City Council - Regular Meeting

Councilmember Miller is not here this week. Unfortunately, just the way the timing worked out, I have spoken with Councilmember Reed, who's also not present right now, but he has confirmed he will be my seconder unless there's another person that wants to step up if Councilmember Reed is unavailable as well. With that, I can take any questions about the proposed changes.

Thank you, Vice President Schoen. And looks like we have a question from Councilmember Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Greger. Is this a time where we can volunteer to second that motion?

We don't have to actually move the item.

We don't have to move it till tomorrow. So it depends on who's here tomorrow.

Yeah, because they're not voting on it right now. But yeah, they had brought it onto our agenda together.

Got it. OK, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Werthmann.

Thank you, Council President. Council Vice President, if I could ask a question about this proposal. And that is, you mentioned the adjacency or adjoining CC corridors, commercial corridors, or industrial district. Just so I understand that, is it that the block needs to be adjacent, or does the property itself have to be adjacent? Do you know how that works, or would someone know how that works?

Thanks, President Schell.

I would call upon our city attorney to help answer that question. My understanding is that the individual parcel must, but I defer to city legal.

City attorney Nick.

It's an excellent question that I'll look into and have an answer for you tomorrow.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Any other questions from the council? OK. Well, we can move into the public hearing. We'll see if there's any folks that signed up to speak on this item. OK, thank you. So we have one person signed up, and that's Craig Reen, I believe. Welcome.

Welcome.

Council members, Mr. President, Craig Reen, 3014 Seymour Road. I'm here for the same thing. I've been here a couple of times already. I'm just asking to get a parking permit to park on my property. To answer the question that just arose, In my opinion, I'm adjacent to industrial. Anybody, the rest of the block is residential. So I don't think that should be passed because then you'd have a semi driving on residential streets and trying to back in or drive in. Where I am, I back in off of a truck road right across from FedEx on Seymour Road. So just to clarify that. One thing that came to my attention a while ago and it really hasn't been brought up other than the last time when you passed it, it was passed with no trailer. So a commercial vehicle, technically the truck itself, just the tractor part, is a commercial vehicle. But to be a commercial vehicle, it has to be able to haul commercial, industrial, or agricultural products. With my truck or any semi with a fifth wheel plate, the way the trailer hooks onto the truck, just the truck, I can't haul anything. So even though it's a commercial vehicle, it doesn't make any sense. To make it a workable commercial vehicle would need a trailer. So I could haul commodities, and that's one of the things that I need to clarify, and I would like to be able to apply for a permit so I could park my truck and trailer there. A little side note on that is, again, the city of Eau Claire is not truck friendly. Just from my house to here, I saw two trucks parked on the side of the street waiting for businesses to open up, 7, 8 o'clock in the morning. So they're parking there all night, leaving them around on a city street. One of the trucks was sitting in residential and I'm not, you know, they do what they do. I don't, you know, that's not me. I just am looking for the same thing, being able to park at my place. I agree with the 75% of, and I've already done that. I've got all of my neighbors have signed that they have no problem with me parking there. So that's pretty much it, you know, just being able to back my truck in there and park it there. And again, you know, as far as, maintenance was brought up, you know, the property or the sidewalk. The property's my responsibility. The sidewalk, I made my responsibility. I rebuilt the sidewalk quite a few years ago. I've been there 11 years. I've been parking there 11 years, didn't. didn't really know or not know whether I could, you know, it was legal or it wasn't legal. I guess I never thought to ask or maybe opted not to ask. Um, that's, that's my fault, but now we're, this is where we're at. So I would like you to consider all aspects and this isn't going to open up every street in the city of Eau Claire because there has, there's restrictions that I agree with that are brought up that, that, uh, Ms. Schoen and I, and we'll plan commission. We, last weekend and they passed it, so I'm just asking for you to follow the recommendations and allow people to apply for permits to park on a residential property off of a truck row.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Reed?

Okay.

Thank you for speaking. Anyone else in the council chamber, anyone else from the public who would like to speak? to this agenda item about heavy vehicle parking and residential zones. Okay. Well, we'll move on to agenda item number two, and this is under the category of public discussions. Public discussion on the 2027 to 2031 proposed capital improvement plan. And we have a presentation from our finance director, Kitsie Winters. So thanks for all your work on this and for joining us.

You're welcome. Good evening, President Greger, council. We're here tonight to talk about the 27 through 2031 capital improvement plan. We're having our first of three public discussions and we're gonna have two work sessions in relation to just the CIP. I'm gonna do a brief overview, project highlights and calendar. We'll go a little bit more in depth on some of those projects at our next public hearing and also work sessions. One important thing I just wanna explain, we have two budgets. So we've had some information put out there. We've had some work sessions on our operating budget. It kinda pays for the people that are doing the services or the utility bills. similar to your similar excuse me similar to at home a capital budget is more assets so at home if I have to issue a mortgage to buy a house or maybe a second mortgage to do a rough windows issue an auto loan for a car or piece of equipment that's a capital item it lasts more than a year it's more than five thousand dollars those are two separate budgets they do intersect but What I want to point out is they have two separate processes. They carry the same calendar year procedure. But one of the items I've heard or one of the questions that's came forward is if we don't pave that street, if we don't buy this item, if we don't maybe buy that police car, will that help with the $2.2 million deficit? What I wanted to get out there to the media and the public listening tonight is we will present a balanced budget to council. It's part of the statute. Our interim or acting city manager will present that balanced budget. So the two definitely, they intersect. But by not approving a street project or a fire station or a sewer project, it doesn't help us get to where it needs to be. But we are, we will be able to present you with that balanced budget. It's a normal process similar to other municipalities. Council will be approving the 2027 portion of this budget in July, and then it will flow into our operating budget this November. The rest of what we look at in 2028 through 2031 is a plan, but it's very important to look at those plans and look at those projects. I go out either five or ten years further than that, just to kind of know what's... what's coming forward and what we've pushed out a little bit further it's very important to ensure public safety so that's what we've been focusing on is the strategic goals of council number two provides safe functional and accessible infrastructure so we haven't really done anything new we're not building new parks we're not adding new items but we've been investing in keeping the infrastructure safe that we already have And I guess just to look online, some of the GFOA or government finance officer articles, we're kind of in the same boat with other municipalities. So infrastructure is a national issue. It's easy to push that off and say, boy, I'll buy those new windows next year. I'll buy that new furnace next year. But those items do catch up to you and you will see some of those larger scale items that we've addressed in the last five years. We've made some really significant investments into public safety, and again, continuing to make Eau Claire livable, lovable, and fun, one of our strategic goals. We do meet our strategic goals, and we meet our financial policies, so just briefly, it's important to have cash on hand, money in our savings account at home, money in our account here. We do have to have working capital, because we're primarily property tax funded, and those come in two waves, or two tranches. We have to have at least a 15%, if not 20%, general fund balance so we can keep and maintain our good bond rating, double A2, or excuse me, double A, yep, double A2. But it's similar to your credit score at home. The cost of issuing debt later on, if you have a bad credit score, that cost goes up to you. The same happens with municipalities. The proposed capital improvement plan is $305 million. Another good question I've received this year is, boy, does that mean my taxes are going up $305 million? How much of that is going up and what is your target on an annual basis? So what's important for the public to look at and the BDO to look at is, How are we paying for this? So I could have a billion dollar grant to do road projects or all these exciting items and it doesn't affect your taxes at that point. But we've got a good matrix of payments which you'll see on the next couple slides. We have about just over 60 million in projects. We have a lot of grant funding that's came into here. If you look back 10 years, our spending might be 60% higher, but our debt issuance is lower than it was at 2016 when you look at a snapshot of 2027. We've invested previously in PFAS, I know a lot with the water utility over the last few years. 2027, the primary focus is around $26 million of sewer projects, which we'll talk a little bit more about at the next work session with the directors here. So you have a $22 million project there. Then we have an investment in water, transportation or streets, which includes streets repaving, and land building and equipment. And that, excuse me, is in relation to safety equipment that you'd replace for police. or fire that can be your snowplow this street sweeper so a lot of different pieces of equipment there so your primary items or projects that you're focused on are in relation to community priorities So how are we paying for this? The state, one of our largest tools that we receive from the state is promissory notes or the ability to issue debt. We try to do that as a last resort. So we've maximized our federal aid. Beginning balance also includes some federal grant funding. We use cash on hand or general fund, which is 2%. Local vehicle registration fee at 2%. That has helped us with that $1.1 million. Do an additional mile of road each year for the last four years. So we went from 12.06 miles up to 15.02 with reconstruct, mill and overlay, chip seal, and micro seal. So it's extended the useful life of the roads, so that LVRF is a payment source there. Operating income, that comes from water, sewer, storm, so that is billed back to the rate payers. Two different items we're using this year, the Wisconsin DNR Loans Clean Water Fund Program, Safe Drinking Water Loan Program. Those are the the clean water funds specifically is in relation to the sewer project That's a 2.5 percent interest rate or half of the prime rate So to save the sewer utility user waters or excuse me sewer utility users funds and as we go through those large every-10-year projects. The promissory notes, you'll notice, are 31%, so that's general obligation debt, and a portion of that will be paid by fees, like parking fees, things like that, TIDs. Part of that does go towards the tax roll. We have around $82 million of large scale projects within this capital improvement plan. One of those with that clean water fund loan is the $22 million sewer headworks and disinfection project. That is in relation to influent, effluent, that's affecting the water that's moving into the facility down to the UV light. treatment at the end in replacing the chemicals that were used before. There is even those large, that $8.5 million project from last year with the screws that moves the Fluent through, we saved that one for economies of scale and kind of rolled that up into this one. So that is one of the larger projects that we can have the directors go a little bit further in depth on, because there's quite a few projects in one there. Fire station two remodel, built in 1941. That's one of the two oldest buildings in the city that is still under use. This one is... doesn't meet current standards in relation to safety with ventilation, does not meet ADA requirements, it is one shower, no elevator, no sprinklers, doesn't have separate quarters, no longer meets storage requirement, fits the current staff that we have. Once you remodel a certain portion of a building, it does have to be brought up to code, So the cost of remodel versus what it would be to construct new, those numbers are very close together. We can't compare this one to station 10 though, this is a different number of bays. So we'll get a little bit more in depth in this project. Currently we are proposing to fund $12 million of this and hopeful for another $10 million of congressionally directed spending that we'll apply for. If not, we'll have to address the CIP in 2028 to find the rest of those funds. TID 17 down by the old Gander Mountain or camping world. We do have that overpass. Dealing with all the different respective agencies, we're estimating that that would be 2028. We would definitely do that sooner if we can work through all the mechanics, but that's walkability access from the south side there with the multimodal overpass funded by the TID. Railroad safety improvements, I think we've seen this one for many years in the CIP. Even when I look back 10 years, it's still there. The federal funds are there. We're contemplating, and with joint review board and city council approval, looking for a TID district in this area that would potentially pay for the match on that. But at this point, we're not putting any city funding into that. Gateway Drive improvements, this is the first time we do an extra road project on top of the $5 million annual investment in roads. This would be from Target to Sam's Club, so for a little bit of traffic improvement in that area. And that's only if we do receive the STP funding as well, so that's why it's in 2030. Downtown parking we've been working on a lot. There is a one million dollar project in 2027 up to one million. We'll definitely do a cost benefit analysis there to see if we can push that useful life out again any further. We are working with the vendor of the hotel that that's connected to, and then we're gonna see at that point, demolition 2030, can we afford to replace with a parking deck, or what that will look like in the future with paid parking revenues in 2031. That one kind of changes quite a bit as we go, but we're still working very closely with the neighbors. So with that, there is our upcoming schedule. Acting city manager Solberg has added an additional public work session. So we are looking to assist council with amendments On up until June 15th. I mean, I'm always available thereafter But if they're submitted to us by June 15th, we can help you with the language payment sources And then those can be displayed online and at our next work session on June 22nd then we will have our City Council work session on June 23rd. That's when we're asking directors to come to so They would have more information for you on each individual project. Then you have, it looks like about three weeks in between there, I want to say. That gives time for your constituents to get back to you, give you feedback on those amendments or anything else they'd like to see. Then we'd be seeking approval of another public discussion and then seeking approval on July 14th. So with that, I guess if there's any questions, we'll go a little bit more in depth on some of the fun projects within there in 2027 and those fun investments at the next public session.

Thank you, Director Winters. Any questions from the city council tonight? Council Member Orth.

Thank you, President Greger. Thank you very much for the presentation tonight. I wonder if you could flip back to the multimodal overpass as I attended my neighborhood gathering last night, and I think that might have been one of the questions I was asked. I know you weren't planning to probably spend any more time explaining that, but a little?

Sure, I can say a little. It was intended to be pedestrian, I believe, as it started within our TID project plan, but I think it expanded in scope and desire based off of the DOT. They had a little bit of interest on also having that be vehicular as well. So I believe that is the story, but I know You might have a little bit of history on the engineering piece of that.

Sure. Yeah, that was exactly right. It started all with the TID that was created for this, and it actually goes well before that with a pedestrian connection because that's not terribly pedestrian-friendly going through the cloverleaf on there. So we've been... Slightly treacherous through there. But yeah, with the growth of Eau Claire in that area, both in this area as well as the housing development to the south, and there's an existing neighborhood further south, We, the developers of the sevens project donated half of the right of way for a, that would be wide enough for a trail for a pedestrian overpass, but the bridge was looking at being designed that could be a vehicular if we had additional right away in development for the parcel west of this. So it's ongoing. It's hoped that it'll be a vehicular overpass, but at a minimum it'll be a pedestrian on there. And potentially some, if it does, if we do end up with pedestrian to start with, we'd like to have the bridge so it could be expanded in the future if it goes vehicular at some point in there. But yeah, definitely a connection over the interstate though where you can get over to that side without having to go through the freeway part.

Thank you. So we have Council Member Mboga with a question.

Thank you, Council President. My question is I've been trying to look at this CIP conference. I don't see it. So can you maybe speak on the settlement of the PFAS? Because I remember we were given a $90 million settlement, I think 2020, late 2024 or last year. And I remember the governor, did speak about this settlement, which they put like $10 million somewhere. Then there's a hundred investment, million dollars. Can you speak that one? And that is related to our capital.

Sure, yeah, it's a great question. It's actually really exciting, because since I last spoke to you, we received an additional 3.5 million in principal forgiveness. So we did have around a $16 million bid for Myron Construction, I believe. We're almost to the finish line of coming online with that project. Multiple funding sources. So I believe it was Van Orden's office that contributed to our generator. Baldwin's office that contributed to our chemical room rehab. Then we also have the PFAS plant itself. We have ARPA dollars in there. And then the class action lawsuit funds, of which part of those have came in, part of the 3M, because those come in on like an annual basis until that goes through. I wanna say that's over eight to 10 years. We've received the other two respective settlements and just received Tyco. So we're pretty close to having the final figures for you. We have had a couple change orders, but we do have $7 million of principal forgiveness and we've netted quite a bit of that class action lawsuit off of the actual asset itself, which means we can keep the rates lower. We borrowed up to $19 million, and we're working through that. We possibly won't have to utilize all that. Thank you. We're very close to getting that to you.

We have Council Member Worthman with a question.

Thank you, Council President. Director Winters, if I could ask about the fire station. Just clarity on that. So in this packet, it talks about how it's either going to be a remodel or a replacement. Sure. Those are very different things and probably very different dollar amounts. And then how does that connect to the money that we put in for the remodel? There was like a limited remodel. I think that happened a couple years ago. That was maybe two years ago. Did that already happen? Or is that money still available? Yeah.

We have a pool of funding for rod, we like to say, to use on building repairs. We haven't invested anything in Station 2 at this point. We've started the architectural design to get a... get the actual quotes to you on what that would look like and how many bays. So the quote in there is for, I wanna say station 10 was five bays, station two would be eight bays. It would include storage, two mechanic bays, administrative offices, so we can kinda take a look at that. At this point, I don't think we're going to plan on remodeling. I think that decisions, Somewhat been made but again if we determine that we can't fund something like that I Guess that that decision could be changed in the future, but we would have invested architectural at the minimum we do have those Life safety issues though as it relates to decontamination and ventilation so we do have the ability of I believe it's Phi Bugle, the architect, to come in and give a presentation, but at the minimum I was gonna gather more data before the next session, just because our calendars haven't aligned, and be able to provide that too.

It makes a lot of sense. So just so I'm understanding, the goal is to put a new fire station on the other side of the Chippewa, but if we can't get the funding together, it's really important to do some remodeling of the living quarters and then of the safety equipment that helps firefighters clean off after they've gone to a site or pulling the emissions off the trucks out of that area. So those are two things that have to happen regardless of whether we can move to a new site.

It would be a substantial financial investment. That fire station was also built in 1941 so it doesn't accommodate the size and scope of the fire engines that we have in there and just with the with storage issues of just uniforms out in there with the fumes. There's so many different items that need to be addressed that it almost makes it next to impossible not to build something or add on to another station as well. There's lots of different options that we can give you.

Thank you. Council Member Brewster. Thanks, Council President Greger. I had a couple quick questions. One, when we were talking about the overpass expansion in TID 17 from being just a footbridge to multimodal, does that come with any, like, extra funding possibilities from the state or anywhere else, or is that just something that's going to come pretty much exclusively from the TID?

Well, we definitely appreciate the DOT as a partner. It's their desire to make that, you know, add that transportation piece of it. We'd like to see the funds come from them.

And then the other question was, I know Council Member Werthmann touched on it lightly. I wonder if you could speak at all to, as we're growing and we have a chance to move a fire station into an area that needs a little bit more coverage. Council Member Werthmann had mentioned moving it to the other side of the Chippewa. I'm wondering if you could speak to that at all.

It's in relation to response times. I guess I somewhat cut off my sentence earlier about adding on to a different station. We could add storage on to a different station. But in relation to response times, we did a full analysis of where your calls are coming from and kind of It reminds me of a protractor where you're drawing that circle around that dot. So we'll have better response time if we move that station across the Chippewa. As we expand and we grow outwards, it is something we evaluate, but we wouldn't be able to afford a new station within the next 10 years, just at our current growth rates and our current debt limits. So we are planning for that. 2031 and after, but that's kind of why we're required to.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Otto.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director Winters, for a very coherent presentation. My question is about the overpass along Galloway and a potential TIF. Just a big picture overview. As I understand, this idea originally came at the height of the frac sanding boom, and then since then, rail traffic is substantially lower. Do you know anything about the background of this?

Sure, I'm sure Mr. Solberg knows a lot more about the beginning of this, but yes, that's exactly why the federal funds were applied for, so you can continue with emergency services delivery at that intersection. I remember Station 10 and Station 2 were on that road. So, or Station 10 is just off that road, but you see a lot of emergency traffic there. It is still the desire of the railroad respective company. I want to say that was UP?

Union Pacific, yes.

Union Pacific, yeah. I just talked to Director Ness on Friday about that, and they still find value in investing those federal dollars at that location.

in in one of the um just to add like for the origin on that there were more frac sand trains going at the time that we applied for the grant for it but we're also looking at galloway street becoming a busier arterial into downtown and the more traffic we could put on galloway street uh the the more pressure would be relieved from birch street going through a neighborhood so we're really looking at having galloway street be the arterial into downtown to try to help the neighborhood along Birch Street. So that helped with the rating criteria and helped with the motivation to look at having the overpass. And then, as you see on the picture, you have two crossings of the railroad track. With the overpass, you eliminate the pedestrian crossing the railroad track also. That goes up and over the top, and then it comes down on the other side, so pedestrians don't have to stop for trains as well. It rated pretty high for exposure rate, which is the rate at which pedestrians and vehicles have interactions with railroad, that it was one of the few grants awarded that year. So just because the train traffic has gone down significantly doesn't mean that the rest of the Merit for the project necessarily has gone away as well, but it would be a it would be a policy call you know if budgets were tight to see if you know, that's that's in the best interest of the city at that time because our share is Probably about half of what a normal CIP would be for our residential street program that year for our matching share to this and we received eight million dollars of state and federal funds towards that so Thank you

All right, any other questions from the council? Okay, thank you, Director Winters. Yeah, obviously we have a lot more engagement on the CIP ahead, and part of that is public hearing tonight. All right, thank you. And we have one person who has signed up to speak, and that's Christine Casto. Thank you for joining us.

Good evening, city council members. There we go. My name is Christine Casto. I live at 483 Garfield Avenue in the Third Ward. I am the current president of the Eau Claire Figure Skating Club and wanted to speak a little bit about one of the items included in the CIP that was not included in tonight's presentation but is in the plan and that is related to a couple items associated with Fund 410 for Hobbs Ice Arena. I wanted to speak in support of the inclusion of the funding as presented for both planned maintenance, which is $150,000, and the undertaking of a feasibility study in the amount of $100,000 in the 2027-2031 CIP. Specifically, the funds for the maintenance, specifically critical maintenance, really speak to one of the things presented in the earlier presentation talking about maintaining current infrastructure, making sure that it is accessible and safe for community members. So that's an important piece. The other piece of this is the feasibility study of the current facility and the potential of developing a plan to look at potential for a new facility for ICE and to also support the other community programs including parks and recreation programs that are at the Hubs facility right now. The Figure Skating Club supports this because the study represents an intentional and organized approach to the discussion surrounding this major community facility and it is a much used resource and a community asset. Really deliberate planning for the ICE needs and other programs that the facility supports is really important for the future. In addition to just addressing what the needs are in the community in terms of ice needs and programmatic needs right now that could be upgraded with the facility. I think having a cogent and organized process to discuss that is really an opportunity to look beyond potentially what is needed right now or what we feel is needed in the next five to 10 years and to look at what could be. In addition to additional partnerships and opportunities for collaboration within the community, that right now maybe are not even immediately apparent. So I think it's really a needed step to continue that discussion with user groups that started a couple months ago with discussion of the operating budget as it relates to Hobbs, but also going forward for the Hobbs Ice Arena and this community resource. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Any questions for Christine? Okay, thank you so much. All right. Anyone else interested in speaking to this agenda item, the capital improvement plan? Welcome to come up if you wish. If you could please state your name and your address as well.

Scott Bolstead, 603 Katy Lane. Regarding the overpass on Galloway, If you can make that a more busier route, then good luck to you. I don't know what the traffic count is there, but it seems to me that a crossing gate would do the same thing. a lot less money now up may be in you know interested in us getting federal dollars to build this uh i'm just wondering if they're ponying up any money as well i see if they're really interested but uh and then my second question is if this is such a concern why isn't there a crossing gate there now thank you thank you mr bolstad um

We can certainly get back to you on some of those questions. That is a general question. Sure.

Yeah, thank you.

Anyone else from the gallery would like to speak to the capital improvement plan? Anyone else? OK. Well, thanks for engaging on that. Our next public discussion item is agenda item number three, public discussion on a resolution establishing absentee voting locations for the 2026 to 2027 elections. And presenting on this item will be council members Serrano and Werthmann. And then we'll go into any council questions and public hearing on that.

Council President. Council Member Werthmann, yeah. Thank you for recognizing me. I want to draw attention to agenda item number three and thank Council Member Serrano for supporting and helping to place this on the agenda this evening. I want to be very clear, I think. what this resolution does and what it does not do. I think that's helpful for our discussion this evening. What it does is it identifies a list of potential in-person voting sites for the 2026 in-person absentee elections. It identifies sites as you'll see listed in the resolution. Under state law, we have a June deadline that we need to act before if we wish to designate possible locations for in-person absentee voting. This resolution meets that deadline and preserves the city's ability to consider multiple early voting sites. What this resolution does not do, it does not mandate that all of these sites will be used. It does not pick a specific site, including any campus location. It does not override the city clerk's authority over hours, staffing, security, and final site selection. Those decisions would come later, if at all, and only after further council discussion and input and study from our clerk's office. I say this because the resolution includes a number of items, the packet includes a number of items that deal with specific sites and feasibility. We see this as an opportunity to not focus on that but to continue this conversation to see whether additional in-person early voting sites are feasible. This is something that other Wisconsin communities have successfully done and I know with collaboration and eau claire can do spirit we can provide similar opportunity thank you council president yeah thank you council member worthman uh council member serrano

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Council Member Werthmann. And I want to also recognize our city clerk's office for helping think through a lot of the potential issues related with expanding our in-person absentee voting, IPAV, in-person absentee voting, which is provided for in state statute. Yeah, my view is obviously in big support of this resolution in the context that it only gives us flexibility. It doesn't even say whether we will add additional in-person absentee voting. It doesn't say which sites, but it gives us the maximum flexibility at this point in time before the deadline to submit all of our current election day voting sites, which already we know how to set up voting at all of these locations and just adds them to the list, registers them with the state so that we can between now and August for the primary elections or between now and November or even later on into next year's April elections. It doesn't dictate that any of this would happen for any particular election, but it gives us that flexibility to be able to then consider funding staffing all of the all of the particulars with potentially expanding our in-person early voting right now our only in-person absentee voting location is here at city hall or it's it's an adjacent building actually underneath the fire station that we're talking about. And there are, I believe, in kind of first looking at it, there are some legal questions of how these state statutes are interpreted. But I do know that it can be done, and it can be done successfully and smoothly across Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, all of them have approved multiple in-person absentee voting locations and So I don't think there's any sort of structural or legal reason for us not to be able to do this and Yeah, it just I think my biggest reason and for being enthusiastic about this is our city is growing and as our city grows We really need to be thinking more broadly, thinking bigger about how we get everybody to be civically engaged in our city. We're making big decisions, big changes here at city council and council chambers, but our elections determine both our local representation and then our state regional, our state representation. So my view is... I'm encountering new people all the time in my neighborhood. We've got lots of new developments, lots of residential growth, lots of population growth, that we really be mindful about planning ahead for making sure that all these new people that come into Eau Claire find it an easy place to be civically engaged, to be involved. And voting is one very important piece of that.

Thank you, Council Member Serrano. And Council Member Boga, do you have a question?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Council President. I have got a lot of emails from Okay, residents. So I have a few questions for the movers and the city clerk. I would ask too, then I would just read that about the city council, then I would ask later. So I would like to ask the city clerk, have we ever had issues with when we have absent, in the person absentee pallet, in the in the hall here in the all of these there's a lot of this traffic jam all of these you know this they say demand is like appetite for more locations for absentees thank you for that question um

We since we've gone away from doing drive through in person absentee voting that's really eased up the traffic concerns that that particular way of administering voting was causing so now the. the benefit is we have a parking lot that's right next to our site with the accessible parking right in front of it so the majority of our users are more elderly and mobility limited so having that easy ease accessibility into the building or to be able to call us out is useful to the voters who are using it the most i haven't had any real requests outside of one for an additional site. And the only other request was from, I believe it was Power Up Coalition. They had asked if we'd consider doing a IPAV site at the Hmong Mutual Association. So at that time we weren't considering that for the same reasons that are in the staff report that I presented in the packet. So that'll be the only, only other time.

Okay. The second one then.

Sure.

So the second one is during the election time, do we have enough poll workers? Do you struggle to get enough poll workers?

So there are, in this particular case, there are kind of two different types of poll workers. We have our It's easy enough for us to find staff to do the face-to-face interaction with voters coming in. So greeters and directing people where to go, that part is easier. The challenge that we run into more often is getting poll workers to work on the computer side of in-person absentee voting. It's not like voting at a polling site where you can just go get your ballot and go vote. There's a more thorough process that they have to go through. So that part is a challenge for us. And it comes with other challenges, too. So there's people bring all sorts of different things to us. Sometimes those create, there's problems that we need to solve. So we have our election staff that are already here that are more specialized in using the state voting system called WisVote. So they're able to use that to solve a lot more of those problems. But when a problem arises with our computer poll workers, a lot of times they can't figure out how to fix it. And there can be lots of different reasons why there's problems. Oftentimes it's just user error, but then it gets stuck, and you need someone to get it unstuck. So that's when all of those problems go to our WISVOTE specialists who are part-time staff that work in the office around election season.

Thank you. And we have a question from Vice President Schoen. I'm not sure if you need to see it.

It might be a question for our clerk. Thank you, Council President Greger. I wanted to ask a follow-up question to something that Council Member Werthmann referenced, which is the time sensitivity potentially with this decision. I won't say I guess anyways I'm interested in the flexibility that this might grant us but I'm also just wanting to better understand you know why you know whatever deadlines exist you know how does that influence our decision on whether we should take this up now or take additional time to consider all of the different factors that are identified in the staff report just if you have any additional information about the timing that would be very helpful the deadline would be tomorrow

So it's a bit of a rush, which is why I try to include as much information in the staff report as possible to show the different elements of things that would need to be considered for us to actually be able to set up an in-person absentee voting site.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Brewster. Thank you, Council President. This is also a question that our city clerk could probably handle, hopefully. If I'm not mistaken, we do have other absentee voting sites. We have staff that go to nursing homes and things like that. Is that considered part of this program or is that a separate, a whole separate set of programs?

That's a whole separate set of programs. So that's our special voting deputies, and they go and administer our absentee voting at certain polling sites, well, certain care facilities that we've designated as ones that need to be served. There's statutory rules for how we make that decision. That's a very different process because everything gets prepared here, and then we have our special voting deputies go there and administer the voting then.

Okay. I'll go back to Councilmember Amboga. If you'd like to defer, I can go back to Councilmember Serrano. Okay.

Thank you, Council President Greger. I just wanted to make a point about the timing about tomorrow. That doesn't mean we have to have everything solved and figure out where we're going to do in-person absentee voting or anything like that, or that we have to figure out all the details of how we're going to staff it or the budget or anything like that by tomorrow. My understanding is for tomorrow is submitting the addresses to the state of Wisconsin so that they can be sort of potential absentee, in-person absentee voting locations. Is that correct?

Yes.

So really we're just giving a list of the 20 locations that are current election day sites to the state of Wisconsin for tomorrow. Thank you.

I did prepare more information if you would like it. Otherwise, I could deliver it tomorrow or not at all. It's up to you.

I think it would be great to hear more tonight. But maybe we'll hear from Council Member Amboga. Just any more questions.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Because I struggle with this one, you know. We want to, we have to not tomorrow. So how will the community react to us? Why are we doing things so fast? Why can't we give them time to tell them? This is what we're doing, please. It's a community engagement. Eau Claire does not belong to us alone. We belong to the community. So that's why I struggle. But my question is, can we have a budget program? Do we have enough money for this?

So we didn't have a February election this year, so we do have extra money in the elections budget. And depending upon the way that we would administer this particular idea, it could cost more, but we would probably have enough funds to cover it for what we have budgeted this year. Because of that, not having the February election.

So the last one. So can you speak to When we, if we, this thing passes, or how does the state statute say about this one? When can we, how can I say it? So like, if we allow the University of Eau Claire to have in the partial absentees. How does the state say about it? Is there a advantage? Maybe they are more Democrat, more Republicans and stuff. Can you speak about this one?

So point of order. Council President, point of order.

So you don't feel like that's a question?

Yeah, I don't feel like this resolution is dealing with specific. chosen sites, it's allowing further exploration of sites without any specific goal. So to me, that might seem beyond the scope of this current resolution.

Yeah, this is a pretty basic resolution in a sense. And there's more decisions to be made in the future that would

know have implications of that nature so i appreciate the question but we should probably keep it focused on the resolution uh council member serrano yeah my only remark was about kind of this concern that we're making this rash decision that's going to have big implications kind of echoing um that in fact this is just allowing allowing for possibilities for the future we're not making any decision about expanding in-person absentee voting whatsoever we're just allowing for pop for us to continue to deliberate and figure out if and when we we want to do it with if if we will uh even do so this just allows us that flexibility yeah um council member worth okay so yeah we'd be happy to hear a bit more uh uh kerner if you if you need a minute to prepare that's fine too okay prepared oh nice

So the concerns that we would have to address if you were to pass this tomorrow, before we were to actually set up a site and establish it as an IPAV site, there are a number of different things for us to consider. So we would have concerns regarding the statutory requirements and operational capacity. That will be true no matter where it would happen. One of the main issues for us is that establishing an alternative IPAV site would replace the one here. We couldn't operate here and there at the same time. So everybody in the city knows to come down to a city hall for in-person absentee voting, so we'd have to direct them to other locations. because we wouldn't be able to do it here while there was another site in operation. Additionally, we wouldn't be able to do any of the voting activities related to absentee voting here while the other sites were in operation. So if we were to have another site, it replaces the site here. So that means people who wanted to just drop off their absentee ballots would have to be directed to other locations. So depending upon the way we implemented that, that could mean if we had multiple sites at one time, we would be directing people to multiple different locations. Um, if we were to do multiple sites, but over different days, then they could go to the wrong place at the wrong time. Um, they wouldn't be able to, we're not even sure if we could have our absentee Dropbox in operation during those times either, um, as that relates to the returning of absentee ballots. So that's our major concern for how we would address that. And it is a major disruption to the way that we have offered our absentee voting services to residents. So the statutory guidelines, as I put in the staff report, say that it needs to be a site as near to the city clerk's office as practicable, which really does constrain the number of sites we could use. We wouldn't want to use something like CBTC Gateway because that's on the other side of town. So we would want to pick something close by. And then if you're picking something that is close by, you have to ask the question of whether or not it's worth the additional time, effort, and money to replicate what's already here at a different site. Additionally, as I mentioned, we wouldn't be able to do any of the functions of voting here, so we'd have to direct our residents to other sites, which could cause confusion. And one of the concerns we have, too, depending on this would be for any site, is accessibility. All of our polling sites are accessible, but some sites are more accessible than others and more easy to use. Right now, using the parking lot, we have parking right next to our building, single level, and they're able to move in and out. And as I said, they can call us out easily to come get them. Other sites are more constrained. So everyone who would need to vote that day would have to vote at whatever alternative sites we have. So if that's multiple sites at one time, they'd have to go there. Again, in the scenario where it's one site here on one day, one site at another place, everyone would have to be able to go and that site would have to handle all of that voter traffic on that day and still maintain accessibility for the building's use and for our use. And then no site can be designated that affords a political advantage to one party, so that would be something for us to consider. Some of our sites have a All of our sites, generally speaking, are more Democratic-leaning. That's just what the city is. The opposite is true of the county around us. But we'd have to be very careful about what site we chose to make sure that it doesn't afford a party an advantage. So with the proximity of the clerk's office, right now we have, like I mentioned, a parking lot that's easily accessible. And with handicap parking that's immediately available, we're near to the bus stop. And we're also near to the Day Resource Center for Homeless Voters. And because we're so centrally located, it's about equal time for everyone anywhere in the city to get down here. You have a question, or do you want me to answer it now or later?

Yeah, I guess. Is the reason that it can't be both City Hall and somewhere else at the same time as that because of state statute or because of the logistics?

That's state statute.

Okay.

Thank you. So currently we are able to provide the highest level of service here for a number of different reasons, but also largely because we have our elections office staff that are located here. So during in-person absentee voting, we bring in poll workers to help with manage the flow of people that come into the building but as i mentioned earlier our elections office staff are available to help so if we get backed up or anything like that we have an additional four or five other users who are here that can help at a site that would be distant we might not have that capacity so again to deal with the potential of having like a november election 800 or a thousand people at a different place or multiple places we would need to move our elections office staff but they're already doing work here during those times so it'll be hard for us to move them but while they're here when an issue arises they're able to go over when we get backed up they're able to provide assistance and then when they have breaks in their normal job functions they're able to do assist with IPAV. So we have more flexibility to meet challenges that arise when it's here. We'd have to replicate as best we can all of those things at any additional alternate site. And the more sites, the more we'd have to try to build that capacity there. Things that we would have to consider would also be setting up for IPAV requires time. So each location gets set up like a polling place. So we would have to have all of the components of a polling place that we'd have to move to each site, depending upon how we did it. So that would be pool booths, computers, which we would need to purchase, more label printers that we'd purchase, and regular printers that we'd need to bring. We also have all the notices, maps. The ballots that are unvoted would have to get transported there. We need ballot boxes for returning ballots, additional paper envelopes and things like that. So it takes us about two and a half hours to set up our site here, and we have everything on site, and we're able to work at it in the week before. To do this, we'd have to set it up either the morning of or the day before so what would likely occur then is we're adding additional work time so the easiest way for us to handle that would be to reduce the amount of hours we'd be open so instead of being open seven hours would be open five hours something like that again the service delivery we would have No functions could be done here. As I mentioned earlier, that means that we would have to make sure that we're messaging correctly to all of our different residents how to get to the sites that they need to be at. And if they were to be alternating or changing, depending upon how we decided we wanted to do it, we would have to be very clear about that messaging to prevent people from going to the wrong location. It already happens. but we'd have to be even more clear about what we were doing. And as I mentioned, we'd have to be prepared to deal with the amount of voters we might have. So in the April election, we had, um, around 200 to 250 people per day begin peaking at 536, um, with a hundred registrations. And then the last November election, we had 9,400 voters. with 1,000 a day, and we did 1,200 registrations during that time. So whatever site we would pick, we'd want it to be able to absorb that amount of voters at that time. And that would create more constraints on parking because in-person voting is slower than voting at the polling sites. Given our current staffing levels, operating more than one alternate site at a time would be challenging. and maintaining the current level of service, the easiest way for us to accommodate that would be to reduce the amount of hours that we're open, so that way we're not overburdening the staff. And if we were to establish that IPAV site, then the elections office is closed, and that could cause confusion and lead to frustration. I've already talked about accessibility before. The partisan concern that you raised would be that we can't have a site that gives favor to one party over another, so we'd really have to be careful about what site we picked. And then a solution to that is to pick more than one site at a time, kind of spread them out. That way there's a number of different sites going, but that runs into the challenge of geographic distribution the rule is it needs to be as close to the clerk's office as practicable so if we spread them out across the city then they're no longer as close to the clerk's office as practicable and depending on how we did it again if we did alternating sites on different days if we had a north side site one day then the residents on the south side have further to go which raises questions related to the fairness of doing it that way So as I mentioned here, sort of overlapping was that operating multiple sites means that we'd have to have multiple setups and multiple transportation times included into how we did things, which would require more hours of staff time. So again, the simplest way for us to do that would be to reduce the amount of days that we were open or to reduce the amount of hours per day that we were open. Additionally, we have The staff of the effect that have on staff so we're guessing it would take about five to 10 hours of additional work per site and the week leading up to the weeks leading up to doing it and during that week. So you have a elections office has one full time employee, which is the deputy the deputy already works 10 to 15 hours of overtime each week leading up to the elections during this time period. you have the six part-time staff members i mentioned they're also usually working 40 or more hours a week during that time so how you'll get another additional five to ten hours of work from people who are already working overtime is an additional challenge for us because those aren't the same as the pool workers you know we'd also need to have more pool workers as well And the more poll workers we have and the more sites we were to have, we would need more time to organize and schedule and make sure everybody's in the right space and we have the right party balance. So each additional site would probably cost another $640 a day in poll worker pay, plus the rental costs. So kind of looking at an average, that would be about another $1,000 a day per additional site, which wouldn't include the time for overtime for the deputy or the election staff, the cost of buying the new equipment, and the cost of transportation. And then lines, of course, because IPAV is a slower method of voting. So at sites where we have high registrations, it's even slower to register using in-person absentee voting. So we could end up with significant lines. The way to solve that is to have more staff, but again, more staff runs into those other problems we already mentioned. Additionally, the way to reduce lines both on election day and at IPEV is to have people register to vote ahead of time. So if we were at a site that had a high number of registrations, we'd have to have even more staff than we would normally have. And then there are some other risks for us to consider. So ballot security, potential to lose things, being misplaced, things getting lost in transportation. If there were, depending on how we decided to set up the alternate sites, frustration from community members regarding changes in times and locations. And then the staff on the current, they stress on the current staff. So that leads to issues with inconsistency of times and locations as well as things like if we have to bring in the Dropbox while we have alternate sites, then people wouldn't be able to use that. We do have a number of people who use that. So that would affect those voters as well. And as I mentioned, the simplest way for us to do it would be to reduce the number of days and hours that we'd be open. So that could cause other issues. and then we would need some resources, so transportable and secure ballot boxes, additional full-time or multiple part-time staff to aid in this, the nine additional laptops for like a thousand or so each, internet access, diamond printers, then the one printer for registrations, and if you had a site where there was a lot of registrations, you would need more of these things. So we've been directed to cut costs and find more efficiencies over the last several years, which we've done. Fortunately, we saved some money from not having the February election this year. So there is more money available. But this does increase the cost, the demands on staff, and the amount of overtime that we would have. So I think that, oh, and we've asked all the polling sites last week if they'd be interested. Currently we've only heard back from five. We have one yes, one maybe, and then three that have said no.

Anything, questions on that? Thank you for all of your work to explore this thus far. Vice President Schell.

Thank you, Council President Greger. I'll be mindful that tonight is the public hearing, and I think we maybe have folks in the chambers that want to comment on this. ask briefly or make a request for tomorrow and I don't know if this is a question or request of the movers or of staff or perhaps both but it'd be helpful to understand what other communities in the state are doing. I did do just a quick search as we were discussing and it does look like at least the city of Madison has multiple IPAV sites and so just anything you can share about how other communities in this state consider this issue would be helpful for tomorrow.

been able to talk to some other municipal clerks on this. They were the ones who recommended doing multiple sites at the same time in order to alleviate some of the concerns depending upon the geographic issues. One IPAV site here might cause. What I've seen from Madison is they do have, I think, 30 IPAV sites that they operate. They use their libraries. They also have quite a large number of staff to do all of that. They have like 12 deputy city clerks. So they do have a number of staff, and then they treat the position kind of like a seasonal position. so I think they hire a few hundred people to help administer their IPAV sites that way. Other cities that I've talked to, I was able to talk to Green Bay, and they do shorter hours as a way to alleviate some of the strains on them. I haven't been able to talk to all the other clerks yet, but those are two that I've reached out to, and some of the other cities that are also considering this around this issue around this time there's a few that primarily particularly want to do it so for all the same reasons that i listed above but those are those cities thank you Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President. I want to appreciate, again, all the, I think there are a lot of logistical concerns, and I think that's what you're bringing up. And again, kind of related to what we talked about before, it seems like the question before us really isn't, do we want a budget to do this, or do we want to... you know, enable and how many sites do we want to use. I don't, it's good to have that in the back of our minds. Again, I really have great confidence that we could figure this out. And again, I kind of want to, I believe there might be some differences of interpretation because these other cities, La Crosse, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, that do multiple IPAV sites also seem to be able to have City Hall be one of them. So I'm not 100% sure that, in fact, I am quite certain that it is the case that having multiple IPAV sites doesn't make it so that we can no longer use our election office as an IPAV site. So I just wanted to clarify that point.

we wouldn't be able to do it during the time that the alternate sites are open. And that would be the challenge if there are different timings. You can drop it off here from 3 to 5.

I'm not certain that that's the way it's working in the other cities.

All right. Council Member Orth.

Council President, thank you. Clerk Corner, yes. if we do adopt this resolution would you appreciate having the flexibility to be able to think through adding another site for in-person early voting we considered that last year and decided against it again it could be

That was based on what was available to us at that time. The deputy city clerk and I spent some time researching it last year and trying to consider whether or not it would be a good option for us. At that time, we decided not to, but we could reconsider it.

And then the resolution specifies that it's for this current year, 26-27. So I'm assuming that each year, if we go this route, we would have to do a resolution again before the June deadline?

Yeah, before that, this one would carry over through 2027, so then we'd do another one for 2028.

All right, well thanks for all the questions. Thanks for your presentation, city clerk. Obviously a lot of content before we even got to the public hearing, so I apologize for folks that had to stick around too long for that, but I'm sure that was helpful at the same time. So wanna see who has signed up to speak first. Thank you. So the first person on the list is Sam Liebert. Welcome.

Good evening, Council President and Council members, members of the public. My name is Sam Liebert. Good pronunciation on that. I'm the Wisconsin State Director for All Voting is Local Action. We are a nonpartisan voting right organization. Before joining All Voting is Local, though, I did serve as a municipal clerk in several Wisconsin communities, including the city of Monroe. the village of Sussex, and the village of Sherwood Hills. And also, just personally, my little brother just graduated from UW-Eau Claire, so fly right, blue golds. I'm here tonight to encourage the council to support this resolution, to give the clerk some flexibility in expanding in-person absentee voting opportunities here in Eau Claire. I come at this issue from the perspective of as a former election administrator, and when we talk about early voting locations, we're not just talking about voter convenience but we're also talking about good election administration. In-person absentee voting sites help spread voter participation across multiple days instead of concentrating it all on election day. That's good for voters, it's good for poll workers, and it's good for election officials like our clerk. Fewer lines, less congestion, and fewer last minute issues to resolve. It also helps voters overcome practical barriers. Many residents don't have vehicles. Some are balancing multiple jobs, athletics, other commitments in the community. And so bringing voting closer to where folks live makes participation more accessible and without compromising security or integrity of our voting systems. As a former clerk, I can tell you that early voting sites create opportunities to solve problems before Election Day. Voters can register, update their address, provide documentation, and ask questions ahead of time. And that's much better than discovering an issue while standing in line on Election Day. That was one of the biggest things that always broke my heart was when someone just gave up because they didn't have the proper documentation and then they just left. This gives people that time and flexibility. It also creates visible and accessible opportunities to participate. It helps establish lifelong habits of civic engagement, we've heard a lot about tonight, and also increases community involvement. I know some may ask whether the effort is worth it. From my experience, the answer is yes. Communities across Wisconsin have successfully utilized satellite absentee voting locations. These locations help meet voters where they are while making Election Day operations more manageable. At the end of the day, this proposal is a win-win. It improves access for everyone, helps our election officials manage turnout more effectively, and strengthens participation in our local democracy. I want to personally thank our city clerks and the clerk's office, our election workers, and this council for your service to the community. Election administration is challenging work, and I appreciate the time and consideration that you're giving this issue. I would respectfully ask for your support to expand in-person absentee voting opportunities here in Eau Claire and to give the clerk's office that flexibility to do so, and I would stand ready to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions? All right. Well, thanks for joining us.

Great. Thank you. Yeah.

Next on my list is Scott Bolstad.

Scott Bolstad, 603 Katy Lane. Good evening again, Mr. Chair. The way that I read 6.855, the alternate assentee ballot site, it's really meant for... If your clerk's office is not suitable for conducting early voting, or perhaps there's construction going on, and for a temporary time, they're just not available. But as a person who votes early in every single election, the facilities you have here are adequate. I've never had to stand in line. Just show up, and it's not as good as drive-through voting, which, by the way, is the only good thing to come out of COVID, but it's pretty good. Let's see. Okay. Reading here. The designated site shall be located as near as practicable to the office of the municipal clerk or Board of Election Commissioners, and no site may be designated that affords an advantage to any political party. I've lived here 20 years. During these elections, Republicans have never won a single ward in this city. Maybe that ward that just got annexed from Washington that's got four people. We might win that once in a while, but never during these elections. I did some computations here and just thought I'd share with you. I went to 2022 and 2024. You cannot go before 2022 because all the districts, all the wards were changed. So you got to stay within the current one. I did not do the spring elections, but I think they look very similar to this. Citywide, Democrats get 64% of the vote in this city on average. Spirit Lutheran, 74% Democrat. Lake Street Methodist, 69%. Eau Claire Children's Theater, 71%. American Legion, 62%. And UWEC, 76%. So to me, there's only really one spot on this list that looks like it might even be a candidate without giving an unfair advantage to normally who shows up at that polling location. In regards to doing multiple locations on multiple days, I'm telling you, you will stifle the vote. People will show up and it's like, oh, it's here today? I'm not going to do this. They're going to drive off and not vote at all. And finally, I was told, I don't know, I could be wrong. I was told that this came as a result of a petition from a group called Wisco Project. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I did some research on them, and there was a quote from a paper, I'm sorry, a website out in Beloit. that interviewed Katina Gulotta, 25, agreed to talk about her experiences while working with them and what she thinks could be done moving forward. When asked exactly what Wisco Project is and what its goals were, Gulotta said the Wisco Project is a 501 and 527 organization dedicated to mobilizing college students to vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. My final ask is, could we at least put on airs of being impartial on this council? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bolstad. Yes.

Any other questions from the council?

OK.

Thank you. My next person on the list is Charles Wilkinson. Welcome.

Charles Wilkinson, 602 Grover Road, Eau Claire. Thank you, Chairman Greggert and fellow council members for giving me the opportunity to talk before you. I did send an email, but it went out this morning. So maybe a lot of you were unable to get a hold of that email. So I'll just summarize that in my own voice. I've been an election inspector for 11 years, the last three as a chief inspector. And we always seem to be short of election workers. It's hard to get election workers. And adding another site to me exacerbates that problem by adding more people that we have to utilize. both people and cost we have $70,000 that we save because not having a Spring primary in February, but that doesn't happen every year once we get into this ball. It's going to keep going and it's going to cost more So there's the cost issue My feeling on the city hall, I have, since I do not work at the same poll that I vote at, I have absentee voted or absentee in person voted for the last 11 years. And I've gone to the city hall and it has worked excellent. I've seen a lot shorter lines there than I have at my personal polling place when I'm working. So it has been very efficient. And I think it serves the purpose very well without adding another one. It's good location for centrally located. And lastly, Electors can go, they can do most of their work online. They can register online. They can order an absentee ballot online at their own time. They can get that ballot mailed to them. Then they can mail it back postage free if they want. Or they've got a drop box right over here that's open 24 hours a day for either 30 or 45 days before the election to drop that ballot in there. How much more convenient can we get for everybody in the city to make a vote? We really have to... Emphasize the ease of getting an absentee ballot, registering, voting, and being able to get that back at your time and leisure. I do believe electors to exercise this right have a responsibility and have to have some initiative to vote too, and I appreciate that.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to bring my views before you.

Thank you. Any questions from the council?

Council Member Brewster. Thank you. Which side are you, Chief Inspector, at?

Bridge.

The former Baptist. Just wondering. Thanks.

Thank you. And I do enjoy working with the city staff in the elections office, too. They do an excellent job. It's a joy. They're our backup. They're our call people, so we appreciate that. Thank you.

Next on my list is Ella Jordahl.

Good evening, Council President Greger and Council. My name is Ella Jordahl. I have several UW-Eau Claire student testimonials to share with you today that speak to the desire for expanded early voting access for all residents. I will share those with you now.

I will be a junior this fall and some of the things that I'm involved with on campus include the poli-sci major, being a student senator, being a part of the Wisco project, and being an anti-suicide advocate along with research with the school. I maintain two jobs during the school year, and I'm a full-time student. With that, I'm very busy, and unfortunately, voting falls into my free time, which doesn't sound like I have a lot of, but I think the more access that we give to students, because I'm not the only busy student, the more access that we end up giving to students is incredibly important as it engages students with our local politics, and it can make more students like me who are grossly involved with everything, and I think that that would be a wonderful thing.

have one more testimonial to share with you hello my name is renee paulus i'm a junior at uw-eau claire and i live at 3130 el dorado boulevard and i belong to ward 21. in this day and age most people have multiple obligations including myself who attends work and school full-time early polling places enable people like myself to fit voting into our schedules more easily without having to sacrifice time at work time in class or time towards our personal obligations When early voting locations are available and closer to where people actually live, it makes a real difference. I don't always have reliable transportation, and finding time between classes, work, and everything else that comes with being a student can be really tough. Having a nearby flexible option means I don't have to stress about making it to the polls on election day when my schedule is at most unpredictable. Expanding early vote access isn't about making things easier in a trivial sense. It's about making sure students and working people alike have a fair shot at participating in their civic duty. And for me personally, it could be the difference between my voice being heard or not. I appreciate the time you've taken to hear us out, and I hope we can work together toward making more early voting accessible for students and working people alike. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, council, for your time. I urge you to pass this resolution, which maintains the flexibility to consider expanding early voting opportunities for all Eau Claire residents. Thank you again. Thanks.

All right. That's the end of my list of people that signed up. So is there anyone from the gallery who would like to speak to this agenda item? OK. Well, seeing that we don't have anyone else who would like to speak, we will close the public hearing and go to our public comment period. And I'll just. explain what that is so people can decide whether they want to speak during this. This is for items not on the agenda today. It could be items tomorrow that we see that were not covered today or just any topic related to the city that you may want to address. You'll have up to three minutes to speak, and you can only speak once. And this is for people living, going to school, or own property, or a place of business in the city of Eau Claire. And so while you'll have three minutes, the timer will turn yellow after two minutes. And then it'll flash red for you to finish up. And just know that council members are not allowed to ask any questions or comment. during this public comment period. And this will be limited to 20 minutes, but can be extended by council with a two-thirds vote. So did anyone come here to speak for the public comment period? Okay. So nobody signed up in the back, so we do have somebody in the back that would like to speak. So this is for items that we did not already cover. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

I did sign up, but then I crossed my name off because I wasn't sure if it was the correct time or not.

Thank you for having me.

If you could state your name and address.

My name is Jeff Wallace, and I am here on behalf of River Prairie LLC. This relates to the TID determinations and studies that are, I think, slated for tomorrow. And I didn't see, if there's a different agenda for that tomorrow for public comment, then I'll save it till then. But if it isn't, then I would want to make sure that I'm heard today.

Yeah, this is the time for that.

Thank you. Thank you. So I am working with River Prairie LLC. For those of you that aren't familiar with that name, that is part of the former Shopko Plaza that was acquired about seven or eight years ago. But the concern that I have is that The project plan that was done in 2023 references that particular portion of the Shopko Plaza that we have, which is just the retail part, not the grocery store and not the former actual Shopko, which was obviously replaced, but the remaining strip mall. In that report that was done, again, June of 2023, it's referenced at least four or five or six times that the desire is to to tear down that mall which i can understand at that time it was predominantly vacant there were tenants that were in the process of moving out but the concern now is that since that time and and particularly in the last two years there's been almost two million dollars of private investment put into that mall There's a developer there that's ready, willing, and able to develop the property, including the extra parcels that are related to the parking lot and things like that. But I just don't believe that the report reflects the current situation as it did when it was originally done. So I, there's two reasons for being here. Number one, to state that that is the case there, there has been a significant amount, including, um, in the last six months, there's been approximately 800,000 spent on a, on a laundromat. That's, tenant in the building now and that was done with permits and was inspected last week so the idea that this could be passed as a consent item without reconsidering the current condition of of the mall I think is not correct. I think that that should be looked at and at the very least excluded from the blight category because that mall was referenced as a blighted mall specifically in the original report. And I don't think that reflects what's going on now. There are several tenants that are in negotiations to come into the mall. Again, significant dollars have been spent. And I think that the current owner is ready, willing, and able to develop the property himself in conjunction with what is going on. Thank you.

You are out of time. Just so you know. So that can't be extended. But thanks for sharing. And we can certainly have someone follow up with you. I'm sorry. I can't hear you. So if you would like to email or... We also have Director Aaron White in the back of the room.

Otherwise, we can't really speak to the item here. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Anyone else from the public would like to speak during the public comment period? This is for up to three minutes. All right. So seeing none for interest in the public comment period, we will move on to our agenda item for closed session. So I will read that so people know what we're going into closed session for. So upon a motion duly made and carried, the city council may go into closed session to provide an update and discuss bargaining parameters for ongoing negotiations with city employee groups, which is permitted in closed session pursuant to S19.851E of the Wisconsin statutes. This matter involves discussion of wages, hours, and conditions of employment with labor units with which the city of Eau Claire conducts labor negotiations and the strategy to be employed in current and upcoming labor negotiations. Do I have a motion to go into closed session? Looks like from Councilmember Brewster. And a second from Councilmember Orr, that's what it looks like. To go into closed session. City Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Brewster. Aye.

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