

might have been, but not less than we're getting today. So that's the gamble you take is that if you think that building housing of any sort is worth doing um here's a project and if you think that better to let it potentially not happen then you don't do the incentive. Um my experience with housing a couple of things. One is that I've always been told that we need housing at all these price points and that by having it at all price points that helps to preserve some of the affordability of some of the existing stock because now there's more housing to go around and so some of the people who might be in housing which is cheaper now is less likely to inflate rapidly because there's more availability. That's part of the supply demand of housing. It's not going to be workforce housing per se. It'll be market rate. market rate on the east end is lower than market rate here in the downtown area. So there's a difference in what market rate means depending on location. So I think that um the project has a lot of merit to the city. It does meet some of our goals as far as promoting housing within the city and promote some vitality on the east end of town, which is something we've also been looking for for a while now. Uh, as far as the larger question of what do we do about housing in this town, it's a big question. It's something we've been grappling with for years. This particular project isn't it isn't the answer to that. It's just the answer to some housing would be added to the city. It wouldn't be necessarily targeted to any particular group other than whoever can afford this. years ago, we had a neighborhood housing services department and we let that go and that helped people stay in their homes and that helped people get grants and helped people get repairs and got them counseling on how to do budgets and such. And we cultivated that over several years and that helped about a thousand people stay in their homes in

this town and we let that go. Maybe we ought to take another look at how do we do those kinds of services whether it's ourselves or in partnership with others. So there's other things we can do with housing. the uh the Grand Haven Community Land Trust was formed to build the Robinson Landing development down by the airport that built housing which is uh portion of it is at least nominally work force. It's aimed at that 80% AMI and that is because we retain ownership of the land and sell the structure. The structure they can buy for less because they aren't buying the land. They didn't develop it. It's it's a basic housing. Nothing fancy, but we were able to fill those. We had 16 houses like that for sale. We got 200 applications for them. And so the the need is tremendous for that housing. This project isn't that either. Um I think that if we want to pursue projects like that, we need to look around and study that and find a way to do it. I think what this project does is it it helps supplement the housing stock generally, not an affordable level, but I think by having more demand or more supply, it kind of meets some of that demand and it helps to preserve housing more or less where it is. And I think just having more on the east end of town would be beneficial to that part of town. And I think it would replace some land which is currently underutilized. And what would happen if this doesn't get built? I don't know. it's private property. They'd have to figure something else out. Maybe they come forward with a different, more creative project. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe be waiting for a long time and then just get another incentive request. Personally, I think this is the kind of thing that incentives are intended to do to um enable someone to cover some of their costs. They don't receive benefit from this unless they create value. We never with an abatement, we never collect taxes and turn them back. We just don't collect them in the first place. we just collect on the base value. So it's all

it's entirely up to them to create their own benefit here. The estimated benefit is based on the project going forward and having the value that's estimated. The city doesn't write them a check for anything. That's kind of the way it is. Yes, we will forego some income. We will get a project which isn't specifically workforce housing, but is housing. And I think that we have a local builder, a local developer who is experienced working in this market who has done good work in the past. So for those reasons, I lean toward this. I understand you can't do this forever. There are limits within our in incentive policy as to how how many of these we would grant, how far we go with this uh before the city is really committing itself to a point that it's a problem as far as income. We aren't there yet. Some of our other income has grown either because the property values going up or because of other properties coming off from incentives. Not a lot of that has happened, but some has and that will continue to happen over time. So where does the money come from? Some of it comes from those things. Some of the past investments that have been made start to pay off. So in the course of the next eight years, some of that will happen. Some of it will just be inflationary. Some of it will be waiting for the money. in the long run. I think if you'll play the long game here, this is the right thing to do. So, that's why I look at it. I was asked by one of our constituents to verify that this project will not include short-term rentals. They're not allowed in this district. It wasn't part of the approval. It's not on the table and wouldn't be unless zoning drastically changed. So, that's something that we would not be subsidizing. It would be long-term rentals. I think that covers everything I wanted to say about this. I would open it up to any further comments that anyone would like to make. If anyone would like to ask more questions, uh, we can do that. Or if anything else from staff that we

need to hear, any other thoughts? Good. We will need to amend this motion to specify this for an 8-year abatement. So I'd entertain a motion to amend the main motion. So moved in and second. Okay. Motion by Dora, second by Lion. I'm not sure who I heard first, but sound travels at a certain fixed rate. You're closer. Closer. So it came to this year [laughter] quicker. Probably louder, too.

Probably. Uh to amend the main motion to add the 8-year term. Is there anything else before we do that we need to add to this motion? Not that I'm aware of. No. Okay. There's no possibility of adding any kind of caps to this benefit because it really is just foregoing taxes based on whatever value it happens to achieve. Correct. There's not a mechanism for doing that. There is um as we have done through with council before with t tax increment financing but not with an abatement. Okay. So, we need to vote on this amendment. Would you please call the role? Dura. Yes. Lion, yes. Calio, yes. Fritz,

yes. Manuta, yes. Are there any further questions on the main motion? Anyone? Please call the role. Fritz, yes. Dora, yes. Calio, no. Lion, yes. Manza, yes. This motion passes. Thank you. All right. Make us proud. Next item, please.

Item B, consideration by city council of a resolution to approve the relocation and expansion of the Grand Haven Jeep Fest event to be hosted at Harbor Island on August 14th and 15, 2026, and to host a kickoff party downtown on August 13, 2026. The parks and recreation board me recommends approval and administration recommends approval. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. Motion by Fritz, second by Lion. Um Brian, you going to explain this one?

Yes, sir. Good evening, city council. Welcome new members. Brian Dro, waterfront events manager. Haven Jeepfest has been a consistently growing event here in town and continues to bring in larger crowds due to downtown limitations and the unavailability of Chinook Pier moving forward. Jeepfest organizers and city city staff were pressed to find a new home for the expanding festival. After many meetings and effort from both sides, Jeepfest is requesting a week-long rental of Harbor Island to allow for setup two days of festival and a very thorough cleanup. The selected festival dates are Friday, August 14th and Saturday, August 15th. These dates were selected for scheduling with other festivals along with the seasonal stability stability of the ground at Harbor Island among others. The festival will be in the green space of Harbor Island where Feast of the Strawberry Moon is held and then also where the soccer fields were once set up. New to Harbor Island will be the constructed obstacle course on the gravel lot, which is overflow lot two. uh expanded vendor and display areas, organized parking, food trucks, and evening concerts using the city's showmobile. Uh one of the main considerations uh GFEST had with the public works department was restoration of Harbor Island after the festival. Um GFEST was has been a really great partner so far in committing to getting that place back to the way it was when they found it, just like all of our events. Um several of their key sponsors are excavation and landscaping companies and between them and our public works departments. Uh we're very confident we'll get that back to exactly how it was beforehand. Uh Jeepfest is also requesting approval for a Thursday night kickoff party downtown on Washington Avenue from third street. Uh the event event remains a nonprofit and will again raise funds for the Children's Advocacy Center of Ottawa

County. This expansion, relocation is a large logistical undertaking and will not be possible without the great efforts and input from city staff, public works, public safety, the MSDA, and Jeepfest organizers. Uh Jason of the Jeepest is present tonight and will help me answer any questions you may have. All right, questions, comments. All right. What's the kickoff on Thursday look like? That's very [clears throat] So when we first instituted a kickoff party two years ago, um [clears throat] it was the fastest thing we ever sold out.

Um traditionally in less than 24 hours. Um initially it was held at um where was the first one?

Lucy's. Um and then last year it was at an event center 707. Um and the desire has always been from people. We need more space. We we all want to come to that. The fact that we draw people from largely outside of this area. They want to be able to do things outside of just whatever we offer on a particular day. Um, but also to to limit it to one restaurant is always hard, too, because who do you favor? Well, that's you don't want to do that. Um, so it seemed like it would be reasonable if the streets were already going to be closed the next two days. And talking with public safety, they were like, "Well, we'd rather set it up at 5:00 p.m. the day before than at 5:00 a.m. on Friday." um it creates a captive audience for that area. It's already a social district and now instead of favoring one particular entity or one restaurant, everyone on Washington benefits because all the attendees can go to anyone they want or multiples during those two or three hours. um they can go to all the different stores that evening as opposed to just maybe visiting them for a few minutes while they're here for Jeep Fest. So um that was kind of the thought process behind it. Um because we're always looking for ways to benefit more people, more businesses, more thing. How can we drive more people to spend money here? Um, and all those loces are locally owned. It's not an Applebee's or anything like that. Um, so that was really the goal and we don't we didn't ever want to leave the downtown area, but it's just not big enough. It's just that's a good problem to have. Um, but

we still want to keep the attachment some way somehow. So, I I appreciate you being so cognizant and to um with moving it to Harbor Island that there probably will be a few less people coming downtown. Even though with the number of people that are probably expected, that may not be true. Um we might be lucky enough to have way more people downtown. Um with this increased, you know, number of spectators and people participating, will Jeeps be set up on that day or will it just be pedestrians? Um, so you'll still have to pay to come to it. Um, and the parking spots will be for people who pay to attend. Okay.

Um, so it will still be full of jeeps on Thursday night.

Um, and to respond to your hopefully people still come downtown, we are working with Harbor Transit to offer free shuttle service during the event on Friday and Saturday to everyone who parks out there. We still want them to come downtown. We still will have our scavenger hunt that involves all the businesses downtown and we want them to stay at our event obviously, but not to have to pay for a ride. Just every half hour, Harbor Transit's going to be here. Hop on, go downtown, do your scavenger hunt, shop, do all those things that are going to be available and then come back and spend more money with us. So hopefully it still moves people to to visit those areas and allow us to in turn. I mean we have to cap it at at 300 350 Jeeps that can register. Obviously more come because I think it was two years ago we exceeded well over 10,000 people that came 15,000 people that came but out there we can put 900 or a thousand a day on on Harbor Island. So exponential growth hopefully.

I'm really excited and I appreciate all the thought you've put into it to still include the downtown and the rest of the city as a scavenger hunt too. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate your um enthusiasm and willingness to come back again this year. Yeah. And hopefully for many years to come. Yeah. Um I'm sure the DDA appreciates you spreading the wealth, so to say, around the entire downtown area instead of just picking one individual place. Um and I also support that very much as well. So, thank you for your time and your efforts and look forward to seeing you down there and possibly again next year. Thank you. comment. Well,

I just want to say thank you. I tell you what, it turned out what a great event we had last year. My grandkids went down there and had such a great time watching them jump over all the obstacle course, I call it. Even watching the Jeeps get stuck on top up there and have to pull them down. They were just ecstatic to watch them do that. So, I'm glad to see you come back and I'm also looking forward to hoping that people will come downtown and do it's it's a good event. So, thank you so very much. Anything?

Just thank you. I think it's an exceptional event for our city and I I really like the Harbor Transit portion of that. I think that's very smart. Um I apologize for not knowing this, but I'm assuming that it's still a Is it a free event then to attend on Harbor Islands? Yes and no. Okay. Um, so if you want to park on Harbor Island, um, you have to register your Jeep. Okay.

And we are Jeep exclusive. We do discriminate. Um, so you can't have like a Chevy Blazer or Ford Bronco. We just don't allow it. Um, [laughter] um, so that you do have to pay to do that. Now, if you live in the community or you hear about it and you want to come, you can walk into it 100%. You can find another place where Harbor Transit stops and hop on and ride down there. Um, you know, I obviously there's not a ton of public parking close to um the island and so we recognize that maybe that we won't have as many people that just hear about it last minute and like want to check it out. Um, we hope that because it's year five, the people that are coming are coming because they want to, not because they don't know about it. Um, and we are going to, you know, work to find ways that people can get down there as opposed to if they don't want to park. Um, because we do know there's a lot of like families that bring their kids there and and do and we want them to. There's lots of things for for families to do. Um, and we're going to continue to brainstorm how can we do that? um and allow, you know, as opposed to there's no plate, you know, you you could come down and park here. But I do know two years ago that literally every public parking was full of nothing but jeeps anyway. So we figured, well, at least now we can charge all 900 or a,000 of them as opposed to just 300 of them. So even though there was free parking downtown, I don't think a lot of people were getting it that day just to check it out. It was the people that ran out of time to pay to get in and as it turned out they kind of came for free. So we want to kind of avoid that.

Well, and as far as spectators go, if if they wanted to be part of the Harbor Transit Circle, anybody can get on Harbor Transit. Yeah. Dropped off. Yeah. So, our loop, if people want to get onto it, they'll have to get onto it from Harbor Island. Okay. So it's primarily what we're paying for is so a bus holds 30 people and the way it's been explained to me is people from Jeepfest would be already be down there. That's who's there. They want to go get on they are given like a wristband or a handstamp or something that says they're good for the day and now they can ride that all day.

Okay. Now, if you were somebody who lived anywhere else in town and you wanted to ride Harbor Transit down there, you're now paying to get on Harbor Transit somewhere else and get dropped off there. Okay. They're picking up our people, bringing them downtown, and if you want to get a ride back, you're somebody that already has the wristband that we've negotiated with Harbor Transit to pay for people that are attending our event. So, so I guess that would be the the consideration, you know, as you're planning too is, you know, how much traffic was more spectator just happened to be downtown participating in it and what what loss would that be for the event and for the people that just enjoyed

just Yeah. looking at it too? Um, it's I mean, obviously that's hard to quantify because we don't there's not like a touch point with every single person. maybe just more consideration of of, you know, if there is a possibility for additional parking out there, even if it's paid or or whatever. I think people enjoyed, you know, to your point about your grandkids, I think we enjoyed just Yeah. having it be a part of our city. So, yeah. Well, you can buy a Jeep. That helps. It helps the American economy, too. They're they're built right into [laughter] nonsense. Is there a consideration to pass some of those out to the people on Thursday night that'll be down there for the pre the you know the welcome party

to ride Harbor Transit the wristbands for the next day. That's something I'm like would have to talk to like Harbor Transit about like they were like gung-ho. They're like put us down. We want to do it. We do it for other events. This is what we charge. You know it's very affordable for us to pay for that. Um, and it was kind of like as we get closer, let's nail down h how we actually do it. Um, they had suggestions of how they' done it for other things, but they're like, you know, if this is your first time doing this, this is we may do it this year and say we could have done better by doing it this way next year. So, I'm open to any and all suggestions they have because it's something we've never offered. So,

well, I'll look forward to talking to them on Wednesday night at our first meeting.

Absolutely. [laughter] Okay. And thank you. Uh Jason, I know you and I talked a bit after your last Jeep Fest and you floated the idea of using Harbor Island and we talked about how do we get people back and forth and sounds like you've taken that to heart and followed up with a u a method of doing that which is relatively painless. Um, so I think that's good. And no question, Jeep Fest outgrew the areas that were available to a downtown and by [clears throat] this by that time next year, Shook Pier won't be available. It should be a construction site. And so, um, moving to Harbor Island gives you plenty of room. Um, it looks like you're going to be taking up the overflow parking lots out there and basically all those areas. Uh, so yeah, getting out there either be on foot or by bus or have somebody drive you out there. So I understand all that. I think it's good good creative. It's a way to way to pivot from a growing event that's outgrown the spaces it had, but still brings a lot of value to the community. I do have a question for either you or for Brian. Are there waiverss uh fee waivers being entertained or proposed as part of this? They would fall under the same waiver we give Feast of the Strawberry Moon. Um, I want to say it's Yeah, they'd be getting the same rate, which is 10% of the total days and then the uh nonprofit deduction.

Okay. They would be eligible for that, mayor. So that's up to a $500 discount on nonprofit and they have historically been granted that $500 rebate. So I would anticipate that's what the request. So the $500 be based on a a resident or a nonprofit. Correct. Or a resident which is a res or a nonprofit. Both either or um is qualifi can qualify for it. Quite often that'll be mentioned in the motion about whether or not there are waiverss being requested. That way we know that that's part of our motion. So, we'll just understand that it is.

Yeah. But I think that this is good. I think it's been a good festival. I like the fact you moved it to August. I think that'll be not you, but Jason, I'm looking at you talking to Jason. Um, I think that that'll be a that'll be a good transition also. So, and I do like as as Aaron said, I like the fact that you're keeping downtown as part of it because I think that was pretty critical piece of this festival from the city's perspective. All right. Any other questions? Anyone please call the roll. Fritz? Yes. Lion? Yes. Calio? Yes. Dora? Yes. Vanetsza?

Yes. Thank you. Next item, please. Item C, consideration by city council of a resolution to approve the expansion of the Winterfest event to include a fireworks presentation on Saturday, January 24th, 2026 from Lynn Sherwood Waterfront Stadium. The Parks and Recreation Board recommends approval and administration recommends approval. Okay. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. Motion by Fred, second by Lion. Um, Brian,

uh, Winterfest has submitted a recurring special event application for 2026. The festival will run January 22nd through January 25th with the main activities on Saturday, January 24th. As in previous years, the event will utilize Mulligan's Hollow and the Harbor Front parking lot. For 2026, there are a few notable updates. Mulligan's Hollow will feature a dog sled demonstrations, replacing the longtime family dog pull, and it will continue to host the ever popular cardboard sled race. The Harbor Front lot will again host the bonfire bash and freeze-forall snow volleyball requiring closure closure from Friday morning through Sunday evening. The layout, fencing, ID checks, and snow placement follow established procedures that have worked well in previous years. This year marks Winterfest's 50th anniversary, which the festival plans to celebrate with a fireworks display at Waterfront Stadium on Saturday night. Um, the show will use the same footprint as the New Year's Eve's fireworks show. Uh, Pyro Technica will be launching the fireworks, the same company that does the Coast Guard Festival, Fourth of July, and New Year's. Uh, they are a great partner to work with and have fulfilled all legal and safety requirements. The addition of the fireworks show is a large enough change to the event to where city council approval will be needed. Uh Kevin with Winterfest is present tonight to help me answer any questions you might have.

All right. Thank you, Brian. Kevin, did you want to jump in and say something before we ask? Well, you know I do. Of course. [laughter] Thanks, Brian. But yeah, it's 50 years, right? So, let's let's let's shoot out some fireworks, [laughter] right? So, that's the that's the big change this year. Uh otherwise, it's really just a moment. I just want to say 50 years. Yeah.

For like a a non identity event, right? Like every town has the identity event, right? Ours is Coast Guard. Other places it's tulips or blueberries or flannel or whatever, right? But this is an offseason non-identity event. And we've made it happen as a community for 50 years, right? That's pretty sweet. I was at the library today looking at old uh uh Grand Haven Trabune articles, right? Pulling up stuff from 50 years ago. And it really was just a group of people in the community getting together and saying, "Hey, let's get out together and do something in the middle of winter." And we've been able to keep that vibe going this whole time, right? And a big part of that is really the partnership we have with the city, right? Not just you guys voting yes, but really more about the, you know, DPW, DPS, right? The administration year after year after year, right? You see them out there putting barricades and hanging signs when it's 19 below zero out there. And then you see them out there, you know, roasting hot dogs at the bonfire bash the next day or whatnot, right? And it's all and that's really what it's always been, right? By the community, for the community, right? And it is it's, you know, and we're uh we're still [clears throat] doing it. So, thank you.

All right. Thanks. Questions and comments.

I just want to say, hey, Kevin, it's been 22 years since I've been here, and each time I've always enjoyed Winterfest. I don't care. It is such a great event in the middle of winter. brings out our whole community comes out. I mean, it's not it's expanded out outside. I see a lot of friends are coming back just for Winterfest now. Just like they come back for now, they're coming here for Winterfest. The cardboard boat cardboard races down the hill. If if that's not a a hit, I don't know what else is, man. It's just crazy out there. All the people that are there having a good time and watching them crash at the end. So, but it's a great event. I'm so happy to have something in the middle of winter and I'm glad that you

still doing it. Thank you so very much for all your hard work cuz you've dedicated a long time on here. So, thank you so very much bringing an event like that to Grand Heaven and I I appreciate it so very much, especially in the winter time. Yeah. Come out to the sled build on Friday. Make your sled. We'll shove you down the hill. [laughter] Perfect.

I got out of cardboard in my shop. I just want to say thanks Kevin and Cara and you guys both taking the reigns on this in the last few years you mostly and just for keeping it interesting too for changing things up now and then and finding what is new and viable and fun and different for us to you know I I appreciate that in an event. I know you don't think it has an identity but it is probably my favorite weekend of the year. Um and I do everything I can to not miss it. We had friends plan 40th birthdays two years in a row on Winterfest and I said if you do this again I'm just not celebrating your birthday. So um don't ever want to miss one if I don't have to. Um it really is such a great time. Um and I just appreciate working with you over the years on in some of these new things that are coming and I can't wait.

Awesome. Thanks. We talk a lot about a 365 day town and how do we do how do we make that this place and this is a huge part of that and so thank you for all your effort and time and and I love a good fireworks show so [laughter] absolutely why not right everybody go for it why not I appreciate as much agree with all the other council members Kevin great job we go every year you know it's kind of like going to Berlin Raceway in the summer. No one goes to see who wins the car races. Everybody goes to see who's going to crash. So the cardboard sled races are just as great. [laughter]

Okay. You're not allowed to talk to the insurance company. [laughter] Appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. No, everybody loves fireworks. So it's great addition and uh nothing [snorts] need a lot of additions but you know and again you know keeping it fresh, keeping it new and adding things. That's why it's lasted 50 years. If it was the same thing every year, it would have died a long time ago. So, very good. And it comes at a time of year when we're looking for something to do. We all are. That's why we do it. That's why we do it. And and and since you're following the model of the New Year's Eve celebration, we kind of know how that works, too. So, I just told them it had to be a little bigger. A little bigger. Okay. [laughter] Well, then we got we got we got a competition going.

Couple more fireworks. 5,0001. [laughter] We'll be back with a budget amendment [laughter] and and yeah, I think that uh it's all good and appreciate everything that you do and a lot of volunteer work, a lot of work putting on any event, whether it's this Jeepfest or any of the others. People don't appreciate how much behind the-scenes work is go goes into it, how many people are involved, how hard it is to pull all the pieces together from city staff to the volunteers to everything. And the people just go there for a good time and they get it. So, [snorts] good work. It's awesome. So, thank you. Great. Any other comments or questions? Please call the role. Fritz, yes. Lion, yes. Dora, yes.

Calio, yes. Manza, yes. Last item, please. Item D, consideration by city council of a resolution to approve the fiscal year 202526 fee schedule amendment 2 effective January 1, 2026 through June 30, 2026. Administration recommends approval. Can I get a motion on this? A motion. Second. Motion by Calio, second by Fritz. Um, actually, you want to explain what the fee adjustment is? Sure. or should we can make Emily stand up? [laughter]

I can spare Emily and she can uh cover any gaps if needed. But um so there are a just a few different fees within our fee schedule that we look to bring to you for consideration outside of our budget process because they tend to be more seasonal in nature. Um so that allows us a more or just an adequate amount of time to communicate that to our users um in a more timely fashion so they know what to expect and anticipate. Um so the the amendment to the fee schedule that's before you this evening is uh in two parts. One um to the airport hanger rental fees. Um so that includes our typical annual increase. Um but however we also um were notified that we are not permitted uh due to federal grant regulations and requirements to have a resident and non-resident rental rate. Um so we are looking to just model the non-resident fee. Um and as I said with that small annual increase included uh or reflected in that as well. Um and then the second piece to the amendment of the fee schedule is removing the trolley rental services uh as we no longer offer offer those in house.

Okay. So the trolleys are gone. Yeah. We were down to the one remaining recycled trolley and it we came to a point where it wasn't uh passing inspections through the state and the cost to repair the trolley exceeded any ROI that we would see from rental fees. Okay. Any comments or questions? Is the um airport board typically involved in in this rate setting or no? I I don't believe they have they did discuss this at the airport board meeting that they were not allowed to have two rates. The regulation was brought forward by the airport.

Airport board meeting pointed out to us that [clears throat] they had to unify the rates into a single rate as far as where the rate is. I don't know if the airport board set that or if our airport board manager was involved or if it was city hall staff. Um, Emily may be able to chime in, but I believe that was a recommendation by city staff. Okay. Emily Green, finance director. Actually, that recommendation comes from Tom Mandershide, the airport manager. Okay. He's our airport or his title manager or leazison. What is his title now? Director, coordinator, wise man. Coordinator. Extraordinaire. Extraordinary. Extraordinary.

Extraordinary. Those the the fee increases generally come from Tom during the budget um okay during the budget season. How do our fees compare to others around us? Moskegan, Holland, other airports of our size. I think Tom Tom looks at that when he's when he puts together the fee schedule. Okay, great. So we will of course we'll get another look at this in the budget process, but this would take effect now. Correct. Correct. And then we don't want to ask we don't want to ask people to push the trolley so we're going to stop using them. Yeah, ideally. Okay. [laughter] [snorts] Other comments, questions.

It's called the roll. Calio, yes. Fritz, yes. Dora, yes. Lion, yes. Manza, yes. That concludes our new business for the evening. That brings us to report by city council. Well, at this point in time, each council member can make report, make comment, anything you want to say. I like to go first. I usually do anyways, but I'll start. You often do, but [laughter] but not always.

There's no Tigers to talk about right now except for school did win the Sai Young Award, so that's a good thing. But also, I want to say u I welcome all my new members here tonight. I really appreciate it. I'm looking forward to looking having a good year or a couple years actually be together. So that's going to be a great time. So I'm looking forward to it and thank you so very much for stepping up and being a part of the the city and donating your time because it's a lot of a lot of work it comes involved and you'll see that as you go along. But it comes and goes, but there's times we all have good times then you know sometimes you're going to be uh but you know what? When you leave here, leave it here. Don't take it home. That's what my whole thing is that no matter what happens behind this desk when you walk out that door, you're still the same person. Just go out there and just enjoy yourself. But thank you for stepping up and being here, all of you. I really appreciate it. I'm the only one that didn't have to get sworn in tonight. So, [laughter] it's kind of a strange event. So, but yeah, it was good though. I'm looking forward to it. I'm happy to see all these smiley faces. It's really good to see. So, [snorts] have a great time.

Looking forward to it. Thank you, Mike. Any comments? Anything you like to say? Yeah, thank you. Glad to be here. Um, excited to see what we can do in the next few years. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Eron. I'm also super glad to be here. Um, I want to say congratulations to our girls rugby team for winning states. Um, I played rugby at Grand Valley for a few semesters and loved every minute of it and I'm just very proud of what they've accomplished in a short time of that team existing. So, just really really proud. Um, and also very excited about light night on Friday. I just can't believe we're here already. Oh, wow.

I can't like that. Kicks off the holiday season for me and just it feels like it snuck up. Time flies when you're having fun. Yeah. No, I I'm glad to be back. I want to thank all the residents put their support behind, you know, coming up with a council that uh I think we can work together and do great some great things in the next couple years for me, four years for you. Um glad to be part of it and look forward to working with everyone and getting out of business.

I want to say too, welcome everyone. It's exciting to me. We have a good balance board. We have all different perspectives, all different ways of thinking and different approaches to problems and that makes us stronger. So, I think that's going to be great going forward. Um, and I think that we u off to a good start tonight. And I'm always open to comments and criticisms. If anybody says, "Hey, you missed something here." Don't be afraid to speak up. sing.

The only other thing I wanted to mention, um, our own Larry Burns sent me a sent me an email recently about u a big tree nomination that he made on behalf of the city for the big elm tree down here on Washington, the giant elm tree. It turns out that he has he had folks come out. I think this is from uh I'm not sure what organization this is, but it's a statewide thing. and um some some botanical group that track tracks big trees and apparently there's a competition for this so people turn these things in. We asked somebody come out and measure our big elm tree one down here. In fact, we recently treated it to try to forall it getting Dutch elm disease trying to make sure we take care of it. Turns out that it's 110 ft tall, 162 in in girth, 97 ft crown spread on crown spread on it. It scores in the It scores as the 12th largest elm tree in the state of Michigan.

Wow. And it's they they only published the top 10, but they said if a couple of those other ones die, then we'll be in the top 10. So, I think that's pretty special. And the fact that we we treasure our trees, we spend money to maintain our trees, and then we happen to have one that's done that well for a species that is so threatened. And um that's something to be really proud of. And I appreciate Larry bringing this up and putting this up for this kind of recognition and um I think that's just really special. So great work. Well, thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Can I say one more thing? Sure.

In this past week, uh we've had a uh a sewer accident, shall I say, over here on the corner on Franklin and Fifth Street. And I'll tell you what, our DPW, them guys really dug in. I took a video of them when they were out there working there. They're actually working. Of course, how did this all happen? As I always been complaining about is these metronet and all these internet companies coming in and drilling in and hitting things. They drilled into our sewer pipe is what they did. So, what they explained to me was, yeah, they did that and what happened was it failed. It's a 18 inch sewer pipe and it destroyed it. But I'll tell you what, our guys stepped up to the cause and they got it done overnight. They stuck right through there. Someone were there for many hours working on it, getting it done. So, I tell you what, I got kudos all to those guys for working so hard. Thank you so very much.

Okay.

Have um one more and maybe better suited for the organizational meeting. I'm not quite sure um what all that's going to detail. Uh but several years ago we had a charter uh amendment to dissolve our uh board of light and power. The citizens of Grand Haven voted on a rather large scale to keep our board of light and power. Um previous to that charter amendment in the two years I was on council, we had sort of regular meetings between joint meetings between city council and the BLP. Um, [clears throat] in light of the last um vote two years ago where the the city has pretty much said in its residents that we want to keep our BLP, uh, I would kind of like to see um, this council and the BLP get some joint meetings at some point in time if my other council members are favorable to that uh, and meeting with them and and kind of getting on the same page and maybe supporting some of the things that they are doing for us as well because I don't think there will be anybody who will disagree when it comes to having our our lights on and our power supplied on a pretty steady basis. They're pretty top of the line. So, um just something I want to add in. We can look forward to maybe having some joint meetings with them. That would be great.

Yeah. And um you know, Ashley has been in communication with Rob Shelley and I've been in communication with Mike uh Westbrook Westbrook. I want to call him Wescott for some reason. um about setting up meetings, getting people together. We just matter of coordinating schedules. But yeah, I think there's a lot of interest on having that level of communication again. So, we can we can be working on that is I think it's an important one. Thank you. Y anything from city manager?

Um I'll just bring up also just super briefly because late night came up and it's also very hard to believe that we won't be convening before this as well. Um but the East End Association is putting on their own holiday family fun crawl and treeing at park um which has been an annual event but with a little bit more flare this year. Um that's Saturday, November 29th from 2 to 6. Um so encourage people to come check that out as well as late night. So that's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. Well, [snorts] that brings us to our second call to the audience. So, at this time, members of the comm members of the audience may address council on any item, whether on the agenda or not. Please give your name and address. You're limited to 3 minutes of speaking time. Council will hear all comments for future consideration. Will not have response at this time. You may call in at 616-9353203. Who'd like to address council now? Nobody's running forward. Okay, we're going to close the calls to the audience. If there's no further business, then we were are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Bob.

Thanks. So, for you new guys, was this this seemed to flow pretty well. This pretty comfortable as far as how we do things here. I mean, I generally I really do like the pillow though, so I don't know if I [laughter] want to give it back to I didn't say a word if I were I mean, I'll tell her that I'm keeping it. I just, you know, it's