City Commission - Regular Meeting

call this meeting of the City Commission to order a couple of logistical points. We are live on YouTube and not on Facebook, so sorry about that, but we are now four minutes out. And we also do not, unfortunately, have an interpreter today. So having called us to order, we like to start our meetings with a moment of silence. And today I specifically want to note the passing of one of our long-serving public servants, Deputy Fire Chief Eric Freeman, who passed. And so if you can remember him in the moment of silence. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of 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.

City Clerk, if you could call a roll. Commissioner Belichick? Here. Commissioner Perdue? This moves us to our first opportunity to address the Commission on items that are on the agenda so if there's anyone who wants to do that

Please come up to the microphone, identify yourself, and you have three minutes to address us on agenda.

Mayor, before you do that, just for clarification, you said Facebook was down for this meeting, also for public safety as well?

No, so Facebook is down for this meeting because of the transition from public safety to this meeting.

Okay, thank you.

So just YouTube is live right now.

Thank you.

Hello, friends. Mark from Grand Rapids. Fiscal Committee, number six, the resolution authorizing the Grammarly Police Department recruit class 2605 to attend Grammarly State University for a cost of a little over $102,000. I could care less about the funding. I want to know who would be these recruits. Did they do any background checks for these said recruits? That's the very important thing to me. I don't have, I don't be having a situation like a couple of weeks ago down in Citadona, Mississippi, where one year old boy was unalive by police and alleged shoplifting at a Walmart. It's not good. That's why I want these individuals to have these background checks that they're going to be part of this force. So we have incidents like this not happening here in Grand Rapids. So you better think about this. Because we know that that culture tramples everything in law enforcement. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, I'll move us on to approval of last meeting's minutes. Can I have a motion? So moved. Support. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. That brings us to positions and communications.

First one is communications. I'm timing myself. Hold on. Muscle memory is off from a few weeks off. All right. First one, a communication received from Suzanne Schultz regarding the Park School Agreement. Received and filed. Communication received from Melissa Jekyll regarding a FOIA appeal. Received and filed. 26th communication received regarding excessive noise from the Accresure Amphitheater. Received and filed. Communication received requesting a pre-permit property tax assessment estimate policy. Received and filed. Communication received from Stacy McKinney expressing her concerns regarding the closure of Market Avenue to accommodate amphitheater events. Received and filed. Communication received from Zachary McGraw regarding the Lake Eastbrook area. Received and filed. Communication received from Dr. Jose A. Flores expressing opposition to the Cesar E. Chavez Avenue name erasure. Received and filed. Seven communications received urging the City Commission to approve a To approve improvements to Kalamazoo Avenue. Save and file. Communication received from Jessica Smith regarding a vacancy on the Mobile GR Commission. Refer to Committee on Appointments. Communication received from Heather Roosevelt on behalf of the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association requesting that the City Commission consider restoring the street name to Granville Avenue from Cesar E. Chavez Avenue. Received and filed. Communication received from Trinity McFadden urging the City Commissioner to reject any contracts or expansion of flock automated license plate reader surveillance in the City of Grand Rapids. Received and filed. Petition received from the residents of Shawmont Hills neighborhood objecting to the proposed townhouse development at 2457th Street Northwest. Received and filed. Communication received from Bruce Falwell, expressing strong opposition to the city's continued partnership with Flock Safety and the Grand Rapids Police Department's use of automated license plate reader cameras. Received and filed. Communication received from Brock and Laura Painter, expressing opposition to the proposed development at 2457th Street Northwest.

Received and filed. That brings us to report.

Mayor, before you go on, we do have a city employee who's capable of interpreting. I'll ask Ms... Lily Beth Perez can come make her services known.

Awesome. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lily Beth Henao, and I'm the interpreter for this meeting. If you need interpretation services in Spanish, please let us know. Good afternoon. My name is Lily Beth Henao. I will be the interpreter today. If you need interpretation services in Spanish, please let us know. Thank you.

Thank you so much. That brings us to report of city officers.

Mr. Clerk. A comptroller's warrant report for the period of June 2, 2026 through June 30, 2026 in the amount of $75,304,785.09 in the monthly travel and small claims report. Received and filed. Treasurer's report for the period of June 3, 2026 through July 7, 2026. Received and filed. And report from city clerk on the first ward city commission vacancy. Do you want to address this briefly? Yeah, so my communication to you is that gives you a little background of the process that we went through or that you went through when Commissioner Robbins resigned, kind of gave a recap of the meetings that we had between the Committee of Appointments, the City Commission meeting, the multiple votes that were held, and that... Unless I hear from a majority of the commission to bring this back, we're going to leave it where it is. And then also you have some options. If we stay in this pattern until November, you can look at who was the top vote getter. If you want to appoint that person early or have them wait until January, that's your prerogative vote. I serve at your pleasure. So when I hear from a majority of you on that, there was another question that came up from the community about an abstention that happened in one of the votes. The city attorney and I talked about it as well. So the abstention was not an absence from the meeting. So the vote, whether it was 3-2 or 3-3, there were still needed four votes in order for it to pass. So the abstention did not change the quorum of the commission at that time. If somebody had left the room and we had a different quorum, that would have been a different story, but that is not what happened. So four votes were needed to pass it on. So I hope that clarifies some questions that we've been hearing from the community, and that's where we stand at this moment.

Thank you. Received and filed. This brings us next to our consent agenda. These are items which either passed unanimously and that... didn't get removed from consent for any other reason by any commissioner for further discussion or deliberation. Can I have a motion?

So moved.

All in favor of passing the consent agenda say aye. Aye. Motion carries. That brings us to items removed from consent and the first we have is a resolution for joint use facilities maintenance and programming agreement between the City of Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Public Schools. Can I have a motion? Commissioner Perdue.

Thank you. Would you like me to go forward and you add afterwards? Sure, okay, sounds good. So this is a resolution approving the joint use of facilities maintenance and programming agreement between the City of Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Public Schools. This was originally up for a vote this morning at the Community Development Committee. However, the committee members had not seen the specific language and changes within the contract agreement and did not feel comfortable voting, so we postponed it to Cal. Since then, that language has been available to every commissioner and the mayor, and we are ready to move forward and vote. A little bit about this, that we've been in an agreement with the public school system since the 1950s to really work together to manage both of our facilities in ways that benefit the public, including the shared use and maintenance of parks, fields and buildings. So this agreement that would be approved includes some key modifications in this iteration around clarifying purchase rights to specify that each party has a right of first offer over the property of the other covered by the agreement and includes more operational information about how to actually execute that right. Other modifications include lengthening the timeline for certain actions, update current processes and operating practices, and thoroughly to clarify certain terms around capital improvements made by one party on the other party's property.

And I'll add to that a couple things. One is that this contemplates a couple renewal options. These are three-year periods with renewals. And the second is that, as is the case with most documents like this, there's language that contemplates that our city manager cooperating with the school superintendent could make modifications to this on an ongoing basis as long as it didn't violate the overall intent of the document, which is a fairly standard thing. But it does mean that this is to some extent a living document.

But Ms. Behrens, I don't know if... And I will add that the school board already approved this on their end.

Good point. So this is pending our approval. If we change any language here, we're playing a game of ping pong and sending it back to them so they can consider our changes. But Ms. Behrens, I don't know if there's anything you want to add.

No, I think that covered it. Happy to answer any questions that anyone may have on the current agreement.

And I was glad to see language. I thought it was well drafted. I didn't have any concerns. But any other comments, colleagues? Commissioner?

Yeah, I just want to say thank you to our committee who really discussed this briefly. I'm glad we got the wording in front of us. And I just wanted to lift up here for all of us that of particular note is the – Point number 10, right of first offer on the properties and the discussion around that. I do feel like this contract is much more well-worded and robust than the previous version, so I want to say thanks for that. And I would love to just have the city manager, or as we go forward, to discuss with us how that first right of refusal would be handled and who's the final decision-making on that. Is that something that would come before the commission? because there's an intent of 30 days, intent of notice that has to be given in writing if we do decide something down the road.

So thank you for the question. So the first right of The first right of offer is no longer refusal. I think first it would be an administratively with some notice between the superintendent's office and my office. And if either one of us had interests of property that we knew that was going to be disposed of, we would let each other's know and get either confirmation or support from the respective governing body. But I do want to clarify, it goes both ways. So if there are properties that we are considering disposing of, we too should also notice them to see if they have any interest in acquisition.

The only other thing I'll say in macro terms, and I know that everyone on commission knows this, and probably most folks in the community at this point, the schools have been very open about their intention to dispose of a number of properties. And while the school board, of course, has the right and is engaged in their planning on how they do that, unlike the schools, we have... an entire department that works on development and brings things to this body all the time. And so I think that the opportunity to do some real development work in the city is I think there's a real unique opportunity in the next near term, but that also will probably involve us having the money to do it. It's tough to do things without money, and our new land bank is, I think, designed exactly to do this kind of work should it get funding from the Affordable Housing Fund. It'll then be in a position potentially to acquire some of these properties and then put the great minds on our staff at work on meeting all the objectives that we all share on really getting affordable housing in town, making sure that there's home ownership opportunities in town, And I think, frankly, also addressing green space issues, housing for families, which will help our school system, we hope. But there are all kinds of possibilities on the horizon. And I think it's frankly kind of exciting that we've done the work to get ourselves ready to engage in this space. So I think having this agreement in place is critical to us moving to the next step, really partnering with the schools thoughtfully on how we can do development that'll make our community better. Great, any further, if seeing no further discussion, thank you for taking that off consent, whoever did, because I think that was certainly something that was worth elevating to the level of community hearing I mean I assume there are more people watch this than watch our committee meetings maybe I'm wrong but thanks to whoever took that off consent that being said we now need to have a resolution so can I have a did I get a motion already okay then we need to vote all in favor the resolution say aye aye motion carries that brings us into ordinances the first is an ordinance for I need a motion for immediate consideration before I even do the... So moved. Okay, great. Motion for immediate consideration. Moved and supported. This is a water supply revenue bond request. Commissioner Knight?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. So on May 12th, the City Commission approved the publication of...

Hold on a second. Did we get a vote on the... On immediate effect?

No, don't think we did.

Immediate consideration. Did that vote first?

No. Okay. Does that need a voice or roll call? Okay. Okay. All in favor of immediate consideration, say aye.

Aye. Aye. No need a motion to approve the ordinance.

So moved. Support. Great. Now to you, Commissioner Knight.

Okay. Once again. On May 12, 2026, the City Commission approved the publication of a 45-day notice of intent regarding the potential issuance of one or more series of water supply system improvement junior lien bonds in an amount not to exceed $21.5 million. The notice of intent was published in the Grand Rapids Press. On Sunday, May 17, 2026, the 45-day referendum period expired on July 1st. 2026 and no position for referendum was filed. This includes system improvements and related components and public infrastructure directly affected by these improvements which include replacement of various aging water main infrastructure under Oakwood Avenue, Valley Avenue, Berkshire Street, Wealthy Street, Jefferson Avenue, Butterworth Street, Buchanan Avenue, Milbank Street and Plymouth Avenue within the city in accordance with regulatory requirements. the replacement of water services comprised of leaded material, and the restoration of streets, right-of-ways, and easements affected by the improvements. In addition to funds for the improvements, proceeds from the bonds will be used to pay costs associated with the issuance of the bonds.

Thank you. This is a roll call vote. Seeing any discussion, colleagues? Seeing none. Commissioner Belichick?

Yes.

Commissioner Kilgore? Yes. Commissioner Esassi? Yes. Commissioner Perdue? Yes. Commissioner Knight? Yes.

Mayor LeGrand? Yes. Can I have a motion for immediate effect? So moved.

Support.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Brings us to our next item, which is a budget amendment. Can I have a motion? So moved. Support. Commissioner Esassi?

Thank you, Mayor. This is, as you noted, the Ordinance Amending Section 1 of the budget ordinance. There are seven items today. First is the enhanced support for city commission. So this is an appropriation of $60,000 that was discussed during our budget and after 61st District Court is item number two, the Domestic Violence Specialty Court. for amount a little over eighty seven thousand dollars to support that specialty court item number three is the environmental services department this is the Grand Valley regional biosolids Authority operation and maintenance budget a little over $10 million on that. And then item number four is the police department. We discussed this, Commissioner Kilgore, for the 3D laser scanner. And that is to accept that. Item number five is a parks and recreations grant. This is the Leonard to Ann Trail street project, which we're excited about in the second ward. little over 67,000 Parks and Rec again is item number six this is for the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund this is a grant award again for improvements at at the bike park to appropriate three hundred thousand dollars and then lastly item number seven is for Sullivan Field improvements two hundred thousand dollars and Received from friends of Valley field for improvements at Sullivan field. So those are all the items under that ordinance.

Thank you Thank you. This is again a roll call vote any Discussion colleagues otherwise City Clerk Commissioner Kilgore.

Yes, Commissioner Asasi. Yes. Commissioner Perdue. Commissioner Knight. Yes.

Commissioner Balchak. Yes. Mayor Legrand. Yes. Can I have a motion for immediate effect? So moved. Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. That brings us to a number of public hearings. Our first public hearing today is to consider a Brownfield Plan amendment for 111 Bartlett Street, 834th and 838 Butterworth redevelopment. Ms. Ranero is coming up. The commission's heard about this before, but Ms. Ranero, please read in the public.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. This is Infill Residential Redevelopment near downtown in the north quarter and west side. I have Ricky Labra. Labra? Forgive me. And Jared Belka here. On behalf of the project, I want to just give you a quick overview and then invite them up to talk a little bit more about the project. But this is for 24 residential townhomes across three different properties, $5.5 million in total project costs, with an anticipated inclusion plan aspirational goal of 30%, which is high, and we typically strive for 20, so 30% is awesome. This is housing TIF, so the majority of the eligible activity costs are related to the potential rent loss. And the total eligible activity costs are 1.28 million. Five of the 20 are going to be maintained for that affordability period of 15 years. And that spreads between the two beds and three beds. So I know that was a question, I think, at our community development committee meeting. So it's comprising of the two and three beds for those restricted units. And I'd welcome Ricky and Jared to come on up and talk a little bit more. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Jared Belko of the Warner Norcross. I'll be brief because I know you want to hear the brainchild, but Mayor and Commissioners, appreciate the opportunity to be here today. It's been a long road, but we are finally here, and I know Ricky's really excited to hopefully kick this project off with your support. Ricky's a product of the Emerging Developers Program through the Brownfield Authority. Ricky's start in real estate began with remodeling, acquiring and remodeling Single-family homes and duplexes and renting those out so this represents the next step into higher density Some infill housing new construction as opposed to to remodeling He's working with a great team to bring this to fruition But with that support, he was able to put together the pre-development work that you see before you on the screen and allow us to move forward to bring the request for the housing TIF program. So Sarah did a great job. Her and her team were instrumental in getting us here. We appreciate that. So with that, I will turn over to Ricky. He can tell you a little bit more about himself, but I appreciate the consideration.

Hey guys, I'm super excited to share these projects with you. I've been working on this for quite some time, and as Jared said, it's been a bit of a long road, and I'm super excited that we're finally here. Yeah, so the overall development consists of three different parcels that we'll be building a six unit, another six unit, and then an eight unit on. I'll start with the first one. 830 4th Street will be a six unit building. We have ample on-site parking as well, 11 spots on that site. The second one will consist of an eight-unit building at 111 Barnett Street. We'll also have eight parking spaces on that site. And the last one will be 838 Butterworth. It'll be a six-unit building, and that'll also have seven parking spaces on site. So really tried hard to design these developments to have maximum density with also maximizing on-site parking. That's always a concern of mine. Also, all of the units are a little bit larger than your typical larger scale developments that we're seeing in the city. 834 Street will be four three-bedroom units and two five-bedroom units. 111 Barnett will consist of eight three-bedroom units. And 838 Butterworth will consist of six two-bedroom units. So really excited for these developments. And yeah, if you guys have any questions, please ask.

Well, yeah, the size of the units really jumped out at me and that's great to see because not only do we need housing at every price point, we need different size housing. And so a lot of the stuff we see is one bedroom and two bedroom and studio heavy. Right. And maybe even studio and one bedroom heavy. So this is exciting. The other thing that I'll compliment you on is... If variety is the spice of life, I'm looking at all three of these buildings, and they don't remind me, I don't think, oh, right, there are 85 other things in town that look just like this. Design always goes in, you can see how old things are by when they were designed, everything goes in trends, but these look sort of interestingly historic to me, for lack of a better way to put it, but they certainly have some architectural love in there. And that's great to see. So thanks for that.

We've gotten a lot of compliments on the designs of these buildings. And yeah, grateful for the team that I'm working with on these projects.

They are clearly not cookie cutter. They clearly stand on their own as individual interesting buildings. So it's great. Commissioner Belchick.

Thank you. And yeah, I want to say thank you, piggyback a little bit. I think you took some of the words out of my mouth, Mayor. Two of these are in my neighborhood and in my ward, and I was looking, and I'm actually kind of impressed that you're going to be able to pack that 830 4th Street into that lot. So you guys must have done a lot of...

It is a very deep lot. Is it? I can't really tell from the street view, but...

Yeah, definitely packed it full and it's gonna be a great outcome Yeah so I know and I know like if you've ever done anyone's ever done anything with the planning department in the Zoning and like measuring and the ruler and doing the experiment of like how many things can you get in there? So it is actually quite an accomplishment and but mostly I wanted to also add that One of the things that I heard over and over again as a community member during the community master plan process but also I continue to hear that when I'm talking to neighbors even yesterday at my commissioner happy hour that, you know, the way things feel and fit into the neighborhood, which often gets lumped under the character of the neighborhood, which can mean a lot of things, but oftentimes what, you know, people are meaning and not planners is... What does it look like? Does it fit my neighborhood? And, you know, it is an old part of town. These do feel more historic. I really appreciate the thoughtful design in the peaks and not the flat roofs. You know, it's nice to have modern design maybe in a corridor that's improving or, you know, busy street. But to be in fill and feeling like, okay, it does match the neighborhood. It does match the people there. And then the size, you know, having families. So the compliment. And then also, you know, just out of curiosity, and sometimes I tread lightly and get myself in hot water. But what does a three, what do you intend to rent like a monthly rent for a three-bedroom and five-bedroom apartment? I would have to defer to Jared here because he probably has the numbers that we... Yeah, just out of curiosity because I know there are properties in the, like, homes that are renting for $2,300, $2,400, and, you know, that's not out of the question.

Yeah, I wrote them down because I know that's a typical question. So our rents were ranging between $2,000 to $2,650 a month, so.

All right, thank you, and good work.

I will have to correct you on one thing on my part. Now, I don't want it to, you just said you love the architecture and no flat roofs. We did update the building plan for Barnett. It is a flat roof, but I think it's still going to look fantastic. Another thing I wanted to say is, you know, I've been working with the planning department. And they have just been excellent to work with, like, in the last couple years. And so, you know, working closely with them, understanding what they're looking for. All of these projects as well were by right. So we carefully designed the buildings to fit the neighborhood for the zoning restrictions, but still maximized density doing that. So, yeah, I just want to correct that because I don't want to make it look like... There's no flat roof buildings. No, no, that's fair.

But I think your designs are interesting with the balconies and everything. And then just the attention. And then I know how difficult it is. We have a lot of people going through the Emerging Developer Program. There's a lot of projects that are paused right now. So you're in a lucky spot that you're able to make it to this point and get hopefully a shovel in the ground soon.

And I'm very grateful for the emerging developer chance at it as well. And, you know, it really helped me, I guess, push me through this process. And, yeah, super excited. So thank you. Great.

Commissioner Kilgore. Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Just a question for Ms. Raniero and probably city manager. I really appreciate Commissioner Belchak's question for all developers. And who organizes these graphics for us? Is that your office, Ms. Raniero?

We let the developer.

Oh, okay. think you know I just I concur I think it's something that continues to come up I think it is helping make our meetings more accessible to the folks who we serve to have real numbers that's how regular degular folks talk and when they're talking about housing that's what they're looking for is a dollar sign and a number so you know I would request that seems like Commissioner Belchak is in support of that and I'm just wondering if my colleagues would support that being or if that's a possibility to have that for developers when they present to us to be more accessible and realistic to the folks who we serve rather than percentages and acronyms like let's make this more accessible and realistic for folks who we serve so that's my hope and just wondering if that's possible city manager moving forward you want to respond mayor

Sure, go ahead. Go ahead.

We're happy to work with applicants. I feel like this is billed by right? Is that the right terminology?

Yeah. Okay.

By right, yes. And so I think that when you talk about accessibility, I think ADA, right?

No, what he means is he'd rather see how much the rent is going to be than for people making 95% AMI. Like there's no dollar. And some of our presentations have it, but we're at about 50-50 on these, it seems to me.

Yes, we can just include it on the slide. Awesome. Yes.

Perfect. Thank you very much, you all. He meant demystify maybe, not accessibility. There we go.

Okay, thank you.

It is Disability Pride Month, so yes, we'd also like them to be accessible.

Thank you for clarifying.

Thank you. Thank you for raising that. I do want to note with that request that the AMI piece will change based on the household size. So I imagine that, you know, it's not just one number. So there is a lot of like caveat nuance with whatever we present. So that is something to consider. Another question for you, Ms. Raniro. I think this is one of the first projects we've seen that has been a scatter site development, and we talked a lot about that a few years ago. So I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about kind of what, did we utilize any different processes to be able to allow for the scatter site project to come together? Or what else can you tell us about how this process supported a project like this?

Yeah, I mean, we've had one other coming through the pipeline right now. But, I mean, that opportunity really opened up when the act changed and allowed housing to be a knowledgeable activity. And so we're excited to activate more infill because of it. But, no, it's following the same process as a typical brownfield plan would.

So when the act changed, did it also speak to scatter site development?

The property is qualifying as eligible property because of housing. And so under traditional Brownfield TIF, you have to be blighted, functionally obsolete, contaminated with a facility, or adjacent and contiguous. And so this just kind of carved out a whole new space for eligibility.

Yeah, I understand that. So I'm more so speaking to were scatter sites development possible without the housing component? We have not done it here. Are they eligible? Are they possible without the housing component?

Yes.

OK. Oh, sure. Yeah. Please.

Yeah, Muskegon actually did a scattered site development with a lot of their city-owned and land bank-owned properties several years ago. So it was possible before. However, I think what Sarah was getting to is from a traditional brownfield standpoint, you need to be adjacent or contiguous to that. If each property qualifies in and of itself, it could be included in a brownfield plan. So for Muskegon, they had all land bank properties. and those are all considered blighted, so they did a scattered site plan.

So it not needing to be contiguous was part of the update?

Housing is the biggest piece. It wouldn't necessarily need to be owned by the land bank, and obviously these properties are owned privately, so it would require the housing component too.

Great. You know, I bring this up because, one, I think it's a really, really great opportunity for us to support more projects, particularly multi-site and field projects. And so happy to see this come through. And so wanted just some clarity on what changed or was it just kind of from the private side that it changed? But I'm hearing it's about public policy change as well as kind of project type. So thank you. And then to the developer, congrats. I mean, this is beautiful. It's great to hear your growth from kind of, I think one in two units they said to this size. So commend you, and I think a lot of people will be looking up to you to say, how do I do that? And so if I tap you to say, come talk to some residents in the Third Ward, no pressure. It's not contingent upon your acceptance. It's not contingent upon my vote. But I just really admire, and I think that's a great example. We want to see more of that. We want it to be a city where more folks can have that kind of story.

Well, thank you. And to comment on the scatter site, opportunity around the housing TIF. For me as an upcoming developer with doing smaller scale projects to start, it's very helpful for me. So to jump in a $6 million build on its own sounds a little more nerve wracking to me than spreading it out to smaller builds. And me having the opportunity to do these was pretty crucial on my end. So I'm very grateful for that as well.

Did you use, I know we had a program where we had kind of the site plans for smaller unit buildings. Did you happen to use that program at all?

I didn't, no.

Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you, and thank you for your shout out for the planning department. I also want to note to colleagues here, I've been to several ribbon cuttings lately, including one for AYA Youth Collective, and they all just kind of are praising and thanking the planning department for working with them. And just counting or shouting out that our zoning package that we passed a few years ago allows projects like this and AYA and others to go forward. So it's always nice when you see your legislative changes actually kind of connect with folks in real life.

And I'll comment on that, too. The zoning changes that happened a couple years ago are a big reason why these developments can be with this density on these sites. definitely shout out to them.

I also went back and looked at the item in the packet to Commissioner Kilgore's and Belshack's comments earlier the the maximum rent allowance is really stated in the item it just was not reflected on the PowerPoint.

But I think Commissioner Culver's point is he hopes that millions of people are watching this broadcast right now and seeing the slide, and they're probably not looking at our packet.

Yeah, we'll make sure that it's consistent with that, but I just wanted to make sure you understood the staff had heard that before, just not highlight it on the slide.

Yep, great. Okay, thank you. Any members of the public want to comment on this project?

Russell Olmstead, Westside. I just wanted to, most of the time I come up to complain and be a jerk and all that. I just wanted to, first of all, say thank you, Commissioner Kilgore. Thank you, Commissioner Milchak. Thank you, Commissioner Perdue. In bringing up these and highlighting the things, some of which I brought up before as far as making sure that rather than just AMI, that we have numbers. And to City Manager's point, yes, they are available in the packets. Not everybody knows how to get them because of where they're at, especially on the new website, because it's a little bit different than how it used to be. So having that information publicly available is in real time for people who come to the meetings and may not be able to watch all the time can give them an idea when they see that AMI number what they're actually talking about. And to Commissioner Perdue's point, yes, it is more than just the one. It will change as income change. It'll change depending on what unit it is, whether it's a single or full family. All of that comes into perspective. But having that illustrated would really help people be able to understand what's being passed and what's being proposed. and the overall benefit to everyone. And to the developer, I'm a Westside resident. This is right down the road from me. Love this area. Love the density. Love the design. I come from a family of developers. Well, my wife's family, which I claim. A family of developers, and it's a beautiful project. Good to see.

Okay. Seeing no one else, this hearing's closed, and we'll refer this to Committee of the Whole. Thank you. Thanks. That brings us to items 2, 3, and 4, which we're going to lump together since they all concern the same property, which is 701N. And Ms. Renera, if you want to set the context.

Yes, thank you. Thank you. OK, so we have two different slides here, one for the industrial facilities district and exemption, and then one for the Brownfield plan. So this first one is addressing the industrial facilities exemption. This is a property located at 701 Anne, approximately nine acres. on behalf of Profile Films. And we have Teddy and Steve here. I'm gonna invite up to introduce themselves and talk a little bit more about why the project's important. But just to give you a broad brush, they require additional production space and manufacturing capacity. And so this project's been in the work for some time. It's ultimately the new construction of approximately 97,000 square feet to the tune of 26.2 million in real and personal property improvements. Again, drawing some attention to the inclusion plan, aspirational goals here are 27%. This is a full 12-year exemption and is valued at approximately $2.6 million. If we could flip to the Brownfield plan, can I do that?

Yeah.

Perfect. There's also a Brownfield plan component to this because of just traditional eligible activities. So this is not housing related, but we've got site prep and public infrastructure eligible activities that are being sought after. You can see the total project development costs of $53.7 million. Again, this is the same new construction building, 97,000 square feet. The Brownfield TIF eligible activities are specific to 5.1 million, and again, that's mainly comprised of site preparation, so think clearing and grubbing, land balancing, and then public infrastructure improvements. The inclusion plan percent looks a little different there because we're drawing different numbers to get that percentages, but it's still very impressive. And then 55 new jobs. And this TIF will, the timeline is over a 24-year tax capture period. With that, I'd like to invite Teddy and Steve and also Jared up on behalf of Warner, Norcross, and Judd to talk a little bit more about the project.

Great.

Hi, I'll just give a little bit of background on the site. I think you probably all recognize it. And then I'll let Steve and Teddy talk about Profile. I know a lot of people don't know what they do. Yours included when I first began working with them, but they've been working on this site for quite a while. Their company is located in the Avistar Parkway, which is in the city of Walker. They are looking to expand right on the border. Obviously, we are now in Grand Rapids. Sarah gave a good overview of the scope of the project to expand production capacity, and I'll let them talk about that. The site obviously has a storied history. Former Fuller and Rice Lumber Manufacturing, the Haskellite Manufacturing, which then became a subsidiary of Evans, which made HVAC equipment for tractors, motorhomes, etc., The property is contaminated. Part of the struggle with this, when the development team acquired the property, it had a massive, sprawling, old manufacturing building. It was obviously vacant. It became an attractive nuisance. There's underlying contamination. They were trying to determine what was going to be required from an engineering standpoint, whether that was a vapor barrier or if they could dig and haul. The development team moved forward to get a better understanding of that and some of the geotechnical issues that they were dealing with. So they demolished the building. It was full of asbestos. The demo and abatement were about 2.3 million, which are not included in this brownfield plan request. So that kind of cleared the way. Their environmental consultant was able to take a different approach with some additional testing and understanding that there can be some source removal. which actually saves some money. There's still obviously some geotechnical issues. As you'll see in the Brownfield plan, the majority of those costs included are that. There's about a projected 17-year reimbursement period. They are seeking the IFT. Happy to answer any additional questions from there, but I will give the floor to Steve and Teddy to give you a little bit more about Profile itself.

Thanks for hearing our proposal today. I'm Teddy Yehman. Steve started Profile Films back in 1998. We've been operating on the border of Walker and Grand Rapids since 2015. I guess we moved in January of 2016. What we do is not films like TV or movies. We make plastic film in bags for food packaging mainly. So it's called blown film extrusion. We're using polyethylene whether it's high density or linear low and we have a lot of applications in These days, it's over 80% direct or indirect food contact, but we got our start back in the day serving the industrial industries that are so prevalent in Michigan. We did a lot of automotive, protective packaging, and things like that, and then serving a lot of the furniture industry as well. As we grew, we found a nice niche into food packaging because it's big big need it's very stable business and so today we ship to almost all 50 states and you know about 80% of our revenue comes from other states so we're bringing a lot of income into Grand Rapids from the entire nation we've been in business you know like I said since 1998 we were originally off of Porter Street down on the southwest side of Grand Rapids but Yeah, Steve, do you want to jump in and say anything else about the project or about our founding?

That was good. Thank you. I'm Steve Amon. I'm the founder of the company.

Steve, if you could go right to the mic. So all the people watching can hear you.

Yes. I founded Profile in 1998 after a short stint with a similar company here in Grand Rapids. We started in the old Reynolds Aluminum Building, of which you're probably quite familiar. That building had some unique qualities about it, especially the ceiling height. Our process requires that we have steel towers with which we run film up to cool. And then when the film comes back down, we can do a variety of things to it, like make it into bags. So the fancy name for what we do is extruded polyethylene. We basically make bags. But we don't make bags that end up in the hand of the consumer. Our bags go to places like Blue Diamond Almonds and public supermarkets and a lot of shortening and ingredients and meat packing and things like that. And so for us to have the ability to sell to these large food companies, we have to make a product that works on their machinery. It has to be food safe, and it has to be delivered on time. So that's basically what we do.

And we've been growing steadily ever since we were founded in 1998. Moving from Porter Street over to where we are now was a increase from 90,000 square feet to just over 200,000. It's about 190,000 square feet of operations and then some office space. This new building would be an additional 97,000, more pure manufacturing. There is a sizable office included in the construction, but the main point is to add to our current manufacturing capacity. We're not adding many new technologies or any new risky markets. We are just expanding our core business into what we've been doing in our 28 years in business.

Sorry, I always remember things when I sit back down. So we originally started working with the economic development team in 2024, I think, to advance a Brownfield and IFT request. The unfortunate part was the original budget came back, and even with the support, it didn't make sense. So the development team kind of paused. That was the decision to remove the building, get a better understanding of what was underneath that. Um, they are since, uh, working with a different general contractor, still working through some of those budgets. Um, but we were at a point that, that we could get this, uh, actually in front of you, uh, for consideration. So just want to kind of touch on some of the timing, uh, from the built building being demolished to, to the application before you today. So great.

Thank you. Any questions, colleagues, commissioner Knight.

Uh, thank you gentlemen for this presentation. Um, So just something running through my head again as we were talking about housing and housing costs and all of that. So your average wage is $22 an hour. How does that equate to a living wage in this city?

Yes. Actually, so wages are a topic worth discussing here. So we actually had our average closer to $23.45 per hour based on the primary population in that plant will be the starting wage would be $22. But that's the starting wage. We do annual increases and merit increases. Also, this does not account for benefits, which Profile has extremely strong benefits. health insurance and 401ks and things like that. And then also we offer basically unlimited overtime that most of our employees leverage, which is time and a half and double time on holidays and things like that. So we do have a really nice overtime policy and we don't ever do mandatory overtime and we encourage overtime if our employees would like to. So that is like the starting rate, but it does not encapsulate a full living wage from our starting salary.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

I would add to that that we're unique in regards to how we take care of our people. Teddy mentioned that we don't do mandatory overtime. We never have, and we've never laid anyone off in our 28 years. And we're proud of that because we do have a genuine interest in taking care of people. We're a unique shop also in the way that we run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So it's a grind. The extrusion shifts are 12 hours long. They start at 5 in the morning and end at 5 in the evening. So we have two day shifts and two night shifts. To get to 24-7, it's a lot like a hospital. where we're never closed. All of this means it takes a lot of work to take care of everyone. When we moved into this location, we had a goal of adding 70 jobs and we went from around 60 to 240 jobs now. We still have some capacity left in our current facility, but We're in a business where you're working with big food companies, and you really can't say no when they offer you business. So we have to stay ahead of the game on our machine capacity. We're using all the hours of the day already. Any other questions?

First of all, I just want to say thank you. Like, wow, bringing jobs into the neighborhood, bringing people who would want to live here, your commitment to your workers, the question about what you're paying. My husband has been at Amazon Warehouse since the pandemic in March of 2020, and he's only now making $22 an hour. So I do think that... That is competitive. This is a little bit in the weeds, but I want to put it in context that you're developing a brownfield and there was contamination and your process involves some chemicals, I'm sure. And so one, what's your environmental plan? Just like a 30 seconds on that. And then do you use any recycled materials in your polyethylene extrusion or do you have to use raw materials?

So to be clear, on the environmental plan, do you mean for the site or for our...

Okay, Jared, do you mind? I thought your question was speaking to their operation.

Well, the new site's going to be doing manufacturing, and you've got contamination you've had to clean up from previous manufacturing, so it's always worth just highlighting briefly that, and then if any recycled materials are used in the process.

Sure. As far as redevelopment of the site goes, they've been working closely with an environmental consultant. As I mentioned, the building was demolished and they're anticipating some source removal as opposed to the need for a vapor intrusion or vapor barrier for the entire building. Where I thought your question was going was to the use of the chemicals and stuff that they use on site.

How are we going to not have it be contaminated again in the future? That's me.

Yeah so we have a lot of programs so all of our raw materials are either boxed and trucked in or we have rail cars that are pumped via silo. And we have a zero pellet loss program so all of our raw materials come in pellet format when they arrive at profile. And so when we are getting the product into the facility, the raw materials, we make sure that we have zero loss outside of the facility and we do sweeps at least once a week, I think probably more. Our maintenance team, that's part of their normal PM schedule. Polyethylene, it's not a liquid. All of our inks are water-based and we use those very rarely. We have very little water use as well, so in terms of how much water we're using up as minimal and so basically for keeping our process clean it's just making sure we keep track of the plastic we're producing right and making sure most of it or all of it ships out the door and the scrap that we produce does not end up in a landfill so all of our scrap does ship to a recycler where they're repellentizing that scrap into more polyethylene film it's called PIR or post-industrial use because it's not consumer if it leaves our facility, it's industrial use. So it is all repelletized, which is great. And then we do purchase some post-consumer resins. So we do manufacture PCR polyethylene filament bags too, actually for some government programs and things like that. So where another company has you know, contracts from the government to supply trash bags to municipalities or, you know, military bases, things like that. And we sell them film, they make them into bags, and so on and so forth. Thanks.

So, at this point, any comments from the public? Great. All in favor? Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. I'm just referring this to Committee of the Whole. No further discussion? Refer this to Committee of the Whole. Thank you. And that brings us to our final public hearing, and that is for City Commission to hear appeals on the 2027 Downtown Improvement District Special Assessment Roll number 8806. And to discuss that, we have our assessor.

Thank you. So at the request of the Downtown Improvement District Board, the Assessor's Office prepared the special assessment rule number 8806 in accordance with the district's plan and was adopted by the City Commission on May 12th of 2026. This is the first year of a three-year plan. Property owners were sent notices on May 28th 2026 and notified of the assessment amount and the appeal process The special assessment rule has been open for at least two weeks starting on June 15th through today a Copy of the assessment rule has been posted to the city website and is also available in the assessor's office For review there have been zero appeals to this date Today the commission convenes as the Board of Review to hear any appeals of the assessments and today is the final opportunity of those appeals. I'll be here and then after that I'll be available until 5 o'clock in the assessor's office to accept any appeals if anyone should have any. After we receive the appeals we'll review those with the attorney's office and report to the commission on August 11th requesting confirmation of that special assessment role. And if everything is confirmed, it will be billed on September 1st. Any questions?

Seeing no one appealing, I'll close this hearing. Thank you. That brings us to public comment on any item you wish to be heard by the commission.

Mark back. On behalf of the United States of America, I would like to apologize for the behavior of the orange felon, for his irresponsible comments on the wildfires that happened in Canada. which sends smoke all over the Midwest. And his braces attempt to raise tariffs saying that it was their problem and it was their fault. Can't have no, he's not Jim Cantore. Hell, he's not even Ellen Barker. He needs to stop his brazen attempts to try to get money and force the American people to pay for his crazy actions. I'd like to also apologize to his behavior during the World Cup championship game in Spain. was awarded the trophy during the trophy presentation. He didn't get off the stage in the middle of the field at MetLife. He wanted all to be about himself. Even the president of FIFA was trying to yank him off, but he refused. What I don't apologize for is the ones who put him there. This is the reason why the midterms are critical. And if individuals who are not registered to vote, better do so now, because time is running out. The primaries are August the 4th, and the general election is in early November. So if you're not registered, do so right now. Because if you don't, the same behavior is going to continue. We want to control what he's done. We want to control what he could do. This has gone too far. It's time to mobilize and organize, get registered, and go vote. Thank you. Revenge 2026.

Hi, Kim Ward 3, and I appreciate you reminding everyone to register and vote. I think it is our civic duty and we should never miss it. But unfortunately, whenever we go through an election, we witness that the biggest turnout is the non-voter. So thank you for that, neighbor. I appreciate it. I came here today for a couple reasons. Number one, to pay my property taxes on time like I do every year. Number two, I just wanted to witness how many people could actually make it to a city commission meeting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Maybe we need to rethink that. It doesn't look like anyone can make it. to a 2 o'clock city commission meeting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Also, I would like for us to consider having a backup plan when someone decides to cancel a city commission meeting last minute. It's our meeting, not yours. And we came together as residents at Brewery Vivant that evening and said, had our own meeting. I've got all the notes to share with you if you're interested on what my neighbor's concerns are and what they wanted to talk about and what they want you to focus on So paying my property taxes always reminds me, what is my money going to? What am I giving this big check to my city for every year? And I'm not against it. I don't want anyone to misunderstand. I believe in our tax system. I believe in pulling our resources to make sure that we have better living conditions and a better city to live in for everyone. But when I look around and I see our homeless population, our homeless pandemic in this city, our empty buildings sitting empty and vacant year after year after year, we're not doing anything to get creative with them, but we're building new buildings. I'm happy when it's housing because we have a housing crisis, but the problem is the people that are homeless and can't afford housing today are not going to be able to afford new buildings. So I wish that we would come together and focus on things like that. As a taxpayer, it's important to me. Also, I just wanted to comment on the last meeting that I was able to attend. And I'm only here today because I own my own business. I set my own schedule. But obviously, when I'm not working, I'm not making money. So it's not advantageous for me to be here right now. ICE is an issue in our city. And when my neighbors come to speak to you about it and what they're asking for, they feel like they're being ignored. And then at the end of the last meeting, David, you disappointed me so deeply. You mocked our neighbors that came here to talk about ICE activity and what they're living through and surviving through in the streets, and you mocked them. They didn't want to sit through a meeting and hear our neighbor that comes and bashes people that go to Planned Parenthood. That's why they walked out. They didn't walk out because of you. So please respect my neighbors and your neighbors better than what you did and please, if sanctuary policies are in place, show us where and who's enforcing them. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other public comment, I will move us along to comments, closing comments from our, from my colleagues. Commissioner Yasase?

He saw I was in pain, he called laughing, oh sorry, I'm just struggling, sorry for the weird movements, just having an issue with my leg, but I want to say two things. One, I want to say congratulations, YesterDog is celebrating 50 years this year, an icon. where second and third ward converge. And so there's a lot of celebrations. There's something today. There's some things tomorrow. And then on Thursday, they're going to have a ribbon cutting and they're going to roll back hot dogs. So anyways, I just appreciate our small businesses in our community and to be in business. And there obviously has been sold in the last year to new owners. But to be in business for 50 years is certainly an achievement worth celebrating. So I wanted to say congratulations to them. And then last week, I wasn't able to be at the build, but our safe task force, so that Ms. Letitia Lipscomb is the liaison for, and a number of community members were able to support a build that was happening at Gerald R. Ford School, working with the Grand Rapids Schools Foundation. And so that was really positive. They were wearing masks, and they were doing all the things appropriately and taking breaks, but I'm glad that we were able to support that request. See a lot of things on social media, and there were some things in the last day, too, that were shared at one of our local community spaces, and so making sure we have spaces where young people can connect is absolutely key, but also continuing to share with one another just that connectivity that one another have with each other, whether it's knowing your children's friends or knowing who they're connecting with. I can't imagine what that is like in that social media world, but a lot of that is playing out as well. And then just, you know, as Mayor, you had shared about Deputy Chief Freeman's passing, and I think just a reminder that life is fleeting, and so thank you for saying that. I've seen a lot of comments on Facebook and also a lot of, you know, a lot of you who are employees of the city who worked directly with him for a number of years my you know our sincere condolences that was very hard to see and Just a reminder to connect with somebody today. Tell him you love him Tell him you miss them and and just we have some really dedicated staff members and Yeah, just appreciate you shouting that out. Thank you mayor.

That's it for today Thank You mayor Thank You Commissioner saucy Mr. Freeman was a good friend Um, I met him some years ago and he actually came to me and asked me for a recommendation for his, um, when he applied to be one of the first African American battalion chiefs, uh, in the city. And I was happy to do that. I helped. work with him on starting the youth internship in the city when I was at the Urban League, and I was very proud of the work that they were doing, trying to recruit young men. My son being a firefighter was one that was inspired by Chief Freeman, so I will miss him dearly. We were actually trying to schedule some lunch two weeks ago, so that came as a really hard blow, because I just saw him at Chief Fankhauser's retirement. And I was happy to see that. So yes, yes, yes. I know lots of things are going on in this world, but we need to take that time and really think about the things that are important. Friendship, family, our neighbors, our community, and just love on one another. We had a great opportunity to support one of our candidates for Senate this past Sunday. That was a really amazing opportunity to be there and to share our voices with this community and this city and across the state. Yay, Spain. I was really excited to be a part of that event, but also glad that they were able to open that up for the city as a whole, for all of our community to be able to participate for free and be able to watch that event and see people come together. So that was really good to be a part of that. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. There's a lot of things going on in the business world and development with community. We got night out, national nights out that are coming up the beginning of August. That's gonna be a busy day and we're happy to make our rounds across the city and just show our support and that's all I got.

Good afternoon everyone. Great day colleagues. But almost six hours of back-to-back meetings, no eating. It's great. But no, I seriously want to echo my condolences to Eric Freeman's family, the entire fire department. And I've just really been thinking about you all over the weekend since we heard the news, so. I'm thankful for the moment of silence today to honor him and all his work. And as a reminder, I think it was last month, Public Safety, the Fire Department Summer Academy students were here. And my understanding, he was a key part of starting that. And so we got to see his legacy in real time. Ryan will continue to do so. The only other thing I want to speak to today, just really briefly, is the first ward vacancy. So City Clerk, thank you for putting a more formal announcement in our meeting packet. I understand we'll release that to media so that can get out to neighbors. I just want to reiterate that I am not in support of having this vacancy on this body. Every single commission seat here was designed to be here to represent the different neighbors of our community, to bring perspective, to bring work, to bring help and leadership in helping to move our work forward. And so I think not having someone here for this extended amount of time particularly folks who got nothing but praises from folks up here and who's more than qualified, is just a big disappointment. And so, though it's been several months since we've had a point of conversation about that, my feelings, my sentiment has not changed in the least. And if other folks are ready to vote, I am ready to vote again at any time to appoint this person. But I know that the desire of this body, as judged by our votes, is that we just follow the election process and not appoint someone. And so there will be a primary for the first ward, and then there will be a November election. And then from there, I plan to allow the election, the typical election process to play out in that that person will be sworn in and then start on January 1st, just like they would with any other regular election process. And so I just want to express my disappointment with that, but I am looking forward to continuing to serve not just the residents of the Third War, but the entire city and support commissioners and residents throughout in the meantime. So thank you all for joining and hope you're having a great summer.

Commissioner Pilgrim. Thanks for going word by word. That's interesting. Well, I also am very thankful for a productive day. I'm thankful for the review of the canine team policies by the GRPD. There was quite a sense of renewed commitment to striving for excellence in terms of our work and service to community. It was great to have a presentation from the deputy chief and I'm thankful to him and Chief Trigg and OPA for their collaboration. They both said that they enjoyed working with one another on looking into these policies, reviewing them, and once again, serving our community. So that was very... promising to hear and I'm looking forward to the continued reviewed of our continued reviews of our policies as community has requested that such as our foot chase policy the Canadian wildfires I'm just we've talked about our emergency response team certain and and That earlier today, I'm just continuing to let folks know to be safe, especially for third warders. You can log on to justair.app and find there's over a dozen air quality monitors scattered throughout the third ward, so you can go even closer. Of course, it's good to see your AQI. You can find that all over the state at airnow.gov. But just air.app, I want to thank my colleagues and the city manager for supporting that. So that was a $20,000 investment to get more granular on our neighborhoods and what are our neighbors breathing in. And most of them are by school. So we worked within community to make that happen along with the city and executive office. And that was something I worked on before being elected. So I'm very proud to continue to see that. And yes, we want people to be safe. And in terms of a silver lining with the Canadian wildfires, it's showing us that our climate action adaptation plan is important. Climate change is clear, it is present. I think folks can see that this is now becoming a more consistent thing, and that's from the extreme heat and dryness. And so I'm very happy that we as a city are being proactive, whether it's supporting air quality monitors passing that very big plan that was the climate action adaptation plan. So encouraging folks to stay safe, check the AQI and wear mask up if you can and take care. Thanks.

Commissioner Belichick.

Thank you. I will just have three things. The cap, let's add on to that, that I support what we're doing. And then, yes, be safe out there. Be healthy as much as you can. But as we look forward today, we'd set our November 12 fall retreat as a commission to talk about priorities, strategies, things like that. I would like to just add that we have been accomplishing some things on the cap and so we would need to revisit having how do we like re-up those 20 priorities that we had set and so I'll just plant that seed here today. I expect that might be when we do it but we can have conversations before then. The other thing that came up today was, and certainly from talking with constituents yesterday, specifically at my happy hour, the lead lines are being done and we voted for some more additional funding to get those done. There have been concerns from constituents that For some reason, some people feel like parts of the neighborhood has been missing or being ignored. And I would like to just say that my own home got done this winter from the street to the house, which had been not done 10 years ago. So it is happening. Our water folks talked about that today. It is a winter project. And a third ward will be almost 100% complete, is what they told us today. But everything should be done within the city in the next three to five years. And I think I said that right. So yay us and hang tight, be patient, work is happening. And then lastly and maybe the most contentious thing that I've been paying attention to and want to do a shout out for is actually our planning commission. They are a pointed body that makes a lot of decisions. We've had the opportunity to talk about some projects today, but I think for clarity for everyone in the community who might come across this, and for us as a city to continue to communicate. The planning commission is its own authoritative body that makes decisions on planning approvals and variances. What we as a city commission do is set the policy by which a lot of those decisions are made, and specifically that's all in our zoning policy, which is in the process of being upgraded, renewed, revisited, however you want to say it, to match our community master plan that was passed a few years ago. we're setting the vision the plan for those things and then individual projects get weighed against that by the people who are appointed on the Planning Commission and I bring this up because the July 9th meeting was when a particularly contentious neighborhood development infill development was discussed and I'm really appreciative of the process because Many, many, many neighbors came out and actually had public comment during their meeting, and these are folks that I've been hearing from, the planning department's been hearing from for months, even back to last summer, and they shared their concerns, and I felt like the planning commission spent extra time and due diligence in trying to be, and I think there's still a lot of technical jargon, so it may not be as transparent as a lay public would like, but I do feel like they spent extra time on that particular plan to try to really weigh all the serious concerns that the neighbors brought up and that we, you know, balancing the need for housing with the needs of the community and the neighborhood with the needs of like the particular site design and things like that, I think is a very hard position to be on. But one thing that one of the planning commissioners brought up, which I was grateful for, was this kind of, and we've been kind of using a lot today, the word holistic. There's a lot of, like with our mobility blueprint discussion and things, a holistic approach, and I'm really happy to see more of that going forward so we're not just sticking to our own silos. And so I think one of the things I've been asking for on this planning commissioner asked for too and I would like to lift up is when we have neighborhoods that have are older and maybe don't have the city infrastructure that some of the more urban dense neighborhoods have had but development is coming we really should be looking as a as a city in our planning process of how to reinvest in those communities and maybe Rejuggle how the plans money and things are being produced so that you know neighborhoods that don't have sidewalks curb gutters Street infrastructure can get that as we're getting more development coming in so I thought that the The commission did a really good job trying to address the concerns, and I don't think the outcome is one that the neighborhood is necessarily happy with. I spoke with several of the neighbors, but it's one of those things where you're looking at the tradeoffs of what can we do, what should we do, balancing it with the future of the needs, with the current needs. So I just want to commend the thoughtful, robust discussion, the community engagement, and all the things that are going on there, and Again, just to illustrate that that is something they alone have the authority to approve. We as a city commission would do zoning policy or like the brownfield and other things where money is involved. So that's all I have today. Mr.

Clerk. Just a few things in that we're impending elections. But first of all, I want to give a shout out to my neighbor on the second floor, John Goblenski, with GR Payette. They're getting close to a billion dollars worth of use of using Payette. Great success in the treasurer's office. A shout out to John and his team on the second floor. His people are paying taxes, lots of different options in order to pay them. I'd like to introduce Peter Smarczak. He's in the audience out there. He's our intern in the clerk's office from the University of Michigan. He's been with us for this summer. They have a great program at U of M putting interns into different areas. He's busy working on his LSAT and various others. endeavors, but it's been great to have him in our office going through all kinds of different election things. We've mailed out 30,000 absentee ballots at the end of June. We have about 10,000 returned, so 20,000 of you still have your ballots in your hands, so you have two weeks to get those in. If you still do have your absentee ballot, I highly suggest that you drop them off in one of our secure drop box, which we empty daily, rather than putting them in the mail at this time. You can still get them in the mail. We'll probably get them, but it's better to put them in a drop box or bring them to the clerk's office. Or you can bring them to an early voting site or put it through a tabulator on election day. So you have lots of options when you're absentee voting. Filing deadline for school board is in... 34 minutes So if you're thinking about I think there's 10 candidates that have filed for five seats So and that that's as of yesterday, so I'd have no idea what the filing was today Early voting starts this Saturday, so we say soup Election day was the Super Bowl is now the World Cup or World Series. It's it's we're in extended time now, so So early voting starts on Saturday, the 25th, goes through Sunday, August 2nd. It's 9 to 5 every day except for the Tuesday and Thursday, which is 11 to 7, but you can find all that information on our GR Votes website. We have three locations. It's at Ottawa Hills High School and the old cafeteria on on Rosewood there, and then also at St. Peter and Paul School and GRPS University. You can go to any of those sites. So if you're some, I think of like the Garfield Park neighborhood where you're kind of like bordering the third ward, go over to Ottawa Hills High School. It's probably a little closer for you. So You can go to any site. You're not beholden to your precinct or your ward. You can go to any of the three sites. And then also, you know, talking about disability pride, we're also... working with disability associates of Kent County. They asked if they could, you know, if I give them a tour of, you know, polling locations. I'm like, well, they're all open on election day. So I think they're going to be going out to our polling locations to see through their lenses of what our precincts look like while the precincts are open. So some of the disability groups in southeast Michigan have been going through Ingham County and Wayne County and some of the other counties. So I said, Come on, and they also came and presented to the Kent County Clerks Association a couple months ago, too So those those conversations are happening. So that's one good thing That's gonna come out of this. I said come and take a look. Let us know how we can make things better so they're gonna have a different because obviously those of us that are have are more able than others and sometimes take those things for granted. So it'll be nice for them to take a look at their process of getting into buildings and into polling locations. And then finally, I do have, there's information that's been hitting the city's website and Facebook and Instagram on election type things, different videos, different carousels of information. But the last thing, if you really want to know before you go, go to michigan.gov forward slash vote, and that's where you'll find all the information. You can see if you If we received your absentee ballot back, if you need to apply for an absentee ballot, look at a sample ballot, check your polling location, your precinct number. You can find it all there in one space. So that's all I have. Senator Turney?

A quick A couple of things. We recessed from closed session but did not get to all the items, so we'll ask you to reconvene down on the sixth floor for those two final items in closed session. I think as a public employee, I certainly feel that it's election time. I'm sure for those of you running in contested or uncontested elections, you feel that going on, but occasionally there are intentional or maybe unintentional efforts to mislead the public about certain things around elections or local government that, for a public employee, is really disheartening and can be frustrating for those of us that come to work and just try to do a great job on behalf of the citizens every day. And there's a lot of opportunities that the public can take to kind of find out the truth about elections or myths out there being spread to try to discredit local government. And the city clerk put on a very excellent public accuracy test with the voting equipment that was better attended by public members than I've ever experienced. I got to meet a new friend, Mr. George, from the assessor's office during that process, and we got to connect on a couple of different things. And so whenever I hear or see social media grumblings about security and safety and accuracy of elections, I know that in Grand Rapids for sure our elections are safe and secure and the results are accurate. And I thank the city clerk for being so transparent and having the county clerk attend as well. So that was really reassuring. The other thing we've heard a lot of grumblings or maybe seen a couple headlines about websites and I just encourage the public to look back to January 13th, 2026 when we had a public transparent presentation about website migration. There was a very informative PowerPoint that accompanied that presentation about the different phases of website migration, that it was going to be a go-live and a refinement period, and then innovation, and that the communication department I think if you ask any department head, this has been such a collaborative process. If you look at the parks website, they have a fabulous website that's very interactive and they're probably leading the way on what capabilities our current online presence can have. Our city attorney's website is under consideration for how we can make more resources available. And what has been reiterated to me as just one department head is we get to help the communication department get the accurate information up there, but that's up to us. So if we want to see something changed or we want to get the right information up there, the department heads really should own that and be proactive and communicate. And the communications department in the city is very easy to work with. And I hope that you'll take my experience as a source of truth for how our websites are actually managed. Thank you. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor and City Attorney. Commissioners, for your work, welcome back. It's certainly been time away from the dais, but there's been a lot of good staff work that's been going on in our community. We've had a lot of events in the city, special events, and we're effectively navigating both parking and I think from the latest reports that I've received, many of the complaints around sound have also dissipated, so I want to thank our partners for really being responsive to some of the feedback, making some improvements. I also want to share my condolences to the Freeman family for their loss recently. He comes from a legacy of firefighters and it was my privilege to also be part of the history making effort in appointing and confirming the appointment rather. of his position to Deputy Chief, and as has been well noted, he's made a lot of impact. I want to credit him. I want to credit also Chief Lehman and Chief Brown for both trusting him and having the courage to expand the recruiting efforts in the Cadet Program and the Summer Youth Program. And we are seeing that pay off in their academies. I will miss him dearly, miss his unforgettable laugh, and also his real can-do positive attitude. He's also a big supporter of NFBPA. So I want to share my condolences with the family and look forward to seeing you guys in a couple weeks and getting back in the groove.

Thank you. That adjourns our meeting.