City Council - Special Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and to tell councilor that we're still working on our system here and hopefully on the 14th, we'll have our AV system and everything working well. So tonight, when you speak, you have to hold the mic, the button down. And you have to continually hold it down as long as you're speaking. And when you stop speaking, just let it off and then... If you're out there on the audience, again, all you need to do is push the button to start it. Push the button and it will come on and then when you finish talking, just push it back and it'll stop, okay? All right, we are here today for this special call meeting to conduct business for the city of Georgetown. We ask that you follow the guidelines and that you also be respectful as we continue this process. At this time, Madam Clerk, if you will call the roll.

Thank you.

At this time, we have the approval minutes for August 24, 2020 City Council meeting.

At this time, I will entertain a motion. Motion passed. Second made by Ms. Hamrick. Are there further questions and or comments? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Let the record reflect that it passed. Item four. All right, item four on the agenda is the overall view of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, LIHTC program, Elkhorn Cross and Development. 1-6-5-4-0-0-5-4-0-0-0. At this time, I will ask that the group from overall, we're gonna have Ward Cooke coming up first, and then he'll give us kind of an overall, again, to remind us exactly what's going on here.

The Mayor, Council. My name is Sandy Sainsbury, Senior Vice President of Water Cooper Companies. We are here tonight to ask first, you know, to do some affordable housing here in Georgetown, 60 units. And of that ask, we're also asking for a $300,000 loan to be paid back at a 2% interest rate to help with the building of a new sewer treatment that is needed over in that area. Whereas Water Cooper Companies will pay for the sewer, and we will pay the city, we will pay the support, and we will pay Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer back for that. So that would be a cost that is not going to be directed to the Water and Sewer Board. I don't know, Candace, if you want me to go through my, okay, before I get started, I think some of you all know, but I have brought with me some other employees of Water Cooper Company. One of them, well two of them actually, are born and raised here in Georgetown. Our senior regional manager who oversees the whole state of Kentucky and Tennessee is Mindy DeBord. And then her daughter, Jordan, who also currently lives here now, she is our regional manager over at Tennessee. So if you don't mind, I would like to introduce Mindy so that she can give you a brief overview about what affordable housing is and how it has helped them with residence.

Good evening everyone, I'm Mindy Gabor. Like Tammy said, I was raised here in Scott County, lived here for many years. I have worked in affordable housing for over 35 years. I started my career in, I don't know what I'm going to say on my age, actually it was late 80s, right after high school. at the Georgetown Housing Authority and spent many years there with the public housing agency and worked with the Section 8 program, which is the Housing Choice Housing Program. I also helped write grants for the community. We were awarded the Drug Elimination Program, the Family Self-Sufficiency Program, and the Community Development Program. I since went to Kentucky Housing Corporation and spent over 15 years with them and then got out in the field and now manage portfolios throughout the state of Kentucky and Tennessee. And so I am representing the management team of Woda Cooper Companies. I've been with Woda Cooper for almost 10 years. We have seen fast developments within our states at Woda Cooper because of the need for affordable housing throughout each state and we have grown significantly in the state of Kentucky, and I feel that's in part due to our managing the communities, number one, with developing the communities and then managing those communities overall. Having worked with Kentucky Housing, myself and Tracy Robertson, our regional director in Kentucky, I've worked for Kentucky Housing as well, and we have worked with that agency for many years, and since I've been with BOCA, we have not experienced any failed inspections, listed inspections, and by-law inspections, and we have never received what we call an 8823, which is an IRS suspension of tax credits. So I feel like that speaks volumes, and I feel like it speaks volumes that affordable housing has helped people like myself in the past as a single mom many years ago. And then employees that we have now within our company have been helped in the past by portable housing. So I do feel like it's a positive for the members of the community. And again, I don't feel like that we're necessarily outsiders because we do have local individuals that we hire and employ in our communities locally. and they take great pride in their communities, and they love their communities, and I myself lived in that area many years ago, so I am familiar with the area. And again, I just feel like it would be a great entertainment, again, in representative management, so if you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer.

Okay, so King has asked me to go through the PowerPoint I presented to you all several weeks ago, just because there wasn't very many people from the public there. So I will quickly go through this PowerPoint that I presented. The first page just talks a little bit about who Golden Cooper Company is. And as I've told you all, we've been in existence for 36, well now 37 years. We have a pretty good track record. We are ranked seventh in the nation for affordable housing. We own 400 communities, 19,000 homes, and $1.8 billion in development. Out of that, we In addition, we have 800 plus employees. We are an ESOP, which is an employee owned company. So that is quite different because all the employees have stock in this company. So we always want to make sure we're doing good. We do have an A plus rating with the BBB. So in case anybody, because I know there was some things going around about some issues with management. And what I just want to say about that before we get to the PowerPoint presentation is we did have 66 BDB complaints. That 66 represents .002% of our current 35,000 residents. That number is even Larger, when you take into account the tens of thousands of our friends that have already moved out, so we consider that having just 66 complaints to be very good. We are an accredited A-plus rating, but when you note the BBB complaints, the ones that are marked resolved, that's when the complainant agrees with the resolution. In cases where they are fighting eviction, angry about write-ups, or unhappy with their deposits, Our board's board repairs. That's why we have those complaints. But like I said, we resolve all those complaints. We work very closely with any type of complaint we get to resolve that issue. Last year alone, our management team received four awards at the Kentucky HUD Shama Conference held in Louisville. And one of those awards was Outstanding Management Companies. So we take pride in what we do. We take pride in our developments. We take pride in making sure that day one, year 25, our properties still look the same. And as I've told you all before, you're not going to find that with third-party management companies because they just don't do it. And the next slide, it's just a list of some of the funding sources that we utilize. The main funding source that we use is the Lincoln-Hopkins Tax Credit. That was created in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. The reason that credit was created was because he realized that there was, they were missing a group of people that needed affordable housing, because you have your public housing and you have your Section 8, and both of those are rent subsidized. So it means that if you get a raise, then your rent's going to go up because your rent is based upon that income. Whereas in affordable housing, low-income housing tax credits, it is not. It's set at a rate at move-in, and if you get a raise, that's great. Your rent is not based upon your income going up. So that's the beauty of the low-income housing tax credit because people can now save money towards homeownership, pay off debts, and we'll get into that here in a minute. And the next five, again, it's just a brief overview of what the housing credit program is. It is an affordable housing investment. Investor equity helps finance these developments, allowing properties to offer below market price. And what I mean by that is we ask for the credit amount. And the credit amount doesn't mean anything to us, but it does to investors, and investors will purchase that credit, and it is paid over a 10-year term. And at the end of that 10 years, the investor comes out, but the investor is in for that length of time. So it's considered like great money. When I get to the next slide, I'll show you a little bit more about what I'm talking about. You can skip to the next one, to the... So this is just a quick summary of what low-income housing tax credits does. And this isn't particularly this development, but say there's a total development cost of $12 million at 50 units, and the credit unit limit is $22,000 a unit. We asked for an annual credit of $1.1 million. Over 10 years, if we sold that credit, it came to $11 million. The equity investor would pay anywhere between 80 and 90 cents on the dollar. So that's considered free money that we look at coming into the deal. That would result in $9.3 million, leaving approximately $2.6 million of debt. So when you take that, instead of market rate developments, where they have to find a permanent loan for the full $12 million, we're only getting a permanent loan for the $2.6 million. So that's why we're able to charge lower rents, and it's beneficial to everybody. So high equity and low bank debt is why rent's gonna be affordable. Next slide. What makes this pencil? So I know there was some talk about making sure that KHC is asking for this and anybody can go on KHC's website, pull up their multifamily development and look at their scoring criteria and their guidelines and you will see all this because this is information excerpts I took out of their actual guidelines and their scoring criteria. So I'm not making up anything about why we need the money. Typically, like I said, we come in developments before we would come in If there was a zoning change, we'd go through the zoning change. If not, we wouldn't ask any communities for anything. But because Kentucky is, this population is lower than most, Kentucky only receives about $12 million in low-income housing tax credits. That means they could plan anywhere from 12 to 14 developments. In doing so, it limits the amount of credit they can give these deals. So now they're looking at soft funds. Well, Kentucky Housing only has so many soft funds. They have a little bit of home funds and a little bit of affordable housing trust funds, and they don't fill the gap. So Kentucky Housing decided that if some of these communities who really wants affordable housing They need to sink their teeth into it too and say, hey, we're willing to help with this to get affordable housing in our community. And that's when they came up with the permanent below market resources. And as you can see here, one of those resources is local government funding. We're not asking for grants. We're asking for a loan, a loan with an interest rate of 2% that will be paid back over 30 years. But we will also pay it back with excess cash. I was talking to Chase and he asked what if the full sump pump doesn't cost $900,000 and it's less. Even better for us. We will give that money back to the three entities quicker and still pay back the remaining balance. So we're not going to leave anybody hanging. Again, since housing credits are very limited, it is a very competitive process. KHC will probably receive anywhere from 24 to 32 applications this next round. So they have to create a scoring criteria. Again, this is an excerpt out of their scoring workbook, so I'm not making this up. And as you can see, Georgetown is considered balance of the state, so a full 15 points is given here. And again, it's for projects with the greatest amount of below market resources per unit will receive the maximum points. If we were to go, if we were to submit this application with nothing else from the community, we wouldn't get 15 points. And those 15 points is a make or break in scoring because the scoring is so tight. We are getting the donated land, which also helps, but that value only came to like 176,000. We're very appreciative of David and Matt for stepping up and saying we want to see affordable housing here and we're willing to donate this land to this development. With that, so with the 176 and the $300,000 from the city and then hopefully the 300,000 from fiscal court and the 300,000 from the water sewer district will get us to like a million and something. That's big for rural communities. And that will help our score tremendously. Next slide, please.

How many pre-applications are still active in this grant?

So when the pre-applications were due May 14th, they received 82 pre-applications. And then they came out with their score of what those sites were. then KHC said, okay, who is going to submit an application now that you know what your score site is? Over 40 of those applications dropped out. We know that once you start vetting through, putting your deal together, more of those applications will drop out. So that left 40, but by the time, because we had two that we had to pull as well. So by the time you go to submit next Thursday, we're guessing around, 28 applications will probably be submitted.

So next is the timeframe.

So like I said, our application is due to KHC next Thursday and our commitment letters have to be submitted with that as well for us to get the points. They will make an announcement the end of January. From January to September of 2027, that's when we will finalize civil and construction drawings. We'll work the water and sewer district on the new sewer pump station. In October, we'll go for permits and we'll close. Start construction, we hope to begin in November of 2027. We would not need any of the funds from Georgetown until January of 2028. In December of 2028, we'd start pre-leasing. It is a 90-day process to pre-lease because we go through a lot of different information when we rent to people. And if y'all have more questions about that process, then you can come up and tell y'all more about that. We're hoping to close January of 2029 and lease up between January and March of 2029.

of the applications, is it just for Georgetown, Scott County residents only, or is it open to outside?

So because of fair housing laws, we can't discriminate against anybody, but most times what we see, it's always people in the community or people who used to live in the community but there was no housing that come back. We see that a lot, that people who once lived in that community come back. But I mean, there could possibly be people who are now working here in Georgetown, but live in another community that actually wanna live here, but there's no affordable housing. But yeah, we can discriminate against that.

Okay, Tammy, a couple questions. Question number one, you said about 42,000, 42, 42 applicants will apply and you said 28 of them by the end will probably submit an application by the 28th, excuse me, the 11th of September, correct? Correct. Now of those 28, what is the funding? Does the state fund fund how many of those?

So typically it's anywhere from 12 to 15 projects based upon past applications received.

So there is a possibility that we may not even receive this funding. Correct.

Yes. If we don't have additional funding from the community, there's no sense in us submitting at all because we're not going to get any of those points. So we would just pull the application period because it would have no chance.

But even with funding, even if we decide to fund it, there is a possibility that it still may not be one of the 12

Correct, yes. And the reason is you go ahead and blind it because what KHC does is they score every application against each other of what other funds are coming into the table. So I don't know what one of my competitor developers in another county what soft funds they've got coming into their deal. I don't know that. I can look at what their site scored, but I'm not gonna know how much other money. So yes, it is very competitive and we do go in blinded. And I will state that by the time we submit an application, we've already spent over $150,000 on just getting this application. So if we end up pulling it or we don't get funded, we're out that money. We don't get reimbursed for that. But it's a risk that we take because this is our business.

And this is the first leg, so if this council passes tonight, it has to go to the official court and also to Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service. So all three of these have to be approved by each body before you even get credit for that. Yes. So if any one of those do not go through, then this deal is null and void. Is that correct? Exactly.

Yeah, there will be no additional affordable housing bill here. And I think I told you all the last time, the last low-income housing tax credit 9% development that was done was done in 2005. It was Scott Manor. It was just 19 units. I do know that LDG has done bond deals here. They've done several phases. but their rents are not considered affordable. They're much higher rents. So this would be the first one if it gets funded in Georgetown in 21 years.

just one other point because of the three different entities whatever would be passed would have to be the same in all three and timing you would not have the ability to be able to go back and amend and those kinds of things correct right i sent an actual commitment letter

and Emily has reviewed it, we made some changes, and it's the same commitment letter for all three entities that we're requesting money from, that even if we do submit it, everybody agrees, and we submit it, and we don't get the funding, then that commitment in the letter is null and void. So that commitment letter, because it's based upon us receiving an award of credits.

So can you share that letter?

To clarify? to clarify, I have seen a draft of a template letter and we talked about just initial language that would need to be changed. The discussion tonight could lead to additional conditions that go along with that, so there is not a final letter, but yes.

Ms. Henry. You may not be done with your presentation, so if I'm jumping ahead. No, you're fine. You're free to tell me. Can you talk to us after this might be built, if it goes through, about the maintenance aspect of the affordable apartments that have been built? Who manages them, and how is the property managed overall?

So, Walden Cooper Company, we are a development, construction, and management company. As I stated before, we will be the managers on this development. When you go through housing credits and with investors, we are tied to inspections after inspections after inspections. Those inspections include Kentucky Housing Corporation. They include our investors. Not only that, our manager makes monthly inspections on the units to make sure that they're maintaining those. So there's a lot of inspections that are going on. We are also inspected like they come and inspect our files and make sure that we're moving the people in at the time that they were in that income range. Like I said, if they get an increase after they move in, that's fine. Nothing changes on them. Uh, but yeah, we are, we are, we're in this for, we have a Laura of 33 years. Water Cooper, like I said, has been in business for 36 years. We've never sold a development. However, we did sell a small farmer's home develop. We did farmer's home portfolio. And the reason why we sold that portfolio is because farmer's home was difficult to work with. We couldn't go in and rehab any of these units. It was taking two to three years to even get to closing. And it just wasn't worth it to us. So the owners, Jeff Golden and David Cooper, decided in our best interest, let's just sell off these farmer home properties. And I think there was like 28 of them that we sold. Other than that, we have never sold a low income housing tax credit development.

So to follow up, let's say somebody who is renting and they have a problem, who would they call? And is it an on-site person? Do you have local people that would be coming in to take care of it?

Of course, everybody has my number, so they can always call me. That's where our management company comes in. We do hire on-site teams. We hire on-site community managers, on-site service technicians, on-site janitorial staff if we need it. It's all what is applicable to the property and the needs of that property. We have after hours service call protocols. We have a good standing of long-term employees in the state of kentucky we have some employees that have been in my region for over 12 years with brother cooper and so we do employ them we've been training them and retaining them for many years and so it's just one site set that will be managing properties the communities

The residents are also given an emergency number to call after hours on weekends if there's a problem, but we do have an onsite maintenance person that's there every day, 23rd Friday. Any other questions for that? All right, so we're talking about a mixed-phase use development. Phase one is the phase that we're here tonight talking about. It's 60 walk-up apartments offering one, two, and three bedroom units. The second phase will be town home style apartments, expanding the community's range of housing options. And then phase three will be single family homes for sale for homeownership. What we have seen when we come into communities is the ripple effect. You may have Mrs. Jones who, she is 78 years old and she owns her own home and she can no longer keep up with the maintenance of the home. She no longer has the money to keep the insurance on the house. She needs a new roof and she doesn't have the money. So we will see a lot of those individuals say, hey, I want to go to a maintenance-free apartment. All I have to do is pay rent and not worry about anything else. So when she moves out, her home now becomes available to a home buyer. So it's a ripple effect. Same with these. People will probably move into the walk-up apartments. Once we get the townhomes, they'll probably move out of those into the townhomes. And then you can even see some of those individuals being able to purchase some family homes because they've been able to save that money over a period of time for a down payment. And as we all know, interest rates continue to skyrocket. And having 20% to put down to not have to pay a PMI, it's tight for people these days. The next slide, please.

Question. So with the phase two and phase three, are those contingent upon being able to get future low-interest housing credits?

Right. We would apply for low-income housing tax credits the same way for those, because that's our business and that's the funding source we go after. Now, will KHC ask for the same? I don't know. KHC has changed their scoring every year for the past four or five years. I don't know what the scoring is going to be like next year. As I stated earlier, last year they gave 20 points just for donated land alone. That was a standalone scoring item. That was huge. If you didn't submit your application and had donated land, they wouldn't even look at it. This year they at least did put the donated land in with the permanent below market resources so that you can hedge those points a little bit more.

so the pump station though would be a one-time opportunity for credit or scoring correct correct but then if it weren't successful for some reason of getting those credits then is there any other way that you would do phase two and phase three or it's solely contingent on those kinds of revenue streams

Well, right now, there is no sewer capacity over there for us whatsoever. So if we don't get phase one done and get the sewer pump station in, and the sewer pump station isn't only going to be for our development, it's going to be for all the residents over there, as Chase has said, that the two pump stations that are currently there are in despair, and they're going to need work. This would be one big pump station, and I think, Chase, correct me if I'm wrong, it would serve 175 people?

Can I touch on that? Yes. That wasn't my question. If you want to do that, that's fine.

Okay, what is your question? I'm sorry.

My question centered around Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Right now we're just focused on Phase 1. If we don't get Phase 1 funded, there will be no Phase 2 and Phase 3. I don't know what... KHC scoring is going to be for phase two or phase three so I can't answer that. Will I come back for more money for me? I hope not. That's not my plan. My plan is right now to get this and by then I hope they see that it's been difficult trying to get communities to come up with these funds and it's made it almost near impossible to get affordable housing in a lot of these communities. I have mayors all over the state calling me all the time saying, hey, we need a portable housing. Will you come here? And I was like, OK, but what can you all offer this? Because sadly, that's the only thing that's going to help get this yield scored. And they have nothing. So that's all I can say, because I just don't know.

My impression is, or my perception is, that if we didn't have the funding for phase two and phase three, then that would not happen.

Correct. Well, they could happen, but they may be something else. They'd be single family homes or David Mack can go in there and put market rate apartments. I mean, because it's their land, so they can do whatever they want. But yeah, it wouldn't be affordable housing.

So what you're saying is if we vote on this as a positive for tonight, that's the only thing that we're guaranteed that we would have. There may not be, because you may not get the grants or the support or whatever for any more. And then it'd be back to them to do whatever they want to do with their property.

No, our plan is to do phase two. plan is but you don't have a guarantee I don't have no no one has a guarantee of that I'm just saying this is what our plan is we have done numerous phases before we've got phases up to five but we don't walk away from a community we stay there and it may take us two years to get things you know we don't know I can't I can't predict what you know the scoring criteria is going to be what they're going to be asking from KC but that is our plan to do three phases and But the first, we've got to get the first one done first. And without the first one, then yes, the second and the third phase will not happen. I have been very successful. I've been with Walter Cooper Countries for 16 years. Prior to that, I was with Kentucky Housing Corporation for 25 years. I was actually over the housing credit program. So I've been very successful every year getting deals funded. And I want to keep that track record going.

So have you done another development elsewhere that you've broken it up into three phases and been able to get the funding for all three phases?

I have one in Shelbyville that's a two-phase, and the only reason why we stopped at two phases, the amount of land we had, and those were garden patio homes with garages. And I think when Candace and Devin vetted us out, all the communities that we built. I think that we got great reviews from every community that we built in. A lot of times it's hard to find land other than enough big enough for a phase, but all over Ohio and Michigan, I think we've got some in Maryland that we have gone, like I said, we've gone up to five phases. We're in 19 states, so, but that's what we wanna do. We like having those additional phases that brings more units to the community. Because 60 units is just a drop in the bucket of affordable housing. But the way I look at it, you've got to start somewhere.

Okay, so what you're saying is whether we vote or not, but if we vote, it's not necessarily a guarantee that you'll get the grants that you need or come back to you. But you're also telling us there's no guarantees that if you win phase one that you'll have phase two or phase three.

Well, again, I'll have to compete for those again. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, we will work on phase two, and I'll submit phase two, but I can't guarantee that we're going to get funded. I can't guarantee I'm going to get funded from KHC on this one because, you know, we go in blinded. So that's all. I wish I could. I wish I could say, hey, we're going to, but I can't.

Thank you. So, Dr. Wall, you may have to. So you're talking about Phase 1 and 2 and 3, which is what you know he's trying to do. There is a possibility that you may have to come back, depending on what the criteria is, scoring criteria for Phase 2, they may say, okay, we need this, you know, your land, but we also may need for you to come back to the agency to get more funding. Is that a possibility?

Casey could say that, but I'm not. Uh, I hope we will figure it out some other way. This is our first time in Georgetown and you know, I'm just trying to get some units started. But like I said, I don't know what KC school is going to be. They've changed it numerous times. They've changed it last minute and they've heard from us developers complaining about these communities, smaller communities. They don't have the funds or the wherewithal to bring in the big bucks that KC 20. And we're still fighting that battle. So I don't know. The score incredibly changes every year. But I don't plan on coming back at all for any more asks for Phase 2.

Mr. Stone, do you have a question?

Thank you, sir.

Tammy, you keep referring to this as affordable, but it's more work-ready housing, correct? Based upon some of the salaries that...

figure in here you might have a serious job to get some of these apartments especially if you're getting into three four and five person apartments is that correct so we can always go below so it's 50 60 and 70 percent ami and we can always go below that so for one person 33 750 is what they would make but like i said previously if they have a a voucher or something that helps them, then we're not going to turn somebody down with that. But yeah, I mean, surely people can, you know, like six people at the 50% AMI is $59,250, and that's husband and wife, I would assume. just to revent. After that, they can make more than that.

Yeah, because not all families had mom and dad working. So, you know, that is something that, you know, like for, at the 60% rate, they could have a $71,000 yearly salary. But, you know, it's based upon, and this is going off of your own stats here, so that's what I'm doing.

Any comments right there?

Yes. And if I'm looking at these correctly, that's the maximum. So those are the income limits for the number of persons in a household as far as the maximum that they can make. They can make lower than that and be qualified, income eligible for one of the apartments. And we also accept housing choice vouchers. In the past, in Kentucky, we have given preference to housing choice voucher recipients as well as housing, public housing recipients and veterans. And I'm not sure if that would be written into this tax credit deal or not, but we do accept housing assistance. So that would allow individuals to come into this housing income base through the housing agency. And then as their income increases, then they would just be a regular loans and housing tax credit resident. And again, like Sandy mentioned, if they go above the income limits, and they're not over income or overqualified for our apartments. They can remain there, save money, go into homeownership, whatever their choice is, or stay there. For many years, we have some residents that have increased their income substantially over the years and decided to stay in some of our homes at Eastern Kentucky for many years just because the rent is so abhorred when they were able to save. Does that make sense?

The way it was explained at our joint meeting is that that was the minimum not the maximum. Who came up with the 2% interest rate on the loan? Our underwriter.

Yeah, so we realize we're stacking more loans on top of this field, and in order to keep those rents lower, we have to look at the loans that we have on it. So we're going to have our perm loan, we're going to have our loan with you all, we're going to have our loan hopefully with the fiscal court, and hopefully our loan with the water and sugar company. So that's four loans now, and we don't want to raise our rents anymore, so that's why we've got the 2%. But yeah, no, on the PowerPoint, it is, that is what the max is that a person can make do it in. And then after they move in, if they go above that amount, they're fine. But it can be much lower than that. All right, next slide. This is just some of the renderings, and they're out in the front too, so you can go to the next slide. So this is the rents that we are looking at, and it's based upon the fair market rents of Georgetown. So 60%, a person at 60% AMI could possibly pay $1,149 for one bedroom. Our rents are $810 to $1,050. And again, that $1,050 is on the high side if someone is at that 70%. And the reason we do the average income is because it broads it for other people to be able to rent there. Before it used to be 50 and 60 percent AMI, but that's all you can rent to. But now we've got so many units that we set aside for the 70 percent in case someone's working at Toyota or whatever, that they can make a little bit more income and still live there. For the two bedroom rents, we're looking at $935,000 to $1,185,000. And the three bedroom rents, $1,025,000 to $1,300,000. And the next slide is the salary at move in at qualified tenants. So a single person earning $42,000 to qualify for a one bedroom unit that costs $800,000 to $1,050,000. You compare that to a new market rate, one bedroom unit, on the average in Georgetown, and like I said, this is the average, this is including market rate, this is including everything, is $1,699. I heard up to $3,000 a month for three bedroom units. That means a savings of $649 a month for that resident if they was to move in this unit. That money can be used for unexpected bills, pay down other debts, savings for home ownership, We're to support local small businesses, and that's why I keep saying the beauty of this program is it helps individuals be able to save money and hopefully have home ownership. This represents a real increase in quality of life for people, and it has a positive effect on the community. The next thing is the organizational chart. A lot of people companies will be the consultant, the GC, and the management company. We've worked with a nonprofit partner for, I guess, 15, 20 years, Housing Service Alliance. We've probably got 52 developments with them. They are gonna be the limited partner on this. And the reason we're doing that is with Kentucky Housing Corporation, if you have a nonprofit partner involved, it also helps with your scoring criteria. Next slide, please. This is who the owners are. The owner will be Elkhorn Crossing Limited. The developer is Housing Service Alliance. The co-developer is North Elkhorn Investment. We voted Cooper as the consultant and the GC and the management company. So the capital stack of Elkhorn Crossing. So our federal investor equity would be $11,998,000. Our permanent first mortgage at seven and a half percent 15 year term over 40 years is 3.25 million. The first soft debt from Georgetown was 2% interest rate for all three at 30 years is 900,000 total sources is 17,025. The use of funds is the land is zero because that's being donated. Building acquisition, there's no benefits there to acquisition. Our total construction cost is $12,081 with our soft cost of $303,000. Our developer fee of $1.86 million that you'll see on the next page we're having to defer. And our reserves of $555,000, which totals to $17,000. We are actually deferring, I think, 1 million that we're having to defer over 15 years to make sure this development pencil's out. So we're not gonna get paid any developer fee, or HSA's not gonna get paid any developer fee for at least 10 to 15 years. Bridalwood is just one that was in Louisville that I just showed you all as an example. because Louisville has soft funds that they can put into deals like the general pool fund, their affordable housing trust fund. So urban deals do not compete with balance of the state deals. So thank goodness for that because then we would never get anything built in the communities.

Next page. Would the amenities on these apartments be similar to what the amenities are there?

So that is a senior development and it is four stories high. So we do offer a little bit more amenities on those because we have more space. The amenities on this development will be a community room, an onsite office manager, a maintenance. We'll have a fitness room. We will have washer and dryer hookups in every unit. But in addition, we'll have an onsite laundry room just for the residents in case they don't have a washer and dryer. We will have a dog park. We will have a playground for the children. and we will have bike racks. So that's the amenities that we are offering on this development.

What is the acreage on this development?

Pardon?

What is the acreage on this development?

I think it was around five acres.

So mainly you work mainly on five acre tracts, is that correct?

Yeah, normally that's what we look at is five acre tracts.

So if you did phase two and three, what's your total acreage if you did phases two and three?

I think phase two we got a little bit more land to work with because we were looking at getting I think like 72 townhomes in there. And then the phase three is in the back because we've got the creek back there. So that's why we thought it would be better to do the single-family homes back there because with Kentucky Housing, we can't have any of our land touching the flood area or wetlands area. So that's why we've carved it out this way for right now.

What is your plans for, like for instance, that is in a, some of that space is a wetland area. So, what is your plan for that area where you can't develop a flatland?

Well, just mow it and keep it and maintain it. That's it. And I know it was brought up once before about a walking trail. And we're happy to help with that walking trail and put it in where it comes. I think it goes closer towards the railroad track. I'm not sure. But when we had our first meeting, that was the first time any of that was mentioned. So that's something that we would definitely put in our second phase for that.

Is it a gated community or would it be just open?

No, so the way we design ours, as you can see on base one, there's one entrance in and out. Because we do not like traffic coming in and going out another way for security reasons. We also have security cameras that are outside in our community space. We have a lot of lighting in our parking lot, so it is very well lit and maintained. So no, it is not gated.

Tammy, could you explain or tell us about any kind of buffering that will be between the units and the railroad?

So right now that's going to be just blank space because it's not close enough to the railroad track. But like our townhomes, we will have to go in and put in thicker windows, thicker installation because it will be sitting closer to that railroad track. We will also build a fence. through the perimeter there so that no one can get up on that railroad track. So our ask from the community again, we're getting the donated land from David Lespie and Mark Welch, which like I said before, that is unheard of. So we're appreciative of that. And then our ask is just the cost of the new sewer pump station. That's all we're asking that, you know, we know that the sewer pump stations are in bad despair. We're coming in and offering an option to help put a new or some pump station in. And I think Chase is going to expand on that a little bit more. You know, we have asked and we've talked to Chase about this, about, you know, some sewer and water tap fees, and that's something that we will discuss with their board if they can come up with those. If not, that's fine. Our main focus is getting the $300,000 from each entity because that's what we need for the points. As far as the tap fees, you know, we can pay that, but we're just trying to increase our local donations, or not donations, but local investment for the scoring. and that's all i have on that i know that at the last meeting uh councilman did ask for a one pager we did develop that one pager for you we also included some concerns that some of the rest of the some of the residents here uh spoke of and we had it out there for everybody to look at i don't know if y'all have any questions on that thank you for doing that you're welcome

You said you mentioned some of the concerns that the residents had. Can you elaborate on some of those concerns, and what is your way of mitigating those concerns?

Well, one was, this was a Ponzi scheme. This is no Ponzi scheme. We are a legit affordable housing developer. Like I said, I've been in this business for 40 years, and I like to tell everybody I started when I was 13. So I've been doing this for a very long time. Walter Cooper Company. We are a A plus rating and in addition, we have a strong balance sheet by our 1.6 million in assets, 133 million in liabilities, 36 million in equity, And our portfolio of affordable housing communities operate at a 1.68 debit coverage ratio. So we don't need the money for Wilbur Cooper. We need the money for the development to get housing done here. Wilbur Cooper has the wherewithal, but because of the scoring criteria, like I said, KC wants communities to be a part of this, and that's why I'm here. normally i'm not coming in asking for the communities for any type but we're asking just for a loan i'm not asking for bring it i'm not asking for a handout we're just asking for a loan that's also going to benefit the area over there with the new pump station mr hampton tammy since lord cooper is a privately held company in the unikey south

Your financial statements are not publicly published. Has Wilming Cooper ever been asked before to supply an audited balance sheet? Sure. Would you be willing to supply a statement about it? Sure.

And I will say that some of the concerns that, I forgot to answer that question, Mayor, my apologies, was about the city owning the land. If the city was to own the land, then the city as a separate entity, you all would have to put together an RFP, you all have to set it out there, you all have to come up with some scoring criteria, and then any developer could apply for it. That's why this is better that we're not coming to the city for donated land, because we don't have to go through any of that, and that's not putting you all in that ability to have to come up with a request for proposals. Because with you all being a non-profit entity, you all have to adhere to certain procurement guidelines. So that was one of the questions.

But the city could own the property for this project, if that were to happen, right?

I guess I don't understand what... What benefit would that be for the city to own the property? Well, if you were to donate land, even if you was to do an RFP, you all would just be donating the land. I don't know if you all could actually be a partner on it with the investors and stuff. I don't know what your all's bylaws and stuff allow. But that would take Matt and David actually yeah this is from from a hypothetical perspective because you were talking about this is the way it's done well there could be other ways to do it as well like yeah like you all could have some land to donate and when we first met with devon and candace almost two years ago that was we came in saying hey y'all have any donated land And they didn't, they said the city doesn't have any land. There was one building that needed rehab, but it was too small. It was only going to allow us to do like 19 units. And that's not worth going after housing credits because investors want to see at least 40 units or more for them to be able to make their profit. So Candace and Devin said, we don't have any donated land to give. And that's when they introduced us to David and Matt, because they said they've got land that they're willing to donate. So that's why we've made them as just a co-developer to give them the all with all and the knowledge of affordable housing trust, give them the knowledge of low-income housing tax credits.

Any other questions? Thank you. Okay, so this is a 2% loan for 30 years. Is there any possibility that we could get payback sooner than that 30-year period? Like, for instance, if you could say, all right, we can, I don't know if you can guarantee me anything, but guarantee me, like, okay, when we, according to your time track here, you plan to move in 2029, you're probably going to start having tenants, okay? we used to start collecting fees at that particular time.

So like I put in the PowerPoint, we will start paying those loans back with any access operation money that comes in because we have to be able to maintain the development. We have to be able to maintain the landscaping, the mowing, keeping the lights on, the street lights and stuff like that. So if there's any excess cash flow, we're immediately gonna start paying those loans back. Like I mentioned earlier, if by chance the sewer pump station comes in less than the $996,000, then that money's automatically gonna come back to all three entities, whatever that difference is. So we will start at that point paying you back. But for KC's purposes, we have to have it as an interest rate of 2%. for more and it couldn't support a 4% interest rate because we've already got our permanent loan on this. So that's why we're doing it this way so that it benefits everybody and you all get paid back interest. But like I said, any excess cash flow we're gonna have, our goal is to immediately start paying back those loans because we wanna get those paid off as soon as possible.

Is there any certain order in which you will pay that back, or will you stop paying it back and come pay back the GMWSS first, the City of Georgetown, and you pay the fiscal?

We'll pay all three at the same time. So basically, we would be utilizing the citizens' money and committing something for up to 30 years. Heaven forbid something beyond all of our controls happens and Logan Cooper's not able to fulfill that obligation. Is there the ability to have the Shirley Bond so that we can basically commit to the citizens that the money will be repaid?

So we had a discussion about that yesterday. We will have a signed contract with you all. That contract will be legally binding. And that was one of the reasons why I went over Bowler Cooper's assets. We're not going anywhere. We are a multi-million dollar developer. But in order to get a surety bond over all this money for 30 years would be very costly. It would be around $2 million that we would have to add on to the debt of this development. We had our owner on the call yesterday with Emily and with Chase to discuss that very thing. And it would just be detrimental to the development. And if that's what we have to do, then we can't do that. But we will have a binding contract. And then we go to closing. All the attorneys will be involved in that closing. And you all can have your own attorney or whatever. And there will be legal documentation done at that point. But we're still just in the preliminary stage. We don't have our investor on board yet. That normally happens after we get an award of credits. And they will be involved in all that as well. Any other questions?

If for some reason you all can't, as you said, can't fulfill this. Well, then you all can sue us. I mean, you know, that would mean, I mean, but we're guaranteeing, we're going to guarantee this on a contract.

that is going to be binding. We've never walked away from a deal. And as I mentioned last year, I was up in Indianapolis today. We've been working on this deal in Indianapolis for three years. It's a brownfield. It has cost us more money than what we're ever going to get back on this deal. But because we made a commitment to the city of Indianapolis, and we made a commitment to put affordable housing on this brownfield site, we're not walking away. We have already spent close to a million dollars and we haven't even started construction. So all I can do is just say that, you know, BOTA has never had an issue with making sure all their bills are paid or we wouldn't have the ratings that we have.

All right. That being said, Chase, you want to come up now and talk about the pump stations and sewer project you're already developing? Are we still on here?

Is the green light on? So, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to provide some additional information. details regarding the sewer infrastructure upgrades that we're talking about. We talked about this in the last meeting, but the screens weren't working. That makes it a little difficult to convey. So this is really just being reviewed, but hopefully with the screens that everybody can see exactly what we're talking about and have a good understanding of the infrastructure, the sewer infrastructure component of the project. uh i do have my laser pointer and i will say uh sometimes it reflects so i think council member king's hands would you mind if i use this screen over here okay so um uh as as has been explained uh this sanitary sewer project involves elimination of two as we said aging pump stations installation of new gravity sewer new force main pump station with the new pump station being the lion's share of this cost and we identified a very similar project to this one back in 2019 when we were looking at our capital improvements program and that project it was very similar same area approving providing solutions to aging pump stations in the same area, but just the only difference being that it involved instead of elimination of two, construction of one, it was elimination of one and then complete overhaul of the other. We were going to keep one in service, but it would essentially be a new pump station. So on our mapping here, I'm trying not to reflect in anybody's eyes, but you've got Payne Avenue and you've got Elm. And then Elm Court, I don't know if this is public or private, but this is one apartment unit complex off Elm Street and Elm Court here. And we have our Elm Street pump station right here. This was constructed in 1998, so it has some age on it. What we, as our 2019 project defines, is we would eliminate this pump station and connect it with a gravity sewer down to this part of the system, and that flow would come down here to our, what's called our Billy Perkins Pump Station. This was constructed in 1991, so even older. Then this pump station would go away this pump station would be the one that was completely overhauled, then it would pump through the same force main backup into the system where it would eventually end up the wastewater plant one. Now the only difference is with this project is instead of this being the new pump station, We would eliminate here, flow by gravity down to here, eliminate this pump station, then build a new gravity main back to a point somewhere in this community that it could serve this entire additional property. And I will point out this pump station, only thing it serves is this property right here. This pump station only serves this property right here. Those are the service areas. So the new pump station, it is sized for these existing customers and then up to a certain amount of which we've been working with the developers in here and making sure that we understand at the best possible time what we should size this pump station for for ultimate build out of this property. So right now that's between 175 and 195 residential units. That includes these as well. So it's a difference between 175, and I've got 52 existing customers on these two properties. So that's how we've sized that. And that overall project with the additional gravity sewer down this way to a pump station that can pick up this property and then a force main backup into our system, that is what their engineer has done in opinion cost at $996,000. I'll stop there if there are any questions. Question. Yes, ma'am.

So for what you're proposing, you're taking out the tube and enlarging it for the hole back here. So if by any chance they only do phase one, and they're only able to do phase one, and so there's extra property left over at that point in time, then the stuff that we are paying for is then going to be adequate for the rest of it, or it's gonna take care of the rest of that development when it happens.

It's size for build out of it. So we would have to track that and make sure that we're not approving a connection that we believe we would anticipate would exceed the capacity of our infrastructure.

Okay, so the taxpayers are going to pay for in this, pay back from them, but we're going to pay for these two plus they'll be paying for that whole property whether they do the rest of the property or not? Yes, that's correct.

I'll just say, it has been, I've received this question, I'll say these two pump stations I predict I will not make it through two more budget cycles before I've got room for a project to do something about those two pump stations. So those are going to be coming to you one way or another. That's not an opinion of being in favor of the project or not. That is just the age of those pump stations. One being installed in 1991, one being installed in 1998. Those who've got some age on them, they're going to have to be repaid.

So what you're telling us that you just made a It's a matter that you're going to have to base those anyway. Yes, sir. And probably it's two budget cycles. We're talking about two years. Maybe within the next year. So it could be the maximum you're looking at is two years, but it could be a year. Yes, sir. Or a year and a half. So they're in that type of condition.

In this past budget cycle, my collection supervisor had requested those, and I put them over here. and so it doesn't matter this is going to have to be done and so and if i do them there it's going to be an upgrade to serve the existing area i will have to look at whether we if we upgrade it because if i locate the pump station here just where the existing one is it's uphill from this property So if I do that, then it's for just that existing area and anything else would have to be pumped up to it. That's not going to be a good thing. That adds up on station. You all know I'm in the business of trying to eliminate pump stations. And where you would put it down, would you show me where you can put them? I would rebuild in the existing location of the Billy Perkins One Station. And that will take care of all that particular area? It takes care of this property and this property. and would it get ready needs new development if i do it right now just to replace these two i i that's a question i'll have to i'll have to ask my board is they want me building for that expanded capacity for that extra property because if i am going to i need to build it down here there's no sense in me building a pump station here and then somebody else having to build a pump station down here should this develop and then i'm going to end up taking care of this one too so my question is why don't you go ahead and spit it down in there and be prepared yes that's a question that i mean that's that's up to my board there's another way we can do that is we could put the weekend in our own uh i don't say this project it doesn't go anywhere let's just say this goes away if i put it here and i left capacity for this property that's where we would likely implement a privilege area and there that way we would recover the pro rata share cost of that sewer service uh from a future developer from north health one investment team uh And then they would pay at that point their pro rata share. That's generally how we approach these. They're not a one size fits all, but we try to do that. My cost will be my existing customers. That's what we have to keep up with. policies and our reflection that growth pays for growth and so if we expand that capacity so we have that sitting and waiting if you're saying I need to be planning for it's likely going to be where we will implement a privilege fee and recover that policy. chase i have a question yes sir you said you did the uh the cost analysis for this we um the for which part the large 2019 of this one this one um the developer woda cooper had former engineering view across the analysis okay but not your people We wouldn't do that because that would be a cost that would be to their benefit. So we said that that has to be what they sent that to me and I would do it. Okay. Is there anything else I can have?

This project hasn't gone back through the development process and all of that. But given where it is and where it ties into Elm and North Hamilton, any costs associated with needing to redevelop the road going in and out of there, where does that cost lie?

Hopefully, like I said, it really come back on the city to pay for those improvements on that road. It has to be done.

We would do the improvements going into our development, but I thought fiscal court or someone said that it's already in your all's budget to look at expanding that roadway in a couple of years anyway. I don't know who it was that made that comment at our first meeting, but we would take care of the roadway into our development. Yes.

So any improvement need to be made, it has to be, I guess, made back on the state.

I mean, I don't know. We haven't gotten into that yet because normally we don't go through the development process until we're ready to go for permitting and stuff. I don't know who made that comment. I don't know if it was someone on fiscal court. I remember at the last meeting someone made the comment about the roads. Okay, thank you.

All right. At this time, following the agenda, we're going to let, at this point in time, we have a public comment, which is item number five. I'm going to take a few ground rules, so everybody makes sure that everybody's on the same page. You will have, when you come to the podium, you will have four minutes, which to... address your concern on this matter. A reminder that Madam Clerk will put the timer on you. You will have three minutes. She will let you know three minutes as it lasts. And then you will have one minute. You may ask that you attend to one minute and she will take your seat and be respectful. We have a pretty good list of people here that wants to speak. So we want to give everybody an opportunity that's your time to do that. So next person on the list is Aaron Valentine. All right. Okay, you're talking about blasting adjacent to Creekside Elementary. Is that correct? Yes, sir.

Thank you. I apologize for speaking tonight on the subject not directly related to the issue under discussion, so I'll make it quick. I'm here today in no official capacity other than as a concerned citizen who recognizes the need to communicate a potentially serious issue affecting one of our local schools. For context, I'm a tenured special education teacher at Creekside Elementary. This is my fifth year at Creekside and as many of you know, CES is located immediately adjacent to the rock quarry. Blasting has been a near daily occurrence after school hours since before the school was built. In the past, the blasting sounded like someone dragging furniture upstairs and I had to pay little attention to it while I was working late. At least until last night, around 5 o'clock last night, the blast was so intense that it shook the ground for multiple seconds. As someone who lived in Thailand for multiple years, I can tell you it felt exactly like Earthquake. Which by itself is concerning enough, but when you pair it with the fact that our school is developing at least one very deep wall crack in places where the floor is separating from the wall at an inch or half an inch, the concern is less subjective. So Creekside is only seven years old and our principal raised concerns about lasting initially during construction and was assured that no cracks would develop. Although I do have pictures here, the issue is serious enough that a structural engineer should examine it to say nothing of the larger issue of exactly what the cumulative effect of the expanding tunnel system is.

Thank you. You're welcome. Next, Mr. Rodney Deniker, Fordham Housing.

citizens and staff. You know, I come here today having grown up on Teddy Avenue in Chicago's park. I call them the original four hole house. We also had areas like Washington Street and Northern Heights. And I know what it means to be left out But most importantly, for those of us that have grown up in that area, we know sometimes we have to hear for the deaf, we have to see for the blind, and we have to speak for the unheard. And the reason I'm here tonight is to speak for the unheard. You know, we used to ride our bikes. Ann used to go and walk down the trail of the railroad area over there. That's a million of the past. There's gonna be buildings, there's gonna be infrastructure. All of that stuff is willing to replace those things that I grew up with. It's gonna be millions. And that's not bad, right? We're growing as a city, we have to build our infrastructure. And it's important that we understand that. And that no one's trying to stop progress here. but there's two issues that i believe council really needs to think about as they're thinking about voting on this particular issue the first one is the process itself it's not transparent it's not we can flip it either way we want but it's not a transparent process to the citizens and it's not transparent process to you as council members And the second one is, obviously, the loans, right? Give me a $2.2 million loan at 2%, I'll take it every single day, right? And I guarantee I can make money for you, right? But as to the process, right, once again, it lacks transparency. But most importantly is, although their intentions may be good, let's be honest. Someone's profiting off someone's poverty. And we need to make sure that we understand that as we're making decisions now. And most importantly is we've got to do a better job of involving our citizens in these decisions. I mean, Greg, Todd, thank you guys for going out and reaching out directly to those in the area. We really appreciate that. But a lot of these individuals are disabled, mainly handicapped. Some of them are working two jobs, so they can't make it here every night to fend for themselves. So that's why people have to stand up. And as counsel, you have to go out. Sometimes you gotta go knock on those doors. And it's important for you to be able to do that. But I think it's important for us as we're thinking about lending money to the developer, right, that's got $36 million in equity, if that's what I just heard, right, is we're giving them a loan, 2%, right, which is below inflation, and it's a slippery slope. So what do we do for the next developer, and the next developer, and the next developer? What do we do for the individual that wants to build a home? That's a slope that I don't think you want to go down. And most importantly is, what you're voting on now, you don't even have a final contract on the loan and the loan terms. So you're voting on something that you don't even know what the final looks like for you. And as to the general issue of affordable housing, there was a study submitted back in December of 2025 128 pages, I read it over the weekend, right? But it gave you a multitude of recommendations for this council to be able to implement, to actually start that whole process of addressing the affordable housing issues in Georgetown and Scott County, because they actually covered both areas, right? So at the end of the day is, I recommend you vote no on the current request. for supporting this project. Thank you. And you always wanted to, like, call time.

And we're taking shots every now and then. All right. Next is Stacey Wright, North Hamilton.

Hi. I'm Stacy Wright. I live on North Hamilton Street. And some of you may know me and some know my husband, John Wright, used to be director of recycling before he passed. And so I found this project. My neighborhood is my life. And nobody has really come out and asked a bunch of us what we thought about this project. So I'm standing here on behalf of my neighbors. my neighborhood to ask the council to stop the building project at the end of North Hamilton Street. Our neighborhood cannot absorb the massive influx of traffic this will bring to North Hamilton Street. It's small, it's narrow streets because our historic homes sit incredibly close to the pavement There is absolutely no room to expand or widen the road and handle more vehicles because you would have to tear them down to make our streets bigger. Even more concerning is the sheer danger of this location. The project sits immediately next to the railroad tracks, forcing high volume of traffic, congestion, delivery trucks onto a narrow bottleneck road next to an active railroad. Lime is a recipe for disaster. But our deepest concern is for the safety of our children. This is a family neighborhood with cars backed up and drivers getting frustrated by train delays and tight roads. It's only a matter of time before a child gets hurt or worse. We should not have to wait for a tragedy to happen before we acknowledge that this project is a mismatch for our location. This is not just my personal opinion. I have a petition signed by 144 of your constituents, the very residents who live, drive, and raise their families on and around North Hamilton. We are united in our opposition. We are not against city growth, but growth must be safe and logical, forcing a major development into onto a tiny, unexpandable street next to a railroad is neither good. I urge the council to listen to the 144 neighbors who signed. I am one person, I did this in two days and got these signatures from each and one of them because we care. We grew up in the neighborhood. John grew up on Booker T. I was on Poplar before I moved into my house on North Hamilton. So we've lived there our whole lives and this is where we want our families to be raised. We don't want to move. And then there's also a question. Okay, I also have a question. Why wasn't Werba notified as this since they are established with our Georgetown community anyhow? They have built some low income housing and for seniors housing. So we were just, concerned why only one company was offered this. Please, please protect our safety, protect our kids, and vote to stop this project. Thank you for your time and your service for our community. I will now hand the petitions over for official records.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Clark Conrad. Interesting citizen. The property we're talking about, I'm very familiar with. After years, I was involved in it. I'm in and I was buying it years ago, and they were going to move their location up there. And then we wanted to get to the place where the lumber is now, and of course, what's their advantage. And the surplus, they approached me and said, hey, we need to sell this. And I said, well, I think we'll make some money off of it. So it listed at $250,000. I'd get a lot of traffic on it. They'd love me to call them up and say, hey, Roger, we need to buy that for a portable house. I'd tell you, I've got to list it. I'd get a lot of traffic. He said, I'm going to buy it for the whole price. We'll figure out what we're going to do with it. And I'm for the project. I've listened to gals. They seem to be professional in what they're doing. I'm impressed with that. I think it needs to fly.

Next, Mr. Harold Sims.

So you want me to just skip over you?

I've come to you again since my third time standing in front of you guys. And it's because I'm passionate. I'm passionate about my neighborhood, the neighborhood that I grew up in. And that's why I'm here, to be in that voice for the people of Georgetown. I'm here today to deliver a clear message for the residents of North Hamilton Street, M Court, Halston Court, and the Lexus Way Courier. felt no on the Elkhorn Crossing proposal. These residents have spoken loud and clear. They have concerns about traffic congestion, infrastructure, and the use of taxpayer dollars to support this project. Some residents did not be here tonight. Some were here, but the meeting went on long. They had to leave. For their absence does not mean the horses are absent here. that have spoken through door knocking, through me door knocking, I've heard them, through social media, to me and to others that are sitting here on the council, conversations with their neighbors, and direct outreach to tie and grab you dead in that neighborhood. So city council, I ask you, will you listen tonight? Will you listen to the people who live in these neighborhoods? And will you be directly impacted, who are gonna be directly impacted by this proposal? This is about transparency. This is about accountability. And this is about respecting the residents you're elected to represent. Right? The people have spoken. Your vote will show whether you heard them or not tonight. Vote now on Elkhorn Crossing. And if residents feel their votes were ignored tonight, they will have another opportunity to make their voices be heard at the ballot box. on November 3rd. Our voices matter, our neighborhoods matter, and our voices and our votes matter. So thank you.

Steve Price.

Thank you.

First of all, Pat, I apologize for bringing this straw, and I'd like our staff to come over and sweep the floor. The reason, when you say affordable housing to me, I'm Stephen Fry, by the way. Born and raised here in Georgetown. Spent my life raising crops. My grandmother put a show on the hill when five years old and started me raising crops. When you say affordable housing to me, I think of the roots. The roots are the most important thing. You've got to keep the house dry. This is water green that I harvested. I asked if somebody had this in their garden, threw it away. You can see, if you make the roots deep enough, this will shed water just like a single. And I ask you, when you think of a house, that you consider what people can grow here in Georgetown to make the roots. This is what you're coming for, Christine, to require everybody to go down. This is just grass that will grow into anybody's lawn. And you can see that it's the same way. If you make a roof on a house steep enough, this will shed water just like any shingle. And you put them one beside the other, you cover the grass with others, you go up the whole roof laying bundles of grass If your roof is steep enough, you will have a dry house underneath that roof. That, to me, makes a formal housing. With the grass that you all are paying, everybody that's required by county court is paid to have it. You can have more than just having to pay that as well. You say, well, what about all these people? And what I say, I've said 10 times, it's a whole bunch of people. If you want to offer affordable housing, good for you. Make the housing as affordable, as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. But the problem is, these ladies who have worked with affordable housing, including Garden Park, I think somebody had a short time helping for it, There is a big disincentive for people who live there to work. I know, but I freeze it. I'm offered in garden plants, offered in fruit trees. No plants. But one courageous woman actually accepted fruit trees and garden plants. And the personnel for me, they were stolen, they were vandalized. She told me, she said, if I get out here and try to look like I'm gonna get ahead and do some work, the neighbors will hate me and they will retaliate. They will, and she was right. The neighbors stole our fruit trees and I came up and vandalized them. And then the personnel from the housing authority came and brought them down. This disincentives the work because a lot of people who live in subsidized housing think, well, I'm disabled, I've got to get a disability check, I deserve to live in a subsidized government funded housing because of my disability. And that disability, they say to me, I can't work. And so what we need, these people come from downtown and the people who live here in Georgetown know that affordable housing is a big issue. But a second, probably a bigger issue is how do you preserve farmland? How do you preserve arable land? And I say to you, if you want to offer affordable housing, offer it only to people who are willing to raise crops or do farm work, raise livestock, raise timber, raise hay, grain, or raise these moving crops. Did you say something? No. Okay, so that's my suggestion. Let me say this to you. David Lovesby deserves a lot of credit. And as a man who works in the financial world, David Lovesby is the only man I've ever run into who seems to think that the town where he lived, the town where I lived, and the town where all these people lived... Mr. Rice, you have four minutes. More than four minutes?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

If you want, I'll sweep the floor.

We'll take care of that. Thank you. That'll be something I can do after this all over. I can go take a bath and stuff. That's what you did at home, speaking of.

That's exactly what I did. Who's Dan Holman?

Dan Holman's work time in Kentucky. So yes, this project is not the right project. It shouldn't go through. From any angle you look at it, it's wrong. But here's the one good thing, the one very good thing that's come out of this is the conversation. conversation and a lot of people have been frustrated but we've had now several meetings to specifically discuss affordable housing so this this needs to continue you know this is this is that's the good positive thing that can come out of it um the process going forward uh so just yeah where to start with what's with what's wrong with it uh so the process is the main thing but let's just start with the land acquisition and again this would all be so much cleaner and better if the city owned the land That is the way it should have worked. That's the Tom Fraser administration. David Leslie said it publicly at a meeting. That was their plan, to have been told the city owned this land and developed it. David has a text message saying that. That was the plan. If he had been mayor, he would have developed it with the city. But he was an elected mayor, so he's going to develop it privately in his way. So the city was offered this land. Devon Golden was offered this land. Roy Burnett was a seller. Devon Golden was aware it was for sale and had a chance to buy it. So the point of the question is, she did not let any of you know. She did not contact the council and say, hey, would you all like to buy some land that's been offered, that's been part of the city plan for years to buy it. The mayor would be interested to speak to you, to tell you that this was offered for sale. So apparently some members of the Aiden House Board are a little irritated that the city house, ended up selling it not to the city, which we had him to play all along. So again, so this thought that the process is wrong. The whole process is wrong from the beginning, and kind of the person, and it's not to, you know, Devon was very sharp and smart, but she was the process person. She was the one guiding this process all along the way. And transparency was not Devon's strong seat. She was very strong and sharp and vulnerable. to people. Like, she lies to my face about this property. I was asking her about this specific property back in January and what, you know, what plans were. And she said she didn't know. She had nothing to do with it. So either way, all these questions and the vetting that apparently was done by Devin Golden, who is not here to explain anything. You all don't have anybody here from the city who is here to explain to you the reasons behind it. Devin didn't even leave a letter of recommendation about this. a load of people wanted to bring this project a year ago, and they were saying Devin was bringing this a year ago, and Devin was not comfortable about it, and she was correct about this. Here was her big concern. And I have some emails for Devin to explain all of this. So her big concern was the procurement process. The procurement process that they've spoken about, like absolutely, if the city's gonna partner with someone, you need to put out an RFP, you need to invite other developers in there. And Devin was afraid that that was clearly in principle, this was not followed. She was not comfortable with it. She was never comfortable with that. So at the end, she just kind of took her hand and said, well, take it from here. I would like to say the statement that, so one of the people is telling you things that are not true. Nothing changed to Kentucky Housing Authority, and people at the Kentucky Housing Authority are irritated hearing what the people are saying these things in the paper. Their QAP was signed by Andy Beshear September 26th, official as of april 1st the rules were set no rules have changed since april 1st a year ago you weren't allowed to take a loan that you were allowed to take loans from cities that's not true they say you couldn't the qap that's not in place is good for three years so when they say they don't know what the land the rules will be next year they do know four minutes will be next year thank you there are better options thank you that will come from this when you say thank you

Mr. Sims, did you have an opportunity to come back?

I remember the council. I'm Harold Simpson. I represent North Elk Home Investors. Mr. Elizabeth, Mr. Welch's company.

They are the owners of the property. David Baldwin, he heard the story a couple times now that he bought the idea of building a portable housing project. When he first started with this, he was approached by the city with the Walter Cooper, introducing him to the Walter Cooper Group to do the tax incentives for low income housing. The project is stored. That's how we can become one of the 12 or 14 people, one of the 12 or 14 cities that might get this project approved. To start the process toward pushing affordable housing into this community. There's been a lot of dissinuation that's not been transparent to you guys. The idea of affordable housing, this was addressed very clearly in our comprehensive plan that was just adopted in 2024. After months of input from the people, there were all kinds of meetings, advertised, people come in and in their input on goals and objectives for the city. And the very first housing goal and objectives that came out of this period reads that we need to encourage a wide range of housing types to meet the variety of income and interests of this community. Regulations can and should be adjusted would allow for and encourage incentivized development of the missing middle workforce housing and the diversity of housing types that the project describes. In-field development such as this one. In a community that has seen this property as vacant for a long time, They've been reached out and said, we want to do this. We have an opportunity here tonight. The request is to approve a loan for a project that will help fund said it's gonna need to be replaced within two years. These people are asking for a loan to do that now. He says it's gonna cost $900,000 on today's estimate, and if it doesn't get it in two years, it's gonna cost about $8.5. With no money in, no money coming, so the city's putting in a lot of money instead of getting it paid back. And this project tonight has an opportunity to carry out the goals and objectives that were set out in our comprehensive plan for affordable housing. It starts at about 60 units. This whole project's build out will not satisfy the needs of affordable housing, but it gets it started. They want to see us move in that direction. This is an opportunity to get a capital improvement taken care of that we know is going to exist and that you will get paid back. Admittedly, it's a low that you've flown over a number of years.

but it started in the right direction the project that i encourage you to welcome back here thank you mr sims item number six is the affordable housing home as we mentioned okay so discussion the low income housing tax credit programs they're from boston development And she left. All right, thanks for keeping me open. But anyway, we have at this point in time counseling some discussion over here. I'm going to set the record straight here right off the bat. And it was stated that the city was offered. The city was never offered it. And my understanding was that when they came and this property was first owned by Torres and Cooper on that property after that, they sold it to the eight man house. The eight man house, I had it, but what they found out was that when they got in and all the issues that they were gonna face, they made the determination that we need to sell this. So what they did was, and I can quote you from the person who told me this, they just put a sign out and they asked Roy Cornett, I believe, or somebody to go in and say, we gotta sell this. And that's when he put it out to be sold. But the city was never offered this property at any given time. So I want to make sure you understand that. Because there's been that saying that we knew about it, that we had a chance to buy it. No. Now, the intent of this was they was going to move in because they used to be in the bottom of the church. And it was expanding. And I got a bond through for many years there. And it got to be a point where they couldn't have everybody. So they were looking for a place to expand. and that's when that property came up uh by somebody doris and lemony cooper put a sign out a little red sign out there for sale and that's when the amen house bought it and like i said and after they found out what the issues going to be with trying to develop that they in turn decided to put it on the market we're not here for a question and answer Okay, we're not here for question and answer. You had your opportunity to say, so now we get to two more hours. I'm just saying you step back. All right, now, let's move right on to the next. Any other council that wants to discuss this at any time?

May I address one of the things that someone mentioned that is not true?

Yes, you may.

First off, I don't think Devin was the only one involved in the vetting. I think Candace was involved in that also. Secondly, the QAP, it isn't for your QAP. However, the QAP is only 14 pages. And the reason KHC does it that way is because when they want to make changes, they don't have to take it back to the governor. So the scoring criteria is what we have to go by in the multifamily guidelines. The multifamily guidelines came out in April, and the new scoring criteria came out in April. KC does change the scoring criteria yearly. They send out biweekly e-grams to let us know the changes, and they also have a Q&A on their website. So I just want to say the fact that I was not lying about that. The QAP is three years, but it's a very small piece of the overall development of putting these deals together. The multifamily guidelines is 104 pages long, and the scoring workbook, I think, is 16 pages long. And that is what changes yearly, is the scoring workbook. Thank you.

All right. All right, Council, at this time, we have an opportunity to speak on this, and I will, at this time, yield the microphone to those who want to talk. I think this is a very important issue and that you know here's an opportunity that you know we're making a big decision here so we need to not take this lightly you have heard from the the constituents and I appreciate you all coming out and talking and yes you are being heard and but we gave you an opportunity to do that and I think now council this opportunity for us to speak and have this conversation because We're gonna be deciding something here tonight on where we go from here. So I think it's just an opportunity for us to do that.

Mayor Jaime. Yes, Ms. Hamm. I'm not trying to stop council discussion by making a motion. I would like to make a motion and then obviously, if it gets a second, we will have discussion. So I would like to make a motion that we accept writing a letter of commitment for the loan amount of $300,000. I realize that this does not mean that this application will ever go any further. We are not committing any monies even if it does go further until 2027. I have had literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of constituents over the past couple of weeks call me and contact me. Many of them very much in favor and many of them not in favor. I have weighed carefully these issues with the best light I have, taking into consideration the need in the comprehensive plan for more affordable housing for our constituents, which has been on the docket of our for many years now since I've been on council. So I'm in favor of this and I'm in favor of putting this motion on the floor so that we can make a decision tonight since we do have a September 8th deadline in order to give Roy Cooper time to process this. I will say, however, that even though I am in favor of moving forward with this because I'm very much in favor of beginning some affordable home building in Georgetown. This is only a start. But there are better ways to do this. And those better ways do include a better process of getting the city council and the constituents into this process much earlier. I think that that process can be worked out. I think that in future projects, I hope that there is a process that can be moved forward so that the council can be at the genesis, at the beginning of these talks in a more transparent and comprehensive way.

Mayor, I don't mean to interrupt, If you made the motion, we're not in discussion yet. Okay. So you get to that point, we've got to have a second.

Perfect. Thank you.

All right. You have made the motion. Do I have a second?

Mayor, for the sake of having the ongoing discussion so that we can make a decision, I would second.

My motion is made. Ms. Hammard? Second. Mr. Meekey? Now for the discussion.

One more point besides changing the process because it was not ideal. The other is to make sure that we do have citizen involvement on the front end for the people who will be most affected by these decisions i do feel like getting the water company to not have to have a rate change in order to do these projects is a financial plus getting the money paid back is a financial plus getting the property taxes that will come from these units is a financial plus so i feel like it is good stewardship of taxpayer dollars But we do have work to do as a council and as an administration to try to do this more efficiently and more transparently. Thank you, Mayor.

All right. Thank you. Any other discussion?

Mayor, so we have a huge need, void of affordable housing. We have an opportunity to be able to utilize state federal dollars to be able to support this project. I too have a large concern about the communication, fairness, transparency, and consistency in which how this all has unfolded. in order for us to move forward i think we need to have a commitment of a change in the way that we do things and the way we share information and be able to have a conversation about this 32 hours before a decision is not appropriate that's what we were asked to do last time and because of the deadline We only had a few more days, which we got a lot more information, but we still don't have all the information. Back in with the last affordable housing update, I asked the question about all of the current programs that are being investigated for affordable housing. and we weren't ready to talk about that yet. That was several months ago. Still don't have that information. I reiterate it again, after we got this notice. That's really critical. If we can't share information, how can we make good decisions? The second area, I think we need a policy. If we are going to provide support for a loan or an incentive, then there needs to be a guideline so that we know when, where, and how, and why we're doing that. That way, there's a clear understanding and every developer then will not be coming to the door saying, well, me too. Because that would be very difficult to defend. So I would ask that we amend a motion after we've all had some time to discuss that we would include some of those parameters in that from the city's perspective. Again, not trying to impose those constraints on the county or GMWSS unless they would like to do that. I think this is just one of many opportunities that we have and we should be looking at more opportunities not just in the bucket of workforce housing but the low-income housing as well and being able to have a long-term strategy of implementation of that strategy and that's that's what i'm that's what i'm looking for and i haven't said that yet so i'll stop there at this point

Last Saturday, Councilman Hampton and I had an event at Boston Community Park, and we had quite a few people there. And the people that were there did understand what was being proposed. They did understand it. However, there were some that were there for it, some that was there that was against it. Biggest takeaway that I took from that was that the streets in that area can't handle the traffic, can't handle the traffic that they've got now. They're dealing with the speeders, they're dealing with the cut-throughs because of traffic backed up on Washington Street, traffic backed up on and Main Street, and so they're cut through the neighborhoods. And they're absolutely flying, they have kids running around, and it's a recipe for disaster. Years of law enforcement has taught me that. The next thing that I have is that we have heard loud and clear that there are quite a few residents in that area that do not want this. They have signed the petition, put it out there, no, we don't want it. The third thing that I have a really big problem with, and if we do it, it's opening Pandora's box, that we don't need to do it, is we're not a bank. We're not designed to be a bank. We're city government. Leave the banking to the banking industry. We need to take care of the city's money better because we've come under fire for taxes. GMWSS has come under fire for raising water rates. And now we're gonna just willingly hand out money and say, here it is. I think that will be a detrimental opinion from the public that votes us in and says, hey, you all are supposed to represent us. Pay attention to us. not what's best for a couple. I'm not against this project, I'm not against affordable housing, but there again, we're not in the banking industry. We gotta take care of the residents that we're elected to represent. Thank you. Go ahead. I do myself agree with

what Willow and Kim have said about the whole process just was poor. I think it is a good idea that we start looking at policies immediately put in place to prevent this from happening again. That being said, and I do appreciate everyone's comments up here tonight. over in Ed Davis on Saturday. I really appreciated the input there, like Councilman Stone here. I walked away feeling that some were comfortable with it, and there were still a few that were not. But when you look at the area, I think looking forward, This project could lead to a lot of good things for that area down the road. What we're looking at tonight is a commitment to submit an application to the state. And it still has to go through the fiscal court, it still has to go through the water board, and the Kentucky Housing Authority. It's got a long way to go. and all they're asking for tonight is just a commitment from us to support the project we're not writing a check tomorrow for this and when you look at the 300 000 you know some people referring to it as expense or expenditure you know you have to look at this as an investment in georgetown's future um i you know totally respect councilman stone's perspective on the loan itself But if this works out, this could bring a lot more development in by starting a program like this. I think it would be a good idea for the city, and I'm not sure how we would go about doing this, but we start looking at, much like a stormwater fund or whatever, but a fund for homeless, I'm sorry, for affordable housing and workforce housing. That way, when you do something like this, you loan that money out, it gets paid back with interest, and it builds that fund. And you can continue to do projects like this. Do I think this is going to be the last project? No. I think this is just a stepping stone getting us in that right direction. When we look at this project, as I said, the commitment to move forward is what this is. Planning and zoning has to take a look at this. Yes, I've heard the concerns about the streets and everything. It still has to go through technical review. They could look at it and say, no, we don't approve this. As I said, planning and zoning will have a lot of input into this. I just think that we need to start somewhere. Ever since I've been on city council, I've advocated for affordable housing, workforce housing. To me, not supporting this, that violates my word to Georgetown, what I've committed to do. This is really hard. I don't like the timeframe we have. That needs to be improved, but we still have to look at this as an opportunity for Georgetown, not only for that area, but for other areas as well. All right.

Any other comments? Well, I'd like to make a few comments here. First of all, again, thank you all for being here and being a part of this. This is a very, very difficult decision. And talking about the, looking at the process, I agree it was not very good. And going forward, and a matter of fact, once it was brought to me, I immediately talked to my chief administrative officer and said, going forward, we need to have some type of policy procedures so that we're not facing this again. And because it's not fair. And it's not fair for council to act upon something where they don't have a lot of the information. So going forward, I'm hoping that we implement a policy that the first thing is before any developer can come to Georgetown, or if they're interested, the first people you're gonna come to is council. Council will be the first people they come to. And they'll sit before council and introduce themselves. Then after that, have a scoring committee of who all takes place. And then, wherever the three that we may score and bring in, and looking at where they want to put those particular housing, then you need to bring in the So if they're going to put one in Indian Acres, then the Indian Nation needs to be involved with that. And they will be in the process of selecting, would this development be good for us or not? So this is a process that needs to be done. And I hear this council talking about that, and I've heard that from people in the community. And I've been out and talking to them. They said, you need to have a better process. And I hear that. But that being said, you've got to look at what's going to be the good. So I'm just going to yield here and let you all talk some more. Like I said, this is a very important thing. And I think everybody needs to have their say. And then we can then choose to do a roll call vote and see what happens.

I would propose and ask for amendment to the motion to include language around changing our process and developing those policies that we've been talking about so that we don't have this problem again and that there is transparency and consistency and fairness in this activity.

I would second that. I would second that.

All right, so the motion to amend would be that we We're going to look at septics, but with the amendments would be that there would be some type of policy procedure as to include input from the community as well as council information and transparency communication prior to any project being brought to this body for a vote. Am I close?

That's close. to the when, why, how on the funding of an incentive or some type of inducement of public funds for a project.

So, Madam Clerk, I'll give you a minute to get that down. If you could read that back to us. I know I'm going to

amendment to include these parameters include language around our process and developing those and transparency when why and how on this one yes okay go ahead um i think just to so that we're staying focused on i think there's two different issues here

It may be better for the council to acknowledge the need for informal housing policy, but then to refer this to yourself for discussion. We can start that process at the council meeting and have a more intentional conversation about what this looks like. But as far as the motion related to the project proposal, I do think we should maybe try to separate these two things out. Does that make sense?

So we go with the original motion, which is to vote on the... No, so we have a motion to amend.

It's out here. So a person who made that motion, if you would like to withdraw that motion or if you want to stick with this language. I think I'm just clarifying that we are talking about two different things here. It's a conditional letter of support, but also the need to develop an affordable housing policy.

How about I amend the amendment? So we would add a condition that we would come back in the next city council meeting to have further discussion and develop the policy both for the process by which we evaluate these and a second policy related to any inducements of public funds for incentives for such

and not not nothing you need a second person all right so we have heard the motion of the amendment to the motion so do i have a second i'll make a second just for the clarification and discussion purposes so okay um so motion

Now we have a discussion. And so we're just trying to say in this amendment to the amendment that we are going to have a commitment to discuss better ways to process policymaking and commitment of public funds for these kinds of affordable housing issues. With a policy.

With a policy. I'm sorry, go ahead, Karen.

Well, you read my behavior today. It seems like you're making this very complicated for this. you all are asking for is what we all want. But maybe we should take it out of the realm of connecting it to that project and make that a separate next council meeting, make that a separate defense council meeting and do that alone. I don't think we could do it tonight, but we could do it alone because we're making it very cumbersome for this. This is basically a yes or no and adding all the extra. It doesn't really apply to the, even if it passes, all that actually doesn't apply to them at this point in time, it will apply to whatever is in the future. So I think my suggestion is to make it two-tub and shepherd things. And refer to the mayor's commitment. And if you don't, well, what? It's fine.

I will withdraw as long as I have your all's commitment that we will do this. Absolutely. And we will not have this problem again.

well i mentioned that you might just comment that yes i've already saw that process when we were talking about this i've already stopped that process yeah if i can see if i can see the cam's comment there that is the one thing we concur concur on regardless how the vote goes tonight that's the one thing that and even being made that comment that this is the good thing that's been brought out of this because i haven't said much but i think that the process has been messy and i don't think that's just on the mayor i think that's other things that were involved with it which is why I'm not going to vote for it because it's messy from the beginning, but we have all made the commitment that this is what we want in the future and this is what we need in the future, but there needs to be a process with it. And then I think things will be more fair as we go forward in the future than what it seems to be or could be perceived. at this point in time. So, yes, I think we're all in commitment to that. And I think that the next council member, you asked to put it on the agenda, and we talked about how it wants to be done and get that rolling at the next council member meeting for that. But tonight, I think it's this issue and make it clean on this issue.

All right. Any more comments?

to write a letter of commitment for a loan of $300,000 to the project

Does that reflect the motion that you made?

Yes. As long as we win the project.

Yes. OK.

So that motion was made and properly seconded by Kim. So I think if there's any additional discussion on this, if I may. I think it's important that the language is that it's a conditional letter of support, and I think you all do need to have further discussion about what those conditions may be so that we're clear that there's anything that you want in the letter, that we have that outlined tonight to identify here kind of the, we are on board, if you are on board, here's what else we would expect to happen as part of that conditional commitment.

all right there's no no other further discussion we now have to have a vote madam clerk give our roll call vote mrs wilkins

I just want to say this has been so hard. I prayed on it. I've tossed and turned. It's a good project. I know that in my heart. But given the time that I was given to research this, there's no time. I've talked to several constituents. I'd like to talk to more, but we do not have the time to do that. I'm for affordable housing. I'm for affordable housing for low income, for Section 8, for constituents like that. I'm not against this, but I can't, in my heart, oh yes, I have to vote no. That's not how I feel.

Mrs. Hamrick?

Yes.

Mr. Hampton? Yes.

Mr. Mankey?

Yes, that's why I'm voting. So I'm voting yes with this assurance that we're doing a fairness, transparency, consistency because I believe we need this affordable housing. And if we are not going to stand up and the next developer will really question whether or not they can truly come to Georgetown and be successful. And they can rely on discussions that are being had. It's really messy and it never has to happen like this again.

Mrs. Tanglesite?

No. Mr. Stone?

No.

Yeah, that's 3-3.

I guess it's best to break the tie. So, I've really been thinking about this, and I'll tell you what, this is a very difficult decision. I wish we could have council, we had a more majority vote, but we don't. And that's always an issue. But I've got to look at what I think in my heart is best for going forward. We've got to start sooner. And I see some things about this project that, you know, I can say to myself, well, I don't know if we're ready to do this. There's still a lot of information that needs to be vetted out. And I talk about a process going forward that we need to do. And it's not going to stand well with a lot of people because I know no matter what way we do, a lot of people are going to be upset. And I understand that. But that's what you get. I'm sitting in this chair. I've got to make that decision. And sometimes it's a very difficult decision to make, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to vote yes for this motion. So, we have voted, and it is a 4-3 vote. Excuse me, a 4-3 vote. Is that correct?

Am I right? A 4-3 vote. Okay. A 3-3 vote with two members recused and a tie-break.

Tie-break vote. All right.

all right so we have made possible action from there go forward this and if there's no other business to be brought for this council this meeting is adjourned

Good to see you, man.

How you doing? Good to see you.

I'm doing good. Good to see you. Good to see you. How about back? We'll take your lunch. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I'd like to take David back. Yeah, yeah. He's in a good position.