City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm sorry.

Okay, how are you?

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that greatly.

All right, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the June 29th, 2026 meeting of the Housing Planning and Development Committee. We have two of our three members here, which is a quorum. I expect Councilman Bullock will be here as well. First order of business approval of the, I'll move to approve the June 22nd, 2026 meeting minutes. Seconded. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. SECOND ITEM ON THE AGENDA IS A REPORT FROM VICE PRESIDENT BAKER REGARDING THE MAY 20TH MEETING OF LAKEWOOD ALIVE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. SO THIS IS IN REGARDS TO SOME WORK. I'LL LET YOU GUYS INTRODUCE YOURSELVES. A CLASS OR A GROUP OF THE CLASS OF CLEVELAND BRIDGE BUILDERS DID SOME WORK TALKING ABOUT A SUBJECT THAT WE ACTUALLY HEAR A LOT ABOUT FROM RESIDENTS ON AND IS IMPORTANT ESPECIALLY SINCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT ZONING AND THAT IS GARAGES IN THE CITY OF LAKEWOOD. SO I WILL TURN IT OVER TO THE GROUP AND WELCOME YOU AND THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE.

THANK YOU. TRYING TO MAKE SURE THE MICS ARE WORKING. It should just be a red.

Well, thank you, Councilman Evans and all of council for having us today. We're going to do quick individual introductions. We have a brief video to show you, and then we'll talk a little bit more about who we are, what our research was, and what some of our recommendations are on this problem. I'm Ken Kalinchuk. I'm a director in principle of project management consultants. I do economic development consulting, including for Lakewood occasionally.

I'm Bob Whitney. I'm the Director of Government Affairs for Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity, so work in quite a bit of housing advocacy, though this issue talking about garages is definitely a unique thing, so happy to be here, and thanks so much for having us.

Hi, I'm Nicole Runick. I'm a Major Gifts Officer with Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. I'm also very excited to be here.

Hello, everyone. I am Crystal Reed. I am a director with the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Workforce Board, which is now called Greater Cleveland Works, and very thankful for this opportunity and excited to share what we've been up to with you all.

Is this visible on your iPads?

We see it up here, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you can go to the video. Yeah, just leave the still frame.

Sorry, Joe.

Community Development Organization here in Lakewood, Ohio. And our mission is to sustain vibrant and welcoming communities. We do that by a housing outreach program. We help entrepreneurs and small business owners. We beautify commercial corridors and we throw really nice large scale community events. Lakewood is often looked at as a quaint and affluent city that doesn't experience any low to moderately low income residents but we are a very we're a very lucky city that we have all socio-economical walks of life here a challenge with a historic city is that our homes are a good portion of our homes are century homes they're 100 plus years old and With that comes significant charm and beauty that we love, but it also comes with repairs that need to happen. And if you can't afford those repairs, where do you go?

My name is Timotaya. My wife, my first wife and I, bought this house in 91, and I've been living here since for 35 years. Up until the point of the disability, my stroke, I could maintain everything. The fence on the back, I built the fence. I built the deck. We had a windstorm and a A chair from the house behind us from the second porch, or second floor porch, flew off, landed on top of the garage, and it collapsed the roof. The way it looks now with the back wall falling down is because I haven't been able to get in there.

By law in Lakewood, existing garages must be maintained or rebuilt if they're demolished within six months. Even the most basic garage can cost $20,000 to $25,000. This is more than the annual income of a senior living on Social Security. A homeowner could become out of compliance with the city code. They are giving a correction notice by the city. This gives them an opportunity to identify the issue and try to resolve that issue. If they can't come in compliance with the city code, they may be paying fines on top of it they don't have money for. Or even potentially they could find themselves in a situation where they might have to sell their home or unfortunately even lose their home.

I got a letter from the city. Basically, you know, it was a warning notice. They're getting frustrated with my lack of progress. At this point in time, I just don't have the money to put, you know, to do that.

This is a very complicated issue really for three reasons. The most obvious being it is a huge financial burden for somebody. Federal grant dollars, which fund a lot of projects that we do in Lakewood, cannot be used on detached garages. And the vast majority of garages in Lakewood are detached. $20,000 to $25,000 or more to build a new garage is too much for the average household. In some scenarios, Lakewood Alive is able to help people with their garage issues. We have skilled volunteers that can come out and help repair them if the homeowner can afford the materials. This can really impact what someone's able to do with their home, whether they'll make it healthy and safe, which is really a driving cause of what we do at Lakewood Alive. We're aware of who's been cited and who's not been cited by the city of being out of compliance with their garage. We're seeing about 100 per year. That doesn't mean every 100 of those people need assistance, but that's the magnitude of it.

We're able to go in and build that trust with people. We're able to really assess the needs of them and then help them develop a plan. And so playing right between that public and private sector is where we are.

Sometimes people get into trouble. Like I said, I would handle everything that would happen to this house. I did it for 30 years. I'd like to be in compliance with what the city, the ordinance of the city are. It's not an unwillingness to do it, it's the inability to do it.

I'm going to keep working at this. You're going to figure it out. You know where to find me.

I'll go anywhere.

Perfect. So I will be kicking us off, going through a few slides with you all. You have about half of our team here. There was a total of eight as a part of our group. We have graduated from our program, and summers are a little busy in the lives with kids and vacations. So we are representing the larger collaborative. As Councilman Evans mentioned, we are, through the Cleveland Leadership Center, have been given the opportunity to really focus in on the garage puzzle that Lakewood Alive has been grappling with and trying to figure out for a while. One of the really cool things is they became like a partner to us, much more than us just talking at or to them about what we think the solutions are. The things that you saw in the video were genuine residents, and we've been able to really see that there's a lot more complexity than I think we thought there was when we originally started to what it really means to have to raise and repair an entire garage versus maintaining those things up front in order to avoid getting to that place. So we'll talk a little bit with you all about some of the research that we've done, some of the suggestions that we posed to Lakewood Alive, both non-governmental solutions, things like workforce opportunities that could be used for volunteers to help with some of the repair needs, and then some things around policy change, the implications of those, some pros and cons. Then we'll open it up for some questions and answers, and you guys let us know what you think. Much of this slide is kind of content that was focused on or covered in the video. A few things to really pull out here is the 111 homeowners and garage citations that we saw from 24 to 25, the actual cost. of what some of those things can run for an individual family and then really the percentage and the age of the homes in lakewood the beauty of the city and the historic homes is also a little bit of the challenge here because if the garage is older than 90 years the bones might need a little help, right? So like I said, I won't dig too deeply into this. A lot of it was covered in the video. But the challenges around federal grant restrictions and dollars and really trying to help homeowners be able to keep their homes healthy and safe, utilize their garages, whether it be for storage or for car use, And what some other options are for homeowners to make sure that they have healthy, safe, and affordable homes to live in is really kind of the focus of how we went about looking at options for solutioning.

Thank you, Crystal. So we were first given some data from the city in Lakewood Alive that we dug into that found that 111 or so properties in 2024 and 2025 across one calendar year were cited for garage issues. Of those, 20 to 25 were recommended for some sort of demolition or replacement. So there were a significant number of cases that had reached the point that weren't able to just be fixed with minor repairs. As we dove into this issue, we also did probably a dozen stakeholder interviews, four or five with residents who had either gone through programs with Lakewood or weren't eligible for programs to repair or replace their garages. Several meetings with council folks, so you're very familiar with this. This puzzle, thank you for meeting with us. The building commissioner, Lakewood Alive. So we did some significant research. We also met with several stakeholders from surrounding inner ring suburban communities who deal with similar aging garage issues and have different types of laws and regulations on the book. Next slide, please. We also mapped the various citations with some research into, you know, the ownership of the properties on the county records, seeing who was maybe individually owned because there was a resident's name or a person's name attached to the record versus properties that were LLC or business owned. In this research, we did see that the issue was widespread across the city. It's not necessarily concentrated in certain neighborhoods or certain wards. Maybe if you were to plot the trends, the ones for demolition and replacement kind of swooped down from the northeast corner of the city down through the southwest. But overall, it's a widespread issue across the city.

And Ken, I'll just add that a majority of these did appear to be individually owned. We never know exactly, of course, whether or not they're owner-occupant, but most of these were individually owned. They weren't an LLC or indicated that it was business-owned.

So we also wanted to acknowledge that policy change is not the only solution here and we are not relying entirely on governmental change for this. So we wanted to show you some of the other solutions that we've looked into as well as what Lakewood Alive is currently doing. So Lakewood Alive currently works with residents as you saw in the video on some of those lower level maintenance repairs to try to help people before they get to a raise and rebuild state. And they also do a know your home educational series to help educate homeowners on how to maintain their homes and how to do perhaps DIY projects. as well as referring people to contractors that they can trust and utilize with confidence. Lakewood Alive also has a volunteer team that can go out and help with these maintenance repairs so that homeowners are only dealing with the cost of supplies. And then some additional solutions that we have researched and have proposed to Lakewood Alive are some financing and grants to aid with the financials on the homeowner side. So looking into things like traditional bank loans or mortgage loans. These are really dependent on the level of credit and the level of equity that the homeowner and the home have. We've also looked into fundraising options so that Lakewood Alive could perhaps provide some financial support for this as well. So through local foundations, annual campaign, individual fundraising, and as well as building the capacity of the staff at Lakewood Alive to perhaps add an additional person to oversee this process. And then as Crystal mentioned earlier, we also looked into some workforce development programs. So again, taking out that labor cost of the repairs. So we've made some recommendations and potential connections with several organizations that could do a workforce development program with this. So this just kind of gives a holistic overview of the work that we've been doing.

Thanks, Nicole. To round that out, Lakewood Alive's volunteer corps and other volunteer sources only have capacity really only for a handful of these repair projects per year and barely any hours for a full replacement. You know, the cost for the repairs materials might be anywhere from $600 to a few grand, depending on what's needed. But a full replacement is much greater. And just Lakewood Alive does not have the capacity. with their volunteer corps, their financial resources, to deploy a mass program at this time to repair all these garages themselves. Can you go to the next one, please?

great so that leads us to the policy options now we recognize with every policy there's going to be pros and cons to any potential policy change so we'll get into more detail on this shortly but basically based on research of other local communities as well as interviews with stakeholders and relevant and residents there was basically four distinct buckets that we thought were possible with policy options for council to potentially consider as you review your housing and zoning laws. The first is permitting some sort of garage alternative. So if rather than requiring garages to be rebuilt, potentially allow for parking pads, carport sheds and or green space in lieu of a full garage rebuild. Additionally, demolition variances, these are for those extreme cases sort of like we saw with Tim of a structure being unsound or a safety hazard to allow exceptions for the demolition to be completed prior to developing a rebuild plan so that homeowners can remove unsafe structures quickly. It's a lot of paperwork to actually go through the entire new build garage process. So in order to do things quickly, maybe it makes sense in those extreme cases to be able to get that unsafe structure down to allow more time. Additionally, when it comes to time, allow for a longer rebuild. Again, it's a six-month requirement currently for folks to have to rebuild a garage. Could that be extended potentially to a longer time period, a year, 18 months, or beyond that? But options for council to consider. And then lastly, tax abatement, which would be potentially extending Lakewood Homeowners Tax Abatement Program to 15 years for garage projects. And potentially that could be income-limited and or age-restricted. And of course, with any of these solutions, There could be some sort of income-based part of that. You can go to the next slide. We'll dive in a little bit deeper to the pros and cons. So for the, and I'm sure you can think of many yourself as well, but if you permit some sort of garage alternative, of course that can lower costs that people aren't spending $20,000 to $40,000 for a new garage, which of course many residents can't afford. can also eliminate the safety hazard and reduce the blight quickly and provide more flexibility for the homeowners if they don't necessarily want a full garage, if they'd rather have a carport, a shed, or a green space. It kind of gives them more freedom for them to be able to make that decision. We do recognize cons with that as well. There's, of course, still not insignificant costs. It's going to be at least a few thousand dollars to demolish the garage as well as probably a few thousand dollars to create another alternative solution. And then of course, not all alternatives would necessarily give you the same amount of parking spaces and outdoor equipment and storage. With this alternative, I do also just want to mention, as was alluded to before, Based on our research, we did talk with an appraiser. We talked with Scott Moylan from Moylan Appraisal, who's done appraisal work over 20 years in Northeast Ohio. And he did find that most likely a garage is only adding about 3.5% to 4.5% of the property value. So for a $300,000 property, it might only be adding about $12,000 or so in value to the property, while residents are required to spend $20,000 to $40,000 in to rebuild it. So requiring residents to spend more than what it's actually adding incremental value to the property is something worth considering. And then additionally, I already went through it a little bit, but the demolition variances, just allowing for that quick demolition of a property if it's unsafe. Of course, it lowers immediate costs and eliminates that safety risk. But of course, there is still cost to the resident and no guarantee necessarily that that replacement option is going to be done quickly. This is more just in the most extreme cases. So I know it was a mouthful, but Ken, I'll pass it over to you for the last two pros and cons.

Thanks, Bob. I was talking to Director Byington before this meeting, and there is a process that residents can go through for this. I'm sure she can share a little bit more about what that process is following our presentation. Longer rebuild, maybe instead of six months, we were thinking the time period between demolition for a hazardous property and the rebuild could be extended to some period of time that was more reasonable to some residents with financial constraints. We don't have a specific window, but We can discuss that with you. Maybe it could be five years. But that's kind of up for council to discuss and determine what that could be. It does provide more flexibility and helps remove that immediate health and safety hazard for garages like Tim's, while also allowing for more time for maybe the property to transfer to someone who can afford to rebuild a garage or do the alternative for a property like that. It provides more leeway and time, but still eventually the problem has to be dealt with if this is the only solution provided by council. The fourth policy option we came up with was expanding the homeowners tax abatement program. We believe it's currently only for 10 years for homeowners with projects like this, but expanding it to 15 years could provide a few hundred dollars of tax incentives for an additional five years on the increased appraised value of the property once the project's done. That's hard to finance upfront. It's not an upfront source of capital. So while it's an incentive, it's not a direct source of funding to pay for the garage now. So it's meaningful, but not the most meaningful of these options, in my personal opinion. And with that, we're happy to go into questions and answers on any of our research or any of the proposed policy solutions for this problem, this puzzle.

All right, thanks, Ken, you and the team. Truly a heartfelt thank you. I really appreciate all the work that went into this that your team did, and thank you to Lakewood Alive for kind of being the sponsor of this project. Again, as we mentioned, this is something that all of us deal with not infrequently, this issue of the garages in Lakewood. So I really appreciate all the research, particularly on the recommendations you've given. But I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues. I'm sure they have a lot of comments and questions. Councilperson Streep.

Thank you for looking into this. This is a conversation as a landlady. That's long, long, long overdue. Um, I bought my first rental property in the year 2000 and the houses on either side of me didn't have a garage. And I was like, how did they get away with that? You know? So I'm sure at some point it was okay to let your garage come down, because I can't imagine that they weren't built with garages. And mine was the one in the middle that had to have a garage. So I've often wondered about how they got away with that why they weren't required to rebuild garages there. The one quite recently just put a whole parking lot in their backyard, which I thought is interesting because in the rental property that I have, it's car shuffle. So if there's usually four people living in the house, four cars shuffling in and out of the driveway, it can be a little burdensome. SO I'M INTERESTED IN ALL OF THESE RECOMMENDATIONS, AND I THANK YOU FOR LOOKING AT THIS. MY ONE QUESTION, I WANTED TO GO BACK TO YOUR MAP OF WHERE THE GARAGES WERE THAT YOU HAD, THAT THE CITY HAD CITED, BECAUSE I DON'T THINK I SAW LANDLORDS ON THAT. If we could go back, it's like the second, I think it's the second, right there. I don't know that I see any landlord-owned properties there. Go ahead.

It's hard to see on the screen, but there's several red dots and yellow dots.

Okay.

Yeah. So there is some that are identified as LLC or business owned. If a landlord is just has it individually owned themselves, we wouldn't know necessarily that they were a landlord. We just indicated if it was LLC or business owned.

Yeah. And I guess I'm just wondering if you work with the city on these addresses, if they could tell us which ones are landlord owned? because they know who the landlords are in the city. And also if they're local landlords or if they're part of a conglomerate that's from out of state, that might also be helpful information in helping correct this issue.

We do have the list of all those things, so we can definitely get that information over as well. I don't. recall there being any super big repeat offenders based on our research. I don't think there was a bunch of names coming up or a bunch of the LLCs coming up, but we do have this information. Of course, it's public record, so maybe cross-reference that with any rental registries could be helpful.

Awesome. Because I would really like to hear what the opinion is of landlords in these recommendations. I think that that would be an important group to hear from. Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you guys all for this terrific presentation. Very well done. Kudos to you for that. On the slide that had the four potential policy recommendations. The pros and cons. Actually, the pros and cons, please, yes. Ken, I know you said you didn't think the tax payment was the most meaningful option. Which one do you think is the most meaningful?

Me speaking for the group of eight people, four of which are here, I think from left to right, those are the most meaningful. The first, just providing alternatives. We know there's some concerns about parking, like where will people park if they don't have these structures? But an example, like Tim's property, he's one of those end of the block, really short lots that the driveway is barely wide enough to get to the back for a car to pass through safely, especially if it was a big Ford F-150 or something like, There's probably never going to be a garage big enough that can fit there to park a vehicle. It's a smaller, older garage. So having alternatives, maybe for storage solutions, because a lot of people, myself included in Cleveland, use their garages for storage, not necessarily for parking. Maybe if council's concerned about parking, people can park in their driveways, like I think many do, and not necessarily need a garage.

And I'll just add, in the most extreme cases, you're actually kind of losing spaces for parking if you have a falling over garage. Tim's wasn't the only one we saw. We did see some other ones as well, too, that can't really park there. It's not safe. It'd probably be a quicker solution if you could get that demolished and have alternative use and then actually fit more opportunities to park as well.

Thank you. I appreciate that insight. And I, too, am in the garage use for storage, not for parking camp.

SO MAYBE IN THAT CASE, YOU KNOW, A SHED AS A REPLACEMENT FOR STORAGE WOULD BE BETTER THAN A WHOLE GARAGE.

COUNCILPERSON BAKER.

YES, THIS IS THE SECOND TIME I'VE HEARD THIS PRESENTATION, BUT IT WAS BETTER THIS TIME. BUT SO I WANTED TO GIVE MY COLLEAGUES A CHANCE TO SPEAK A LITTLE BIT, AND I APPRECIATE THIS. I MEAN, WE PAID FOR KENS SERVICES AT PMC, SO WE'RE GETTING IT FOR FREE HERE TODAY, SO APPRECIATE IT. AND THE REST OF YOU, GREAT PRESENTATION. WHAT I WILL SAY IS THIS IS, YOU KNOW, AS WE GO INTO THE The zoning refresh, this is going to be a really ripe issue for us to kind of tackle and find policy solutions for. And I think you guys struck the right balance between, because it's like zoning and incentives, right? So how can we figure out the right way to do it and then partnerships to help people? I will say a big blow to this is that, you know, the county recently did away with the help loan program. And so that was a vehicle by which you could repair a garage or build a new garage and So we're exploring ways to, you know, either encourage the county to repurpose that program or bring it back or find local solutions that Lakewood might be able to do because now that's still money people have to borrow against their equity. But it does provide at least, you know, even demo and shed is between three and eight grand. And some people might not have that money. Now, the help loan program would probably fund the demo, maybe not the shed because it's technically personal property. SO I JUST APPRECIATE THE COLOR YOU GUYS ARE ADDING TO THIS BECAUSE IT'S REALLY TIMELY FOR US AND APPRECIATE YOU ALL COMING OUT HERE AFTER YOU GRADUATED FROM BRIDGE BUILDERS TO DO THIS. SO APPRECIATE IT.

THANKS. JUST BEFORE I GO TO COUNCILMAN BLOCK, JUST COUNCILMAN BAKER, Your committee is up next, so if we can borrow five minutes. Okay, thanks.

Councilman Bullock. Thanks. I can keep it brief. So first, thanks, everybody, for being here and the thoughtful presentation and analysis. Sorry I missed the beginning. You know, can maybe somebody refresh me on the genesis of this? Is the analysis you guys were tasked with to find ways to better, you know, achieve the repair obligations and so you began to analyze what's happening, what's not happening, the gaps and so forth. And so now we've got this slide with some options.

I'd say we were encouraged to address the issue in whatever ways we can. So some of that was looking for other fundraising opportunities, some was exploring workforce opportunities, but some was also exploring policy and government solutions. So it was really about addressing the gap for those homeowners that had garages and that were in violation. and needed some sort of assistance one way or another to address it.

Did City Hall give you the focus or did Lakewood Alive or some of both?

It was through Lakewood Alive. The Bridge Builders Program at Cleveland Leadership Center works with different nonprofits to solve an issue that the nonprofit is seeing.

So my point is part of the answer is to find... The answer sets defined by the question we asked at the beginning. So Joe, you and your team, through the experience, you kind of teed up this framework. So I look forward to learning more. I've got to get better educated about tax abatements and all the rest of it. But to me, variances, longer rebuild, those certainly are easy to, in my opinion, agree to. Maybe tax abatements, we could we could collectively, it looks like the county's the lead on that, try to make that more viable option. I don't start the conversation, though, immediately jumping to, hey, let's back off of our standards for a garage. Lakewood's distinct by having things like front porches, not back decks, by having detached garages. Some of them are small. They're not car garages because the THE HOME MAY HAVE BEEN BUILT IN 1907 LIKE MINE. SO IF THE CHALLENGE IS THAT THERE'S A FINANCIAL COST AND THAT IT'S HARD TO JUSTIFY THE FINANCING, MY INSTINCT IS TO BEGIN WORKING ON THAT RATHER THAN SAYING, WELL, WE'RE JUST GOING TO NOT DO IT. AND IT'S GOOD TO HEAR FROM, DEEPLY RESPECT MY COUNCIL COLLEAGUE WHO'S GOT MORE THAN landlord properties, so I defer to your experience. But I wouldn't want to see paved backyards becoming the norm. I'm not sure what our standards are. But while there's certainly a parking scarcity in Lakewood, I mean, that's a big, live conversation about how we manage traffic and people move around. So there's a bunch of things that have happened in Lakewood over the years. what should our standards be going forward as we look at refreshing our properties for the next 25 years? To me, I'd like to try to find financial resources before considering backing off of whatever our classic, you know, one and two family home standards would be. You know, but I look forward to getting better educated.

Thanks, Councilman. We have one more quick comment from Councilperson Keppel.

Thank you. And thank you all for being here, for your work on this. One is just a request, if you have this information, if it can be sent, is the percentages. You showed the map, but if we could get the percentages of the garages that were owner-occupied versus an income property, whether that's a local landlord or an LLC, because I have a different view on that, if people are making money on the property versus it's their own. And then the other one is the percentage of people who wanted to rebuild. So those that needed to have repairs or a demo if they wanted to rebuild or if they're like, I wish I could just have it torn down. I don't know if you have the information, but that would be helpful information to have as well. Thank you.

Council President, we don't have that second set of data. We didn't do a survey of the properties in here. but we do have our best guesses on the first set, and if we can get access to the rental registry data, we can hopefully refine that data to who is actually landlord-owned versus what we guessed based on LLC or business names on the property record.

And one last piece, like if we can get the, you know, who you talked to about, I was particularly struck by the percentage of the property value that was propped up by a garage and how that you're not likely to realize that property That's in a sale price, even if it went through quickly. And that's a tough one to swallow for me is like asking somebody to do something that they're not going to be reimbursed for through the sale of their home. So if you could just give us the data on who you talked to and how they arrived at that, that'd be great.

Yeah, we do have a one pager on that. We can get that. information over to as well. They did provide additional data also stating that, you know, while of course a garage does, if it's a good garage, provide good increase in property values for that particular property, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to prop everyone else's property up. So it's, you know, using that logic, if one house got rid of a garage, it doesn't mean like, okay, this is going to have a negative impact on everyone else's property value. So we can get you that information.

Fantastic. All right, so we're in due time for the next meeting, but thank you again to the group so much. Thank you to Lakewood Alive. Fantastic work. I was reaching for my wallet during the video, so it's already working as a fundraising tool, I think, so great job. Really appreciate this. Gives us a lot to dig into, and this is not info that's going to sit on a shelf. We're going to be talking about this very soon as we go to complete the zoning code overhaul. So very timely, fantastic work, and we appreciate you. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, and good luck with the zoning overhaul.

And with that, the meeting of housing plan development is adjourned. We'll take just a beat or two until finance. Yeah, let's do like a minute.

Or if people got to run to the restroom, run to the restroom, I guess, and we'll come back.

It's probably too loud.

Yeah, I've got a quorum.

All right, I will go ahead, and Councilman Bullock will be back, I'm sure, in a moment. We have a quorum, though, and call the June 29th, 2026 Finance Committee meeting to order of Lakewood City Council. First order of business is review and approval of the June 22nd minutes. I will go ahead and make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. Motion made and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. COUNCILMAN BULLOCK, DO YOU APPROVE THE MINUTES? I DO. LET THE RECORD REFLECT THAT COUNCILMAN BULLOCK SAID, I DO, AS HE WAS SITTING DOWN. SO THE NEXT, THE ONLY ITEM OF BUSINESS WE HAVE, WHICH IS THE COMMUNICATION, WE GOT THROUGH A GOOD AMOUNT LAST WEEK AND KIND OF TALKED ABOUT COUNCIL BUDGET PRIORITIES. SOME OF THEM ARE, AS WE DISCUSSED, MORE POLICY-BASED. SOME OF THEM WOULD AFFECT THE 2027 BUDGET. SOME OF THEM WOULD AFFECT FUTURE BUDGET YEARS. BUT IT REALLY DOES GIVE US A GOOD FORUM TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES AS A COUNCIL, WITH MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION PRESENT, WITH THE PUBLIC PRESENT, SO THAT WE CAN BUILD COALITIONS AND DEVELOP WAYS IN WHICH TO FUND SOME OF THESE PRIORITIES, OR AT LEAST GET THEM TEED UP FOR FUNDING, WHETHER THAT'S THROUGH CITY FUNDS OR THIRD-PARTY FUNDS. SO WE GOT THROUGH THE FIRST TWO PAGES LAST TIME, OR MAYBE EVEN YEAH, A COUPLE PAGES IN. AND I THINK WE ARE NOW AT, I THINK WE DID BLOCK CLUBS, IS THAT CORRECT? SO WE TALKED ABOUT THAT. AND NOW WE ARE AT THE MENTAL HEALTH RESPONSE TEAM, WHICH I BELIEVE WAS PROPOSED BY COUNCILMAN EVANS. SO I GUESS I WILL THROW IT TO COUNCILMAN EVANS TO EXPLAIN KIND OF WHAT WE'RE THINKING AND HOW WE MAY ACCOMPLISH IT.

THANKS, CHAIR. THIS IS ONE OF THE ONES I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW EARLY WE ARE IN THE PROCESS ON THIS ONE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WAS BROUGHT UP BY ACTUALLY A COUPLE OF MANAGERS OF THE COMMUNITY WHO SPOKE TO ME AND HAS FOUND CHAMPIONS AMONGST RESIDENTS IN THE CITY. IT'S JUST AS A WAY TO SUPPORT OUR SAFETY SERVICES IN DIFFERENT WAYS WITH FOLKS WHO CAN RESPOND IN DIFFERENT WAYS. OBVIOUSLY THIS IS SO EARLY THAT WE HAVEN'T been able to reach out to our partners at the police department, fire department, and health services, which all are important conversations. So this is, you know, we have this on the list for 2027. Is that likely to happen? Probably not because this is a biggie. It's a big budget ask. It's a big question of a lot of cooperation, integration across a lot of different departments. But it's a conversation that several of us are very dedicated to having. And we have, again, a lot of support from the community and including we have had a couple conversations with Judge Neff. So there's a very specific thing we're looking at, but that may or may not be the right answer or the right way to go. But again, this is in its infancy, lots of things to happen, but we feel it's an important thing to address. So... again, lots of work to do during this calendar year, probably all next calendar year before this would actually, you know, see something implemented, but want to make sure it is on our radar and something that we're thinking about.

ANY OTHER THOUGHTS FROM FOLKS THAT ARE INTERESTED IN WORKING ON THIS ISSUE? COUNCIL PRESIDENT STREBEG.

THANK YOU. YES, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. MENTAL HEALTH, IN FACT, THE LAKEWOOD YOUTH COUNCIL LAST YEAR CREATED THEIR OWN MENTAL HEALTH COMMITTEE SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE THEY'RE SEEING SO MANY ISSUES WITH YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE ISSUES THAT THEY'RE HAVING may or may not be readily solved by a 911 call to the police department or the fire department. THEY HAVE GREAT TRAINING. I'M NOT KNOCKING ANYONE WITH WHAT THEY'RE DOING BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. I JUST WONDER IF IT'S A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PROGRAM THAT, AND AGAIN, NO OFFENSE, CHIEF, THAT A BADGE AND A HOLSTER DON'T HELP AT THAT MOMENT. SO I'M VERY INTERESTED IN EXPLORING THESE IDEAS AND SEEING WHAT OTHER COMMUNITIES ARE DOING. We're not trying to recreate the wheel, but I think it's important. Specifically, the LGBTQIA plus community has a lot of issues with dealing with mental health and maybe not getting all the resources that they require. So thank you.

I WILL QUICKLY REITERATE THAT I COMPLETELY AGREE. I HAVE THE UPMOST RESPECT FOR BOTH POLICE DEPARTMENT AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. THIS IS NOT ABOUT NOT ANYBODY DOING THEIR JOB OR DOING IT EXTRAORDINARILY WELL. THIS IS JUST ADDING A LAYER OF RESOURCES WHICH I THINK IS IMPORTANT. AND COUNCILPERSON HAMILTON-SINER.

THANK YOU CHAIR BAKER AND THANK YOU COUNCILMAN EVANS FOR THIS. Yeah, I think this is a possible solution to an issue that we know. Chief, you and I, we've had this discussion of who is in our jails at any given time. And we know that the majority are either they have some sort of mental health issue going on and or some sort of substance abuse disorder. And people with mental health and substance use disorders do not belong in jail. And they certainly belong. this is an opportunity to have an intervention. So I see this as not a replacement to law enforcement and public safety. It's just another piece of public safety. And it really is responsive to what we've seen in the community health needs assessment, what we've seen over the couple of years, what I know even within the schools and knowing how mental health is really is an issue that is not talked about enough. And there are a lot of people suffering in silence. And we don't know about that suffering until it's too late sometimes. And so this is an opportunity to create circles of community. And I'm not sure if Councilman Evans wants to give a little bit of the detail of how this would work or if we want to save that. But I think it's really creating and filling a gap in services that we know exist in the community and this would be just one piece of that filler and it might not be the filler we might realize that there are other fillers that we need to do but this is just one piece of that filler to help us in solving these issues that we know are prevalent in our community thanks and just to answer that i don't think we're going to get into the details today about like what we're talking about but it underscores my earlier point that

This is a conversation we're going to be reaching out to the three of you, particularly about in the near future to sit down and just talk about logistics and the things we're hearing from community members, the things we've seen in other communities, and then obviously want to know what's going on in the ground because we don't have a 100% picture in them. The neighborhood paramedic program is, you know, built into this greatly as well. I mean, it would be, like, super integrated. So we're doing some of this work. I know our officers do amazing work. But just, yeah, want to make sure that we as a community are providing every possible resource to folks, especially those who are having, during a mental health crisis or suffer from mental health issues.

Any other comments? Mr. Chair.

Yeah, Director Berry.

I really appreciate you bringing this topic forward. I think it's something that we all experience, particularly our safety forces, human services. I think probably everyone in the community has been in a situation that someone that has training in this type of work would help get a better result. I think this is something that the administration has been thinking about and working on for a number of years now, particularly after the community health needs assessment as it came up. as one of the primary things that we could look at. And very recently we had conversations with Cuyahoga County and the mayor brought in Brandy Carney from their emergency management team. And she is part of the current push from, you know, like Shaker Heights and that thing to create like a co-responder model in the community. I think one of the things that Lakewood has that other communities don't have, of course, is a Department of Human Services. I think we're a very unique community in that way. and we also have internally a lot of connections and we do a lot of this work very informally in many ways already. And I will speak for human services in particular, we have been, working towards, as many of you know, breaking down some of the silos within our department and creating a more generalized Department of Human Services and not a division of aging, a youth and early childhood. And they can't cross. And we've actually, since October, stood up some, some, a position that's actually doing some of this crisis intervention work and they've actually intervened alongside police and fire and, um, well over a hundred different crisis situations. And I think that's one of the things I definitely want to get us all in a room and talking about this topic, but I think, um, it's important that we look at, um, what we do, what makes us unique as a community, what services and supports are already existing within the community. How can we leverage those? And I think we're on a really good path right now to creating a model that works for Lakewood because some of these other models, you know, they work for Shaker, they work for other communities, but I think we have a unique opportunity to do something innovative as we always have and really have a strong impact in the community and strong impact in these types of situations. And I think we're already Really doing fairly well at that already so it'd be nice to have the opportunity to share the work that Neighborhood paramedic is doing with our team that we're doing with the neighborhood police officers as well and the rest of the the team so you know, I welcome that but I would say that there is a lot of good work already going on we've you know, found quite a bit of funding externally as well for these programs. And we're really trying to stand up a very thorough and supports around the community and specifically for Lakewood.

Thank you, Dr. Berry. And I can just say as a ward council person, I've experienced a lot of your department's help. And this is what I would suggest as well, that this is, not only law enforcement, not only human services, but the building department. That's kind of a pathway into some of these issues, where particularly with the mental health issues associated with hoarding, you know, where there aren't many resources in which you can, and this is Lakewood Alive. I've experienced this through my time as an ex-officio member of their board about you can help someone clean out their house, but then if they have an underlying medical condition or mental health issue, then it's just going to reoccur. So it sounds like the administration is already doing this work. It sounds like we can work together, help supplement that work. And so I'm excited to see what comes of it. And so this is really good. But I would advise, it sounds like you've got the court, sounds like you've got police, sounds like you've got fire. I JUST RECOMMEND BUILDING. YOU HAVE THE COURT, TOO, SO THAT'S GOOD.

MR. CHAIR, JUST ONE THING. CHIEF, YEAH. I'M NOT GOING TO SPEAK TOO LONG, BECAUSE I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SAY IT AS WELL AS CHAD DID, BUT WE HAD A, HE'S BEING MODEST, WE HAD A MEETING WITH BRANDY CARNEY LAST WEEK ABOUT A SEPARATE ISSUE, AND SHE SPECIFICALLY POINTED OUT LAKEWOOD THAT SHE WANTS US TO BE THE MODEL FOR KYLA COUNTY. So it was nice to hear. He wasn't in the meeting, but I just want to say that his crew was very well received and well respected by the county. And they, like I said, they actually said the words, we want Lakewood to be the model. So good work, Chad.

Yeah, well, that's excellent. And I think we can be the model, but we can always supplement and get better. So excited to help from a council perspective and see how we can do that.

Anything else on that one?

NO? THE NEXT ONE, I THINK, IS PUBLIC ART ENHANCEMENT, PARTICULARLY BERNIE'S. COUNCILPERSON STREBEK.

I'M LOOKING AT THE BUDGET ESTIMATE. DO WE WANT TO JUST LEAVE THAT AS POLICY, THEN?

YEAH, SO GOING, AND THIS IS, AS I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS MORE, I THINK THIS DOCUMENT IS ESSENTIALLY A WORKING DRAFT, BUT I WOULDN'T SAY THAT, LIKE, IT'S NOT LEGISLATION. SO FOR PURPOSES OF THE LAW DEPARTMENT'S ADVICE ABOUT, YOU KNOW, MAKING SURE WE DON'T HAVE THAT MANY PEOPLE WORKING ON SOMETHING, I EXPECT THAT WHEN WE GET THROUGH THIS COMMUNICATION, I'M GOING TO RECEIVE AND FILE THIS COMMUNICATION. AND SO IT'S GOING TO GO AWAY EFFECTIVELY ON THE DOCKET, AND THEN WE CAN EACH WORK ON THESE ISSUES, WOULD BE MY INTENTION, UNLESS MEMBERS OF THIS COMMITTEE OR MY COLLEAGUES ON COUNCIL FEEL DIFFERENTLY. BUT I THINK THIS IS JUST A SNAPSHOT IN TIME. THIS WAS OUR BEST GUESS WHEN WE WERE PUTTING TOGETHER, YOU KNOW, THESE ISSUES ON A FLY. SO I DON'T SEE THIS $600,000 AS LIKE, THIS IS GOING TO GO IN THE BUDGET NEXT YEAR. I SEE THIS WAS Brian's best guess at what it might cost.

This is, I mean, actually a placeholder number given to us by somebody else of what it would cost for us to pay for this service out of pocket, which is why we use that number, but I totally agree. You know, that was the genesis of what we're talking about, but that might not be the right model. Obviously, there's going to be some resources put to it, so it's comfortable, but, like, I agree with your assessment. This is probably not something that's expended next year, but I think it's a good placeholder for how much money a program like this could cost.

And ultimately, I think what might come out of this is simply a communication to the docket that kind of goes through these and says, hey, this is a budget priority. This is 27. This is out years. This is policy.

And then we kind of just note it, right?

And I'm happy to draft that communication and then put it on the docket probably when we get back in September just so we memorialize it, unless anyone has any comments otherwise. SO THEN ON TO PUBLIC ART ADVANCEMENT. I THINK THIS IS COUNCILMAN EVANS AS WELL.

YEAH, I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET SPLIT INTO TWO DAYS OVER MY SO I DIDN'T HAVE TO TALK ALL AT ONCE TOO MUCH. SO WE ALLOCATED $100,000 THIS YEAR AND WE'D LIKE TO KEEP THAT MOVING INTO NEXT YEAR FOR PUBLIC ART. SPECIFICALLY WITH BERNICE PIKE PARK IN MIND, OUR PUBLIC ART PROGRAM HAS BEEN DOING some really great work throughout the community. It's been primarily focused on 2D projects, so murals, things like on a wall or on the ground, which are all fantastic, but there's an appetite in the community to do more sculptural projects, more experiential projects, so that's where we're hoping to support the planning department to be able to do those kinds of works. We do have money in the, I believe it's the 28th budget for Bernice Pike Park, capital budget, And our goal is to use monies over the next few years to support that project as a 3D, again, sculptural project that celebrates the history of women that have contributed to the city of Lakewood. A perfect place to do it, and I think it makes a lot of sense and will be... really good projects to also take care of some of the projects we already have that are needing maintenance and also general funding. We just finished our public art master plan. It is very bold. It's a very great document. If you haven't had the chance, I ask you to please take a moment to look over it. But there are so many great priorities in that we want to be able to support the city, our residents, and that document with additional funding.

Thank you. Any other folks that want to work on this? I think it's Bullock and Keppel. President Keppel.

Thank you. Thank you. And as we talked about this, too, is we do have in the capital plan of general improvements to Bernice Pike Park in 28. And of course, the capital plan is five-year sort of outlook. It's not necessarily written in stone. The money hasn't necessarily been Allocated yet, but the original plan was for 28 for $50,000 of more for planning and then 29 $250,000 for implementation and I think this part this vision to me is also part of what I was envisioning is this Public art as as councilman Evans mentioned working in with that but also being thoughtful about Lakewood common and uh opening and that will have increased numbers of folks in that area Bernice Pike Park is utilized right now by a lot of the residents right around that area and we'll have even more in the area so I think if we are able to push forward potentially some of the work at Bernice Pike Park maybe do a little planning this year and start build out in 28 I think that would potentially be ideal with everything else happening, but just throwing that in the mix, but we'd love to see with Bernice Pike Park and on Nicky Antonio Way, it seems like a perfect place to do this type of work.

Councilperson Strebeck.

Thank you. I'm thrilled for this, especially when we start to talk about the history of women in Lakewood. And I would recommend, obviously you're at three already, I'd love to be the fourth, to utilize the archives of the historical society in Lakewood as well as the League of Women Voters when this park was first being considered as a park in Lakewood. They reached out to me about a name on it, and I had made a suggestion, and Pam Smith had a completely different idea because she knew all the history, and she said, no, no, no, that's got to be Bernice Pike Park. And for all the reasons, it was correctly named that. So definitely we want to keep them in the loop with who we should absolutely be including in this park. Thank you.

Councilman Bullock.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Agree with this, not just... So there's kind of two layers. One is what Councilwoman Striebig and Councilwoman Keppel just said about Bernice Pike Park as a great first next step for our public art work. And I'm grateful that the Public Arts Board and the Director and Councilman Evans are looking at a multi-year view of expanding our really great work with public art over the last five, 10 years to whatever comes next. And so I thought Councilman Evans said it nicely, sculptural and experiential, some kind of interactive stuff.

So I don't claim to be the art engineer, which... Those are conflicting terms.

Exactly, yeah. So I just outed myself as why I'm not trying to direct that. But I do want to resource it, and I do want us to be ambitious that we're every year doing a little bit more, getting a little better, being a little more creative. So I'm really supportive of what the councilman said. We allocated $100,000 this year. 100,000 next year, so we have a sustained, somewhat higher budget pace to give more financial capacity to this whole deal. Do we know, and I don't know if the Director can say, how are things going this year with the use of the existing funds that I know it was kind of a memorialized agreement with the Finance Department of Economic Development. We had those allocations up to 100,000. I heard you about the plan. I'd love to see that plan from Coyote County at the right time, but I think the hope and intent was we could begin to use the time this year and some of those dollars for design, beginning of some design work.

Through Chairman Baker, we haven't expended any of the additional dollars yet, but we still have quite a bit of the year left, but actually the master plan will be coming before you in September, and as Councilman Evans said, it is going to be recommending different styles of art, so sculptures are something in place making art is also one of the recommendations. So I think you'll be happy to see that. And then as far as the park, because this is kind of two different layers. One is the public art, which traditionally, if you have a piece going into the park, it goes to planning commission. At least that's what I've been told. I haven't been here since that's happened. And then there's just the park planning in general that needs to occur, and we've had that discussion before. So we've talked internally about doing a master park plan, but if that doesn't happen, we obviously would have to do a specific park plan for this Bernice Pike Park.

Thanks for the update. And so I think the concept here, I deeply appreciate how your department and others too have been really thrifty with the tax dollars and getting quite a lot done with a small amount. What I'm hoping though is that we're not going to cannibalize the one for the other. So let's continue the good things we're already doing and there's more financial capacity to add this, right? And so I guess we'll talk in September and hopefully then use the fourth quarter to be able to, you know, get a head start in the coming year. That's my strong hope. Thanks.

Yes, Councilman Evans.

Yeah, it would be my goal to use a portion of this to start an RFP process, fourth quarter this year, for design of that public art, signature public art piece at Bernice Pike Park. I think it'll be important to get a head start in that, too, because I think this is something that's also going to draw the potential for private investment in this, which any way we can pull more dollars into this and have a more substantial piece, I mean, Contrary to a wide brief, public art is not cheap. It's expensive to build. And the people who design it and install it deserve to be paid a living wage as well. So as many resources can be at the table, even that we're committing a lot here from the city, I think there's the opportunity to expand that. And so if we can build excitement with a powerful design that speaks to people, I think we can set ourselves up for some really amazing success once this comes online.

Well, I encourage... TO DIRECTOR BYENTON'S POINT, SOUNDS LIKE THERE'S BERNIE SPICE PARK AND THEN THERE'S THE LARGER ISSUE OF FUNDING PUBLIC ART. SO I WOULD ENCOURAGE THE THREE OF YOU TO KIND OF DIG IN AND WORK WITH THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT TO SEE THAT. I WOULD, YOU KNOW, AS WE'RE GOING THROUGH THIS PROCESS, I THINK, YOU KNOW, FUNDING A MASTER PLAN FOR THE PARKS GENERALLY WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA OR WORKING WITH THE ADMINISTRATION TO SEE THAT WE CAN FIND FUNDING FOR THAT. because I think we've gone a long time without it. Yeah. And so now those can be pulled apart maybe. So I think it sounds like there's some willingness from the administration. I'd encourage you all to work with the administration on it and see where we can go. Anything else on public art or Bernice Pike Park? I love parks, so all good. Yeah. AND FOR PUBLIC ART, I'M GOING TO THROW, YOU KNOW, WHEN THEY COME WITH THE MASTER PLAN, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE HOPEFULLY LOTS OF REAL ESTATE ALONG THE INTERSTATE SOON THAT WE'LL BE ABLE TO ACCEPT SOME NEAT ART. SO THE NEXT ONE IS HANDBALL, AND I KNOW WE HAVE MR. VARGAS AND SOME STUDENTS HERE, BUT I'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM THE COUNCIL MEMBERS PROPOSING THIS, WHAT THEY'RE THINKING FROM A BUDGET PRIORITY STANDPOINT, AND THEN mainly because there are students here. If they would like to speak, I'll give them opportunity to. So who's leading this charge? Councilperson Campbell.

Thank you. So this one's fairly straightforward of what we're trying to do. So the goal is to establish a handball court for open community play. Handball enthusiasts, notably the numerous youth who have advocated for a community court, note the benefits of exercise and the sense of belonging they feel being part of a shared experience. Additionally, the Community Health Needs Assessment Action Plan identifies middle school out of school time engagement as a main opportunity for action. It also talks about that shared community experience and interconnectedness. Handball players of all ages benefit from having a freely accessible court, and the community benefits by having youth engaged in healthy activity. So this is something to where when we talk about out of school time, which is my wheelhouse, that middle school age is crucial for time for young people to be positively engaged, build pro-social connections, and stay out of trouble. So when they're coming to us and saying, we'd like to play outside together, please, I'd like to support that. So we did have a meeting talking about some of the various options and challenges with a couple of council members Striebig and Hamilton Steiner and I did with the planning and with some folks from the rec department through the schools. And we talked about some temporary solutions, but I wanted to go ahead and bring this forward as the $50,000 amount is sort of on the higher end of what it might cost to actually build one in the parks. And, you know, with the potential for adding this into attaching to an existing structure, it does also suit with the community vision. And I went back and looked at some of the other Madison Park Master Plan and some of the other plans like the Resiliency Task Force Action Plan. And this really fits in with just about all of them. Now, it was included in Madison Park Master Plan, but some of these kids weren't wouldn't have been in middle school and learning handball yet. And we also didn't ask middle school youth. We asked elementary school youth. So anyway, I'll just say, not that it has to go at Messon Park, but this is the idea being that it's something that I think that there's multiple avenues to yes, and I'd like to explore getting there.

Anything? Councilman Evans.

I'll just say that I have not been involved in the conversations about where this goes or the logistics or anything, but as IN MY WARD ARE PART OF LAKEWOOD PARK, COFFIN PARK, AND WAGAR PARK. ANY ONE OF THOSE COULD, JUST BY CASUALLY LOOKING AT IT, FIT A HANDBALL COURT, AND I'D BE VERY SUPPORTIVE OF THAT INFRASTRUCTURE AT ANY ONE OF THOSE PARKS, IF NOT MORE THAN ONE.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT STRUBEG.

YES, I'M VERY MUCH IN SUPPORT OF BRINGING HANDBALL OUTDOOR COURTS THROUGH OUR PARKS. and also very much in support of coordinating with the YMCA for indoor courts because January, February, outdoor courts are going to be a little bit difficult. And I have had conversations with Mr. Kevin Borncrow at the YMCA, and I think he and Cesar are having communications still about getting something done there.

Thank you. And I'll say that, you know, I'm not working on this directly, but to President Keppel's point, I mean, we have an age cohort of children that we don't have, you know, you can go to parks and play on playground equipment, but it's hard. Usually when 13 to 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds are mulling about, people are like, why are they loitering? You know, so let's give them something to do that's a positive outcome. SO I CERTAINLY SUPPORT THIS. WHAT I WILL ASK IS THE ADMINISTRATION FOLKS, WHETHER IT'S PUBLIC WORKS OR PLANNING OR THE MAYOR, ARE WE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE THAT THIS IS SOMETHING WE SHOULD TRY TO DO OR ARE THERE ROADBLOCKS THAT WE NEED TO BE AWARE OF?

ALL RIGHT. I GUESS IT WILL BE ME. CONGRATULATIONS. Honestly, I'm going to need to know some things a little bit further. I know when I was sitting here listening, you guys had mentioned Madison Park, if I'm correct, Kauffman Park, or Cove. Was that the three?

I just want to make sure. And I don't think we should limit it to those.

Yeah, I think it's just finding a solution. It's not.

Understood. I mean, I have a lot of questions. So it would probably be best if we met and kind of discussed this a little bit further. I am very intrigued to see where you guys may have obtained that number. Because in my research, my number is nowhere near that. So I would love to know where that particular number came from so I can do further research on that. And then again, I don't know what planning would have to say, but just to have some further discussions on what everybody's thinking.

What number did you get?

I'm well above that. Well, well above that.

Are we talking $100,000, $200,000?

I would say we're at least two times to three times that.

So $100,000 to $150,000 is what you think it'll cost?

Correct.

And where did you get those numbers from?

I got that directly from the contract that I put in all of our courts.

So our tennis ball and pickleball courts?

Correct. OK. And that was just the start.

Define just the start.

As in a ballpark number. We haven't got into like, OK, if we choose this area, what do we got going on here? Again, that's why I'm intrigued to kind of know where that number came from, because I would love to take it back and say, well, here's a number. So again, I mean, I think there's further discussions to be had there. And when you get involved in adding an amenity to a park, it turns into, what are we taking away? And what we have found, or at least what I have found from the public, not that I'm against handball whatsoever, that's not what I'm saying, is that in a lot of situations, the green space that we do have in parks, people in a lot of situations want to keep. So it could put me in a little bit of a tough position because in a lot of the public meetings we've had, whether it's been about playgrounds or anything like that, green space has been something that has been wanted. And now we would be going in and removing that. So again, there's a lot of factors to consider. Not that me particularly, I'm just speaking for myself, I'm against anything like this. I just think there needs to be a lot of further research done and further discussions to be had to see what would be the best option for the city.

Anything to add, Director Byneton?

Thank you. No, our office has been, not a lot, but our office has been researching it as far as what other communities are doing. A little bit on the cost, but I'll defer to Director Gordon on that. But just in regard to space, how much space it's going to take up, again, not only would you maybe be losing green space, but if you're going to turn a tennis court into handball. So there just needs to be a A PUBLIC PROCESS, OF COURSE. BUT THERE'S, I DON'T THINK IT'S GOING TO BE QUITE AS EASY AS WE HAD HOPED, BUT WE'VE DEFINITELY BEEN LOOKING AT OUR PARKS AND SEEING HOW THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO BE FIT IN. BUT THERE DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE TO BE GIVE AND TAKE. SO, BUT IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE'VE BEEN LOOKING AT.

THANK YOU. AND I WILL SAY THAT, YOU KNOW, GREEN SPACE IS IMPORTANT. I WORK FOR THE PREMANENT GREEN SPACE ORGANIZATION IN THIS COUNTY. 20 to 40 feet of paved things, I think we can find space for it if there's a desire and a need for in our community. But your point is well taken. President Keppel.

Thank you. And I just wanted to note too that as I was looking through this too, is that that's not necessarily, I think as long as there's a will to get to yes, we can get there. And that there's multiple avenues. We have things coming up in the capital improvement plan and other parts of the park. Like we talked about Bernice Pike, there's a, big wall there that maybe we can connect with the garage, although we'll see with that. There's the bandstand improvements coming up. There's potentially the pool house at Beck's and the pump house so that there's other structures that this could be tied into. So there's a lot of options. I'm not tied to one way of solving it. I'm just trying to solve it. And I do see Councilman Hamilton-Steiner.

Councilman Hamilton-Steiner.

Thank You chair Baker and Thank You president couple and I think I'm in agreement and I think it's we have to if we all agree that yes this is what we want to provide for our youth in the community then I think it is finding whatever is that solution but I also think it involves it may involve a little bit of creativity and thinking outside the box And we, seeing if there are spaces that can be either repurposed, like we did that, you know, with the food spot court. It's a perfect example of a repurposing of a space for a new use. Or is there, are there spaces that can be multi-use? So I think just as we move forward with these master plans and just looking back and seeing are there spaces that we can even use as multi-purpose that could be also a handball court. Just something to think about.

And I think conversation with the schools is also really important. But I'm not going to say that we're deferring to the schools. I'm saying we should have a conversation with the schools. But I do see we're a little tight on time, but I do see Mr. Vargas is here and some students here. Would you like to make any public comment? Just come up to the microphone. I don't think it's, is it red on? It's green. Then say your name for the record, and then hit the button. There you go.

Hello. My name is Xander Hoffman, and I'm here to speak about handball. So I just left middle school, and there's not much room to play handball anymore because we can't really go to anywhere and play because, as you said, we're going to get kicked out, or they don't want us hitting balls against a wall or anything. And I just think it's a really nice program that he's doing. it is gonna grow because I know that my little brother wants to do it and he's in middle school and I've taken him a couple times to like places that people aren't like using to like hit like the ball around a couple times and he really likes it and so I think he's trying to get his like other little friends to play it a little and I just think it's like really nice because it's like you can play with like a like a lot of friends it's like a great way to make friends it's like because if you're going to middle school and you don't like know anybody except like people that you know in like elementary school you can go to handball because there's most likely going to be other people in like uh different like schools that you didn't know before and you're going to make some new friends it's a great way to get exercise it's a great reason to go outside on like a nice day so yeah i think it's just like a really nice addition to have at lakewood and i think a lot of people would really like it yeah thank you

I want to say thank you for recognizing the value in what we're doing and keeping us in the conversation. That's great. The last time I was here, we were joined by 32 students, both boys and girls alike. And several students spoke on behalf of getting a handball court in Lakewood and also on how this perfect game benefited them in various ways. This coming school year, we project to get another 15 to 20 new players with this incoming sixth grade class. We'll add that to the group that we already have and we're a little over 100 kids that play handball in Lakewood. Handball, it's a lifelong game and it's played by many types of people of varying abilities. I've seen firsthand our girls compete against the boys and win many times, right? Because it's not only about necessarily strength, the brains, right? And they know how to play. I'm sorry. The value is apparent, right? And the need is here. So the question is where, right? Where do we do it? I love this game. I scoured Lakewood in obvious places and not so obvious places. And I came up with three places that would be perfect for handball. And this is the three from least best to best. And the least best, Madison Park. There is a space that was a holding area for trees. It's in front of the Rust Belt Riders bins. It looks like it used to be something else. Maybe there was a building there and it got, I don't know, now it's a parking lot or something, but that would be a perfect area for a handball court. The thing about that area is a new build from the ground up. New floor, new walls, fencing around it to keep the ball inside. So that's a potential space. The second best place is Lakewood Park. Lakewood Park already has the volleyball area, pickleball, basketball, that awesome skate park, baseball fields. Why not a handball court? I know firsthand from serious tennis players that they don't go to play tennis at those courts because of the plastic flooring that's there. It's not their favorite. So there are three courts there. If we take the most Western court in that space, take down the net, Either pour a form wall or build with cinder blocks and smooth it out. The same material is going to get us two handball courts in that space. Just got to redo the floor. The fencing is there. Add some benches, a couple new trash cans, and that solves the handball problem. And again, it's at Lakewood Park, which is perfect. You still have two tennis courts. Losing one tennis court in Lakewood is not going to be a big deal. I believe there are 16 of them. We could take up one. And the ultimate best would be, and I know that there's been money spent already recently at Kauffman, but the most Western court at that tennis court area would also be a perfect space for handball. The fencing is there. It's just building the wall and repainting it. $50,000, I don't think it's going to cost that much to rebuild. to build a cinder block wall or even a poured form and redo the floor for the lines for the court. Those are the three best places I could come up with. And using that material to build one wall, again, you're getting two of them. You've got both sides if you repurpose the tennis court, which is perfect for the numbers that we're going to be having. And I'm going to continue. I work at Harding. I have a long time before I retire. I'm going to continue to introduce this game, and our numbers are just going to get bigger. And soon you'll see, well, now we're going to have to repurpose another one, because we've got way many more people playing handball. So that's that. Our city has done an amazing job keeping our citizens engaged and moving and active. Building a handball court, we can provide more people an option to practice and continue to play this perfect game.

Thank you, Mr. Vargas. And I'll say I have three kids that are going to go to Harding. So I'm sure in a couple of years, they're going to be telling me that they need more handball courts. Another one, please come up, say your name.

Yeah, thanks. John Daters. I live on Edwards Avenue here in Lakewood. I wasn't planning on speaking today, but I figured why not support the kids. So both my kids go to, well, my son just graduated Harding. He goes to Lakewood High School to be a freshman, and my daughter just finished her first year at Harding as well, too. They're both in the handball club. I've spent the last three years waking up at 6 a.m. driving my son to handball club. That starts at 7 a.m. two days a week. I don't know if you guys know what it's like normally to get a child up that early before school to go to school. He would not miss it. So talking about the passion, I think we're kind of the same understanding of saying, hey, the heart is there for the kids to want to play. I work in operations. Figuring that kind of stuff out can get, becomes a math problem in a lot of cases, right? I get it. But I think it's where you want to put the priorities of the community. It's what's important to you. When it comes to the green space, I think it's the purpose of the green space is to connect people to the outside in activity. If the purpose of green space is that, that's the same purpose as handball. So I don't think you're taking anything away. I think it's two sides of the same coin. So I think as long as you have, as a lot of the council people have said, the will to make it happen, getting creative with the operations side is a no-brainer. It'll take some effort, some work. That's what you guys are here for. That's literally the purpose of this group. So I really appreciate you guys even considering it. Thanks for the time.

THANK YOU. SO IT SOUNDS LIKE WE HAVE SOME WORK TO DO, AND THE THREE FOLKS INDICATED WILL DO IT, BUT I'LL HAPPILY SUPPORT THEM. ANYTHING ELSE? COUNCILMAN BULLOCK.

THANKS. GREAT, THOUGHTFUL DISCUSSION. AND COUNCILMAN STREBEK, I THINK YOU'RE THE LIAISON TO THE YOUTH LEADERSHIP COUNCIL. WE MIGHT HAVE SOME PROSPECTS FOR INCOMING YOUTH LEADERSHIP COUNCIL LEADERS FROM THE HANDBALL CLUB WHO CONTINUE TO BE ELOQUENT. I HAD A CHANCE TO VISIT MR. VARGAS THIS PAST WEEK OR WAS IT LAST WEEK? IT WAS LAST WEEK. AND HE'S DONATING HIS TIME EVEN IN THE AFTERNOON. Part of the challenge is that the two indoor courts, there's one outdoors in the driveway of Harding, right now is only accessible if you've got a teacher who has access to the schools. So as Councilwoman Keppel was saying, if you have it in a park, then it increases access. And I agree with Councilwoman Steiner, who's pointing out that maybe there's cost savings if we can find a location where you can have a multipurpose, is the thing Mr. Vargas was also arguing. But I also appreciate that you don't have to be any particular body type or gender. It's a very accessible sport, not a lot of expense. It's a ball and shoes. and lifelong and so forth, so all ages do it. Right now, it's a youth practice, but maybe this opens it up to adults. I guess if we have any New York City immigrants, they all note and remember this. To me, a guiding light, maybe this is for the planners and parks professionals here, is if we've got a user group that's using a facility, like we discovered we do have for futsal and we do have for pickleball. By the way, I played pickleball for the first time because my Family got us Father's Day present of pickleball, so we're out there doing pickleball.

We're going to be at the orthopedic surgeon soon.

Right? That's no comment. So I think that's wonderful, and it's another gift of Lakewood that we've got all these subcultures and layers of our community just brimming with all this interest. So I think it's terrific if we've got a handball following, and it's growing, and it's working, and it's for middle school kids that YOU KNOW, ARE ALSO HIGH SCHOOL KIDS. TERRIFIC. LET'S TRY IT OUT. LET'S DO, COUNCILMAN KEPPEL SAID, FIND ONE OR TWO SPOTS, EVALUATE THE USE LEVEL, AND THEN CONSIDER WHAT COMES NEXT. SO THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. AND WE STARTED ABOUT 10 MINUTES LATE, SO I DON'T LIKE TO GO OVER. I THINK I'M GOING TO TRY TO GO 10 MINUTES. SO WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN GET DONE IN 10 MINUTES, THEN WE MAY HAVE TO COME BACK. for another meeting. I think the next one is the Home Improvement Loan Program, and that's, I think Evans wrote it, or Keppel wrote it. All right.

Great. Thanks. And handball folks, feel free to leave if you would like. It's not rude, but you're welcome to stay as well. Okay. So this one is for housing improvement loan programs. So the housing enhancement loan program help sponsored by Cuyahoga County traditionally offered a 3% interest rate reduction on a fixed rate equity loan program. to eligible homeowners undertaking repair and rehabilitation projects, for instance, such as building new garages like we were just hearing about in the meeting prior to this one. With that program paused and the increased cost of repairs, this priority is to identify how the city could modify an existing city program or establish a new program to help homeowners with low and moderate income to complete home improvements affordably. And I'll just add to this too is when we, fairly recently we went through some of the programs that we have that use federal dollars and some of the various restrictions. The HELP program had fewer restrictions. And it was very popular. It didn't stop because it wasn't popular. It stopped because of being able to finance it. So the idea, this is a big, big idea, but is looking at doing something similar, designing a program that's liquid appropriate for residents, particularly low and mod income, to be able to make important repairs in their home as fits with affordable housing strategy, community health needs action plan, community vision. And, you know, I have a fairly large number in there to kick us off of thinking of the kind of seed money with the idea of a loan program being replenished over time. Now, I don't envision that we would be ready to launch this in 2027, but would in 2027 probably more of a policy level where we'd be looking and looking at community partners, whether that's some of, you know, First Federal Lakewood or some of the other potential partners that could work with us on this and thinking what really we need here in Lakewood. So I'll stop talking there.

yeah and i i indicated i would work with president keppel on this i do think i used the help loan for my own home um and it was the easiest loan i ever got but then it allowed me to quickly implement the money and put it in the house which then increased the equity for lakewood myself and everyone else so uh now i think what we're gonna have to really figure out is is if the administration's on board with this like talk to the county a I THINK A WIN WOULD BE GETTING THE COUNTY TO REDO THIS LOAN PROGRAM SO WE DON'T HAVE TO IN THE SENSE THAT THEY WOULDN'T THEN EXPLORING LIKE I THINK THEY JUST BUY BASIS POINTS OFF OF THE HEE LOCK, RIGHT, THE HOME EQUITY LOAN. SO I'M NOT SURE THAT THEY'RE ACTUALLY FRONTING THE MONEY. THEY'RE JUST LIKE WORKING WITH THE BANK TO THEN BUY SOME BASIS POINTS. SO I THINK IT'S GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME TO FIGURE OUT. ANY OTHER COMMENTS FROM COLLEAGUES ON THIS ONE?

I just wanted to say for the record, I've been talking to Ian Andrews in the planning department. I don't know if you have an update, Director Byington, but he's been trying doggedly to get some answers out of the county for why exactly was this stopped. I mean, I think we know why. If there's any kind of backup plan for this or reshaping the program, and they've just been stonewalling them. So the city, thank you, is working to at least get some answers and to see if there's any backup, but I think it's, certainly worth looking at taking this on our own if we're not going to be having the county as a resource for that. Anything to add, Director Byington?

thank you no he's correct ian's been calling and emailing and he hasn't had any any luck so far but as you know we are you know evaluating our programs we're getting some other communities housing specialists and directors together to go over their programs to compare them and kind of see if we can be a little more creative so we're working on it but we're going to continue to harass the county as well thank you

YEAH, THANK YOU. AND I'M, YOU KNOW, IT'S BECAUSE IF THEY'RE JUST GOING TO SAY NO, THEN I'D WANT THEIR NOTES AT LEAST, HOW THEY DID IT, SO THAT WE CAN THINK ABOUT IF IT MIGHT BE TOO BIG, RIGHT, OR IT MIGHT BE SOMETHING WE CAN DO. AND I THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT. AND THEY'RE A PARTNER. WE HAVE IN THE COUNTY ARE GOOD PEOPLE AND WE WORK WELL WITH THEM. AND SO HOPEFULLY WE CAN FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS IS NOT A 2027 BUDGET ISSUE, BUT It's a policy issue and we want to work on it really hard. Anything else?

I'll just add that I think those of us with connections to our county elected officials can try to leverage those to get some answers as well. And I will certainly be doing that.

Tried that a little bit.

So let's see what we can get done in five minutes. Charter Amendment Education.

This one should be pretty quick because this is essentially, as you all know, we've been working on the charter amendments. This is just more of, as we were talking about, what everybody's doing. This is something I've been spending time on and will continue to spend time this year. The money is already in the 2026 budget. This would just be for some information to voters about what each of these amendments are. understanding the language, not saying to vote for or against it, but just what it is that will be on the ballot, as well as just communicating that it will be on the ballot, assuming it passes out of full council, which it has not yet done. So that is making that assumption. But since it's out of committee of the whole. So that's it. It's not a 2027 budget. It's just a priority.

Yeah. I mean, do you envision some budget like mailings or anything? yes but we already um that's in the 2026 budget okay yeah great thank you any other comments from folks no um citywide composting now we can so we have four more we could probably get it done in a half hour but i i let's let's at least start with citywide composting but be mindful that people may have obligations and so um i think this is council person hamilton steiner okay

Thank you, Chair Baker. So this is essentially I've been working on the composting since last year, and I've been working closely with Director Byington and Sophia in the planning office. And so this is just similar to President Kappel, just a continuation of the work. that we've been working on and trying to get the composting rolls out to the community. This is something that is tied directly to a climate action plan, which this body prior to me being on this body passed unanimously. So I think it ties directly into what the city said that we would do. So I think it's important that this is remains a priority. I do have a budgeting. Item tied to there, we do have dollars allocated for this fiscal year, but based on the surveys, we could have a potential need to potentially have additional support. But obviously, since it was budgeted in 2026, if the dollars are tight, that can be removed and we can sort of figure out what we can do for composting with that $50,000 and rolling out the program. Let's see. I think that's where we're at. So, yeah, the survey is finished, and so I'm waiting to meet with Planning Director Byington and potentially Mayor George to discuss next steps and what we would like to roll out.

Great. Any other

COMMENTS ON THIS ONE?

BEING MINDFUL, DO YOU, SO WE HAVE IMPLEMENTATION OF RACIAL EQUITY PLAN, LAKEWOOD COMMUNITY CIRCULATOR, AND EXPANSION OF WINTER SIDEWALK MAIN. THESE ARE BIGGIES. I DON'T WANT TO START THEM NOW. DO WE THINK A HALF HOUR OR AN HOUR TO GET THROUGH THEM? I GUESS I'LL LOOK AT THE SPONSORS OR THE FOLKS THAT ARE INTERESTED IN WORKING ON IT. DO YOU THINK WE CAN GET THESE THREE DONE IN A HALF HOUR? DO YOU THINK WE NEED AN HOUR OR 45 MINUTES?

FOR THE NEXT MEETING.

YEAH, FOR THE NEXT MEETING. PROBABLY AN HOUR. I'LL WORK WITH THE CLERK TO NOTICE AN HOUR FOR FINANCE COMMITTEE ON THIS. AND THEN, AS I STATED, I THINK A GOOD, THIS IS NEW. WE'RE ALL LEARNING THIS. I DO THINK THAT THIS PROCESS HAS BEEN REALLY PRODUCTIVE TO KIND OF HIGHLIGHT TO OUR COLLEAGUES WHAT WE'RE WORKING ON POLICY-WISE, BUDGET IMPACTS. EVERYTHING CAN USE REFINEMENT, SO WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT YEAR. BUT I THINK THIS HAS BEEN A REALLY GOOD START. AND THEN I THINK WE WILL RECEIVE AND FILE THIS COMMUNICATION AND THEN WORK ON THE THINGS WE SAID WE'RE GOING TO WORK ON, RIGHT, AND KEEP EACH OTHER ACCOUNTABLE, KEEP OURSELVES ACCOUNTABLE, AND THE PUBLIC CAN KEEP US ACCOUNTABLE AS WELL. ANY COMMENTS BEFORE WE ADJOURN? COUNCILMAN BULLOCK. MR.

CHAIR, SO THERE'S ONE. WHAT YOU SAID IS A GOOD PROCESS. THANK YOU FOR CONVENING US AND ALLOCATING THE SUFFICIENT TIME TO GO THROUGH IT. WE DID TALK LAST TIME ABOUT THE INTENT OF IDEALLY by July 30 signaling to the administration that we're for certain things so that they've got the information at the beginning of their internal budget process to include, we hope, some of what we would signal then. So in other words, is there another mechanism beyond filing the communication?

yeah piece of legislation yeah i i mean i i don't know of legislation um but i do think that the july 20th i think council meeting is a full council meeting it's before july 30th so if we wrap up this work before you know the docket deadline for july 20th at least we can talk about what that communication, at our next finance committee meeting, talk about that communication. So maybe we go through these three issues and then we tell, hey, let's go back through, tick, tick, you know, what's budget. And then we talked about it, but maybe I'll come with a framework.

We could have a resolution for consideration on the July 20 meeting. It only needs one hearing. That's one mechanism. That may be overly formal, I suppose, but on the other hand, it would be a way for all seven council members to vote and affirm or otherwise put out options there.

Yeah, that's a possibility. I'd have to think about that more, what the legal effect of a resolution would have, other than signaling an intention to support certain things.

Right. Director Mahoney, do you have any comment on your, I'm referencing a private conversation I had with you, although we've talked about it publicly a couple of times, where, you know, the timeline for the administration begins approximately August 1st. So if we got you information by July 30, that would be on time from your perspective. In what form are you anticipating that City Council would communicate priorities?

Well, I mean, I think this is a fine communication just in itself so that when we go to the departments, I believe a lot of these things are already incorporated into the budget. So I mean, this is probably a good enough start for us when we go talk with each department, the budgets, and we could just work with this communication.

YEAH, I THINK I'M IN FAVOR OF BASICALLY COALESCING THIS INTO A COMMUNICATION, AND MAYBE WE CAN CALL IT A COMMITTEE REPORT OR SOMETHING, AS OPPOSED TO, SO MAYBE THE COMMITTEE REPORT OUT TO THE DOCKET ON THE JULY 20TH BOARD MEETING IS KIND OF A MEMORIALATION OF THOSE THINGS. BECAUSE I THINK, YOU KNOW, Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I want a formal resolution. That's just my preference, but we can talk more. Council President Keppel.

Thank you. I think that makes sense with the report out. And I was just going to add, too, is that my hope is that council members, as we've had these conversations and we've had the conversations with the respective directors, is that those conversations are continued. So as those directors are working with finance on their budget, that when we're talking about these things that they're included in so it's not their budget and our budget and who you know and that things have to that we're hopefully including as much as we can with the same expectations and there's not big surprises so that would be a great goal mr chair yeah i understood councilman capital now finance director you you said a moment ago you believe most of these things are already included

in the administration's plans to be double-checked between now and later. However, let's take, for example, the handball court or the proposals for a mental health response team. There's a lot of variance. The specifics of what you mean by I think it's already been included the details are going to matter a lot, because I think city council has specific ideas and clear ideas attached to some of these proposals, at least the ones that are not early stage indicators of really future year programs. Some of these are more ripe and ready for 2027. But I'd be surprised if the administration has all of these already included in the budget. So I think that...

There is no budget right now.

Correct. That's going to be very important. So I think we're going to need to communicate throughout. And I don't know... So that's where an informal process would be then... So if the administration is going to write a budget, then it's everybody's budget. But if the administration's interpretation, in good faith, is something different than what counsel envisioned, we're going to have a discrepancy. And if we wait until November 15, the budget binder, with the detail that's not reflected traditionally in our legislative ordinances, we're going to have differences to straddle there.

And I certainly understand what you're saying. And what I'm suggesting is that our work up here is one part of our work. BUT IF WE WANT TO WORK WITH THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TASKED WITH 40 HOURS A WEEK ON BEHALF OF THE CITY, WE NEED TO GO AND WORK WITH THEM ON THESE THINGS. AND SO THAT'S WHAT I'M SUGGESTING WE DO. BECAUSE WE COULD SAY, WE WANT 100 GRAND FOR THIS THING, AND THEY COULD SAY, THANKS, WE'RE NOT SPENDING IT. SO I MEAN, THAT'S JUST THE SEPARATION OF POWERS, RIGHT? AND SO WE HAVE TO ALL WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN. SO I DON'T THINK WE'RE GOING TO GET 100% OF WHAT WE WANT. But we have the sword of Damocles, right? We could say no and do whatever we want from a budget perspective. So we all have to work together because as President Keppel said, this is the city of Lakewood's budget. It's not council's budget. It's not the administration's budget. It's our budget. But your points are well taken. And I think we're doing our best to create a good process. We're already 15 minutes over. So without any other objections, I will adjourn. Thank you.