City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, welcome to the water City Council general. Uh, city council, uh, general meeting, uh, on Tuesday, September 8th. Madam clerk roll call please.

Mr. Schmidt. Yeah, Mr. moral here is great and Smith here is Barry Mr. Salamanca here. Mr. Martin here. Mr. Simon here.

Okay. At this time, I'd like to recognize a moment of silence or affirmation. Thank you tonight's pledge of allegiance will be by Kelly Martin at large city council member. Please stand. Mr. Simon.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to make a motion to approve the agenda as proposed, as well as the approval of the minutes of August 17th, 2026, regular council, regular session as proposed.

Second. Is there a, I'll get that. Okay. You gotta take that one. You gotta take that administrative hearing off.

Oh, okay. With the exception of taking off At the end of the process the administrative hearing has been removed from the agenda packet second

Okay, we got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carried. Mr. Mayor? Mr. Simon.

I would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of items number six, seven, eight, and nine for separate discussion, as well as the addition of the bill payments from August 24th in the amount of $5,441,372.96 and September 8th's amount of $4,252,963.02.

Second second roll call vote, please on the consent agenda.

Mr. Smith. Yeah, Mr. Morrow. Yes, Ms. Smith. Yes, Ms. Barry. Yes, Mr Salamanca. Yes, Mr. Martin. Yes, Mr. Simon.

Yes. Item number 6, Mr. Smith. The airwaves are yours.

Okay, so item number 6. grab my appropriate paper here would you like someone else that's better to read it sir and then you can just comment on it well i got it i'm sorry yeah item number six the motion to approve the hiring of carson jordan from the current civil service list to the position of operations specialist at the young arena effective September 9th, 2026.

Second. Mr. Smith, what's your question?

Well, my question, and I guess it's not a question so much as just with all three of these, they go back to our discussion from months ago when we were going through the budget, we were not allowed or I was not allowed to be able to get into the individual departments. I very much respect these city employees so there's no inference on them. My problem is we're taking money out of the taxpayers reserve funds and we just keep taking the can down the road. We don't talk about or look at doing anything differently in public. I'm not sure what's going on downstairs, but there's no meetings with a HR department like we used to have, like I requested. So until that happens, I'm going to continue to vote no on any hirings until somebody can show me how we're going to get our budget under control. So I just wanted to state that for the record, no offense to Mr. Jordan, no offense to Mr. White and no offense to miss Winston. So, and Mr. Yeah.

so yes sir so what you're basically saying is that these positions that are open because of promotions we should not fill the young arena uh operations specialist and we shouldn't fill the assistant manager for the young arena uh so jake schaefer can just run that young arena by himself is that what you're what you're proposing well is jake safer the only person there mayor yes sir i mean i understand that question but um

My point is, until I'm satisfied that we're having conversations about, hey, look, this position opened up. That's a position from 20 years ago. We need that position. Is there a way to share that position with somebody else? You know, we just heard during the work session on the city manager that there's excess money, and I'm guessing probably over $100,000 in the mayor's budget for this year, that Why is that in there when we know we're not gonna spend it? Those are the kind of things that I think the taxpayers need to be aware of, but because we don't have public budget hearings like we used to, and like I hope we will again someday, I'm just not gonna support this.

I appreciate that. Ms. Gerhard, do you wanna comment on this? I'll have our Assistant HR Director, Ms. Gerhard, speak to these items.

Hi, I'm Missy Gearhart, Assistant HR Director. These positions have all been budgeted for fiscal year 27, so they are all in the budget to be paid for this next year. Jake is currently the only full-time employee at Yonge Arena, so these positions do need to be implemented to have a full staff to run Yonge Arena. And we do have a personnel requisition committee to discuss these positions. I emailed you about that when you had that question. It's a personnel requisition committee. It's made up of the finance department, the mayor, and council representative, which is usually the mayor pro tem. We have it once a month. department heads bring their positions to this committee and we meet and discuss the positions the finances are discussed the need of the position is discussed discussed the department head has to fill out a requisition form and turn it into the hr department and there it discuss why the position is needed even if it's a replacement position if it's a Position that's new where they're going to get the money from. There is quite a discussion when the positions are replaced. So this is something that is happening just because it's not done in a public forum. And there is a council member that is represented on that committee.

And we don't always approve every position that comes and not every position is approved.

That is correct.

Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? Go ahead.

Yeah, let me add just real quickly. I appreciate your email. I'm sorry. I did not respond. So I would really like to meet with you in person rather than doing it through email, but I'm sorry. I've got a long history in the city of Waterloo and you may or may not be aware of the fact that Waterloo currently is 25% higher than any of the other large cities in Iowa that are tax rate. So I'm not going to point fingers. I'm not going to blame anybody, but I'm just saying, whatever we have been doing doesn't appear to me like it's work. So it seems like it's probably time to take a look at doing something else. And, uh, you know, the folks that you're talking about in that committee, God bless them. But what I think we need is to get some private sector folks who I've heard have volunteered to come in and take a look at things and see if they might be able to come up with some efficiencies. we just need to figure out a way to be doing something differently and i understand i completely understand those positions are next year's budget but i could remind everybody i voted against the budget for exactly that reason so i don't i don't want to take up any more time mayor i'm just i'm going to vote no on these i just want to explain why mr mayor i understand that and i did offer to meet with you as well in my original email Right, right, right. Yeah. And I mean, it was, that was like Friday. So yeah, sorry, we didn't, I didn't have enough time today.

Um, Mr mayor, I do sit on that committee that, um, as he just mentioned, and we do vigorously go over, uh, and we don't approve every request, um, just for the, for the record. And, um. I, I too believe that there may be some improvement in this and I do believe a city manager may be what is needed to maybe improve this for you. Mr Schmidt at this. just for the fact that that may help in this regard. So just wanted to throw that in there, thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I, like Steve, had questions regarding positions that were people that were being hired. I wanted to know if we were hiring new people. I know we did add someone in the Human Resources Department that was an additional person. We did not, ma'am. Oh, we did not? No, ma'am. Okay, we'll see. I misunderstood the communication because it looked like it was a new hire, additional person to the human resources department.

This position is an existing position but a promotion within that department.

Okay, and so these hirees, are they the replacement of people who've retired or...

Well, we're on number six right now.

Okay, so for number six, is this a replacement or is this a new hire?

It's a replacement for a vacancy at Young Arena. It's someone currently working within the city.

Okay, all right, and that's my concern. If it's a replacement of vacancy, that's one thing, and yes, I voted no on the budget as well because I wanted to have some input as well as more transparency about how we were operating the budget and budgeting for different positions. I know that there's been some challenges getting people hired in positions where there's money from the federal government coming in which isn't money that that takes from the city so i just want to make sure that in this case it's a replacement for a vacancy that we have as a result of someone leaving or being moved to a different position

You are correct. It is to replace an existing position, and they're currently working for the city. Okay. Any other questions?

And I also, Mr. Mayor, voted against the budget as well for that very reason. But I would be okay if it is a replacement, too. So I can leave it at that for now. Mr. Salamanca.

Mr. Mayor, Missy, from our council agenda packet, it says in here, we have a copy of the personal requisition form, and within there it says new position or replacement position. Do you think that maybe council members are having difficulty accessing this information, not to speak on behalf of them, but it sounds like there's a gap of communication here. I don't know if it's, I don't speak for other council members, but on my end, the process currently seems pretty straightforward. I can access it, I can see it, but maybe having a larger conversation with council on how to make it easier for them to differentiate between new position versus replacement position would be beneficial. Just my two cents, Mayor. Thank you.

Anyone else have any questions? Okay, roll call vote on number six.

Mr. Schmidt?

No.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes.

Quick question, Mr. Schmidt. Are you willing to take seven, eight, and nine together, or do you want to do them separately?

I would prefer to take them together, and I would Actually, I appreciate if you have somebody else to read it.

No problem.

Could you take 7, 8 and 9 with pleasure number 7 motion to approve the hiring of Derek white from the current civil service list to the position of chief mechanical inspector and building inspections effective after September 8th, 2026 number 8, motion approving the hiring of Kate Winston to the position of human resource specialist in the human resource department effective September 9th, 2026. And number nine, motion to approve the hiring of Craig Denner from the current civil service list to the position of assistant young arena manager at the young arena effective September 9th, 2026.

Second. Motion to second. Questions? Mr. Smith, do you have any other questions on these three items? Mr. Smith, do you have any questions on these three?

I do not have any questions. The only, I guess, comments I would have, given the fact that It seems like everybody else decided they wanted to chime in on the recent conversation, because I would just remind my fellow council members that last year's budget took $4 million out of someplace other than normal funding. And most of them voted for that. And that $4 million won't be there next year. So I will vote no on the next three items.

You are correct sir at 4Million won't be there next year, including all of the ARPA money that was included in that because it's spent on projects this year because we had to have it spent by December 31st of this year to to otherwise give that money back to the federal government. Anybody else in the council have any questions on. 789. Ms. Berry.

Mr. Mayor, just so I'm clear, are these, again, missing replacements, or these are new hirees and new hirees replacements? Okay.

Thank you. Well, one is a new hire, but he's replacing Brian Baker, the chief mechanical inspector, which we can't function without a chief mechanical inspector. We wouldn't be able to approve permits.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. No other questions. Roll call vote on 789. Mr. Schmidt. No.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes. Thank you. We have four board appointments here on tonight's agenda. Carol Gufteson appointment to the Civil Service Commission, Mendor Smith to the Human Rights Commission, Lami Croma to the Human Rights Commission, and Jennifer Stevenson to the Human Rights Commission. Are any of them here tonight? If they are, please stand up. We want to thank you for volunteering and being part of our Human Rights Commission. Appreciate it being part of our family. Is Carson Jordan, Derek White, Kate Winston, or Craig Denner here tonight? Can you introduce yourselves? Thank you so much. We appreciate all you do. We look forward to your new positions. Kind of an exciting time. And Jake can definitely use the help of the young arena right now. So we're really happy that you're here. Thank you again for all you do. And then we had conclusion of employments of Cindy young from the clerk's office, Chris, who, from the young arena, Kathy, Kate keys from the street department and Taylor McNamara from the water police department. And we want to take this moment to thank you for your service and dedication to the city. I appreciate that. Uh. We would like to take public hearing number one out.

Mr. Mayor?

Mr. Mayor.

Number one, a motion to receive and file a proof of public publication of notice of public hearing asbestos abatement services contract AB-2026-08-06P. Second. Second.

Motion second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carried. The hearing is now open. Does anybody from the audience wish to speak for or against the asbestos abatement contract? If so, please come to the podium. Mr. Morrow.

Mr. Mayor, motion to close hearing and receive and file oral and written comments. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carried. Mr. Morrow.

Mr. Mayor, resolution confirming approval of plans, specifications, form of contract, et cetera, and authorizing to proceed.

Second.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Schmidt.

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes.

Mr. Mayor, a motion to receive, file, and instruct the city clerk to read the bids. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. Madam Clerk.

All right, our engineer's estimate for this project was $40,000. Our first bidder was Advanced Environmental of Waterloo, Iowa. They provided 5% security. Their bid amount was $37,200. Our second bidder was All Star Environmental LLC of Dubuque, Iowa. They provided 5% security. Their bid amount was $29,830. And our third and final bidder was Site Services Incorporated of Algona, Iowa. They provided 5% security, and their bid amount was $30,770. Thank you. Mr. Mauro.

Mr. Mayor, resolution approving award of bid to All-Star Environmental LLC of Duke, Iowa in the amount of $29,830 in conjunction with Asbestos Abatement Services, contract AB-2026-08-06P, for properties located at 321 Dearborn Avenue, 521 Pine Street, 314 Reber Avenue, 1410 Mulberry Street, 420 Bayard Street, and 623 North Barkley Street, and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute said document. Second.

I have a motion to second. Council, any questions on the asbestos abatement contracts? Seeing and hearing none, roll call vote, please.

Mr. Schmidt. Yes. Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes. Who would like to take number two, please? Mr. Mayor? Ms. Creighton-Smith.

I move that we receive and file proof of publication of notice of public hearing for the fiscal year 2027 Sidewalk Repair Assessment Program, Zone 5B, Contract Number 1156. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The hearing is now open. Does anybody wish to speak for or against this item on the Sidewalk Assessment Program? And if there's anyone here that has questions about the sidewalk assessment program, Umi, our associate city engineer, is here when the public hearing is over. She'll go out in the hall. You can go out in the hall at that time, and she will answer all of your questions, work through any items that you have any issues with. Okay, thank you. So, we close the hearing yet? Mr. Mayor? Yes.

I move that we close the hearing and receive and file oral written comments.

Second. Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Ms. Creighton-Smith.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we adopt a resolution confirming approval of the plan specifications, form of contract, et cetera, and authorizing to proceed.

Second. Second.

Council, any questions on this? Madam Clerk?

Mr. Schmidt?

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. And Mr. Simon? Yes.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes, ma'am.

I move that we receive, file, and instruct City Clerk to read biz and refer to the City Engineer for further review.

Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Oh, same sign. Madam Clerk.

All right, our engineer's estimate was $107,576.10. Our first bidder was Brock Even Construction, LLC of Jessup, Iowa. They provided 5% security. Their bid amount was $104,440.83. Our second bidder was Boulder Contracting of Grundy Center, Iowa. They provided 5% security. Their bid amount was $131,434.50. And then our third and final bidder was NB Coke Construction, Excuse me, NB Koch General Contractors of Cedar Falls, Iowa. They provided 5% security and their bid amount was $183,358.96. Thank you, ma'am.

And anybody has any questions for our associate engineers should be waiting for you out in the hall. Thank you. Doesn't look like you're going to have to wait long on me. Who would like to take number three?

Mr. Mayor. Ms. Berry.

Ms. Berry.

Number three, a motion to receive and file proof of publication of notice of public hearing for FY 2027, Sergeant Road Trail Repairs, contract number 1091. Second.

Motion second, all in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. The hearing is now open. Does anybody wish to speak for or against the Sergeant Road Trail Repair contract?

Okay, Mr. Mayor, make a motion to close the hearing and receive in file oral and written comment. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Ms. Berry.

A resolution confirming approval of specification, bid documents, form of contract, etc., and authorizing to proceed. Second.

I have a motion to second. Council, any questions to the Sargent Road Trail Repair?

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Simon.

It says in the council communications about this project is being bid by the Iowa Department of Transportation, and the city is required to complete the public hearing on the proposed improvements. Is there any other information that needs to be attached to this? Or can you explain this to me, Jamie, if there was supposed to be any more? Just to give me a background on this, the trail repairs.

That's the only thing on your in the council packet. Yes.

Yes. Yeah, Jamie and city engineer. Most of these projects, like report road, or some of these other other bigger projects that have federal funding are let through the Iowa dot. So the plans specs, all that stuff is handled by the state down in Des Moines. But we are required to have a public hearing for these. Um, we did it from the port road a few years ago. We'll be doing it again for the port road coming up. Again, it's just a matter, it's just a formality in case anybody from the public wants to come up and express their concerns either for or against the project. But what this is is we're replacing six locations along the Sargent Road Trail. Folks that remember that used to be an old railroad trail, or railroad tracks through there. And it was converted to a bike trail, or a rec trail, and the old railroad bridges that are there are falling apart. There's actually, Leisure Services has blocked one of them. partially off because they are just in bad shape we're removing all of those and installing new box culverts or pipe culverts as needed and we are paying for about 80 of this project with a grant from the dot very good thank you for explaining that any other questions very good madam clerk roll call mr schmidt yes

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. And Mr. Simon?

Yes. Thank you. Mr. Morrow, would you take number one, please? Yes, sir.

Number one, resolution establishing a temporary moratorium on approvals relating to data centers. Second. Second.

Anyone from the audience wish to speak for or against a moratorium for data centers? If so, please come to the podium, state your name and address, and you have three minutes.

Good evening, Carol Chaden, 147 Summit Avenue, Waterloo. I'd like to thank you for listening to our concerns about the data center, the development, and thank you for bringing this moratorium resolution to a vote tonight. I'm here to encourage you to use this moratorium for exactly what it's meant to be, getting answers. In July, a group of concerned Waterloo citizens submitted to the council and city planner a list of over 150 questions about data center development in our community. This was suggested by a few city council members, to say the least. Questions about water usage, energy demand, fire and evacuation risks, air quality, noise, property values, long-term financial commitments our city would be making. These aren't hypothetical concerns. They're basic due diligence. Any responsible city should be able to answer them before approving a project of this scale. That was six weeks ago. So since we haven't gotten a response in that time, how many of these 150 plus questions have been answered? Because if six weeks isn't enough time, I have some real concerns about if three months will be enough time. I say this because I do want a moratorium to succeed. A moratorium is only as good as what happens during it. If it becomes just a pause before returning to business as usual, we will have wasted this opportunity. But if you use it well, if staff, consultants, and this council work through that list of questions, question by question, three months could be the start of real answers for our community. So here's what I'm asking of you tonight, three things. First, commit to seriously and transparently working through the questions our residents have raised. Second, commit to reporting back to the public on your progress, not just at the end, but along the way. Third, and most importantly, commit that if after three months we still don't have all the answers that we need to move forward, then extend this moratorium. Don't let a deadline force a decision before the facts are in. Data center developers and companies have consultants and lawyers and financial incentives they can afford to wait. Our community's health and safety cannot We cannot have that be the price of moving fast for a corporation's deadline. Protecting the people of Waterloo has to come before corporate interest every time without exceptions. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in the audience wish to speak for us?

mary hi johnson 119 bellevue road waterloo iowa i have been very concerned about my community if a data center were to be placed i've watched different and read different articles about water quality noise our aquifers pollution and I'm very concerned about being a citizen here and the protection that my city council will give to our residents here. I would vote for the moratorium, but it's only three months, and I'm hoping that there will be transparency in what's happening as far as what kind of a data center it would be and what are the safety factors for us. And please consider... all of the ramifications that a data center could could contribute to our aquifer and our residents um so i i really didn't have anything planned but i needed you to see my face and to know that i'm against the data centers thank you for your time ma'am

Good evening, Dennis Harbaugh, 6145 Kimball Avenue. And I want to thank you for putting this moratorium on the agenda tonight. And I want to encourage each of you to support it. If this resolution passes, it'll be a good first step. It'll be just that, a first step. When this passes, if it does, then your real work will begin. And that work must include development of a data center policy to guide our development efforts going forward, giving their heavy use of resources and environmental pollution, lack of long-term job creation. There's obviously a need for a policy specifically related to data centers. That will take research and that will take time. I don't know of any other city or county in Iowa that's been able to craft a responsible data center policy in three months as this resolution references, but maybe you can pull it off. But if you can't, don't hesitate to extend the time period. The important thing is you get this policy right. for all of us who live here in Waterloo. And an important part of getting this policy right will be the method you determine to get input from Waterloo residents. It's our quality of life, our environment that's impacted, our resources being used. We deserve a seat at the table. The method of public input that you choose will be up to you, of course. But just saying send us an email or show up at one of our neighborhood meetings ain't going to cut it. Most local governments in your situation hold a series of public input sessions in a setting larger than these city council chambers in order to make sure that all voices can be heard. It's an efficient way to gather information, and I encourage you to do the same. Many of you were elected on a platform of increasing transparency in city government. That's a great goal. It's a fantastic goal. And now you have the opportunity to walk the talk. Many of us here tonight stand here ready and willing to help. So thanks again for your support of this resolution and moratorium. Then let's get to work. Thank you for your comments.

Mr. Dreyer.

David Dyer, 3145 West 4th Street. Don't remember how long ago it was. I asked about whether we had any legal standing in this. You have legal standing or what kind of trouble it's going to get us in. So my question is, has anybody checked into whether we are going to be committed to this because of the prior city council? And if so, what's it going to cost us? Because. That can weigh heavy on this decision you make tonight. A moratorium doesn't mean we canceled it. A moratorium just means, as they've been saying, that you get that information out to us. But again, you have to make the final decision. And are you going to get us into a big legal battle by saying no to this thing? Because if you are, we'd like to know that too. I don't know whether anybody has asked our legal department to check into it. I hope you have. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else from the audience wish to speak for or against this resolution? Please approach the podium. State your name and address. Ma'am, you can come up towards the front. There's a seat up here so you don't have to.

Feel free to form a line. There's plenty of people here. Jay Grove, 2229 Edgemont Avenue, Apartment 7. So I'm here tonight to represent the people of Waterloo as I have done continuously starting in June. Some nights it was only me, but I made sure to reiterate that it's not just me behind the microphone. It's the many people who are coming up to talk. I thank everybody who's shown up tonight, and I thank all of you for listening to the input that we've given. And it's true, there will be work ahead, and I look forward to seeing you work, not with just myself, but each and every individual citizen of Waterloo.

thank you thank you sir

Diane Siddig, 816 West Orange Road. Thank you again for hearing us today. We do appreciate it. It's such an important part of our communication. I've lived in Waterloo my entire life, except for a few college years. Our family has two century farms that we are blessed to farm, and our son is the sixth generation of our family farm. uh now one of those farms is a half a mile from this proposed site and the other farm is a mile and a half and this is a great concern to us i know you have already heard uh all the some of the concerns the water the electricity the small number of jobs the noise the temperature increase the gifting of the land, the tax credits, and I think you've all heard many of those things. I'd like you also to think about the fact that there is a school, a church, a daycare, a senior living facility, many homes, a golf course, a grocery store, restaurants, and many businesses that would all be very much affected. In addition to causing harm to humans, it would also cause harm to livestock, crops, insects, pollinators, air, and the quality of life. I encourage you to take very seriously the decisions that you're making, and I support the moratorium. I'd love to see a longer moratorium. I personally would like to see you deny the project, but I appreciate you wanting to find out more and hearing more from the community. Thank you very much.

Thank you, ma'am.

Hi, Virginia Wilber, 231 Lichty Boulevard. I come to you as part of that group of concerned citizens that's been trying to meet with neighbors, people throughout the community to compile our list of concerns, questions that we have both about the project, this specific project, but in hopes that going forward we can also put some zoning ordinances and other regulations in place in case there are other projects that are proposed in the future. I am a former planning and zoning commissioner myself. I understand that role. I think this type of business needs to have more regulations in place. There's a lot of risk that come with this type of business. I'm not anti-business. My family has owned a business in this community for over 85 years. I work for another small business, so I'm not anti-business. Our group's not anti-business. Our group's not anti-development. but we're saying slow down please. So thank you for the opportunity to consider this moratorium and hopefully have it expanded. Also as Dennis said earlier, you aren't alone. We aren't alone in this. Other communities in Iowa are also facing this. We don't have to recreate the wheel on zoning regulations and ordinances. We can work with other communities in Iowa. We know it's not coming from the state at this point, and we know there won't be federal EPA regulations either. As a small business owner that has a salvage yard, we have EPA regulations we have to comply with. So that's all we're asking at this point. We need some careful consideration. Slow it down. We're not anti-development. Thank you for all your work and thank you for attending our meetings. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and we'll keep it up. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else wish to speak for or against, please come to the podium. State your name and address and You have three minutes, sir.

I am the new Metropolitan Archbishop of Waterloo, non-Roman. I was appointed here by my pastor.

Sir, do you have an address we can use for our records?

Yes. My name is Dr. Richard Louis Sorrentino speaking. I am also the resident council president of Union at North Crossing.

And an address? The address is 131 Mission Circle. Thank you.

Honorable Mayor and City Council members, I am glad to see such a wide diversity of opinion concerning this issue. This is what makes America great, the breadth of our diversity and also the opinions that are freely expressed. But I do want to remind our esteemed Council and also all of our esteemed visitors that as Iowans we need to come into the 21st century. We've had a wonderful history of agrarian heritage and that is something that we need to celebrate And that is something we need to push even more forward in other agricultural directives, understanding that Iowa and Waterloo is a city in transition. But we must not just see Iowa as Iowa was. We need to see Iowa and Waterloo as a metamorphosis, as a time where we begin to reach greater outroads, azimuths, and perigees of progress, we need to see this issue on an even keel. The moratorium is an excellent way forward. But we also need, during this moratorium, to have twice the wisdom of Solomon in this regard. We need to look at everything not in a monolithic view, but we need to see everything involving all of the wonderful opinions expressed here in a kaleidoscope of potentialities and possibilities. I leave that to your esteemed Deus. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else from the audience wish to speak for or against this item? Seeing none, council questions. I'm sorry, before council questions, we have one more person coming up.

I am here to speak in favor of the moratorium. You've heard from a couple of my family members, and we do treasure our agrarian history. I think that while we are moving into the, in the 21st century, we can have progress without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Of course, I would love to, as a farm girl, to see our farms remain farms, but I know that doesn't always take place. What I think that we are really encouraging you to do is, as was said before, to really be intentional and think clearly and thoroughly about the ramifications of the decisions that are made as far as setting precedent. This, as we're seeing in communities across the United States, is an issue that is very widespread and it affects large swaths of people wherever it happens to touch. I think it affects not just the city of Waterloo in the city limits proper, but also it affects the county and other people surrounding, and I don't think that we can quickly move forward and just make decisions and and move forward with change just for the sake of change or development for the sake of development so i'm here to speak in favor of the moratorium i hope that as was said before it will allow time to get answers to all of the important questions that we can be thoughtful in setting those parameters and establishing precedent so that we don't have continuing questions every time something like this comes up. We can avoid the backpedaling by really establishing good processes to start with. And I think that this is something, as was said before, that we have to do right the first time. It's much harder to put the toothpaste back in the tube if we don't get it right the first time. So I would encourage you to vote for the moratorium. and as was said before to not just feel like that three months is a deadline but that allows you the three months to get started and find the answers to the questions that we need to make to have you make the decisions that will be the best for our community as a whole for all of the residents of Waterloo not just the ones who live in nearby where the proposed site is. But we know that this is something that once it's started, it may crop up in other places. So it's not just because it's in my neighborhood, but it's for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else in the audience?

Hi, my name is Blair Boynton. I live at 6236 Kimball. I just wanted to thank you for considering the moratorium. I'm here to encourage the City Council to vote yes for this moratorium, to use the time to come up with a comprehensive data center plan for Waterloo, and to extend the moratorium as long as necessary in order to get that comprehensive plan in place. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

My name is Liz Webeking. I live at 5377 Tucson Drive in Waterloo. And I really don't have much more to add. These fine people have basically said it all. And I hope you listen to them. And I hope we agree to a three-month moratorium. And I got a feeling it might be a little longer because there's a lot of misinformation out there. Good information, but it's going to take time. And like they said, once the toothpaste out of the bottle, we can't put it back. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else before we move on to council questions? Council questions about the moratorium. Mr. Marlowe. Go ahead, Mr. Schmidt, then Mr. Marlowe.

okay thank you so i would just like to thank all the citizens i know for virtually all the council members and myself we've had a great amount of information shared with us emails texts phone calls a lot of folks show up at our ward meetings or neighborhood association meetings that i've never seen in my career on city council with my previous one not sure i've seen an issue that got people quite as engaged as this one has. So I think that's great to see. The only thing I was going to mention just for the record, if we go back to the beginning of the year when I and four of the other new council members first heard about this, we're completely unaware of it. And since then, I have asked for a work session on this to kind of get things out into the light of day and was told, well, until it comes to planning and zoning, there's really no reason or purpose in having a work session and i also talked about having a public forum probably at the convention center someplace because as we've seen some of the numbers of citizens have shown up to this i would expect that would be very highly attended but both of those uh events were they to happen what i think and i'm not an engineer like my next door neighbor there in council but What I think we need to have is Oaxaca Power and Mid-America Energy and Waterloo Water Works there because they seem to have all the information that all of us are kind of trying to come up with answers for. And I mean, it's really hard to keep track of all the various moving parts on this. There's such a variety of some much more challenging threatening diabolical whatever term you want to use uh than others we've got apparently data centers here in waterloo and seer falls are coming right along and nobody's even aware of them um so i it would just be great if we could get everybody somewhat on the same page that we're all kind of operating from the same uh set of information i think that would be very beneficial to everybody so i'm not sure what We're going to be able to do in that regards in the next 90 days, but I'm encouraged that we're going to progress along. And then the other thing I wanted to ask is real quickly, I'm not sure if I missed it on my cell phone, but did we get an answer to Mr. Dreyer's question about are we in legal jeopardy here, or is that not an issue, or do we know that yet?

And with that, I am done.

Mr. Peterson, please, for Mr. Schmidt.

Martin Peterson, legal department. I think if I'm understanding the concern correctly, section 4 of the moratorium deals with pending applications and the idea of vested rights. We have an executed development agreement. I'm not sure to what extent they've expended money in reliance on that. I think the idea would trigger what's called an anticipatory repudiation if we were to essentially tear up the contract or breach it. we would potentially be liable for damages unless there are no vested rights. So I don't have enough facts as to what's transpired on their end to adequately answer the question. But I think that's the framework upon which we would analyze the issue. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Yep.

um mr mayor i i guess i want to kind of give a little background and stuff what's going on is i uh held ward meetings and we've talked and we've had plenty of input from public and then i've talked with all the council members and three months i understand you know many people wanted it longer than that but three months was what we could come to agreement on i think you're going to find the entire council is understanding, we've heard you. And this moratorium will pause everything for the three months. It is renewable. As a council, we can vote to renew it when it comes down to that. What I want to let everybody know, all of us, we all need to find information, educate ourselves, and learn what's going on. Technology is changing immensely. And you can't really make a decision on something unless you know what they're actually looking at. So we need to take this time, as everybody's pointed out, to learn, to educate ourselves, and to make sure we make the right decisions to make Waterloo better in the future. And that's what this pause is for.

Thank you. Any other council people have any questions?

Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. Thank you, citizenry. We really appreciate you, and yes, we've heard you. I'm really impressed and moved by your passion I remember some years ago that I was just as concerned when it was decided that Tyson would be placed in my community. I really wish I had that oomph that I'm getting from you all today and maybe it would have been further away from my home and not causing as much contamination to the water and et cetera, and the air. But anyway, so I want to say that it's very important that we not just get education, but it needs to be a formal process by which we gather data. And it needs to be in a structured way in which we're answering the questions that were asked and that we're answering the questions from all sides so that we have all of the information we need to make an informed decision. I don't foresee that happening in 90 days or six months or whatever. would take a lot longer, more like what Cedar Rapids and other cities have decided to do. It's also important that we solicit input from the citizens. And we've got those questions, but other questions that you may have. there may be some survey that's needed to try to ascertain the areas in which we have concerns. We need to make sure that when we have these series of meetings that we focus on what we can do in that brief period of time for each of those meetings and then we will have a clear understanding where it's not confused with all the different, sometimes get pretty heated discussions, but that we focus on it one item at a time and work through that process coming up with solutions as well. So it's going to take a lot more time than we've probably slated and I ask my peers here to take the time necessary. Because my concern is that if it is as harmful as we think it is in some areas, I'm used to the reality that for some individuals who get a cold, for others of us it's pneumonia and it's life-threatening. So it's important to me that we make sure we are thinking about those that are marginalized most often. and impacted greatly by these kinds of decisions that tend to be made by large corporations and businesses for money and more and more power. Thank you so much. We did have a conversation about data centers and then Dave had one as well. And then about water and nitrates, we've done that too. So all of these issues we're concerned about as well and we hear you and we want to come to some resolution. We want to take the time that it's needed to come to some clear Understanding about what's going to happen all the way around.

Thank you I'm in favor of the moratorium for the reasons that were already stated I do wish that I would start to see some people in the audience and in a community that When you get an answer to one of your questions, and yet it still continues to come up, we end up going around and around and around and wasting time. I think in the next three months, I have plenty of questions that are unanswered. So that's why I'm in favor of this. A lot of the questions that I've asked have been answered. A lot of the questions that you guys ask when you come to the podium have been answered. But there are still additional items to be answered. And what I'm saying is I appreciate all the questions. And I think that there are continued to be additional questions. And that's why we're having this moratorium, so we can all get the answers. Because I don't want one person not to have the answer. I want all of us to have the answer. With that being said, when we do get answers, let's heed those to the best. If they're credible, let's heed those. If they're not and we need more information, I suggest we do that. And I think that's what all of us on the council are doing at this point. I think everybody up here that I've had conversations with hear you and the people that have come up to the podium and saying that they want a voice contact any one of us up here we're we're open books we will listen to you and that is your avenue in addition to any forums or any podium opportunities you have but what i would like to see is not asking the same questions over and over. Let's get the answers so we can come to a final agreement on this so we can make an informed decision. That's the only thing I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Salamanca, you look like you've got something on your mind.

Mr. Anderson, would you mind explaining the timeline for this?

Because I think there's a lot of

Again, there's a lot of miscommunications on the timelines. I keep hearing different things. And I want to make sure that folks that are sitting in the audience, that haven't been with us since the very beginning of this journey, understand where we're at with the process along with we've had mentions about planning and zoning. We haven't yet had anything come up before planning and zoning. So can you just explain what the process is supposed to function like?

No landerson community planning development director i'm assuming you mean the process for the moratorium. No, for the project project, so the project was approved back in November of twenty, twenty five by development agreement with the city standard incentive program and land incentives. Um, they did not move ahead with the planning and zoning. Uh, it is a, a planned zoning district. So it is required for a site plan amendment, which will go to the planning commission for recommendation and then ultimately come to the city council for approval.

Um, so as of right now, they've submitted no site plan. That is correct. So again, no site plan. Nothing's come before PNZ. Yeah. That is correct. Is there any indication that anything will be coming before PNZ within the next several months, next several weeks, within the next year?

We've been in contact with them. Obviously, they're aware of some of the concerns out there. They're aware of working on their own design for the data center and their clientele for the data center, which would determine some of the answers. So we're just waiting to get those design materials back to them to go through the process.

So separate from the moratorium... Council right now, folks are leaping to a conclusion where council can step in and circumvent planning and zoning. So that's the understanding that I'm getting. So I just want to make sure folks understand that this project still has to go through the process and that it's still, as you've said, we still don't have a site plan.

That is correct. Yeah, they'll have to go to Planning and Zoning Commission as soon as they turn in the information and then that would come to council. As a part of the discussion for the moratorium and looking at new standards, new rules, new regulations, answering some of the questions, we'll look at the different ways legally to get there. Some of that may be amendments to the zoning ordinance. Some of it may be amendments to other code sections. So we'll look at comprehensive plan notes. We'll look at all that information, try to answer all the questions, come up with the best system for moving ahead with the review of data centers in the City of Waterloo and go through that process.

And if WHAWC submits a site plan in between now and then, what happens?

I'm not the attorney, but obviously they are aware that we have this moratorium in place, or assuming it's approved tonight, a lot of their questions would be answered probably, or a lot of our review material would be part of that process through the site plan amendment. Remember, anything that goes to the Planning Commission goes to the Technical Review Committee, which is all the city departments and the utility companies and all that. So it's probably going to answer a lot of the questions that would go through that process. I don't see a conflict if they were to turn in the site plan amendment tomorrow. And if the moratorium is approved tonight, obviously we'll go through our process. And if we're working on some of those details, we'll work through that process simultaneously and get to the best project we can for the city of Arlo. Cool, thank you.

Stay, please. No land has been transferred. Correct. We're a long ways away. We don't have any infrastructure out there. We don't have roads out there. We don't have water, sewer, electric. I mean, you could be a year and a half away before we're done with the infrastructure out there. Before someone, if it ever did pass, starts construction. And once that land is transferred, When, and if that land is transferred, then the clock starts for permitting and then for construction. That's all correct. They're not in violation of their development agreement because we haven't transferred anything to them yet. Nor have they given us the information that we need for planning and zoning and to move this forward from planning and zoning. The next step would be the city council where all of you would have an opportunity to vote on that. Also. That's all I had to say. Thank you, Noah.

Mr. Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

I think it's also important to be proactive. And so by you sharing your concerns, we're ahead of the game because data centers, they're popular and they're going to come. And so let's be proactive in putting some things in place so that when they come, we have all the answers we need and we can We can say yes or no depending on what they offer us and their plan for remediation. So being proactive is good.

Anybody else have anything to say?

Mr. Mayor, just come up.

Ms. Perry.

Maybe Noel. So even though... we have gotten this far, they could even, when I'm talking about Waha, could even say, well, you know what, we changed our mind, we don't want it in this location. And they could pick a different location because there's not been a site plan or anything, correct?

Or is that that location if they were to choose a different location, it would have to come back to the city council number 1 to amend a, or rescind and start a new development agreement for a new location. So the development agreement is site plan specific in terms of the legal description for the site. but then they'd have to go through depending upon a different location um you know right now uh most of the larger industrial areas are going to be planned zoning so they'd have to go to planning commission or if the moratorium is in place and they would definitely have to go through whatever new rules would be out there okay anybody else madam clerk roll call mr schmidt yeah

Mr. Morrow?

Yes.

Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca?

Yes.

Mr. Martin? Yes. And Mr. Simon? Yes.

So the three-month moratorium passed. Would someone take two, three, and four?

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Salamanca.

Number two, resolution approving the amendment to business property lease with friends of faith, Retirement Homes Incorporated, for the purpose of stormwater detention, pickleball courts, and parking on Bontranger Park, and authorizing mayor and city clerk to execute said document. Number three, resolution approving a professional service agreement with Schumacher Elevator, Denver, Iowa for the replacement of the Waterloo Public Library Elevator in the amount of $274,344, rescinding resolution number 2025-641 in its entirety and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute said document. And number four, resolution approving the sale of all contents of the former courier building, 100 East 4th Street, Waterloo, Iowa, including desks, chairs, shelving, tables, et cetera, as requested by the building maintenance department.

Second.

I got a motion and a second. Anyone in the audience wish to speak to items number two, three, or four? We can hold off until everyone leaves that's leaving, so we can have some order here. Just a moment, Mr. Dreyer, until we get everyone out. Mr. Dreyer, the floor is yours. Okay. Just leave it when you leave.

Yeah, leave it when I go. Yeah. David Dreyer, 3145 West 4th Street. This is on number four. Is nothing over there worth keeping? And if we aren't going to keep it, do we have enough materials here to move over there? Because if we trash a bunch of this and trash a bunch of that, there's another dollar and cents figure we got to come up with.

I have Brian Baker, the interim building official in the audience. He'll come forward and explain what number four actually is. Please, sir, state your name and your occupation.

Brian Baker, building maintenance. What number four is, Dave, is the office furniture that's over there currently is when the building was built. 30 years ago or close to 30 years ago, all of those partitions, all of that furniture needs to be cleaned. It would have to be removed from the building, stored, cleaned, and then reassembled after the renovation of that building. So the base bid that we're going to get back on this project is going to include just what I stated. But there's an alternate that we could get new furniture, and we're going to see what the cost difference would be. And if the cost difference is relatively close, it would probably be better to go with the new office furniture. And then what we would do, instead of just disposing of this, we would sell it and get some money back.

And I hope it's still comfortable. This also gives us the opportunity. to sell portions of it that we're not going to be using or can't use. So it just gives us that option. It's not set in stone, it's just the options out there. Anyone else from the audience have questions on two, three, and four?

Megan Butler, 818 Clow Street. I just want to make a comment on that last comment from, what was your name again? Brian. Brian. I think it's important that as a city we look at not just the financial cost, but also the environmental cost. He told us that we're going to be selling them. Awesome, great. But not in just this case, but in other cases too. Maybe it's cheaper to go ahead and tear it down and build new. What is that best for our environment and our shared future and my kids' future and my grandkids' future and such?

just be thinking of that as well thank you ma'am anyone else have any comments on two three or four council comments on two three or four mr mayor mr salamanca for number three i just want to say i'm super excited that the waterloo public library will be getting this elevator i know mr morrow and myself sit on the waterloo board for the public library and we're just really excited to see this happen so thank you an important thing to note on number three is that we're just changing the design of the elevator and it's actually going to be a little cheaper

And I'm sure the fire department will be happy because they won't have to go over there once or twice a day to get people out of an elevator. It happens on a regular basis, doesn't it, Chief? Anybody else? Council? Mr. Morrow.

Number four, Brian and I talked ahead of this, and David asked some of the questions that we were going to talk about. But one of the things I want to be sure that people understand is that they are looking at, is there use or whatever for the older equipment? What can they do? What can't they do? What makes a smart decision? So they are being fiscally responsible, looking at making a smart decision. So I think Brian answered all the questions that we were talking about, but I just want to assure that. Is there anything else you want to add, Brian?

No, not really. I know we talked about maybe what the value of that furniture would be. And I think we could probably expect, Noel and I kind of checked into that, maybe $20,000 would be kind of a base. Maybe we could get more. But maybe more importantly is we wouldn't have to have the manpower or the disposal cost of that if we sold it.

having had a little experience in moving buildings myself when I was still working, why the labor involved in taking down, putting back together, cleaning, sometimes that far overweighs buying something new. Not only that, sometimes the people that you have buying the new... bringing the new furniture in. Sometimes they'll give you trade-ins and all. So those are all things that are being looked at. That's what's the important thing. So not only the environmental standpoint, the financial standpoint and everything. So I think smart decisions are being investigated.

All those current desks and partitions have electrical in them. So we're talking about 30-year-old wiring. So we could have issues with that right away or down the road. So we're just kind of trying to make a wise decision.

The message I was just hoping to convey was you were looking at that, looking at all the options and making the best decisions.

Yep. That's going to be on an alternate bid.

And as we move forward with this, any furniture that's still there that we're looking at potentially using has to be removed from that building, stored somewhere throughout the construction, because as soon as they start demo, everything's got to be out, and then moved back in and reassembled. So you've got to weigh all those costs also as part of the overall package. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Uh, and then I would like to mention, uh, and thank God, and leave your services and the leisure service commission moving forward with the pickleball course across from friendship village. That was an item that was that was discussed and we were working on from. When I was on the leisure service commission, so I'm really happy to see that moving forward. Did you have something you'd like to say that 1, sir?

Yes, I'm Mike young Pauline place in Waterloo attorney for friendship village and just wanted to echo that. Thank the city for its cooperation with the, um, that spot on bond trigger park. I think hopefully it's a win win for. For the city for friendship village, and for the neighborhood as well. So, thank you.

I appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Okay, roll call vote on 2, 3 and 4 ma'am.

Mr. Schmidt.

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes. Thank you. Who would like to take five, six, and seven? Mr. Mayor. Mr. Morrow?

Okay.

Number five, resolution approving a contract with Midwest Cleaning Pros of Waverly, Iowa in the amount of $82,092 annually in conjunction with the cleaning program of the public works facility and authorizing the public works division manager to execute said document. Number six, resolution approving a temporary easement agreement in the amount of $2,269 with NNDYMWLK Inc. located at 1945 LaPorte Road in conjunction with the LaPorte Road phase three reconstruction project and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute said document. Second. Number seven, resolution approving a development and minimum assessment agreement with Kelmar LC for the construction of a new 60,000 square foot warehouse building with a tax rebate schedule of one year at 75%, one year at 70%, and 11 years at 50%. With a minimum assessment agreement of $3,030,000 for property located south of of 1575 West Big Rock Road and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute said documents. Second.

Motion and second. Anyone from the public wish to speak for or against items five, six, or seven, please come to the podium. We can always get you your own seat up front, sir, if you'd like.

David Dreyer, 3145 West 4th Street. Number five, what kind of cost do we have for cleaning our facilities if this, as I assume, is just one location? And we have several buildings that I am assuming we hire cleaning for. What total cost is that for the whole year for all the different facilities?

I will have our assistance public works person, Ms. Sheila, come forward, please.

Sheila Steffen, public works coordinator. The public works facility is a rather large facility, so we have our central garage located there, our traffic department, sanitation, street department. So there's five departments that are housed there, so it's a rather large facility. That price is actually, includes all of those bays as well as the administration building for all of those departments.

So it does include the back maintenance, yeah.

Yes, yes, so it's all of that facility. So, and it's actually the group that is cleaning city hall currently. They were the ones that gave us the lowest bid for our location as well.

So, how much do we pay as a city to clean all of our facilities?

You wouldn't have that information.

Can you get that to me?

Someone from our city can get that to you. And that's then you also house animal control and code enforcement. Correct correct. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Any other questions on five, six, or seven? Council questions on five, six, or seven?

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Simon.

Number seven, Noel, if I may, can you... Answer a couple quick questions for me. Is this new warehouse, is it off the road from Big Rock Road? Like when I looked at the former map, is there infrastructure that needs to be created to get back to this new location for the 60,000 square foot structure? And if so, who's responsible for those?

Noel Anderson, Community Planning Development Director. So we are working with the Iowa Department of Transportation to build a new rise road back there. That would generally be where the Department of Transportation would play either 80% or 50% of the road costs. So we are applying for this one. This is a new business expansion. You're exactly correct. It would be right behind the existing building with another 60,000 square foot building. So, we would be taking it on as a new city road with costs in there to help us to build the road infrastructure. This would open up by, I think about another 60 to 70 acres of industrial land as we're seeing a rapid pace of development on the West side of the airport. We're happy to go and work with the to try to get some funding for the new road. The business expansion itself is looking at adding over 40 new employees.

Forty new employees and then and so the road structure and everything out that goes back there. It's not just for this this structure. It's potentially some additional structures as well.

Correct. We would plot some more lots in the in the area on the other side of the road and plan to expand the road to the south in the future for additional industrial lots.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure we weren't. Doing it just for this 1 item, and I am encouraged to hear that there's 40 additional jobs.

Possibly there, so thank you counseling any other questions on any of these items. Madam Clerk.

Mr. Schmidt?

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin?

Yes.

Mr. Simon?

Yes. Can someone take eight and nine, please?

Mr. Mayor, I move that we adopt a resolution in support of grant applications and continued development of a proposed three-year two-zone Cedar Valley microtransit pilot program at a total program cost not to exceed $4,600,000. resolution number nine approving the contract for services with the iowa northland regional council of governors governments of waterloo iowa in the amount of five thousand five hundred dollars in conjunction with the saint mary's development and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute said documents second got a motion in a second anyone from the council wish to speak for against items eight or nine

No, not the council.

I'm sorry. Any from the public wish to speak for or against items number eight or nine?

I apologize.

The medicine is kicking in. Thank goodness.

Claudia Robinson, 216 Oliver Street. I'm not sure if I am speaking against or for, because first of all, I would like to ask, I just had another person ask me, could you please explain what that paragraph is about?

Which one, ma'am? The one she just read.

She read two.

Number nine.

Oh, number nine.

If they, yes.

Are you talking about the microtransit or are you talking about the other one? The St. Mary's. St. Mary's, okay, I'm sorry. No one can explain that one.

Noel Anderson, Community Planning and Development Director. So the City of Waterloo is working to redevelop the St. Mary's site into 17 single-family home lots. As a part of that, we did use CDBG money, Community Development Block Grant funds, for the demolition and we'll be using that for some of the redevelopment of the site as a requirement of that. There's some environmental reports required with that. It's not the environmental reports of ground and all that. We've already done those. This is more of a HUD environmental report that will look at the suitability of new single-family homes in the area. The Intercog staff has the experience and knowledge on how to put those reports together. We're a little understaffed right now in community development, so we're asking Intercog to help us.

And it's an exciting project to get that many homes.

Very exciting to get 17 new single-family homes in that area.

You bet. Any other questions?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Darryl Caldwell, 219 Gable Street, 227 Oliver Street, 228 Oliver Street. I've been in that neighborhood for 62 years, all of my life. Thank you. My question is very simple. If we're looking at putting that kind of money in that neighborhood. On Gable Street, you just tore down a delinquent house. There's another one that sits next door to that that's on fire, that's been on fire. There's another one that sits next door to that that's been sitting empty. With a $138,000 house across the street from it that they can't even sell. What are we gonna do for the people that's there with homes besides these landlords that don't even stay in Waterloo, don't care about none of their property, We got people that been in that neighborhood that are struggling to maintain. And every time we ask for something over there, it is not happening. But we getting ready to dump all this money into some houses. What about the ones that's already there? My grandmother been there, she's 98 years old. She's been there since before I was born. She can't get no help. There's a couple of people here now that raised me in that same neighborhood. They struggling to maintain their homes. What about them? That's just my question. What about them?

Thank you.

DAVID GARRETT, 3145 West 4th Street. On number eight, I'd like a little explanation about, I understand this is a pilot program. We're asking for a grant. If the grant does come through, I'm sure it won't come through at 100%. So do we have any idea of what kind of money the city might have in it, or does the transit authority, or is the transit authority going to have their money in it rather than ours? I don't know how much money we have in the transit authority right now. I'm not privy to that information. But I'd like a little explanation on, is this going to be like a, Six-passenger bus, it goes out because somebody called and needs transportation. That's what Uber's all about, but we don't pay for Uber, usually. They have to pay that. But now we're going to get into that business. Just a little explanation on what this encompasses as far as what our responsibilities are going to be for paying for what.

1 of our 1 of our biggest challenges that we have in the Waterloo Cedar falls area are transportation issues, especially transportation issues for marginalized communities. And in itself, this is a pilot program that Waterloo and Cedar falls are entering into this. This dollar amount is the total amount for 3 years. Waterloo is going to have a share in it. Cedar Falls is going to have a share in it. The funders group has a share in it. Blackhawk County Gaming has a share in it. We've contacted UnityPoint, John Deere, Tysons, and Cedar Falls has contacted business and industry in their area to help contribute to this. This is allowing us to apply for these grants. And we're also applying for grants through the state and the DOT to help fund this program. And this program will get you for these people. We had a work session on it and I'm sorry that you missed it because it would have answered most of your questions. But we have zones for this pilot program and the zones are the Church Row area in Waterloo and mainly everything north of the river. Cedar Falls is all of Cedar Falls. And what you'll be able to do is call a number or get on an app and A ride, whether it's a 15 passenger van or a smaller bus or whatever will pick you up. Now, if you're going to point to point within that zone, it may take you to that from point to point for a charge. If you're trying to get to the crossroads area, but you live in church row, it'll take you to the closest bus route that takes you to the crossroads here. You will have a small fee to get you from point A to point B, and then you'll have a fee to get on the bus to take it to the crossroads area. But what I have here is I have Mr. David Sturge here from the transit authority who sits on this committee. Now, the committee, we meet on micro transit weekly. We meet every Friday at 10 o'clock and it's a mayor of Cedar falls mayor of Waterloo. It's a fine. It's our finance director at Cedar falls is finance director. It's Mr. Sturges. Isn't it. Fratsky from inner cog is Brian shown from inner cog. It's a, it's a core group of people that are working to solve transportation issues in this community. Our buses only run from this time to that time Tyson's shift is different. Our buses do not run out to Tyson's. Micro transit will, it'll help alleviate problems with Tyson's getting employees to and from work. You know, it's gonna be more of a comprehensive transportation program for 3 years and then and then hopefully we can build off of it, apply for state money, work with met transit to put this whole thing together and do it ourselves. But I'll have Mr. Sturge come up here and answer any of your questions.

Mr. Mayor, the money wasn't the issue. I just wondered whether it was going to be like a micro mini bus. That's what it is. And do that kind of thing. You answered that question. Yes. Thank you.

You bet. Mr. Sturge, do you want to add anything to this? Mr search sits on this committee every Friday.

Thank you. Mayor counseling citizens here. Yes, it is just your name and your work address met transit 1515 black. Thank you. Sure. Um, yeah, it is micro transit. So we're looking at, um, minivans. So up to 6 passengers, 8 passengers. Process is, I think, with this resolution is, is we want to seek some funds and come back to the council and say, okay, this is what we got. We want to entertain an RFP or request for proposal to qualify consultants that actually run this type of operation. And in that spec, they'll be looking at, we'll be looking at. a number of routes, a number of vans, six to eight passenger. Like I said, some of them will be all seats and some will have to be accessible too with wheelchairs so that'll cut the seating down. But the idea is to get that first and last mile connection from your house. If it's far away from fixed route, get you on the fixed route so you can go Go on your way to your destination. So I think we're going to be coming back to the council and present what the grants we got and what type of financial responsibilities the cities are going to be in this for the next 3 years.

It's an exciting program. It truly is. And it's going to help a lot of people that have have transportation issues. And when we find out what we have for grants, what we have available from business and industry, and everyone that's going to be contributing to this, we can scale the program to what we want. We can we can set the hours we can set the times and the routes that that will adapt to. And as as the pilot program progresses, we can make changes throughout the 3 years. If we have to to better serve our citizens. So, it's a cool program. It's exciting. We've got this is just allowing us right now as a council cedar falls will be doing the same thing tonight. It's allowing us as a council to move forward with grant applications. To make this program a reality. Thank you. Anyone else from the audience have any questions council questions.

Oh, Ms. Dallinaga.

I'll go up. I'm sorry. I think someone else was coming up.

Oh, okay.

Latonya Graves, 607 East Donald Street. So on the resolution in support of Iowa Northland Regional Council, so is that to approve the 17 houses? What is that actually for?

I believe Mr. Anderson said it was for to put together a HUD environmental study.

Noel Anderson, Community Planning Development Director. Yes, so it's just for the HUD environmental report. You'll see the, what was that, Planning Commission with the subdivision plat and all that will come back to Council for final approval for the actual layout of the lots.

Okay, so what they're going to do is determine if the lot is feasible to have 17 houses on it?

Correct, yep.

And so if they determine 17 is too many, then what?

We'd have to go look at what changes would be needed by the HUD standards.

Okay, because when we were at the planning and zoning meeting and they talked about it and they said it's up to the developers if they put basements in the homes. So if they don't have basements, what type of housing are they gonna be?

And apologies, I was not at the P&Z. It'll actually come down to the council. We'll be finding a developer out there. The council will have the ability in the development agreement to determine the design and style of the homes. I can tell you that by zoning ordinance, they are required to have garages. I think that was brought up. So they will have to have garages. And I think we are planning to have them have basements, so.

okay and then um because a lot of the neighbors that live in that area were not notified and so how does the community get informed when a new development is going to take place in the neighborhood and like i stated at that meeting You know, years ago, they brought in that company, My Own Home, which were actually trailers, but they put them in the neighborhood. And there's a new house that was built right next to one of those. And me personally, I wouldn't purchase that house because the trailer is deplorable. I mean, it needs to be bulldozed. So when you put these type of houses up, you know what I'm saying? It's going to bring...

In the My Own Home, they were all private units built on private lots, so the city didn't have as much actual actions in that. So this will be very transparent, and like I said, it'll have to come back to council for all that. I know that Belinda and Deb have reached out to me to maybe have another meeting on it with some of the neighbors out there so we can set that up to get some more information out there.

Okay, yeah, because there were people that live right across the street from St. Mary's that didn't get letters, but other people in the neighborhood did. And so they shared them with other community members. So, okay, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else from the audience? Council questions on eight or nine.

On number eight, Noel, can you, I had someone that I highly respect and admire ask me what zoning is for St. Mary's and how it could be zoned for housing versus what it's currently zoned at. Has that changed? I wasn't able to give him an answer, so I just want to make sure, because he told me he'd be watching, so I just want to make sure he gets an answer.

And I was hoping you wouldn't ask me because I can't remember what it's zoned, so I'll have to get that back to you. I'm pretty sure we made it a planned residence district. It's how we've done all the other former school sites. Oh, Eric probably knows. So it's definitely for, we're going to have it put that way.

You meant nine, right? You said eight, but you meant nine. Oh, nine.

Apologies, nine. Let's ask Eric.

Eric Schrader, city planner. Most of the property is currently zoned R2, one and two family residence district. There's a small portion of it that's zoned CZ, conditional zoning district. That was based on some home-based business that was conditionally zoned a long time ago that isn't in play anymore. But entire site is proposed to be rezoned to the RP planned residence district that's going through the process it both the rezone and the preliminary plat were before the Planning Commission at their most recent meeting that rezone to the plan district will be coming to the council shortly the plat would be coming before you as well, but we do have to hold that up until the environmental review for the HUD documents is completed.

And I did want to ask one more follow-up question to that. In regards to funding of this, the funding that's going towards the construction of these houses, that can't be utilized for repairs to current housing, correct? Correct. I mean, there's

There's different types of HUD funding, and of course, you know, community development does a budget that's approved by the council every year, and then it goes to HUD for approval. And so they have differing portions in there. They do have other funds in there for a rehabilitation program, down payment assistance, and things of that nature.

And how does a citizen of Waterloo access that funding? Like, are there parameters, criteria, etc. ?

There are, so they'd want to contact community development office at 622 Mulberry Street to look at, there's income requirements and things of that nature.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Morrow. Number eight, Hector, I'll take number eight this time. I think we all want a better and more cost-efficient, you know, public transit system for Waterloo. I think that's all great. First thing, I want to confirm, this is just to go out to see what grants we're going to get. So we're not approving anything. We're basically saying you can go out and look. Correct okay, that that's a good. That's a good side of it and then on the smaller micro transits I Guess I'd like to understand do we have an idea of what? Maybe the layouts of some of these these aren't going to be just normal personal cars are going to be set up like buses So people writing kind of have their own space is that going to yeah?

They're just standard minivans with six to eight passengers, so it'd be at like for transit connect van that the company would lease. But again, those parameters haven't been specced out yet. So they won't be a minibus or a light duty bus or a light bus.

They'll be set up like what some of the rental car companies use when they're transporting people or like when Noel took us on our little around the city. So they're set up for passengers. Correct, yes.

And if it's an accessible vehicle, of course we'd have a ramp and a lockdown area for like a wheelchair.

Okay. So, and then, well, our next question might be yours. We talked about in that you had spares, and so you're going to have so many vans and spares. Do you have an idea? I mean, are these going to be rotated through? Are they going to be held back? Do you have...

They'll have to be rotated through. When we have, when Matt uses a subcontractor, they have to meet federal guidelines. So those spares will have to be rotated in to maintain the mileage for maintenance. Because we'll probably have to be looking at maintaining these vans for the next three years, you know, for the duration of the pilot program.

So again that and if something breaks down, you know, we want another spare out there So then I guess my last question is looking at the buses you have running around right now Which are large expensive buses as part of this going to be looking at maybe having a lesser? Costly bus that's running the main route in order so you can maybe have more routes or expand this so we kind of reduce you know the individual caution buy more units for less money and

Well, I think that's the idea after the pilot program to see we'd want to basically analyze how it worked and if there's ways to expand that and maybe replace some of those routes with those with these vehicles. But I think that's kind of a couple of years down the road as as we look at.

So the pilot would be using existing bus routes, existing buses.

No, these are individual rides that you call and schedule. No, no, that I understand, but you're feeding to the existing routes you have. Exactly, yeah, nothing's going to change on the fixed route side.

Okay, and then down the road, you hope to be able to improve the fixed routes and possibly improve efficiency of those vehicles.

That's the idea, is if we want to continue this, maybe there's some... changes to the fixed-rack system as well.

Okay, thank you.

And these drivers would have to pass the same standards your drivers have?

Correct, yeah. They have to be drug tested, and we go through that, physicals and CDLs and passenger endorsements and whatnot. Yeah, I understand. Thank you.

thank you sir thank you mr mayor yes ma'am i have a couple of questions or comments probably rather about the intercard working to have the hood come in and assess the the setup for the saint mary's lot and then i also heard the question that was or the concern that was expressed by one of the citizens about the um areas on gable and ricker and oliver that are in disrepair which is something that i've been harping about for a while and there's a couple there's some benefits to having this saint mary's project take place however um i am not in agreement with so closest homes being so close to each other in that little bit of space because we don't want to turn it into an area that no one wants to live in we want to increase the property valuation of our areas so that we can decrease our taxes The other item about rehabilitating the homes that are there and tearing down the ones that should have been torn down some time ago is that when neighborhood associations come together and they, like Church Row, Walnut, I know We Care is working on a memorandum of understanding with the city that says these are the kind of homes we want in this area. Neighborhood associations can require a memorandum of understanding or agreement to say this is what we want in our neighborhood. We want this to be fixed. We want these many homes in this area. We don't want a property where we have homes that are like really small box homes or really small homes, but we want homes that match the homes that were initially in those areas so that they match the environment, match the neighborhood as it was and it's more pristine and State Habitat for Humanity is one organization that is doing that with memorandums of understanding with neighborhood associations to erect homes or restore homes to their original design because we have historic homes we have Homes that are part of the triangle and those areas that we want restored to build up the property value of those homes and not to be landlord homes. Right now we have 80% of the property in my Roosevelt neighborhood that's landlord owned, rental property. and the landlords don't live there. They're absent, far away, so they don't give a care, some of them. We have some that still live here and do give a care, but the bulk of them don't. And so we don't want that to continue to happen. So it's so important for the neighborhood associations to become strong and vibrant again and to say we want a memorandum of understanding and agreement where this is what will happen on this parcel of property, and we need to have access to those who are making those plans. We want to have some input as far as who's going to develop on this land and what their investment is in our communities. You have the power, the people have the power to say that, so it's just time to do like Church Row did, Church Rose said, no, this is how we're going to have it. And they've been working in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. And I don't know if you've been through. We've got some areas that still we've got to work on. But there has been a transformation. Walnut neighborhood, another example of how that neighborhood was transformed. Roosevelt can be the same way. We can get our neighborhood, that area transformed as well. and insist that it's homeowners and not landlords coming in and not taking care of the property. Because when you assume the responsibility of a landlord, that means keeping up the property so that the integrity of the home is good and remains that way for the neighborhood. So just some comments.

Mr. Anderson, just a quick question for you. If this resolution doesn't pass, what happens to the HUD money? Does it stay in our coffers? Does it disappear? What happens?

Noel Anderson, Community Planning Development Director. I mean, this is a required HUD action for the environmental report. So if we don't approve it, we can't do anything with the site. So we will have wasted away the money we spent demolishing it and time acquiring it, and it would sit there until we would do a HUD environmental report.

So no matter what, a HUD environmental report has to occur. That is correct. Thank you.

If we ever want to use that site for anything. Thank you. Madam Clerk, roll call, please.

Mr. Schmidt.

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Cranesmith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes. Mr. Martin. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to call for a five-minute recess.

Second.

Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.

We've been here since 4 o'clock. We're going to have a five-minute recess, and we'll be back.

I'd like to make a motion to resume session, please.

Second. Motion to second. All in favor of resuming session, Deb Berry?

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Same sign. We are back in session. Who would like to take ordinance number one, please?

Mr. Mayer.

Ms. Berry, could you return to the dais? Yes, sir. Thank you.

I move that we adopt an ordinance amending sewer user charges and fees relating to monthly winter consumption.

2nd, there's a lot more to read on that.

Yeah, you got to turn the next page and read what's after that. Okay. Hold on. Yeah. Oh, an ordinance. Okay. A motion to make a motion to receive file considering pass for the 1st time. an ordinance repealing subsection one of title eight public utilities chapter three sewer regulations article a user charges and fees section two determination of rates and charges and in acting in lieu thereof of a new subsection one of title eight public utilities chapter three sewer regulations article a user charges and fees section two determination of rates and charges most and charges second

And a motion in a 2nd, anyone from the audience wish to speak for or against this item, this change in the ordinance relating to monthly winter consumption fees. Council questions regarding this. We have a work session on it. Okay, thank you. Roll call vote please.

Mr. Schmidt.

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. And Mr. Simon? Yes.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we suspend the rules. Second.

Motion and a second. Roll call, please.

Mr. Schmidt?

Yes.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon? Yes.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we consider and pass for the second and third times and adopt the ordinance. Second.

I'll send the second, Madam Clerk.

Mr. Schmidt?

Yes.

Mr. Mauro? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes.

Ms. Samaria, I move that we adopt resolution rescinding resolution number 22009-1235 in its entirety.

Second. I'll second.

Mr. Schmidt?

Yes.

Mr. Mauro? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. And Mr. Simon? Yes.

Thank you for that motion carried is now time for public comments. Anybody from the public wish to speak on any non agenda related item please approach the podium and you have 3 minutes you will be required to state your name and address.

Mayor Dave Royston, Waterloo City Council members. My name is Marcella Gruber. I live at 203 Miriam Drive, Waterloo, Iowa. Again, I am here to express opposition to having Pride Fest being in the city of Waterloo, Iowa. Why does the city of Waterloo support the LGBTQ people who through the Equality Act will destroy the US Constitution, destroy our churches, and destroy our children by transgendering every child in every state without parental consent. To prove the above statements all are true, let us now read my letter to the editor dated March 17th. SOS calling all U.S. citizens to fast and pray for the protection of all churches, businesses, schools, daycares, hospitals, nursing homes, because if the Equality Act passes the Senate, all will be taken over by the homosexuals, lesbians, and transgenders. To all of the above institutions, there will be preferential hiring quota for homosexuals as a protected minority. Every homosexual fired or not hired becomes a potential civil rights lawsuit. Destruction of religious liberty. Anytime you oppose a homosexual, lesbian, or transgender, you will be taken to court and charged with a crime of discrimination, as the thousands of former Christian business owners and the Christian baker. This is because the Equality Act prohibits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1933 from providing a claim, defense, or basis for challenging such protection. Thus, we'll lose our U.S. Constitutional Amendment 1, our civil rights, our freedom of speech and religion. The Equality Act will enforce a transgender directive wherein a student becomes a transgender without parental consent and will have access to every school's restroom and every girls' sports team. Again, I ask why does the city of Waterloo, Iowa want to support the LGBTQ people who through the Equality Act will destroy the U.S. Constitution, our churches, and our children by transgendering every child in every state without parental consent? So I'm asking you again to remove Pride Fest from next year's opening.

Thank you, ma'am. You kind of missed the boat this year because you usually come before Pride Fest, but it's already happened. So we'll see you next year. Anyone else from the audience wish to speak on any non-agenda related item?

Dixon Stokey.

421 Belmont Avenue. A dozen years ago, my wife and I bought a rundown little duplex to fix up and help improve the Church Row neighborhood and wind up with a little retirement income. Long story short, a perfect storm of bad tenants, bad weather, and bad insurance left the building unsuitable for good tenants. So we started a complete makeover with an eye towards renting it to graduates from House of Hope. There's only so much at a time a little old couple can do. So for the past few years, we've been fixing it up little by little, keeping up with the lawn and gardens, paying the bills. We had one furnace replaced 10 years ago and one just this year. Last year, we got new electrical meters and fuse boxes and a whole new roof put on. On one side, new ceilings, nice paint with accent walls, fake wood grain trim. The bathrooms are fully refurbished. The kitchen is almost done. Just touch-ups, floors, back steps, and appliances, and it's ready to rent. Then we can start on the outside. We are good citizens with good intentions and good records, never late on tax or any other payments. Took care of the few minor code violations right away. But now, when our hard work and investment are finally about to bear fruit, the city of Waterloo slaps us with a lawsuit to confiscate it. no notices, no communications of any kind, just petitioned the courts to take our property free and clear. So the work stopped. Case number EQCV157701, the city claims our building is abandoned and dilapidated. It is not. Our answer and motion to dismiss explains everything that I just told you here. I thought the city would read this and realize its mistake and drop it and we could get back to work. Instead, your contracted private attorney resisted our motion to dismiss and now it goes to trial and the time and money for our new floor gets diverted to legal fees. we paid fifty thousand dollars for that building and spent thirty thousand fixing it up not including the sweat equity we've paid twenty thousand in mortgage interest and around thirty more for utilities while it's not rented and we were about to start recouping some of that investment when the city comes along and kicks us right in the teeth This is absolutely abuse of power, using the abandoned property statute as a pretext to seize our hundred plus thousand dollar investment for nothing. We want you to tell whatever department is treating us this badly to drop the case, back off, and leave us alone. Thank you for your kind attention.

Thank you, sir. And quick question. All the work you've done in that house, you took permits out, correct?

Yeah.

Okay, there's a record of that.

Yeah, that's why the city should have known in the first place it wasn't abandoned.

I'm just asking, just a quick question, whether you took permits out. Thank you, appreciate it. Anyone else in the audience wish to speak on a non-agenda related item, please come to the podium. I don't know. He didn't give us the address of the house.

Good evening. My name is Calvin Sears, Jr. I live at 1556 Newell Street. I have a couple issues, and one being with code enforcement. The street that I live on, we don't have sidewalks, we don't have alleys, and we have very little crime. I've witnessed code enforcement. A lot of people don't have cement in their driveways. Half of it have a rock and half of it have grass, but code enforcement takes it upon themselves to discriminate. They targeted the elderly, the handicapped, and especially minorities. they've i have my neighbor they've come in the last 15 years code enforcement has towed at least 25 of his cars away because they said that he doesn't have in his driveway uh complete rock or whatever we have a whole lot of neighbors and i went through the whole city we have a lot of people that have rvs sitting in their front yard or sitting on their side yard and grass And Deborah, Miss Berry, Ward 3, 1616 Lafayette Street. They have 13 trailers that's been parked there for over 20 years and nothing has ever been done about it. but they can come in people's backyard not only have they told vehicles they've told us riding lawn mowers and that does not make any sense to me okay a lot of people have motorcycles that don't have motors in them so i know they don't run they're sitting in their front yard some needs to be somebody needs to look at call code enforcement they look one way And then they look another way. This is all through the city, but especially in Ward 3. Something needs to be done about it. And it's a shame what they're doing or what they're not doing.

I believe those addresses are in Ward 4. Thank you for your time.

16, 16, 13, 13 is not there yet.

Yeah, that's yours.

It's not off yet. It has to be 10. He's at 13.13. I'm at 16.16.

16.16.

Hello, my name is Cheryl Stanford. I stay at 1929 East 4th Street. I've been here 19 years. And so for you guys to make to build these 17 houses, I have already have a problem.

Ma'am, are you talking about the St. Mary's? Yes. That's an agenda item that should have been talked about then during public comments. They have to be non-agenda related items.

I can't say what I want to say.

Not if you're going to talk about St. Mary's. But thank you.

Doris Diedrich, 515 Beach Street, Waterloo, Iowa, 50703. I am standing before you once again, speaking on the Human Rights Commission. I am proud that you have got three more commissioners for the board. However, the people of Waterloo and Black Hawk County are asking this council and its city members to act. We are asking you to fully fund three critical positions, an executive director, a secretary, and an investigator. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else from the audience wish to speak for or against, not for or against, non-agenda related, I apologize.

Okay, Renee Carson, 1108 Pine. I just want to make a comment on something I heard thrown around a little bit about a city manager, and I would like to know what do we need?

Pam, that was a work session agenda item.

It wasn't a city council agenda item.

Yeah, okay, since it's work, yeah, you can, yeah, please, go ahead. Okay. I apologize.

And I would like to know what do we need one for if that's supposed to be you guys' job? And why would we pay out extra money? And how would this person be put in office or whatever? And how would they be chosen? And what would the qualifications be? Because financial, you know, somebody has the expertise in it, not just I completed the course and let me go through it. Somebody that's had experience to manage a city. So I would like to know why the need for a city manager. So if that's the case, why do we need you?

All of that was discussed in the work session at 4 o'clock.

I wasn't there, so I wouldn't know.

I apologize, but you can watch it. It was all discussed, and you'll have ample opportunity to ask your questions and bring it before council when that item comes up on September 21st.

Okay. Thank you.

And I'm sure there'll be a lengthy article in the Courier as she's sitting back here.

Well, I don't get the Courier.

Shame on you.

I don't get the Courier. It costs too much.

Thank you, ma'am.

Megan Butler, 818 Clow Street.

I'm here to talk about vacant properties. On June 7th, I sent the whole council and mayor, and then since then, a few other people from the city have been brought in, including legal and finance, on what we can do about vacant properties in Waterloo. We have a problem with landlords renting them out as long as they can until they are condemned by the city, and then they sit vacant, and then they... have fires and that's not safe for our firefighters having to deal with that or our neighbors having to deal with it either. So I did some legwork for us. I called Marion, Marshalltown, Council Bluffs, and Fort Madison today. They all have vacant property codes. Marion, Marshalltown, and Council Bluffs said, hey, ours aren't working. Do not copy us. So we got that. But Fort Madison's are working. They have had theirs in place since 2022. And at that point, they had about 400 vacant homes. And now they're around 200 vacant homes. They've got a lot of information on their website about how it works. I actually have their ordinance and one of, like, exemption form. Because there are reasons a house can sit vacant. I'm renovating it or something. I'm working on listing it for sale. There's reasons to be sitting vacant, but not indefinitely and not for 25 years and then getting donated to the city. So I urge you guys to look into it and figure out what we can do with these properties. Also, a couple other comments. Community block grant, my understanding is that's like a, they work to get like a, and bring federal money into the city to help repair people's homes and that kind of thing. But I was told that we have eight people on that org chart, but really only four people hired. So we have a lot more room for people to be writing grants and trying to get money for the city to help our people because there's four vacant positions there. And that's about all I got. But would anybody like to look at what the Fort Madison code is?

Absolutely. Okay. Well, she's more mobile. Give it to the police chief. Thank you, sir. How dare you? Give it to me. Is it like that copies? I'll get you. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Can we all get along? Anyone else in the audience have anything to say in public comments? Please approach the podium and state your name and address, please.

Amy Joe, 810 Conger. I would like to address the homophobia, if I may, that happened when we first started the public comment. I would just like to quickly, I won't be here long, I would just like to quickly remind people that we do have separation of church and state for a reason. It's because we have marginalized demographics because of the Christian church, as we've seen exhibited here. Their hatred has harmed many of our marginalized demographics. And it's not welcome here. That's why I believe that we support the LGBTQIA plus community. And I'd also like to remind us all that if we are concerned about sexual abuse or perversion that's happening, that we do look at our churches. Because statistically speaking, more of that is happening in your churches than they are by any queer person or happening at Pride In fact, those individuals are primary targeted individuals by the churches and their sexual perversion.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else?

Mr. Mayor. Hang on. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you.

Thank you so much for letting me speak again. I appreciate this.

Again, you'll have to state your name and address.

Oh, that's fine. That's not a problem. This is Archbishop Richard, and I live at 131 Mission Circle in Waterloo. I have trouble sometimes understanding where Waterloo ends and where Cedar Falls begins. To me, it's unusual. It reminds me of Venice in the 14th century. I'm waiting for the doge to figure out what we're doing now with the site plan. in order to respond to what we've heard some wonderful comments on all sides of the issue. But we need to remember that it is not a church versus state issue when we talk about transgendered populations, non-binary populations, even people of gender fluidity. It is a question of embracing the entire United States Constitution. We are all created equal. And because of this, We must extend even to churches and other civic organizations. We must have an understanding that everyone matters, that everyone's voice in this community matters, and everyone's voice has full significance and import. Myself. in the church. I support LGBTQ plus I a communities. I support them in Washington as an esteemed member of the Office of Public Engagement. And I constantly tell all of our legislators on the hill that it is not a matter of us versus them. It is a matter of all of us being in community and solidarity with love, compassion, and concern, no matter what we are, no matter what nationality, no matter what racial composite, no matter how we would identify ourselves in our own identities. We are all human beings and we need to celebrate our humanity and extol and extend that humanity to every aspect of this community. There should never be a person in this community who is afraid to speak out or who was afraid to be who they are. We must learn to accept people.

Thank you, sir.

Aaron Stacy Roberts, 411 Allman Street. I think more important than a data center or a person's sexual preference is their safety. And that's what I'm going to stay on. And it's a shame that you have the people that show up for a data center in numbers the way they are and what has happened here in Waterloo, Iowa over the last 25 years involving nothing but what I've been communicating with you about, which started back with John Deere's paying a partial payment on my father's life insurance policy. I have talked about it for years. I'm like a merchant banker. I've only told about 6% of what I know. I've never mentioned the UFW till tonight, Waterloo Warehousing, and the rest of the brothers and sisters that go along with John Deere's that put a lot of undue pressure on my children, and it still continues today. It takes me to the term Miss Prism. Miss Prism is a legal and formal term that means failing to report serious crimes. I've done that to your office way before you were chief. Talked to Joe the other day through text and I had mentioned it to him when he was here. So it's nothing new. So when it says failing to report serious crimes, making a major mistake, just making a major mistake is this right here. or failing to perform an official job properly. Misprision of felony makes it a federal crime to have knowledge of federal felonies and connect without report, excuse me, and concealed without a report to authorities applies to officers, with civil rights violations, corruption, and by other officers actively concealing it. This is what's been going on. This is a federal crime under U.S. 18 number four. Conspiracy to defraud, 18 U.S. 371 makes it a federal crime for two or more persons to conspire to defraud the United States or violate federal law. Frequently used coordinated cover-ups of civil rights violations is about the most prevalent way of seeing this. And it goes to every concern that I brought to you the Waterloo police, the city of Waterloo, county attorneys, and everyone else, only to make it fall on deaf ears. This is criminal what you all are doing by failing to act on my concerns. Have a good evening. Thank you, sir.

You can't speak twice, ma'am. You're only allowed to speak once. You can come back in two weeks.

Name is Calvin Sears Jr. again.

You can't speak twice, sir. You can only come up to Speaker 1 once. Okay, I'm sorry. But thank you.

Ma'am. George Meek, 609 East Donald Street. And I should have come up after Archbishop. But one thing I would like to... You get opportunity, and it's just for the council, when you do the Pledge of Allegiance, do it slowly and listen to what, I don't know what the intent was when it was originated, but listen to the words. Listen to the words. Listen to it. for liberty and justice for all. Don't say it real fast, say it slowly and see what it says to you. But the other thing, and it's a good opportunity, this is my yearly pledge to the council that we have our council meeting be opened by someone from the clergy having prayer for the council members and for the work that you're doing. Well, you know how hard it is. It's so diverse in the wards and everything. We've got different things going on, but if we can have a pastor, a priest, an archbishop, someone come up and pray for what you're doing, that we would have objectivity in the things that we do because the work is hard and it's going to get tougher because of the diverse of the things that's coming up that need to be done. So that's, I'm asking you, I asked last year, in one of your work sessions, discuss the possibility of having a meeting open with a prayer. I'm asking that, if you do that. And And I would, it would not be adversarial, but when you come back and I would like to know how the council, how the council felt about that. All right, thank you. Thank you, sir.

Anyone else? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Simon.

I would like to make a motion to close the public comments and proceed to the Council of Mayor comments, as well as receive and file comments to the public record.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

All the same sign. As far as council comments goes, if you could keep them brief tonight, because we do have an executive session right after this. Does any council have anything they'd like to say real quickly?

Mr. Mayor, on Saturday, this Saturday, I will be at Scooters on Ridgeway from 8 to 11. Stop by, grab a cup of coffee, chat, let's read a book together, let's get to know each other. But as always, open door policy. If you have any questions, let me know. Thank you. Anyone else?

Yes, we have Ward 3 and 4 have our town hall meeting the third Thursday of this month at 5.30 at the Waterloo Public Library. Please come out. We're going to continue our conversation about tenant rights and some, hopefully, discussion about resolution.

Thank you. Anyone else?

I'd like to make a motion to proceed to the closed session.

2nd, and a motion is 2nd, Mr. Mr. city attorney. Are we everything above board here? Okay. It's just a regular vote, right?

It's a roll call.

Roll call vote please to go in a closed session.

Mr. Schmidt.

Yeah.

Mr. Morrow? Yes. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Salamanca? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Simon?

Yes. Okay, we are in closed session. The closed session is going to be in the Police Department briefing room in the basement of City Hall. Just go all the way down the stairs.