Municipal Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the order of the Narsan Municipality Council meeting of Tuesday, June 2nd. Can I have a moment of silence and a pledge of allegiance? Madam Secretary, roll call, please.

William McCoy. Here. Nadira Robinson. Natalie Colson. Here. Jasmine Griffin. Here. David McMahon. Here. Justin Queenan. Rashad Bates.

Here. Council, we did have an executive session tonight on... Personnel litigation. Thank you. Personnel litigation. And do we have any public comments? Oh, no, I'm sorry, go back. Dustin's not here. Council, do you have any announcements to make?

Yes, I do. All right, on June 13th, Saturday from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Central Theater at 208 DeKalb Street, there is a jazz night. Jeff Jones and the Jazzmen honoring someone from Norristown, the incredible Jimmy Smith. Tickets are $25 in advance, and you can pay on the day $35. So that will be live jazz coming to Norristown, which I think is incredible. And that's June 13th from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Central Theater. Thank you.

Council, any other announcements? All right. Ms. Secretary, we can go to public comments now.

Regents Stein.

Yes, I have a complaint about the Norristown Police Department. Two years ago, I had an SBPO, a sexual violation protective order, and the gentleman upstairs attacked me, and I called the police repeatedly. They would not come, and they were supposed to arrest him. Instead, they came, took the man out of his apartment, and then took me to the mental institution, and thus I became homeless, and That is. a travesty of justice. They never came when I was being raped, and they said I was lying because they weren't there, and I became homeless because of it, had suffered many things because a police officer lied, and I'm still homeless. I'm out in the CHOP shelter in Horsham, but none of this should ever happen. When an elderly person is attacked, stalked, raped, strangled, they should respond to the calls and arrest the people doing it. That is my comment. Thank you. Judy Lucas.

Hi. I'm trying to get a street light repaired, and I've been trying now for two and a half months. I made four phone calls, assuming I have the right number. I get an answering machine. I leave a message, the address where the street light needs to be repaired. place I've left my name and my phone number and said, if I have the wrong number, please call me back, you know, and let me know the correct number.

Sorry. You said on what street is this on?

James Street in Norristown.

Okay, thank you. I'll have someone reach out to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tim Waters. Hey, good evening everyone.

This is my fourth anniversary of graduating, I still have my balance back from these broken ankles, from Citizens Leadership Academy. Good evening, this is the fourth anniversary of completing the CLA and since then Six books were produced explaining what the community is dealing with. My thought when I started reporting to the community with public comment, three minutes was okay, but now the topic of unprecedented flooding and because the Leadership Academy is not on the meeting agenda, it's time to stop attending meetings. What it boils down to is pretty much accomplished everything that I came to accomplish other than close communication with council. Number one, address blighted properties not on the tax records. I made a book out of that. Got the Veterans Memorial cleaned up in Elmwood Park. See click fixes working perfectly. In fact, I'm going to fall back on that because I can spend more time on the computer. Wait a minute, let me finish this before I get out of line here. Replace all the missing warning devices on West Airy Street and Selma, but there's still crashes there. So you're going to need to ask for a traffic study. That's what Scotty told us, State Rep. Scotty told us to do. Half a million dollars to fix the flooding on Hamilton and James Street. That's my main issue because the property keeps getting damaged by flooding. And that flooding comes from West Norton. There's more to follow with that. Prove the stormwater damage to Elmwood Park the fault of six upstream townships. Number seven, prove the loss of economic impact to Riverfront Park. Erosion from Stony Creek Watershed. It should be providing $11 million a year in economic impact. Number eight, secure the home for the homeless. Ta-da-da. Now they have a place to stay. Now number, they found a scout troop to adopt Coolidge Boulevard, that's the one through the park, keep Norristown beautiful. 10, stop the flooding of main roads to Einstein Hospital. because of uncontrolled stormwater from upstream townships, took down several trees that were threatening power lines. Number 12, Hometown Heroes, and I got my dad up there, and I'm gonna be getting more of my family because we're all veterans. You know, I hate to say it, but I have to not come here anymore and explain to you people what's going on. You know what's going on, and you know what I mean.

Thank you, Mr. Waters.

Reverend Elisha Elisha Norris Morris, sorry I

Just a few things. One, I serve on the Norristown Civic Service Commission, and we're having issues with having our meeting recorded and publicized with having them advertised. I don't know what the problem is, but our meeting last Friday was advertised online, but we couldn't get in the building. last Friday, this past Friday. It wasn't on the screen that's in the hallway out there. And the police didn't know anything about our meetings. I don't know what the problem is, but I wish hopefully you guys can fix it very quickly. Contractors. I'm on Pine Street, and they've been digging up the street and all over the township, putting down piping. And I know that's a good thing. They're displacing the residents, leaving their big tractors and holes, whatever the things are called, digging holes, whatever they're called. And we can't park. And then we have a few of us who are handicapped. And they're parking all day in our handicapped spots. I was in a meeting with the chief on Monday, my one day off at probably 8 o'clock in the morning. By the time I got back to my house, quarter to 9, somebody was parked there all day long. Is there any way we can take a picture, take a video of cars that are illegally parked as citizens, turn them over to the police, and they can get a ticket? You know how they do in Philadelphia and other big cities when you drive down the street more than 25 miles an hour, the camera takes a picture, and we fine you for that? Can we do something akin to that? I called the municipal, well, I didn't call the municipal police. I called a number I was given for non-emergencies. It connected me to the Montgomery County Police. Told them about the car parked in the handicapped spot. Never heard anything. I know it's not a big deal to some people, but to people who are handicapped, I mean, we get the parking for a reason. There are days when it looks like we're fine. And there are other days when we can hardly make it. So it would be nice. Thank you.

Maria Mayo.

Hello. It was a busy day today. I don't know if you know, today is Advocacy Day. I'm actually just getting off the bus coming back from Harrisburg. We went up today. We met with Greg Scott. We learned a lot of things today. about the data centers and things like that, the educational piece. It was a lot of different foundations there, organizations fighting for funding, taxing billionaires, trying to help with the healthcare cuts that's coming and the big beautiful bill. But here I'm here today because I have two things since it's Advocacy Day. So one is about to be summertime and kids are about to be out of school in the next week and a half. There is no programs here for the youths over 12 years old that can keep them off the streets and busy. Oak Street Park is going to be a disaster if we don't get some kind of control down there. The kids use that as a place to go down, to huddle, to fight, and to do not so many good things.

Sunday, Monday?

Sunday, the Carver Community Center had their grand opening of the pool. It was well over 100 kids there. But the problem is, the next time, that was free, so it was packed. But some of these kids, when it's time to pay the memberships, they don't have it. Parents didn't show up. It was probably about 20 parents to like 100 kids. We need the Carver to start having the kids come because they have good programs there. Nonprofit organizations here, like myself and others, we need to start collaborating and try to find a middle ground where we can bring these kids together, get them off the streets, get them some kind of things to be able to do to not be on the streets and to get themselves into trouble. At a last time is the devil's playground. We need the backing of the municipality. We need the backing of the community. We need people, foots on the ground, not the same old five, six, seven advocates out here. Everybody said they're for the community. I know about a couple, about a month or two ago, Chief Trout asked about a non-violent, anti-violent connection with the ADA's office. I wanted to know who the grant is deemed to. Because I've seen a Philadelphia municipality, they have the same kind of grant. And Larry Krasner gave about 20 nonprofit organizations money for camps and things that people of low income can pay for for the summer so these kids can stay out of trouble. I'm just here today because it's Advocacy Day. And these are just the things that I was thinking. And we need help. Thank you.

All right, moving on. Council, do I have a motion to approve last minutes meetings? There's last meetings minutes.

No, not yet.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Ayes all around? Aye. Thank you.

I think you guys speak up a little bit. Oh, you guys can't hear me?

Oh, okay. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. I'll speak louder for y'all. My bad. Now we're moving on to presentations. Civic Leadership Academy certificate presentation. Mr. Tustin.

All right. Good evening, everyone. Council, thank you for the opportunity. And from Administrator Jane, solicitor, thank you for the time. The Spring 2026 Civic Leadership Academy ran Thursdays from April 14th to May 21st and included 13 participating residents from 20 interested applicants. This cohort included residents regularly seen at council meetings, newer residents, lifelong residents, and those who happen to work in other municipalities. RESIDENTS LEARNED ABOUT THE HOME RULE STRUCTURE, MET WITH MUNICIPAL LEADERS INCLUDING DEPARTMENT HEADS AND COUNCIL, AND LEARNED ABOUT THE CIVIC OPPORTUNITIES THAT GROW OUR COMMUNITY. THE CLA STARTED AS THE CITIZENS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY IN 2014 AND SINCE THEN HAS EDUCATED OVER 120 RESIDENTS THROUGH 2024. This year, the program was revamped to focus on civics and the how and why our local government works. Why civics? Because as cited from the Center for Strategy and International Studies, democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens. The American people are responsible for the government and other democratic institutions, not the other way around. And for their duty, it is essential that Americans are civically informed. Knowing the volatile nature of the national political landscape and its easy infusion into local government, the focus on civics in the CLA brings understanding and knowledge about the government which you created and to which you have the best access. This, your local government. I must say it was a really great opportunity to meet some new to me residents who took part in this program. We all have so many things to learn, whether you knew a lot, whether you knew a little, we all start at the same level. And we had great, deep conversations about government, how it works, and how we can always learn to make it better. Fun fact, and I've played this joke a few times now, did you know that the municipal charter is about twice as long as the US Constitution? So the law of the land is only about 7,500 works, built the framework for how the federal government works, but for our local government, it's about 15,000 words. So this is your government, you all created the charter, and you put in so much direction and guidance in the charter that we have the government that we have today. So in addition to all these certificates, I will be handing out to everyone.

Everyone is also going home with a copy of the Constitution.

and I'm doing my best to keep the civic engagement going. So with that, I will just start handing the certificates out. There are no particular orders, so lucky for you, Terrance Barnes. And if no one's here, we will mail the certificate on their behalf. So the first certificate is going to Matthew Poli. And if I could just have everyone stand up here and we'll take a picture with council afterward, thank you. I have to remember, it's been a while since I graduated.

Andrea Byron.

Tariya Mayo. Always a familiar face at council meetings, and I love that you took part in the CLA. There you are, congratulations. Anthony Diven. Kasima Sell, is Kasima here? We also have Kia Johnson.

There you are.

All right, next we have Erica Wharton. I'm surprised there's a certificate inside. Terrence Barnes.

Now I know everything, just so you know.

They all know everything. Oh, in case if you're wondering, on the certificate, it's just a little statement. The Municipality of Norristown Civic Leadership Academy is a course for residents to develop their skills as a community leader and enhance their understanding of municipal government operations. This certificate asserts the responsibility of being an informed, engaged, and active resident for the betterment of Norristown. And with that, Gloria Llanos-Diven. Are you okay, do you want me to walk it back to you?

Okay.

Amalthea V. Leland. Kia Boynes. Melvin Faust. Fun note, it was actually Melvin who suggested I give everyone a copy of the Constitution. That's right. Thank you for that, and thank you for participating. Kasim, I have your certificate. I already called you. There we are.

Thank you.

And finally, last but not least, Gabrielle Rebillard. And can I just say, I don't think I ever had a core concentration of students, participants, who actually came pretty much every week. So I saw them as the same faces every week. Every week we had great conversations and I really do look forward to seeing all of your future endeavors and everything else you do to help Marstown. So really thank you all. And then we'll get a picture right quick if I could ask Councilman Bates and any other council members who would like to get in the picture.

All right, now we are moving on to the feasibility study presentation on Fire Station Recreation Community Center Public Works Facility by Bull Construction.

That's how it was my fault. Hello, Council. I know I'm usually quiet, but the mic was off. All right, so... I wanted to introduce this presentation, so just give some background on it. As part of discussions that predate my time and as discussed in the 2025 budget discussions, the municipality has been exploring possibility of new facilities for recreation, fire, and public works to better serve our residents and address long-term operational needs. When considering any of these facilities, several fundamental questions come up, such as what do we actually need these facilities to include, where could they realistically be located, and what would the potential cost to construct them be? So to answer those questions, a feasibility study needs to be done, and council authorized Boyle Construction to perform the feasibility study via the professional services appointment on January 5th, 2026. The purpose of the study is not to recommend immediate construction or make final site selections, but rather to evaluate potential locations, identify constraints and opportunities, and provide the information needed for council to make informed decisions regarding the future planning, funding, and potential grant opportunities. So tonight's presentation is a progress update on that work. Following the presentation, Council will have the opportunity to provide feedback and direction to allow the team to work towards completion of the study. In front of you is a copy of the actual deck that will be presented, and the construction team will present.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for inviting us. My name is Chris Haller. I'm with Boyle Construction. With me tonight, I have Sandy, who's also with Boyle, and Mike Rourke, who is with GKO Architects. So we'll go through this. We were able to narrow it down to about 20-some slides, down from about 90 slides, so you're welcome for that. So just a brief agenda of what we're going to be talking about tonight. Introduce the whole team. A lot of them couldn't be here tonight, but there are a lot of people acting on the municipality of Norristown's behalf to develop this study. Then kind of go through where we started, where we're landing right now, a snapshot of where we're at. And then we'll be looking for some... We'll be looking for some direction, not a vote or anything, but just we want to make sure we're moving in the right direction that council wants us to move so we can finalize the study. So for your leadership team on the municipality side, we have Jane Moussonier. Nailed it. Sian, who's been very instrumental in guiding the team. We have Chief O'Donnell, who's been very instrumental with the emergency services facility. Brianne, who has been wonderful to work with on the community side, and then George Nave and Robert Romano on the public works side helping guide us with what those facilities should look like. On Boyle's side, we have Tony Ganguza, who is the vice president of the construction management side for Boyle Construction. Sandy and myself. With us, we have GKO Architects, and that team is Michael Rourke, Kevin Gottschall, and Eric. And then we also have Anna and Mark with Van Cleef Engineering assisting with the site part of it, the civil engineering side of things, to make sure that everything works with the sites. Some important things to remember for tonight. This is a progress update. This is not the final feasibility study. Again, we're hoping to get some direction on how you want us to proceed. We're kind of at a fork in the road and we want to make sure we're going down the right path to finalize this. Everything that we're shown tonight is conceptual. We did develop some test fits for the buildings for the sites because we didn't want to present something and suggest something that just didn't work. So we wanted to make sure at least what we were bringing tonight is something that would actually work. And again, these are not final plans. Again, this is really to develop a test fit for making sure the recommendations were feasible. So how do we do this figure to get you to tell you about where we're at now? It was really important to kind of explain where we started There's a lot of steps between where we started and where we landed so that's the part of this presentation that is really condensed but Where we started was you know, we have programs That were developed by the leadership team. So we took those programs and looked at Those programs and some initial sites that were considered for the projects Now with those discussions we made sure we set up some goals And we always wanted to make sure that Every decision that we made really affected one, if not all, of those goals. If it didn't impact one of those goals, the question was, why are we doing this step? So we always wanted to make sure we were focusing on what the needs were for the municipality. We wanted to make sure that all the facilities were geared towards serving your current needs, but also serving your future needs. Norristown is very much built out and there's limited space available for these services. So we wanted to make sure that we were really focused on how they serve the community and how that impacted the community as well. So one of the first sites we looked at was Roosevelt Field near the high school. And it was first considered for the community center and an outdoor track. Some of the pros with this, it's a large open site. It already has an outdoor track, so that could be utilized in the same manner. And it had potential for additional program spaces. Some of the cons. Were the way the site is sloped and it's it's a dual owned property between the school district and the municipality So there's opportunities for synergy there between the municipality in the school district, which was a great thing and then There's a shared field opportunity between the school district as well. So those were pros out of you know looking at this site for the community center and For the emergency services facility, we first looked at 400 Markley Street. For the program that was developed for the emergency services center, where they really wanted to have one facility that provides all the services for the community, this site was quickly realized to be not sufficient. It wasn't big enough. There wasn't enough acreage. Along with that, there were some challenges there with accessing Markley Street with PennDOT. And then the side streets are very narrow, one-way streets. So while this site was first looked at for the Emergency Services Center, it really became understood that this site would not suit the needs for that building. And then for the public works, there was an agreement where there was some space allocated with the preserve at Stony Creek, the former state hospital property. And it was about two acres. And it was kind of an oddly shaped parcel. And the two acres was not sufficient for what Public Works would need to have one facility where most, if not all, of their service could function from one site. Currently, Public Works has several properties throughout the municipality. So we're really trying to consolidate each one of these into one site where they can better serve and better function as an entity. So looking at those sites and realizing that there were some restrictions and some challenges with each one, we kind of took a step back and looked at the municipality as a whole and thought, what other properties might be available for these functions? And some of them we kind of dove into and really looked at developing them. Some of them we looked at for about five minutes and said, yeah, this one's not going to work. But we wanted to make sure we exhausted all the opportunities so that when we came to you, we really were coming with what we thought were the best options to move forward with these three ideas. So this map kind of highlights in the green some of the properties that we looked at. Some of them were kind of looked closely. Some of them we ran away from. And the ones in orange are kind of where we landed with the facilities now If you could circle the two orange ones in the middle with your mouse Yeah, those two there now that is the Roosevelt field and that was the one that was being considered for the community center and That one actually works well where we're looking at combining the community center and emergency services facility on that property. And the nice thing with that is the community center serves your population as a whole, and it's somewhat centrally located in the municipality. Same with the emergency services center. When there's an emergency, it's good to have those responders as close to everyone as possible. And by locating them pretty much in the center of your municipality makes their response time to everyone somewhat equal or somewhat even. So that site really stood out for those two services. It would have been great to get the public works in that area too, but just the available property did not allow for that opportunity. So the public works we're looking over at towards the McCain Park area. Now, with McCain Park, that would be able to consolidate a lot of the public works, which would open up current public works properties for other uses for the municipality as well. And again, the plans, we wanted to look at the community center and indoor track. We started with the Elmwood Park study that was done. And we really wanted to make sure that it was something that served all the community members, young and older. I say old. The fire and emergency services center, a single location that served the community now and into the future. And then the public works, where we really wanted to consolidate everything to one site as best as we could to improve efficiency and ensure safety and deliverability. access to the community. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Mike, who's going to talk to you somewhat about the programs and the test fits on the site and the buildings.

Thanks, Chris. Good evening, everyone. In working with representatives from the municipality of Norristown, along with the planning team from Boyle, we collaborated together to first look at the program elements of each of the facilities, the three facilities. And the reason for that, we wanted to be as accurate as possible in putting together test fits for these various sites. So the first one we're going to talk about is the community center. The conceptual program that was put together for that included some elements like an indoor pool, a flexible basketball court center, community meeting rooms, even a small daycare center, computer labs, things like that. From that, we looked at floor plans of what that facility might be like so that we could look at how that building would then begin to fit on the various sites. As Chris mentioned, in looking at 400 Markley Street, for the emergency services center. It became obvious it really didn't fit well there, but it would fit in combination with the community center building at the Roosevelt field site. So this is a site plan of how the community center might be integrated with parking next to the Roosevelt High School. And then from those concept plans, we developed floor plans from the program that was established. On the first floor could be the flexible basketball, gymnasium center that I mentioned, the indoor pool, locker rooms, meeting rooms, and childcare. The upper floors would have additional flexible meeting rooms and overlooked to the gym. There could be a section of a basement where the filtration equipment for the pool would be located and also some additional fitness rooms, weight lifting rooms where we wouldn't want that sound of people dropping weights on floors. The ideal location might be lower on a lower level. One of the things that was talked about during the programming and design phases for the community center was the, right now there's a, as you know, there's a track at Roosevelt Field of some way of integrating a track program with the community center. So that even though the major amount of ground was being used by both the community center and the emergency services center, what could be done with a track facility? Some of the ideas that we talked about were a rooftop practice track that's shown here could also be integrated as a balcony in the basketball center. But for this study, we looked at it at a rooftop location. We were also requested to look at an indoor track facility to see how that might be laid out and might be arranged. And we arrived at a 200-meter competition track as the size that would be acceptable for such a facility. So we looked at how a building like that might be integrated. As you can see, Where that would be is in the Elmwood Park side, right across the street from across Harding Boulevard. It is out, you may know there's a floodplain that runs through there. It is outside this footprint of the 100-year floodplain. We're suggesting maybe a garage, parking garage that would be below it, so that even with a 500-year floodplain, the main level would be lifted to the street level. And the floor plans might be arranged something like this, where you would have indoor, not only the indoor 200 meter track, but other track events in the middle of that. And then, as I mentioned, the parking garage that would be below this. For the Emergency Services Center, we spent a lot of time with Chief O'Donnell looking at the program elements for this. And we quickly determined that even leaving a little bit of space for some future equipment that might go in, for example, an ambulance, ambulances, things like that, we needed an eight bay apparatus garage. In addition, the building is planned for sleeping quarters and things like that for the firefighters. So we studied how that emergency services center might also work with the Roosevelt Field site and how grades, et cetera, would work. If you're familiar with the site, there's a decent grade change around the bottom part of Harding Boulevard. We got that to work. And then in working with Chief O'Donnell, we worked out a floor plan that has all the program elements that are needed for this facility. On the first floor would be all the operations and apparatus room. And the second floor would be all the bunk rooms, shower rooms, et cetera, for the firefighters and emergency staff. Finally, for the public works, we looked at a list of all the equipment that the public works department has and studied a number of different sites And we looked at the McCann Park site. Part of the reason for this is Public Works actually does take a lot of acreage to lay out effectively. And while the bottom part of the site really drops off pretty dramatically along Ford Street, there is a level area where the current basketball courts are located. And as Chris mentioned, by looking at possibly this site, it may open up other properties within the municipality that's currently used by Public Works for other functions. So this is laid out to take the equipment that is there along with things like trailer storage and salt storage and place a day room and things like that for Public Works personnel.

So with that, the next steps are to get your feedback. We'd really like to know your thoughts on the site locations, if that's something we should proceed with, if there's something that's just completely off the table and we need to redirect. And with that guidance, we would go back and start developing the cost estimates and looking at schedules and finalizing the study to bring that back to you as a final presentation.

Thank you. Council, do you have any questions or comments? Oh, go ahead, Councilman McMahon.

The indoor track is that a regulation size like that old tournaments or anything like that?

So the indoor track is a 200 meter track and that would be considered a regulation track Yes, outdoor tracks are typically 400 meter, but you can do 200 meter and have it be a regular regulation track I Have another one if anyone else go for it I

Is there a map of like the current disbursement of Public Works' like different lots that we could get at some point? Or like what would go on at McCann Park? Is that an increase in the overall size or it's more or less the same size square footage consolidated?

I'd have to go back and check on that. I don't have a map available, but certainly working with Sion we can develop that and get that back to you through Sion and Jane. That's a very good point.

Good. Councilman Robinson.

Thank you so much for your work on this to you and to your team. I think that this helps to give a lot of insight, many questions we've had. We've had a lot of proposals about what possibly could be and there's been a lot of lay work in advance from not just this council but councils that have come before us to identify and understand these needs and then make steps to try to address them. The feasibility study I think allows us now the insight to make deliberate decisions about what comes next and what we can take advantage of. You shared a lot about the cons and where you've identified some of the strong points, right, and some of that is some redirection. I was interested if you could share in particular some of the cons, like some of the harder restrictions that you might have seen as you came in, even in some of the spaces that you're proposing, just things that we also should be aware of. I know they're listed here, but I was wondering if there was anything in particular that stuck out to you around, you shared a lot of the pros, but were there in particularly any cons on any of the spaces that you thought were especially noteworthy?

So are you interested in the ones that we landed on as recommendations or any of the sites in general?

A little bit of both. I like the recommendations, but they all came with a con. As someone who doesn't know how to work always around what that con is or how limiting that is, I'm just interested to explore those a little bit more.

Okay. So to take a step back and kind of talk about some of the properties that are not being recommended or the team quickly determined just weren't feasible, there's a very large one to the right there. It's a park, and that was quickly determined not feasible because there's quite a few flood issues through there. There's a... There's an earthen dam in there, so we very quickly realized that that's not property that's appropriate for any of the sites. Across the street from there, the smaller green one next to it, there's a park in there where there's kind of a stream or a floodplain that runs down the middle, and on one side has park rec areas, and the other side is undeveloped. There's also a row of properties along there that I believe the municipality also owns and we looked at that one and that one We could do some test fits it really didn't fall within the program because of the the slope of the site there and some things like that Some other ones were quickly determined not because while it might have been sized appropriately for some public works or something like that, it was deemed that there was plans for Parks and Rec to develop that property further than what it is. So we didn't want to redirect community items and put public works in that site when there was plans to develop that site for the community. Those are some of the things that pulled us away from those properties. To go back to the properties that were selected, they check most of the boxes, but because sites are limited, it just doesn't quite check all the boxes. For instance, with the community center, one of the goals was to do an outdoor 400-meter track. With getting the three facilities to work within the boundaries of Norristown, That one we realized quickly that that one's gonna be a tough tough box to check we were able to get close to it by proposing the indoor 200 meter track and but the outdoor 400-meter track just wasn't falling into place. Public Works was a very difficult one. We got the emergency services and the community center to work on that one site, but then finding enough acreage to get Public Works onto one site was really a challenge. With the McCain Park site, Public Works, the test fit has that in two tiers where The truck activity was down low, but there's a large retaining wall that kind of circulates around that so that the tree lines and everything remains and that stays as is. And then the part where the employees are is also elevated with some smaller garage space underneath it. So we got that site to work, but again, something like that was a challenge.

And then just a couple more questions. In regards to the cons, it doesn't sound like anything was particularly limiting. Not everything checked all the boxes, but it doesn't sound like there was a huge deterrent, at least in the properties that you've identified for possibility. I was trying to understand, in particular on the Roosevelt field, one of your cons listed was that there was limited opportunity for program expansion at the site. I was wondering if that was specific to the EMS space, or if that was also for the community center, or is it by having both of those that that limitation comes into play?

I think it's by having both of those. But again, with the programs that were developed for both of those, it really did look to the future. As Mike had mentioned, the emergency services building is an eight bay. fire station basically, so that pulls all the functions for the borough into one facility. And then having the community center next door, that's a multi-story building, and using that in conjunction with the high school being there, that would allow the high school the opportunity to use some of that facility during the day. And then with locating it there, that really opens up for all the community. And then having the indoor track basically less than a block away, that kind of keeps those two functions, while it's under the umbrella of the community center, it keeps them near each other, even though they're separate buildings.

The Roosevelt area where it's currently placed at, I won't claim that it's similar, but it seems to have a similar kind of tight streets, access points similar to Markley Street. In your finding of putting emergency service there, I'm guessing, right, that you found that there was going to be a better route out?

It was a better route out, and the size of the property at Markley Street wasn't sufficient for what the program turned out to be with an eight-bay emergency building.

Okay. Just my last question. Do we have or has there been, even in your study of looking, are there any precedents that you could point us towards where there is an emergency service or response center and a community center or something like that in shared kind of space like that? Immediately my mind just thinks that the two different type of traffic patterns and maybe consciousness of people, one person is... Less aware ready to just lock into a personal workout The other people are ready to go and need to get there somewhere quickly So just knowing that two of those consciousnesses would be at play on this type of plane of land Do you have any precedence or any other community model that has shown that something like that works together?

Do you have any models like that Mike? And I do want to come back to this site then.

We have a number of projects where you might have a municipal facility and a police station or fire station on the site. Warrington Township has such a facility. One thing I'll mention, though, we spent a lot of time with the fire chief working out separate traffic flows for any of the emergency services. there are gates that actually close off so that the circulation for the community center is completely different than the fire station. So we'd be looking to the strategies like that to keep a really safe facility.

Thank you. That's very helpful. No further questions. No more questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilman Coulson.

So a couple of my questions focus on the public works and So would, and maybe you said this already, would we lose any of the park there or like anything there? Oh, thank you.

Let me get to it. So there. So right now to the left of that site, there's a baseball field there, I believe. And then there's open field area kind of where the rest of that facility is located. It does slope up along the street there. As I mentioned, there'd be a retaining wall around the back of that. While the open area would become the public works facility, the tree line to the south of that would remain. And our thought is if we can consolidate all the public works onto this site, that would allow the existing public works site to maybe be converted to basketball courts if it's large enough, baseball fields, things like that.

Okay. And do you think that it would cause an impact on the residents there? Just because I do know, I'm very familiar with McCann Park right there, and I know that it's very tight around that area and the residents are kind of right there. Like how?

We would have to make sure that the traffic patterns in and out of there for the truck traffic is certainly feasible. We didn't take it to that next step. If this site is one that the council feels comfortable with as a recommendation, we would certainly go to that extent and start taking a look at traffic. During the summertime, they might not be too crazy, but the first time there's a snow or ice storm and their street's the first one to get salted, they might be happy.

Yeah, it's tight right there. That's my concern. Okay, thank you.

I'm sorry, just one follow-up on the mechanical part. I'm not as familiar with this particular area. I remember your con being something about slopes in this area. Is this example with that area being leveled out, or is this in consideration of those slopes?

So, which one's the pointer, if I can try? Okay. So the long building and the white area around that building is level down low? So this area is level down low and access would be through here. And because the existing slope, the site does slope up, we were looking at building a retaining wall around the back of this. And this would be retaining wall also with access here for the individual vehicles. And then the office space would be up here with maybe some parking, some garage space underneath that. So that's how we would address the slope of the site.

Councilman McCoy. Yes, I just want to circle back to the community center and emergency services. Just like Councilwoman Robinson mentioned, limited opportunity for program expansion. That's kind of problematic for me because in Norristown, for some reason, Norristown always receives like the bare minimum when it comes to recreation or not, not recreation, but a lot of different things. We never get like state-of-the-art things that other communities that are surrounded in our town had so when it comes to like programs being limited it's problematic for me because i would love to see it be expanded as for as far as we can make it um and then having that emergency service center right next to a recreation center i could see where A lot of people like I say that people are working out or people are running upstairs on the track, then the emergency occurs and then the loud sirens just cause them to just pause. And then it's like rather than having my workout disturbed, I'd rather go elsewhere so I could see where it might be a problem there. OK. But yeah, I definitely would like to discuss further in regards to this initiative here because I want to see the program be expanded as far as far as we can.

I was going to say, too, Brianna, she's phenomenal. And she challenged us every step of the way to make sure that we were meeting the needs of the municipality of Norristown. forced us to think outside the box. It was a really great exercise. So the program that was put into this test fit is very expansive. The gymnasium has a main court with two regulation-sized side courts so that two games could be played if the center divider was down. It has the pool. It has the daycare. It has breakout rooms. It has a fitness room. It has a rooftop exercise track right now. The rooftop track isn't regulation size. So it would be for walking or things like that To make sure that we really focused on the other part of that study with the running track That's where we ended up going across the street and looking at a 200 meter indoor track She really forced us to look at the indoor track because that's something that can be used year-round, not just in nice weather. There's opportunities there for a municipality to generate some income based on having those facilities where the surrounding municipalities don't have that opportunity or that ability where Norristown would then have that ability to do that. I think that might have been a little misleading, and I apologize for that. It was not that the building there is limited in program, but to go 20 years from now, that building itself really wouldn't be able to handle more program because of the footprint, but there's certainly space within the park across the street that may have some opportunity to expand the community services.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Colson?

I guess my last thing is I just wanted to voice my concern about the public works in McCann Park. I just feel like it's a very tight area back there, a residential area, and I'm concerned about the amount of trucks going in and out and stuff like that. I know that's all something you would look into later, but That's just something that I would be concerned about in that area right there.

We'll make sure that's noted and absolutely addressed as we proceed with the study.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Council, any more questions or comments? Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Now we'll move on to a presentation by the Markey Rehabilitation and Health Center. Hold on one second, Council President.

Yes, I just want to touch base on this before we wrap up this presentation. One of the things as far as with the McCann Park, that is something they are looking for guidance on, which is why I didn't go further with it yet, because I didn't want to spend too much time if that was something that was going to be a hard stop. So that's one of the things we want to get guidance to say, hey, let's look at that to see, again, if does the traffic work? Does that make sense? And touching back on to Councilman McMahon's question in regards to the facilities, I believe what works right now is divided into four different facilities. I can get that clarified and what that square footage looks like. But essentially the issue that we have with that is that since these things are separated to different sites, security issues, just space issues, having to travel in between those just to get the job done, to get the right equipment and so forth. So those are the things that we're trying to figure out and ways to help consolidate that to one point to reduce those issues and also increase efficiency. That McCann site essentially was one of the ones that looked the best because of where it's at and as well as the sloping, the floodplains and stuff like that. But even with that, looking at McCann Park and then even freeing up the other spaces and allowing those rooms to be more green space or a court, or whatever the case is, to transition and program those areas for the community. We just want to be very hesitant to move forward with that without your guidance to see if that is something you would like us to get the additional information on to really present as far as a final feasibility study. So just to make sure you guys are OK with them looking at that so we can move forward. Yes?

Maybe a request or a suggestion, and perhaps starting to offer it and I just missed it, could we perhaps get a council site visit?

with teams to go through. I think it would be nice to visualize and see these and also see the impact that they might have on the surrounding resident bodies. These are great pictures and elements, but I think everyone is bringing in some really good context. So perhaps if it's possible, a site visit,

I think what's critical here is that you've heard concepts for the first time. There's no pressure on you making a decision or direction right now unless you get more information and you're comfortable with it so that you can tell the consultant this is the way. Now, let's not forget we have another study that's also ongoing. of the parks, so you have to be cognizant of that. In fact, we have the consultant in the audience right here, Pete Simone, if you recall, he was given the consulting job to look at all the parks in Norristown. So it may be worthwhile to make sure that we have that information. And I think combined even with the site visits, anything that you need to help make an informed decision is good. But I don't want council to feel pressured into making decisions that you're not ready to make yet because you're hearing it for the first time and you're seeing some of this for the first time.

Correct.

Yes, and I don't want to rebut that. I just want to offer the exchange that I feel that site visit might help us offer guidance. Totally agree. Because I've heard Sian say that we don't want you either to put in work or just start projects without feeling like you're putting something into the void. we're gonna go in a different direction. So some of it, for me at least, and I won't speak for all of councilors, it helps me to understand what kind of guidance might be necessary in thinking about the next steps. And while all of these are at play, I do wanna recognize that I'm sure some are more time sensitive than others. And we don't wanna start all at the same time. So if there is an opportunity to just take a look at some of these to begin that process of guidance, I'm open for that.

Agree. And another thing to kind of touch on too, Councilman McCoy, I know you asked about the programming and so forth. So one of the things with the rec center, the program is far, far, far expanded than what we have today. Like they mentioned, as far as Brianna as well, we were trying to fill this out to the max, essentially. And one of the things that she did not want to give up on is the track. So the indoor track, we wanted to make sure we had some, well, as far as the track is to say, we wanted to make sure we had space for a regulation size, specifically for competition. With the 400-meter track, there was just no way to include that. So we looked at, well, what do we need to do for an indoor track? And if any of you are familiar with, like, the Ott Center that's in Philadelphia, where a lot of schools go now for their joint competitions, this is the same size track that they have there. So it really opens up the door for the communities near us and for us to actually program that kind of track events here, actual indoor competition tracks. But then also with the basketball courts, those regulation size, there's a lot of stuff there to kind of generate not just our residents, but the outside for income generation.

You're welcome. And we host a lot of different track meets there from people from all over the United States.

Exactly. They travel far just to have somewhere to really compete. And I think when it comes down to the delimitation, it's really probably more so for the fire side. For example, based on where it's fitting, the different bays we have, the different things that are getting fit into that space, we don't have room to add three, four, or additional fire trucks. So that's really kind of where that limitation gets into because we're kind of limited to the size we have. But when you look at fleet recycling, essentially we'll be pushing out older vehicles to bring in new vehicles. So that's where the limitation really kind of comes in. Thank you, man. You're welcome. All right. Thank you. Sorry, we're not taking public comments at this time right now.

So Sean, I'm going to open it up now.

I appreciate it. We don't have to yell in the audience.

Come on.

I'll be very brief. Thank you.

Good evening. My name's Peter Simone. I'm with Simone Collins. And as Ms. Massoni mentioned, we're looking at your parks. And I think the crew from Boyle Construction have a very tough job, because they've been limited to properties that you own. And I understand that reflex, but I would just suggest that you look more broadly and, as they said, a little more out of the box. I don't think you should assume you can't acquire a property or adaptively reuse a property for these facilities that's not a park, because our analysis is showing you're underserved by recreational facilities now, and if you take any park away, you're going to be further down that hole. So I would just suggest that you look at places like... And I'll just throw out a couple. The intermediate unit on Lafayette Street, that parking lot's never filled. And you could work with the county and get those people to park in an empty SEPTA garage and lease that site for emergency services maybe. It's about five or six acres. You've got an auto auction at the end of Lafayette Street. Maybe you could acquire it. I mean, I think you should look at all those possibilities because I understand why the team from Boyle looked at McCann, but as Councilwoman mentioned, access there is horrendous. So I just think you've tied your consultant's hands a little bit, and I think you should ask them to look more broadly. Maybe work with a real estate professional who might know of properties that might be for sale in Ridge Avenue. And also, look outside the municipality. Norristown's not that big. If you have a public works facility that's outside your border, that's not really a problem, because you're a small geographic area. So all I'm saying is...

just think more broadly and maybe give them a little more flexibility where they look thanks uh so council i would like to make a motion to open the agenda to appoint pamela martin to the planning commission for the term of june 2nd 2026 to december 31st of 2030. Now this is the time to open up for public comment.

Okay.

So do I have a motion to open the agenda?

Second.

Okay. So then I can have public comment?

All in favor? Thank you.

the opening of the yes sorry i'm getting better at this um so now the motion is to appoint pamela martin uh to the planning commission for the term june 2nd to 2026 to december 31st of 2030. second thank you uh and now public comment if anyone has a comment about this appointment to the planning commission All right, seeing none, Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call, please?

William McCoy? Aye. Deera Robinson? Aye. Natalie Coulson? Aye. Jasmine Griffin? Aye. David McMahon? Aye. Rashad Bates?

Aye. The ayes have it. Thank you. Moving on to the municipal administrator. Resolution number 26-46, request for municipal council to approve temporarily increasing the interim municipal manager and acting director of planning and municipal development compensation.

Do we have a copy of it? I'm sorry. Yeah, no problem.

Thank you very much, Council. Let me just pull the actual resolution itself. Here it is. Okay. So, yes, right here. So obviously there has been some change in the municipal administrator position. Ms. Messonnier, who we were discussing before the meetings, worked here a long, long time, stepped up and has been doing the job. for the last couple months, and obviously her compensation should be increased, as well as Vince Papa, who has stepped in Ms. Messonnier's role because she spent a lot of time not being the planning director and being the municipal administrator. So that's the resolution before council.

Council, any questions or comments? Seeing none, Councilman Robinson.

I'll just offer a comment that I hope is helpful for anyone who was just interested, that this does not mean an implied change to our budget or an added expense, but it is a reallocation of money that was already allotted for in the exchange of making sure that that work is also compensated accordingly. There is no extra charge, but there is extra work as new assignments have been allowed, and so this is more of an adjustment to make sure that those roles match that compensation as well.

Thank you for that. Council, do I have a motion to approve resolution 26-46, request for municipal council approval to temporarily increase the interim municipal administrator and acting director of planning and municipal development compensation?

Second.

Madam Secretary.

Amy McCoy. Aye. Kira Robinson. Aye. Natalie Coulson. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Rashad Bates.

Aye. The ayes have it. All right, moving along here. Motion to approve settlement stipulation for Norristown Area School District property tax appeal 1132 West Main Street.

Yes, thank you very much, President Bates. You have before you, obviously on tax assessment appeals, the Norristown Area School District does the heavy lifting. They have the vast majority of the tax revenue at stake in these matters. We consult with them in our office and work with them to ensure there are good results both for the school district, the municipality, and the county. This matter was a 4,400 square foot building. It was appealed actually by the school district and good news both for the school district and the municipality, the assessment went up from $180,000 to $261,000. So Norristown will be getting a little bit of money as well as the school district. This has already been worked out with the school district and they have signed this and they're asking for us to also sign. So a motion and a second for the approval of this, if that's what council wanted to, is what should be in order.

Council, any comments or questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the settlement stipulation for Norristown Area School District property tax appeal for 1132 West Main Street? So moved. Madam Secretary.

William McCoy. Aye. Sierra Robinson. Aye. Natalie Colson. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Rashad Bates.

Aye. The ayes have it. All right. Moving on here to police. Motion for municipal council to approve the establishment of a civilian criminal investigation division CID support staff position within the Norristown Police Department.

Good evening, Council. The purpose for this new position is to support CID. In 2025, we had 11 members of criminal investigations. We now have eight. At the end of June, we're going to have six. And currently, there are no civilian staff in CID. So this will actually be moving along with the recommendations of the CPSM study that we formulated.

Council, any comments or questions? All right. Go ahead, Council Member Robinson.

I just had a quick question, which I think are helpful for those in the room. We use a lot of acronyms in spaces, and I know these things are on the agenda, but I was wondering if you just quickly could talk us through the civilian criminal investigation vision, how it supports the work, and then typically when it's in its best function, what is the job?

So the job predominantly, what we're lacking in right now is assistance with child lines, okay? I'm sorry? Child lines, there are reports that we get regarding child abuse. Currently we are on estimate to get about 450 of those. They are labor intensive as far as receiving the the reports, reviewing the reports, and actually entering those reports into the system. So the CID investigator, okay, would be handling the administrative portion of that, along with a lot of different functions as far as like entering video into the system, just general assistance for detectives.

Also, any other comments or questions? All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion for Municipal Council to approve the establishment of the Civilian Criminal Investigation Division, supports that position within the Norristown Police Department? Second. Madam Secretary.

Okay. Amy McCoy. Aye. Madeira Robinson. Aye. Natalie Colson. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Rashad Bates. Aye.

The ayes have it. Thank you. Moving on to public works. Resolution number 26-39, request for municipal council to approve the resident initiated traffic calming program policy.

Hello, council. So this is being brought to you again. This was tabled previously. Just to kind of catch you up on what happened essentially from the May 5th meeting. During the May 5th meeting, there was an amendment to change property owners to residents that will do the initiation that was approved. So essentially, as of right now, the policy states that it would be the residents, well, 50% of the residents on the block, and then so forth. So it replaces residents across the board in the policy, excuse me, replaces property owners. in the policy across the board to be residents. During that meeting, I suggested possibly changing it to property owners and or residents. That way we don't, excuse me, yes, property owners and or residents. So we're not squeezing anyone out to start that. I know there were some, discussion around just leaving it as property owners will change in the back to say to property owners and then if the residents who are tenants and so forth are having struggles getting the actual property owners to sign off or anything they can come to council and council can then for initiate the traffic study but just want to give you a heads up of where it was because we tabled it after that point so essentially that's where it's at for your review council any comments or questions

The last, what you were saying.

Okay.

The position that the document is in, I have reviewed it, but I just want to make sure that that's clear for the room. The position that the document is currently in, it states property owners and or residents.

No.

It was returned.

The amendment that was done and passed changed property owners across the board and the policy to residents. So anywhere you see property owners is now residents. I suggested the idea of maybe amending that to be property owners and or residents. That way it kind of covers more across the board. But I also know there was discussion about possibly even changing it just strictly back to property owners. And then if there was issues, they can come to council and council can then initiate the study on behalf of tenants. But that's really where it was at, and it was tabled at that point. So if you're looking at this to approve to pass, just know that right now it says residents opposed to property owners across the board in the policy.

I was just going to ask, Sean, if you could just talk us through, I guess, the pros and cons of residents versus property owners. Sure.

I think the biggest concern with property owners versus residents is property owners is easier to quantify, right? Because we have county records related to that. There's a clear definition. I know some of the counselors were concerned that we do have absentee owners and landlords, as you do in every municipality, and they may not be that engaged of that. But from a staff perspective, it's much easier to track owners. For residents, what we would need, probably some further guidance of what is a resident, because it's not really set forth, other than they may have a valid lease for a property within Norristown. Should that be, you know, should you be able to petition the day you sign it? Should it be six months a year? Should it be 10 years a year? Those kind of factors. And that's harder for staff to track. So I think those were the pros and cons, John, unless if you had something to add.

And I was just, Jane, could you weigh in a little bit on it too? Sure.

My concern with the residents, and I will reiterate it, is that we do have transient neighborhoods. And that's where it's harder for staff to track. I know we require that when you lease a property, they have to submit those names. to the code department. But frankly speaking, when you look at those names, some of them moved away six, nine months ago. So I don't know how firm that is in terms of being able to track. Now, I think what would be helpful is that if the public knows that the residents have the ability to come to council, and council can then move the process for them. That might be helpful.

My questions were again about residency, but I feel like some of it has already been said. And we've seen this in other arenas of this work. Residency is very hard to define and can differ depending on the reporting organization. In this specific instance, I'm really interested of who would determine, sounds like council would, But who would determine what is a resident and at what level does resident power exist to file versus when it doesn't? And when I say that, I mean, could it be a resident that lives across town that has noticed a traffic issue and just want to report it? Property owner makes me feel like it's implied that it's people in that directly affected area. How would you then define residency? And then also, how would we substantiate that that residency exists. Is that the backing of a piece of mail? Is that a valid ID? Is that a lease or something in that area? And many of these things happen to change. You could just move over there and not have all of those things, but be experiencing a very real traffic problem you want to address. I like this idea of making things more accessible, but I also think that it's very important that in that accessibility, we offer as much clarity as possible. And I feel like we get more and more murky once we get into the resident piece. addressable we can define those terms and we can understand how how we want to put them there but i just wonder what does it look like to workshop to get there to define resident and how can we effectively say or define what a resident is in some ways without without a precedent for it there's no like clear indication this is what makes a resident anywhere correct so we would have to make that up we would have to own that and make those decisions and not to say that one should come before the other, but in doing that, we delay this process, because we got to do that work. So I think it is about us thinking about cart before the horse, chicken for the egg, or whatever comes first. But I am interested in getting this process into the hands of the people, because it is a pilot. I would be interested in looking at how we can effectively use the tool we have and continue to modify it as we go. I don't think it's as effective to not get this moving while we also try to figure out how to solve larger problems. That's just my ultimate two cents on the process.

Council Member McMahon?

Yeah, I think in a 60% tenant community... Let me step back a little bit. So, I mean, overall, the goal of this is to have a more responsive local government to people who are experiencing concerns like where they live. And now, so, but 40% of the community gets a very special status in just... requesting an investigation for a resolution to the problem that they're experiencing. And that's the fundamental issue I have with this. That property owners are the sole petition signers in this to move it forward. And, you know, I just think that I think it's something to address. I'm not sure where I stand on kind of moving forward with property owners as the default kind of stakeholder in this issue when many of them are not registered to vote here, don't live here, and yet they have an outsized influence on a solution that they're not experiencing in their day-to-day life. And I think so that's why this was the stumbling block for me.

I think those are really great points and strong. I also just want to name that i don't look at it as a special exemption to them but i understand that statuses make that a way to happen there is a special level of responsibility that you have as a property owner doesn't mean that they meet them or that they're showing up for them but there is a requirement and there is a reporting system built around a structure like that that doesn't fully exist for residency i don't think that we should live to accommodate the current mismanagement of systems that support property owners and absentee property owners from getting specialized treatment but I just offer the context that there is an added responsibility in being a property owner that exists in the system when it is working well.

I think another thing to mention at our previous meeting, didn't we come up with a potential solution if we were to go with property owners being the people that report? Or matter of fact, if residents reported to the property owners multiple times and they didn't receive a response, that's when they would bring it to council. possibly their respective district council person, and then we will push it forward.

That's correct. We discussed that if it was just property owners and residents were having a difficult time, they could then reach out to council who then could step in and initiate the traffic study on behalf of the residents on that block.

And if we were to acknowledge just that, right, I think it's imperative that we send that communication out so that people or the constituent body are aware of what we are doing or how they could move forward with something like that. It will come down to a communication thing. Correct. Yes, I agree. I'm not against that.

So just so everybody understands, where you're at, right now, if there is a motion and second on the policy, it's with resident, right? So if somebody wants to change that, make it resident and or property owner or property owner, right? Someone is going to have to make a motion to amend this action, right, there'll have to be a second, and then a vote on that to see if that amends it or not, and then a vote on the underlying policy. So, just so everyone understands, I'm not laying it in just procedure-wise, I know there's been a lot of back and forth, just so everyone understands what would have to happen to make this correct. Thank you.

So I'd like to make a motion to amend it back to the original, which is the property owners.

I'm allowed to ask questions while the motion is open?

You have to see if there's a second or not. So did you second it then?

I had a question, but I didn't want to interrupt the motion.

So if there's a motion, a second, then you can ask questions after that.

My question was in regards to the residency. If that is a table one that we voted on and that vote is accepted, who determines residency if it is not a definable current term? How is it actualized?

Well, it hasn't been defined.

We would have to probably come back to you and ask for clarification. Correct.

Well, as in, it's not really actionable. Exactly.

Okay. Madam Secretary, roll call, please.

Mayor McCoy? Aye. Adira Robinson? Aye. Natalie Colson? Aye. Jasmine Griffin? No. David McMahon? No. Rashad Bates? Aye.

to approve the amended resolution 2639.

I'll make a motion to approve the amended resolution 2639.

So moved. Second. Madam Secretary.

William McCoy.

Deer Robinson? Aye. Natalie Colson? Aye. Jasmine Griffin? No. David McMahon? No. Rashad Bates? Aye.

You guys have it.

Thank you, council.

Moving on to resolution 26-45. Request for municipal council authorization to apply for a $500,000 DCED flood mitigation grant for Sawmill Creek culvert phase three.

Yes, thanks, Council President, Council Members. So yeah, before you tonight to request Council to make a motion to authorize the submission for the DCED grant, which is the Department of Community Economic Development Flood Mitigation Grant. This would be for up to $500,000. This money would be used for the phase three Sawmill Creek culvert restoration. This is the final phase. We completed the first and the second phase, and this work will be from the Vico property to where the culvert daylight's out. which I guess is near the August Moon restaurant. So I'm available for any questions. If you don't have any questions, I would like to request a motion to be made to authorize this submission for this DCED grant.

Council, any questions? Go ahead, Jane.

I just want to clarify to Council that the application was due the 31st we put it in, just in disclosure, so that we don't miss the deadline. I also want to reiterate that the project, even though it's $750,000, I did speak to the Director of Finance. This project will be able to cover Most of it, the $500,000 will cover, of course, most of it. But the balance will be actually taken from ARPA funds. And also the interest rate that we made from the ARPA funds can be used towards this as well. So hopefully we have a strong application showing that and that we'll be able to get these funds and we'll be able to finish this project.

Thank you. Councilwoman Robinson.

Thank you. You were answering a lot of my questions where I was headed. For the ARPA funds that would cover the balance, are these ARPA funds that are already currently allocated or they require any reallocation?

No, they're already allocated, actually. We worded it very well, broadly enough. Very nice. Very nice.

I just wanted to confirm that for the room. And then I know that you had to kind of move ahead with the submission for the application. This is the final leg of the fourth... Phase of this process. Once this is closed out in this process, is there an additional scope of work or body of work? And in the closing, is the full balance to close the project the $730,000? That's my understanding, unless you know of anything else.

Yes, yeah, this is the final phase for, yes, so close it out.

And in their grant, I know we can have up to $500,000. Did we request the full amount?

Yes.

Is there any grant match beyond... with the balance that is here? Is there any requirement of the grant for a match?

Yeah, as part of this grant, it's a 15% match. So with the opinion of probable cost, it was 700 and some $30,000. So that will meet the, so the difference between the 730 and 500,000, 230,000, that exceeds the 15% match. So they would meet that 50% match plus the difference.

Because we have an extended balance that counts towards our match.

Yes. Okay, perfect.

And just high probability, I know DCED funding is moving quite rapidly with the budget being approved. Do we feel like we have a good probability on return here?

Yes. Awesome. Yeah, and thank you, Jane, for that input too. So like she said, we did submit the grant May 31st. Once we get your motion to grant the submission, we'll take that resolution and retroactively send it to the county for that application along with a commitment letter.

And I'm sorry, I promised last question. Is this a reimbursement grant or is this approved funding upfront? Do we have to spend and then submit for reimbursement or are we getting the amount?

The construction has to be completed and then get that.

I'm sorry?

The construction would have to be completed and then you would get that.

Reimbursement, thank you. Okay. Thanks.

Council, any other questions or comments? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve Resolution 26-45, Request for Municipal Council Authorization to Apply for a $500,000 DCED Flood Mitigation Grant for Small Mill Creek Clover Phase 3? Madam Secretary.

McCoy Madeira Robinson Natalie Colson Jasmine Griffin David McMahon All right, yeah, I said it Thank You Council do I have a motion to adjourn all in favor