City Government - Regular Meeting

Jeff Reed one. Hi Melanie. Hill two, Michael Richardson,

right? So, oh, we already see tonight uh they had a dead um so before we start a good size crowd. So, what we're going to do is first I'll remind you we want to be respectful. uh we'd um like to avoid diversific uh language and uh and so we can kind of get to know who you are in the first time you speak you can say your name and then we can get to do that. What I'd like to do is go through around the questions so everybody has chance and then we'll open it for the further questions. Uh, and then what I'll do is to call on people and if you and y'all can Erin's usually be my watch person that I don't miss anybody. I'm pretty good. But we'll let hands go up and then I'll see them three and I'll try to point to you. One, two, three. Uh, so that we're real clear about how we're going to go.

Would you like me to type them? Yes. And I think um if it's not too constraining with this many people like the rules for when we come in so that everybody can speak three to five minutes if you can try to keep it to three uh that would be great and then as we get through the rounds uh I'll leave it up to you to some not more than four comments. So when do we need a comment? We can start comments and or questions and we're going to do it that way. So you don't have if you've got a comment, you don't have to wait in. So you can ask a question or you can make a comment and we'll go in turn. We'll try to cover everybody um this evening go through one round and then we'll go from there and the we will go until 7:30. So that's that's a pretty long time request. So, uh, all right. I'm going to just two minutes for everyone to get calmed down. I mean, not calm down, but

because I do want everyone to hear or hear the comment. All righty. So, time to All right, let's begin. Do I have questions or comments?

I have one over here. One, two. Yes, ma'am.

Jennifer in the neighborhood. And um I just wanted to say that as far as the property we're talking about on the river, I think we need to protect the river. The riparian zone is very important for wildlife. I walked by on the bridge. I walk out often see deer hair matters and of course the wildlife all the birds and um bear mus um and so I think if you want to know anything on that property it should be as far away from the river as possible and be minimal we don't want a lot of um like from parking areas we don't want oil and things like that from the vehicles to go to the river uh one idea that um I had the people sell it possibly the public land conservancy and I donate to both of those organizations so they can help protect that part. Okay. Thank you very much to Mr. Glass.

Yes. Okay. Honorable mayor, members of council, all of you know me. Uh my name is Brett Glass. I'm here to speak to you today, as many people are, about the proposed blight designation on the west side. Um, making the site an urban renewal area be wrong for many reasons. It would impact our tax base and it would violate legislative intent. Uh, the legislature explicitly declined in 2025 to extend the powers of an urban renewal authority to the subsidization of affordable housing. Uh the declaration also provide no benefit or incentive to a developer who might wish in who might be interested in developing the property. Should a tenant tax break be enacted, it would be priced into the sale price of the property. Only 4G enterprises, the current owner, not the developer, not the tenants or future owners of anything that will be built there would benefit financially from the tiff while our local governments and schools would be harmed. But in any case, the most important reason that you must base your is that you should deny this is that you must base your actions on findings of fact and conclusions of law. And by those criteria, the area question does not qualify as being blighted. The purpose of an urban renewal authority is to deal with actual blight, not to hand out tax break to uh to to to land owners. Here's the important part of the law and I've highlighted this on the handouts which you've got there. Blighted area means an area of which by reason of the presence of and then there's a long list of possible conditions there substantially impairs or arrests the sound growth of a municipality retards vision of housing accommodations or constitutes an economic or social liability and is a menace to the public health safety morals or welfare in its present condition and use. So, one of those three things in red has to be true for the area to be declared blighted, but none of them is. Is the area

impairing or arresting the reg the growth of Laramie? Nope. We've grown right around it. In fact, in 2023, council officially approved a growth plan for Laram that does not include the area in question as a growth area. Now, is the area retarding the provision of housing accommodations? Nope. It's not doing that either. A huge development along Bill Nye was recently approved. The old Slade site, which is now being cleared, could support 17 duplexes. The Fourth Street project is set to provide 128 housing housing units. And more building is going on elsewhere. So that's not true either. Now, is it an economic or social liability and a menace to the public health, safety, morals, or morals or welfare? Nope. It's just vacant land. It's certainly not rife with crime, danger, or disease. And so, this area fails all of the tests in the law. It's not blighted according to Wyoming law, and hence does not qualify as an urban renewal area. Thus, according to findings of fact and conclusions of law, you need to vote down the blight resolution. Please vote nay on this item when it comes to a vote early next month.

Thank you.

Um, do any councils wish to make comment? Uh yes, vice mayor. Thank you. Uh mayor, I just want to address just one portion of um what you uh pointed out. Uh Mr. Bos, I appreciate you coming and commenting. Uh you always bring things forward and make us look at things more closely, which I really appreciate. So the one um piece that I I'd love to talk about a little bit is the idea of tip and putting more burden on taxpayers. And so the idea with the tip is that it freezes in time. And so the tax is going to stop at that at that spot for the the property owner. Anything that would be collected as as time goes on goes right back into that property. So no one in the area will be paying extra additional taxes. It's for that property. And then actually in the long term because we'll be building up that property and calculating on it potentially your tax base is going to get larger. And so you're going to have more support for your schools in your communities in the long run because you've now put something on the land that wasn't there before and before. So that so that's why we're able to grow it because it's it's growing that tax base, right? And so um just the impacts on on schools, it won't be right away. It's just going to be pause in in the short term, but over that longer term, more of a factor.

We're going to go around. Yes, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Christina. I'm a part of Wyoming. Um, kind of bouncing off that and some other things that people have already said. Um, kind of sounds like we want to put something there. Just put something there. uh we actually don't have to do that. Uh we can just leave it as a part of the green belt or incorporate it as part of the green belt. So as part of my research uh here at UDub um for graduate students um until recently I was working on raccoons in and around the green belt. We know for a fact that raccoons travel across that piece of land to access both uh food resources in other parts of the area and to uh traverse that part of the land when there is flooding. they can't get under the bridge and things like that. So, we know at the very least uh that these animals use that area as a pretty significant wildlife corridor. Um and likely they have been doing so because it is clear. Um we know from other studies in other parts of Wy that uh they avoid roads 100% they are avoiding the roads. They try and use alleyways. They try to use only pieces of land like that piece of land that we are talking about. Um, and that is going to change if you add something to that piece of land. Uh, so while we'll still have parts of the green belt green belt to traverse through, it will likely cause problems for those land owners as well as other people in the community. Uh, just increasing the nuisance load uh that we already have a nuisance load of raccoons and it will most likely increase that.

Yes. Um, council three first then council member. Yes.

And thank you for your comments on being here again. Jim freeboard two and I'll make a quick quick response setting the first two comments or the comments you leave here. That's just a reminder that piece of property is private land. So that private land owner, you know, is is working with this process to potentially put something beneficial to our community. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't sell that tomorrow to anyone who wants to zone it within our statutes as anything else. And we don't have any control over that. So tomorrow they're going to be developing that office of $2 million of cash for that. Probably unlikely. And this is our only tool to potentially have influence on that and have this come before planning commission and our council and have input from the constituents on how that's going to be developed because the reality is it could be developed in any way that they see fit. So, I do I I really do appreciate the consideration for wildlife. I know we hear a lot about that tonight and I think that's I don't think there's going to be the goal anyone council if this were to move past this initial flight designation and we were to talk about down the line what development would be that taking those facts into consideration wouldn't wouldn't be there because don't want to burn our animal population but also the reality is someone could develop this however they want. Thank you, councelor. Councelor,

you know, councelor Balding.

Well, sort of, you know, yeah, you know, um but I would also say, I mean, I sort of um am hearing two different issues come from our constituents, and I think they're both important. The first one, Mr. Glass, starting us off, is the blight definition. Yes, it is a um imperfect process with antiquated language. um but it is uh part of state statute and so something that we need to move through that and we want to address the second issue. The second issue I think we're approaching this from is that what they see behind their house or on the side of their neighborhood is a big beautiful open space with animals. People walk their dogs through there and that's wonderful. Um but to reiterate what Mr. Freed was just saying this property could have been sold even before we reszoned it when it was industrial without any input and then there could be a cold storage facility. Every step that the council and the planning commission have taken to date has been to ensure that when that property sells that the the city of Laramie and the community that lives adjacent to that property will have the most possible control over what happens on it and those are two very different issues. Thank you, mayor. Um, Matt Lockhart work three. I want to echo everybody's comments, all the council people. Um, because it was zoned industrial.

Okay. So, would you rather have residences there or trucks coming through there for cold storage? Right. I mean because they could do, you know, if it's stayed industrial and the guys did call some of the people that have been interested in the property and there was still some interest from some industrial type businesses, but they felt it would be better for the community to be residential. I think so too. I would rather not see a bunch of trucks over there. We already have that across the street, right? You know, with those of warehouses. Okay. Um, so I want to echo that. So us trying to be part of that I think helps because if someone else bought it, decide they want to reszone it, go industrial, then what do you do, right? So um also um echoing Mr. Glass's comments about we have other projects working. We're only getting 80 permits a year to build houses. We need 2500 homes in this the community. the forest street project that's not financed yet. Um, Bill N years down the road, you still got to get the infrastructure through there. The slate school area would be great for some projects, but that's not even finalized. So, if we're still just doing 80 homes a year to get 2500 homes, that's 25 years. So, we need a development. I'm not saying that's the place, but the reality is if we want to grow our community and bring industry in and have a better tax base, we have to have big pieces of property to put more than one or two homes on. So, that's another issue looking at trying to take into consideration.

I think this is comment and counselors, let's keep ours. Absolutely. Fair enough. Yeah. Let's remember there's no plan for over there either. This conversation is about the wife that there's no building plan. There's no nobody's no buyer. Yeah. No hire. So I think to get the most out of this meeting too like that should be like our we need to be talking about should this area be wide or not. Uh there was the hand up first Nate and then three two three and four. So we'll take five and 10.

And just so you guys know, I'm going to hold up one, two, three,

thank you. Thank you counselor. You find yourself in a skip situation. Um, from our perspective out here, it's hard to digest the narrative that like we just have to do everything for housing. There's nothing city council can do to, you know, to get in the way of that when we watched you all um, stop a house of development across the railroad tracks last year because the downtown business community wanted to save a parking lot. And now you've jumped across the river, go across the tracks here and are angling to put a residential subdivision on the only river that we have. I'd be curious if the city has plans to develop another river. Um because that's the only one we've got and if you destroy it, the riparian corridor, as this young lady described earlier, it doesn't come back. I'd be curious um where where this idea came from that the the people of West Miami just desperately want a residential subdivision instead of an industrial corridor. I I don't remember being asked that. In fact, I was at the the zoning change meeting where unanimously the residents of Western Army spoke against the zone change. Um, you know, wildlife, which is something that I value as well, tend to live harmoniously among empty structures. It's people they don't like. Um, so if we're trying to protect our wildlife, putting a residential subdivision there is probably the worst thing that you can do. And I also want to push back on this idea of like, ah, it's just a piece of private land. There's, you know, we just don't know what's coming. I was in a meeting five years ago with city planners who were describing to me that this was a priority area for residential development. So this isn't a surprise

thing. This isn't a well private property thing that could go any way. The city has long had plans to develop this land as residential property and I think they've been fairly transparent about it. So at this juncture to come back and say well you know it could go anyway. This has long been in the works and I just want everybody to have an honest conversation about the reality of this project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Madam.

There is a third alternative and my wife came up with this and she gives all the credit. West Lar is the most organized and vocal community in the city. I'm also the chairman of the planning commission. So I see you all when you come there and tell us what you think. It's the west side. West the neighborhood.

Westside. My wife's idea was since she spent 25 years raising money for the university is this neighborhood could build an organization, hire some grant writers or there's probably some grant writers in this room. If you look around, write some grants, go to the Nature Conservancy, go to uh there are foundations looking to give people money from one end of the United States to the other. Now, I don't know what the guy's brothers want for this property that's $2 million. That's chump change to some of these foundations. You could write grants and buy it because it is private property. And all these people want to do at G is sell it. They've sat on it since the 1970s. Money talks. So, write some grits. get some foundations on your side, the Nature Conservancy on your side, buy it, and then come to the planning commission and say, "We want to change the zoning to something that will never be touched, and we'll pass it." But anybody who owns private property comes to us and wants to change their zoning, we're going to give them a fair hearing, and we're more than likely to go with it. It is private property,

but since you're private property, fire,

I guess my question is, and it partly got answered, but is and I'm Becca Ash. My parents live in Westire. We've been there about 30 years, and I'm I'm rather new here, but I've been here a lot for them. How will it affect the historical buildings on the side? because from my understanding that was part of the origination of Laramie and um how it will affect the residence but also can you tell us what your plans would be if you have that property what you want to do with it? I heard that sort of said a little I mean maybe some ideas but um more speculation. What is the plan? I would like to answer that since that was posed as a question is the city is not acquiring the property. So it would not be our property. It is private property that is going through a process that uh is structured through the city and through state statute. So these private individuals are going through the process to change first of all that this has been completed to change zoning from industrial to residential and then uh the property has significant mitigation both flood and environmental that would need to be done that make it a challenge for development. and then that fits under state statute. So what we're in a process of is just changing what can be done on that property and what engagement the city could have. So if this fails then they could very quickly sell the property and then that

person would come in and at minimum zone at the minimum zone standards they would meet those standards. It might not be higher we might not have the input but you know as much input um but the city is not okay purchasing. Can I just put some just a quick followup, but this is the zoning change so that it has a opportunity to be residential instead of in it has been changed and so now a developer who wants to develop residential could buy the property at any time. Okay,

there's one more to that. This is outside the historic overlay for the west side as well. So that it is on the outside. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. My number four David wildlife ecology is retired from the University of Wyoming.

Thank you very very much for holding this hearing. Appreciate all you're doing for the community. Really a time we have four other things happening in town. I know you would have liked to be in at least one of them. So I appreciate you. A couple of things. The the main thing is this is not a west side issue. Yes, the people living in the west side will be most affected by whatever develops on this land, but the green belt and the river belt belong to all of us. Which is why I'm here for about so please keep that in mind. Even if uh the residents of the west side say oh that's okay you have to consult with the rest of the learning uh community that's one

thank you

I apologize

the the you know my position on wildlife my previous student Christina explained about raccoons but there are many many important wildlife uh species that use this it's the important corridor. I do have a question for you guys. Uh because we are at a junction that we need to stop and think what we're doing in general in Wyoming in Laram. Sorry. Uh we uh have we done the study needed to estimate the water carrying capacity of the basin and I would argue that we have not because what we're facing is climate change with high temperatures and low precipitation. We are in about 9 years of global average precipitation. Our aquifer is dropping and our river is also our snow is melting much earlier. Look at what the green we look like common right now. My point is before we go and develop and build and slate and this and that and the other stop. Let's evaluate how what we need to do. Come up with a plan. I'm not saying not do anything, but come up with a plan. Come up with a plan of how many more people can we support. What actions do we need to do to ensure that already the people that live in Laramie have water available? We don't want to end up five years from now after five years of this kind of drought not being able or having forced to close

people's faucets. Let's not go there. U I'd like to address that because we have staff that think about the water all day every day. Um our our city manager can correct me, but the the storm water drainage plan that's based on highly technical hydraology studies of the whole Laravey area and takes into consideration how much flow from outside of town. So, so that's all they think about and they're also preparing for this upcoming we assume we're it's a drought. So, how is that going to affect us? And we're going to have a work session about that in June about how the um how our staff prepares for as you know that we get some water from the aquifer, some from the river, but when that surface water dries up um our our team that does water 247. I mean, they really do. They're out there all the time. That's all they think of that. Well, I don't know. They're not obsessive, but for their work, that's their full-time job is they get and as far as the studies and based, that's where we came up with this astronomical number about how many um about how much money we need to have an adequate storm water drainage system. And and can I say I'm also a wildlife ecologist. I also was the stream ecologist and I care about riparian areas. But I really I the reason the that is not in the road plan is because ideally you work with infill lots people that study planning and people and urban sprawl. They want to keep our footprint in this area instead of continuing to

have it go out in the county where we have no say in that and we have no say about how things are built. So, um I mean we ideally we would build within and let the wildlife have more of the outside of town than than taking all of the land.

Can I just follow up? I want to quick command the water department water department. They are doing a fantastic job. I we have been talking about how to capture the snow melt and put it in the upper floor. So I just wanted to say that your life city water is fabulous and fairly smart. Thank you. Uh my name is Bill Sanchez and I want to expand a little bit on point. The green belt is used by Larry residents total. A lot of people are unable to go back out into the mountains or to any other place that is green, that is thriving, that is living, that has went back to wildlife, there's an emotional component to that where I I know that for me at a certain point in my life, a walk on the green belt to sit by the water to go through what I was going food, talk to the water, smell the vegetation, the whole wind in my hair. There's a healing to that. There is a a a natural, I think, uplift to the humans that are there. And that's something that I think would really benefit the population of Laram to have that expanded where there is a place to go to have that contact with nature because they can't go hiking or fishing or any of those other things. It's it's vital. It's alive.

I appreciate your comments and it has really been a foundational factor for the work and continued work we are putting toward expanding the green belt to encompass the river and to provide that space as well as transportation alternatives and other things because if you look at it on on the north side you have all that vegetation you have the wildlife Like I've seen mink and fox and deer and everything where you go on the south side where it goes away from the river where it's cementic where there's trees there's not that feeling there's not that touch. Thank you. Questions or comments? One, two, three, four. We'll go into four first.

Right. number one for this particular section. Hello. I don't know how long I have, so I'm going to make it fairly quick. You have three minutes. I'll hold up. I'll hold up numbers.

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that note. Hello. I'm Lucas Freighic. I am a what I would easily consider a young professional here in Larmy, Wyoming. I grew up in Gillette. Good place probably. Maybe not so much anymore, but it used to be a lot of fun. Not the point. Fact is, I encourage you to vote yes on this polite designation, mainly for a lot of reasons. As a young professional in Laramie and in Wyoming generally, a state that's famous for hemorrhaging a lot of young people. Affordable housing is a big piece of this and I see it all the time. I'm a renter. I've been a renter my whole life except when I live with my parents. Thank God for them. Am I right? But besides that, I've been a renter my whole life and that's my full 20s and well, one year in my 30s since the parents then you get it probably. The fact is though, it would be great if we could have more housing in this in this community. Not just in the community, but really the state at large. I get the sacrifices that we're making for development. That's what happens. I'm sorry to say, but if I'm able to afford a house in Laramie, I can make Laramie my home, permanent home. And I love this town. I moved back here for a reason. It's a great place to live and I want to make it a permanent space. So, the easier any factors, all the red tape, all the process of procedure, believe me, I'm a procedural person. For those who know me, I'm a big bylaws guy. I get it. But for a lot of these spaces, for all the complications that it is, making it just a little bit easier for people like me to afford a house here or any sort of a home makes a big difference in my ability to stay, not just in this community, but in the state that I love, place that I call home. So, I really appreciate you all hearing me out and uh good luck.

Number two, If you could say your name as you start.

Definitely. My name's Ann Brand and I'm gonna go slower this time and be shorter. I founded the Albany County Conservancy in in 2020 and I have thousands of followers and I have to say a lot of them start in the elementary age group and they encompass their college age group. One member in particular re reached out to the conservancy and had us apply for a spark tank grant because of what was said about access to wildlife and wild areas and not having to travel to the mountains. And I also have a lot of members in the county who have ranches, but they also acknowledge that in the dead of winter, you're not going to drive Boulder Ridge to access wildlife and 10 ft of snow. You're going to come to Laramie and access it on the green belt. So that I would like to bring to the forefront. And to address affordable housing, I've heard in multiple meetings that we need single family homes, not multi-unit family housing. That's been identified.

And today the back and I also wonder if we're going to be addressing water issues walk in when did we say June? Was that June? Erin,

I I encourage this council not to approve the pipe designation on April 7th. I want to hear about the water. I'm hearing about the water. And people need water as much as wildlife needs water. And I also know that a lot of our members their view of this section of the green belt is it's pristine. So their hackles get up when they hear things like grain gray zone development. As you know, I've seen deer graze in areas where the Larmy River Conservation District cleaned that area up. And I also know that the EPA in the 1980s designated this as a high priority level. And I know that when I took my daughter who's 26 years old and her baby carrier at that time to be the first child on the green belt, right? And I saw I could hear pumps on either side of the fence on the UP railard pumping out the creassode. I don't hear those pumps anymore. And I was taking portraits along the Ly River green belt today. And I remembered last year I saw wild asparagus where I was this time. So that remediation has made a huge difference. I see a lot more wildlife now than I ever did growing up. So I really strongly urge that we continue the conversation about wildlife. Our elementary school kids don't travel to the mountains. They go to the great bel down the road. I have a question. I would love to hear a little more if you it's been really helpful to hear about kind of this is private land. This is a tool that like that council is considering using to have a little bit more say into the development that eventually happens. Can you speak a little more to what the process for city

and resident engagement would look like either with or without a designation?

Thank you for your question. Excuse me. I'll be brief and feel free to correct me or someone who's smarter can jump in. But the so my understanding for this designation on Tuesday on Tuesday, April 7th, city council will vote to make this determination either for or against putting this land as through state statute. In that process, if it does become designated as then there's a whole bunch of other steps that will happen. Um we have access to funds. Development could occur. It also might never occur. Just because it's designated light, it doesn't mean that we're going to have developers driving to town and putting stuff up and go through the planning commission. So, planning commission meetings are public forum. They're recorded. You can comment then any um throughout those steps and planning commission recommendations from common board council. Uh and so then there's opportunities council to engage and also uh talk to your council members. If it doesn't become wided, if we both know and this lander still owns that land, they can sell it to whoever maybe it never gets developed. They someone or someone talk about getting grants and it gets purchased by the nature conservancy and they put a ement on it and it never gets developed. But they can also sell it to someone who's going to go put some sort of housing or anything else they want or advocate for it to go back to industrial like it was for almost a hundred years, but they were you put in there or whatever. So this I think gives us more of an opportunity to have more public input and and use the tools that we have to hopefully create something that's better for the majority of the community. But

um we're going to answer a couple of answers from council and then I'll go through four and and maybe really we should kick it over to city manager. But from my understanding as well that with this in place having um that tax increment financing there can be more more done to help mitigate and address the issues that we pointed out within the blight designation. And so um if someone were to come in and build, they would have our engineer would say you have to address XYZ to keep it up to code to make sure things are safe. But from my understanding, we can create more opportunity to maybe maybe we're maybe we're thinking about everybody talks about Cedar Street, right? And that it kind of goes this way. Can we I think you've talked about a pump that would go through and makes it so the water can come back to Cedar Street. if you I'm gonna just kick it over to you because you can talk about this better than I had but we can do we have more struggles to it all up.

So I'm I'm Todd Bezer. I'm the city manager. Um the what happens in the process is if the council chooses to determine his blight. That's the establishment that the area is eligible for tax financing. It doesn't mean that there's going to be tax increment financing due. It just makes it eligible. um the the owners currently own it, the property would have to sell and or they would have to develop. They have to create plans. Maybe they'll want to subdivide the property. Maybe they'll want to do something that will have to go through a public process. They'll have to provide a type three site plan that has to go through the development process and be approved. And then they have to develop how they would use tax increment financing if they so choose through a development completion agreement which would go back to the urban renewal agency, go to the planning commission and go to council for approval. And all of these processes all combined are going to go through what we what we call the public process which is it will either go through the public agency of the urban rural agency, through the planning commission or through city council. So there's going to be multiple levels of review and evaluation on whatever may be proposed for this area. Hope that's helpful. What what councelor Richardson was talking about is we know through surface water drainage evaluation and having an engineer specified on that that we have conceptual plans where it would increase the drainage out of the developed part of this area to the river quicker. Right? Because as you look at it, I haven't surveyed it. I haven't topographed it, but as I look at it, to me, the lower part of the area is kind of Cedar Street and then it gets a little bit higher as it goes to the river. Well, if we can break that barrier somehow and get water out of this area, we can protect this neighborhood a little bit better. That's the only thing. But that's really conceptual. We believe that it has some merit. You know, of course, those would

have uh a kind of if the river was high, they would have a a structure in there. I think it's called a weir gate that doesn't allow the river water to come back in, right? It only allows water to escape when the river is low enough for it to escape. But those are just concepts on surface water drainage that we could work towards. Thank you, Mr. V. Madame Mayor. I'm used to being behind the podium. Please excuse me.

Hi everybody. try to keep within my three minutes. And first of all, thank you all for letting everybody be here. It's so important for even the folks on the west side and throughout Larmy are able to to visit and I really appreciate the dialogue. A couple things that I do want to talk about with respect to the BL study and I'm not rendering opinion one way or another because I'm not a scientist, but I've read I've read through it all. Well, let me say this. I do think it meets the statutory requirements. We can have policy differences, but declaring something that's illegal, I think is is something different. So, we can have policy differences, I think it means statutory definitions, but the one thing that I want to say, and I'm piggybacking off someone back here about what kind of a voice can the folks over here have or with within the community. And I appreciate with the urban renewal plan that there can be some public involvement, but I do think that there's some limitations also because the urban renewal plan has to have like a nexus between whatever we're wanting these folks to do has to somehow or another relate to whatever is going on with the blight study. And y'all already may know this, so tell me shut up if you want. But you can also do the developmental agreement which gives you a little bit more but there still has to be some nexus. And this is where I've been talking to folks. I don't know what people are thinking. I do think we can have more of a voice if we can do a zoning overlay. And I have chatted a little bit with some different folks. I think with the zoning overlay you can um require more as far as like the um green barriers height restriction. Those are some of the things that we can do. I don't know how feasible it is even with the zoning overlay with going back so

far to protect some of the wildlife. I I don't know but I think these are things that we can think about. Are you Am I down two or one? Uh, you're down to one minute.

Okay. Um, I think we can find a balanced approach. I really truly do. And I'm just going to ask that we keep engaging like this. And, you know, I don't I don't want the attacking and and things like that. It just doesn't help us. And I got some of you folks that have lived here for years, right? And your families have lived here and you're living in the homes where your parents live and that makes, you know, that's huge. and we don't want to lose sight of that, but we also don't want to lose sight of the gentleman that wants to stay in Laramie and wants to be able to purchase a home. So hopefully we can come up with some kind of a balance. This is why I'm winning. But

I think it's really important um that Miss Divine tell us what her day job is because we've had a lot of people come up here and quote state statutes. Um so I think um it would be important to have that to know where that information just came from. Would you like to share that me? Yeah. Your what what your job is your career? Oh, I'm an attorney. Thank you. Thank you. a defense attorney, but that's not discounting what anybody else might say. No, it's not.

And questions or comments? One, two, three, four. I have some com or I'm going to proceed. I live on Cedar Street right there. I have some comments and I have a question for council. Um there two corrections that um there is no historical related in the neighborhood. Um the historic district boundary ends um on the other side of Cedar Street. Um and that has no zoning or anything like that. Um and the CR that is not where the Crusoe plant was that has mostly covered our WPK swimming pool um built in the 1930s has been vacant land. Um I would like to just make a comment about if you know we get to the point of uh someone wanting to develop that land. I would urge a notice and council to sort of think back instead consider um a zoning overlay that is done in consultation with the community living here and that is sympathetic towards the historic district that the city did spend time and money um approving and supporting. Um, and then my question is in regards to the comment about organizing at a grassroots level to purchase the private land and get a conservation. Um, that's a lot to ask of volunteers, right? Um, many of us in this room are really strapped with our community involvement as it is and our commitments in this town as it is. And so I'm wondering if something like that were to um happen or the neighborhood wants to pursue something like that, can we expect any sort of support from the city? Um whether that's um you know helping

fundraising, helping with grant writing, um any kind of support on any sort of level to achieve uh a goal like that. Thank you. I will question our capacity. Uh right now I think that uh we are stretched extremely thin uh with some of the cuts that have already been made. Uh we did pretty good because of the uh wind monies that came in. It gave us some buffer, but we'd really be hurting that if it hadn't been for that. And I just I would question our capacity to have um a significant role in that. Uh and just we did did go into partnership with Nature Conservancy, with Death Unlimited and with uh Trout Unlimited for the purchase of the Heart Ranch. And so they took over. Without the major conservancy, we would not have been able to purchase the heart ranch, which what city benefited from our part of the purchase was the water rights, which takes us as long as the river is viable, it gives us first rights. And so the nature conserancy found that property to be very desirable and a place where they are working with the reestablishment of the lion toad and so there was intention there for wildlife development in that southern

part and it took us years to put that together years. So the and I'll just add that one of the difficulties with this current property is that it was industrial for 100 years. There are heavy metals and other things that for the nature conserancy to want to come in. It's probably not the highest desirable land that they would want. And so we might have difficulty there. That really got something Yes.

Can I ask you said my understanding it was used for the welding of the rail the railroad top of the railroad the rails here you understand?

Oh, any comments? All right. Yeah. take the meeting. I think we both as well. Yeah. Go ahead. Counselor Bowling.

Councor Ward one also uh Westside Home. I live right there. Um so I I but I find myself in a weird position. Um because as a council member, I have to approach something like this and understand the process and how I want to have the most control over the inevitable process from our here. And I think I feel like a lot of the people that um are my neighbors um approach are are feeling it here and not here. And I feel both of those things because I also live adjacent to this property and I see the same wildlife that everywhere else sees. I see how it, you know, basically becomes part of the green belt even though it's not that state land. Um, and so my my job here is to approach this place from the headsp space and not from the heart. But I'm trying to figure out a way to meet people in the middle, right? Because I think we have to understand all those things. I before I talk address Gwen's question directly, I just want to make sure that we're also like really uplifting the like considerable work that the planning commission and the URRA has done to date to make sure that we continue to have the most control over how pieces of private land are developed here. they have also like suffered some real slings and arrows and um I want to just make sure that that we're we're thanking you and we're sorry for for what that put you guys through. Um, as for the idea of a his a soft overlay, zoning overlay, something that would allow the community in this room to have more say over what a development looks like, what its height restrictions are, how it tries to match the spirit of the neighborhood.

The issue at hand on the seven is going to provide more opportunities for people to do that, right? More time for people to participate in that process if something like an overlays district is something that that the neighborhood wants to consider or the council wants to consider in conjunction with the neighborhood. To your second point, Gwen, um point well taken and I I would love to think about it more. I don't know that we have an answer for you right now on that. um because you know in terms of where our you know capacities are and also where our you know financial responsibilities are um to the larger community but thanks for bringing it up

vice mayor. Thank you again uh my and I think that I actually would answer that a little bit differently. Um and I'm going to kind of loop in Mr. Martin's uh question to us as well or comment that was kind of the question. So, I was on council when we um said no to the um ending of the lease over in in um in downtown. And I still question that decision. I still am not sure if that was the right decision to make. As of no, I said no lease. We're not going to sell the lease, no housing, no development going to go here. It was probably the hardest decision so far in capital because you're taking into account all of these things. You know, you have business owners who this is their livelihood and would a development there bring more people to that those businesses. Yes, but they have to get through construction, right? Construction can shut down these businesses and just turn and turn and turn. But even now, I'm still thinking like, man, was that what they envisioned? And so, um, when the question is asked, would we help write a a a grant for this? I really have to think about it hard and not because of the crafty and not because of the dollars it would take but because really my job is to and and I ran to think about the whole community not just you amazing westsiders who are so passionate who went after the historic district which by the way I overlay in that district um but I have to think about the broader community and we know and and the people in And I I love wildlife too. I My kid wants to be an entomologist. We go looking for bugs all the time. But I have to think about the broader community and housing and the people and that is what I ran for. So I'd have a really hard time

saying yes, please do this grant based on that because that's from from what I ran for. If I'm being honest about what my priority is based on what people told me they thought was most important, housing is what I'm going to look at to start with. Um, and so it's it's hard. It's not fun. And I too, like Mr. Divine said, I'd love to see if we could come up with something that that creates something that it's not going to be perfect. They say a lot of times the thing government not not one group is super happy of the two sides or the two things then you probably landed in a good spot and it maybe maybe that's where we come to where it's not perfect but we come to something that maybe addresses both of these things at least a little bit. So that was really longwinded. Sorry.

Thank you. Thank you councelor. Uh thank you mayor and yeah uh vice mayor. I I resonate a lot with that. I I've been doing a lot of listening tonight. Um, you know, last week I voted I would pause and like you, I thought about that decision all week and and that was a hard thing for me and so um I'm really trying to do more listening tonight um than I am talking and so I appreciate everyone's comments. I think for me I also I ran on housing um and and when I was going door to door that's that's what folks were telling me you know was their priority too. Um, and so I really want to stick to that commitment and and make it make sense, right? Make it so that um, we're kind of meeting in the middle here because I I I live in West Larie right now. I live over by Kuanas Park. Um, but Westside is special to me. Uh, my mom actually went to school in this building uh, many years ago. Don't tell her that. Um, uh, and so I'm I'm really passionate about this in particular. And um yeah, and so I I do struggle, but I you know, we have a lot of folks in this community who've been working on this issue for a long time. Um you know, we have the URA, planning commission, etc. Mo, much longer than I've been sitting here in front of, you know, as an elected official. Um and so I just want to be transparent like this is hard for me. Um but I'm I'm really trying to do right by everyone. Um, and yeah, it's not fun sometimes. Um, but thank yeah I appreciate it.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Uh, my name is Tender and I was at 14 agency and I really appreciate the time. I just want to say a couple things. I'm hearing about the desire for community engagement. Um, and I love it. I I served on the very urban renewal agency since the beginning. One of the first things that we did is we sat down and we wrote community engagement plan to try to talk about what urban renewal agencies did, how tax financing worked. And let me tell you that that effort to to spread the word was an abysmal failure. Uh Fred and I went to the um farmer market last summer and we handed out ice cream sandwiches and we couldn't get a single person to talk to us about tip districts with an ice cream sandwich. It was the quality. Um the last four weeks have probably had a greatest impact on the community here in terms of spreading the word about what taxing and financing is how urban renewal agencies work. I mean, we even held a state conference, the very first urban renewal agency state conference here in Laram and that didn't get the word out in L. And here people are talking about what is taxing financing, how does it work, how can it solve the problems that we're facing, and then how can we use some of these tools to address housing and flooding and environmental management. And that hasn't happened so far in the two years I've been on the board or the the the agency. You know what I mean? So, um, I'm really excited. If nothing else, what we've got here is a huge opportunity to engage with the community, all bring up our understanding of how it's for worse and then employ the most responsible way. And I'm just somebody that lives, you know, on the other side of the tracks. So, thanks.

Thanks.

Um, first I'll say thanks y'all for coming out. Um, I made a few comments. Um, I don't think we should have to choose the best option from terrible options. The way council is talking gives the impression that the blight designation and development on the 4G land is inevitable. Council keeps saying that there aren't any plans yet, but we were told at the urban renewal agency open house in January. The plan is to build two apartment buildings with up to 96 units combined. This would include parking for 96 units as well as streets for all of these units. That's a lot of impermeable surfaces on the flood plane. Of all of the possible places to develop more housing next to the river on a wildlife corridor and flood plane seems to be the worst possible choice. As far as flooding goes and where the water goes, we cannot forget the river overflows. The idea of diverting water from the west side to the river seems questionable at best. The storm sewer system needs to be updated. When the time comes, I ask council to vote no on why it wasn't. Thank you.

Thank you. I have no idea. I have no idea what was said at those meetings because I didn't go to them when it when I fought. I have not seen a plan. I just go to my planning department or I ask them if they don't have a plan where they haven't heard of one, I can say from a city staff or or us as counselors have ever seen a plan. So that's where that comes from at least for me. Um is not a written plan from the city. I have not seen.

So Siobhan, I think you were number four. Siobhan Kelly over there. Um I'm my mind is spinning when you talk about these other places where housing could be and you say that's 15 years off and this is so many years off and I understand you're working with the school district, but why does this feel so urgent? And I'll I'll continue. Um, thinking here and here, I believe flooding is a real issue on your comprehensive plan on page seven of the Westside plan. It shows the comprehension plan. It shows a designation of levy and that is Garfield to Snowy Range and those are areas that are elevated so that the river is essentially contained within this horseshoe that goes right over their guardfield to snowy range all the way around. So flooding brings up important insurance issues and potentially whoever purchases the development could find it difficult to get insurance and it could affect our insurance as well. We've talked somewhat tonight about conservation that is in the bylaws of the the urban renewal agency and I would like for us to look at that and

with the city's capacity so constrained I wonder where all these roads are going to come from and all of the planning for development. I'm wondering if we can look at conservation seriously. And finally, also in the bylaws of the urban renewal agency, it says that all city plans should be consulted. And I ask you to remember the long process and and I would like to share it with you. Before there was the Westside plan and project, there was the Westside visioning and that was a very comprehensive plan that the whole community was involved with, three times as many as in the Westside plan, which feels more thrust upon us. Whereas the westside visioning was really us coming together and I think you would find that it also would support conservation and limited housing. Thank you. Okay. Um we have time for one more round. Is there anyone who has not yet spoken who wishes to speak? Mr. Henderson, I think I saw your hand up. Uh Mr. Schmeck, I think I saw your hand. And number three, anyone else who has not spoken since the first for the first time. So we'll go with these three for right now and then I'll go to second round. So Mr. Henderson, please. First,

I'd like to thank you all for coming. Uh I am so happy to be a part of the neighborhood that shows up. This is absolutely unique. It's phenomenal to me that city council have 80% more time spent talking against what you're hearing than what you're hearing in terms of for what you're hearing. You can go to the tape. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go and I'm going to time the time that spoke in favor and against. I'm going to do it. It's going to be a labor of love. But I'm going to show that back in 2021 when 260 North Pine was being deliberated and our neighborhood bound together with a petition, they had due notice and that was challengeable because it wasn't done procedurally along the way. And had we not been mindful of city council process through that period, we might not have been able to show evidence which allowed us the time, the due process of 15 days to be able to bring a petition holding enough votes, enough signatures to force a twoth3 majority vote for a zoning change that wanted to infill n like 83 unit 83 occupancy of that 260 North Pine North Pine property to what it is now, which is six duplexes. Six duplexes, which has 100% impervious area. It's going to require a paid valley in a in a in a in a fashion. I liken this I liken this this repetitive situation because I remember seeking legal counsel and sending all of you that paid piece of attorney vantage point independent of even our community which argued presented concern that the surface water management topic that was passed

December 3rd, 2024 before was questionable, but we're willing to agree with with with someone who comes one attorney who comes and and vantages that this is probably going to pass. Well, blight, I agree with with citizen glass with respect to the decision on blight. I look out there, I see beauty. I see beauty and pleasure. And I'm very very compassionate for this individual right in front of me who has spoke at city planning and has now spoke here and has been very persuasive to me about the importance of leaving a well alone. And yes, uh Mr. Matamore speaks of buying the property. I realize my my folks told me long ago, buy your view. If you want it, buy it. That's a that's a pretty important perspective. But that is not blight. If it if if they had applied if 4G enterprises as it had applied for variance or for a URA blight designation as it was industrial that didn't happen it it went this way and it was for the for the favor of a transaction that you as city council in you you guys you guys really are supporting some funding initiatives which are being utilized to lobby against us the citizens and I used this November 18th, 2025 date. Did not exist for the public hearing that was advertised. You knew it. It was brought to your attention by Mr. Vasquez, myself included at that November 18th occasion on a Tuesday, not a Monday. No calendar date. There was an error and you overlooked that. You went past it. You voted on it. And you you bring us to this point where we don't trust I do not trust. I will speak for myself. I do not trust that you were genuinely engaged in in following through on what people

asked. Landmark Square had 105 plus people who came to that. I will come I will come again. I'll write my all my comments in in full but you guys you guys really have a great job. I hope you do it. Thank you someone else but he addressed me directly and I just want to clarify I'm here as a constituent not as an attorney. I wasn't here giving them legal advice or anything like that. So, I do want to clarify y'all. I'm here as somebody that lives on the west side and I don't even know what I how I feel completely. But I'm here as a police rebuttal after rebuttal. Please

continue the time. With respect to that, it was brought up by councel to bring forward the uh individual's capacity in in uh in that regard. Thanks. Second thought, probably shouldn't have singled you out and I apologize for that. Next, Mr.

Thank you all. I'm Fred Schne. I'm chairman for what you said. I want to thank everyone for coming and give you back and continue with the processes that we've been working on. to give feedback, multiple opportunities, multiple public meetings, meetings at meetings at this room or this building to to get more information. We love hearing more information. I greatly appreciate counseloring for talking about the difference between legislating from the head, feeling from the heart and hearing things here. I greatly appreciate that feedback. I'm also very pleased to say that I get to be held accountable at this moment because I get correctly information. I think they said something I said to a member of the committee here about a potential development here. I felt I made it clear. I apparently did not communicate that well enough. There is no development developer. There's no uh a rumor that I had heard from some of you that might be looking at the property that has understood has not done anything with that. It has to my knowledge no intention to move forward. It was two buildings then have a target of about 40 apartments or maybe more. One of them might be senior living, one of them might be market rate. We don't know those facts. If I can straight with that information, I apologize. Uh that was something I I was trying to help envision what might be on that property. Uh if this were a housing thing to help people understand what this could be and the additional housing that could bring to this community. If that has caused confusion, I do apologize. No plan.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, and I just want to make a couple comments. I, you know, I don't say this, I just say this to the constituent, you know, and we are honest anyway, but I think a lot of us in this room really just don't trust council because we smell the smoke. I can't hear you.

We don't trust what's going on because we're getting told that, you know, if we make it a blight, we'll have more because then you pull out the private property man, they can do whatever they want. The fact is it sat empty for 30 years. They're probably not economic department. They need they need financing. This will probably come from the public. Um, you know, we shut two schools down. Everybody's running on this religion of housing and everyone in this room can name three slum lords in this town that does not follow the housing and rental codes. The city council pass. Even the planning uh commission department folks and employees of the city have told me to my face that they said, "Hey, we can't go after certain sorts because they got friends. City council tells us not to." So we're sitting here saying, you know, you're so adamant about developing a piece of land in our neighborhood when we just don't really trust the reasons behind it, the initiative behind it, and really the facts on. So I I think I speak for a lot of people. We're just it's kind of upsc. Um, you know, I understand development what happened. People need places to live. Flare may have a 1% growth rate each year, but uh, you know, sit tried to dictate how something's going to happen, but it kind of doesn't make us happy. Anyway, there's just a couple other comments.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I I just was wondering about um like as a private property owner. What I'm always I'm always like my name city council never tells planning commission don't go after a slower. I helped get the the rental ordinance passed. It was a lot of the people in your department have told me the criminal. Okay. Well, we'll have to clarify that. But told me,

they may not have the statutory authority. I don't know if that's the right term, the authority to do that. We can only do smudge. It has to come from the renter. They have to make a complaint about specific things. We don't have a lot of control over slowers. Um, so but yeah. Uh, no. Because the blight we're talking about when the the private property owner is part of this and they want it to declare it as blight. We're not going to go and declare like you brought up um

like why don't we just declare north third life. It's because we're not trying to to dictate what people do to their property. So, I'm always in this position like my neighbors don't want anybody telling what to do with their property, but they want me to tell another neighbor what to do with their property. And I and I feel like that's the vine we're in. If if somebody's a private property owner and wants to do X, then how much say their neighbors have about what they do with their own property? So, I'm just throwing that out there. Can I say something that I guess excuse me point of order. Open.

You've spoken and we have people here and I'm you've made some very very good points. Uh but I need to open it up. Is there anyone else who has not spoken that wishes to speak? And you you allowed some people rebuttals and I think he needs a little bit of time to rebut what she said then if you can in less than 30 seconds I'm saying we all understand they want flight so they can pursue funding because their project right now is probably not we all know but it's just the monkey in the road.

I know that there are a couple people that wanted to make second comment if that could be brief. Mr. Glass, please. Oh, thank you.

Anyone else before you start? Anyone else with second comment? Yes, ma'am. And two and three. And I think that that would be as much time as we have. Okay. Couple of quick things that, you know, observations and also also reactions to what I've heard tonight. Um, affordable housing, I'm very much for it. All in favor of it, but the legislature has said that it's not the urban renewal authorities job to provide it. House Bill 68, which was considered in 2025, was voted down by the legislature because they did not want to expand the authority of an urban renewal agency to uh to the whole realm of affordable housing. Um so let's not violate the law or abuse the or abuse the authority that the has. Um second of all about tiffs, a tiff absolutely is a tax break. It freezes the taxes on the land and that adds value to it. 4G Enterprises is asking for this because they want to maximize the sale price of the land when they sell it. The developer is going to pay more and so ultimately the benefit is all going to go to 4G, not to any third party, not to anyone who wants affordable housing. And the worst part of this, we have a categorical imperative problem here that uh every developer in the future, every land owner is going to come to us and say, "Please declare my land blighted because they're going to want the same thing." Finally, I love the idea of a westside um overlay, but I think it's even better to have a westside zone. Why not instead of an overlay, why don't we consider a neighborhood zone and reclassify this area as that? I agree with Linda that would be a good idea. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring up a couple points that I've heard that uh things like uh infill is better for wildlife and conservation in terms of urban development. We are that is very very old idea. We know for a fact that both wildlife and people do better with more green space. There is less heart disease. There is uh greater uh mental health in a lot of our po. So thinking about just housing seems kind of like only a very small part of the story. Whereas we need to be thinking about a lot of these much bigger issues that are facing the entire world in terms of urbanization and rethinking how urbanization actually looks in Laram in a more progressive uh going into the future kind of way and not going back to what like New York City is.

Thank you. and Siobhan Reagan will um when I when I spoke before I asked a question and I know that I went on to use the rest of my time but I'd like to revisit that question which is all these other opportunities for development in Laram why do they seem so distant and why does this one feel so urgent Okay, council.

Thank you, Sewan. It's a really good question and I think it's a really easy answer, which is that the property owners have let us know that they're getting ready to sell it and we'd want to be ahead of that and have as much control over what that looks like and when it happens. So

vice mayor. Oh sorryator to your point just very well stated but the time for development takes so long. I mean we've heard about how long it's taking to get from point A to point B. So but even if this were designated which is why we're here. this where the vote is on April 7th was just the designation of blight in this area before anything would ever turn into housing or not housing that takes years and years. And so if you don't start being proactive and working on it, it's not housing just doesn't happen. And so this is an opportunity that's strategic where we were working with property owners, you know, and it's hard because we hear that we're not doing enough from a city standpoint to go after landlords, but then okay, where does the city fall into this? So, we want to be working with private land owners to do something that could benefit our community. You know, where where's too much city government? Where's the bloated government versus the government that's trying to do something important and housing takes a long time? Any development does. So, I feel like why why it feels like it's a quick thing, which has been worked on for years of public engagement and it feels like it's coming to a head since finally have a council vote, but the urban removal authority has been doing this for a year and a half plus of public engagement about this topic. But I think because it takes so long to finally get something developed.

Oh, Mr.

I you have to understand we have a planning commission of seven volunteers who finally vote on something. We have a planning department with basically three people. It takes Okay, I'll give you an example. We passed the 24th. We passed over 300 uh residential laws in preliminary plaques. Not one house has been built on any. Those have all been approved in preliminary plaques. The final plaque has not come in on any of them. It takes a long time. We don't have the staff to speed it up and we have a good process to do it. There's an awful lot of regulation that has to be met before it comes to the commission to vote on. So that's one of the reasons why other areas is going to get built. There's going to be big surge on Bill Nye Avenue. But we've got to do utilities. We've got to build a road. Then we've got to get property owners who are willing to go and subdivide or develop a type three plan so that they can get something approved in whatever their zoning is. It takes years to get a new project done. Now I there must be some ways to speed it up. I wish there was, but it's it's the regulations that are there and the and the lack of uh lack of city finances to speed up the process. Just takes a long time to get something done.

And I just wanted to clarify that we went back to someone in the audience because of his chairship of the planning department and I think the vice mayor that Mr. Manor was in a better position to help answer that question that Siobhan posed to us. Um

our last have a different comment back to the previous um statement about um you know the elephant in the room being that this is going to be easier for development. I don't think that's the elephant in the room. I think that is I think it's actually the reality. It's easier for development with light and sift in place because it lowers costs which then the hope for that is that those lowered costs go on to those folks who are going to move into those whatever is being built right so so 100% yes I think life makes it easier for things to happen and I I will not shy away from that but in the long run I hope the reason for that and it's supposed to work out the maps are supposed to work out that that it's easier and then because they're able to help pay for some of those things that are needed and then those costs aren't shifted to the homeowner that that's where that reduction can come in for some of those homeowners. So, it's just just quick just want to make sure that I very I'm not trying to shy away from that translate. I don't think so. Mr. Mattermore said it.

Oh, much better. He's not me. So, is there anyone who has not spoken who would like to speak at this time? Is there anyone who would like to make any brief statement? We have two minutes. Yes, sir.

The last observation that I that I didn't share last time that I would make right now is is I heard council tonight make an observation that once something goes to the county, you don't have power or control over it. And and and here's an interesting thing because I make an observation. There's an Albany County Commission. There's an Albany County Planning Department. And yet you feel powerless. Welcome to our neighborhood. We're adjacent to an old railroad and it starts to feel like we're pinched between the main line and a and a and a spur and it's under our saddle. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Well, I just want to say that we really appreciate your time. and your honesty. I appreciate the respectfulness that each of you have shown tonight. Um, as mayor, I have for being a kinder and make sure this thing goes. I hope any I did not intend to come across rude at any time, but sometimes I just have to interject and keep things rolling. So, uh, I hope you understand. Uh, thank you very much and I hope that I think we will continue to try to be an open council to hear you and to provide opportunities like this where we're not constrained by Robert's rules of order and we can engage a little bit better uh with this. So, thank you very much. Thank you.