City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, right. That's the one we're doing, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, hi. What? Oh, hi. How are you? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Did you go in this class guys, first class? Should I do some more? We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. One of your favorite spots. Let's party! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you. There you go. oh

We introduce you to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic from which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Councilmember Brewster? Here. Gregor?

Here.

Johnson? Kimboga? Here. Miller? Here. Horst?

Here.

Otto? Here. Reed?

Here.

Schoen?

Here.

Serrano? Werthmann? Here.

thank you welcome everyone to the tuesday july 14th meeting of our city council the first item we have on our agenda is the consent agenda and that's item number 21 agenda which you can find copies of that in the back of the room there is actually a replacement resolution for agenda number one

Sorry. So I wanted to...

Yeah, just to let folks know that, you know, you'll be passing this consent agenda all at once unless an item is pulled on by the council. So if your item that you're here for is one of those agenda items, you're free to go once it passes. This is item 123 . But is there Do it do council members have any items that they wish to remove from the consent agenda For and be considered for separate consideration

Council member worth I don't but council president if the record could reflect council member Serrano has been present.

Oh for sure Thank you for that So, you know, are there any items that council members wish to to remove from the consent agenda for separate consideration Okay Seeing none Then on a motion by councilmember Serrano and seconded by councilmember Brewster the consents agenda has been moved. Is there any discussion? City I guess say none city clerk, please call the roll Hi Hi

Aye. Miller.

Aye.

Orth. Aye. Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano.

Aye.

Werthmann.

Aye. OK, and that item passes unanimously. We'll now go into our commendations and proclamations portion of the agenda, and we have one proclamation and one certificate of appreciation to present. So the first one is for Parks and Recreation Month. So I'd like to welcome Patrick up to the front of the room, and I will read the resolution. We have a whole crew coming up.

We're going to bring the whole team.

thank you all for joining whereas parks and recreation are an essential part of the city of eau claire providing welcoming spaces where people of all ages can gather connect learn and enjoy the outdoors and whereas the 2026 national recreation and Park Association theme, the power of, celebrates the many ways parks and recreation strengthen our community through connection, play, nature, belonging, well-being, and shared experiences. And whereas the power of play brings people together with a common purpose, fostering teamwork, creativity, sportsmanship, enthusiasm, and lifelong friendships while enriching lives through recreation, youth sports, and community programs. Whereas parks, trails, playgrounds, natural areas, and recreational facilities promote physical activity, mental wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and opportunities for residents and visitors of all ages to experience the beauty of Eau Claire. And whereas parks and recreation increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction. Now, therefore I Jeremy Gregor, president of the whole clear city council on behalf of the entire city council do hereby proclaim the month of July, 2026 as parks and recreation month in the city of Eau Claire and encourage all residents to celebrate the power of parks and recreation by exploring our parks and trails, participating in recreational programs, enjoying nature and recognizing the people whose dedication helps build a healthier and more connected and more vibrant community throughout the year. Congratulations.

Thank you, Council President Greger and the rest of city council. If I could start with some introductions for parks and rec staff over here.

My name is Jeremy. I'm a program supervisor with Recreation.

I'm Olga, and I am the advocate for Recreation.

I'm Claire, and I'm a program supervisor, special event coordinator, facility scheduling coordinator, and the city volunteer coordinator.

A lot of hats. And I'm Phil Lubke. I'm the manager of the parks, forestry, and cemeteries divisions.

And I'm Pat Newkirk. I'm the recreation and facilities manager.

So thank you for letting parks, recreation, and also insert forestry and cemeteries in there as well. Have the floor for a few moments. Your continued investment in a robust park system that's well interconnected with navigable trails removes barriers for residents and visitors interacting with nature and the outdoors. I'd like to briefly highlight some of the heavy lifting that's often invisible that our parks, trails, and urban forests do. Parks provide equitable access to third spaces, spaces that are neither home nor work or school. Third spaces are kind of a neutral ground. There's no obligation to be there. You can come and go as you please, but remember, no camping in city parks overnight. They can be a safe haven for those who may not have a safe home, work, or school environment. Social and economic status don't matter. People come to participate. It's elective. They are a backbone of a healthy community and essential for civic engagement, well-being, reducing loneliness, and encouraging diversity. Our urban forest provides several ecological and social services as well. Carbon sequestration is one of the first that comes to mind. Shade, which reduces electric bills in the summer and reduces irrigation needs for lawns. Shelter from winds, which can reduce heating bills in the wintertime. Increase aesthetics and curb appeal, which increase property values. The leaves capture rain, which slows its entry into our stormwater system, making it less prone to being overwhelmed. Seeing trees outside a hospital room can help increase the recovery time. Our cemeteries are also beautifully maintained and allow grieving families communion with their loved ones. Some of you know my wife is a permanent resident at Lakeview Cemetery, where I will join her someday. And I'm so thankful for the Sexton, Steve Hasselberg, and the dedicated staff of maintenance workers that exhibit care and thoughtfulness when they take care of the grounds of the cemeteries. None of these benefits would be achievable without the dedicated support and hard work of our staff in the Parks, Forestry, and Cemeteries divisions. I'm fortunate to have reliable, trustworthy, knowledgeable staff around me to pick up slack, to keep things moving, to anticipate needs, fix what's broken, and interact with constituents who frequent their parks, who want to know about their trees, and who want to commune with their loved ones in the cemeteries. So thank you, Council, for prioritizing investment in these third spaces and for helping to create and envision a diverse, resilient, and beautiful park system.

So to piggyback a little bit on what Phil had to say, thank you Council President Greger and council members for this proclamation. We're all very honored for this consideration. Each year we recognize the month of July as Parks and Recreation Month and in doing so we acknowledge the importance of parks and recreation in the community and also the many staff and volunteers behind the scenes that make it happen. Before recognizing some of the people that make it happen from a recreation perspective, I'd like to touch on this year's theme, which is the power of. So parks and recreation has many powers which impact a community, and each of these powers are evident in what we do every day in parks and recreation. First and foremost is the power of connection, as parks and recreation helps relationships grow, cultures meet, and communities bond parks and recreation also has the power of play from open playgrounds to structured instructional activities to youth and adult sports play feels creativity joy and lifelong learning and development another power of parks and recreation is the power of community our parks and recreation public spaces offer room for everyone to gather celebrate and heal as a community the next power of parks and recreation is the restorative and inspiring power of nature and our parks and open spaces ensure everyone can access these wonderful benefits. Another strong power of Parks and Recreation is the power of belonging. Everyone is welcome in Parks and Recreation and our activities, events, and facilities create a sense of belonging in the community for all. Finally, we have the power of well-being. Parks and Recreation advances health, resilience, and shared community benefits and all of these powers collectively contribute to the overall well-being of ourselves and the community. I think a great example of all of these powers coming together is the recent July 4th celebration in the downtown area, primarily at Cannery and Phoenix Parks. If you were there, you could see each of those powers impacting the community throughout that event. These powers wouldn't be possible without the help of many staff, volunteers, and community partners throughout the year. Phil did a great job of touching on those things related to the parks, our trees, and our cemeteries. So I would like to shine some light on what makes things go in the recreation world. In the recreation division, we offer a variety of community events and recreational activities and also operate Fairfax Pool and Hobbs Ice Arena. In addition to the administrative team you see here and many who are not here, including in the parks maintenance side of things, we have approximately 150 seasonal part-time recreation staff working as lifeguards, activity leaders, facility attendants program planners cashiers and in other similar positions this team has people from high school age working in their very first ever job to people who are enjoying their retirement while helping us out a little bit delivering our services to the community all of these talented people along with everyone from the parks forestry and cemeteries division work together throughout the year to contribute to the power of parks and recreation here in eau claire We also heavily rely on the dedication of many volunteers. In 2025, we had nearly 2,300 volunteers help us with our activities, our events, and in the Adopt-a-Park program. We also can't forget the financial support of many generous community partners who help us deliver our services to the community through sponsorships, advertising, and in-kind donations. These contributions help us provide the staffing and materials necessary for our powerful programs, activities, and facilities, all while keeping costs accessible to everyone in the community. None of what we do here for Eau Claire would be possible without everyone working together, and we cannot thank our staff, our volunteers, and our community partners enough for their ongoing effort and dedication toward continuously building the power of parks and recreation in Eau Claire. and to help you get a glimpse of that power we would like to invite you to take some time in july to see the few ways that the community enjoys our services the flyer in front of you at your your space is there is an invitation to a variety of events and activities going on in the month of july that are have yet to happen all of them in our parks and at our facilities and in our programs there's a little something there for everyone and we hope to see you out there Those of us in Eau Claire Parks, Recreation and Forestry along with the overall community greatly appreciate your continued support and we look forward to continuing to demonstrate the power of Parks and Recreation as we continue to provide exceptional park and recreation services for the community. So thank you again.

Thank you. Thank you all so much. See you out there.

Thank you.

All right. The next item we have is a certificate of appreciation. This is for Lane Berg. If you could please join in the front. Whereas Lane Berg has faithfully served the city of Eau Claire and its residents for 30 years, dedicating his career to improving the essential services that contribute to the health, safety, and quality of life of our community. And whereas through hard work, expertise and exemplary leadership. He began his career with the city of Eau Claire as a utility supervisor and ultimately became the community services director, earning the respect and admiration of colleagues, elected officials, and the residents he served. And whereas as community services director, he provided thoughtful leadership for the city's parks and recreation activities, streets, forestry, transit system, and utilities, guiding the department through growth, innovation, and complex challenges with professionalism and integrity. And whereas when testing resulted in the early detection of PFAS contamination, Lane led a swift, transparent, and decisive response that ultimately led to the construction of Wisconsin's largest PFAS water treatment facility, protecting the health and well-being of current and future generations. And whereas throughout his career, Lane has been known not only for his knowledge and sound judgment, but also for his easygoing nature, humility and unwavering dedication and genuine concern for his coworkers and his community, making him a trusted leader, respected mentor, and valued friend. And whereas his legacy will endure through the projects he championed, the employees he mentored, the public trust he earned, and the countless ways he strengthened the city of Eau Claire. Now, therefore, on behalf of the city council, city staff, and the entire community, we do hereby express our deepest appreciation and gratitude to Lane Berg for his outstanding service, exceptional leadership, and steadfast commitment to the people of Eau Claire, and extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for a long, healthy, and fulfilling retirement.

Thank you, President Greggert, members of the council. The words are way too kind. I don't deserve this, but I really appreciate it, and it means the world to me. I have a list of 1,000 people that I'm going to thank, so hunker down. It's going to be a couple hours. That would only be just, but I'm not going to do that. I'll make this quick, but I do want to point out a few things. I want to give thanks to the person that hired me, Sam Spinell, over 30 years ago. He took a chance on me. got me pointed in the right direction, and he challenged me to do things I didn't think I could. Excuse me. I'm forever grateful for that, and you have no idea how gratifying it was to promote his son to the same position he held. I'll get it together. Sorry, but it's very meaningful to me. I also want to thank my wife, Amy, who is in the back row by Chief Rokas, and my son, Thane. They have been my at-home support team forever. Our son has moved out now, thankfully. but they've been my at-home support team over the years. I was involved with over 300 water main breaks, the winter of 2013-14 when we had 500 frozen services and numerous frozen mains, numerous main breaks, lots of calls at 2 a.m. and whatnot. And without their support and understanding, you just couldn't do that. There's no way possible. So I'm thankful for that. I want to give thanks to all of my coworkers, past and present. I've been blessed to work with so many good people. the spirit of teamwork and collaboration is just off the charts. And, you know, without that, you know, I would be nothing. So I'm thankful for that. Um, the group of workers that I'm with right now, you know, especially our division heads, our five division heads and the deputy director that are here in the audience right now are just absolutely top notch, which made it very easy for me to leave because I'm leaving the city and leaving the city in really good hands. So they're, they're just an awesome group. And, uh, they will provide leadership to the city for years to come. And last but not least, I want to thank city council and the executive team for trusting me to be a director. It was just an awesome learning experience for me. And I learned so many things. And in utilities, you're kind of behind the scenes. This put me up front and I learned how decisions are made and the careful decision-making processes that council goes through and the executive team and a lot of people don't see that they don't understand you know why we make the decisions we do but there's so much careful deliberation and thought that goes into things so that that was really eye-opening for me and really refreshing to be a part of so the city of eau claire has been great to me thank you so much i owe the world of the city of eau claire and i'm gonna miss y'all

All right, well, I think there may be folks that will want to share some personal reflections on Mr. Berg's career as well. So I certainly want to open that up, that opportunity up. I mean, for me personally, I think the first time he mentioned kind of being behind the scenes, but I saw him at neighborhood association meetings like on the Eastside Hill particularly when we were going through the lead service line replacement efforts and really being proactive on that as well in addition to the PFAS issue later on. And so just seeing the care for the community and for every resident and just the needs of every resident and just how to work through challenges that are really personal for people and really about their safety and about their future in our community. Um, so I, it was noticed. Um, and I think we, our community will continue to notice, uh, the impact of your career. Um, and yeah, we'll miss you as well. And yeah, just want to, yes. If anyone else has anything they want to share, certainly want to open that up, but, but thank you.

Yeah.

Council member Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. I just want to say, you know, in addition to everything that has already been said and will be said about Lane, it's just like every time I interacted with him, I left feeling a little bit better. And that's not like, you know, a super common trait that a lot of people have. And so when I experience it, I take notice and just thank you for your service and all your efforts over the years. Thank you.

We have Council Member Serrano, I think, just barely, just edged out.

Thank you, Council President Grygert. There's a lot to say about Lane. And I just want to acknowledge some, we saw it in his remarks. We saw it in the certificate of appreciation. But what he brought, the human aspect that he brought to the culture of the city, and how much he has, I think, been a big factor in shaping the culture of the city. And that will last for a long time. And I just really appreciate it. It's the details and it's the way you approach relationships. And I think just the way you approach the work itself, so selflessly and so humbly and with such dedication. So thank you, Lane. Thank you.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks. I also want to express my thanks for Lane and echo all previous speakers. I think what Council Member Brewster said really highlighted it perfectly where we hear from Lane quite often. A question would arise, and he would just appear from the back of the room and make his way forward and provide us with insightful and helpful information. But also, as Councilman Brewster said, you kind of just left the conversation feeling better. And this was not a city council experience. I was at the airport three years ago over in the cities. I had trouble getting to the airport, issues in my bag. It was just a horrible experience. I turned around. And there was Lane in the getting into the security line with me and briefly talked about city issues, where we're going on vacation. And it does leave you feeling a little bit better. We're going to miss you. We'll miss you at the meetings. But I also just wanted to say best of luck in retirement and enjoy it. We'll all miss you here.

And City Attorney Nick.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Lane. And I think Lane or folks in our utilities division, streets division, I mean, a lot of, frankly, city employees do the difficult work that doesn't get noticed unless something goes very badly. But that is a challenging spot to be in, you know, and often underappreciated. But it was referenced in the certificate of appreciation. But just highlight certainly the most significant piece of work I did closely with Lane of folks would have noticed if municipal water had to be stopped during the PFAS crisis. And that was a real possibility. And Lane calm, steady leadership, your entire team was amazing, but Lane was in charge of that effort to make sure that we maintained municipal water supplies, the first city in Wisconsin that faced the potential for needing to shut that off, not just for an individual private well, which is certainly significant, but for 74-plus thousand people that rely on the water, plus others in the town of Washington that receive city municipal water. And that event didn't happen. But, again, through your excellent work and your team's effort, so thank you for that. And then, you know, I mean, somebody's got to call him Mr. Lane at one point in time. So, you know, that wasn't sort of, you know, made up by Lane. You know, that was... former Council President Weld's sort of nickname for him after a while. But it does well sort of, I think, exemplify Lane Berg's positive attitude and how he embraced that and sort of loved the Mr. Lane. And as soon as he was called, like, oh, run right up.

That's me.

So Lane, thank you so much. Appreciate it, and all the best in retirement.

All right. Well, thank you. I wish we didn't have such a long agenda. Otherwise, we'd keep diving deeper. But I appreciate everybody sharing and appreciate all of your service. And really, to all city employees, really, I think, are reflected in Lane's service. All right. Well, we should move on. We have item number 24. So it seems like we're making a lot of progress at I-124. So resolution approving appointments and reappointments to various boards, committees, and commissions. And we have Councilmember Aaron Brewster to present on this item because he chairs the advisory. Committee on Appointments, Councilmember Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. I'm just going to go through the different boards and who we're either appointing or reappointing. For the Administrative Review Board, we are appointing Thomas Albert and Stephanie Masich. For the Loan Administration Board, we are reappointing Maria DaCosta, who is my faculty advisor, UW-Eau Claire, by the way. and Bill Ogden. For Transit Commission, we are appointing Brian Cran. Waterways, Parks, and Urban Forestry, we are appointing John Dunn. And the Zoning Board of Appeals, we are appointing Carson Deuce. Happy to answer any questions if anybody has. Yeah, are there any questions for Councilmember Brewster?

OK, well, then on a motion by Councilmember Werthmann and seconded by Councilmember Orth, this item is moved. Is there any discussion on the appointments and reappointments? Vice President Schell.

Thank you, Council President Gregor. I just wanted to let Council know one of our appointees is in Council Chambers. Mr. John Dunn is here. And I just wanted to call that out and recognize him in the audience and say thank you for coming tonight.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice President Schoen. All right. Without further discussion, seeing no further discussion, City Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Gregor?

Aye.

Johnson. Aye. Mboga. Aye. Miller. Aye. Orth.

Aye.

Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen.

Aye.

Serrano.

Aye. Werthmann. Aye.

Brewster.

Aye. All right, and that passes unanimously. Congratulations to those appointed and reappointed. I'll go on to agenda item number 25, resolution approving The comprehensive plan advisory committee

we have our community development director aaron white who just suddenly appeared in front of us so thank you for your president council members um yes tonight is the the approval of the ste was basically the steering committee that was established in part of our process for the comprehensive plan update that was established as part of the public participation participation plan approved by plan commission and by council the decision was to go the group of about 15 members uh includes two representatives from the plan commission and two represents from council which will need to be selected tonight by the by the council board and then the rest made up of folks from the community the group is smaller than the last comp plan steering committee was the A lot of the input from the community was that group was so large and really is hard to keep consistent attendance and consistent opinions and finding common ground. So they thought a smaller steering committee group with lots and lots of public input sessions would be the more appropriate way to go through this process. So we start off slow, but ended up with a rush at the end of 33 applicants were submitted through the resource bank process that we use for all of our boards and appointing commissions. The list includes from the Planning Commission appointees, Commissioner Josh Zoig and Commissioner Susan Wolfgram. also includes from the public, Bob Schrafnagel, who's with the North River Friends Association, Olivia Coughlin, who's a local architect and designer, Brenton Fetting, who's a USDA professional, Jim Phillips, who's a UBC professor for public health and environmental studies, Christina Thrun, who is the executive director of Chippewa Valley Home Builders Association and on the Hawk chair. Cody Flipsick, who is a CNM Homes local builder and developer and a former member of the Hawk group. Terry Weld, local realtor, retired and former council president. True View, who is a member of the Monk community and the co-chair of the DEI committee within the community. jet hallowen president of landmark company and experienced developer within the community scott rogers retired governor affairs director for the chamber of commerce and eric anderson who is the director of the local metropolitan planning organization which oversees our sewer service area work so that is the slate that's before you and again the two final positions will be selected by council tonight happy answering questions

Thank you, Director White.

I have a question from Councilmember Miller. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director White. What is the timeline now that we have these people selected minus the two to be appointed tonight? How many meetings will take place? And then over how many months was this anticipated to play out?

So we're anticipating from 10 to 15 meetings of this group. Um, looking over time, we're, we're looking at a process well into 2027. Uh, that was one of the things that was put out before there. There's a lot of time commitment for this group. So the folks that put in their names are aware of that. Um, it will start with a virtual meeting of the group later this month to just do introductions and then start with the formal in-person meetings next month.

And then when is the target to have a plan developed?

The end timeline is towards the later half or later end of 2027 is when we expect to have a document coming for councils. We anticipated the process to be anywhere from a year to upwards of 18 months.

OK, thank you.

All right. Any other questions from the council? I know that there's also two spots for council members that need to be. filled so we could move the item and discuss that as well. Thank you. Thank you, Director White. So on a motion by Councilmember Miller and seconded by Councilmember Johnson, this item is moved. Is there any discussion by council? We have Council Member Werthmann.

Thank you, Council President. I'd like to nominate Council Member Brewster to fill one of the vacant positions from city council.

OK. Council Member Brewster, would you accept that? OK. So it sounds like we have one interested council member. Are there any other council members interested? Council Member Miller?

Thank you, Council President. I'm interested, so I will nominate myself.

OK, so we have two council members that are interested, and a second for them. Council Vice President Schoen.

Thank you. I am also interested and will nominate myself.

OK. So we have three council members now that are interested in serving on the official name of this committee is the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee. Is there any, I guess, do we know, I guess I had a question, do we know like when, we don't know exactly when this, when they would meet, it would all be determined by the membership of the advisory committee, is that right?

Correct. That would be part of this initial onboarding virtual meeting would be to help establish maybe set dates for patterns or timing of that and work with a council member or all the representatives to work on scheduling.

OK. All right. Any other? Yeah, maybe we could structure it in such a way that council members have a chance to speak to their interest. Unless anyone else beyond those three is interested, I think we could just start maybe in the order of those that were nominated or volunteered themselves. So Councilmember Brewster, would you like to speak to your interest in serving on the Comprehensive Plan Advisory?

Sure. Actually, yes. Thank you, Council President. I was actually a member of the last one. that had arguably too many people on it and so i could bring a little bit of continuity to the process as well as also being a member of of plan commission and on the the rda i think there's a lot of synergy with my other committee assignments so that's my primary interest okay thank you council member brewster council member miller

Thank you, Council President. You know, we're all members of the DPAC committee that met when we were doing the rezoning ordinances, and I really enjoyed the technical aspect of those proceedings. You know, this is a very detail-oriented technical process, and that's kind of the area I think I'd do well in, so that was of interest to me. And I'm not in too many committees currently, so I have the time to bring on this one and not be involved with anything else for now with any sort of zoning or anything like that one. I'd like to have a chance to participate in the process via this commission.

Okay, thank you, Council Member Miller. Council Vice President Schoen?

Thank you, Council President Gregert. I am interested for a lot of reasons. I think one of the perspectives that I would like to bring to the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee would be largely related to affordable housing. During my time on council over the last three-ish, three-plus years, I've really learned so much and I've spent a lot of time investing in relationships through Housing Opportunities Commission, my time on RDA and other opportunities. And so I see a really critical need in that plan for that perspective to be represented. And then also separately, professionally, I do environmental work. And I think there's a huge need to have that perspective represented in this group as well. And I guess lastly, I would point to my role as council vice president. and the leadership position I'm in and wanting to really be able to represent council leadership in that way on the committee as well. So thank you for considering.

All right. Thank you, Vice President Schoen. Do any council members have, like, questions or thoughts about the choice in front of us? Council Member Mboga.

Director White, would you like to attempt to?

I guess that'd be a good question. The committee was set and approved at 15 as a cap. I don't know if we would need to go back and have that re-evaluated or have that re-approved with a different cap size. I don't know that there'd be an issue with having an extra one in there, but still keeping within the size, a more workable size, that was an intent. From a process standpoint, I don't know that it would be an issue or not.

uh you know I'm not sure if there's any legal opinions on that based on what was already passed uh City Attorney Nick do you have any thoughts on that or I haven't reviewed that prior reso but I mean that's that's what we're bringing back is your prior action identifying the size and numbers you know and it was your action so you could have ended but that's not what we

Yeah, and this was noticed as two opportunities as well in the packet. So thank you for that. Council Member Otto, any other?

Thank you, Council President. I saw some alternates on the name. Would that require any amendment to add a third council member as an alternate?

I don't think that would be an issue at all. And the alternates are intended to follow along with the process, understand that way. If somebody means it is a long process to step away or step out, whoever's stepping into that seat doesn't have to spend a lot of time trying to catch up.

Thank you, Councilmember Otto. Yeah, so the idea of maybe having a third be an alternate is a, sounds like a possibility. And certainly any Councilmembers or any members of the public will be welcome to attend the meetings. They'll all be publicly noticed as well. Do we know if there, oh, that's probably straying from the focus here, but the, The meetings will be structured in such a way that there will be a public comment opportunity for each of the meetings?

Yeah, there will all be open sessions. They'll be inviting public participation. So that is the intent with all the various stakeholder groups. And they are all publicly noticed. Anybody can attend any of them.

Thank you. So just to kind of make sure, any other council members have any questions or thoughts about the choice in front of us here? Not sure what the typical procedure is for deciding. Do you think you could maybe give us some history on that, City Attorney Nick, on what would be a typical procedure?

Excuse me. I would suggest you use the same procedure as your annual meeting, your organizational meeting, and just do a show of hands. You all get to vote twice, but it better add up to 22. But you raise your hand twice, just like we do for any of those appointments where you have some number more than what can be appointed. And if it's the preference of council, then whoever isn't one of those top vote-getters would plug in as an alternate.

and then take a vote on the final reso and you're set to go okay yeah so the yeah the person who maybe has the fewest votes would go would be the alternate um so when we have a full council here so so this is great um are folks ready to to do a show of hands for each of the

Or are we doing a show of hands, would you say?

OK. So for appointing Councilmember Brewster to the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, please raise your hand if you'd like to appoint him. So that appears to be six for Councilmember Brewster.

Sorry, was that? I had seven.

OK, so that was seven. OK. I maybe didn't see it correctly. So seven for Councilmember Brewster. And please raise your hand if you'd like to appoint Councilmember Miller to the committee. OK, so that is five. Is that correct?

OK.

And then please raise your hand if you would like to appoint Vice President Schoen to the committee. Oh my gosh, okay. So that is 10. So that adds up to... OK, so the resolution, so I guess by unanimous consent, I would amend the resolution to appoint Council Vice President Schoen and Council Member Brewster to the Comprehensive Plan Committee with Council Member Miller as an alternate. Is that agreeable, Council Member Miller?

Council President, I'll leave the structure as set. So I'll decline alternate positions, leave the three as presented.

OK. Thank you, Council Member Miller. So we will just have the resolution include Council Members Brewster and Vice President Schoen as the two appointed from the Council. And so yeah, this item has already been moved. Is there any discussion on the resolution? OK. Well, I would like to just thank council members for stepping up and putting themselves out there for the opportunity, and really the members of the public as well, and the playing commissioners. for stepping up, it's a really important opportunity for our community over the next year and a half to try to flesh out a strong update to our comprehensive plan and appreciate all the work that staff have put into to queue this up for the community. So without further discussion, city clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Johnson. Aye. Kimboga. Aye. Miller.

Aye.

Orth.

Aye.

Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano.

Aye.

Werthmann. Aye. Brewster. Aye. Rager. Aye.

All right, and that passes unanimously. congratulations to all appointed we will go on next to a resolution authorizing the community services department to accept a monetary donation of three hundred dollars from the eau claire ecla lutheran congregations for free transit rides on the day of thursday July 23rd, 2026 for their homeless connect event. Because this item amends the budget, a two thirds vote of elected members or eight affirmative votes is required for adoption. And we have our transit manager, Katrina running here to present on this item.

Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having me here. So we received a request from the Eau Claire ELCA Lutheran congregations group. I don't believe that they've ever sponsored rides before so I was really happy to see them reach out but they are interested in sponsoring free transit rides on July 23rd for their homeless connect event it's the day after the point-in-time count for our unhoused community So what this is is a $300 donation and essentially we waive fares and we help promote that we are providing free rides on that day. And I just wanted to thank them for bringing this forward to us and for their work of removing any barriers to get people to this event, which I did pass out a poster or a little flyer too that they gave me for the event. So thank you to that group.

Awesome, thank you. Council Member Brewster, sorry, did you have a question for the transit manager?

Yeah, please. Thank you, Council President. When organizations sponsor days, is it for the entire day?

Yep, so this would be for the entire day.

Okay, cool.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Mboga.

Because of this donation, is the city going to match this one? The other two?

To match the donation? What are you asking?

Yeah, to match the donation, yeah.

This would be to replace the revenue that we would lose. So typically, it depends on the day, but we average around $300 of revenue. So I guess we are not looking at matching. We would just be looking at replacing the revenue we would have made with this donation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Amboga. Any other questions? All right, thanks for presenting. So on a motion by, are there any other questions? Yeah, so on a motion by Council Vice President Schoen and seconded by Council Member Amboga, this item is moved. Is there any council discussion?

Council member Brewster Thank You council president. This is like Incredibly good timing because there's a lot of stuff going on in the community on that day. There's the Water Street Fair as well as some additional music that's being put on as part of the the Eau Claire's festival as well, so I just want to thank the, I know it wasn't their intent to provide free rides for a lot of people taking advantage of all those, but it turns out it's working very well and I'd just like to thank them for, thank the ELCA Lutheran group for doing that.

Thank You council member Brewster and I would remind folks that due to the heat this week count the transit system is actually free as well for Eau Claire transit be until the end of the day Thursday as my understanding so so really finding different ways to take care of the community and make sure people can get where they need to go safely so appreciate that So we will, so without further discussion, city clerk, would you please call the roll?

Councilmember Amboga. Aye. Miller. Aye. Orff.

Aye.

Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano. Aye. Werthmann. Aye. Brewster.

Aye.

Greger.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye. All right, and that passes unanimously. OK, so next agenda item is number 27, resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a subdivision infrastructure agreement with SC Skwarderski LLC for street and utility improvements within the plat of SCS Eau Claire IV. And we have our engineering director, Leah Ness, to present on this item.

Good afternoon. This plat was approved in the consent agenda and is generally located in the northwest region of the city of Eau Claire. It's south of US Highway 12 or State Trunk Highway 312 and west of Kane Road or Coney Trunk Highway TT. The highlighted area in the exhibit on the screen shows the area related to the infrastructure agreement that's before you today. Just to provide a little history of this area, the original phase one, plat one, came before council in July of 2020. And then they have brought forward plat two and plat three. Plat number four is what we're focusing on today. and that includes the extension of Christopher Drive from Ashton Circle to the west to connect into existing Christopher Drive. The subdivision infrastructure agreement, or I'll call it an SIA moving forward, covers the roadway improvements, utilities related to the public infrastructure, the stormwater improvements, and construction of those to city standards and then turning that over to the city to operate and maintain moving forward. So before you today is a resolution that authorizes the city manager to enter into the agreement. There's nothing out of the ordinary compared to other SIAs that have come before you related to this one. The only change within this is, some additional wording that was added to provide liquidated damages related to a letter of credit and keeping that up to date so that the city has that to fall back on should improvements not be completed to the standards that are provided. Otherwise, overall, the SIA outlines the financing, construction inspection, related to the required standards, our acceptance and the reimbursement practices that we'd follow, and it provides a fee estimate related to the financial guarantee. If there's any questions about this contract, I'd be able to take those.

Thank you, Director Ness. Are there any questions from council? All right. Thank you so much. So on a motion by Councilmember Otto and seconded by Councilmember Reed, this item is moved. Is there any council discussion? I just want to offer one thought about this myself. One of the things I'm excited about it is that this road, this Christopher Drive will be connected and provide a pedestrian and bicycle alternative and just local traffic alternative for people who are trying to go between the main part of the city west to the it's kind of a growing area of the city of Eau Claire kind of in the far northwest because right now really the only alternative is to either take Folsom which is way to the south and go up over a hill or to or actually that doesn't even connect but you have to go all the way down to to Cameron I believe and then up to the to that far northwest or or take the highway 312 which is not pedestrian or bicycle friendly in any way. So just wanted to acknowledge that and appreciate the work that's gone into helping to build out this area. And yeah, excited to update the Chippewa Valley bike map to reflect this new connection that'll be built in the future.

So any other thoughts about this item? Any other discussion?

Seeing none, city clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Miller. Aye. Orth. Aye. Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano.

Aye.

Werthmann.

Aye.

Brewster. Aye. Gregert.

Aye.

Johnson. Aye. Mboga. Aye.

All right, that passes unanimously. Our next item is agenda item number 28, resolution authorizing the city manager to purchase property located at the intersection of Marquette Street and Mercury Avenue, accepting land as permanent right-of-way and temporary construction easement, parcel number 120629, engineering director Ness. Thank you.

Good afternoon again. On January 27th of this year, council approved the Marquette Street project from Riverview Drive to Star Avenue as presented to council and included in that was the reconstruction of an always stop intersection at Mercury and Marquette to a roundabout. The city of Eau Claire contracted with Ayers Associates to do a roundabout design at that location. And after getting into the design, the footprint of the intersection was larger than the existing right-of-way that we had in that location. So the city has been working with Xcel Energy to purchase a small portion of right-of-way, which is about 682 square feet. and then have been working with them to outline a temporary easement area, which would be just to finalize the grading into the existing parcel related to the construction activities for the roundabout design out there right now. So that area is identified as 1,233 square feet, which we use for temporary construction and grading purposes. within the packet it's identified as a temporary easement access easement and then the dedicated right-of-way is referenced within the project as a deed specialty war special warranty deed within the packet If there's any questions related to this, I can try to address those, but this really allows us to construct the roundabout moving forward. We have started construction out in this area, staying within our existing right of way to address existing utilities and replacement of those, but as we get into the intersection design, that's when we would need to have this land purchased and the temporary access easement.

All right, thank you, Director Ness. Any questions from the council? All right, Council Member Brewster.

Yeah, I guess when we do, I mean, this is basically a transfer of usable right-of-way from Excel to us, right?

it is a land owned by excel which we will be purchasing and it will be dedicated as right-of-way okay all right okay i think that's you know we have a council council member mboga has a question thank you for my understanding and everybody watching this one how much how much are we going to pay for this

The purchase price related to this is stated within the resolution, and I believe it is just over $1,000.

Thank you, Director Ness.

Appreciate your answering questions, presenting. I think that's all the questions that we have. So on a motion by Councilmember Serrano and seconded by Councilmember Brewster, this item is moved. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing none. City Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Orth.

Aye.

Otto. Aye. Reid. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano. Aye. Werthmann. Aye. Brewster.

Aye.

Greger.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Mboga.

Aye.

Miller. Aye.

All right, that passes unanimously. Our next agenda item is number 29, resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a land transfer agreement with Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing initiatives. And this is going to be presented by city attorney Steve Nick.

Thank you, Council President, Council. Very pleased to be presenting on each of the next two items, doing the work with our local development community and building community to increase housing in the city of Eau Claire. This issue in particular is an excellent opportunity as the city has gone through and continues to go through a review of land that we own and land that may be excess to our uses but suitable for residential use. There is limited available land within the city of Eau Claire for residential but as we either expand our borders we also look internally to see if some of these smaller parcels might be suitable for reuse and we've been able to do that through this agreement with habitat for humanity to specifically make home ownership available for families needing especially affordable housing and interested in that program of they have a number of programs but through the homeownership program you're doing sweat equity and assisted mortgage down payments but this specifically will transfer to lots in with this agreement. So MAPA and Bellinger has two properties that are suitable for homes. I think the intention is to get going on twin homes, probably in both of those locations, either later this fall or next year. then the agreement is a five-year deal in which each of those years two to three additional parcels would be identified so hopefully over the coming years upwards of 15 parcels would be identified and depending again whether they were single or twins may have somewhere between you know 15 to perhaps upwards of two dozen homes that are available and more affordable within our community so our thanks to Habitat for Humanity on partnering in this issue in terms of the prior good question by Councilmember Boga on cost these parcels previously really unutilized by the City of Eau Claire would be transferred at a relatively nominal value of $1,000 per lot to cover transactional costs but otherwise attempting to keep that real estate cost as low as possible and the end product of a new home as affordable as possible. Any questions I can help answer?

Well, we've got a bunch of questions here. I didn't see the exact order, but Council Member Serrano will start with.

Thank you, Council President Gragert, and thank you, Attorney Nick. I didn't see in the packet a map. I see the legal description of where these two parcels are, but I would love to have, I don't know if we can enter into the record or if anybody can show us where these two properties are, just again, for the benefit of the community.

I'm sorry.

I don't I don't have them on there, but they're on the intersection of So it's right at the intersection and the other two properties adjacent to one another Go there and take a look.

Thank you Thank you for that question councilmember Serrano councilmember Orth

Thank you, Council President and Attorney Nick. Has the city had any prior transfers to Habitat for Humanity?

I don't know if we ever have. Not in recent years, so I'm not certain.

I had served as a volunteer with them some years back and they're just an amazing organization. I was so glad to see this.

All right, thank you. Council Member Ortha, Vice President Schoen.

Thank you, Council President Graggart. I have two questions. The first is I'm wondering, in the agreement, I know in a prior proposed partnership, there was difficulty, I believe, on Habitat for Humanity's end in being able to commit to long-term affordability. And so I'm wondering, in this agreement, is that one of the conditions? Or could you speak to that a bit further?

The agreement transfers the properties for construction of homes. There isn't any kind of restrictive covenant on those, and that's, I guess, problematic for the individuals and making the land marketable. So the short answer is no, is there's no restriction in that way. it addresses the current issue of again making more units available which is net positive and also making you know that initial transfer a more affordable one. I don't perfectly know all of the Habitat for Humanity programs or specifically what might be used on these lots or future lots but I know there are different ones that for those participants have a sort of a write-down in like sort of a second mortgage on the property for those initial owners to work through ownership over time before sort of any write down of value might be realized by that individual. But after that, it's market transactions.

Thank you. And can I have a follow-up question? Sure. I know you mentioned, and it's outlined in the resolution and the agreement, the idea that we, within the agreement, are saying that we, as the city, we have the intent to transfer an additional two to three lots over a five-year term. Are those things that would come back to council once those locations have been identified?

Yes, any specific transfer would come back to council. It's affecting transfer of these two specific lots, but establishing a protocol of trying to do so over the coming years. We've been working on this one over a number of years, and so we're hoping that by setting that groundwork, that framework for the transactions, they'll normalize a bit in coming years. But they would definitely still need to be approved for transfer by council.

Thank you.

thank you vice president shown so the i had a question about the like has the land already been declared excess like previously by a previous council vote yes uh the lots have been declared uh excess it's um so yes and it the point was covered in the cover on the third paragraph um and puts so all that work has already been done for these lots but also to Vice President Schoen's point, for future lots it would not have been done. So that whole process of declaring excess and transferring the lots would still go through for specific parcels in future years. But again, the relationship would be established and the expectation of transferring again would try to be normalized for both of our planning purposes so we know we have a steady additional supply of affordable housing coming into our marketplace again with a home ownership opportunity focus and Habitat would know to plan that it can build a couple new homes in the city of Eau Claire every year for the coming years

All right, thank you. Do we know the access to the lots? Are they from Mappa Street, or do we, presumably that would be the side that, that would be the street access to the properties? Do we?

Again, that level of detail isn't something I'm aware of or is presently in front of you, but that would be something that would be dealt with when they submit building permits.

All right. Thank you, City Attorney Nick. I don't think there are any other questions from council. So we will move this item on a motion by Council Member Werthmann and seconded by Council Member Orth. This item is moved. Is there any discussion from council? All right. I don't see any discussion. So City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Council Member Otto. Aye. Reid. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano.

Aye.

Werthmann. Aye. Brewster.

Aye.

Greger. Aye. Johnson.

Aye.

Mboga.

Aye.

Miller. Aye. Orth.

Aye.

All right, and that passes unanimously. All right, so we'll move on to agenda item number 30, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a development and purchase agreement with CMJM Properties LLC for a mixed-use residential development near Jeffers Road Park. City Attorney Nick is here to present on the item.

Thank you again. Again, another excellent project, really one of the more substantial full neighborhood projects that the city has seen before you is an opportunity to approve a sale and development agreement with C&M Builders and Cody Filipczyk. Cody is with us this afternoon and evening. Thank you. This is land that is, we do have ma'ams, so.

Oh, I got it.

I got so excited. So I'm just kidding. Sorry. Whatever. Simple pleasures for a simple mind. I was having fun. So this is land west of Jeffers Park. So in the image to the right of the screen is Jeffers Park. It's the intersection of Jeffers Road and County Line on the city's north side. And this is the current sale would be for approximately 31 acres on the western edge, which is in the smaller image over to the left. but it is the development of a broader new neighborhood adjacent to it still is a relatively new park in our growing north side so I don't know if it's a perfect analogy but as working on Jeffers Park in the past and now working on this project I think you're really seeing the development of this area somewhat along the lines of say a Fairfax Park to the south that Again, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, you know, Gulf Road was not really much developed. Meadowview School was built mostly in a meadow, right, originally, and you see that now fully built out in a 93 intersection that's fully realized. 93 and Gulf, I mean. And this is the continuation of a development in this area that... purposefully click this time not just for the sheer enjoyment of it but here's a an aerial that gives you at least a little bit of idea it still doesn't really fully capture it but there's development to the north that Cody has done Jeffers Road has seen substantial development itself over the last five to ten years it has been reconstructed but really built out in a way that, again, 20 years ago you really didn't have much up there other than some larger lot residential right along the Chippewa River. So this is a whole new project. It will become a whole new neighborhood. Its first phase will sell about 31 acres. for a total sale price of approximately $700,000, payable in two installments over the next two years, so that's a near-term payable to the city, probably at least as important and probably more so, it will construct an additional 130 approximate new units of housing. It's a mix of single, twins, and townhome units. A lot of, it is a market rate housing, but a lot of that sort of missing middle as it's termed, so walkable and greater affordability housing to public infrastructure. that is already there, focused on, again, home ownership and first-time home ownership. There's been a lot of, I don't know if a lot, but there's been some commentary or questions in the community, I think, over the last few years. We're seeing a lot of apartment construction Folks can think, I guess, whatever you want, but I think it's great and lived in one and it was great. But these sort of things come in phases. So we've had a lot of apartment construction. Those have been well utilized and we need those because we're a growing community and that adds density and utilization of the substantial public infrastructure we've built near those more dense units. But we have not seen some of the home ownership opportunities Partially just because, again, the phasing of trends in home buildership, but also because there simply have not been lands available within the city of Eau Claire to build new neighborhoods and subdivisions. So we have one going on the south side and this will be a similar substantial development on the north side known as Linden Hills. So this first phase again, you know, 130 approximately units. The rest of the phases through approximately 135 acres is not exactly established but just given the size and expected increased density as that master plan on the right shows we expect really a multiplier of that so you're looking at you know a potential four five six hundred you know dwelling units in this area you know again a mix of home ownership opportunities. You can see some of those lots in future phases are conceived as smaller lots. So we anticipate use of the new residential TIF law that will first become effective October 1st of this year. So it's not available to our use yet, but in future phases, we'll be able to do some of those smaller home on smaller lots that allows the city to then assist a developer with infrastructure build out. And as those additional phases get identified and purchased, they will also be sold at $22,500 an acre, but with a 5% annual increase. So total sale price will depend on when those options are exercised. They'll require a substantial completion of the prior phase before the next phase is exercised by the developer. But you're looking at a sale price of at least $3 million to upwards of $3.5 depending again on the timing of acquisition. And the total effect will be really growing that Jeffers Park neighborhood. Substantial added economic viability. There's not a total number set, but the first phase is expected to well exceed $30 million. Total build-out likely to well exceed $250 million in valuation. And most importantly, again, adding much-needed additional value home ownership opportunities within the city of Eau Claire in an area that is compact, ready for development, and more walkable, bikeable to amenities within our community. If you have any questions, happy to try to answer them. And again, Cody Flipchik is also in the audience with us today as well.

all right thank you city attorney nick are there any questions from the from council i guess i don't see any major questions quite yet um all right so we have i guess maybe we should move the item then So on a motion by Councilmember Miller and seconded by Councilmember Johnson, this item is moved. Is there any discussion? We have Councilmember Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Gregert. This is Northwest Eau Claire. And I am personally just really, really excited about further filling out this part of the community. I think adding more housing there is going to be so valuable. We already have the ball fields there. We have green space very nearby. And I'm excited about kind of the neighborhood aspect of this phase and kind of the expected future phases of this development. So I'm very, very happy to see this coming forward.

Thank you, Council Member Serrano. Council Member Otto.

Thank you, Council President. I'm excited, too, about this, looking at a map, seeing all this new residential growth on our outskirts. It's scary at first, but when you dive into the design philosophy and the desire to make this sustainable, to make it walkable, It's a far cry from what a development like this would have looked like in the 1980s, very car-centric. And I'm thrilled that Eau Claire is going in this direction, that we're following these principles. So I thought this was a really nice design for a new neighborhood.

Thank you, Council Member Otto. Okay, Council Vice President Schoen.

Thank you, Council President Cracker.

I just wanted to take a moment to say I'm really excited about this project and working with this developer in particular. I personally got to know Cody through his time on Housing Opportunities Commission. And I'm really excited to see what the future holds for this area and what might come next. And I just wanted to take a moment to say that. Thank you.

Thank you. It seems like it would be appropriate to invite the developer to speak and maybe share a few words just about the vision and the proposal from your perspective. That would be appreciated.

Thank you, I didn't really prepare to speak, but I'm horrible at it. But I'm Cody Philipsack, owner of C&M Companies and resident of Eau Claire, actually live right across the street from this parcel. I've been looking at it, working on this for six years now. It's been a long time. um have learned a ton during that time you know on being on hawk and and just what the community needs is so different than it was six years ago when we came out of cool but it it changed everything and i think i think we have the opportunity now as a company and and just as a community to start getting back to more affordable housing i'm hoping we're starting to work on that as a company and and doing things with our plan this first section is going to be market rate because it just sets up that way but i know in the future we're going to do a lot more we're going to do i would love to do kind of a city center in this area, all connected with trails. That's where I got the Linden Hills development from. It's up in the cities. It's a great neighborhood, all walkable and a lot of mixed use. I think getting back to where we have coffee shops or different little businesses. And I think if we build enough residential around it, I think there's a lot of demand for it. So I guess that's all I got. I tell you, I appreciate the opportunity and yeah, we're going to do it right. Yeah. Any questions?

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Are there any, any questions from council? Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much. All right, any other discussion from council on this agenda item? OK, well, seeing none, city clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Reed.

Aye.

Schoen.

Aye.

Serrano.

Aye.

Wertham. Aye. Brewster. Aye. Greger. Aye. Johnson.

Aye.

Iboga. Miller. Aye. Orth. Aye. Otto. Aye.

All right, and that passes unanimously. All right, our next agenda item is number 31,

this is a resolution approving the purchase of land along county double e for potential industrial development and conservation uses and we have our community development director aaron white to present thank you good evening again i'm just doing a follow-up for this project we received some direction from council a couple weeks ago to do some a little investigation on a site that was posted out for sale and was picked up through a flyer and digital flyer by a staff member and saw this is something that might be worth investigating the space we're looking at is approximately 237 acres of land in total about 110 acres of buildable space currently priced at 100 1.75 million dollars is the price that's been negotiated out with direction council we went ahead did some wetlands delineation and we'll go through the details of the space shortly to verify buildable spaces and confirm some things about the property Land can be continued at least or continue to be leased for farming land until we are looking at development occurring. A project like this occurs over a very long period of time. If you look at the way the gateway industrial park developments occurred, they sat on those sites in some ways for decades before we start seeing movement going forward. and these were also spaces that were extended quite a ways outside of the current city or at that time the city boundaries the we were looking at some of the past documents the extension of the tracks utilities into those areas the first developments from those spaces were over a mile and a half So this is something that has occurred in the past and is typical what you see for these long-term planning and development spaces. The wetland and timber spaces that are identified there, again, through conversations, could make excellent use as public parks or public subsite green spaces. And with that, we'll kind of kick into the site. the space in question is highlighted in blue it includes eight parcels of various sizes that collectively create the development borders along county ee road on the south end the western boundary rides along dunn county line and then the northern boundary slopes along the i-94 the interest in this space from a development standpoint is close proximity to i-94 and close proximity to cloverleaf accesses for on and off ramps for potential development spaces something that we see extensively when we look at interest in development potential is quick access to four lane highways and this space provides that the green or the the timbered spaces that are in those other areas those are already identified as wetlands they are they show up on the county's hydrology map i believe a comment was mentioned last night why did we only delineate the ag land because the other area is already known to be wetland spaces and unbuildable so those timbered areas along those two sections on the bottom and that upper corner left area are already identified wetland areas and those would be what council could designate as park space or green space and maintain those those environments as long as they choose to maintain them that way. The space that we were focusing on in terms of doing some additional investigation was the industrial or the farmland that's identified in there. Here are a few on-site photos. Myself and another staff member walked out to the space, took some visuals of some of the land that's in question. So we're talking about very flat ag land currently in corn production this year. Typical rotations would be corn and beans, potentially wheat, depending upon what the farmer's preferences are. But this is typical farmland for this area. um specific to the wetlands delineation this is one of the maps and we have the full delineation available for any staff any of the council members would like to see that it's a huge document and it was actually too big to include in the packets over 100 pages but this is the primary map that was looked at the yellow line identifies the the space that we had an investigation done to ensure that the land was usable in the manner that we thought the pink dots represent sample points conducted by the environmental specialists from heirs and associates and then the blue hatching those blue areas identified the map wetlands that were determined in those areas and these are the same areas that we expected to see identified as wetlands because they were identified as likely candidates for wetland delineation within this within the state dnr site and within the county's hydrology map the larger parcel collectively it's about 11 and a half acres of wetlands out of that space the larger portion the western half of that you see where the tree line divides and goes to the west and those two smaller ones are considered degraded wetlands means that those areas are farmed not every year it depends on the conditions during tilling the ground and also depends on conditions and planning if you look back in some of the historical photos some years they planted and harvested that land some years they farmed around it some years you can see they planted it but we're not able to harvest it based on based on conditions oftentimes when you see development occur in these spaces wetlands are identified might serve as an area where you start looking at regional stormwater detention detention can't be done within a wetland system but can be done adjacent to it per DNR specific regulations. And those become potential uses for some of the areas around that. Again, the other areas had already determined to be wetlands. So we do see about 100 buildable acres, maybe a little over within that space, which is what we had anticipated when we first looked at this site as a potential for space. At this point in time, any questions on the land or the spaces before we continue on and look to address a few other questions? and comments that we received.

I think I have a question about the Elk Creek area to the northwest. And it was, I think, shared that it was like it's a trout stream, like a class A trout stream. Do you think you could describe that and the proximity to this, or like what the implications are? Sorry, what the implication would be for us from that perspective?

sure um you can see where the space is that you follow the the stream bed it winds through that upper left corner that area around it is a designated wetland as well so it's that area is untouchable it's unbuildable space in terms of any type of use again the the western boundary of that line is the edge of the property the rest is neighboring parcels so there's not much development there I don't know what specific DNR regulations are required. There are specific DNR regulations in terms of building around those in time of setbacks and buffers. Anybody that would be looking to purchase and build in that space would have to follow appropriate DNR regulations for drainage and grading, looking to do setbacks that are appropriate and what's required by development. Obviously, there could be some opportunities to create some additional buffer space around those areas. That would be something that can be determined at a later date. Um, the intent, um, one of the, one of the potential uses for the buildable space, looking at light industrial, um, light industrial is applies the softest footprint in terms of use. If you look at what a gateway industrial park is, um, that light industrial park, all the stormwater that drains through there moves under the street and drains directly into Sherman Creek. which is a wetland area and drains down into a more significant wetland area adjacent to the menards location so runoff has to be controlled you see less issues with that in light industrial parks when you're concerned about discharge or things like that you don't see that in light industrial parks those are not allowed by code those types of operations would have to be in a heavy industrial park same with commercial uses any commercial use out in that space they have to contain stormwater runoff on any impervious hard surfaces capturing any runoff or water that's coming from their roof lines capturing that in approved stormwater detention that has to be designed according to engineering standards and specifications something to point out is ag land if it's not organically farmed What you might see is commercial applications of fertilizer and pesticides, which are less controlled than a lot of what you see in terms of developed spaces. And I can speak from experience. I farmed for a living for a number of years in southern Iowa before I left the farm and ended up getting into economic development. So operations, like I said, unless they're organic operations, which hold off on any of that type of use, can see that same type of chemical applications, commercial fertilizer applications, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus could be in this area. You would not see that type of operation anymore when it moves away from agriculture. I hope that was helpful on that.

Yeah, thank you. Council Member Armboga has a question.

Thank you, Council President. I have 10 questions, but maybe I can ask one. Yes. So the first question is, and I did ask this one the last time we had a closed session, and I remember Director Winters answered for me about this one. A lot of email I got today, people say the city is at red. We don't have enough money. We are dead. Where do we get this money of $1.5 million to pay for this land? I know that Director Winters said it's a trust fund, I think, land trust fund. Did you say that the last time? Choke my memory.

Yeah, Director Winters.

In reference to where we would pay for this from, these are two separate budgets that we've been speaking about with the public. So the operating budget is statutorily required to be balanced and presented to council. So even though we're projecting a little harder year, we'll make adjustments. we'll hold open positions, we'll increase revenues, and we'll still, we won't be in the red when that's presented to council at the beginning of October. But annually, we budget for land acquisition, we plan, we set aside funding for growth, 30 years ago, as city manager Solberg said, the city council had planned for this and they had the vision of an industrial park. And when we look at those 5,000 jobs or $186 million in growth, it's part of a long-term strategic and well thought out plan. So we set aside money for that. And when you hear us talking about debt and capacity, I reserve a piece of that for that as well for the next 30 years, so. but we do sometimes have land sales, we'll have cash on hand, sometimes we have general obligation debt, but they are, so that's how it's paid for, but there are two separate budgets and we definitely won't be in the red when either of those are presented at council in November.

I'd also maybe point out in terms of that the previous item that was passed is three quarters of a million dollars in land sales that could go towards offsetting this has a future potential revenue of three million dollars with additional land sales within that development that land that those funds could certainly be directed towards doing land acquisitions such as this project as well.

Thank you.

Another question is credit money. So how far is this land from the utility line and how much will it cost for us to connect there?

Certainly. So let's get back to Actually, I think I'll use this map. Actually, I think I'll use the previous map as a reference. There's three routes. I spoke with City Engineer Ness about this. There are three potential routes to extend utilities. County EE line has County Right-of-Way. That would be on the southern border property area, so there would be an opportunity to extend utilities through there. that utility can serve also other spaces to the east of this area the i-94 corridor has right away state right away built in along i-94 so again coming back from city utilities could follow the interstate right away and come forward on the north end of that property line i would point out that the the 22 acres that the city purchased on the north side of of i-94 along highway 12 for the future brush site is less than a mile from this area so as utilities are extended to our future brush site that's less than a mile of utility extensions that could come along again the highway 12 corridor and come south and i'm more under the interstate to serve this site we'd have to look at and do engineering to see which is the that'd be engineering's job to work with community services to look which is the best route to do What the cost would be, that would vary depending upon which route it is, what the terrain is, et cetera. So it'd be hard to put a number on today. But again, we have extended utilities such as this, distances of this length. So it's not something that we haven't done before. We are familiar with doing this type of work.

thank you the last one now okay the other one now the last one when people are nervous that we are purchasing this land so that this land can be used for data center can you speak on that this is not for a data center we are not working on a data center project

I would highlight, too, when you look at the sites that are being bought for data centers to for 600 acres, the site's not big enough to do the facilities that are currently being built in the region. So we are looking at future use, whether it's industrial in future use five years ten years down the line we may find that there's a commercial use for this space and there's a commercial development aspect that could work for this space but it is looking to do as light industrial and and service clients as have been referenced in the previously a lot of our inquiries for projects are in the 20 to 40 acre range a site like this with 100 billable acres could serve a number of potential industrial projects expanding into this And that kind of goes into one of the things that was brought up last night is why purchase land? Why look to expand an industrial park? Looking at the Gateway West and Northwest industrial parks, they collectively have 70 businesses located in those two industrial parks built over decades, over $214 million in assessed taxable value. based on, and that includes what only will be bringing to the table with their expansion and over 5,000 employees employed in those two industrial parks in industries that provide higher wages. Uh, we still have, uh, we're still a community that has more retail and service industry employers. And then we have what might be considered primary employment and industry and service jobs tend to be the lowest paid in the industry. So bringing in high paying jobs of an investment that adds directly to the, the economy is, part of the reason we look at things like this and again assuming that it's you know potentially down the road industrial expansion

Council Member Otto has a question.

Thank you, Council President. I just have a question about what I'm looking at on one of the aerial photos going diagonally through the center of the photo, I guess, in the other one where the survey points are marked. Yeah, it looks like a riverbed going through the center. I know it's not, but I'm just curious what that transition land is between the tree lines and the flat farm area. Do we know why it looks...

That's actually farmland as well. When you look at the, I don't know if you can see it for some of these, any of these photos, there's very little slope to this land and right against the fringe, I guess I'll go back to the delineation or this photo, right against the tree line and where you start seeing the wetlands and the vegetation from there. That area will you'll see more sure moving back and forth on those field fringes what little slope, there is drains to the south east, so what little slope is in this space is tends to drain that direction, but yeah there is there's no there is no. terrace or any type of structure along that field edge it literally is a direct cut from ag land on one foot step across the line and you're standing in reach canary grass right on the fringe of the field and moves directly into those wooded areas all right council member worthman thank you thank you council president

Thank you, Director White, for a lot of context. My background is growing up on an organic dairy farm, still in the family. And in my current work, I'm focused on Minnesota state policy around supporting wetlands and peatlands of the state that were previously drained and ditched, helping them make a comeback because of their importance. And so when I see this and I see this area in the middle here, the circle area that seems to be in the middle of buildable land, I'm just trying to get an understanding of that previous map that had the points on it is my understanding that if this were to be an industrial park, that that area would continue to be a delineated wetland, that circle piece that's in the northeast. So I think that raises another question, which is it seems to make the buildable area then, especially on the easterly part and potentially the northern part, pretty limited on this picture. Because I would imagine, It's hard to tell what the sizes are, but I can't imagine huge amount of manufacturing or industrial in that Eastern quadrant. I don't know, how are you seeing that?

That's a very good point. Something to keep in mind, there is a process where some wetlands can be mitigated. Defined by the state, it's either paying costs to mitigate or exchanging land for land. The degraded area, which would be from that center line where the fence line is to the west, which is the farmed land, a future operator might decide to mitigate that piece of it because it is it is wet mostly based on any current conditions on any given crop year the space to the west or to the east of that excuse me is permanent it's trees it's vegetation that is a hard to find space sure the connection between the two there's a small drainage ditch running through there they're actually using that i believe to likely drain off some of the the the pooling that comes in the area and drains it into the main wetland area So there would be an opportunity or an option for them to do something like that. Um, again, an access coming through could do smaller developments. Uh, if you look at the gateway industrial park developments, there's a number of projects that are on five acres, seven acre parcels. Okay. So you could see development of smaller spaces. A lot of those are used by the contractors who need a little bit of warehouse, a little bit of office place, store vehicles, um, could serve that function. We'd anticipate the same type of function along the entryway there on the south. that's a narrow long stretch it's not a real wide space but has some smaller opportunities to do smaller like i said contractor style that are often found in industrial parts within that narrower space okay or it may stay as a green space you see some projects that will leave large open grass spaces and it may very well stay as just a defined green space or a an area for the the owner to do something with that.

Could I ask a follow up? Sure. If we go down this road, is there a point where layout of the industrial park How does that happen? Does that come back to this body and the public? And then my interest would be that we're being very thoughtful about how that development happens and how we create meaningful buffers to things like class A trout streams, et cetera. So would there be a process for that?

There actually could be. That would be a council's call on how to lay this space out. It would be council's decision. One of the questions that had been asked was, is there interest in this space, particularly from a management side of things? We did take this parcel and this space to the Gateway Industrial Board. at a previous meeting and ask them about their interest in this space they would be interested in acquiring and managing the space the way they have on other projects it would be the industrial space alone again not the wetland and the timber repairing areas if the route was eventually this was sold to say the Gateway Industrial Board to manage the space that they would make those determinations in terms of layout but again the council could set the terms of how that's moved forward and and maybe it's establishing additional buffering space or whatnot and could be defined through the the CSM or planning process prior to the sale

Any other questions at this juncture? Although I know you probably have more to your presentation, so I think it's I hit most of the points.

Again, just want to go this way. I think we hit. Yeah, the reason we're looking to again to do the land purchase. We have a lot of interest in the community in terms of growth, whether it's industrial space, commercial space, it comes forward. Land doesn't come for sale up for sale very often. One of the things that that. spike the interest of this is the the cost per acre is significantly less than what we've seen industrial land sell for so it becomes an opportunity to save some save some funding on that side of things as a potential purchase again we covered the the utility extension options which would be formally laid out and determined from the engineering standpoint once they determine the appropriate the best routes to approach that site That would be the end of the specific comments and interests I had. I'd be happy to answer any additional questions.

So I had kind of a question just about, I know we have our comprehensive plan coming up. How do you see that process helping to flesh out how we envision growth for industrial as well as other land uses in this area? And also just like how do the towns in the area like participate in that discussion or like have a voice, you know, when we are talking about, you know, doing, you know, purchasing land that is, you know, not contiguous to the city and we're talking about other potential land that we may be interested in.

that's a great question so our interactions with the different townships and communities involved are you are hopefully governed by intergovernmental territorial agreements or intergovernmental boundary agreements we have a number of those with the small townships and communities surrounding us and those can be renewed there may be opportunities to to look at how we can partner collectively on some of these spaces as we advance forward the one thing we are looking to do and planning to do through the the conference of plan as to really thoughtfully map out what we see and where we're seeing the growth of the community particularly when we have um private partners uh or between private owners that are reaching out to me saying we want to see growth and this is what we have plans for and it may require city utilities in years past they tended to not look actively at what the city might be able to utilize land in some of these outer spaces this year we're going to definitely make a map geared towards how we envision growth and where we see that growth occur what we end up having to do when you don't take into account what the communities are going to do is you're constantly having to amend your comprehensive plan every time a project comes forward and we have had to do that a lot in the last eight years particularly up north when you saw the country jams development in that area with orchard hills development different regions we've had to do a lot of changes because we didn't really pay any attention to those areas where we realistically should have been paying attention to 15 years or 10 to 15 years ago when we were going through that process we hope to to take a more comprehensive look at what's going on and then and again um make opportunities or see where their opportunities are to work with the surrounding communities. I know City Manager Solberg has expressed interest in reaching out to the county for the partners and seeing how we can collectively make the Chippewa Valley successful.

Thank you. Council Member Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. I was wondering if you would take a quick second and just talk about what the town has, like we talked about this afternoon with regards to what the town has in its plan for what's nearby there.

that's like not you know what i'm referring to like between 12 and 94. absolutely so um the photos we have are not don't capture the full area but if you look at the partridge road so county ee heading to the east and spaces along highway 12 as they come out all those areas facing and fronting the the i-94c heavy commercial development you see truck repair places there's a skid loader place so so skid steer a dealership and rental place semi-truck repair places uh industrial spaces the town of union's comprehensive plan on the north side of i-94 and stretching back in there identifies that area's future industrial use so these are uses that are being contemplated in these areas by the townships as well as the community

Thank you. Could you give us a sense of, like, the time sensitiveness of an opportunity like this in terms of what we're voting on? Is it something that we have, like, there's a, is there, like, an urgency to act, like, at this meeting, you know? Or how much time do we have to make a decision, I guess, would be the.

Certainly. So the time sensitivity is probably based on more on the owners. It's actively posted for sale. They are advertising it as a recreational property. Their flyer that went out to the public specified land to create ATV trails through the wetland areas and make use of it as a rec property. if they find a buyer they you know the land will sell when they find a buyer we can certainly postpone it's it's not critical we held this now from a city standpoint but should you postpone the property owner may not be willing to deal with the city six months down the road if you decide to take it up and maybe we are ready to make that purchase the property owner may decide no we've we don't want to deal with that process again and they don't consider an offer from the city, that's potentially the risk that would be there. Or again, the property can sell at any time. It is actively being marketed through a realtor.

Okay, thank you. You have a question from Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director White. Looking at the agenda item here, I'm not a realtor, but there's a counteroffer in here, and one line item just say it has the purchase price, and then it was signed on the 15th, and it says closing to be on October 1st. So if we were not to act on this today, The reason for this question is that a lot of discussion has happened in the past week, and this is a large thing to consider. If this were to be postponed, say, just for one council session, two weeks, I just see this lying about closing to be on October 1st. Would that kind of still be within the window in which the deal would not go away? We still have some time until October to do this, hopefully sooner.

The reason for the closing date is their current ag lease. It extends until October 1, and they are anticipating that the farm tenant would be harvesting crops by then. We've also confirmed with them that should the harvest go delayed, there would be adequate time for them to be able to make sure their tenant harvests the crops and they don't have to worry about trying to return lease payments or anything like that. That's the only reason they were looking to do a delayed closing date was to reflect the lease agreement on the land.

So, okay, so given that, I guess my question still is on the October 1st date with the counteroffer being signed, it seems like this is at least... Ours to decide on until that time, or is that an accurate statement?

We've accepted. I don't know. We haven't paid any of yours money. So I don't know there's anything that holds us to, or the property owner to keep it open until that time period. Don't know that if we delayed for two weeks, again, it would have an impact. But again, an offer could come forward. It could go away. It could see a sale come forward. I defer to City Attorney Nick if there's any terms in that that would hold them to hold that property open for any length of time. I don't believe there are any terms in there.

Yeah, City Attorney Nick. So the status is you have a purchase agreement consistent with prior council direction that is contingent on ultimate council approval. per again prior council direction that was you know subject to land acquisition you know so directed in closed session but directed that we attempt to secure rights to this land that has been done it is subject to a condition of ultimate council approval with an open session which still needs to be accomplished So that needs to be promptly and timely accomplished. It shouldn't wait right up until a closing date, but that's the status. You have some time between now and then, but you should be moving promptly towards concluding and clearing that contingency of sale.

Thank you. I actually had a question. And just to kind of highlight it, we have a replacement resolution on our desks that has a slight change. And maybe it could be described what change that was made in the resolution to prompt the replacement.

absolutely looking to make sure we had some clarification on the language and city attorney nick can speak to more details but the the legal team reviewed statutes and we include references within that reso that something that was brought up in public commentary last night that this is there's not a legal hurdle to moving forward with this process i'm looking to acquire this land for public benefit which economic development is included as a public benefit and potential park space and i'd invite city attorney to provide any additional details or more details if that's desired but the language is just kind of cleans up some of the things that we wanted to put into to move this forward okay do you have anything to add city attorney nick to that

If you have any questions, happy to try to answer them, but what it really points out is that while the potential for future industrial use is there, you're acquiring for current use that primarily includes park and other conservancy and land preservation uses. And there's potential future use as a business park, as highway commercial that, as Director White indicated, is consistent with uses within a mile or even half mile of there that are within the township. But present acquisition use would be for public ownership, and it would be consistent with other long-term acquisitions that this city has undertaken, whether it was the Gateway project and eventual utility extension, and that extension occurred in the early 2000s of at least a mile and a half, maybe a little bit more from that Truax and Claremont intersection, or other long-term holdings. and they may eventually become some other future use, but most certainly currently they will include basically a continuation of current use held in public ownership. That's allowed, it's allowed both under the express statute referenced in public comment, but acquisition for any number of uses that are determined by this body to be in the furtherance of public purpose and the benefit of the city of Eau Claire. are within your home rule authority in addition to specific authorization, whether in chapter 62 or 66.

All right, thank you. Council Member Orth.

Thank you. I was just wondering since the audience may have had access to the resolution in the packet, do they have access to the revision?

We haven't put this out to public notice. I don't know if you want to specify, is there anything specific to that?

So if and when adopted, it'll be noted as a resolution like all your others once signed and published.

Would it be possible to just put a copy on the screen? potentially for the rest of the, cause I can, yeah. And then we, yeah, maybe zoom in as far as you could. Not sure if that'll be visible for most people, but thank you. Any other questions from the council? Okay, so, yeah, Council Member Mboga.

There's an email here I found. So, that's a white auto city. The current zone of the property is about half AP, AG Preservation, and half A1. The future land is... are rural land. The solution for this is this environmental important that we protect this land, but it's not for industrial development. Can you guys speak on this please?

That's a county zoning designation. It doesn't exist within the city of Eau Claire. I would be hard pressed to be able to guess what their purpose of that is. Typically it is they want to keep from the county standpoint. They keep those areas as as agricultural. But again, it's something that's not something that we work with. And at some point in time, if the property is, you know, if it's acquired and eventually it would be annexed in the city, it would fall under city zoning and code requirements.

Can I ask one? Yeah, you can. Why this land, the hard race, is Errico Mountain, not Eau Claire or Union?

Pardon?

The hard race of this land is Errico Mountain. Do you know that? The address of the land.

It's in Elk Mound, Wisconsin.

Because it's more likely it's proximity to Elk Mound, which is just across the county line road. It's not in Elk Mound. It's not in Dunn County. It's in Eau Claire County. But that's the proximity to the nearest town for address. You'll see that in rural areas. They'll tend to address to the closest mailbox or post office.

Thank you. All right, well, I think we'll move this item. So we have on a motion by Vice President Schoen and seconded by Council Member Amboga, this item is moved. Is there any discussion among Council Members here? We have, let's see, Vice President Schoen.

you council president gregory um i wanted to share i i understand the value that our industrial park brings to the community and i understand that there's a need to acquire more land so that right the jobs that come with that the different opportunities that become available to our community the investment from those groups that build in those spaces employ people there that's all incredibly important and I've certainly supported different efforts like this in the past, but this particular site to me is one that I personally will not be supporting. I want to talk a little bit about why, just to offer that for clarity. One of the things that stood out to me quickly is the distance from our city limits. I know that staff did a great job of overviewing proximity to other more recently acquired properties but the distance feels quite far to me and then also the environmental resources that exist on this site and tangential to it are exceptional elk creek in particular is a class one trout stream which was referenced earlier in conversation and it's also by wisconsin dnr noted as an outstanding resource water which is a very special designation which means Elk Creek does not have any point source pollutants contributing to its water flow right now and so the idea of placing an industrial park which would be a point source pollutant or polluter within you know less than 300 feet from the banks of Elk Creek it's just something for me that I understand there's potential compromises in the development as we move forward if this does pass, that I really do hope that staff and future developers take seriously about ensuring there's adequate conservation measures implemented here. But it's one for me that I can't support at this time.

Thank you, Vice President Schoen. Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Gregert. I'm hearing a lot of the concerns about proximity. It seems like the future brush site property is pretty close here. Is it shown on this picture? Is it that triangle on the top left, right off of the interstate? Is that what that is? Sorry, that was a question. It would be just outside of the view. Just outside?

Yeah, it's right about in that area, maybe a little bit further to the north. Thank you. Less than a mile from the spot.

Okay, thank you. And I'm hearing a lot about the concerns, certainly the wetlands and preservation issues. My view is we have kind of a vision for this, but I don't see a plan really before us for making this industrial and what that would look like. But, boy, I'm sure inclined to... see this kind of property being in responsible hands if it becomes owned by the city of Eau Claire and by you know a public entity like the city so I kind of feel like we you know buying it could potentially put it in an in a more a safer place than just a private property owner who can just do ATV, recreation all through this space. So I see this as a long-term thing and I think it overall is a balance, it's a good balance of kind of vision for future, We're not spelling out exactly what we're going to do with it specifically yet. It keeps it sort of as is for the time being. And I guess I trust us as a city and as a community to take good care of these sensitive environmental spaces as well. So I think I will be supporting this.

right thank you uh council member serrano we'll go on to council member otto next yeah thank you council president uh you know i was thinking about wetlands during this discussion and the benefit of wetlands is they absorb rain and prevent floods and then they release uh water in times of drought to protect us from drought and in a way that's kind of like what the city does when we purchase land like we have these land purchases for the future to protect us from future droughts of revenue sources and I see this as a long-term investment we don't know what future uses could be We know that farm runoff certainly has its problems. And when I was on the Eau Claire County Board, farm runoff was an ever present threat to water quality. Or industrial use is also a threat to water quality. We don't know. But we do know that this council and the city government values environmental stewardship for whatever use we put it to. And for this reason and for the fact that I think this is the fiscally responsible choice protecting us from future fiscal droughts, I support this purchase.

Thank you, Council Member Otto. Council Member Werthmann.

Thank you, Council President. We've received a lot of input from community members, both in Eau Claire and Town of Union and nearby. I usually never go on and look at comments on social media, but Somehow it just kept on popping up and people are really paying attention to this issue. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of misinformation out there. I think the number one concern I saw is people concerned about data centers. And that's probably just because there was a lack of information filling the void about what this was and why we're looking at this purchase. but it also speaks to people's just overall concern about growth issues, about, yeah, how the landscape around them changes, how their neighborhoods change. We saw some of that last night, too. I want to thank people for weighing in from those areas with us. I'm torn about this. I mean, on the one hand, I take Council Vice President's comments incredibly serious that what this land, what kind of use this land has directly impacts the natural spaces around it. And if we purchase this, I want us to be very mindful of that. I also am seeing Council Member Otto with the idea that, If the city doesn't purchase this, then there's a lot less public interest in preserving the environmental quality of this land. So that's a tough one. And I'm cognizant, and I take that to heart, that we need to be stewards of the land and respect it and try to preserve it how we can while still utilizing it for jobs and industry. So I'm open-minded on this, to be honest, and especially just given all of the input that we've heard, both in our inboxes, but then, you know, through people's interest. I did want to ask Councilmember, Council Vice President Schoen, to elaborate on the point made about points... point source versus non-point and just like thinking about land, maybe, you know, when I look at our other industrial parks, my sense is that for the most part, light industry, we have pretty strict regulations for how water and effluent and things from those are diverted in the appropriate ways, for example, to the wastewater treatment plant. So I just wanted to see if you had any ideas or thoughts on that, because my sense is that we're generally pretty responsible in our industrial parks with what is produced. Not always historically, as we can point to our well fields, but for the most part, it seems like we are.

Vice President Schoen, do you have anything to add?

Sure. Thank you, Council President Gragert. So I would concur that for point sources in the state of Wisconsin and nationwide, there are very strict regulations typically around what and if they're discharging or emitting. However, I think what's significant here is there's very few water bodies in the state that have the full absence of industrial land use within Their watersheds are immediately adjacent to them and Elk Creek being one of them as an ORW is significant I also think and I've spoke about this in prior discussions on this topic the wildlife corridor that exists here and AG land and And ag land use specifically has certainly flaws. And it's difficult to regulate in the state of Wisconsin. However, I think it is much more compatible for birds and wildlife to navigate through and across this property than if there was an industrial park here. So I think not just of the discharge or emissions coming from the facilities, but also the impacts to the landscape and to the wildlife. And again, it's something that we recently, which we've referred to several times in tonight's discussion, acquired property not too far from here. And so I certainly am supportive of acquiring agricultural land. seeing that develop and change land use when it's appropriate. But again, just to me looking at this site, it's ecological setting, proximity to water bodies, to wetlands that are significant. It's just a site to me that does not feel compatible with industrial land use.

Thank you, Vice President Schoen. Any other discussion from council? Some thoughts that I had about it. Um, I mean, I've, you know, I just got back on council like two and a half months ago, but even during, like when I was running for office, we were, there was a lot of discussion around the need for, for more industrial land. And I was supportive of that. Um, and it, and really this area Northwest of Eau Claire is a prime opportunity. And especially given, um, all the transportation infrastructure that exists with I-94 and Highway 12. And I mean, 29 is a bit further to the north, but still in the area. And then also the Union Pacific Railroad line. So it's kind of like this confluence of opportunity really for jobs and industry and transportation. but it matters on how we actually like can accomplish that and accomplish that cooperatively with our neighbors too. So that's kind of where I have somewhat hesitant about this is where we have, how do we best queue up the cooperative end of this where we also have an area that's between like three major municipalities or you have Chippewa Falls, Menominee and uh eau claire and then you have you know smaller municipalities like elk mountain that are just right there so like it is it is ripe for like regional collaboration and um and that that's a lot of work but i think there's a lot of uh benefits to cooperation that could make that very worthwhile. So that's kind of what is on my mind when thinking through this. And protecting important conservation opportunities is another big piece for me. I actually was involved in helping to preserve Elk Creek Bottoms, where this The creek goes into the Chippewa River and working with Landmark Conservancy to do that. That was technically in Dunn County, but near the Town of Union Conservancy, which the Town of Union has been very proactive about conservation as well. I see the city as an important partner and a very capable partner in conservation and being responsible with land and waterways. And maybe not as much experience about wildlife corridors as a term to bring up too, but I think that there's huge barriers to that with I-94, obviously, and all that transportation infrastructure creates challenges. as well as opportunities. So just thinking out loud here a little bit about some other factors, but I brought up the question earlier about just like how urgent this is to vote on today, because there are a lot of people who are interested in what kind of decision the city is making and what exactly the implications are. And so there's a lot of concern that maybe could be and maybe some understanding and collective visioning that could occur with a little bit more time. But the comprehensive plan is a great opportunity for that. But that's beyond the timeline that we have in front of us for this particular decision. So I want to give an opportunity, though, to Councilmember Ambogada for further thoughts.

Thank you. For me. I've been a city council for five years. I've been a city council for five years. And I think we are making the same mistake. There's destruction about this agenda. People are... Interested to know how we go forward. People are saying, I think everybody, we live in the city. There's maybe a few people that doesn't live in the city and business here. People know, they know we are in debt. And the perception, when people have perception, it's hard to change them. So for me, what I've been saying from even the previous city council manager, I told her, it's always we are on top of the game. We have to take the community. this what is going on. But I feel like we don't do it. We keep doing the same, we like cycling. We do the same, we just 40. Instead of corn, maybe the media tell people, you know what, this what's happening. But the community still think we are misusing their tax money. For me, the main reason I'm gonna vote no is I did ask a question. From the utility line all the way to these people, how much are we going to spend? I don't want to add more money to our taxpayers or use our taxpayers to construct the seaway and the electricity line, all those ones up to there. For me, that's one of the reasons that I would vote no. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Amboga. Council Member Werthmann.

Yeah, Council President, if I could ask about this. I think I missed the conversation. Do we need an amendment to substitute this resolution language in for consideration?

City Attorney Nick, could you maybe speak to that?

The motion is assumed to be moving the substitute. So that's what you're considering, unless you want to indicate otherwise. Well, I have the mic on just so you have the right factual information in terms of town and union's planning. Their planning documents indicate commercial, industrial right up to the county line. So it includes right up to and on the other side of Elk Creek. So in terms of any notion that it's preserved or it won't be industrial it shows it shows him but industrial both on the east and west side right up to and around Elk Creek it is to the north of 94 but right up to the county line okay thank you yeah is it so yeah the in terms of the question about the resolution

And yeah, this is what was laid on our desk and put out on the screen is what we're voting on. Council Member Werthmann.

Yeah. I appreciate that. I just want to make sure that. I just wanted to be clear on this substitute and the process of a substitute resolution. I did see here that the cover sheet says 2,237 acres, which I'm assuming is not correct.

That is a typo, yes.

I'll offer the amendment to that when we pass it to have that corrected.

Okay. Yeah, that's just the cover sheet.

And that was just the cover sheet. So, yeah, it's a typo. I don't think you have a similar typo in the resolution you're considering.

Okay.

Council Member Miller. Thank you, Council President. Yes, this is... For the wetland areas, this would be a lot easier decision, I think, for me. At first I was concerned about the distance from the city, but then looking at the map, you know, you have Highway 12 continuing out to this area. And then you do see from the interstates different commercial and industrial places there. And the city does need, you know, we are fortunately selling out and closing out on available industrial areas. and currently in the state of Wisconsin, if your city isn't growing, it's dying, so we do always, and that's kind of a force to us by the legislator. I know people think about expanding the city. It's just, you know, they want the city to have a certain feel to it, and they don't want it to become a large metro area. Far from that we are currently, but if we don't keep growing and increasing our tax bases, we just have to keep cutting more and more services, so that's always the double-edged sword with the growth in a municipality in Wisconsin. And then as far as the wetlands are concerned, I would rather not see industrial sites going near these wetlands. But if we don't purchase this, what's someone else going to purchase in the future and do something? And then we don't have the stewardship there to do that. I didn't know. We don't have a site plan for the site. We're just purchasing the land. It could sit here for five, 10 years. I'd be more comfortable with perching this. We have some sort of language that's at least perhaps within so many feet or meters or slope that nothing was built too close to it. But in this lease proposal here today, we don't have an elevation map to see. the granularity to see that one. I'd be interested in seeing if we could put some shore protections in that to prevent any runoff going down there. But so, yeah, that's the hard part here with this watershed. So I'm really on the fence here right now. I'm just sharing my thoughts and concerns in case there's any more discussion on this one here.

Thank you, Council Member Miller. Council Member Reed.

Thank you, Council President. I have a question for... Vice President Schoen, you had mentioned that Elk Creek is a outstanding resource water. And I'm trying to think through, I've visited Eau Claire's wastewater treatment facility and I've seen how clear our effluent is. And we are not talking about industrial, but if industrial did go in there and effluent did come out the way that we currently see it, would that change the distinction of Elk Creek from Eau Claire's only ORW? or what's your perspective on that?

Mr. Vice President Schoen?

Thank you, Council President Gragert. Yes, so ORWs, the designation is specific to the fact that that water resource does not have point source polluters within its watershed, and specifically industrial dischargers. And so if an industrial development does go in, whether it is the city of Eau Claire or someone else, it will lose that status. And also, I did want to share a fun fact. I did some number crunching. In Wisconsin, there are 53,413 streams and rivers, and only 254 are designated as outstanding resource waters, which is less than 1%. It's 0.005%, which is the point I raised earlier. I mean, it is really a very unique designation, and so it would lose its status.

OK, thank you, Vice President Schoen. Council Member Werthmann.

I'm going to make a motion to postpone this item.

OK, is there a second to that motion to postpone? Do you know how long you want to postpone to? I guess would be the first question.

Two weeks.

OK, so we have a motion by Council Member Werthmann and seconded by Council Member Amboga to postpone by two weeks. Is that correct? And would you want to have a public hearing as well the Monday night before? That be agreeable to both of you? Council Member Werthmann, is that agreeable to have? hearing. OK. So discussion on the motion to postpone by two weeks. Council Member Johnson.

I would just like to ask what you hope to accomplish by postponing in the next two weeks.

A lot of questions have been raised. Things that I think we could get some more clarity on about future protection and delineation of wetlands. Help the public better understand what this is and what this isn't. We have a resolution that was substituted at the last minute that I don't think I saw until we arrived today. Just giving us more time to make this call.

Thank you, thank you. So we'll go to Council Member Orth for further discussion on the motion to postpone.

Yeah, thank you. I feel like the missing piece on a large part is that there has not been a collaborative spirit around this project. and I don't think that postponing for two weeks is going to make that happen. I'm very concerned as well about the Elk Creek and that losing its designation, but I'm also very concerned about this piece of collaboration that has not been able to happen with this project just because of the way it's proceeded. And I would want to see that happen.

Thank you, Council Member Orth. All right, so any further discussion on the motion to postpone? We have Council Member Otto.

well thank you council president um with something this big i i see some benefit to further public input and constituency outreach i feel like it's risky i mean we don't know if the buyer might change their mind or you know another entity like the town union or who knows whoever would see this as a window of opportunity to sweep in but we we do need better constituency outreach. So for that, I'll support this.

OK, thank you. Council Member Otto, Council Member Brewster.

Yeah, I guess my thing that I would remind us is that while we do want to be good neighbors to the town of Union and stuff, they are not our constituents, right? i i don't i would never go out of my way to make their lives worse but i'm also not going to you know prioritize people that aren't my constituents over the citizens of the city of eau claire who are um and so i i can understand the frustration you know if you live near this and it's uh you're like man i bought a house out here because i like the the rural lifestyle or whatever but You know, it's, I'm sure there are people that had that same thought when, you know, anything on the south side was built, right? Because that whole thing used to be basically the town of Washington. And now most of it's Eau Claire. yeah i i don't know we went through a a closed session on this i think everybody with the exception of maybe joyce was there um i i don't like the idea that we give staff direction to do something and then you know there's this you know mind changing like after the fact So I don't know, I will not be supporting this and I plan to vote for the acquisition.

Thank you, Council Member Brewster. I'll move on to Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Council President. I do share Council Member Brewster's points that this is a publicly available piece of land and the city of Eau Claire has the right to purchase this land from the seller. As far as working with constituents, collaboration like this is a vacant piece of land in a very rural area there aren't many people nearby so I'm not concerned and we're not gonna build something in there that the city of Eau Claire would not wouldn't have people using that's why we do this we will make it an attractive place for people to go so I'm not super concerned about you know collaborative outreach um that being said you know I just have questions about you know the watershed and how this person might impact that one so I will be supporting the postponement for two weeks in order to get more information about the environmental impacts of this. Because once we make this decision, it's going to be made. And what happens with this area will be set on the path from that point forward. So I don't think two weeks is too long to make sure all the questions and concerns are answered. So I'll be supporting the postponement for two weeks.

OK, thank you, Councilmember Miller. Councilmember Johnson?

Thanks, yeah. Also, I'm not going to be supporting this postponement, similar to what Councilmember Brewster said. actually i think this council has been getting in the habit of doing this exact thing where we will provide direction and then we receive some sort of pushback and our our our reaction is to postpone or postpone indefinitely or push it out when we are here to make the hard decisions that's why we're elected that's why we're up here in this seat we have to make hard decisions that's the nature of the job and it's it's getting at least upsetting to me that we continuously We'll push things out for two weeks when, respectfully, I don't think two weeks is going to magically change the opinions of individuals who aren't quite happy with this. And the conversation as I've been listening, it seems to be a bit confusing to me because people are kind of acting as if there is a planned site that's going to be going in right here, when in reality what's in front of us is a purchase, to purchase this land to have on our books to be able to use maybe in the future. But it is then available for us. And it's then quite the possibility that if we decide not to purchase it, someone else can grab it. And then everything we're saying that could happen negatively is no longer in our control. I don't see any use in my mind of postponing by two weeks. And I think it's becoming a little upsetting to me that we're not willing to just make the hard decision. That's why we're up here. And I think we need to get in a better habit of doing so. I'm not going to be supporting the postponement. I will be supporting the acquisition. I think it's in our best interest and, frankly, probably the best interest of this land that the city has it. And we can then put in place some of the guidelines and the guardrails that we want moving forward if we have it. If we don't, if someone else has it, it becomes private land, it's off our hands. We don't have that input anymore. I think it is in our best interest to acquire this land and start that process tonight.

Can I respond?

Council Member Mbogo, would you like to?

Thank you. Council Priest and Council Thompson. We are elected, thank you. But the people elected are the ones complaining. Some of them are complaining. If then we don't listen to them, then we are not, we don't listen to why they elected us. The time we give the election to our staff would not have all this information. The information would just come. There's no information would just come. That's why we say postpone for two weeks.

Thank you, Council Member Mboga. Vice President Schoen.

I'd like to call the question on postponement.

OK.

All right, so let's move toward the vote here on the motion to postpone by two weeks. And this would have a public hearing on the Monday night before. So City Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Schell? No. Serrano?

No.

Werthmann?

Aye.

Brewster?

No.

Graeger?

Aye.

Johnson.

No.

Iboga. Aye. Miller. No. Worth.

No.

Otto. Aye. Reed.

Aye. All right, so that motion to postpone fails by a vote of five to six by my count, at least. So we will move back to the original motion on whether to purchase this land. So I'm going to keep track of who wants to speak here. I think it was Councilmember Brewster first. So if you would like to go.

Thank you, Council President. I was wondering just for the interest of, you know, since we're talking about a lot of what ifs and whatever, if maybe, you know, Director Nassar or even City Manager Solberg, you know, as engineers might have thoughts on like how easy would it be to prevent effluent from going into the stream, you know, that sort of thing.

Yeah, thank you. Council Member Brewster, Director Ness, would you like to perhaps speak to that as our engineering director?

I appreciate the question. Related to any land development, we work with the DNR and follow the codes that are within the standards, the state standards, and statutes with the stream designations within our SSA boundaries. We have the guidelines that we have to follow. So anything that is brought forward related to this, we would follow those guidelines. One thing that we can look into are the discharge permits that we have within the city within our industrial parks and we can get that information to you too. to provide that, but right now, to my knowledge, and if others know differently, they can correct me, Cascade has a permit, Banbury Place has a permit that is separate from the city's discharge for sanitary use. or water treatment. Otherwise our plant takes care of treatment from the industrial parks to my knowledge.

Thank you. Thank you, Director Nuss. City Manager Solberg.

Yeah, I was just going to throw my engineer hat on and supplement Director Nuss's a little bit. With this area here, and I wasn't aware that Elk Creek has that designation. My dad grew up on Elk Creek and trout fished out there, so I know it's a good trout fishery. But it could require, instead of a point source discharge into Elk Creek, infiltration basins out there and direct the water, the land slopes away from the creek. So our normal stormwater discharge, we have to protect against suspended solids in the water and so forth. But you also have to protect against with the trout stream temperature thermal pollution. So I think trying to infiltrate that through infiltration basins or directing that runoff to the existing wetlands, that actually does have surface water in the wetlands, they're quite wet, would probably be a better alternative. And that would be something that through Director Ness's shop and planning and development that when those site plans come through, you could direct that. But I definitely wouldn't support discharging it directly in there just because that thermal could be the issue, even if the water's as clear as possible for the stormwater. The sanitary discharge is a whole different, that'll go into town and we won't have to worry about that. So just a thought I had looking at that as one potential protection that the city could offer that likely wouldn't be offered if it was developed in a township.

Okay, thank you. I did actually have a question about what City Attorney Nick brought up with regard to the plan you know, potential land use that the Town and Union has articulated in planning documents of some sort, like about future industrial or commercial use? Like, is there a map that we could see that indicates that? Okay, I think we're looking at this. I think I have the same one. But I don't know, I want to make sure I have the most up-to-date comprehensive plan map for the Town and Union that I'm looking at, and maybe that we can all look at together.

This is a future land use map that's on the Town and Union's website, and here's Elk Creek here, and it shows their commercial industrial designation on each side of it up there. So as this area develops up here, Elk Creek is squarely bordered on both sides, on the north side of the interstate, like Attorney Nick has said.

And I guess just to be specific to the land that we are talking about is just to the south. So that is not in that planned land use to do industrial specifically, but maybe? Correct.

It's adjacent to it. Just adjacent. OK.

Thank you. I just love maps so much that I had to dig that one up. OK. Any further discussion before we? Oh, sorry. Council Member Reid.

Thank you, Council President. It sounds like we're all pretty interested in environmental regulations. Is now an appropriate time to do some kind of amendment? Is that a future thing? I mean, it sounds like that's something we're really interested in. So if not now, when do we specify that we don't want these wetlands to be destroyed if we end up acquiring this?

Thank you, Councilmember Reed. So perhaps, Director White, you'd want to kind of explain what are some of the next decision points after we would, like say we were to approve the purchase, what are

mean we obviously the timeline could be quite long so there would definitely be several options that relates back to planning if you think about the sky park industrial center that park was developed through staff only not using like it wasn't a gateway industrial park or anything like that that space had a a number of generally we had defined general development plan originally had restricted covenants on operations within that There can be covenants set up for the industrial park that define operations and define layout. Obviously, if it's city owned park, they would be able to. It would be planned and plotted ourselves that we can go for for approval. You can define holdout areas. You could define additional buffering within that within those spaces can be make use of it over engineering and planning staff to create some some separation of those areas um i know within uh as the our two engineers uh pointed out when talking light industrial none of our light industrials discharge anything beyond storm water there's a lot of retention operations like we talked about with the fluent that are being dumped discharged by cascade discharged by banbury those are heavy industrial zone areas which is where you see that type of activity occur so there's some built-in safeguards by defining what type of operations you do within that there and that's defined by code and what's allowed within those types of operations whether it's a commercial corridor or a light industrial park there's some built-in safeguards just in terms of what's allowed by a zoning standpoint but yeah that can be defined in the planning process we have the staffing capacity to to lay out some plat and corridors that could be marketed out for sale. And we can define what the terms of those sales are. That's up to council.

All right. Thank you, Director White. So I don't think there are any further discussion. Let's move to a vote on whether or not to purchase this land. Oh, we have, oh, sorry. So we will, so yeah, city clerk, would you please call the roll?

Council Member Serrano.

Yes. Aye. Aye.

Werthmann. Aye. Brewster. Aye. Greger. Aye. Johnson. Aye. Mboga. No. Miller. No. Orth.

No.

Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen.

No.

All right. And that passes 7 to 4 to purchase the property. All right. And we will move on to our next agenda item. Resolution, this is agenda item number 32, resolution approving the flexible housing fund scoring criteria update. And we'll have a presentation from community development project coordinator, Billy Hufford.

everybody left right before I came up here I don't know how to take that thank you council member or council president gregor everybody else I do have one thing I wanted to add it was asked last night to take previous award and run it through the current matrix I did attempt that this morning it is so different that I couldn't score projects there were so many questions that I just didn't have enough information to assign a score to but the attempt was made this morning and so many of them I'm like could be this could be I just don't know so other than that I have nothing further to add but would be happy to answer questions all right thank you

Let's see, we'll go to Councilmember Miller.

Thank you, Council President. Coordinator Hufford, so what you're saying is that you couldn't score because there's a difference in the questions, so when the original projects were submitted, they didn't answer the questions, so you just didn't have any data to put into it. Is that what you're saying?

Correct. Okay, so it's not broke or anything.

You just, you had different questions, and now you have these questions.

And their narrative didn't address some of this stuff and everything, so it would just make us be making assumptions.

Yeah, you're making up data. Okay, well, thanks for the effort.

All right, thank you for that question. Let's see. So are there any other, it doesn't appear to be any other questions, so I will. I have this item moved here. So on a motion by Council Member Otto and seconded by Council Member Reid, this item is moved. Is there any discussion by the Council? Council Member Brewster?

I have what very well might be a legal question that I'm hoping City Attorney Nick might be able to clarify. If we pass this, in a hypothetical and we get a bunch of applications the RFP that is gauged that this is supposed to measure and you know they all come to council and Hawk has picked this one using the matrix and whatever and we're like actually council likes this one better for whatever reason does that open us up legally to not like following our own guidelines in any particular fashion and If so, if you could maybe touch on how we might potentially mitigate that liability Yeah, I'll city attorney Nick, thank you Well, I approach

such questions with a certain degree of trepidation of, hmm, how can I make another side's claim against us in public session? You know, likely not. So ultimately, you retain. Have you brought enough to share, Councilmember Bogan? It seems as though he has. So ultimately, you retain the decision to accept some, all, none. The applicants, you know, you'd obviously also have the right to sort of alter scoring matrices. So, you know, I think you have to make reasonably rational uh... decisions has to be some non arbitrary basis for your decision you're setting out uh... a set of standards and sort of should you wholly change from it. What you may want to do is reject them all and relist if you think it leads to sort of unreasonable, absurd results. So you certainly, you have the final word on it. But obviously you don't want to adopt something that is going to lead people down, sort of, you know a primrose pass or worse that misuses you know there in our time but in the end you've got you've got to council's got to approve it when these things come back to you say that again council has to approve yeah council has the ultimate approval authority and So the matrix and the work of Hawk is important, but it's a recommendation. Thank you.

all right so council member miller thank you council president just to clarify city attorney nick's statement so just for instance say we got one came out with a score of 75 and only came out score of 64 but we kind of like the 64 one better we are with our legal rights to approve the 64 even though it came back lower than 75 or whatever i just said is that a factual statement

I think you'd want to identify the reasons for doing so. But yes, this is not a statutory process. You're not in qualified bidder mode or things like that. So you're going to have flexibility when the projects come back to you. It is informative, but not mandatory upon your choices.

Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Gragert. Yeah, I just want to put that slight clarification into my own language and make sure that it checks. This is helping to give like, yes, council is good with the scoring criteria for the RFP process that the HOC might use. And the HOC is an advisory commission to the council. So this is saying we're We empower you to continue to use this criteria to bring us advisory information. And it's still council's purview to decide in that way. Is that accurate?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other discussion? Council Member Brewster?

Yeah, I haven't been involved in this. And this is the, you know, when we got the PAC, it was the first time I had a chance to look at it. And based on what my understanding.

Point of order, did we move this yet?

Yeah, I believe it was moved.

OK, sorry. Thanks.

Yeah, no worries.

well now I don't remember what I was gonna say oh yeah first time reading it and and I guess you know if I think there's a lot of a lot potential to be improved on it I don't think it gives enough credit to the for people who wanna provide services, especially given how much comprehensive services for some folks can cost. I don't think it gives enough credit for perpetual affordability over a 20-year affordability or a 15-year affordability. And I'm just really uncomfortable with telling Hawk to judge, projects that might come in based on on this rubric like I said first time I've looked at it haven't been party to the to the conversations so I mean I'm perhaps there is you know reasons for moving in this direction and I'm I'm very interested to hear what they are but in its current form I will not be supporting this

All right, thank you. Council Member Brewster, Vice President Schoen.

Thank you, Council President Greger. As the counselor who has served at HOC for going on three years, I do want to speak in support of this rubric as it stands, as it's written. I understand the concerns and questions that have been asked. But I want to offer the context that Housing Opportunities Commission, full of lots of affordable housing service provider experts, developers, it's a very unique commission. to serve on, like probably one of my favorite, don't tell anyone else, but it's this took Hawk over six months of time and effort and difficult discussions and special meetings. Everyone, I mean every single Scoring criteria and the point allocation was scrutinized for hours, painstakingly. I mentioned this yesterday. One thing I want to highlight again and call attention to is The initial rubric that Hawk started from when revising this and creating this product was really designed with new construction, new build LIHTC projects in mind and mirrored or modeled after. that type of project. This rubric is really designed so that there's a wide variety of projects that mirror all of our community's needs, ranging from new build LIHTC construction, where there's many units being constructed, to rehabbing homes that may not be providing perpetual affordability to people, but it's gonna keep somebody aging in place in their home. If we can help provide funding to make their home accessible to them for 10 more years or 15 more years Or abating somebody, you know a family with children that has mold in the home But it's affordable to them right now and without this abatement. They have to vacate the property so there were so many conversations had and such care taken to build a rubric that I that group of experts that's really unique and multifaceted felt reflected the various needs of the community and would allow a lot of diversity of projects to score well for different reasons. But again, and our coordinator, Hufford, which I can't remember the full title because, Billy, your title is so long. mentioned yesterday, there was care taken to making sure the parts of the rubric that reflect the highest need had the most weight. And so, again, a lot of hours went into this. Hawks put so much time on this, took such care for every single decision point. I just have to ask everyone really to consider approving this as is. And I'm certain there are improvements that can be made over time. But it certainly wasn't something that people didn't think of, some of the questions that are being asked.

All right. Thank you, Vice President Schoen. Yeah, I appreciate all the time that's gone in. to this by our Housing Opportunities Commission. And I do think there will always be new ideas and new ways to analyze it. And I think some of the questions that I heard yesterday are very valid in terms of how to improve it. For me, it feels like we should give it back to the Housing Opportunities Commission to actually use and improve it from there. Council Member Brewster, do you have anything to add?

Thank you, Council President. I guess I was just wondering, with this process and the RFPs or whatever that looks like, will we get all the projects with then Huck's recommendation in order. So even the ones that they're like, we don't think this, or this is like the bottom of the tier, is that something we still get a chance to look at?

Vice President Schoen would you know the answer probably maybe coordinator Hufford Yes in the past we have shared all the applications you know we would normally do like a summary and list them by points this is the one scored highest there's a summary of what they want to do but the applications will be made available I know the first one prairie heights application was over 400 pages with narrative and stuff so only like 20 pages of it was shared with um hawk i don't know if the full application ended up coming to council but might not even send out that big so um but it captured the the pieces of it relative to that matrix because it was a bigger application that included light tech and stuff but yeah we would share all of that stuff with you guys

Thank you.

Council Member Werthmann.

Council President, if I could share that I remember the last time that we did this, we actually had to make difficult decisions between, I think, pretty closely scored projects that we were deciding on. And I think what it came down to is they were close, and there wasn't a lot of money. So we were thinking about different amounts even. So this absolutely comes back to us from what I remember the process being. All right.

So is there any other discussion on this agenda item on the flexible housing fund scoring criteria update? All right. Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Gregert. I have questions like many of us do. This is a brand new work effort. Well, brand new in the sense that there was a lot of work put into this. And I think maybe the best way to evaluate its usefulness going forward is to try it and actually use it. i will be even though i have a lot of questions about it i will be supporting um this particular matrix and rubric so that we can i think in use we will be able to get more feedback all right thank you council member serrano all right uh seeing no further discussion uh city clerk please call the roll council member worthman aye rooster no

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And that item passes 10 to 1. And we'll move on to agenda item number 33, resolution approving the 2027-2031 capital improvement plan for the city. of Eau Claire. We have our finance director, Kitsie Winters, to present on this item.

Council President, point of order, please, if I may. Yeah, sure. We're closing on our third hour here, and I think we have a number of amendments here, and we've been here for a while. I would entertain, I'd like to pro the five-minute recess just so we can stretch our legs a bit and mentally re-prep for these amendments we have here. Yeah, that would be.

Point of order. I'll be gone soon, so we better...

Well, I still would like a five-minute recess.

Would you like to, Councilmember Johnson?

We've had staff sitting here for almost three hours, some waiting probably for the capital improvement plan, some waiting for further ordinance for action. If we have to get up to go to the bathroom, I think we can step out, grab water. But respectfully, I think we should push forward.

All right, I'm just trying to get a little five-minute break for everybody. Could be . But if we want to plow on through, let's do that.

OK. Yeah, I think we'll just keep going here, if that's OK. So we're on agenda under number 33. And we have our finance director, Kitsie Winters, to present. No pressure.

Good evening, President Greger, council. I do not have anything more on the capital improvement plan itself to present. What you have in front of you are paper copies that match the email I sent out this afternoon. What's in that email is my simplest description is we've been talking about amending the CIP by a total of $500,000. That $500,000 specifically has three different proposals that have been presented to me. One of them is to split that $500,000 between flexible housing and affordable housing. One of them is to take that $500,000 and shift it all the way to flexible, and the other is to shift it all the way to affordable. So there's been three options that I've prepared that are in front of you. You have a multitude of other choices you can make. You can do nothing. You can do different amounts, but that's what's already been prepared there. I hope that makes sense. I'm available for any questions or any further clarification on those.

Okay. Yeah. Any questions for Director Winters? Council Member Werthmann, do you have a question?

Yes. Whose amendments are these?

I guess at inception we had talked originally about a $500,000 one, but that was kind of split. Michonne had done the $250,000 to flexible housing. Okay. Ms. Serrano had done the $250,000 right to affordable housing. Today, there was a potential for proposing all of the $500,000 to go to flexible housing, and that was an email from Michonne. And then today, the $500,000 for affordable housing was a potential discussion from Mr. Gerstner. and just so i'm clear the flexible housing fund that that's the one that deals with the um rule the the hawk and the scoring criteria we just talked about yes so any of the motions that are prepared for you would change the description in the cip and we printed we did print that on the resolutions for you um that would follow the the heart matrix all right thank you council member serrano

I just was hoping, thank you, Council President Riggard, to provide a little bit of clarity on that. It was really Councilmember Schoen and myself together when we originally kind of talked about these two potential, you know, 250 here and 250 there, additional, the two different funds. And then we've spoken earlier today about putting it all into the flexible housing fund. That's also something that I think Councilmember Schoen is the mover and myself as the seconder. So everybody knows kind of where this is coming from. We worked on those together. And with kind of this modified language here in the motion. I guess is the point. So putting it all into flexible housing, yeah, flexible housing fund is with this modified language.

Thank you for that. Yeah, I wasn't sure who the seconder would be today. Yes. The third option? Yes. So, yeah.

Yes, that's me. And it's with the language. But I do want to call to council, all council's attention, that the, what do you call that, the cover language? The project description. The project description is a little bit different from what had been there.

We're doing publicized. Right. Yep.

So everybody should probably read that, because Council Member Werthmann, it for like, I've numbered my pages one, two, three, and four, like your email, Director Winters. And so numbers one and three have that same language.

And I'll be withdrawing my amendment as well.

You're withdrawing number four? OK. So we're really, I guess we really just have one amendment maybe, which is number three.

Yeah, so we're still under the clarifying questions. So thanks for adding some clarity to that. So folks have any other questions before we move the item for discussion and for proposing amendments?

Yeah.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Council President. And to reiterate, from the email we got today with the scanned items, we are now only considering a motion that is handwritten number three in the corner. That's correct?

Yes.

OK. Thank you.

OK. So we'll get to that. I'm going to move the item. So on a motion by Council Member Serrano and seconded by Council Member Brewster, this item is moved. And now we're in discussion. Vice President Schoen.

I would like to make a motion to amend the CIP, which reflects the language that I'd like to propose is reflected on the screen.

OK, thank you, Vice President Schoen. Do we have a second?

And I will second that motion.

OK, thank you, Council Member Serrano. So on a motion by Vice President Schoen and seconded by Council Member Serrano, we have motion to amend um that would um add 500 000 in 2027 to the flexible housing initiative is that right correct okay any uh discussion on that motion to amend uh council member worthman Or do you want a chance to introduce that? Actually, we'll have Vice President Schoen introduce it.

I would appreciate that. Thank you, Council President Greger. And I'll keep it brief. I know Council Member Mboga has somewhere to be. So quickly, to recap what is reflected here, and appreciate the patience of staff and council with the changes and dynamic conversations that have been happening. The interest and where we have consensus from a lot of different groups, honestly, that I've been involved in discussions and conversations and phone calls with over the last several weeks are that there's an interest and a need to increase the amount that we're investing in affordable housing in Eau Claire. And so approaching staff, they were able to identify several sources of funds where dollars could be reduced from. As mentioned last night, these are not projects that otherwise would be happening in calendar year 27 that are not happening because of this amendment. These are projects that were identified as being unlikely to happen because of limited staff capacity. And I want to also appreciate or say again how much I appreciate that staff were able to identify these sources. I think during, we've got a long wish list. During really tough and tight budgets, this is hard to do. So I really appreciate staff being so willing to have that conversation. And then it would make possible additional funds in the Flexible Housing Initiative line item, which as I believe Council Member Werthmann asked a question, HOC directly oversees. There is language that's in italics on the screen that was drafted for transparency around how these dollars are used. And also, this is a net change of $500,000 to that line item, but it would bring the total allocation for 2027 up to $750,000. It also increases this line item in the CIP document to a priority level one. And what I want to have clarity around or be very transparent about is there's also consensus, all of the things that I just said, around the fact that there's some amount of dollars that it's appropriate for Hawk to administer through their scoring rubric. And it's necessary to have a healthy fund balance there to attract a wide range of projects. But there's also alignment around the fact that there's some amount of dollars that should be managed separately for unique projects that are on fast timelines or for other reasons can't or won't be scored through the matrix. And so there's, I think, not clear consensus yet on exactly what that process looks like and specifying what the role of HOC would be and staff and council, community partners. But right now where we've landed is this is a budgetary decision and the next step would be clarifying that policy and exactly what the process would be for administering those two different types of funding. within this line item. So I tried to be quick. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice President Schoen. And I want to give Council Member Serrano a chance to help introduce it as well here.

Yeah, I really want to thank Vice President Schoen for, again, great work and creative thinking all along this. Thanks, staff, also for the flexibility. I love that this is the flexible housing initiative because I think flexible is the operative word here. Everybody's being very sort of mission-oriented of what we're really trying to accomplish, and that's trying to really allocate more dollars projects and we don't even know what they are yet and um I think that takes that takes a lot of courage for a city and especially in these economic times and everything else to really say okay we're elevating this to priority one and we're going to put even more money in that we're kind of bringing from other places not like we have new funding sources but we want to prioritize housing in general. And we don't know exactly what that is going to end up looking like. We don't know the timelines just yet. We just passed a scoring rubric that's a step in getting us to real projects. But again, I think this has been great to work on because I think it allows me and I think the public to be able to see that things are possible. We figure it out. We work creatively. And I think we will be able to move the needle further than kind of at that $250,000 level, which is kind of what has been allocated in the last recent years to this fund, putting more money in and kind of opening up to more flexibility.

So I'm really excited about this.

a really good move for everybody involved. And I appreciate Vice President Schoen's work and clarity on all of us finding consensus here.

Thank you, Council Member Serrano. Council Member Werthmann.

Thank you, Council President. Thanks for bringing this amendment forward. I think what it raises for me are a couple of questions. And one is, why? why so i see this section here city staff may also bring forward funding recommendations that's great but why wouldn't they bring forward the recommendations through the hawk process that the other funding is already going to be doing or going through and the second question here is if you had considered if if flexibility and timelines sort of that need to be nimble is a part of this consideration, then why not write that into this amendment? And I guess lastly is like, I understood the vice president saying that there's gonna be some further or future discussion around what amount of money is in this flexible housing initiative that Hawk decides and some other amount of money that's going to be delineated for staff-initiated proposals. Maybe I heard that wrong, but those are the three things that come into my mind of like, I guess I would like to hear your perspective on.

VICE PRESIDENT SHUN, would you?

Thank you, Council President Gragert. The language in italics is really truly meant to capture exactly what your question is and clarify that some of the funds or that these funds may be used for a wide variety of purposes, including projects that would be solicited through the RFP process that Hawk oversees and that's very clearly spelled out but also that there may be exceptions to that and there may be instances where there's really great opportunities to make affordable housing happen and we want that flexibility captured here so this doesn't spell out exactly what that process looks like particularly because council has not had an opportunity to talk about that And so this sets the expectation that there is some flexibility. But I personally feel that that decision and the details that you're asking about are a different conversation. They aren't budgetary. And so that next step would be something that I'd like to have a council work session potentially on to spell out more clearly.

Council Member Brewster. Yeah, I was wondering if I could get clarification. So the language update is for the entire fund, not the 500,000 that we're adding to it.

That is how I would treat it. I would be updating the description in the book.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

right any further discussion on the amendment yeah right here oh sorry no you're good you're good i think i was blocking it yeah yeah uh council member reed thank you council president so um totally in support of this just want to understand why 500 000 in 2027 rather than a phased increase can you help me understand the long-term history of this fund like are we gonna try this again next year and the year after, just like where does this sit in the long-term history here?

I think as far as process, the department director submits the request, so we've really kind of been hysteric in what has came out of the departments has been down to safety needs or items that they've prioritized. That number has been small. A million dollars was kind of, It was a new amount. Historically, it had been less. I'd have to look up those amounts. I don't remember those off the top of my head, but in 2025, that jumped up to a million dollars. Maybe even in 24? And then we combined it, yes, with the ARPA and other opportunities. So I think my financial lens would tell you that I wouldn't want to automatically add a million dollars to every year within the CIP just because I only have a partially funded fire station. And if we have to fund that full fire station that year, everything's going to be proposed to take a shift outside of safety equipment. and that that would you know be down to the roads right so but yeah as far as gradual um that that jump to a million was made so this this would be lower so this is a gradual relatively gradual increase these sodium lights being changed are not a life or death situation that's what it sounds like No, that would be a one-time item. So I guess when we would look at next year, we're going to have to see where else that could come from. There's been a 60% increase in expenditures from 10 years ago. 40% of that is just CPI. We've got three large projects in here, which does kind of take care of the rest of that number, but the prices are just... outstanding in the air, that's not the right word tonight, but they're just astronomical in my opinion. So we've got other items that really are getting very costly, so I'm monitoring it very closely with our growth. That growth needs to stay there so we can continue to meet the needs on the infrastructure. I don't know if that kind of answers as well.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions or discussion on the amendment? All right, seeing none, city clerk, please call the roll on the amendment.

Council Member Brewster.

Aye.

Gregor.

Aye. Johnson.

Aye. Invoga. Aye. Miller. Aye. Orth. Aye. Otto. Aye. Reed. Aye. Schoen. Aye. Serrano.

Aye.

Werthmann. Aye.

All right, and that passes unanimously. And to now go to the full CIP with that amendment added. Is there any discussion before we take a vote on that?

All right, Council Member Brewster. I just absolutely love every governmental body I've ever been in. We'll argue for two hours about $500 for banned uniforms or whatever, and then when it comes time to pass $60 million, it's one comment, and then it's done. And I just think that is the funniest aspect of legislative behavior, and I thought I would make a comment about it.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Serrano.

I just, again, want to really thank Director Winters, her staff, actually all of the staff at the city, because this is a work product of all departments, city manager Solberg. This is big work, and I really, really, really appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Serrano. All right, seeing no further discussion, city clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Grager?

Aye.

Johnson? Aye. Mboka? Aye. Miller? Aye. Orth?

Aye.

Otto? Aye. Reed? Aye. Schoen? Aye. Serrano? Aye. Werthmann? Aye. Brewster? Aye.

All right, and that passes unanimously.

All right, thank you. If I may add, Michael is on vacation, so these changes won't be reflective until next week. So we will have, but the current versions of these are online. Okay.

So I'll get that out to you. All right, thanks so much for all your work. On to the operating budget next.

council member moga did you have yeah because i'm i'm leaving can we discuss about the ordinance of action number 30 35 i'm the next one yeah i think so you want to reorder yeah we talk about that five

Okay. Um, I think I think we can re we can reorder to have 35. Next. Unless there's an objection, but I So let's do agenda item number 35 under ordinances for action. Ordinance amending chapter 10.24 entitled special parking restrictions of the code of ordinances of the city of Eau Claire to remove block face parking in the downtown business districts and add paid parking to city hall. And we have a presentation from our parking administrator, Aaron Roths. Thank you for joining us.

Good evening, council. Bear with me, I have not done this. My presentation is short. Basically, we are removing the block face parking regulations throughout the entirety of downtown. The biggest reason for that is to keep it consistent with paid parking, we are no longer gonna have the block face. Let's keep it consistent in the Water Street District. So we'll still have two hour parking down Water Street, we just won't have those little signs that say block face, which are very confusing to the public, and it has been for quite a few years. It was recommended in the parking study to remove it as well with the paid parking implementation. The second portion is adding paid parking to the city hall parking lot. I meant for it to just be after hours. Looking back, I do see that we do have public hearing on Monday nights, every second and fourth Monday. So if we need to add wording to move that to exclude during public meetings, that's perfectly fine in my book. And if there are other days that we don't want to have the paid parking, I'm all for it.

OK. Thank you. Any questions from council? Is that? Yeah, Council Member Mboga.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you. In fact, that was the question I wanted to ask you about. If people are coming to the seat hall for public hearing or to pay utility staff, they don't need to be paying for parking. After business hours. Thank you for clarifying that.

Okay. Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Gregert. I am not sure how that would work. Like, how does parking enforcement, I mean, are they going to, is that going to be like How are you going to know when the Waterways and Parks Commission is meeting or there was a special meeting of the sustainability action? I'm just really.

We have access calendars to all the meetings that happen here. We have a small staff. We will have two enforcement individuals.

So anytime there's a public meeting and you would have like a special chart that would tell you these are the public meetings happening this week and so parking would be free during that time.

Yep, very similar to like the Lismore when they have special events. Yes, they have a contract with us, but they still put up placards and they let me know and I put it on our calendar as a whole. So everyone checks that calendar multiple times during the day. I send out reminders.

Okay, thank you.

I see Council Member Otto, I think, was next.

Thank you, Council President. Have you noticed any high demand, say, when there's an event at the Pablo Center or some sort of summer concert or anything? Does this lot ever get full for non-city business?

In the evenings, yes. I will admit I actually use that a lot just as convenience instead of going up the ramp. If we come down to Reboot Social or the record store, it's just, you know, the other portion is there's cameras, so it's always under watchful eye as well. So to me it's kind of the preferred parking.

Thank you. Council Member Johnson. Thanks. Can you remind me, so Blackface Parking is being removed from midnight to 1 PM. Is two hour parking still in effect? Or because paid will be starting for that first portion of the days, Blackface is gone, but will two hours be gone as well? Or that'll still be there? No, two hours staying.

And that was from 6 AM to 6 PM. And paid parking is running from 1 PM to 11 PM.

OK. OK. Council Member Brewster.

uh thank you council president um is there uh is your plan to in the same way that you're not allowed to park from you know two to six a.m on the street would you include the city hall parking lot in that because if somebody's parked here overnight then all of a sudden they're not paying until city hall closes

That's a good question. Because right now the two to six is for doing the street sweeping during the summer, doing the snow removal in the winter to keep it consistent. Yeah, that's a good question. Might have to look into that one.

Okay. All right, any other questions? Okay. Thank you for your presentation.

We'll move this off the press. We have the parking signs as well. I wanted to bring them along. Couldn't get anyone to come beat my easel, but yeah, be on the lookout for signs. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, so we have, uh, so this would be a motion by, um, council member on a motion by council member Werthmann and seconded by council member Orth. This item is moved. Is there any discussion? Uh, council member Miller.

Thank you. Council president. Uh, I would like to pose an amendment to the ordinance. Um, 10 24 0 1 0 F. Um, at the end, um, add the text excluding such times that publicly notice meetings are being held in city hall.

OK. So we have an amendment. Second. And motion by Councilmember Miller and seconded by Councilmember Johnson to add that language just stated. Councilmember Miller, you want to explain that?

certainly i i don't think that residents should have to pay to attend publicly notice meetings well therefore we will not have forced parking in the lot during those times um i checked with city manager and city attorney and they are okay with that text and as um mr roth said um the small staff having access to the calendar that shouldn't be an issue to ensure that no one is being enforced parking regulations during public meetings

OK, thank you. Any other discussion on that amendment that is proposed? All right. Could you maybe restate it one more time as to what it says?