City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. so so Thank you. 531 so let's go ahead and get caucus started

Overall, we have a very short agenda for tonight's meeting to go over. We actually have nothing for first reading this time, so we'll enjoy that there was no study session this month and then nothing for first readings to prepare our brains for the next several months as we go into the PFM reports and start gearing up for the budget. But I did want to start out to see if anybody had any questions on the items for final passage. It looks like we have mostly appropriations that are going to be under the final passage for the final reading tonight. But if anybody had any questions there. Okay.

Do you want me to wait until a little business?

Yeah. Okay. And I should have started with this. So tonight, the mayor is traveling back from a conference or summit that they were at, and so we have Chief of Staff Lori Raddick-Spicer with us tonight. And I did ask Lori to come present on the one bayfront, but we'll get to that after this. So I say that for us to be gentle, but just still, whatever questions we may have, Lori is well equipped to answer. Do we have any questions? If there are none in the final passage, do we have any on old business? For the one item I did want to bring up, sorry, Laura, I know you're being so patient, that we did receive a response from Matthew Falcone for the item that we had tabled, so we pulled it back. And that being item number one, under old business regarding just some questions that Councillor Horton had asked and wanted to get some clarification on. And I just wanted to make sure that everyone received that email from Matthew Falcone or if anybody had any other follow-up questions. If you didn't get a chance to read it, I can explain it very quickly.

that William Spencer hadn't been born yet that this house is affiliated with but anything there are quite a few designations coming forward. There are quite a few designations coming forward. I can't. Sometimes I can't chew bubblegum and walk at the same time. I have ADHD and very easily distracted. You got to hold my attention or I'll be daydreaming or something. So case in point, what was I saying?

So there are several designations coming forward.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I would appreciate it, and I think I mentioned that to Mr. Falcone. that any of those ancient 1800 things come down. I appreciate it if they would include that in the dossier or whatever they're presenting so that we don't have to inquire. I don't think that's an unreasonable request, particularly in the space and time we find ourselves in. And I would much rather have it done and have it more seamlessly than to have it discussed out here. And we could just do that. That would go a long way for me. And with that said, I see that we have a lot of historical designations coming down of late. There are some things associated with that. Could you try again? They were sent for you on Monday, and here you come today. And so, yeah, if they would just include that information on the front end of it, and then again, there's a lot coming down. And so there I do understand that there's money associated or grant opportunities associated with all of that stuff, too. But they seem to be coming pretty rapidly. And just as a new member, maybe it's just me, I'm slow. I like a little bit more time. to kind of digest some of that stuff. Because it's not the big foxes, it's the little ones for me. And I don't want to do anything that sets some precedence for somewhere else where it shouldn't be. And I know that he really does a really good job of putting that stuff forward. But quite frankly, trying to keep up with all of that stuff for a part-time job. I'm not a planning commissioner, and I do attend some of the property zoning boards and that type of thing, but it's a lot to digest sometimes, and I don't want to just rubber stamp anything.

I'm wondering if that could be part of the actual application process when we're looking, just to see, especially when it falls within a certain date or a time frame, that we're making sure that we're also putting that in there. And then maybe that could also be, some of that work could be done by those submitting the applications and not falling all on Matthew as well.

Great. I'll happily talk with him about that.

I don't want to be approving stuff on the front end and then find out that that requires the city to do something on the back end. You all might be a little bit more versed in it or comfortable with it than me, but I'm not. and i would rather know uh up front than to find out oh your designation uh uh spring-loaded this and you know you're required to do that so that's just me yeah and i think transparently um this this is i think the most forward-facing process that i mean since i've been on council that we've kind of gone through where we've got to see the whole process and get the whole

packet layout not that we haven't done historical designations but i think that there's just a bit more information that we're receiving as councils so i think that that is important and absolutely i think in light of some of the other things that have gotten going on i think more information and it just nothing should be of that

urgent, those type things that we can't slow down and take our time. I think that just from an outsider looking in and even from over at the county, when those things come down, I'll give you a big for instance, the library lease. It came down. It did kind of what it did. And for some reason, people didn't even understand it. They tried to overturn it, and it wound up being litigated. And that's just something that someone should, a simple thing someone should have understood, that it was not only that they were leasing it to Gannon, but that they were in fact giving it to him for $7 a square foot. And I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know that.

I THINK THESE ARE ALL VERY VALID POINTS. OF COURSE, I VOTED NO ANYWAY. COUNCIL, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

YES. I THINK JUST TO GO ALONG WITH COUNCILOR HORDEN'S POINT, I GUESS IT MAKES SENSE TO HAVE THE INFORMATION UP FRONT. BECAUSE IF YOU PASS SOMETHING AND THEN SOMEONE COMES UP AND SAYS, HEY, I WAS DOING SOME RESEARCH ON MY OWN AND DID YOU GUYS KNOW THIS? BUT YOU'VE ALREADY PASSED IT. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? It just makes sense so that someone else from the public might not come and say, hey, I didn't know, did you see this? I don't know if you guys knew this. You know what I mean?

No, I agree. And I'm not sure if you all saw, this is not on old business, but that since we're on the topic of historic designations, that City Hall is going through the process, but also that Matthew is going to be doing some tours, and that we are all invited to one of the tours so that we can also come in. I think it's the inaugural one. I think he's going to do like a run-through. And so that if we have some feedback and stuff, just to kind of learn more about just the history of City Hall. And so that was in the email, just to make sure that you check and respond, let him know.

THAT'S PRETTY COOL.

YEAH.

I DO ENJOY HIS PRESENTATIONS. HE'S A GOOD STORYTELLER.

HE IS A GOOD STORYTELLER. HE IS A VERY GOOD STORYTELLER. ANY QUESTIONS, THEN I'LL PULL US BACK HERE WITH THE OTHER ITEM THAT IS ON OLD BUSINESS.

I WAS JUST GOING TO EXPLAIN, BUT CHIEF TROTT IS HERE. THIS CAME BEFORE COUNCIL IN APRIL OF 2025 AND IT WAS PASSED. But it ended up that that was for Fire Engine 11. And then they found out that Fire Engine 10 was worse. So they changed the scope of the work and made this the priority. And that is why it is under old business. And did I say that right?

Would you be comfortable just kind of giving a little bit of, I guess, updating, because we do have some new council members, but also you have my brain that has, I don't really remember, to be honest.

I think Lori explained it pretty well. We started out with Engine 11, and then it turned out that Engine Ted had started having a lot worse problems, and that needed to be done first. So we got Engine 11 done. Then there was ended up being a change order for some hidden damage underneath the old roof. And so I think this is just like a procedural thing to pull back the other one and make sure it's all stated clearly and properly moving forward.

Remind me again, I know that we are in the process of doing, I think, some just like building audits, so to speak. I believe that's actually occurring right now. When was the last time we kind of went through? Do you have a kind of a status on just where some of the other ones might be? Or is that something that we're in the process of doing? Just so if, yeah, just kind of a hint.

We did, I'll say, a roof audit probably four or five years ago. because all of the roofs were done in a short period of time, and now they're 40 years old. So we've been replacing the roofs, trying to do one a year, so this year Engine 11 will get done, next year Engine 13 will be done, and then all the roofs will have been replaced. We do building upgrades. Last year we did new windows and doors at three of the firehouses that had windows and doors from the 50s. So the building maintenance and upgrades are ongoing. It was, one, they last quite a while, but two, when things are kicked down the road, then we end up with a lot all at once. And we've been working through these things for, I would say, a good six to 10 years. And we're getting caught up as far as building maintenance goes. But you're always going to have that. So the audits that are going on now, there's an audit for everything that the city owns going on. There's a secure... physical security audit going on. There's a cybersecurity audit going on. So there's a lot going on right now.

So as we approach into this budget, and this won't be a hot seat for you, more so a hot seat for you, I would love for us to kind of, yes, thank you, get some updates just on those audits, especially when we're looking to get the PFM report, because we're going to have

have some big decisions to make just as a council um yeah that's that's not a problem because we're actually going through a list right now of needs for the firehouses prioritizing them and seeing what we can do in-house what needs to be bid out and how quickly it needs to be done thank you i really appreciate that

And we just put this on for the sake of transparency. The award for the first one was 87,936. It only went up almost $2,000. But if there's ever something that's less than in a quote, we can just change it on an ordinance or a resolution. If there's an additional amount of funds, then we have to put it through again on a new resolution and a new ordinance. We'd have to amend the ordinance. Gotcha.

Hi, everybody. I'm sorry I came in late. And I didn't want to disrupt you all. But I just want to second what Chief Trott spoke about. The original amount really was the 87, 936. So that change order was small. The original resolution drafted made it look like a much larger change order. So I worked with Isaiah up in finance to draft the language to make sure that it looked appropriate to pull back correctly. to reflect correctly the change order and and the change from 10 to 11. So I I feel comfortable with this. I'm happy with it. We worked on it together and so I signed off on it before it came to you all.

So thank you. Totally separate. Resolution ordinance or is it just an amendment can be just amended.

I think because it's an increase, it has to be a new resolution.

Plus it's explaining it.

One other thing, just so everybody understands, the reason it was more expensive for Engine 10 is it's a totally different roof. It's a larger roof than Engine 11. So that's one other reason why it went up.

Thank you. And having it be a different roof, having it go up to less than $2,000, that's pretty good, especially with- In a year. Today's economy. All right. When we look down then, any other questions on old business? Are we comfortable moving into the new business? Any questions then on new business that we see? Is there, and I know I'm putting, and maybe this would be one for Jason Sayers, even though I told him that I was gonna leave him alone, looking at number one, any major changes when we look at that winter maintenance contract that, as we go to sign this new one, from maybe the ones previous?

Hello, council. Hello. You're asking about the PennDOT agreement?

Number one.

Yeah, number one. Number one. Just if there were any major changes to kind of highlight or...

no that is simply um pretty much a renewal of the uh the pendot maintenance winter maintenance agreement that we've had in place for many years um it was simply up for renewal again and uh what that covers is about 125 miles of the state routes that are located in the city of erie for um winter maintenance and then we get uh reimbursement for those accordingly um i believe there was a fee schedule a reimbursement schedule i should say attached to your packet so um i believe the amounts there range between four hundred thousand dollars and five hundred thousand dollars annually okay thank you you're welcome mr sayers thank you um that includes the um

Connector?

Yeah, that would include all the state routes like Wall Street, 26th Street, Pine Avenue, Old French Road, et cetera, that are all throughout the city, actually. 38th's another one. Any more questions?

I had told you when you had asked me if there was any other questions, and I said, yeah, this might come up, and now I can't remember even when I said might come up. And it will probably wait until you sit down and get really comfortable and be like, oh, yeah, this was what I had said that I had wanted to ask about. The contract that is being awarded for the Miller Brothers. Oh, okay. The architectural services? Yes.

Okay. Let me pull that one out. So that's number five under contracts. Any particular overview?

Just wanted council to be aware that item number five. So we are going into that phase two. But this is the contract that has been awarded for us to go in or to start this next phase two. So if there were any questions, comments, anything that anybody wanted to bring up right now as we start to enter into this, this is the front end of it. I mean, we've already got the design. We've got the layout. But now is the time to kind of bring some of those things forward. If nobody has any questions, that's OK. But I just wanted to draw our attention to that.

We did give a pretty thorough presentation to council. I think it was back in February of this year on phase two. And the project as a whole.

And there was a bid out?

For this particular item, number five, there was an RFP, request for proposals. So we did publicly request those proposals. I believe there were five that were submitted.

And this doesn't have to be on our agenda presentation, but as we kind of wrap up that phase one and go into that phase two, if we could just get a little bit of that cost breakdown just as like a summary of like here's what we had projected, here's what we ended up spending, because I knew that there were some change orders that came through at that point, we just had to shift, just so we can kind of see like are we trending in a certain direction or are things coming in more expensive or less expensive, just as an overview. Just like a cost update. Yeah, that would be great. Sure, we could do that. Thank you.

And while you're up here, so, you know, we have people that come and talk about the berms in the snow days that we have and how they block pedestrian sidewalks at times. Does that contract mention how they plow?

Under new business, winter maintenance, resolution one.

Oh, let me pull that one.

I followed Kathy's brain there. It's okay. No, you're good.

You said contracts?

Under number one, winter maintenance services, when they're doing the highways like 38th Street, for instance. No, you mean sidewalks? So they're plowing, and as they plow, they're blocking... at the intersections that person who wants to get across. So who does are they in charge of scooping the snow aside or.

No, they.

Like 38th and old French value home center. So is value home center the person that has to do the cleaning of the sidewalk there on 38th and French or. Does the person who's plowing do it a different way?

That's correct, value home center. It gets a little complicated because, like, not to get into too many specifics about the specific properties, but a lot of them hire private plow companies to plow out their parking lots. And sometimes those private plow companies push that snow in maybe some places where they shouldn't, but in many cases are trying to do the best they can. But ultimately, it falls back to that property owner to make sure those sidewalk areas are open at the corners and across the frontage as well.

even on the streets that Penn dot does well, the highways.

Correct. But these streets are actually ones that the city, this disagreement is actually the city's going to do those streets essentially for Penn. Okay. So our plow, our plow drivers do those roads.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions from Mr. Sayers? No, I think we really will leave you alone.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you. All right. We do have two appointments. If we look under committee reports, this is something that we had requested that the administration do and that we are doing as council, that we are putting any appointments that are typically, that we're not voting on as council, but we're putting here for transparency reasons so that the public can see, and if they were to search, they can see who's being appointed. We have Sarah Morrison and we have Janae Alexander being appointed both to CAFE. Just wanted to draw our attention there.

All right.

Well, if we don't have any other questions on agenda items, I would like for us to go ahead and get an update on the One Bayfront from Lori, if that is okay with everyone.

GREAT. THANKS FOR HAVING ME TONIGHT, EVERYBODY. IT'S GOOD TO BE HERE WITH YOU. I AM DELIGHTED TO BE HERE ON BEHALF OF THE FACILITATING TEAM FOR THE ONE BAYFRONT PLANNING PROCESS, SO I'M GOING TO JUST KIND OF WALK THROUGH AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT THIS PROCESS IS, WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT, AND IN PARTICULAR, I REALLY WANT TO FOCUS IN FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND THE BENEFIT OF THE COMMUNITY WHO ARE ATTENDING AND WATCHING LATER ON THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT COMPONENT OF THIS PROCESS BECAUSE THAT REALLY IS KEY TO THE WHOLE THING. SO I WANT TO STEP BACK AND I WILL SAY I'M GOING TO DO KIND OF HIGH LEVEL. WE CAN DO QUESTIONS AT THE END SO IF THERE ARE SPECIFICS THAT YOU WANT TO DIG INTO WE CAN DO THAT. How did we get here? So I'm you may recall the mayor before being elected was talking a lot about the importance of master plan for our waterfront You know better than anyone that the momentum for new investment along our waterfront is alive and well. There's a lot of opportunity and investment happening right now. And what we do not have is a unified plan and vision. And not just a unified plan and vision, but one that is shaped and informed by the community. So there are many, many plans that have been put together that impact and shape our waterfront, but most of those have been almost exclusively led by individual organizations or companies. And this is a unique case where we have brought together a number of partners. You have outlined their logos representing Infinite Erie, the city, the county, the chamber, Erie Insurance, and then the three property owners on the waterfront, which include the Port Authority, Erie Events, and Scott Enterprises. And then WSP is the consultant that the facilitating team has hired to work this process. So this is an opportunity for not only the facilitating team, but really the community to develop a shared and collective vision so that the next time, particularly for you all, you see a development come across your desks that is a waterfront development. You don't have to look at each other and ask, what do we think? You can come to this blueprint, to the One Bayfront plan that we're putting together together. and have your guardrail and guide for what the community has said the Bayfront should look like and whether or not any such development maps that aligns to that. So we do have one shot to get this right. We already have a lot of wonderful and beautiful things at our Bayfront. It's a shared asset and a gem and what is left to be developed, we need to get right. So that makes a community-driven process essential. We cannot have a vision for the Bayfront that is not everyone's, that land, and how we use it has to benefit every single neighbor and resident in our community. So that brings us to the One Bayfront initiative. So this is... It's called One Bayfront, a community-driven blueprint for our waterfront. This is a community-driven planning process. We really want to make sure that residents have genuine voice in shaping the future of the waterfront, that it's collaborative, not just amongst the parties that I mentioned who are the facilitating team, but truly every resident who's willing to put their voice out as part of this process. and ultimately come out with a shared vision that reflects our values, our creativity, Erie's uniqueness, and our pride for generations to come. So you can see all of this on the website. There's a QR code later for you or anyone else who may be watching if you want to scan that to get to the website and look at this more closely. But that is the study area outlined there. You can see it goes just west of Cranberry and then over just west of the Erie Land Lighthouse with 3rd Street being that southern border. And the project timeline, so the way that this planning process is working, is there are a few phases. And I want to kind of speak to what we had planned and then speak to what the community has told and taught us already and how that has reshaped some of the community engagement plans we have. So as you can see, we're in July now, which is an overlap between existing conditions analysis and draft vision and goals. So the consultant has been reviewing every plan that has ever been made related to our waterfront. Well, maybe not every plan. I heard that there was one from 50-plus years ago, and we probably won't be factoring that one in, but more recent plans, more relevant plans. they'll be doing they're in the midst of a market analysis right now they're doing all of that work for us in the background while also helping to facilitate the community engagement process where we together define the vision for this process and the planet it will produce and the goals So for those of you who attended or saw, we had an open house on June 25th. Really grateful to the hundreds of neighbors and residents who came out and participated there. We had a lot of boards, like the one that you'll see in our lobby, where folks could put pins and stickers and post-it notes and really share their vision, the ways they interact with our waterfront, their hopes and dreams for it, the things they would change tomorrow if they could. And all of that then is going to be fed back into that plus a survey that was completed by over 700 residents will help to reshape and finalize our vision and goals. I have more information that I can email to you all later around the specific vision and goals. I didn't want to get into the weeds tonight. And I'll show you a slide in a second. There's a virtual version of this open house that is currently live. You can go online and basically experience the open house. online as if you were there and do all of the same activities that those who attended in person did. So if you do that, you'll get a better sense of what some of those goals in the vision statement are. And then as we close out the vision and goals process, we're moving into August where we will be Shifting to kind of develop the criteria for what are some of the possibilities of what could happen on our Bayfront? How do we evaluate those and then what what can those preferred alternatives those those possibilities? For like what are our dreams? Do we want to see housing? Do we want to see more? Food and restaurants we want to see entertainment all of the possible Priorities that we could have for our waterfront those will start to clarify later into the fall ultimately resulting in a final plan by the end of this calendar year and So it is a fairly quick and condensed planning process, which is why we have to be very purposeful about meeting the community where they are. Which brings me to... Again, I mentioned 700 plus survey participants. Thank you to everyone who may be here who participated in that. So we had, after the June open house, we had a follow-up meeting the next day with, we sent an invite out to over 70 organizations and had over 20 attend a lunch upstairs in room 500 to just kind of debrief how did the open house go, who was there, who was missing, what do we need to be sure this planning process incorporates to make sure we Particularly hear the voices of those who are often not heard during planning processes and so we got some incredible feedback and ideas and also commitments from neighborhood organizations from local nonprofits and partners to be part of this process to get the surveys and the virtual open houses and this information to their people to get either to get them in the room or to get us in the room with the folks we need to hear from and so we're already scheduling we have a partner working on scheduling a youth focus group with 30 plus youth because mr t had come with a handful of youth who very quickly recognized that there were only a handful of them in the room and so they are organizing their own focus group as part of this process we'll be going to other organizations to actually attend their meetings and ensure that we're hearing from them where they are So in addition to that, we'll have two more open houses as we had in June, one in the summer and one in the fall, and we will be tabling at events. So we'll be at the Blues and Jazz Fest, at Celebrate Erie, and the consultants are coming to do that as well, and this weekend at Amerimasala. And that each of those will have either a virtual open house or a survey option for folks to participate in based on where we are in the process. But again, just wanted to really communicate to you how important it is on behalf of the mayor's office, but really all the partners involved, that everyone who wants to be part of this process has an on-ramp and that that on-ramp is accessible and clear and easy to access. So with that, I will pause there. Again, very high level. Any questions about anything I shared or anything else you might be wondering?

So one question I have is, so as we enter every new phase, there will essentially be, like, here's what we've discovered so far. Give us feedback on that.

Yes.

Okay.

Exactly. So right now, the consultants are taking the 700-plus survey responses in addition to the many stickers and Post-its and pins on those boards to synthesize that and recreate, essentially, the vision statement, which, again, I'll email all of this to you. I didn't want to inundate you, but it looks like this. There's a vision statement, and then there are these specific goals that we, as a facilitating team, had drafted to say, let's hand these to the community and say, do these feel right? Is this what we think the goals of this plan need to be? And the community had a lot to say. I was in the room as the consultant was facilitating these conversations, and it was a dynamic conversation. And we are refining these based on not just what we heard in the room, but what everyone's contributed since. So each step of the way, there will be sort of a, let's hand back to you based on your feedback, what we think is the final version. You tell us, okay, now let's close that out. Let's move on to the next section and next phase, ultimately resulting in a final plan.

I think it's really important just and I know I keep like hammering on it but for the public to understand is you've done us like yes you did one survey or maybe you came to one open house but that we still need you to keep participating because it's going to come back and we're in that reiteration phase. And so this is super important to stay engaged. This process is a very fast-moving plan. And so just that first point of contact, it's going to keep going very quickly. So to please stay engaged. I know there's a lot to be engaged on right now. But to reiterate what you said, this is like our... We got one shot here. And so this is that opportunity to make sure all those voices are heard.

There is a lot to be engaged on too, because just the last meeting we had the planning come in and do the parks future thing, which was pretty ambitious and aggressive and was looking for citizen participation. And I don't know how much participation with the feedback. is on that, but these are two pretty big, fast-moving, and I don't want to move too fast without just, and you just get, okay, we had a cutoff date when we wanted to do things, we want to do this thing at the end of the year, but we're still a city of 100,000. I'm not sure 700 responses gets us where we want to be. At the same time, I know it's a fluid document and it has to keep moving because we do only have one time. to get this particular one going. You'll send us the dates of the next open house. I think you said August.

Yes, they're not set yet. So as soon as they are set, we'll make sure we communicate all of that to you. And as we get kind of mid-phase updates from the consultant, we can absolutely be sharing that with you.

Thank you. Awesome.

So let's say I'm a carousel entrepreneur and I am looking for a city to do the best, biggest carousel ever where family friendly people can ride the carousel and I want to put it next to Smuggler's Wharf. But I don't know about it yet. How does that information reach me? Like, how can I figure out where to put it. Are we outreaching? How are we outreaching?

Yeah, thank you for the question. I also just love that vision. It could be a future for you, Kathy. That's really lovely. I think that I would actually take a step back and say that comes later, what you've just described, right? So the community first has to say they want a carousel. before we have any interest in going and finding someone who deals in carousels. So that's what this process is. This process is saying, what do you want? What's going to be good for us? What fits the culture, the identity, the feel and the needs for our waterfront, for our community? And if it's a carousel, then once we have this blueprint in place, there are a lot of other things that... different players here are going to have to go do. One of the things the city is going to have to do is probably change its zoning. There's going to be homework across the board. Another piece of homework will be probably the chamber. Did I forget to say the chamber? They are one of the facilitating team. I apologize. You did mention it. The chamber and maybe some other partners are going to have to go and start recruiting the businesses, the developers, the folks that we don't have locally to manifest the community's vision. Does that make sense and answer your question? Great.

When we say waterfront,

what can you what are we saying like from this point this spot to this spot is our waterfront we're talking about yes it's really not a great map from here and so i do encourage you to go online i'm sorry i can't zoom in i don't think um but it is the the red dotted area so it's not just waterfront right it is also the neighboring like the bluff communities. So a portion of OWB and BEST, those are in the map. And I should say, those are a couple of the partners who we were really grateful to have in the room on June 26th, because they have really clear concrete ideas for how we need to align this with their strategic planning and the conversations they're having with their neighbors. Because all the development that we do on our waterfront is gonna have pretty significant impact on those neighbors and neighborhoods. So it is that whole zone, roughly Cranberry to I'm sorry, I don't know what the east, but it's right with the land lighthouses.

Okay.

And then third.

So like over to like East Avenue.

Yeah, actually. Lighthouse. Lighthouse.

And actually that's kind of outlined in the zoning code. There's a definition of like, what is the waterfront? And it's really what she just described. It's literally the middle of Cranberry Street. to East Avenue where the Land Lighthouse is. So the land that's past East Avenue, we get towards the old Hammer Mill site, that's technically not really the waterfront anymore because it's not on the bayfront. It's strictly on Lake Erie, although there's probably some questions about the development because the bluffs are over there as well. So that's from our current setting.

It's going to come right past the Dunn Brickyard down to where The lighthouse.

Yeah, you can actually see Wayne Park in the lower right corner there. So East Ave is a few blocks, it's a few blocks east of there.

Yeah, it looks like it comes up to third. At least that's what my eyes from this angle are telling me. Okay. All right. Great questions.

I think, I don't know, our weather is another thing that I think we have to consider whenever we're, you know, because we do have a winter time or so, like, We don't maybe have things that can still generate, you know, even when the weather's, you know, in the wintertime.

My carousel would be indoors and lift up the windows in the summer.

I think Kathy has a vision. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's got to be more of a seasonal revenue. Yeah, I think Kathy's been talking to somebody.

Got to be more of the seasonal revenue.

Absolutely. And that came up on the boards. That came up in a lot of folks. And I should also say, the consultant we've hired, they've done this other places, right? So they're factoring in all of the experience and insights that they bring. And the market analysis will hold some of that as well.

Thank you very much. Is there any other questions for Laurie on this one or anything else that we might go over tonight? We've got about 20 minutes before we go into our full meeting. I just want to kind of open up the mic.

I won't open up into a full thing on the committee reports, but we were able to. Kathy and I did attend the parking authority meeting. Okay. We had some interesting dialogue, and I believe they're committed to working towards some type of resolution. Okay, good.

That's great to hear.

We didn't get to speak with the new appointee, but... kind of introduced ourselves to the current board as its current composition, talked briefly with Attorney Marsh. His dad actually was my parents' attorney. And so I was pretty direct, but very kind. And there was no, I left little room for ambiguity. And it was kind of, I even had the opportunity to use some of the public's comments here.

I don't think they can hear you. I'm getting waved back here.

I even had the opportunity to use some of the, I didn't want them to hear. I had the opportunity to use some of their comments. Namely, I wish you all could see the look on your face right now, is what I told them. We had a little smile about it. I know Tom, I know Ken Gamble, and I know John Viola. I reminded them that we're team members. And I reminded them that although there was no MOU, you still were collecting on behalf of the citizens of Erie, providing the service. And surely, I know you want to make that right.

And so,

study session you're going to talk about they went into executive session and we were able to give them some compliments about some of the things i thought they were doing well talked about some of the security issues they have i made some suggestions about the department of justice and camp possibly seeking more interactive cameras I WON'T SPEAK FOR CATHY'S REPORT, BUT I WAS A FEW MINUTES LATE AND I WALKED IN AND SHE ALREADY HAD TWO OR THREE PAGES OF STUFF THAT SHE WAS TALKING TO THEM ABOUT. WE BREACHED THE SUBJECT AND WE SPOKE WITH THE MAYOR ON HER WAY OUT OF TOWN. She alerted us that she had in fact sent the MOU and they in fact received it and I believe that's some of the discussion they had. So we're interested in waiting to get back. Thank you.

Thank you both for doing that. That's very appreciated. Any other topics that anybody wants to bring up here in caucus? Anything that's on the agenda or anything we would like to see on the agenda? I'll get to updates. Um, We've got Article 112 that is with the solicitor and we'll have by the end of this week and then also have a few ordinances regarding SBCP and Citizens Review Board over to the solicitor to review. Being that we are a preemption state, there are a lot of rules that we have to follow and I don't want anyone to trip up on anything and to not create something that's a letdown for the community as a whole. So this has been a long, long, long process, but things are moving in that direction. And I'll report out more than that, but just to give you all a heads up that those will be in your inboxes soon to start reviewing. Well, I'm sorry.

Oh, go ahead.

No, I defer.

I just want to say thank you for your support about the post office. I wrote the letter, asked you all. We got unanimous support, so it's being sent out to the concerned parties. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for taking the initiative on that one, too, Kathy. Appreciate it.

I'm continuing to, I continue to receive calls and inquiries as to the status of the, and I haven't spoken with Rick, with Chief Lora about it. I just believe in letting people, giving them the space to conduct their investigation, but I continue to receive calls about the young man who was hit by the cruiser on the bike and the way that that was handled. So, truly noted. Thank you.

All right. Well, we have 15 minutes. We don't have to take up that full 15 minutes because we can reset, give everybody a moment to stretch because I think we will have a very busy evening. And then just for individuals who are coming in, and I'll say this again when we get there, because we have lifted to make more space, just know that noise carries. And it gets really loud up here really fast. So as people are coming in, if we're talking in the audience, it makes it really hard for us to actually hear up here. So you won't hear us and we won't hear you. We'll just hear everything because it's really bad acoustics. But I'll say that again once we start to get more full. But just so everybody knows. These aren't great acoustics in this room, so thank you.

so so Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. so so Bye. Thank you for watching. Thank you. so so so so so so

This is the first time I've been to a place like this.

This is the first time I've been to a place like this. This is the first time I've been to a place like this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. so so Thank you. so so

And call this meeting to order.

Roll call for the City Council meeting of Wednesday, July 17th, at 2026 at 6.30 PM. Council Member Titus?

Present.

Brzezinski?

Yes.

Flores is absent. Horton? Here. Hull? Yes. Shaw? Here.

Troop?

All right, at this point, we will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but first led by a moment of silence. As we stand, I would like for us to, I'm gonna mic pass here in a second, but to also acknowledge Ms. Noe Crosby, who passed away this week.

um thanks council president just want to say um as you're in the moment of silence think about our entire community because you see some of the things that are going on in our community um there's a famous song that talks about how people have a smile on their face but you never know what they're going through inside so just remember our community

I have a motion to accept the minutes from the Wednesday, July 1st City Council meeting and bills for payment on July 17th, 24th, and 31st. Council Member Brzezinski?

Yes.

Horton? Yes. Pohl? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Troop?

Titus? Yes. Yes. At this point, we do not have any presentations. I'm sorry, we have two presentations this evening, and I will go ahead and pass it over to the counselors who will be presenting.

I'm going to start with the Mercyhurst Prep baseball team and I'm honored to do this as a retired school elementary teacher at St. James. Many students have gone up there and I have attended many events. It's a great school. by Councilmember Ed Brzezinski, seconded by Councilmember Flores, Horton, Pol, Schaaf, Troup, and Titus on July 15, 2026, resolved by the Council of the City of Erie that whereas the City Council of the City of Erie wishes to pay a special tribute to the Mercyhurst Preparatory School Boys Baseball Team coaches and staff on their remarkable season culminating in a PIAA Class 2A State Runner-Up. finish representing the city of erie and the commonwealth of pennsylvania with honor integrity and determination whereas the mercyhurst prep men's lakers demonstrated exceptional athletic achievement teamwork, perseverance, and sportsmanship throughout the 2026 season, and compiled an outstanding 22-3 overall record, captured the District 10 Class AA Championship, and advanced through the PIAA state tournament with victories over Riverview, Fort Cherry, and Neshenauk to earn the first appearance in the PIAA baseball state championship game in program history. And, whereas the team's remarkable season culminated in a PIAA Class 2A state runner-up finish representing the City of Erie and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with honor, integrity, and determination, and whereas the accomplishments of the student athletes reflect countless hours of dedication, discipline, and hard work supported by outstanding coaches, parents, school administrators, faculty, alumni, and loyal fans. The 2026 Mercyhurst Prep Boys Baseball Team has inspired young athletes throughout the Erie community and demonstrated the values of leadership, commitment, resilience, and excellence both on and off the field. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the City Council proudly recognizes and congratulates the 2026 Mercyhurst Prep School Boys Baseball Team for its historic season and for bringing distinction to Mercyhurst Prep Preparatory School and the Erie community. We extend our sincere appreciation to whose dedication contributed to this extraordinary achievement. And we commend the team for setting a lasting standard of excellence for future generations of Lakers.

May I? Sure. Who can I have? We have separate certificates for all the ball players, if they would line up over this way. And as a treat, Mr. Crosby, would you come up here? I think boys would like to meet you. Then we'll honor you with that.

Thank you.

Thank you. How much time do I have?

First, I would like to thank everybody here. This is excellent. We're very proud of that. Our team had an outstanding season, obviously, this year. I started coaching Mercyhurst in 1996, and this is definitely the best team that I ever coached. So they went, as you stated, all the way to the final game. We did that through outstanding leadership from our seniors. If those guys can stand up right now, be recognized, great group of seniors here. Truly remarkable, the leadership and their skills on the field and off the field, just tremendous people and just a great team all around. Couldn't be happier. Our coaches were outstanding. All the hard work that they put in, everybody that it took to get this far. It's not easy to do in baseball, and they were able to overcome a lot of adversity. And like you said, they persevered through this to get to the final game. So again, congratulations to them and what they did. We've had a lot of guys reach first team all-region honors. We had some players all-state honors. That would be Hunter Cray and Zach Krzyzewski. Zach Krzyzewski could stand up right now. He was voted the All-District Player of the Year. I don't believe anybody's ever achieved that from EarthShare, so I don't recall one. I'm trying to get the final answer on that with Tom Reisenweber. He was going to be here tonight to present him that award, but he couldn't make it, so we'll get it to him another time. But fantastic all-around effort from everybody, and thank you all for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good luck next season. by Council Member Ed Brzezinski, seconded by Council Members Flores, Horton, Pohl, Schaaf, Troup, and Titus on July 15th, 2026, resolved by the Council of the City of Erie that whereas Cliff Crosby, a native of Erie, Pennsylvania, has distinguished himself through excellence in athletics, education, public service, and community leadership. Cliff earned a full football scholarship to the University of Maryland where he became the first member of his family to graduate from both high school and college earning a degree in family studies. and whereas cliff achieved the highest levels of professional football as a defensive back for the st louis rams and indianapolis colts earning the title of super bowl champion following his retirement from professional football in 2004 cliff crosby dedicated his life to inspiring and empowering young people by becoming a nationally recognized motivational speaker, young advocate, and mentor using his personal experience to encourage students to make positive choices, set meaningful goals, and overcome adversity. And whereas through his actions Create Your Tomorrow, ACT program, Cliff Crosby has positively impacted elementary, middle, and high school students throughout the East Coast, promoting accountability, academic achievement, leadership, and community involvement. Cliff Crosby has continued his commitment to public service by earning a master's level degree in psychology with a concentration in behavioral health and serving as an intelligence analyst, a captain for the trust powered by the NFL Players Association, a motivational speaker for care on treatment centers, and a dedicated advocate for the underserved communities. And now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we hereby recognize and honor Cliff Crosby for his exceptional achievements, steadfast commitment to empowering youth, and lifelong service to communities throughout the nation and if i may say something i attended a pals event a year or two ago and you were the speaker and you really had shared your story personally with everyone there and it was so inspiring thank you for all that you are doing

And I'm Lewis, the speaker. President.

Where do I start? I had no idea why I was coming here. I was driving here and I was like, where are we going? This is the police station. Why am I going here? What is going on? So I didn't know where I was going. I'm glad this moment happens right in our lifetime. You don't get a chance to get your flowers and get people honoring you and thanking you for your service and things you've done, right? I've done a lot. I'm exhausted. 51 years old, I've been in the trenches. I've been working with young people across the country. just trying to inspire them, right? And one of the things you left out was drug and alcohol prevention. It's just so near and dear to me because it's my story. It's where I come from. It's my community. It's everything that I see around my people and my family and what they struggle with. And when I drive up and down the streets of Erie, I always tell people when I visit Erie, It impacts me so hard that up until I reach Grove City on 79 is when I snap back into my normal self because I'm so emotional when I leave because I see my friends, I see family and people I grew up with and they're still struggling or in need and it's so, I'm one person, right? I can't fix everything. I have my lane and I stay in it and that's young people. If I can do something, say something, inspire them, give them a quote, give them some type of hope, that's the change, right? That's the change for me because I didn't have that person. I didn't have those people. I had people, but I didn't have a lot of people pouring into me. Some of those people are no longer here. Bobby Harrison from the JFK Center, man, he poured into me. First person that poured into me told me about college, told me about how to select the college, told me why should I go to this college versus that college. And I was like, bro, I'm just going to play football. And he was going deeper than I wanted to go. But now that I'm older, I understand why. Mr. Collins, who was my English teacher, hated Mr. Collins. He always made me use the proper words whenever I asked for raising my hand or anything. If I said bathroom, he said, no, it's a restroom. It's a bathroom at your house. In school, it's a restroom. And he would not let you go to the restroom if you didn't say it. And so now I get it, right? And that's the thing I'm trying to help young people understand. You might not understand it right now, but it's going to come a time. Where everything your mom said, everything your dad said, it's going to all make sense. And today, this all makes sense, man. I'm here for a football camp, and it's way more than football. It's way more than football. I don't promise them kids they gonna make it to the NFL. I don't promise them they gonna make it to college. I promise them that if they make it out of Erie, they can make it anywhere. And that's the promise. The promise is keep your head on straight, keep drugs out of your system until your brain is fully developed, and you got a chance at life. You got a chance at a great life. And that's what I teach young people. If you're ever wondering what I'm saying to them, that's what I'm saying. Until you're 26, don't put this in your system because your brain is not developed. And for me, I'm elated with learning, right? Deontay Cooley is in the front row. Man, one thing I can say about that guy, that's a smart man. i know me and him similar in a lot of ways because i see it you can give him a book right now he'll be able to recite it by tomorrow because i know how his brain works he's he's elated with learning and man as long as you want to learn you got a chance as long as you're interested in learning you got a chance and i tell young people all the time youtube university i don't care how much money you got you got youtube don't you i i changed my my syncorator the other day by youtube I didn't need to go to school for that. I'm not calling another man to come fix something that I can fix. And so for me, I just believe in learning and teaching yourself what you don't get from the world. That's how you get ahead. You got to pour into yourself. And it's one book that I want my city to read. It's the art of war. When you learn the art of war, you can get things done. Because being the loudest in the room don't always get it done. Being the quietest in the room don't always get it done. But strategy and being strategic and partnering with the right people gets a lot of things done. So City Council, man, thank y'all. for having me today. I watch you guys a lot of times more than y'all know, and y'all got a hard job. Y'all got a hard job. And Dr. Titus and Mr. Brzezinski, man, I love this guy. And I was disappointed too, right, when I saw that, man, because I look up to that man. That man taught me a lot. That man taught me college. That man taught me how to come to school and put my guard down. He taught me how to come to school and learn. I learned a lot from Mr. Brzezinski, man. And Mr. Brzezinski, you don't know that impact, right? But I just want you to know that it's there, that that impact was there and you made it. And you made it because you got time to learn me and understand who I was and what type of community I came from. I thought you was black for a long time. All right. And so he helped me, man. And I'll never, ever forget that. I'll never forget that. And I just want to let y'all know, man, anything I ever did, 814 was in my blood. It was in my blood. There was nothing I was going to do to embarrass this city. There was nothing I was going to do to embarrass this city. I felt like I had the whole neighborhood on my back when I left here. I felt like everybody was counting on me, looking to me, and they didn't want me to mess it up. And I said, I ain't going to mess it up for my city. Nope, you couldn't pay me to get in trouble. Because I said, nope, my whole city and my neighborhood is looking at me. People were inspired by me when I played. My family was a better unit when I played. So all those athletes back there, man, you don't know what you're doing to your family by being a part of sports and being in sports. It really does bring a community together. It brings a family together. I see people in the audience, Malcolm Pulliam. I just went up to him and I said, man, bless your heart, man. You're doing God's work. right because i don't want that job i don't want your job i don't want to do what you do but i respect what you do and somebody has to do it somebody has to do it and you're the right person and and to to matthias a guy that i i saw at my football camp seven years ago matthias stand up he went to one of he went to erie cathedral prep graduating but that kid right there is the reason i do my camp i remember the first time i met his mom and she said to me He wants to quit. He does not want to stay at the camp. It's the second day. He doesn't want to come back. And I went and had a conversation with him. And from listening to his mom, it changed his perspective. Right. It changed his perspective. And I told him to see it through. You start what you finish. If you don't got the strength to start it, don't to finish it. Don't start it. You start what you finish. And my family is going through a lot right now. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that. And everything in me wanted to be like, give up on this camp. But I was like, no, I got to start what I finish because it's bigger than me. It's always bigger than us. And we got to understand that the young people are watching and we all have a legacy. So just continue to remember what you want your legacy to be. All right? So with that, I'm going to end because I can talk all day, Ms. Shafe. I can talk all day. You know that. Mr. Horton, I respect you, and I got a lot of respect for the work you're doing in the community. And Mo True, a quarterback that I played with at Erie Central High School, I hated this guy when he played football. He was the big, strong quarterback. He was the best quarterback in the league. And so, Mo, I got a lot of respect for you and the work that you do. Keep posing the tough questions on social media and getting people to think. And just understand, I'm quiet these days. I'm quiet. I stay in my lane. But I see a lot, and I'm working behind the scenes to make things better for a lot of people. So thank y'all again for having me in this honor to be here. Thank you. I appreciate y'all. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry for disrupting the meeting. There's no more meeting.

council president do you mind if i say something real quick go for it um i just want to say to the baseball team um congratulations because you know playing sports myself i realize how hard it is to just to win one game you know what i mean um so to get all the way to the state title um i realize how hard that is my senior year in high school We got to the Western Final as a football team, and we played against LeVar Arrington. His team was North Hills. We played for the Washington Commanders and the Dallas Cowboys, different teams. They beat us by seven points. And we got down to the two yard line and couldn't get in. And they won the state title the next week. And I'm taking my ACT test the next week thinking about them playing in the state title game. So I congratulate you for going. And also, it was special to me to see one of my former players on the staff too, Tom Danius. When I was a young coach, JV coach, I was a fireball. And sometimes things would happen and I'd be so crazy. And he'd be like, coach, calm down. This is a high school kid.

do this do that coach this is what you should call and i would call it a work so i know you got a good guy on your staff with tom denny's congratulations guys thank you i get the distinct pleasure of being um the person to bring us back to very abrupt is there anybody here for a repository sale is there anybody here for a repository sale Is there anybody here for a repository sale? Seeing none. we will go ahead and move into public comment and as we start to line up we're going to have public comment you line up uh be our left your right make sure you're signing in on the front up here um and before we we get in i am going to use a bit of a point of privilege i know that we've we've had a lot we've done a lot of talking but i just want to say that um i I'm listening and we're listening and we're hearing and we can see the frustration and we're very aware of the disappointment and the distrust that's been voiced and that we agree with a lot that we've heard. And I just want to tell you plainly what's being done so hopefully we can speak to a couple of the things. I spoke to this in caucus. But currently, there are a few ordinances that are under review right now with the city solicitor, and we'll make their way back to council. That first being the Article 112, our rules of council that are setting clear standards of decorum for conduct that is expected from any elected official and how they carry out those duties and making sure that that follows with state statute. And the second being, we've heard many concerns, and we have for several years, around the Citizen Review Board and the potential of codifying the SPCP through an ordinance, an accountability that many, not only of you, that many of us here as members of council have asked for as well, and that there is work being done on that, and not just with the solicitor, but also with the administration. And so before we go into public comment, I just wanted to be clear on those two points, that we do hear you. I know sometimes people leave before we get to the liaison reports, so I wanted to make sure I said those two things out loud. So as we now open up, you will have five minutes. Please make sure you write your name, clearly state your name and your municipality. And then when we hear that timer, please just be respectful so that everybody has the opportunity to get through. And the echo is going to be very loud. So when we're in here, if we could just be mindful of how much the noise carries. And then the mic is yours.

Hi, my name is Michelle Dovershaw from the city of Erie. You brought up the SPCP. I feel kind of sideswiped about that because I received an email saying it was put to the side and put on hold. Then I hear about a meeting. So that makes me feel like the transparency that's being talked about is not there no more. Because you can't tell one person, I'm going to put you on hold. And then, hey, we're having a meeting over here. What are you trying to say? What is that saying to the people that actually want to make change within the city of Erie? The people that sit up till 2 o'clock in the morning, reviewing video, getting phone calls from family members of people at 2 o'clock in the morning. With that being said, when we talk about police equity, we are not talking about giving special treatment to anyone. We are talking about ensuring that every person receives the same protection, the same respect, and the same justice regardless of the color of their skin, the neighborhood they live in, their income, or who they are. That badge they wear represents a promise. It is a promise that the law will be enforced fairly, that officers will protect life, and that every resident matters equally. Police equity is simply asking that this promise be fulfilled for everyone. across our nation many communities continue to ask difficult but necessary questions about disparate disparities in policing they ask whether people of different races experience police interactions differently they ask whether trust has been damaged strong policing and police accountability are not opposing ideas they go hand in hand every officer who serves with integrity benefits when the public has confidence in the department. Every family benefits when their encounters with officers and residents are guided by professionalism, de-escalation, respect, and transparency. Police equity means ensuring that police policies are applied consistently. It means collecting and reviewing data to identify patterns and address disparities. It means providing ongoing training in de-escalation, procedural justice, cultural awareness, and constitutional policing. It means investigating complaints thoroughly and fairly, regardless of who is involved. And it means being transparent with the community whenever possible. Communities are safest when trust exists. Police are most, people are more likely to report crimes, cooperate with investigations, and report along, and work alongside law enforcement when they believe they're being treated fairly and respectfully. It also means recognizing that every interaction matters. A respectful conversation can build confidence. An unnecessary escalation can damage trust for years. That's what's going on in this city. I have gotten phone calls, I have seen it with myself. White people get pulled over for a brake light, bad tint, cop walks up and says, hello, blah, blah, blah, show me your stuff, you show me your stuff, here's your ticket on your way, or sometimes a warning. I have seen it with my own eyes. At 10.30 at night, a man was pulled over, a black man was pulled over, And they called it for the tent. It's dark at 1030. You can't measure 10 at 1030 at night. When this young gentleman said, no, you cannot search my car because you pulled me over for the tent. Give me my ticket and let me be on my way. And there is cam house cam video of this. He said, if you don't get out the car, I'm going to drag your ass out. He got out the car, still would not give consent for the search, so they have found it in their way to love to tow black men's vehicles. Tow them until they get a search warrant to search them. I don't know how that's right in any way, shape, or form. If I get pulled over, well, maybe not anymore, because I'd be standing on the wrong side when it comes to them. People deserve, and I've known of that happening three times in the last six months. Then there was another report, I don't know if it's confirmed, another person hit today by an Erie police officer. I don't know if it was confirmed, but that's what I was told. When does it stop? And when can black men, black women, my sons, be outside without worrying about the police?

Thank you. I DO WANT TO GIVE ONE POINT BECAUSE I THINK THAT I MADE, THERE WAS SOME CONFUSION ON A POINT THAT I SAID BEFORE WE START YOUR TIME. THERE WAS, WE DON'T TYPICALLY DO THIS, BUT THERE WAS NOT AN SPCP MEETING. THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED. THAT WAS CLARIFIED AT OUR LAST MEETING BY MAYOR DEVLIN AND I JUST WANTED TO REITERATE. SO IF MY POINT WAS MISCONSTRUED, THAT'S NOT ON THE ADMINISTRATION, THAT IS ON MY END. It is what I'm talking about is codification via an ordinance, not the SBCP. So I just wanted to clarify a point so that I didn't confuse anybody. Thank you.

Hi, Council. Erin Meisner at Eastside of Erie. I actually start off thanking the Erie Police Department for your handling of the recent homicide next to my house on 10th and Brandes. I spent a lot of time talking to police officers about how everything was handled. It was a very chaotic situation with children playing in the park next to the incident because it was broad daylight. All the neighbors are watching. I know whatever the police officers are doing, they're going to be criticized, but I really hope A debrief will be done to determine what was done well and what could be improved upon in the future. And my condolences to Mr. Torrance's family and friends. Thank you also for continuing your commitment to not working with ICE agents as they continue to wound and kill unlawfully. I do want to talk about the use of force policies in relation to Kevin Sparks. I understand both correspondence from Mayor Devlin that they're through correspondence from Mayor Devlin. There have been conversation with Albuquerque, New Mexico, as they have recently been discharged from DOJ oversight after 11 years due to excessive police force. I really appreciate the time to inform me of additional steps being taken. I'm reading the policies around use of force in Albuquerque. I think these ones could apply. Deadly force. Any use of force is reasonably likely to cause death or serious physical injury and includes but is not limited to deliberately striking an individual with a motor vehicle or using a pit on a two-wheeled or three-wheeled motor vehicle. When use of force, when feasible, department personnel shall allow an individual an objectively reasonable amount of time to submit to arrest or a lawful order before use of force. The department personnel shall not use force against a restrained or handcuffed individual except as objectively reasonable or intentionally target the head, neck, or throat with any force application unless deadly force is warranted. They also need to closely monitor individuals who are taken into custody for signs of distress and immediately request medical attention following any use of force or serious use of force regardless of visible injury or complaint of injury. And in regards to an ECW, post-use guidelines, department personnel shall always call medical services personnel to the scene to provide medical treatment. None of that was done for Kevin. Other changes to police policies include de-escalation requirements, police board review board, a civilian police oversight advisory board, and they have a policy that officers with non-use of force actions in the calendar year are reassigned. Not as good news. 2014 Albuquerque numbers, 170 use of force arrests or 0.7 use of force per 100 arrests. 41% of those arrestees were injured and 44% hospitalized. That's terrible. That's why the DOJ got involved. 2024 was the last year full data. There were 673 use of force arrests or a 5.2 use of force per 100 arrests, which is still an increase of 500% of arrests with use of force despite being no longer under DOJ jurisdiction. Injuries and hospitalizations were included in the 2024 report. The population of Albuquerque is 48% Hispanic, 37% white, 3% black, 7% indigenous, 5% Asian. The use of force arrests were 55% Hispanic, 20% white, which is about 50% less than the percentage of the population, 11% black, which is four times more than the percentage of the population, 9% indigenous, and 1% Asian. While I can't tell you if all of these numbers are statistically significant, what does suggest is that adherence to policy doesn't reduce the use of force, though it may lessen the degree of use of force, and in no way accounts for the racism associated with arrests and the use of force. this is one area where area can be innovative in our change making i'm asking at least two policy changes in the use of force sfv available for public review in the next 90 days which would utilize the doj use of force policy and the iacp's recommendations at a minimum and include discussion with policy experts from around the country also a concerted effort to continue to recruit more black and women officers to the force Lastly, to my LGBTQIA community, there is no queer liberation without black liberation. We can not only champion causes, that affect us directly. There would be no Stonewall without Marsha P., Stormy, and Ms. Major. We must stand together in unity with those who came first and spoke the loudest, not just for themselves, but for us as well. Hate has no place on city council, especially toward other council members. Apologize and resign. Justice for Cello, justice for Kevin, justice for Keith, Renee, Alex, Lorenzo, and Johan, and free Palestine. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Rick Label. I live in the city of Erie. I found it interesting that a certain council member brought forth these recognitions tonight. I had to chuckle to myself thinking that that was going to help him smooth everything over. But this is not my first time at the rodeo. I've worked in the corporate and business world all my career. what happened here a few weeks ago would not have ever been tolerated in a non-profit or in the corporate world they would have lost their job and my question is why the mayor's office and members of the city council have not demanded his resignation this should not be allowed he needs he needs to go He needs to go now. And the only people that are going to force him to do it are you. And I hope I don't have to come back here next month to say the same thing. Thank you.

My name is Mike Renssel. I have some photographs I'd like to share. WITH CITY COUNCIL. YES. AS YOU KNOW, I'VE BEEN HERE MULTIPLE TIMES FOR THE SAME REASON. I FINALLY GOT TO TALK TO A SUPERVISOR AT THE POLICE I told them what was going on. I told them a man with a Confederate flag basically told me I'm not allowed to rent to minorities, that my house got damaged, my property got damaged, that my minority tenants lost their home, other people on the other floor lost their home. And they said it was a civil matter, a guy chopping my apartment up with a machete and an ax and stabbing everything up. And I cannot believe that. It's ridiculous. I gave them the phone numbers of my tenants. There was no investigation. That's all. They said they're not going to do nothing about it. They showed up a couple times. They're more annoyed with me. And I come back and every saying, I wanted you to look at them pictures. That house could have burned down. The guy was ripping the wiring out of my house. If this was happening at a Gannon BOARDING HOUSE WITH A BUNCH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THAT. WOULD THAT BE TOLERATED? WOULD IT? OR WOULD IT BE ONLY TOLERATED TO ME BECAUSE MY LOW-INCOME TENANTS LIVE THERE? THIS MAN THAT DID THIS WITH THE CONFEDERATE FLAG, HE ALSO ROBBED TWO PEOPLE RIGHT NEAR THE HOUSE. THERE'S A CELL PHONE PLACE. IT'S CALLED METRO. He approached the worker there, kissing on the window, blowing kisses on it, acting perverted. He grabbed the guy off the bicycle and threw him on the ground and robbed him. The lady that works at the store witnessed this. He also robbed another guy right in front of my rental property, an elderly man in his 60s, grabbed him, threw him on the floor, smacked him in the face for $18. I don't know how this goes on. I talked to the police. His aunt and his grandmother and his whole family is willing to testify against him. The police wouldn't even call. He's even threatened to cut his own family up and place them in garbage bags and send them out in the trash. And the police do nothing. And these are all low-income people. And how is it a civil matter when a man with a Confederate flag damages an African-American woman's washing machine intentionally? Makes everyone move out. Tells me I'm not allowed to rent to the minorities. And the police do nothing. I had Dobrich come. He said there's at least $8,200 what he wants to fix. And then I brought a packet. I have talked to the district attorney prior. And they tell me it's not a civil complaint. It's a criminal matter as long as the damage is done intentionally. I brought a law. the crimes and offense code damage. It just has to be intentional. This guy intentionally damaged my property. I've been told I'm not allowed to rent to minorities. My nephew wanted to rent from me. He said, I can afford to rent your apartment. I want to rent to you. And I told him about the guy and he can't rent from me because you know why? My nephew, he has a black wife and it's not safe for him to live there. And this is I'm going to go to the federal government. I'm going to go to HUD Fair Housing. I'm going to go beyond the city here. The police have literally repeatedly turned their back on me. They did not interview any of my witnesses. They did not interview the woman at the store. This guy's free to terrorize and harm me. I had to sell my property because I can't rent that property to minorities. Just because of two guys... with a Confederate flag, a case of beer, and $50 worth of meth. And this is what it is about. The police do nothing. This is the ax this guy used to chop up my house that I called his probation officer. I called Erie County Probation. I said, I want to speak to this guy's probation officer. I didn't even know he was on probation, but he was. And they took a machete away from him that he was chopping my house up. He has repeatedly confessed to murdering somebody at the railroad tracks on 14th Street. I told the police this. They will not do nothing. I don't know why. My tenants are low income, and that's the reason I believe. This guy committed multiple felonies, damaging my property. 5,000. Once it's 5,000, it's a felony. it's over 8 000 the guy's in jail he i i can't even operate inside the city of here i've been repeatedly assaulted but by this the same two guys with the confederate flag can tell me i'm not allowed to go to church with minorities and nothing's done i'm waiting i'm waiting i'm almost wasting my time so do i go is anyone going to help me out can i i can't find one cop in the city of erie to do the right thing to interview any of my tenants or nothing They all turn my back on my low-income minority tenants.

I won't be able to do anything here from this. Mr. Renssel, you're in contact with the district attorney's office, right?

No, I did not. And what am I going to do when they come to my house and beat me up? That's what has happened. They come right to my rental property and assault me.

Because your time's up on public comment, I'll talk to you out in the hallway. Yes. That way you're not interrupting the flow of the comments. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Maryann McDaniels-Colesa. I come in from southeastern Erie County with a concern about how we are doing foreclosures. I have in my hands a sheriff's sale. I have a three acre property. It's not my property that's being held for sheriff's sale. It's my next door neighbor who died a horrible death with an illness. What I am noticing and I want to bring to your attention tonight is that when I took a look at the paperwork that I was served, that the deed itself is incorrect they are using information from 60 years ago so how in the world can you serve somebody the person they were going to attempt to serve would be by amount calculation 135 years old because i've had this property for over 40 years So what I would like to suggest to County Council tonight is that you approach, I'm sorry, Erie City Council, that you approach Erie County Council and say, I think you need to do a stop for 90 days until we figure out what in the world is going on. I called the attorney in Pittsburgh who's doing these foreclosures, I said, hey, I just want to give you a heads up that the property you're about to foreclose on and do a share sale in, an acre of it is my property. I have a three-acre farm. So I would like to let you know that what you're commenting on in the deed surveillance is very old. And I have paperwork. The recorder of deeds has paperwork. excuse me, on the fact that the property, that what they used, I said, I don't know if these people were very lazy, just didn't want to get the job done, but there are two more microfiches, if you will, that show the deeds that they didn't use, which are current. So I think we have a real problem here. And it broke my heart when I saw the young gentleman, and I think it was his grandmother, that were removed from their property. Because if they're doing the same thing to me, and I caught it, and I don't think I'm a particularly smart card in the deck, then how could they have been served? So I have to agree with this young man that I don't think it was handled properly, and I personally don't think he was ever served. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Thank you.

I was hoping I could get another minute because I'm a Mercyhurst grad.

Your timer hasn't gone off. Okay.

The only other thing that I wanted to say was I did speak to the sheriff. I believe that he is in compliance of what he's supposed to be doing with his job. He should not be blamed for what's going on because he's being directed by a Pittsburgh office The VITTI, V-I-T-T-I, I spoke to them and they said, well, you'll just have to get an attorney or you just have to get your land surveyed. I said, sir, I have documents here that show that was done like a year and a half, two years ago. I said, you don't have correct information on file. I said, I don't know if the person who was doing this didn't know enough to turn the page. But I believe there's a lot of low income. My life has been spent helping low income, elderly, and disabled. And I don't believe that they're being treated correctly. And I think they're being taken advantage of. I have another family that told me that when they called this office, they said, well, you're going to have to pay for a surveyor. You're going to have to pay for an attorney. And, you know, if you try and heirs collect this property, you're going to end up paying their car note that was repossessed. You're going to end up paying for their credit cards. And the people were like, oh, no, I don't want to get involved. I'm scared. Well, they're intimidating the folks that they're attempting that are low income, in my opinion. MAYBE NOT PARTICULARLY WELL EDUCATED BY A HUGE LAW FIRM THAT IS NOT, IN MY OPINION, DOING THINGS CORRECTLY BY THE BOOK.

GO AHEAD. I YIELD.

just for interrupting you. Um, most of, you know, I come from the county. Unfortunately, what you're speaking about here tonight has nothing to do with the city. It has everything to do with Erie County and the real estate and the prothonotaries, the recorder of deeds, and we hear the heartbreaking stories, and they move us, but this is zoning, refuse, parks and rec, public safety, and it's kind of hard. The only thing that really intertwines as far as that goes are that we're a taxing body, in the same way that the county in the school board is. There's been no other demographic who has lost wealth through losing property in homes. Then black Erie. But it's not a thing here for City Hall.

Well, I'm asking you to pass an ordinance to go to county council.

It doesn't work.

And I'm asking Dr. Titus, too, to maybe think about pursuing that so that at least you can give them a heads up from the city, hey, wait.

The city has, we have agencies here that we partner with that have franchise over all of that stuff that we do. It's called the Land Bank, the Redevelopment Authority, And so and we're you know, it's we want to help. But nor this is just a letter of support. And it's really, you know, I don't do County Council business now that I'm on City Council, and I don't expect them to legislate what I do on City Council and County Council. Now, can I pick up the phone and say, Hey, Mary and then just Colessa has an issue. Has she been over to speak with you? Well, yeah, but that's nothing. that me personally, that I was elected to do the things that really, really are pressing here at Erie, like the $12 million deficit and the looming pension crisis and the One Harbor Bayfront. And there's just so much stuff. And a lot of times when people come staying at that, I try to catch it all. It's kind of like drinking out of a fire hose. 60, 70, 80% of it has nothing to do with the things that we're elected to do. It has everything to do with our humanity, though. And I've taken the unusual step, and I don't want to set precedents in even answering a rebuttal because we don't do that here. We have rules of decorum. I get special permission from Dr. Titus to even entertain that, but when I see the human condition, Some things just, you know, demand or calls out for an answer. And I heard you very well when you said you were asking city council to propose a law or an ordinance or resolution, but that's not, when we propose an ordinance or something, that's a law. We're enacting law. And so that, we wouldn't do that. And so, but if you want to talk after the meeting, I certainly any of my county contacts over there, any direction guidance help that I could offer. But that's simply not a city issue. And and uh, and just in the full disclosure, I would not even support anything like that. They come here because it's not under our scope of work and it would be precedent setting and it really would be performative. And it really would be out of line because we pass ordinances and enact ordinances to legislate how people do in the city, not what they do in another municipality or legislative. Our ordinance has no effect on anything they do over there at Erie County. It has no effect on anything they do at school board outside of a letter of support or trying to help. But our ordinances are for city people. and for city residents, and for people who live within the confines of the city of Erie proper, but the other taxing bodies, we can't legislate anything that they do. I don't know if that helps you out or anything, but it's good to see you.

Thank you, I'm disappointed.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Rye Witherow, city of Erie resident. I've come today to call into question the very duty and nature of our city council. I ask this not in a fit of judgment, but from a position of sincere concern. It is to my understanding that a city council is comprised of elected public officials, the duty of which is to act as a local legislative branch to ensure policy building, infrastructure reform, and the safety of the community that elected them. It is also my understanding that they are to be informed by the community in which they were elected to best understand how these exact calls to duty, such as policymaking, infrastructure reform, et cetera, can be created. I call into question how exactly our current council is doing that. I reiterate, this is not coming from a place of judgment, but sincere curiosity. I'm asking for a creation of a transparency policy, a report or breakdown of the exact duties, responsibilities, and actions each of our counselors are performing to uphold their office, and if one exists, for it to be fully utilized, because the current liaison reports are not fulfilling that, nor are counselors who can leave mid-meeting without consequence. Because from my current vantage point, as a well-informed and active member of my community, I am not seeing this work. Time and time again, I see neighbors come to council with genuine concerns, questions, and needed actions. And time and time again, they are ignored. I do not expect council nor the mayor's office to have every answer. But it is exhausting to see hundreds of us call for answers or raise concerns to absolutely no response or actions. A recent example being when I create a petition regarding ICE and immigration safety within the city and county bounds. Over 200 people within Erie signed this petition along with laid out plans created by other municipalities on how to expand our policies around ICE, and that is both for the county and the city. A copy of which was sent to every elected person in this room. Only one of you responded. 200 citizens signed. You ignored it. I followed up. No response. In a previous meeting, we as a collective were told that we, the voting populace of Erie who lives and dies here, who loves it here, are not the boss of the council. I ask you, if the public you are serving is not who you are ultimately answering to, then why are you seeking a public servant position? We're also told that the use of public comment, which we are entitled to, cannot be the sole way we ask for change, that this platform is exhaustive and unsustainable. And I completely agree. I don't want to be here. I really don't. I have other things to do and so do you. But as a citizen, I have physically lost count of how many emails and inquiries I have sent you all individually over the years. Emails about police brutality, extreme weather, safety concerns. Over the course of the last two years alone, I've sent dozens, to which only two of you have ever responded to. Ever. And I thank you for your responses. The majority of you have never once willingly acknowledged or responded to any of our concerns. So what choice do we have but to come here? If you as a governing body truly serve the populace you claim to, show us. Change our minds. Quit looking at your phones and rolling your eyes. Look at us when we speak. You want us to respect your office, and I do want to respect your office, but some of you won't even look us in the eye or stick around. You didn't even stay here for public comment, and I'm saying that to the camera. If you believe I'm speaking out of term, prove it. Show us how you plan on supporting change and community need. This room is emptier than I anticipated or wanted when we planned to speak in, and I know some of you are preparing for a big show out. I can't tell you how many people I spoke to that wanted to come to this, that after the last meeting said they don't want to because, and I quote, what is the point? Our governing body doesn't care about us. They don't respect us. They don't see us. Why would I give them my time? They've lost faith in Erie and our governing body. And I can't speak on behalf of all of you, but if I was in a position of public service, which I love to do, and hundreds of people suddenly gave up on me, I would feel a very particular way about that, and I really hope that you hear this not as a call out, but a call in. We want to serve Erie together and better. And I'm asking, step one, answer your phones and your emails, and we'll stop showing up here. Thank you so much.

Hello. Caleb Brexton, City of Erie. I have to apologize. I'm very, very tired. I have just a few notes. I don't have a written statement or anything, but there's a lot that can be said. If we all had the time, I could be here for hours, I think. I first want to say a few things about the last council meeting that I was at, I believe about a month ago, the other PM meeting. I have to say some of the way that public comment was responded to after so many people expressed genuine heartfelt comments there was more disappointing than I think even the initial, some portion of the initial occurrence that, the way that some people did not respond to what happened. several meetings ago and I also want to just write the the record on a few points there I know that one of the council members for example said that well we had to pay attention to decorum well there's actually I hope I know that you all know this but you can ask at any point to be recognized so there's actually a something that you can do about that. So I know that the sort of bystander-like effect can be a real thing. So I have some understanding there that, but I just, I think it's important to hear, to be encouraged to act in the moment when you see injustice happen. And I don't think that decorum is more important than something like that. So I wanna say that. I also wanna say that I'm here for free. So I know there was some criticism about people saying, well, Oh, I don't like to hear that when people say I'm your boss, That does sound pretty rude, I have to say, but also I don't think it's a point. This was something that was a responsibility that was sought out. You accepted this responsibility, and so I would expect that the voices be heard in that moment for the people that you decided to represent. I think that it's also ridiculous that There is this little show of positivity for a council member that has since left. And I think that also needs to be pointed out. I also want to mention Kevin Sparks. I'm glad to hear that there's an investigation going on. I don't know how that will go exactly. I haven't been able to spend the time to pay as close attention to the incremental details of how that goes, but I do know that I saw the video and what I saw was brutal. It was completely uncalled for. I don't think that there is, unless the person that you're chasing down is actively a danger, that sort of occurrence should never, ever happen. If you can't serve a warrant or you can't arrest someone because they're running away, I still think that it does not warrant harm unless they are an active danger. I think whatever standards were used in that moment were really, really corrupt. So I hope something is done about the officers that were involved in that. So I wanna call about that. I also saw just a couple days ago, or yesterday, about how Christina Vogel and Daria, I know this is not something that is directly in your power to do, but I do wanna talk about it because I think it impacts all of us, went to some defense summit or something like that about bringing manufacturing to the city of Erie. And manufacturing is great, I think that would be wonderful. But not for war machines. Especially not... Especially not in this political climate. I think that putting a target on Erie in that way would cause me to leave the city. I think that it is incredibly dangerous. I think if we were in another country where we had a more reasonable defense department, I think it would be fine in a certain sense. Still wouldn't love it, but I would understand that there's a necessity there. However, we are currently in a situation where our government is being very aggressive in ways that are a huge problem. So, don't love that. I'm sure there's plenty more to say about that, but I guess that's my time. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Dr. Clayton Bradshaw-Middle. I reside in Erie. My pronouns are they, them. I feel like that's not necessary, but it seems important. So I'm a writer and an editor, which means I have a lot of experience with balancing shoestring budgets, especially as an editor. Sometimes people don't like to help you make the magazine you're trying to make. And so this week, I took a look at the 2026 city budget. It's on the finance department's website. Now, I have lots of thoughts. And I'm aware that the current mayor and the present composition of the council did not put this together. And so I'm not going to harp on what could have been. And I know the current mayor and present council will be working to develop something to address what people are saying is a budget crisis. But in the spirit of giving planning ideas through public comment, which is what this is for, I think, I do want to focus on the largest budget item, which is the police department. Of the $110,112,599 in the general fund, $43,455,665 are allocated to the police department, which is nearly 40% of that general fund. More than half the police budget is dedicated to salaries, mostly the salaries of police officers. Erie regularly ranks amongst the poorest cities in the United States when accounting for income and poverty rate. yet the salary of its police officers is in the top quarter of average police salaries in the entire country. And I'm tempted to say that maybe this demonstrates an extra level of professionalism in Erie police officers, but recent video showing the arrest of Kevin Sparks and other incidents in Erie's recent histories kind of demonstrate otherwise. And so I ask the council to consider, as you look towards the future and towards the next year, a few years, to consider police reform, to consider reallocating some of this police budget to programming that reduces crime through public welfare and social safety nets. And a 2026 literature review by Robert Apple in the annual review of criminology reinforces something we already know, this consistent evidence that social safety nets are more effective in reducing crime by eliminating the underlying causes, including poverty. In addition, social safety nets infuse money into the local economy. They bring greater degrees of prosperity to the community as a whole, which also increases the revenue that the city would have. And so on today's agenda, we actually see an example of an allocating of funding for the Erie Center for Arts and Technology, something that does, by its very existence, reduce crime by increasing opportunity, increasing education. Other social safety nets might include housing opportunities, especially for the unhoused. There's a vibrant, oh yeah, and rehab services. I saw somebody earlier involved in that, and that seems like another one to consider. There's also a vibrant arts and literature scene in Erie that could be expanded and invested in. You can look at North Adams, Massachusetts with Mass MoCA, Bilbao with Guggenheim, and the ways in which the arts have been used to increase prosperity, increase opportunity. You know, the arts give hope to the desperate and they give tasks to idle hands. And so there are far better uses for this money than high salaries in a bloated police department that continues to find itself in questionable circumstances. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name's Anthony Hazen. I'm a lifelong Erie resident, a real estate investor, and a taxpaying citizen. I come before you today to press a fact that you guys already know and understand, and that's that continuous rising taxes and fees implemented by the city are making rent prices unaffordable. And I believe it's having a direct impact with the decline in population and quality of affordable rental units available in Erie. Myself, as well as other real estate investors, feel providing good quality apartments at a fair rate is becoming harder and harder and will soon be impossible due to all these continuous hikes in taxes and fees implemented by the city. I know some may believe landlords may not care about providing quality apartments at a fair price, but I do, and I definitely know I'm not the only one. I believe one way to fix this problem before we see a collapse local people that are trying to invest in real estate in the city is to pay attention to other mismanaged money in the city like in the school district alone we have schools that are on the verge of shutting down while we're hiring new positions that didn't exist before and paying years worth of salary to people that are on a paid leave i ask that you all consider local people trying to invest in our city when you're making these decisions and that's all thanks for your time thank you

Hi, my name is Samantha Votto. I live in the city of Erie. I mostly was here to talk to one of our friends that has since left. He wanted to get his tears in, but then did not want to get his gears. So I don't really know what I am going to say to you guys. Really, it is I came last time, had something prepared, stood around with my friends in the back saying you know we were dissatisfied with how everything turned out what are we going to do next when i heard our missing friend say something inappropriate to a news reporter um i was not here at our last meeting because i work so i could not join scott mcdowell in calling out this behavior and really everything that scott said is going to be better than anything that i can provide you with But it's hard for me to understand this pattern of behavior. I spend my days as a behavioral health technician for adolescents receiving behavioral health care. So it's not often that I'm confused by where these behaviors come from. And I have guesses. I think being berated for several hours about how something you did was problematic, you find connection where you can. It was not effective. She did not respond in kindness. I think that there are more appropriate ways to find connection potentially in your life named Cheryl. Beyond that, I would like to share some information that I think you all might find helpful. Most of these behaviors that we don't like that are problematic are also just ineffective, especially when we are tasked with doing a job. So if we can't recognize the the culture of the room, that everybody in that lobby was against you and find that as an appropriate time to say something curt and inappropriate to somebody approximately 50 years your junior. I don't know how effective we are when we're in rooms with people who are part of this decision-making conversation I appreciate that there are going to be changes to the rules of decorum. I appreciate that you all are still here and that you are hearing all of us. And I really do appreciate that. Standing in that lobby, I recognize that it is difficult to call things out in the moment, which is why I stopped. I got my facts and I responded on Facebook. I told everybody that I could what I heard and that I felt it was inappropriate. And I urge you guys to do the same when something happens and you don't find the courage to speak up immediately. I recognize that it's very, very difficult because I was faced with the same task in the same setting. Yeah, that's really all I got. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Abigail Hanson and I am a new Erie resident as of this last year and I'm going to read a short excerpt. This will be brief from the service buried by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I've adapted minor language to suit the context of protecting Lake Erie. So mistreating a gift has emotional and ethical gravity as well as ecological resonance. For example, I'm thinking of a spring I know where the water is icy cold and gushes out of the ground. It almost makes you dizzy with its cold vitality. I drink from my cupped hands, splash my face, and fill my canteen for later. Isn't this how water was meant to be, free and pure? How long has it been since you drank wild water? It feels like a gift to me. The life of that water became my life and my joy in its presence. But if I mistreated that spring by polluting it or by damming up the water that belongs to itself and selling it off, the consequences would be an emotional breach as well as the ruination of the water quality. It's a gut punch to even imagine an individual claiming to own it. But that moral sense does not constrain an economy that views water as a commodity, property to be bought and sold. It seems absurd to me that someone could own water, a free gift that falls like the proverbial manna from heaven. Could you sell manna without spiritual jeopardy? I don't think so. How we think ripples out to how we behave if we view these this spring or in our case Lake Erie as an object as property it can be exploited as a commodity in a market economy. When something moves from the status of a gift to the status of commodity we can become detached from mutual responsibility and so residents support keeping the Bayfront primarily a public resource rather than further privatizing the waterfront land for exclusive commercial development. Public access to trails, parks, gathering areas, third spaces, fishing access, and cultural spaces should be prioritized over additional privatization of the Bayfront or public assets for private interests. Thank you for your time.

Hello, Council. My name is Todd Paropacic, and I live on the Upper West Side. I think I'm going to give you a softball one. I've lived in downtown Erie for about 10 of the 15 years that I've called this city my home. And it really does warm my heart to see many new businesses and opportunities popping up. The parks, the events, new boutiques are certainly encouraging. Despite that progress, downtown and surrounding neighborhoods remain a food desert. Many residents, especially those who live and work downtown or on the Lower East Side, must travel unreasonable distances in order to buy groceries or household essentials. For those of us that live downtown or on the Lower East Side, this is not a concept or a talking point, but a lived reality. The people we need to make the city's investment in tourism and culture a success, the young professionals, artists, students, families, they don't choose communities based on entertainment and access to a waterfront. They choose places where everyday life is convenient. It's a city. If household staples and healthy foods require someone to travel far outside the city center, then downtown still is not built for long-term sustainable living. I ask the city council and the city at large to prioritize attracting an affordable grocery store or supporting neighborhood scale grocery options through incentives, partnerships, and thoughtful zoning. If we want people to build their lives in downtown Erie, we have to make it possible for them to meet their everyday needs here. I'll cede the rest of my time. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Michael Butzkolny, Harbor Creek. So according to the latest reports, the mayor, county executive, and members of Infinite Erie recently went to a convention named the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit. This summit is described as bringing together America's leading defense and technology leaders, including senior military commanders, industry CEOs, investors, innovators, workforce developers, and entrepreneurs to accelerate innovation and strengthen America's defense industrial base, showcasing Pennsylvania's leading defense companies, emerging startups, and critical suppliers, creating direct connections with government procurement officials, prime contractors, and private capital. Where's any mention of the word public in this description? This is an actual quote coming from a speaker at the summit. We've got defense CEOs, tech pioneers, capital allocators, investors, and military officers. Let's look into the PA officials who's headlined this event. Senator John Fetterman, who's pro-genocide and aligns with neoconservative foreign policy. Senator Dave McCormick, Recent post of his states, the future of war will be decided who masters AI and autonomous systems first. David McCormick recently voted to integrate the Israeli military with the US military. To give you some perspective, Israel in committing genocide has killed 200 plus journalists, systemically targeted children in the head and vital organs, resulting in much more than 20,000 children being killed. along with hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in the Gaza Strip. Israel has also dropped the equivalent of 10 Hiroshima bombs on the Gaza Strip and has developed a system involving training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. This is 1% of what they continue to do. Mike Kelly. Jake Banta, a previous Blackwater mercenary. Josh Shapiro, who denies the genocide that Israel is carrying out on Palestinians, is documented by journalists on sending police to corral anti-genocide protesters and is in a photograph smiling while autographing bombs. Ryan Bizarro, who attended a lavish tech summit sponsored by Google, who recently visited Israel while they were committing genocide, denies that a genocide is taking place and is pro-data center. Google specifically is part of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract that arms the Israeli government with AI and surveillance technology that's being trained during the genocide of Palestinians and then integrated into our government and military apparatus. This does not seem like a just way to build ships in Erie, Pennsylvania. Let's move on to Infinite Erie, part of the web of unaccountable power brokers in this city. Here's some examples of Infinite Erie's messaging on shipbuilding project, which includes, one, quote, a region deeply engaged in the defense industrial base with $791 million in Department of Defense obligations. Two, it also states, quote, there are skilled trades aligned with shipbuilding and defense manufacturing. Three, it also states that Erie's inland location provides national security resilience. This is the same Infinite Erie organization who was involved with Washington Sales Partners, a consulting firm bought out by Genovar, who was found guilty in multiple bid-rigging lawsuits regarding projects similar to the one Infinite Erie is currently promoting on the Bayfront. I don't trust Infinite Erie, who is aligned with, and I don't think it should exist as an institution. Instead, there should be a deep investigation carried out into the organization and its ties to fraudulent actors. And any community project should be democratically decided by the community and publicly owned, not privatized. A survey does absolutely nothing. We have to talk about imperialism, the militarization of AI, and what it means not only for those abroad who are killed and occupied, but what it means for our community here at home and the acceleration of climate change. According to cost of war, at least $8 trillion has been spent on post 9-11 wars. And from 20 to 2024, private firms received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon. The U.S. has spent at least $3.4 trillion countering China militarily since 2012. We have 800 military bases. China has one military base. That's ridiculous. Harvard war budgeting expert Linda Blymes is now estimating that the illegal war launched on Iran will exceed $1 trillion in long-term costs. That's insane. The US military is the largest consumer of fossil fuels and the biggest polluter on planet Earth, and it's not even close. This is almost never talked about in the open and not included in reports. And it's making billionaires, defense contractors, private capital interests, and oil cartels billions of dollars. The World Wildlife Fund, who monitors wildlife populations worldwide, states that wildlife populations have decreased by an average of 73% since 1970. Freshwater species have suffered the most severe losses with an 85% decline. We live right on Lake Erie. Reports are now stating that climate change will result in temperature levels permanently rising as much as two degrees Celsius by 2030. This will result in an extinction level event beyond our comprehension, leading to freshwater resources being depleted and our environment being cooked alive. It's already started and it's already locked in.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Dan Noren and I live in Harbor Creek. Hello everyone, I'm new to this so I apologize in advance if I'm out of line or if what I say is out of your scope. I came here originally because of concerns I have about the accountability of our governing body and the law enforcement. Many people here have, have said a lot of what i'm feeling much better than i can these are things i care about a lot and the main reason why i'm here today but i can't say what they've already said any better so i'm going to go in a slightly different direction i keep being told that there's a shortage of jobs it's a topic i hear over and over again yet i look around outside i see litter on the ground i see potholes i see broken street lights broken fences cracked sidewalks I had a coworker from Ohio come to this city to assist me at a job, and he said, wow, Erie is so much more dilapidated than I remember. There is no shortage of work to be done. Some of these things are more difficult than others, but together we can do anything. Our government has an obligation to serve our community. Our government has the ability and capability and the responsibility to identify these shortcomings and address them. Funding is always used as an excuse. Companies like UPMC and Erie Insurance and others love to put their name on stuff. Talk is cheap. If they want to pretend they own this city, they can help pick up the tab. Maybe... Maybe we can erect another advertisement as thanks for their contribution. I see a Gannon plaque over there for their contribution. Why stop there? And if they don't, I'm sure that there could be some cuts made to the police budget. It seems excessive considering it's nearly 40% of the general fund. I am fortunate enough to own my home here, and I want this city to flourish. And we do not need a warships facility to give people gainful employment. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi. My name is Cole Shenley. I live in the city of Erie. So I have a few things to talk about, one of which is I noticed that there's a couple of absences. Now, one of them I understand. The person was not here at all. But the other person was here for a part of this meeting. And my understanding was that with protocol that unless there's like an illness or they're out of town or something like that, that they should be in this room and not in some other hidden away spot. So I find it very disappointing that they've left, especially knowing that people would be coming here to talk about their behavior. I hope that something can be done so that some clarification, I know you can't answer questions, but maybe during the committee reports, if some kind of clarification could be offered, that would be wonderful. The next thing I'd like to talk about is obviously it's been touched on a little bit was the defense contractor thing in Pennsylvania, this big convention. I understand that the mayor and the county executive want to bring money into the region, totally support bringing money into the region in various forms and trying to find innovative ways of doing that. I do not think that investing in A war machine is the way to be going about this and investing in getting money to come into our region that will be used to kill people abroad. I find that very disappointing. And I have a lot of respect for the mayor and the county executive, but this is a real disappointment for me to see them at this event begging for money. I'd also like to talk about what's happened locally with the police and the Kevin Sparks situation. And something I wanna highlight is that I know that it was brought up by the council president that things are being looked into, work is being done, the mayor's put out a statement, we're gonna be releasing some information soon. Totally respect that, I think that's great. One thing I want to highlight is that when we have these conversations around policing in this city, Sometimes we paint with too broad of a brush. All cops are bad or all cops are great. Fund the police, defund the police, all these kinds of, we can get into sloganeering. I want to say that anything that happens, we have to consider this though. We have a police union that is highly right wing. It has targeted multiple members of this council in the last couple of years. It targeted a member of this council on a topic that had nothing to do with them, simply because that council member made a remark about a certain group of political people. And I want to say that that council member then received multiple death threats, multiple attacks online. I know that even in defending her myself on social media, I received death threats and threats on my body. I don't know that any progress can happen around this situation so long as we have a police union that decides that they would rather take up with a president that despises a massive part of this population, despises immigrants, when we have so many new Americans coming in to this community. How can new Americans feel safe in this community when they know that the police union will not be supportive of them? You need to take that into account in anything you do, whether it's a citizens review board, whether it's looking at their budget. Please take that into account. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Emma Wolf, and I'm a resident of Erie who has come here concerned and angered about recent behaviors I've seen over the last few weeks. In my life, I have met and loved many trans people, including family. So hearing comments that were made to another member of council several weeks ago angered me and broke my heart to see. And as the older sister of a lovely trans woman whose mental health has been struggling due to acceptance from community, I came here to demand a better response and accountability. I also come here as a former employee of Erie News Now who was disgusted to see that a former colleague of mine had gross, awful comments made to them. I know my former boss came here, discussed a bit about it, probably better than I could, but I ask as someone who cares about my friends, cares about my family, that there be something more done. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Callie Paparelli. I live in Summit Township, but I work and spend a lot of time in the city of Erie. I want to touch on three things this evening. First, I would like to commend the community outreach survey that you guys sent out. I don't know who was in charge of that. regarding the city parks. I mean, we have beautiful parks and they're just kind of falling apart. The actual survey, if anyone did take it, it really demonstrates a serious commitment to the approval, to improving the quality of life and the well-being of the city residents, of the people who use it, just to the people who even live around them. Regardless of the demographic, it's something beneficial for everyone. So I really appreciate that. Thank you guys. But going off that, the survey itself, if I could offer a suggestion, the survey itself was really well designed. It was super intentional, super comprehensive. But the survey itself was written in language that is inaccessible to a huge majority of the city residents. If you've ever studied linguistics, took a class on that kind of thing, you'll learn about the term register, and it's the level of speech that you use. You've got frozen, which is like scripts and quotes and memes. You've got formal, your jargon, your technical documents, your academic language. Your consultative, where you're having teacher to student exchanges. Casuals, just the conversation. intimate, you've got your body language, your intonation things. Right now, this survey is written in language that's between formal and consultative, language that you don't learn until you are in advanced academic settings. If you are familiar with the Erie School District at all, if you're familiar with the statistics, you will know that on average, 20% of our students for going back decades ever reach proficiency in reading. That means these people who are graduating from our school district are reading at second, third, fourth grade levels, and the survey itself was designed for people with a college reading level. So all of these people were expecting to use these parks, to capitalize on these resources, literally cannot access or understand the questions they're being asked. On top of that, we've got so, so, so many ESL, limited English proficiency families. We've got about 12,000 people in this city who don't use English at home. How are they going to use these parks to their fullest capacity if their voices aren't being heard? because they literally cannot understand the request made of them. So going forward on that, if I could suggest, please, next time you send out a survey, maybe offer it in a few different languages. We have so many resources. dumbed down the language a little. It sounds insulting, but really it's what's needed when people don't speak that language. It's beautiful, but who it's designed for, did it hit the mark? If I could shoehorn in on the tails of that, I actually read some data this morning. The Erie School District, from 22 to 25, we tested 9,995 out of 10,076 school districts in the nation for reading. Math, we're almost dead last. We are doing very badly. We're trying to get better, we're trying to improve, but how are we doing better for our people when that is what the education system is providing for our kids? Another bit of trivia, you guys may never have heard of this. After the Gulag system in Russia, where primarily the intelligentsia, the people who were just passionate about education and sharing that education, they were sent to these Gulag systems. The economic prosperity of those regions was dramatically, dramatically higher than anywhere else in the country. So if we are testing dead last across the country, how can we expect our economic revival to ever happen? How can we improve as a people when we're not prioritizing education? How are we not doing anything with meeting people where we are or where they are? Uh, excuse me, I lost my train of thought. Oh, the warship facility. Do we need to be building warships if we're not minding our own business? Is that really going to bring us the most prosperity if we're sending We're sending our efforts to something that's going to go off and kill someone somewhere else. We need to focus on us. We need to mind our own business before we get involved in something like that. i did run into speaking of parks a couple of students this week who were very concerned with mckinley park why are the swings getting taken down why are the tennis nets getting taken out why are the resources the limited resources these kids have to participate in and enjoy their own city being taken away from them one of the students did come to a prior city council meeting and she said that nothing was done no answers were made they're still taking away the resources so If you could please find out, I would love to know. Love to pass on the info. And then how much time do I have? Seconds? Okay. If you have immigrants, neighbors, don't tell them not to get a real ID. A friend just got flagged who is a citizen passport holder because he was adopted.

Thank you.

Hello, Nick's Luna. I've been an Erie resident for over six years now. I moved here from Pittsburgh when I fell in love with the city. It made me feel safe and welcomed. But I also have to recognize that Because of the color of my skin, I experience a certain amount of safety that not everybody in this community experiences. which is why it's so important to me that council listens when the people speak up, because there's so many of us of so many different shapes and sizes, backgrounds, political leanings, who are still, for one, voting populists, but two, just people that live here and I feel very sorry for the people that live here when there are very serious matters to be taken care of, and it seems that council would not want to hear what the people have to say based on, like others have brought up, the previous meetings about a month ago and prior actions of certain council members. And speaking of certain council members, I notice, obviously, we have an excused absence, but I'm not speaking, unfortunately, to all of council, which I was hoping to do. And I would like to note that I am here shaking, feeling like every bone in my body wants to jump out of its place and leave my muscles a puddle of goop on the ground. But you cannot stop me from coming up here and expressing my views and I think that's very telling that I can be present for this in the middle of a panic attack, while we cannot have all of council present to hear the concerns of the people. I could go on about so many more, so how much time do I have left? Because there's two minutes. We've talked about the police brutality and the fact that not all members of our community experience equal safety. I cannot say anything better or more clearly than those before me, but I can add on that seeing the incompetence in the police department, given the amount of money that we spend on them, is sad and it scares me because this is who's supposed to be protecting us no matter what your views on the police are and we can't trust them to do that right now and that is only going to be made worse by the encroachment of flock cameras into the city of erie currently Apparently the flock cameras are at both Lowe's, Home Depot, the mall. I'm sure I'm missing a couple because I think we just started adding some at Penn State. Correct me if I'm wrong. is targeting, given those locations, a vulnerable population of day laborers, students from countries around the world, anybody coming off the highway on I-90 to stop by the mall or grab supplies. And those cameras allow unlimited access to information about anybody that passes by them. And if we let that continue it will be a detriment to the rest of our community.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Javier, and I've been living here for years and years, and I've been trying to bring attention to you about law enforcement and IRI police. I have videos of them. I went to court. I got charged for unlawful order and unlawful and recording them for 50 feet away. And I've been charged, and I'm going again against another trial because I have recorded in a mixed justice court public lobby that we are allowed to do A policy don't trump our rights. We have rights under the First Amendment to record government officials on their duties. And I've been having issues with this judge, and that's why I was recorded in the public lobby, and now the officer's charging me for unlawful use of recording. And for them to bring your attentions already, this officer's been doing already out here. He already had a federal lawsuit against him that he lost. Now, Officer Justin, he was the one arrested me for 50 feet away from him. He's the one that hit the guy on the bike. He should have been already dealing with it. But when I called the Attorney of Affairs, he said I should have been the one in jail. But we have to stop this because if we don't, it's going to keep going on. More lawsuits than what we could afford. And in the city, y'all don't pay for it. We the people do. We got to step up and start doing for the community. Because if we don't, this officer is going to kill somebody one of these days. He already ran somebody over. He violated my rights already under the First Amendment. This is not right for us. And I appreciate you all for listening to me today. And my name is Javier, and I go by Javier's News now on YouTube.

Thank you.

Teresa Imler, City of Erie. I want to start with a question, not expecting an answer, but rather hoping you will consider it during my remarks and those of my community that are here tonight. Why are you here in the seat you are in? And what drove you to seek that seat over those behind me? I've recently been canvassing, tabling at community events, and talking, but more importantly, listening. I'm listening to understand my community's relationship with law enforcement and government, how it works for them, against them, what they would like to see change, and what they need to change. We are speaking to them about housing and what they wanna see with new buildings, renovations, code enforcement. The event we will be at on Saturday is Amara Masala. Parade is at 11 and event starts at noon right here in Perry Square. This event speaks to my personal mission of community, inclusion, celebration of diversity, and reminds us of our commune, common humanity. Celebrations alone will not fix what ills our community, but our elected officials, law enforcement and civil servants can help by walking the streets, speaking and listening to what the city needs. Be creative. Walking recently, I saw neighborhoods with limited transportation, bulk items like broken AC units, tires, home debris, and no way to dispose of it. They don't have cars. They can't take it to the recycle. The city may have occasional drop-offs, but they're not able to get there and they're not well publicized. Take the cleanup to them. We cleaned two bags of trash just walking back from canvassing to the Booker T. Let them know you care. Let them see your face. Let them tell you what they need. If you don't want to, then vacate the seat, because we need people who share our common humanity. Mayor Devlin isn't here tonight, and I'm not attacking her, but she made a comment after meeting a month ago. about increasing law enforcement because of disruptive youth and the complaints from the hotels and the establishments around the public dock. What creative ideas were brought in before the law enforcement? Did they bring in people like Mr. T? I don't want to talk for him, but he's an amazing asset in this community. Why aren't we bringing in people like that to talk to the youth to find out You know, maybe they couldn't go to McKinley and play at the playground because everything is gone. We're taking things away from the kids, but we're not giving them an avenue to exert their energy at summertime. They don't have school, so they need something. So we're going to throw law enforcement on top of them, listening to the business owners and not to the community. We need to address the root of the problem. and not just appease the power and the business owners. And as for the police, when does Protect and Serve not have deterrents? We've seen a lot of events lately and specifically the one at the gas station that the police officers were already there. They were watching a fight at gas pumps. And instead of actually engaging with them, deterring them, stopping them, They allowed a gentleman to get run over. That's on the police. And personally, I think that they have a case against the officers. And I was talking to somebody while canvassing recently, and they told me about how their upstairs neighbors are continuously noisy. They've taken it to their landlord. Landlord says, go to the police. Police have even come to the house. Instead of even having a conversation, they tell them, can't do anything. Deter somebody have an adult conversation with people upstairs and say hey, why don't you start turning down the music before it gets too late? Why don't you consider your neighbors? Instead they'd rather use force and wait for something bad to happen Thank you

jared staszewski mill creek township specifically i would like to say that i was surprised uh that councilman brzezinski was here for the ceremony with the mercyhurst baseball team much respect uh for their achievement but that was definitely the wrong person uh to do that especially at the beginning of the meeting and uh dr titus could you tell me is mr brzezinski censured no why is he on video now and not in the chair because everyone if you look up on the screen right there you can see mr brzezinski on the camera and i don't think we should see him there either if i answer it's going to take up your time then we can talk after the meeting and i actually have some good news that i would like to share A $14 billion legal settlement with chemical companies that produce toxic PFAS forever chemicals that are widespread and contaminating water sources has money on the table that Erie Water Works could cash in on. This huge payout is there for the taking by water companies if there is any more than two parts per trillion of PFAS in the source of the water that they treat and serve. And this would be at no cost to Erie Water Works. They would likely be eligible for $60 million. They have not yet signed up for this free opportunity. And unfortunately, about $8 billion of the $14 billion remains unclaimed by water systems and will go back to the chemical companies if not claimed. Please do what you can to have Erie Water Works respond to attorney Mike Ewol, who recently contacted them to make sure they're aware of this settlement, which is separate from other PFAS legal settlements that they may have signed on to. So that's some very urgent information. There's only about two weeks left to get that money. So, uh, Ms. Shoff, I know you'll probably be at the meeting tomorrow, but that would be some good information to relay to them. And I would like to ask the mayor and all council members what I could personally do to help. A lot of people have accused me of being negative. And I love Erie. I'm obsessed with Erie history. I like Erie people. I like the diversity. I like how we're kind of crazy. But we get down and we help each other, and that is never more apparent than here. So if I ever come across as negative, I apologize. And if there's anything I could do to help anyone's cause, please ask me, and I would be happy to do that. So I would like to leave everyone some wise words. His name's Marshawn Lynch. Take care of y'all mentals, y'all bodies, and y'all chicken. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Cindy Treiber, born and raised in Erie, live in Edinburgh. Briefly, before I start talking about what I would like to address, if we are going to consider becoming a military hub of any sort, we have to have a serious conversation about our police force. Having lived on bases all over this country, I can adamantly declare that our force is not ready the diverse population that will come in that not ready we're not even ready for what we have beyond the badge those are the words that are displayed prominently on the first page of the erie city police department recruiting bat recruiting guide this guide assures us that trust runs deep that building trust is foundational and that policing is not just a job it's a calling Truer words have not been spoken. Law enforcement culture is unlike any other in our country, and it is a culture that should be rooted in integrity, as the recruiting guide also states, but it has seemingly become one focused on power and politicization versus people and professionalism. We must acknowledge that this culture, as it stands in Erie, is a problem for our communities. The very purpose of police should be to protect and serve. to protect the rights of the people they serve, not to infringe upon them, marginalize them, or devalue their basic humanity. The recruiting guide also discusses elite level training, skills, judgment, and confidence. These seem to be concepts that should be highly favored in our police force. Training policies dictate that officers must maintain proficiency levels regarding key enforcement tools. Being that this elite level of training is so important, can somebody please share the training course, grading metrics, mastery level parameters, frequency of recertification, designated instructors or field training officers that are authorized to not only conduct training, but also to sign off on training of officers to use a 4,700 pound vehicle as a less lethal impact weapon, according to the policies of Erie. less lethal impact weapon. So if we have to have training, we better have it on that. What certification exists that regulates training and deployment of quote unquote anything that might not normally be considered a weapon? Is there a brick throwing course, a lead pipe course, a construction cone course, Training standards must be synonymous with policies and we cannot function in a perception-based police state and be a community-based police force. We should have serious questions and concerns about what community policing means to the police versus what it means to the community. And by community, I do not mean the SPCP that was based on 70 people Out of 91,000 persons, 70 people made up those policies and were part of that study. That's .00076% of Erie. Policies dictate funding, training, public safety initiatives, and they influence our interdepartment cultures. Without policies that reflect best practices, we end up with what we have in here in Erie now, and that's a divide that likely resembles the egregious racial segregation that was identified in 1973 between the state, our city, and its mayor. Stanford has significant guidance on models of use force in 2026 that address use of force. Erie does not have a single policy on use of force continuums on the ladder of what needs to occur. How is that even possible? How is that even possible? 93% up from 29% of departments nationwide have specific policies on officers' duty to intervene. We clearly don't have much of a policy on that either, based on the video that we have seen of Kevin Sparks. Integrity determines how you respond and implement those skills. According to our recruiting guide, it's essential in our police force It demands discernment and judgment. And when we have multiple officers in supervisory positions that have multiple complaints filed by citizens who are named in multiple lawsuits and multiple settlements who are unilaterally making and implementing their own policies, we create a climate of disregard and dismissal for the very purpose of, but completely contradictory to the ideals of protecting and serving. What we do have according to this guide is confidence. We have confidence that we can use perception over preparedness. We have confidence that we can create our own policies where language does not exist. We have the confidence to man neighborhood action teams with SWAT members in full gear and assume that would be positively received by the community. We have the confidence to look at black life differently. This can be shown in the very easily identifiable settlements that the EREPD has paid out in the past 12 years. So if we want to talk about people's records, let's talk about this one. Of the 15 most notable controversial interactions, 11 have been with women and disabled, and more than half of the 15 have been with black people.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Dr. Suzanne Kuligowski, a citizen of the city of Erie. I've worked in nonprofit organizations and human services in Erie for 27 years. I'm the current executive director of Erie Dawn, which is a nonprofit in Erie and a leader in this community. The focus of my work and career has always been working with women and youth in the community. I have built my home in the city of Erie. I have attended higher education here at Gannon, and I'm highly invested in promoting justice, equality, and human dignity, humanitarian efforts for all. I just wanted to make a note. If anybody is interested in talking about ways to work on the budget, I would highly suggest talking about ways to cut budget costs by meeting with families, particularly women, moms, single moms, low-income families, on how to cut those costs because we have to do that every single day. So we would love to have those conversations. Additionally, I use she and her pronouns for any of the council members that would like to know that. But anybody else can call me doctor. I'm here to address the conduct and behaviors among leadership, law enforcement, and authority in this community. Unfortunately, I, like many others, have attended many city and county council meetings and voiced many great concerns of abuse of power, racism, bigotry, sexism, violence, homicides, bullying, and lack of transparency and leadership in this community. I am here again. We are here again, taking time out of our busy lives, away from our families, our homes, our work, et cetera, to address these concerns. It is my right to be here. It is your elected job and your privilege to be here. However, today, I am not simply here to just voice my concerns and exercise my right to freedom of speech. I am here to sound the alarm, your alarm, Wake up. Let's all collectively wake up. And maybe for a council member that had to leave a little bit early, let's talk about collective and the definition of that. So collectively means doing or considering something as a group, not separately. It describes actions, decisions, traits shared by or involving every member of a group rather than individually or acting alone. So let's wake up to the common themes held throughout every incident presented from our collective concerns. So that collective concern is we actually have, and this is something that has not been discussed, a very big threat of toxic male culture and patriarchy happening in this community. It's happened in our history. I know, it's a little bit sensitive of topic, right? Because there's a lot of males in the room. I don't have a problem with males. I have a problem with toxic male culture and patriarchy. So I just want to make that clear. So what does that mean? So toxic male culture and patriarchy feeds off of abuse, power, racism, bigotry, sexism, violence, homicides, and bullying. Patriarchy. a social system in which men hold primary power, dominant roles, political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. Toxic male culture, it's the rigid traditional cultural norms that pressure men to embody aggression, dominance, stoicism, while devaluing empathy and emotional expression. So why don't we just stop pretending that this is complicated? Let's stop choosing to overlook this in our own community. And let's consider the leadership authority and law enforcement demographics in our own community. These systems that have been designed in every community in our lives. However, in 2026, we need to take a serious look at these systems. Are they working for everybody? Is it a collective effort? Are they just benefiting a select few? Are these systems promoting oppression? Are they feeding off the vulnerable and disadvantaged? Are these systems of law and order truly protecting? Are these systems hurting people and our communities? Are these systems negligent and corrupt? I think we know the answers to that. So some of those protecting us are hurting us. Some of those leading us are not leading, but are in positions driven by agenda and ego. People are more interested in popularity nowadays, getting votes, being on a stage, having a microphone, being on a podcast. So who does that really benefit? And why are we allowing this? So here's the thing. Let's just put this into the spotlight. These injustices, the bullying, the violence, the disrespect, abuses of power, they are, again, the foundation and result to toxic male culture and patriarchy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dan Braman. I'm a resident of the city of Erie. I'm going to be continuing on a theme that was discussed by a previous speaker. Given these are the problems that our community is facing while officers are wearing the badge, I would emphatically agree we should be taking a serious pause and evaluate who our officers are beyond their badges. The complete indifference shown to Kevin Sparks with regards to the prison refusing specialist medical care being offered by AHN specialists and the continued disregard for the injuries caused by this police department is repulsive. The excessive force plague that has infected our home, including using weapons as first option on the use of force continuum, which are nationally recognized as deadly force tactics and the total disregard of community safety and hierarchy of safety needs in conflict resolution must change. Due to the concerns this community has regarding the implementation of perceived policies and life-threatening use of force by officers in high saturation neighborhoods that also house many of our newer Americans, please consider this a formal complaint that warrants 24-hour response regarding our certification as a welcoming city. A formal complaint will be filed accordingly. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Deontay Cooley, lifelong URI resident. A couple of different things that I wanted to talk about, touch on. It's kind of all over the place, but I mean, I know, Dr. Titus, you said something about decorum and working on things or whatever the case may be. So, like, I wish Andre was here because I kind of wanted to speak to something that happened earlier. But I'm noticing, Mr. Brzezinski, because I've been sitting here watching the whole thing. And right now, it looks like he's propped up in the recliner. I've seen him outside, sitting outside. It looked like he was ordering food or ordering a drink. And then I seen him take his phone. And it's three people hopping in the picture. And they all laugh. And I believe it was from the person who was addressing him for not being here. But that's just neither here nor there. But this gentleman is a representation of you all. You know what I mean? You all are a collective. And it's just starting to seem like there's no care from the city council. I'm glad that Jerry asked the question about the censorship because I thought that he was, you know what I mean, censored, but I guess not. And I don't want to know why he isn't here because, again, I don't want my time to be taken up. But then another thing that I would like to know is when you talk about decorum and you talk about the segment of public comment, what are and what aren't we allowed to talk about? What should and what shouldn't we talk about? Because I watched a lady here. I literally watched the life come out of her when you stopped her to tell her we don't handle things here. But it's like she was just asking for support. And if it's an opportunity for us to have a public comment, is it now going to get to the point to where you guys can't talk about certain things? If I want to come up here and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for my five minutes, this is a legit question. Am I obligated to that? Or is there certain things that me as an individual living in the city of Erie, when it's public comment, are there things that I cannot talk about? That is a question I would like for you to answer.

No, you're just not allowed to address anybody.

Okay, thank you. So if I'm talking about something specific and it's on my heart and I'm asking for support from my elected officials, in my opinion, I believe that I should be... This lady rolled out of here in her chair and she was very disappointed. It was very disheartening to see that. So I do want to make sure to speak on that. But even outside of that... One of my concerns with, because I know we all talk about how we love the Erie community and we're talking about, you know, the people with the housing issue, we talk about substance abuse, we talk about the unhoused, again, the unhoused community, but my question is, are we getting ourselves prepared for the crisis of the gambling addiction when these skill game machines have to come out of the places of the people who can't afford to pay that extra tax after 120 days if that is what happens. Because addiction is real. And addiction doesn't discriminate against anybody or anything. And a gambling addiction is a serious thing. So there are going to be people who may not have access to their skill games to get their fix. They may not have a ride to the casino. So now we might see more skin joints coming up in our neighborhoods or more illegal gambling activities or people who just want some money crime goes up you know dealing with some of those stressors more people are using drugs more people are using alcohol and there was a countdown it was 120 days I want to say a month ago I'm not sure where the countdown is now as far as the laws and things changing but I've been working I've been an addiction counselor for 12 and a half years and people can become addicted to anything when people are addicted to money people will do anything for money and then also there are people who run these organizations and these establishments to um And it's not to blame them because people are trying to make a living. So now what are we going to do about the people who have to go from having income of, let's say, $5,000 to $10,000 a month to now $0, or now they're in a hole because they have to pay them taxes. How are we going to help those people either sustain their lifestyles or teach them some different type of style of business help them deal with their addiction of money and spending, because now some of those people may have been sending their children to private school. Now they have to come to public school. Some of those people may have moved out of the neighborhoods to where they felt weren't safe, and now they may have to come back or be facing eviction notices. So again, I'm not sure if anybody has thought to consider this, but they're in the future, in the near future, and those machines were strategically dropped off in our neighborhoods because they're not past 33rd Street. You know what I mean? And if they are, they're in certain areas or in specific things. So my question to you all is, are you considering the epidemic of the gambling addiction and how it's going to impact our city once those skill games get law or whatever it is that they're doing? And they say, OK, you guys got to pay these fines. You guys got to pay these taxes in order for them to be here and people can't afford them. So now I can't get my fix on 22nd Street. I can't get my fix on 7th Street. Now, man, I need to gamble. Now I'm going to go to the bar, you know, because maybe the bar still has a machine in there. So now I'm drinking while I'm playing a game. And now a fight breaks out because you're at my machine or I'm waiting my turn and so on and so forth. It seems very far fetched. But for anybody who ever has struggled with any addiction or anybody who understands a gambling addiction, you understand exactly what I'm saying. And we all know how ugly this can get. So let's not ignore this because we're being distracted by so many other things. And let's realize and understand that there is going to be a population of people who will suffer here shortly. And we need to be addressing it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Julio Regis, California. I was not going to speak, but I got encouraged for all the people making comments. I have a big mouth and I'm always making suggestions. What I see here in it is like a total different dimension. I'm going to give you a couple of examples about how money and opportunities are wasted. I decided to go to the Great Eight Tuesdays at the Bay. People to be able to get in there, they make a line and the line was about at least 100 people there just waiting on line to get in, one hour to get in. The vendors inside vending, they could sell more money, they could make more money if people were able to get in and being able to buy things faster. Two people, two machines there, and then they open the bags, and then it's about maybe 30 minutes to get in. Sony, the music performing, and then instead of being smart, that's of course the port authority. But if people should have been smart enough, they should have more gates open, and then been able to move the people faster. Then you have about four guys, you know, I'm short, so they look to me like seven feet tall. You know, heavy set, whatever.

They should have women doing the screening.

They are faster and better. Okay? So that's one example. Just one example. ED, traditionally, watches the pennies and loses the dollars. Absolute waste of time. I went there, I enjoyed the music a little bit, and I just moved on. And I could give you another 20 different examples about what is happening. Now, what people forget about this forum and the whole city is we as humans are social animals, mammals. We imitate behavior. If we have a bad example, Most of the group tend to follow that bad example, what Dante was talking about. You start gambling because it's just fun, then it becomes an addiction, and then you don't have anything else to do. Another people was speaking that they were making troubles in the bay because they don't have parks to play. You should be smart enough to audit the organizations that are running away with money in the shelters where homeless people don't want to go because there is violence and there is drugs and there are problems. How do I know? I talk to anybody in the streets. Actually, I have a conversation with me in the mirror just to learn some things about what's going on. I talk with people in the streets and I ask them, why you don't go to this place? because there is a lot of violence. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be around people that have drug addictions and they are not treated. Why do I want to be there? I'd rather be on the streets. Now, I'm not saying that I am right. I'm just conveying the message that I get from the people living in the streets. Now, you are a forum? It only takes one bad apple to damage the basket. You need to do something about the image that you are sending to the world in every moment, because that's what you choose to do. So you are there, keep a minimum standard of performance, and if a bad apple is poisoning the basket, you need to get rid of the bad apple. In the authorities, In the nonprofit organizations, in the businesses, in the landlords, you only need to get rid of about 10, 15 bad apples, and then the problems are solved. Again, I was not going to talk about this because I talk too much. But believe me, I'm 72 years old and I've been told that I have good ideas. So just try to use the ideas. Follow what I'm trying to say. I'm not really that articulated, but I could tell you, you give me a problem, I will solve it for you for a nominal fee.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

is there anyone else here for public comment anyone else here for public comment anyone else here for public comment okay we will go ahead and close the public comment section passage council file number 16 621

Official ordinance 42-2026. An ordinance appropriating a sum of $189,868 from unappropriated and anticipated revenue and providing for the expenditure thereof. This is the 2026 Insurance Fraud Prevention Authority Grant. Sponsored by Councilmember Poole. Seconded by Councilmember Troop. The City Council file ordinance bill number 16621 and now known as official file ordinance 422026 be finally passed by City Council members Brzezinski. You gotta unmute. I see you talking. I'll go on. Horton?

Yes.

Pohl? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Troop? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

Member Brzezinski, can you unmute? Pardon me?

Yeah, yeah, I would just list it as abstaining. OK, because he honestly is. Something went wrong, so he wasn't able to vote, so it's not a no. I would call it abstaining. OK, just for lack of a better.

Ordinance. City Council pass official file ordinance 422026 finally by Yays 5 nay 0.

Did you hear my yes? No.

Were you a yes?

I was a yes.

Okay.

I'm muted now.

Council File Number 16-622, Official Ordinance 43-2026, an ordinance appropriating a sum of $405,899 from unappropriated and anticipated revenue and providing for the expenditure thereof for the 2026-27 Auto Theft Prevention Authority Grant. Sponsored by Council Member Pohl, seconded by Council Member Troop, that Council File Ordinance 16-622, and now known as Official File Ordinance 43-2026, be finally passed by City Council. Members Brzezinski?

Yes.

Horton? Yes. Pohl? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Troop? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City Council pass Official File Ordinance 43-2026, finally by yeas, six nays, zero. Council File Number 16-623, Official Ordinance 44-2026, an ordinance appropriating the sum of $500,000 from unappropriated and unanticipated revenue for the expenditure thereof for upgrades to the Erie Center for Arts and Technology, which is ECAT, to be completed as a subgrantee. Pass-through funding is provided from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, which is a RACP grant. Sponsored by council member Titus, seconded by council member Shaw. The council file ordinance bill number 16623 and now known as official file ordinance 442026 be finally passed by city council. Members Brzezinski? Yes. Horton?

Yes.

Pol? Yes. Shaw? Yes. Troop? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

City council pass official file ordinance 442026 finally by yay six, nay zero. There are no ordinances for first reading. So we will go on to old business. Sponsored by Councilmember Troop, seconded by Councilmember Horton, resolved by the Council of the City of Erie that pursuant to Article 7 of the revised zoning ordinance 80-2005 and a public hearing held by Erie City Council on Wednesday, July 1st, 2026 at approximately 9.30 a.m., in city council chambers the request to designate the former william and mary spencer house located at 519 west 6th street 16507 as a historic building be hereby approved and city solicitor is authorized and directed to prepare an ordinance to amend the zoning map to reflect such designation voting on the resolution members brzezinski yes Horton. Yes. Pol. Yes. Shaw. Yes. Troop. Yes. Titus. Yes. Resolution passes, yeas six, nays zero. Our second order of old business sponsored by council member Troop, seconded by council member Pol. At the Council of the City of Erie, the proper city officials are hereby authorized and directed to make a change to a prior resolution passed by Council on April 2nd, 2025, which incorrectly awarded roof replacement work to take place at Fire Engine 11 in the amount of $76,250. Such work will be carried out at Fire Engine 10 at a contract amount of $87,936 by Ferrell Roofing of Dunkirk, New York. the original amount was 76 250 a reflection to change the engine 10 contract 11 686 final requisition 87 936 there's a change order for the engine number 10 replacement project for an increase in scope relating to the additional findings regarding deterioration objection additional work for the project will be a cost of $1,967, increasing that to $89,903. Voting on the resolution, Councilmember Brzezinski?

Yes.

Horton? Yes. Cole? Yes. Chau? Yes. Troop? Yes. Titus?

Yes.

Resolution passes, yeas 6, nays 0. This takes us to new business.

At this point, I would ask Council to make a motion to move the balance.

Motion.

Second.

Are there any separations?

Any separations?

Contracts number five.

Any other separations?

No.

Any other separations? Voting to move the balance of the agenda.

Members Brzezinski?

Yes.

Horton?

Yes.

Pol? Yes. Schaaf? Yes. Troop? Yes. And Titus? Yes. Resolution passes, yeas six, nays zero. Separation is number five under contracts sponsored by Council Member Schaaf, seconded by Council Member Titus. The proper city officials are hereby authorized and directed to enter into an agreement with HHSDR 40 Shenango Avenue, Sharon, Pennsylvania for 1840-26 bid award for design services for phase two of the public safety facility for the Department of Public Works at the city of erie at a total cost of 720 000 discussion council brzezinski would you like to say something as this was your request to separate no i just want to vote no okay any other discussion voting on the resolution members brzezinski no Horton.

Yes.

Pohl. Yes. Shaw. Yes. Troop. Yes. Titus. Yes. Resolution passes, yays five, nays one. This takes us to committee reports.

Thank you. All right, we will start with our committee reports. I request that council be mindful that we try to stay within that five minute time and that we stay on our liaison assignments. We'll go ahead and start with Councillor Pohl.

I attended the fire pension meeting last week via Zoom. Police pension was also last week in person. The fire department had a couple deaths last month from retirees, so they were working at that. I attended the R-West Bayfront last night. They have a very good program started where at 811 West 7th, they took a blighted property and bought it and remodeled it through payment and volunteers. everyone that was there got to tour it and it was just really nice to see that and whoever gets to live there is very lucky and and hopefully they can do more and and that'll show other parts of the city they can you know start building up their their neighborhoods again and um As far as the rest of the comments from people this evening, again, I'm sorry you all think you have to be here to question us. I myself feel very strongly about this city. If someone thinks I don't care about it or I don't say enough, I'm new to this position. And all I can do is hopefully we'll get better in the future to help you out. We're not all perfect. And I'd be the first to admit that I am not a perfect person. But I can't. say what other people on this dais are going to do or say, or whether they'll be, if they'll live up to the expectations of the position. That's it.

uh dr titus thank you the only thing i'm going to report today is that i did i have nothing from my liaison roles to report tonight but i did receive a um email from uh mr witherspoon that i wanted to read to you he wanted me to report this to everybody if that's okay yes He says, I want to thank you and the members of City Council for your support of our youth, both male and females, who participated in the Spoons Summer Basketball League this year. As we draw to close into the season, I would like to invite you and members of Council to the playoff and participate in presenting the awards to the players and coaches. So he wants us to help out if we can when they have their awards ceremonies and things like that. He says he started the season with 162 registered, and as the season progressed, we lost some to travel teams and some to early football practice, but we remained successful in keeping the balance out of harm's way between the hours of 5.30 and 9 p.m. Our volunteer coaches from that community were outstanding. We didn't have the numbers that we usually have, but the coaches, we have coached two and three teams. They have different age groups, 9 and 10, 11 and 12, 13 and 14, and 15 and 16. Our program, City and Spoons, is very successful to the point a group of former Spoons players are currently trying to organize a 40 and over league, and they are serious about it. They have asked me to coordinate it, and I graciously deny the opportunity. It's time for someone else to take the lead. Also, the 17- to 22-year-olds, who are also former Spoons Leagues, are asking me to organize them a league. However, I am happy to work with the POW organization and Mr. Lytle, Hunter on the three-on-three tournament during celebratory We will continue activity at Bayview Park until the 30th of July please graciously share this report with members of Council and I did share this email Lori. I think I'd share with you if you would share it with counsel too. All right. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you Council Horton

I attended the Housing Authority study session and followed up the next week with their regular meeting, culminated with me attending the Erie Housing Authority pick-up, which was last Friday. I also attended the Blighted Property Review Board. They requested that a few houses be declared blighted, and we did so. Nothing really extraordinary there. The redevelopment authority meeting was canceled. The land bank meeting, I believe, was canceled. I attended the parking authority meeting along with Councilor Shaw yesterday, and we discussed ways that we could closer work together. to best benefit both entities. And we talked about some of the other new mean issues that we have before us. Um, I do want to say, I want to apologize because I know we don't really respond back. But I know that young lady, she worked for the county a long time and I just felt like I should really just be upfront and honest. There's a lot of the stuff that comes here, and I'm learning myself. It's a transition for me from human services to municipal services. The county's such a behemoth of services, everything from the library, adult and juvenile probation, the court system, Edmond L., 9-11 Center, intellectual disabilities, the library and a host of other things. Everything that affects a person from birth to death happens over there. We do zoning and stuff over here. Property, geography, property disputes the civil stuff. It's not it's not our job. And we would be wrong to start passing ordinances and resolutions to support citizens in that manner in what will almost assuredly end up in a court case. From what I could ascertain from her comments. The city council. It's different from County Council, it's different from school board. There are three different taxing bodies. We have three different missions. I love human services. We offer to support her outside after the meeting or whatever in any way that I can help. And I probably got a lot of county experience that will probably be able to help her. But here in that formal manner, what she was requesting is inappropriate to even be considered. I'm sure you all know that, but if you didn't know that, it's inappropriate for us to start trying to pontificate to other taxing bodies. It's been a great week. We've got a lot ahead of us. I'm excited about working with the mayor. I'm happy to tell you all that I finally... starting to feel better. Um, best I felt since February, just sitting in the seat. I'm still excusing myself with the 10 June. It was, I still have some issues, but I do feel better. Um, uh, just because we redirect someone to the proper place to go does not mean that we don't support them or won't support them or won't help them in the same manner that our solicitor said it's not proper for me to address that from the podium, but I will gladly see you outside. And I don't know about you all, but everybody in the city has my number. They call me from everything, from my kids need a job, you know, the whole nine. And I'm happy to serve. But the reality of the matter is my job is a city council legislator, and the biggest, most important thing about that job is going to hit me really, really shortly in the form of a budget. I'm excited about it because that's one thing I know I know how to do well. So thank you all.

Thank you. Councilor Schaaf?

Thank you, Dr. Titus. So Amir Masala is this Saturday. It's my favorite festival in downtown Erie. There's a small parade that goes up from 4th Street to downtown. Lynn Johnson does a great job with everything that is brought together for this, and I thank all the volunteers and helpers. And it starts, I can't remember exactly, 11 and then noon is the parade. And then it goes on maybe till 5 or 6. Check the information. But I have gone to this for many years. My kids went to it with me. They're adults. My grandkids have made... um things for it and have walked in the parade when they were here in erie and i am attending for several years now and it's great can't say enough good things about it Thank you, Andre, for mentioning that I was there with you at the parking authority. I addressed the issues that come up at Tow and Review Board at times. I met with Erie United, a small group of them, at the Booker T. Washington. We talked about housing issues in Erie. Ms. Pohl and I, this morning, met with the Landlord Association president and vice president, and we had a good, productive, with both the Erie United, myself, and the Landlord Association. So... I'm available. I'm usually not home more than I am home, if you know me. I go to things that don't conflict with family functions. So, you know, I'm there. Call me, what have you. I was at an underdog founders network this afternoon at 4 o'clock before coming here that was organized with Ashley Messenger, who is running the underdog barbecue restaurant on West 8th Street. and the help of the Small Business Development Center and There's a QR code. I'll hang this up or give it to the girl at the front desk tomorrow. Or Lori, maybe I can pass this to you. There is an event schedule. It's for people who are interested in having a small business. But if you have a small business, If you've had it for 20 years, 30 years, what have you. I learned something today that I did not know. A small business goes up to 500 employees. That's high. You know, I don't think that's small if you have 500 employees. Wow. But they meet once a month. This is just the startup. They're having a founder networking mixer, yada, yada. Every month, there's something. There's no cost. It's all free. it's like networking and talking and sharing ideas what works doesn't work what more could you ask I used to have the saying if it's free it's me you know it's good communication and the reason I go to places is because of that community so if someone's coming up with a conversation with me and is talking about small businesses with Black Wall Street. And I can say, Ms. Kyra Taylor, I think if I said her name right, You know, she's the person that, you know, it's like I can give people helpful names, where to go, how to navigate things. Sometimes I am not perfect at all, but there's always someone out there that knows and has experience and is a helper because we look for our helper individuals in this life. When I was little, we learned our community helpers are helpers.

Okay.

I also went to the same event that Ms. Pohl was at yesterday. And that was an idea from Seth Komar from the Episcopal Church. And he brought it to the Our West Bayfront. And the Our West Bayfront thought, hmm, now that's a good idea. He came up with the idea of a community rebuild house. And because the R West Bayfront is you know, progressive thinking. So at the time, three years ago, Anna Franz was running it and she was able to get those connectivity helpers, those community helpers. And then Starla Kokenauer, did I say that right? She was the interim after Anna, and then Gretchen Hess finished it, and she is with the Our West Bayfront now. volunteers helped rebuild that house money helped with the housing department was there and they mentioned all the other helpers and organizations that helped but there was a man named bren there and he and his brother-in-law really did a lot as well as that gannon girls basketball team had started it by cleaning it out and there were volunteers from the neighborhood and volunteers here and there but this man bren did 5,000 hours of free volunteering community service. How awesome and amazing is that? Some people get passionate about things and they really wanna help. Just like our boards and commissions, those people aren't getting paid. Okay. I was at 8 Great Tuesdays for the first two. Yes, there are lines. Safety for all measures. I believe it was the greatest amount of people ever at an event because they do totals. So it was a great night. I called up Chief Van Trot today. Thank you for answering my call when I heard from a phone call that there was a situation that was very sad about a baby. And I want to bring it up to the mayor when she comes back. And Chief Lentrot had mentioned that he'll look into that research too. It takes a village. It takes a community. We all need to do our best. No matter what side you're on, we can work together. Thank you.

Thank you. So the liaison appointments for myself, and then I'll go through some of the comments that we had and address and answer some of the questions that were posed. So the airport authority, I was out there last Wednesday, went on a tour and met with the director there, learned more just about some of the projects that they're working on, the funding streams that are coming through. We reviewed some of the seats that will be open and talked about the process that has been utilized in the past and the process that we're trying to implement now. and he made it very clear that it's he would like to be more a part of the appointment process because they've had some difficulties in the past where people get appointed and there really is this very specific skill set that is needed there and so he's got a seat that's coming up one or two that's coming up in the end of December and those members I don't think are seeking reappointment so we can we'll look to that They have a meeting, I believe it's next week or the week after, and so I'll have more to report at the next council meeting. With Erie Events, spoke with the director there. Their meeting is also next week, and I'll be meeting with them a couple days prior to get caught up so that I'm prepared for going into their authority meeting. They did want to give a shout out for the 8 Great Tuesdays that have been happening so far. Last night was the highest number they've had on record since doing 8 Great Tuesdays. And they were pleased with just how the event has been going. And he's shared that he's looking forward to the continued relationship and working to build an even stronger Bayfront. And he was very excited about the One Bayfront initiative as well. I wanted to follow up a little bit with what Councilor Schaaf had shared about the infant that was found and just make sure that we all know of the resource that in Pennsylvania we have a safe haven law and a baby up to the 28 days old with no questions asked as long as there's no harm and no crime that is being committed can be brought to any hospital in Pennsylvania to a police officer at a police station or any emergency provider at an EMS station with no questions asked. And I think it's important that individuals know that we have the safe haven law. It's on the Pennsylvania website, and you can look for more information there that we do have in place here. I wanted to also, last week I was at the local progress conference in Baltimore where it hosts electeds who are from municipal offices across the US. And we essentially talk about things that they're working on in their cities or in their townships and we share policies. And so there's some really brilliant things that are happening and I'm excited to bring some of those policies over here and ordinances for council to review. as we kind of collect those ideas, because there are things that are working, and I think that they could work here as well. To address a couple of the comments that were made, one specifically around, right now the rules of council, like what can be talked in, there is not a limit on topics, so that's within our current rules. and to explain the censorship process, as that has been something that's been brought up quite a few times. I think it's really important for individuals to understand that in the state of Pennsylvania, we cannot do anything as a governing body that would disrupt somebody's elected duties. There's nothing that we can do other than a censorship, which would also be a motion, a second, but also only hold place for that meeting, cannot strip any individual of their elected duties. their elected duties. That's state law. That's state statute. And so I know we have received a lot of frustration and I understand it. I understand what is being said. We can create rules of decorum and we can hold individuals accountable utilizing Robert's Rules of Order, which is what we use. But that censorship process is something where Someone would call for a motion, we'd second, we would then have to debate. That person would have an opportunity to state their case. We would then vote on whether to censor that person. But a censorship only means that they cannot talk for the rest of the meeting. They are still allowed to be present and they are still allowed to vote on every issue that comes up. We as a governing body, this chair has the ability to remove them from liaison positions, but that is the power in which this governing body holds over any other duly elected member. And I think it's important for individuals to know that. There was another question and I didn't write it down and I apologize, but I'd be happy to answer any other questions. But just know that we hear you, we are listening, and that there are things that I had mentioned in caucus and I had mentioned in the beginning that we are working on including updating Article 112 around the rules of decorum. AND ALSO WE ARE HEARING LOUD AND CLEAR ABOUT THE CITIZENS REVIEW BOARD, BUT PLEASE KNOW THAT WE IN PENNSYLVANIA, AGAIN, ARE IN A PREEMPTION COMMONWEALTH AND THAT THERE ARE LIMITS AROUND WHAT IS ALLOWED TO BE DONE AND WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED TO BE DONE. AND WHAT NONE OF US WANT TO SEE HAPPEN IS US CREATE AN ENTITY that does not live up to the standard of what is being asked and further erode any trust from any members of our community. I think that that would cause more harm than good. And so there is that is, you know, we're working with the solicitors. This has been something I've been working on for over a year to make sure that we're following what other municipalities have done and what when it has been challenged has stood up specifically in the state of Pennsylvania. So with all that being said, I will end my report here and I will pass it over to the controller.

Thank you so much, Dr. Titus. This is a lot to unpack tonight. But first what I want to say, and this is a break for me, Those who stayed around after public comment, thank you so much for staying for all of the comments and all of the meeting. You can say your piece and leave, but to me it's so important to hear everyone and to recognize everyone for all of the things that they have to say. So I appreciate the rest of you that are in the audience tonight. Um, what I will say is there's a lot going on in the controller's office as there always is. And I have my notes and I'm, I'm not a perfect public speaker, but as I always say, we're committed to working with intentionality and we're collaborating with well with all the other departments in city hall. It is just so important to me that we not only safeguard our taxpayers, but that we also work towards efficiency in our office. We're actively tracking market fluctuations for all of our pension plans, and we do look at that often. And we are aware that the pension is an issue, but not an issue. It's funded, but we're always looking at it. And this week, we met with the firefighters and the police regarding their pension funds. And we've also been working on several cost studies with regard to looking at saving the city funds. And there's more to come on that later. I have over 13 years experience in forensic accounting for pension and 401K plans, so I love a good spreadsheet. Sorry. And we work on following the money every time we need to, so we can adequately track the city spending. So I'm keeping my watch on all city expenditures. And we're auditing the bills every week, and I can report that the city departments are all being very responsible with their spending. And as I always say, our office maintains an open-door policy, and we are happy to help all departments spend wisely. And per usual, I give my staff, Kelly, Kate, and Meg, a shout-out for all of their excellent and accurate work. And I say, if there's anything any department ever needs from me, we are completely available all the time. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go over to the Chief of Staff, Ms. Lori Ratter-Spicer. I'm just kidding. We're going to go to the solicitor.

Well, she offered. I'm just going to say I have no report for tonight. I do want to say I was really inspired by Cliff Crosby, what he's accomplished, not an easy thing. And so I think that's something to remember and how he's giving back to the community. And I really think that's what everyone who's been elected, you know, down to Brooke and Lori and working at work, working together to improve the community. So I really think there's a positive inspiration for tonight's meeting. That's just my perspective. My perspective.

Mal, go ahead.

Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to sit in for the mayor tonight and just wanted to highlight a few items that she wanted to note and celebrate. So first, I want to acknowledge the July 4th holiday weekend, that that was a big success. It was the culmination of months of careful coordination and planning. with a number of partners and across departments. So shout out to the team and our partners to specifically the Mayor's Office of Community Affairs, our police and public works. I know traffic was a bit challenging, but we got through it and we're really grateful to the team for making that happen. And specifically want to acknowledge the July 4th Bayview concert that was in partnership with the Philharmonic. Anyone who made it to that would agree that it was a beautiful community event. The kids were out playing basketball and in the splash pad and just a really great demonstration of our community coming together and in celebration. So thank you specifically to Hunter Lytle and his leadership with Cafe and in special events and the Phil and our public works employees for making that happen for our neighbors. I also want to acknowledge some Public Works refuse employees who really stepped up and took care of a neighbor this week. I think this is the kind of care and attention that doesn't always get heard about but deserves to be acknowledged. There was a young person, a young resident who had pushed out an air conditioner from the window and made it outside and was kind of wandering the streets. And our team from Public Works were very intentional about taking time staying with them until the police could come and safely get them home. Just want to acknowledge the driver, Alex Yerkin, and our carriers, Donnie Burke, Dwayne Hemphill, and Tijon Island for just showing that love and care. And they could have just carried on with their days. I would reiterate what I shared earlier in caucus, that the One Bayfront waterfront planning process is underway and the virtual open house is open until July 17th, which is Friday. The parks plan is also still open for public comment through July 21st. So please do take the opportunity to weigh in on those plans. and want to name that the mayor's really actually specifically there was a Someone who's still here Thank you for your comment inviting Intentionality around speaking being out walking the streets speaking to neighbors and listening. I think that's essential to the way that we lead and to the way that the mayor's administration is trying to lead. That's been a priority in recent weeks. I know she got to pay a visit to spoons and spent some time at the pool with the youth at Roger Young Park this weekend. That's a huge priority for investment for the mayor right now. We're focused there and we'll also be, I want to let folks know we're doing 814 neighborhood celebrations in various neighborhoods in tandem with our Love Your Block. cleanups and the leadership team from the city so our department heads will be attending most of those to have essentially pop-ups where we will be out we will be connecting walking around listening and getting the chance to meet and answer questions so just looking forward to seeing you all there and I want to close by just turning to you all and to everyone on the cameras to say a huge heartfelt thank you for being here. I know that it is hard and it takes, I believe, generosity and courage and a love for your community to show up on an evening and speak at a mic and when your voice might shake and you may have a lot of feelings about why you're here. So I thank you for the love and courage and generosity you've shown. I think it's really important and a sign of a healthy democracy that we have this kind of conversation. So I hope that no matter how you may have left feeling tonight, you will keep showing up. Thank you.

That was a beautiful sentiment. And on that, I think we should go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

City Council adjourns at 9.32 p.m. Mr Brzezinski left the meeting.

so so