Common Council - Regular Meeting

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Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. this meeting. Here we go. Welcome everyone to the August I had to remember what month we're in. School's almost starting. August um city council meeting. Will you please stand and join me for the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Councilman Parnell, could you lead us in the prayer?

Shall we pray together? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for that privilege we have to call you God and father. Lord, we ask for your blessing upon our meeting this evening. We pray father for the guidance of your holy spirit. We pray father for the residents of our city, our police officers, our firefighters and thank you again for the opportunity we have to gather here this evening and take care of your business. We pray that you will be glorified in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Can we do the uh roll call? Absolutely. Councilman Alvarez here. Councilwoman Weidenbach here. Councilwoman Hurst. Councilman Parnell

here. Councilwoman Vazquez here. Councilwoman Amler here. Councilman Zilly here. Did everyone have a chance to look at the uh minutes from our last meeting? And I apologize, my brain's getting ahead. Have we had two meetings that we need or is it just the one? It's the one. Okay. Okay, I'll make a motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

Thank you. We have communications, correspondence, and announcements from the mayor. I'll try to be brief, but there is a matter that I do want to address. Um, to start, um, I want to say thank you to everybody who is here, but was earlier at Founders Square today and those who are still there for the National Night Out. It's a huge event put on by our police, but we also get our fire department and our utilities involved. It was a great turnout there today. I think it still is a great turnout. If you don't see Chief Candiano, he might just be having a tough time getting back and I don't know if Chief Crayle is here yet. So, oh, he is. Oh, good to see you. Sorry. Saw you there in the back. So, again, just a wonderful, you know, wonderful time. I want to address a matter that happened um last week that after much discussion with my team and with a number of people who I trust, not necessarily always people I agree with all the time, but people that I trust, there's a matter that I need to disclose to the city council as well as to the general public. and that's that on Monday last week, I received a threat to our city's financial situation via a text message from a member of Indiana's state legislature, uh, Representative Ed Sol of the, uh, fourth district, who is the chair of the, uh, utilities commission, its utilities, telecommunications, and energy, I believe, trend member offh hand. Um, he was frustrated at me on a personal note because of a political opinion that I expressed last week about my belief, which I got to be careful here because I'm in the pothole fixing business and the police funding business. When it comes to my views on national or state issues, I usually try to keep that out because quite frankly, I'm a mayor and I work for everybody and sometimes your national and state views don't match. But in a correspondence with the public, I stated my view, my agreement with the idea of reforming the Indiana Regulatory um commission. Um for those who don't know what that is, that's the body that approves the uh NIPCO rate hikes or when NIPCO wants to increase the rates, that's the

commission they go to. It's five people who are currently um appointed by the governor and uh that's it. They're just appointed by the governor. There is a growing movement in Indiana to have at least some of those people um replaced by or at least the position replaced by elected positions. Um other states do it that way. I'm not going to go into the details of all that. And for the record, it's totally okay if you disagree with me on that position. I'm just another Indiana voter when it comes to this issue. However, I received a message that I will read in full from Representative Sol. And uh please note that not everything in here I believe to be true. These are just statements made to me, but the key part is the end. I want to thank you for your very enlightened comments on the IURC and the rate increases. Uh four exclamation points. I'm glad you took a stand against any future pay raises for NIPCO linemen and other employees. I am additionally thankful that you took a position against meeting the inflationary costs of replacing our aging electric infrastructure. I am most appreciative that you took a strong position to replace the nationally toprated Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission with an elected board. That way we can have any fool serve who will pander to the public noise boxes with no qualifications. And then the next three words are in all caps. Big mistake, mayor. Maybe next time get the facts before you blow off on public policy. You and Redstone make a heck of a pair. Three question marks. Um, I promise I will work hard to make certain that your city never gets any revenue increases. Three exclamation points. I uh will put this simply. If this was just a threat made to me, be it personal um relationship or um political um if somebody says, "Hey, I'm going to move to Portage and run against you because I dislike your view on this commission."

That's fine. But making a financial threat against a city, a city of 38,000 people, not all of whom voted for me or always like me, by the way, but making a financial threat about that in a way that would impact our police, our firefighters, our utilities in any particular way from a member of our state legislature, let alone an influential one, is totally unacceptable. My hope is that there is no actual attack made against our city either by actual legislative action or attempts or indirectly by Mr. Solid or any member of our state legislature regardless of what they think about the NIPCO rate increase or who has the authority to approve or deny them. But I just want to put this on record because in the event that our city is targeted in some way that is suspicious or concerning in the future, especially next year, I don't think I would be being a responsible mayor, if I were to wait that long and say, "Hey, by the way, a couple months ago, I was told that this was going to happen." As I say, my hope is that this is a situation of a bark being worse than a bite. But I will say we shouldn't be handling things this way. I wanted to acknowledge County Councilman Red Stone who's here in addition to our county commissioners, uh, Jim Big, Ed, Jim Biggs, Ed Morales, um, state representative, our state representative, Chuck Mosley, is also here. And I appreciate you guys all being here today. Um, I welcome you guys because I know you made a trip to be here, but Red, in particular, I wanted to give you the opportunity, should you wish, to say something as you were mentioned in this and roped into this with me. And I don't apologize for my opinions, but I apologize that for whatever reason, you were roped into this.

Thank you, Austin. I appreciate that. Um I know why it I get why I'm in it. Um sometimes I can be a little crass with the to the toll road signs. I get that. I just you know I fight for people. I fight for blue color people and that's just how it is. So I understand he probably does not care for me. I get that. But what really struck me was, you know, if this is really how politics works, man, I almost want to partner. I mean, this should not be how we do business as state reps or county councilmen or school board members or mayors. This is totally unacceptable. And like I said, you know, I have two districts in Portage. You know, I I love the portage people. I have a lot of friends in Portage. And you know, to threaten you and to threaten, I would say that the of Portage is just flat out wrong. It's one of the most honestly most distasteful things that that I've read and I know, you know, like I said, I create controversy myself because I don't go with the flow and I get that. But I just think sometimes you have to be able to tell people the real deal like who, you know, who's going to be supportive of this raising 50%. Not me, not my kids, probably not a lot of people in there. And I think that needs to be told and if people can't, you know, accept criticism, man, that's we're we're in for a rough uh rough time. So, but I app I appreciate you as the mayor. I see on Facebook. I appreciate the council. You guys are doing a lot of good things in Portage have a lot of good activities and you know that's why I'm here to support you. I think that was wrong and that that that is definitely wrong. You should resign that quite frankly. I mean I'm appalled that someone would say that to be honest with you.

Thank you for being here Red and thank you for our other officials who are here. If there's another elected official here that I missed. I think I announced everybody who I saw coming in. I appreciate you guys. As a council, there's no action I'm asking you guys to take. I just felt that I wouldn't be being a responsible mayor if I didn't bring this stated threat that was communicated to me electronically up to you so that we are aware in the future that things could be going on. I also understand that there are going to be political disagreements and things and sometimes different policies taken by governments can create issues for other I get that. But it should never be about a personal opinion than being taken out on a whole entity. At least that's my view. And thank you guys. On that cheery note, I'll switch it over to Liz for her report.

Austin, I want to thank you for all you do for the city of Portage. It's very much appreciated. Thank you.

Okay. For my the clerk treasures report, excuse me, I got a lifesaver in my mouth. The state board the state board of accounts finished up their audit last week on the 24th. We had a a an enormous amount of people at our exit conference which I'm very thankful for. Most of the department heads attended, a a council member and um the mayor of course and um a lot of things were discussed. We can't I cannot discuss everything that was discussed because it's not public knowledge yet. It should be public knowledge sometime next week. um that they should it should be the I'm sorry the audit result should be available on Gateway sometime next week. I do want to emphasize something though that I placed a nepotism policy in front of each one of you and that was one of the things that um was brought up in our public meeting about a nepotism policy hasn't been signed for I think a couple years. So if you guys could please fill those out for the department head. I can I have some for the department heads and also for the council. If I can get those after the meeting, it'd be greatly appreciated. My office staff has been working diligently for the last two weeks um on budget, getting the budget prepared, so Austin will have a budget available sometime next week to go over. I'm not preparing it. I'm just giving them a blank sheet with a

That's very appreciated because I know how much work you guys have done to identify I don't want to say redundant like sheets, but just there are some things in there that could use a cleanup and it'd be a lot smoother, I think, for the council, too. Sorry to interrupt, but thank you. I know how hard you're working there.

Well, thank you very much. Also, I have a conflict of interest that I need to um address today. Um forms that were filled out prior. So, I want to I'd have to leave the council know who's returned a conflict of interest form. I myself had to fill out a conflict of interest because my daughter works for the city of Portage. Tammy Joe Burke, who ws in my office, had to fill out a conflict of interest form because her husband actually sold a couple of um of police dogs to the police department. Gina Gishurst had to fill out a conflict of interest form because her husband works for utilities. And Ted Jeros or Ted, I'm sorry, Tedlac, I'm sorry, Ted Jerosk, I see you.

What happens when I show up? I I see you sitting up front, so it just came natural. I'm sorry. Ted Yuzilac had did fill out a um conflict of interest form because his wife actually does the cleaning at city hall and all the other um buildings in the city. And I just had to let you guys know that these were filed and they will be in file on file in my office. And I'll also give a copy to the mayor. If anybody has any questions for me or if anybody has any concerns, my office is always open from 9 to 5 most Monday through Friday. I will be in school next week, so I will not be available, but I will be checking all my emails.

Thank you so much, Liz. Oh. Oh, sorry, Victor. I saw you tapping your mouse. I thought it was your button, so I was like ready to let you speak. Sorry. Okay. All right. I don't believe we have well we have unfinished business in the form of a later you know hearing on the zoning change but nothing that's marked unfinished business. We have some introductions of ordinances. Um two of these involve fees and fines. So they're not able to suspend the rules. I'll identify them as we go. One could be suspended. That's up to you guys and it might involve some discussion if if you wish. So, we'll start with ordinance 25-35 amending chapter 10, trap, neuter, and return for feral cats. If anybody's having funny like flashbacks or anything, I want you to know we now have a great relationship with people doing work with the felines in our city. Um, Ted, would you be interested in coming up to just explain a little bit about the intention of this? I know that because there are fees and some fines involved, we can't um vote on it today, but if you'd be willing to just explain a little for transparency.

Sure. So, what this ordinance is designed to do is to allow both our citizens and our animal control people to enact a trap, neuter, and release program. Who knows what that is? Anybody? You know what it is? So, this is the absolute most humane answer. Frankly, it's the only answer that truly works for feral cat populations. Now, what this ordinance will do is it'll define feral cats, which is a little bit different than a community cat, which is kind of a non wild cat, and it allows us and others to identify a feral cat colony and to trap, neuter, and release these animals. Uh, of course, they'll be vaccinated as well. um so that nature can take its course and that colony can uh be controlled in a in a natural way. Um our animal control people are knowledgeable. We've sent them to school for it. So if you have any further questions, you can ask our animal control officers.

Thank you very much. Um I will ask if um council person um um Parnell, would you be willing to read the ordinance for the first reading for us? Yes, sir. Just the uh asking our attorney Okay. So much. Ordinance 25-35, an ordinance of the common council, city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 10 of the Portage Municipal Code to establish a trapneuter return program for feral cats. Let the record reflect that the ordinance has been read in its entirety.

Thank you so much. And then that'll come to our next meeting uh date. Our next ordinance is ordinance um 2536 amending chapter 58 enforcement of park rules by the Portage Police Department. Ted, would you mind if I call you back up real quick? And I might have misspoke. I think there if there's a potential for a fee end on this, we might have to wait, but just to explain a little from my start. We have a number of situations that we want to be able to empower our park board to be able to make rules for in our parks that function a little bit differently than what might just be a typical ordinance. and I'll use that to open up.

So, generally what this says, again, a good ordinance, I'm sure all of our elected officials agree, a good ordinance is an ordinance that can be enforced. Uh, so right now there's some issues that happen in the parks that there's no actual ordinance for because maybe it's for a special event or something like that where it's a temporary rule or maybe it's a permanent rule. Regardless, what this ordinance does is it allows the police to enforce any posted park rules. So, if there's a big sign that the park closes at dusk, we can enforce that rule. If there's a big sign that says you can't shoot guns in the park, well, we can enforce that rule with something other than uh a criminal law. Like, I'm talking about these Orbee guns and things like that. Um, so what this does is it allows the police department to enforce park rules that are posted in the park.

Question. All right. Well, thank you. Um, if there's any further questions, uh, we could have them, but otherwise, I'll ask, um, Councilwoman Vasquez, would you be willing to read, um, that for us? Again, I think just the heading and whatnot. Absolutely. Ordinance number 25-36, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 58 of the Portage Municipal Code to authorize enforcement of park rules by Portage Police Department. Let the record reflect that the ordinance has been read in its entirety. Thank you.

And then that gets us to ordinance 2537. Ted, I could have you come up, but I think I could take over this one. Um, I know that this is I know, right? This could have been the Ted Muslak show. So, uh, could have been the Ted Jerosak show, too. I mean that could be like So the purpose of this um article titled transient occupancy safety standards in hotels and motel speaks to a situation that in Indiana a hotel unless it is an extended stay hotel is designed to be a place that you can stay for 30 days. Um it is not meant to be a permanent address. It is not meant to be something that exceeds 30. And the reason being is that's when you start running into issues with fire safety along with other issues that come with it. We did a really good bit of research on the administrative side and I appreciate our police and fire and our city attorney for working on this to find some examples of municipal ordinances that allow us to um require hotels to keep record of who's there and when they exceed the 30 days. And it allows us to check that and has penalties for if that's not available. It also has penalties at different levels for if somebody is caught to be staying in a non-extended stay hotel past that 30-day limit. Um, I'm sure there might be some questions, but this is an example where because there are fees and fines involved, we do have to wait till the next meeting. I'll ask uh Councilman Alvarez, would you mind reading that for us? Oh, and I'm sorry if you don't have a Oh, there we go. I wasn't trying to trick you.

Ordinance number 2537, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Portage, Indiana. amending chapter 46 of the Portage Municipal Code to add article six titled transient occupancy safety standards for hotels and motel. Let the record show that this ordinance has been read in its entirety.

Thank you, sir. That gets us to the second reading of ordinances, which brings us to ordinance um 2533 amending chapter 90 article five. I always see the V and I have to remember it's a five. Yeah. City of Portage Municipal Code entitled zoning map. Attorney Mccclure, does this have to be actually read again as a second reading? All right. I'll ask if uh Councilwoman Widenbach could you do that for us? Ordinance number 25-33, an ordinance of the city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 90, article 5 of the city of Portage Municipal Code entitled zoning map. But the records show it's been read in its entirety.

So, we are no longer in the era of treasure maps and going into like great detail of if you've been watching these meetings for a while, you know what I'm talking about. You know, should have wked it this way so people could see I'm winking at you. But, uh, just to explain, this is the intersection of Portage Avenue and um, what I call Old Chrisman Road. Um, if you just call it Chrisman Road, that's okay, but I kind of grew up calling it Old Chrisman Road. That property um used to be the old Chrisman school. I believe when I was in fifth grade, it burned down. I don't know the history of how it went from being school system property to city property, but it has been in the city's hands for uh some time. It is not crazy expensive to maintain and at the same time it is very unused land that could be usable. uh my team sought out ways that we could find a way to make good use of it and one of the ways we found and we were very excited about was and is uh working with Habitat for Humanity to develop some homes on that site. Now, there's two components to that that I think uh matter as far as being a mayor goes, and I want to make sure that it's clear because I know that we had different questions asked at the plan commission meeting, and there were questions asked at our last council meeting about it, and I want to do my best to clarify that as best I can before turning it over for you guys to consider, ask your questions. Step one is that um the question was brought up about is the land contaminated, is it safe? All of the records that the city has in regards to the land since the fire and how it was um handled in demolition state that it is currently safe. However, any land that's going to be developed has to be tested first and we would make sure that that happens beforehand. We would do that for any land, but it's certainly going to happen in this case. And in the event something is found there, it actually would put a stop to the whole idea. Second part is

at the plan commission uh meeting, Habitat for Humanity presented a design for the neighborhood that had eight homes. And Luke, you can correct me if I get it wrong. Just give me a wave if I don't describe it accurately, but it was basically um it was eight homes going on the more or less along the corners, you know, if you will, like along um Gold Chrisman Road and along Portage Avenue and I believe with kind of a park or a gazebo design in the back. That is to say, um, the zoning change that they're seeking to be able to do that would be for R4. What that does is it creates a minimum standard of 50 ft. I don't believe even if you guys were to vote for the zoning change, they would be able with our code to do eight because of separate code that we have about how close a home and a driveway can be to a corner um, let alone two corners. Um there are a couple of corners in our city's um history where they allowed homes to be built closer, but I think that that would be even if that could go to the BZA. And Tom Cherry, I don't know if Tom is here, is pretty sure that it could not for other issues in our code. Tom, is that right?

So we are looking at if you guys were to go with the zoning being requested, we are looking at really a minimum or sorry probably a maximum of six houses under that criteria. One of the concerns or at least ideas that I wanted to bring into it is I as a mayor have ideas, so does my team about what we want to have happen with the trail there and we want to work with Habitat for Humanity to incorporate that um into the design for it. I say that because you guys voting on this zoning change is not the same thing as giving them the land. Hypothetically, I might not. Or that is to say, the board of works, which is the entity that would be voting on whether or not to finalize giving them the land, if we don't come to an agreement on the design and what it looks like, even if you guys voted on the zoning change, it still might not happen. I don't say that to give the impression that it won't happen. I say it because it's almost kind of like that meme with the three guys doing the walking in a circle. You've got Oh, I'm so glad I got to make Colin laugh a little bit. That's my goal at every meeting. The first guy in that standoff is me and the board of works based on what we would want to see happen on that site. And to be fair, there's things we might want to see happen on that site in the lungs of parks and trails that maybe Habitat can't do. So, if I want to make that happen, I have to figure out where the money's coming from. The second part of the second guy in that hypothetical, you know, play standoff is you guys, the council. You guys as a council, I don't want to say you might not trust me, but you might want to have more oversight than just changing the zoning and expecting me and the board of works to come up with the best design. So, that's person, you know, number two. Person number three in this hypothetical standoff is Habitat for Humanity because there's only so many conditions we can put on any developer. And if you don't like the term developer, I apologize, but in this context, there might be a point where it's like, you know, either this council wants too much or, you

know, this mayor and his board of works want too much. And then somewhere, not somewhere above all that is the actual people of Portage who elect us. And I know that that was a big part of the discussion when I walked to the neighborhood and met with the residents. Some of them are here. And in the context of this discussion, I am going to let some of you guys, well, not some, but you guys who were part of that meeting, I said I could bring you in and you'd be able to speak. So, if you'd like to, I will call you up. But first, I would like to, it's not a public hearing, but I am going to let Habitat for Humanity come and speak about what they want to do. Um, Luke, is that you or not sure who's Don't have Luke speak.

Oh, I'm sorry. One up. No, you're good. You're good. No, we don't want Luke to speak for it. Yeah. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate it. Um, again, yeah, like you said, I can only re reiterate, we all have to come to an agreement on what the best use of the land is. Um, it's going to take a lot of time. We have to make sure that the land is suitable. Uh, we would never want to put our potential homeowners in a position where they're not in a good safe environment, including environmental um contamination of land. We would never do that. So, yeah, we want to make sure that we're a good partner with the city. Uh this is just a first step in the process. We want to be able to bring affordable homes to Portage. We think there's a a dire need for it. Uh based on what we see from application requests and from working with uh potential homeowners in the community and we think we'd be a great addition to the city. Uh we've had a great working relationship with the city in the past and we look forward to continuing that on. And I want to add that there are other properties the city has we've discussed working with Habitat on where there isn't a zoning change element and once we get closer with those we'll be transparent about where they are and everything. Are there any initial questions on um the Habitat for Humanity side of this?

I think it would just be helpful for everyone if you could explain what the process looks like for a homeowner with Habitat. What that process looks like what because they're homeowners.

Yeah, they're I think that's an important thing that everybody knows. We build and sell homes to people. Uh we are a home builder. So there's an application process that has to happen. Uh we open applications maybe uh twice a year. So we go through a process where we open that process and you have to meet three criteria. You have to be within our financial guidelines which currently are 60 to 80% of the median income guide guidelines. Um Habitat International gives us a little leeway. we could go a little lower, but because of the economics of home building right now, uh we don't want to put people in situations that set them up to fail. So, we want to make sure that they actually have income that they're going to be able to afford a home. The second guideline is they have to be willing to partner with us to meet the sweat equity requirements. Uh each adult over the age of 18 that is going to be in the household has to put in 250 sweat equity hours on the home. Uh on top of working their full-time jobs, that is a process that can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to get those hours in. So they're not only working on their home, they're working on the homes before them for other homeowners. And that really helps to build community. Uh they they learn what it really takes to build a home. And that actually makes them proud homeowners when they finally get the home. they because they know the labor and the sweat and the tears that it puts that they put into that. Um, and sometimes blood and sometimes broken feet as Bernie will attest to. Um, so yeah. So, and the third criteria is that they need uh safe and affordable housing. So, we look at their current living situation. Uh, we evaluate it. We basically grade it. Uh, we make sure that they are in need of safe housing. So, if they are living somewhere that is unsafe for them or their family, we look at if they're overcrowded. If we have four people living in a one-bedroom apartment, it's not a good living situation. Or um if we have situations where uh landlords are just not taking

care of the property. We've had homeowner or potential homeowners come in that we've gone in and done home inspections on and they have mold, mildew growing on the walls. They have air conditioning that doesn't work. They have heat that doesn't work. if they have windows that seep in air during the winter months that are creating an unlivable and unsafe and unnering environment for those uh people within the home. So those are the three criteria that they have to meet. Uh once we go through their application and we deem them a good fit for us that goes before our family selections committee who then brings them to the board for approval. So we then evaluate the families on an anonymous basis. We're told uh single mother with three children. We're told um you know anonymous criteria so that we can make a very um generalized decision when it comes to the family so that we're not biased in any way. Um and once we approve them as a partner family, they sign a partnership agreement with us and they start collecting their sweat equity hours on the current build that we're on. Uh some of them if they have a disability we've allowed them to come into the office and do filing for us to do administrative work. Um if they are able to work on site then they can come out on site but we do work with them to find ways to get their sweat equity hours. And we keep going through the process. We go out and we find land. We search for lots. We come to the city and beg for for land and available lots because we want to have people in your community. Uh we try our best to put them in the communities in Porter County that they are either already in or prefer to be in um either based on work or where their children go to school. Uh our current homeowner is very excited to be entering the Portage school system because her uh daughter's cousins go to the same school. So she was very excited about the lot we were able to provide for her over on Blackstone. Um and then we build him a house and then the mortgage process is like everybody else's mortgage process. There's a closing. Uh they have to bring a down

payment. Um, it's a very minimal down payment, usually within a,000 to $2,000. We work with them to try and get them down payment assistance if we can through grant programs. And we sell the home at 0% interest. So, in the financial um part of all this, we determine based on their income what they can afford and they will never pay a mortgage payment above what they can afford based on that calculation. So, we keep them within certain debt to income ratios and we keep them within um and god Beth would be so much better at talking about this because she's my gal that does this and I hope I'm doing a great job. Okay, thanks. Um but we keep them within a mortgage payment that is affordable. Anything above that on the purchase price, Habitat takes out as a second forgivable mortgage. So, it's a 30-year mortgage. So every year that they stay in the home and they pay their mortgage payment, we re we forgive 130th of that second mortgage. So by the time they've been in the home for 30 years, paid it off, that second mortgage has been forgiven. So they will never pay more than what they can actually afford. Like I said, we do not want to put them in a situation that sets them up for failure. So we make sure to keep them in those homes. So

I know you've uh talked about affordable housing and we all care about housing affordability. When we talk about the cost or the value of these homes, could you clarify like so just pick one house you know that you guys build. What would be the actual value of that home?

The last house we just built on Valparezo Street in Valpo appraised at $318,000. It was a two-bedroom uh one bath two-bedroom, one bath on a full basement. Uh we built a basement just because of the lot um restrictions we needed to. It was uh we had to take a lot of soil out of there. So instead of putting a lot of soil back in, we built a basement. Um but yes, that one appraised for that. The one we just finished in South Haven two years ago appraised for $278,000 and that was a three-bedroom, two- bath home. If you could trust me to know that I'm not being sarcastic. N absolutely.

I I don't mean it in any bad way. I want to make sure because I remember growing up in Portage at a time when I thought a $180,000 house was something only millionaires could like figure out how to get. Yes. The value of that home is that how do I is the value of the home higher? Let me put this way. If I if you guys just built a home and sold it to me, which defeats the whole purpose, I'm not soliciting that, you know. But if I were, you know, if you guys were just any, you know, construction company, is there something as you described with the mortgage, somebody who is moving into this home or a family, is it that they are not paying as much as maybe a traditionally built and traditionally purchased home or are they still paying a mortgage on that cost? If that if my question makes sense.

So, this is a great example and this is this shows you the economies of what we're dealing with right now. The home in Valparezo that appraised over $300,000, that homeowner could not afford that. They could affordundred and 80 I think maybe because we have a $130,000 second mortgage on that home that Habitat has taken on. Uh the previous homeowner um she has um she got a grant but she would have had a $32,000 second mortgage I believe on that home. So we are even though the purchase price is set at the value of the home, what the homeowner actually pays is based on what their affordability calculation is that they can afford. And again, that's within the criteria of the um debt to income ratios that we set to them uh that they cannot exceed and I think that's 40% debt to income ratio.

Can't be more than 43% of their their income. Yes. So, we keep them in that area. We don't allow them to over buy. I have to very good friend who lives much more south of here in the southern part of Indiana who he did not realize this, but the home he bought, you know, which for him was just a house that he bought. He found out was actually built for by Habitat for Humanity, but for whatever reason, the family in need that, you know, had initially got the house, he didn't know the circumstances. He wasn't sure if they broke some rule or if money was tight or if they just moved. But he basically told me when we were talking about it goes Austin, you know, I live in a Habitat for Humanity house. And I was like, really? You know,

in the event that something were to happen and I don't want that to happen because of course that's not your mission, but

what would be the result or how does that happen sometimes that a home ends up just being, you know, a house after this process? So, we have great stories of families that, you know, because they were in a safe, nurturing environment, finally, they were able to go back to school and they bettered themselves and they got a better paying job and they wanted to move into a bigger house. Uh, we've had homeowners that have gotten married after the fact and so they've wanted to uh get a bigger house or we've had people that have gotten job offers across the country, so they've sold their house and moved. Um, Habitat does have the first right of refusal on all the homes. So, we can purchase those homes back and try to recycle them into the affordable housing market. Um, a lot of times we will just let them sell out. We have depending on when the house was built and when the mortgage was created, uh, some of them have shared appreciation on the homes where say they're going to make, you know, they were able to sell the house $50,000 over all the um, mortgages that are left over. we would share that appreciation with them. So, um there's different scenarios. Uh we have I don't remember how I don't think we've ever foreclosed in Porter County on a homeowner. Uh we've never had to go that route. We do have some delinquent payments. We and we work with them because we are the serer of the mortgage. Like we don't have to worry about a bank stepping in and saying, "I'm going to take the house." We have homeowners that we've worked with for years on back payments and we're like, "We'll help you. Just keep paying something and we'll we'll help you catch up." We found them grants during COVID when they lost their jobs. We were able to help them find grants that they were able to pay their mortgages through that. So, we're not just a builder that sells off to another mortgage company and doesn't care about what happens to them afterwards. We have conversations with our past homeowners. We we try to get them involved in in the community that they're in so that they know that they have a sounding board and a a backs stop for when things do go wrong because a lot we all know that we

all get ourselves in situations where things go wrong and we are the back stop for them. We can keep them in their houses when a bank would normally not care. And thank you. You answered one of my questions about foreclosure. Okay. And uh what that rate was. So yeah, I had a brief question. Excuse me. Um, how many Habitat houses are currently in Portage? Do you happen to know that? I'm gonna lean to some of the board members. Guess about 10. I was going to say I I know of.

Yeah. Our next build, our current build that we're waiting on our permit for, Tom, um, is going to be right here uh, in the trails at Blackstone um, Blackstone Circle. Um, and I know that we have two or three that got built over on Sunrise. Uh, Malberry Street has a habitat house. Uh, there's a number of I think Stone Avenue has a a habitat house or two over there. So, yep. What is a little Oh, I'm sorry for Go ahead. Thank you. Um, and so this proposed development would would it be the first Habitat development that has multiple homes? It would it would be our first subdivision

in Portage or just in general? general it uh yeah, Porter County's Yeah, our affiliate has never done a subdivision before. I think we've done two or three next to each other in the past, but that that was our limit. And I guess that gets to the next question, and you probably answered this at plan commission. I watched it. I can't remember. That's okay. Would you know that it's a habitat house when you drive by it? I sure hope not. That's the goal. What is the possibility that one of your applicants decides to not continue with the process and your halfway stick framed house? Um,

we go to the next applicant and ask them, would you like this house? So, it just go they they can back out at any time before closing. That's their prerogative. They we do not force people to continue on with their partnership agreement. Life's change, situations happen. There's always stuff that comes up. I would assume you have more applicants than you have available houses.

Uh yes, we we are actually looking for more applicants because of what we're hoping is coming. Um so we usually try to keep about two or three, you know, approved applicants in the coffers behind us. Like right now we have one behind the house we're currently doing. So we generally have one to two behind us, but uh if we get moving on this, we would definitely open up applications again and try and back fill so that we're ready. And you did say that you can only build one maybe two houses a year. Uh that's what we have. Donated.

That is what we have done in the past. We have we are we are a working board. Uh I am a volunteer. I have a day job. Uh many of my board members are either retired or also are working in day jobs. So we are a working board. We are hoping to grow. We actually have positions for another construction superintendent available right now. We're going to be taking on an executive director for the first time again in seven years. Uh we are in a financial situation where we can do that. We can staff up. It's a chicken and an egg thing, right? We can only keep going as far as we can with a working board. So, we need to staff up, but then you worry about staffing up because you want to keep them employed, right? Um so, we're we're taking the plunge. We're going to staff up and we're going to start building more houses. That's our goal. And with the current plan that you have where the houses are lined up on Chrisman and Portage Avenue, um you're not able to build roads to make that a design change. Is that correct? You're not in the business of building roads.

We are not in the business of building roads and that would be something as the mayor has pointed out that need to get talked about at a round table. How do you know if that's really what the city wants then we need to find a way to make that happen? And whether that's grant opportunities that allow the city and Habitat to partner at a grant to go for an infrastructure grant, there are those available through Indiana's housing programs. There's a lot of options available. It's just not something that I can guarantee from Habitat alone. I would need I need help.

And that's why we're we'd be at this meeting one way or another. The awkwardness of this is usually when you have a I won't say traditional builder, but a for-profit developer, they usually are coming in with the resources to be in the road business. You know, this is a you know, charitable organization, and so we're both planning a subdivision together, but we're also trying to figure out how to put means in. If the city of Portage was made of money, which we are not,

I'd be saying, "Don't worry about the road. Oh my goodness, we could work on that." But that's where and I do want to turn over to some residents because I promised at a great meeting that we had that they'd be able to come if they came to this meeting and I'm glad you guys are here. There's something I really want to say, you know, to that point. You say the word subdivision, but we actually have communities with multiple subdivisions in them. Sometimes people don't realize the pladding of their neighborhood. I've talked before about Gitton, which is one of the three historical towns, if you will, communities that became the city of Portage. Gitton is still here. So is so are the other two communities, Mcool and Chrisman. Gitton has always been the biggest and kind of the easiest to spot. But the community along Chrisman Road and the community along Federal Avenue behind if we're being generous and including the new subdivision behind the old Lutheran church, are we okay with including? I would say that there are currently three subdivisions in the Chrisman community. Four if we include Chrisman Cove. I are we are we going to include Chrisman Cove watching the heads nod. If we say that there are four subdivisions already in the Chrisman community. It's important to understand that building a subdivision is not and does not have to be the same as building a separate community. We had a really good discussion when I went around knocking door to door. We ended up having a meeting in a driveway and I was actually very well I'm very glad that happened because I didn't know what was going to happen and I'm I'm just so happy that you guys took the time to speak to me. The two big things that came out of me were the takeaway of people wanted to know what are the steps and understanding that the zoning is not exactly the same as actually coming to an agreement to give the land. And so even if you guys were to vote for the zoning change, there is still room for us to work with the community to make sure the second point which I said already accidentally, it needs to be part of the Chrisman community.

Absolutely. You've mentioned uh Blackstone and you mentioned uh Stone Avenue. Um and I think there's one on some on Sunrise, maybe Bell, but most of the Habitat for Humanity homes built in Portage have been built on open lots in existing subdivisions in existing neighborhoods. So, they do blend right in. Since we're building a new subdivision where there's already a community, we want to make sure that when it gets built, it's built so that it's part of that community, not a separate community. I'd be happy to invite you guys to come up if you'd like to speak. Um I just don't know if you'd prefer to speak at the podium or if you prefer to speak at the um I would while they're coming up.

Yeah, I was gonna say I still have another question but we'll have time after. Go. Yeah, but go ahead. So to be clear and this question for Tom probably any developer could come to us and want to develop this property. There's nothing stopping any other home builder from building homes on this other than we own it and they could purchase it from us. Okay. It's already zoned residential. So it it's available to build homes on. Okay. And my question, you know, when you think of Habitat Humanity and the building of houses, you think of, you know, Jimmy Carter, may he rest in peace, and volunteers and as you said, the um future homeowners have some skin in the game and, you know, help towards that.

Um are the properties fully volunteer built or is any union uh assistance or work done? Um, I would love to have union volunteers come and build on my site. Understood. Thank you. It Yeah. And we platforms.

Solid platforms. Yes. Actually comes out and does all our scaffolding for us. They frame our roof. Um, and then a various other amount of contractors. I'm sure Bernie could rattle them off. Come out and do our plumbing uh and HVAC work. Uh, our concrete work is done by licensed contractors within the city. Um, but a lot of the framing, a lot of the hands-on stuff that um you can teach to unskilled labor is done through volunteers. We have a terrific group of a team guys that come out and consistently give their time to us um a couple times a week and they lead the volunteers that come out. And again, you said it, you nailed it right on the head, Austin, when you said that this needs to be part of the community. Building a home together with your fellow community members is the best way to build community and it is the fastest way. Yes,

it does. It has to meet all code. We uh meet higher energy efficiency ratings than are required by code. It it's it's a great house. It's a very well-built house. Very good. Thank you. Yes. So, for the Oh, I'm sorry, Luke. Yeah. I'd like to say a couple things if you're going with

Would you be okay if I let the residents come and then I'll bring you up after if that's okay. What I would just ask is if you are a resident coming to speak because this is not a documented public hearing but for the sake of you know order what have you. If you have a question I would ask you not to ask the question well you can ask a question to the developer but please ask it to me so that when you're finished I'll bring it up to them. But like I say my hope Thank you. My hope is that this is not confrontational but discussion but for the sake of flow you know please direct it to me and then we'll go from there. Come on up. It's so good to see you.

Thank you Mr. Mayor for allowing me to speak this evening. I know it's not normal to have this happen. My name is Carla Mcan. Um, my family home is on Chrisman Avenue. My family has owned this home since for almost a hundred years now. My surname was Nelson. So, I've been in this community, Chrisman community for as long as I can remember, almost 70 years that I've been alive. I've actually lived across the street for a while in a trailer. So, this community of Chrisman is near and dear to my heart. I now own my grandparents home that is there. All right. As a community member there, oh, one more thing. My father was born on Portage Avenue in a house on Portage Avenue. So, my roots don't just go back to my grandparents buying a house. It's goes back to them giving birth on a street and not in a hospital. This is a near and dear community to me. Okay, that said, the other thing I want to say is I contribute to Habitat for Humanities. I make yearly donations to Habitat for Humanities. I have a lot of respect for the program. I think what they do their houses, what they do with the community, what they do with low income is amazing. They do amazing work. Historically, that property had two schools on it. My grandmother actually cooked in the schools meals for the students that went there. Again, back to why it's near and dear to me, that community. When this issue of reszoning came up, I went door to door. I went on every street from Federal to Chrisman to Foley to Stormy and made it into cove the Cove over there. Don't know them real well, but I still made it over there.

I just really appreciate you including them in Chrisman. I wasn't sure if they just tacked the name on when they built it. I included them in my walk around town. Anyway, and um what I found was that we are a community and everybody I talked to was welcoming to me. Um as I went to the doors, what I also found was great concern about eight more houses on that corner. Um eight sounded really excessive. Some of the people I talked to said six were sounded more reasonable that eight was just too many. Four houses on Chrisman, four houses on Portage Avenue and you increase the traffic. The infrastructure on Portage Avenue and on Chrisman doesn't support new residents. We're already taking the overflow from Airport Road, Hamstrom, Samson, they're all dumping onto Chrisman Road now to get to the highway. So that's adding eight more people with what? At least eight more cars, you know, and you're doing it on purpose. That's not even the point. The most important part that I found when I was talking to the members of the community was the concern over the property. Now, I don't know who was around when that school burnt, but when the school burnt and the school was demolished, I know the mayor has documentation showing that the ground is safe and that it was all done in a proper manner. But what I know from my own experience, and I can't speak to anything other than I guess you'd call it hearsay because my father is deceased, but because we were right there and my dad was a nosy neighbor. He was there watching the demolition. And what he told me was they pretty much just shoveled all the school

into the there were tunnels under the schools and they pretty much just shoveled everything in to the tunnels and hauled off just a little bit of surface dirt. He said probably four trucks carried off surface stuff out of there, but that most of the stuff was in there. So that we as the residents would really love to have a deep dive soil check of that before any construction would begin. We have people in our community who have lung cancer. The last thing we need is for asbestous coming up into the air. And that's a lot of the fears I was hearing as I spoke with residents was that fear of what it's going to do to us as neighbors because, you know, my understanding is it takes, you know, they kind of build like one house at a time and so you've got that digging going on and every time they do that's being put into the air. So, we would ask that the city council or whoever that should anything go forward, I don't even if it's what I mean, as a community, we'd like to have a park. I mean, Woodland Park is getting outdoor pickle ball courts. There's a new exercise court over on Lootton Airport Road. We'd like to have something like that in our community so that our kids could go to a park. That lot's been vacant to my knowledge. at least 15 years, probably more, but I don't remember everything. So, why couldn't somebody somewhere along the last 15 years come along and done something for the community? So, anyway, I'd like all my bottom line, eight houses is I know this is a zoning m meeting, so bottom line, we don't want eight houses. It's it's it's not it's it's not going to help the

community in any way. Thank you so much. And I will say and I said it in the meeting. I'm just reiterating in case somebody's tuning in to the meeting. Our code really doesn't allow for eight houses. I know that that was the plan, but it's not permitted in our code. So, if we're looking at a minimum, six is going to be the number that actually works out. To your point about the park and the trail, that's something I care about, too. And that's part of the pro. Oh, you're welcome to stay up. Sorry, I just wanted to say thank you for coming up and I will uh bring up some of that to them. Um, any of your neighbors looking to come up too? Yes, come on up.

Maybe one day we need to get a microphone that we can take to the audience like a like a talk show. Good evening. My name is Maria Robles and I live right behind the where it used to be the high school. My fence is right there. Um my husband and I, we got the house almost 20 years ago. And I get it. Um we rent an apartment in Chicago. That's where our kids were born. And uh then we moved to Indiana and we rent a house in Lake Station. We all have to start at one point. I get it. But um and I appreciate that for you know cuz at one point we were in that situation that we needed help. But um I just the reason we moved from Chicago is to get away from these apartments that you hear your neighbor arguing or scolding the kids because your windows here and the next window is next to you. I'm happy where I am. Um and I like my community. I keep to myself. I'm like very private. I'm a teacher. I've been doing this for 27 years. I'm in Hammond for 18 years and I really love the place. I will not like to sell my house because my kids were out there when they were kids. Has a lot of memories, but I really refuse to be in the situation that I was in in Chicago like the neighbors there. So, I get it. Maybe I have no say. So, I just want you to hear that. Uh that's my you know me being worried. Now our kids are

on their own. My son uh owns a house close to Woodland Park. My daughter is in Dallas. My husband works many hours. He works here in Pores in Menars. And majority of the time I'm by myself and I don't know what kind of people is going to come and me being from Mexico City and then live in Chicago for 11 years. I know how it is with some people. That's why I love Portish. And people ask me at school, Miss Robles, why you just come from Portish to Hammond as far? Yeah, because also I love my school, but I will not move out there. And and I love Portage and I really appreciate um the mayor to give me this chance, but um even six houses is a lot. Four houses is a lot. How close to my fence are going to be? I mean, like, I'm sorry, but I was 11 years in Chicago. I don't want to be in that situation again. To be honest, and my husband can uh tell you, my goal was to have a house with no neighbors around. I love my neighbors. I'm a very social uh I can talk to anybody in the street and the in the store and the airport, but I just don't want to be around people when I'm already home. I don't want to be having my neighbors out there and, you know, listen to their conversation. I'm very quiet. I'm a teacher. I work 247 during school time. I need my peace and I'm sorry, but uh four houses, two houses is better no houses out there. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your service as a teacher. Thank you for coming up. It's good to see you again.

My name is Robin Spuljor. I live at 2212214 and 2220 Chrisman Road. It is the old looks like an old general store. At one point that home was the cafeteria for the schools next door. So it's been there for a long time. I'm not sure when we say schools that you were aware that there were two schools and an auditorium. I'm familiar.

Okay. because the one part burnt but the other school and auditorium auditorium part burnt. So we live next door. It is we seen it. We watched him do it. I understand you have paperwork. I don't I have health problems and I don't want to add to it by people digging and not taking the correct remediation to get it taken care of. EPA is very strict and you have to follow the rules. Our street, as Carla had mentioned, has become a racetrack and people have backing out of their their driveways have been hit because of all of the traffic. Adding driveways instead of an inside road just becomes hazardous to the people that are going to live there. especially if they're small children. You guys can come and actually watch how fast people drive. Don't stop at the stop sign. We would love to get some of those nice little oval or those um what do they call them?

Speed bumps. Yes. I was in Velpo and I seen some and I thought, man, if I could just take them off the road. Don't do that. Work with me. We can get that figured out. But go ahead. They were They were not like the oldfashioned speed bumps. They were long. It was like It was like a ramp. Yes. Yeah. I'm thinking, man, that would really help out. But I I don't I'm not against Habitat for Humanity. It's just too many homes on two acres of land to try and put all of that on a corner that is has become so busy. So that that's all. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um Lou, could I ask you well or whoever, but I don't know why I keep looking to you. I don't know why I just think you're a master builder, man. And Tom, I might need you on call as well, but just my questions I had quick, but this is more for Tom. Tom, when it comes to testing the land, which I want to stress, that's done for every, you know, property under most under almost every circumstance I'm aware of in regards to the concerns expressed. And I know that we have paperwork that say that everything was done correctly, you know, and I know that it's still going to be checked, but what kind of testing Oh, and I'm sorry, sir. Were you Oh, you're just letting her back in. Okay. What kind of is there particular testing that we would need to do beyond standard to be able to just clarify that there is no trouble or would traditional testing well like what we've done in other spots? You know what I'm asking, right? Like basically certainly we don't want a situation where everybody including the residents believe it's all good to go and then we excavate and boom, you know, we hit something, right? Like what is the current process to figure out and is our current process enough? And I'm asking you not because you're our guy, you know.

Oh, and I'm sorry. Would you mind coming up to the Sorry, Tom. Um, so we did that with a a site recently that we all are familiar with. Did a phase one. After the phase one, it it was determined that we need to do sonar and soil samples. um cing and that's probably what would happen here. So because in light of what we've heard uh we we we do both uh because we want to see if is the tunnel still in there. And then

speaking as a board of works member and the mayor I mean I think that would be what we would do. I mean if you want to trust me you have my commitment. We're going to check that no matter what if this proceeds, you know, but it is to say the last thing I want is for us to dig confidently discover a problem. Yes, we would core all around the property in random spots and then also sonar the whole property. So, we have to see what type of fill is in there. So, my other question and Tom, if you don't mind just staying and yes, is it about the soil testing or No, it's about the sold.

Would you permit me to ask my next question then I'll call you up if that's okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. when it comes to the kind of setbacks from the existing homes. So, I'm speaking in particular about you where you're talking about not wanting to be so close, you know, and I think that that's everybody, you know, and I will tell you, uh, sometimes you can't stop hearing your neighbors. I I live in a house that's nothing like this kind of zodig and not not to pick audit, but I still hear my neighbors when they have an argument. But I know exactly what you are saying, though. In terms of setbacks, um, when it comes to the zoning, wherever that goes, if we were talking an individual plan before we were to give land away, we could have a setback from, let's say, the first house from the existing house that's further away potentially, like nothing has to be set in stone there. Is that correct?

No. And especially if we did more more like six or whatever is decided, we can have that setback from the existing neighborhood to be a little further. So we could work with uh the developer habitat on that. And then Mr. Drosac, I will let you come up as kind of a histo for those who don't know he's our city historian. I just made him that five minutes ago. Nothing to do with the history, but I did own the land where they built the two houses on Sunrise off of Bling.

And when I bought that land, it was so bad I had to pay cash for it. It was two little rentals. And I mean, we're talking like 350 square feet. one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen dining room you could walk around in. As my tenants unfortunately passed away, I destroyed the residence. And back in the 80s, 90s, uh, property values kind of went down. So, I just held on to it and then I gave it to a real litterer and she somehow got in touch with Habitat. And so, we got together and I sold it to them. And I'll tell you, I've went back there because no matter what I do, and as you know, I've built in Portage and I own rental properties in Portage, but I've gone back there and they build a beautiful home. They build a home that they could build next door to me tomorrow. And I went back and I talked to some of the people that the one person, the first person, and I asked her about it, and those people were so happy to get that home and be able to live there. I think that whatever the city and they come up with, it's going to be a plus for the city. That's all I want to say.

You I wanted to ask really quick about Habitat's limitations. Again, to put it simply, I'm all about putting in a park and some road and things, but when it comes to your limitations, that's really on us as a city where we want to go. And that's why turning it over to the city council. I'm sorry if I feel like I've hoged the mic. I want to know your guys's thoughts, concerns, and what conditions you're comfortable with with this proceeding. But my hope is that we're able to proceed in some way, not just stop here, even if we're not all in agreement yet. Tom, quick question. Um, so in in your experience, is there any difference between a Habitat home and any other home that's being built in Portage today? No.

Okay. So, in terms of lot size, I mean, let's use I'm trying to think of the recent a recent neighborhood, Bower Farm. Let's use Bower Farm. Okay. Are we talking about any differences in lot sizes here? No. Okay. Thanks. Differences in minimum lot sizes. Yeah. It's the same zoning. It would be R4. Yes. Um so if if who is Lton wanted to come and build houses on that today, they would be able to put six homes on that same piece of property. Right. If it was approved for that change. Yes. Right. So, Habitat, as I understand, isn't asking for anything that any other developer wouldn't also be able to ask for. That is correct.

The only difference is that the city does own the land. So, and that's where to put it simply, if you guys are comfortable with the city proceeding on working with them and we would continue to include the residents in that process because ultimately the decision to give the land to Habitat for Humanity if you guys vote for the zoning change will come not tomorrow, not today, but at some point after we've negotiated a what we want the neighborhood to look like and b um how much either our park department say redevelop velopment commission, assuming we can, please don't take that as a legal statement. I just don't quite remember the area, or other things we could do to either save room for things like a park, the trails. A lot of that, if you guys were to vote for the zoning chain straight, that then falls to the board of works, and then you guys have every right to come to board of works meetings and make sure that we don't just give away the store, you know, so to speak. If you guys would like more input over what this subdivision within the Chrisman community would look like, I would almost recommend that you guys maybe give your ideas about what you want to see there. And then I would say either change the zoning if you're comfortable, but understanding that basically you're stepping out of that standoff I mentioned earlier and entrusting that to us in Habitat. If you guys would like to have more oversight, which I respectfully understand if you do, it might be smoother to table this. But after letting us know what you want to see in such a neighborhood or in such an area, my hope would be that you don't vote down because I think that if you're not ready to step out of the standoff, I'd rather that you put yourself in a way where we can come back with something that matches what you'd like to see. I hope that makes sense to everybody what I'm saying. the two routes. I'm comfortable either way as mayor as long as Habitat is. And I hope that what you guys have seen at this council meeting is we have thoughtful residents as well as thoughtful city

council members either way. Mayor, um so if the zoning were to stay as an R2 and if now being if it had to only go to six houses instead of the eight or less, they can still do that as an R2. Correct.

Yes. but you're limiting how many homes can be built and those minimums. Whereas, if you wanted room for a park or if you wanted room for a road, it starts to change what you can fit there. One way or another, Habitat is going to have to come to the city council for a zoning change whenever the design is done and there's a design that the city likes. I thought it would be better, I think we all did, to have them go through the planned commission, present their initial idea. And I think that the reason, I could be corrected if I'm wrong, that R4 was asked for is not because they want to do everything that R4 allows, but because R4 is the broadest um zoning category we have we have in a city. I don't know if this would all fit, but I mean you could have land zoned R4, for example, that has one house that's 80 foot lot, one that's 60, and then two that are 50, assuming they all fit in that space. Whereas in R2, they all have to have that 80 foot minimum lot. Um, it also has to do with things, and this is where Scott can correct me if I'm off, things like setbacks, you know, other, you know, features come into play. So, hypothetically, let's say we were okay with three homes, I don't know if that works, two homes. Let's say you have three homes on the same street. Let's say that we were okay with two of them being close together, but uh, we want to make sure that the other one is further away from the existing resident. I'm not just trying to put you on the spot. I I understand what you're saying, right? That would be easier to do with R4 because then the city and through the board of works, we would be able to only give the land away if that condition was met through Habitat. I understand the division of power in local government. Under normal circumstances, it's very efficient that we have a board of works that is the contracting and the executive board of the city and a city council that is the fiduciary and the legislative in this matter because you guys have a role in the zoning change. I

want to make sure that I'm hearing what you guys would like to see if that makes sense. So, I do have a question for Scott then. With approving this zoning now, um just for the purposes of habitat, um what's the difference between approving that versus approving zoning um that's not a permanent change? The difference is, and I believe we have a petitioner tonight that would agree to it, that you can add written commitments to a reszone. Sometimes they can come from plan and they come up with the recommendation, but the legislative body with the consent of the petitioner has that ability also. So we can add a written commitment to the reszone and and to give to kind of spark your guys's imagination on what we can do with that. We can say that the reszone if applied is only in effect as long as as this organization is the one owning and developing. If they no longer own then the zoning reverts back to its original reszoning. So you can effectively craft a written commitment that would ensure that if anything was built here, if this reszone was completed and something was built here, it would have to conform to those written commitments and only be built by this request. If another purchaser in line or if it wasn't if it wasn't Habitat doing the building, then the zoning would revert back to what it is now. So, and those written commitments along as long as we have at this point the agreement of the petitioner, then we can add those things to add those additional safeguards if that's something uh the legislative body would like to consider.

So, Scott, to follow up on that, just to be clear, who is the petitioner here? Because they don't own the property, we do. Are we the petitioner? So, we signed something that allowed them to speak for us as the city at the in the interest of making this meeting go even longer. Um, if I could give an example, and some of you guys are going to remember this example I gave, I believe last Wednesday when we met. Tom, do you mind being my my example? Sure.

Let's say that I had an interest in opening a small grocery store in the city. I don't know if I'm qualified to do that, but let's say that I wanted to and I wanted to buy Mr. Cher's house and I wanted to convert it into a grocery store. That seems a little silly, right? But just work with me here. Mr. Cherry's house is zoned, I'm guessing, R2. Mhm.

Mhm. Here's the trick. Getting to where that goes through the plan commission and getting to where that's able to go through primary and secondary plat. If I just buy Mr. Cher's house, he might be happy because he's made money. I now own a house and now it's on me to have to go to the plan commission to try to get a zoning change to zone his house. I'm guessing neighborhood commercial probably. Let's go with that. Um plan commission is going to give a recommendation either favorable or unfavorable based on the conditions of my petition. It's going to go to you guys, the city council, and then you're going to say yes or no. Now, given where Mr. Cherry lives. You guys are probably, I'm just guessing, going to think that's a bad idea to reszone that property to make it neighborhood commercial and have a grocery store in between all those homes. And so, if you guys vote no, I'm now stuck with Mr. Cher's house that I bought with the money that I lost from buying it for him. Oh, it is a nice house.

So, I promise I'm going somewhere with this, not just to teach how the zoning process works. Under normal circumstances, if this really is my goal, and let's just add an extra layer of maybe there is a spark of a good idea to do this with Tom's house, okay? I might sign a contract with Tom where I promise I'm going to buy it as long as the zoning changes because then if the zoning changes now, I know I can buy it and go through the other petition processes with the city. Tom might sign an agreement with me that I get to go to the plan commission and then the city council and speak. He's I don't know if waving is the right word, but he's giving me permission as the property owner to speak and petition for what I want to do on land he still owns and land that he might still choose not to sell to me even if you guys say yes to the zoning. Now, when we're talking about a private developer, this is very common and it makes sense. I don't want to own property necessarily unless I can use it. So in a similar way we have a nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity. The city government that is to say um the city and the agent the entity would be the board of works as the ultimate either seller or in this case giver of the property or a piece of the property. We have given Habitat the ability to speak for us as the petitioner. That's a legal thing. But I hope that makes sense that it's the same legal concept of they are the interested acquirer of the property and we're letting them speak for us. It just so happens the owner's here and this is not a typical conflict because it's not actually private property owned by me. It's the city property. Did that part make sense?

And so you did say that you also were exploring other properties within the city that could be let's say a contingency plan.

Well, not a contingency plan. We want to continue to work, at least my administration does, with Habitat for Humanity where we can, as we can. But those properties that we own, um, are properties that are already, quite frankly, it's like the ones they've already done in the city. They're empty lots in between existing homes in existing neighborhoods. There's no reszone required because if we give a property to them, just given an example, if we give a property that the city currently owns off Loot Road, if we were to turn that over to Habitat for Humanity to build a home, we don't have to come to the city council permission. That's strictly a board of works decision to give that property up. Likewise, there's a

seeing that they can build only one house or two houses a year, they would be filling in the gaps on those one lots that are in between houses, though.

That's going to happen eventually one way or another with different properties that we own. What's unique about here is the ability for them to have an area where they're building a subdivision and where they can work with the city to decide what kind of infrastructure around that subdivision is needed or improves the whole community. to go back to ideas like a park, whether it's a workout park like you got at Miami Park or whether it's my favorite part would be the idea of a continued trail that goes up to and then turns by the railroad track which is a more recent development than the previous trail plan. We the city would be working with Habitat on that and as mayor because I want to get I do want to get reelected despite certain people downstate being mad at me. I uh we're going to be in touch with the Chrisman community to make sure that not just you guys, although I appreciate that you are here and that you're speaking and we've come a long way together. Whether it's a park, whether it's the trail, I want you guys involved no matter what. Not just you four, but the community. The question that we have to the city council is there's not going to be an R4, sorry, an R2 development on this land. It just takes up too much space. It's not that we're against two larger homes being built on it, but that's probably all you can do, especially if they're just not in the road business, and we are. So, what we're asking for is some flexibility. The R4 zoning gives us the flexibility. So, going back to that standoff, you know, metaphor, the question is, do you, and don't worry, I don't mean to say like you don't trust me. Are you comfortable trusting the board of works and the planning department to work out the design? If so, I would recommend voting yes to what's proposed, understanding that voting yes doesn't change the fact that they don't have the property yet and won't get it until we come to an agreement. Step two, if you as a city council would like more input,

hypothetically, if you are the district 3 council person and this happens to be in district three or you're at large and everywhere is at large, my recommendation would be to table this so that we can work with the neighbors and habitat to come up with a more clear design we can bring to you guys. I'm comfortable either way because again, it's an odd situation because typically there wouldn't be council input on a matter like this. But if it's less than eight houses and it's remained R2, they could still come back with less houses without having it to be reszoned. But the most they're going to be able to build on R2 is two. So if you're saying you want it to be two homes, just put the condition of two homes on it.

And the other trick to understand is that two homes could mean just one on Chrisman and one on Portage Avenue, which they're probably going to be close to the corner or both far from the corner, distant from your house. I will make sure. but it creates an awkward design in the middle, which might not be the best use of space for a future park, trail, or other amenity. If you're looking to have two homes on just one side, like say you wanted to just have two homes on Chrisman or you wanted to have just two homes on Portage Avenue, I could understand that. These are just examples. I still would recommend if you want to have that input tableing it, but making it and keeping it R2 is not going to make it useful for Habitat. Most likely it won't make it useful for the city to design something around it. That's why I recommend not voting this down. If you're not comfortable with giving the control just to the board of works, I recommend tableabling this and let us come back with a plan. Legally, I have to tell you though that if you are comfortable giving it to the board of works, you can reszone. But voting this down and keeping it R2, that makes it not usable to Habitat, probably not usable for the city. And so if you vote it down tonight, we have to start the whole process over legally. I'd rather not start the process over.

Scott, how long can this be tabled? Is there a is there a timeline in the law of how long it can be? It can be pending. It can be pending. I would just I don't know what kind of time frame we're looking for, but always continuing to a date certain is better for everyone involved so we all know when we're coming back. That'd be the only thing I would add. We table it, we continue this, we get through a big plan and it's beautiful and then it doesn't pass anyway and everybody's wasted all their time on this. Correct. So

there's a risk either way and that's why if you guys are not prepared to reszone and just entrust it to the board of works. I'm comfortable with tableabling, but it would be good if at this meeting we state publicly what things you guys would like to see. If Ferdinand really wants the fitness court to match Miami Park because it's closer to where you live, well that's awesome. Let us know. If Melissa wants to make sure that they're all twostory homes, that's awesome. But let us know. I'm just being trying to be funny. you know, if you guys So, in all seriousness though, seriousness,

I think I think we all agree eight's too much. It's it's just not eight's not going to probably be the agreement. So, if we put a condition of six on this like that, there could be no more than six homes built. I would be comfortable with that. I'm comfortable passing it as it as is and letting the board of works work this out with Habitat and go through plan commission like everybody else does. But if we wanted to put a condition of no more than six homes on it, there's nothing stopping us from doing that. Correct.

Well, I'll make a motion to adopt because I I think we should be reszoning this and give Border Works and Habitat the flexibility to work with residents, figure out what this is like because otherwise, if we table this, it's going to waste everybody's time. If it comes back to us and we're just not happy with it, we're going to waste everybody's time. Either way, it still has to go through plan commission. It still has to go through the board of works. There are a lot of steps involved before this is even a reality. So, I'm going to make a motion to adopt. I'll second that motion. No, a motion to adopt as is. And it should be noted that as is. You did you include the six condition? Oh, and it should be noted as presented.

Sure. And as presented by our code, even though eight was said, it can't be more than six based on other rules we have. But that's just to be clear. I second it. So, we have a motion and we have a second. Is there discussion? There's been discussion, but I want to ask that in this context. All right, Liz, can you call a roll? Councilwoman Alvarez? Yes. Councilwoman Aidenbach, no. Counciloman Pardell, yes. Councilwoman Vasquez, no. Councilwoman Amler, no.

Councilman Zilly, yes. So, that makes it a tie, which which makes it um the mayor's vote. So, it does to the person who sent the email. At the time, I thought incorrectly saying, "Sending this to you because you probably vote." I didn't think that was true, but here I go. I want to just to confirm that is the case on a reason.

Okay. I want to confirm to you guys and you have me here. I'm being recorded and I promise I will work with you. This is not an immediate we're giving it and there are conditions where the board of works is going to say no and we're absolutely going to work with the whole community. I am going to vote yes and feel free to talk with me after. Okay. Thank you. This is not over. This is a step otherwise you run against me. Okay? And I mean that

it's my bond. So you have my promise that this is just a step and I'll have you guys at the next meeting. Okay. Thank you.

So the next board of works meeting is next Tuesday at 10:30. This will not be on the agenda, but if you guys stay at the end, I can also set up a time to meet with you guys and any other interested neighbors to talk about this. It could be kind of like my office hours, but it could be a specialty one just based on this proposal or this idea, if that makes sense. If you guys stay around, I'll set a date with you guys and then I'll advertise it as a date. Ideally, we want it to be for everybody in the Chrisman community, but it's also for everybody in the city that wants to come in and talk about what they want to see at this site because uh Oh, it was an interesting turnout there. All right. Thank you. I don't believe we have any resolutions on the agenda. That gets us to reports from city officials. I wanted to ask Kelly, would you want to come up and speak about some of the things going on with the parks?

Yes. I that we're gonna have to move that to a special. Sorry, there was an issue there.

Good evening. Um I'm Kelly Smith, the park superintendent. I believe we've all met. Um so parks, there's a lot of exciting things going on. Um today we milled the parking lot of the Blue Spruce. Uh it will be paved on Friday. The concrete has or the concrete sorry the asphalt has to set for 30 days before striping can be performed. Um we expect pickle ball to be open the second week of September. Um also our Friday market this week is going to be very busy. We're doing a little different theme. We're going to have a water feature for the bounce houses, a foam cannon. We have DJ Buyers, more of like a DJ type fun event. And then we also have Mechanical Bull this week. Um, we have some new events coming as well soon. We have a comedy show that will be in November. We are doing a Booze and Bruise um, Brewfest in Oakwood the weekend after the Haunted Hay ride. Um, we're restructuring our haunted hay ride as well to make improvements on that. In the past, it would go through the Blue Spruce. Um, but now we're going to bring them in through Oakwood. Uh, we're looking at a system where you can check in and they will text you for your ride so you're not standing in a long ride outside for hours and hours and that'll give us a really good accurate of how long the wait is. Uh, along with that, we will have um the Oakwood bars open. We will have a bounce house in there. We'll have games for families so that people can just kind of float around and really enjoy each other and the company and the atmosphere. Um we are uh we're booming. We're busy. Um we've taken over an additional 50 acres of mowing this year. We started with 50 last year. Now we do 100. Um we did that with no additional staffing. So as you

can see it's a challenge, but it also can be very rewarding. There's been a number of trail cleanups that have been done with Monosol. Um they did Deer Creek Trail recently. You could barely walk in the trail. It was probably a foot wide and we've got a six foot path path out there. We also cut down there was probably um some type of a wind burst. The number of trees down there was um unreal. I I I I can't put a number on it, but we really opened up a lot of that. So, I encourage any of the council members of the community to take a walk out there and really see the improvement that that is there. Um, we're really grateful to those that volunteer. Um, we pretty much almost rely and depend on it. Um, if you have any questions for me, I'll be happy to answer them. Oh, also we have 126 approved vendors for our market this season. That is um over the season as a whole, not every day, but our market is really thriving. That's it.

All right. Well, thank you so much. And Liz, thank you for reminding me. And Kelly, because of the um other matter with your uh ordinance that you're working on, not the one that we talked about today, but the other in addition an upcoming bond and additional appropriation before we close and before we go over to public comment. Liz, I know you and I both think that it would be best to have a special meeting in August, and I know we were ideally hoping for August 19th. I wanted to see if that could work for you guys as the council. Getting a thumbs up from Colin. Does it work for everybody? Mayor, am I am I allowed to touch base on the reason for that while I'm here? I'm sorry. Am I allowed to touch base on the reason for that while we It was a timing issue with getting things prepared on our end. I know. Am I allowed to explain the reason?

Oh, you can definitely speak to it for sure. Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant. I was like, "Oh, yeah. Go ahead."

Um, I wanted to share the reason for this and the special meeting so that the council understands why. When we created our budget in September of last year for 2025, we did that with a non-reverting in mind. So therefore, our sports officials were funded zero. Um our operating costs were funded a significantly lower. Usually we spend around 100k. And then also um oh I'm missing one. There's one more line item. It's professional services. So, because we funded those so low with the non-reverting in mind, thinking that our revenue would offset that cost, that's the reason that we need to perform this. So, I just want the council to be clear on why we're asking for it. Um,

and to be clear, the revenue is there. Your park department has done an incredible job meeting the revenue targets for this year, but because it's zero in those line items in the budget, the money has to be reappropriated so that it can be not just used, but it clears up at the end of the year. Is that correct to say, Liz? Absolutely. And so it doesn't show negatives, it shows positives. Yes. Our current revenue is around $450,000. Um, last year we did around I think 250 for the entire year. So, thank you. I think you guys did about 600 last 6 something and the revenue we you anticipated was 720. So you're well you you should be well above the 720 this year. Okay. Maybe I have the wrong number. Okay. Thank you, Liz.

All righty. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kelly. Appreciate all you do. If there's anyone from the public who'd like to speak, uh, feel free to come up. Oh, feel free to come up. I asked Oh, I see your hand. Oh, actually someone else coming up, but then you're welcome to come up, too, sir. Tiffany, do you want to go? Cool. Hello, Tiffany Gully 3609 Ardmore Court. Um, and I'm sure that all of you know from the last time I spoke, I'm the board president of the township advisory board. We pri primarily serve families in Portage Township, which includes the city of Portage and Hull, who are struggling financially. This would be eight families that we potentially would not have to support or help because they're able to get into permanent housing that they can afford. Um, I am glad to see that this zoning passed tonight. Um, especially given that it feels hypocritical to vote it down when the lot size that we're talking about is only 0.25 25 for two acres, eight houses, which is slightly larger than I apologize, there's a little bit of passion in my voice and I don't want to shake too much. So, um,

doing fine.

The average lot latage is around that size. um including and I didn't get all the residents names but Miss Mcan your property is 0.24 Miss Amler yours is20 um Mr. Zilly yours is 23 m mayor Bont yours is.16 so the lot size that we're talking about isn't crammed in as col as Mr. said it's the average lot size that we're approving in any other housing development. So, I hope that this goes all the way through whether that's six houses or eight houses. Um I wish that there had been a time for supporters to also speak earlier. Um but regardless, it passed. So, I just wanted to provide my comment on that. If I could just say to you, thank you so much. And the structure bringing people up was a promise that I made to anyone who was at the meeting that if you well not meeting but going door todoor that if you came speak there were people going door todo who were completely supportive. I don't mean to say they didn't show up but it is to say I didn't necessarily know what everybody was going to say when they came. I would very much um I know you're very busy but certainly we announced the meeting date to go over you know what we want to see here. I have no reservations about working with Habitat for Humanity on the affordable housing side of this. I do want to make sure on the trail side of this or the park side of this, we incorporate it into the community. But to your point, and thanks for everybody telling how everybody how big my house is.

Sorry. Thank you so much. And I truly appreciate your comments. Thanks for being up here today. Oh, sorry. Come on up. I know you can come up too when you're ready, sir. Just walk on up. You'll be okay. Yeah. Go ahead.

Somebody will remember my face on the first time I was up here. I was complaining about my light being out on my street and it took five or six months to get it fixed. But that's all taken care of. But that's where I started here. What I'm up here for is I still live there and I'd like to know what's going on. A year ago, this month or maybe October, I asked about what's going on with the house on the end of Stone and TW and County Line. I was told there was in some kind of legal thing going on and that was supposed to been taken care of last by August or October of last year. This is a year later. what is going on? Does anybody explain that?

Yes. Um, it is still in a process and there is a legal side to it, but there's also a financial side to it. If you don't mind talking to Mr. Cherry, I want to be careful because the circumstance of the house. Tom, is you are you able to give us a report on that? And I will note that I was very optimistic last year about the speed we were moving on. Call me a new mayor, but I was very optimistic compared to how long some of these processes take. But Tom, would you be comfortable coming up one more time or is there anything that you're able to say? Um

about all I can really say about this because of notification issues um is that it's going to be finalized this next uh unsafe housing hearing. Do you know when the date is of the next unsafe housing hearing? And it's okay if you could give us if you give us your email. Worst case, we can let you know when the next hearing is, but I would say it's early September is going to be the final the final hearing for for that one. Well, so the new date is September now. Yes, that is correct. It's a long process. There's a lot clear the new date for the hearing is September. The property getting dealt with isn't necessarily September, right? No, but that's going to that's going to be the fin expectations. Keeps going out and out.

Nothing's getting done. It gets mowed and that's it. No, but please understand that it's not as if I have the power or that the city has the power to demolish the house right now. We have to get the state of Indiana to give us the authority to have that house declared either it has to be fixed or it has to come down. And if it comes down, it comes down at our expense, which we're prepared to have happen. But it is not a matter of we can snap our fingers. And understandably so. I don't want to just have the authority to knock your house down or Colin's house down. No matter how much we sometimes disagree about things. I don't actually know why I use that joke. We I think at this point you and I are more often on the same but all said and done. We don't just have the ability to snap a finger. And when we spoke about it last year, we were on track with the process. And I was excited that the process seemed to be going smoothly. It has not gone completely smoothly, but to Tom's point, the next hearing should be our last hearing and then the last step is just a financial step for us to bid the demolition of the house.

I might be back after September. You might be. And I want you to know that I am not so optimistic, happy golucky mayor that I was in 2024 that I can just say for certain that we'll be successful. But my hope is that we'll be successful in September so that we'll be able to finalize the demolition of that property. And please know that every house that needs to be demolished, should a court agree with the city that we can demolish it, is in that state because usually either a complicated, a tragic, or really unfortunate story. It's never just as simple as somebody just has a house they're not taking care of. The big bad wolf could blow that house down. I don't is in absolute horrible shape.

I agree. I could go back and take a sledgehammer and have it down in probably 10 minutes. I absolutely agree. Although I cannot endorse the idea by law. Okay, that that's all I have. But I will be back after September. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I live over by Fagley School. That's I live on that street more than a block away. Thank you so much for your time. And then someone's behind you. Oh, go ahead.

Good evening, council members and mayor. Uh, my name is Carmen Vincent and I serve as executive director of Project Neighbors. Uh, we're a nonprofit organization that has built and managed affordable rental housing in Porter County for over 50 years. Habitat for Humanity Porter County has been running for 30 or so years, right? Um, with the average home price now far out of reach for many, uh, today's affordable housing residents are often the very people who keep our communities running. Nurses, teachers, grocery store clerks, seniors on fixed incomes, child care providers, and single parents working multiple jobs to make ends meet. I'm here tonight to express strong support for Habitat for Humanity's proposed development on Chrisman and Portage. This is not simply a zoning decision, as you all have discussed tonight. Um, it is also a values decision, a moment to define what kind of city Portage chooses to be. Affordable housing is not a threat to our neighborhoods. It's a strength. It allows a child to remain in the same school for year after year. It allows essential workers to live near where they serve. And it allows families to remain rooted in the communities they've contributed to for decades, even as their circumstances evolve. So, this proposed development is modest in scale and thoughtfully designed. It would transform a long vacant lot into a place where stability and opportunity can take root. Some concerns that were raised about traffic and density. Um, but it's important to clarify that the current zoning already allows for six homes. This is a thoughtful measured plan to meet a real and growing need. Habitat for Humanity is not seeking profit. They would be investing almost $2 million in infrastructure, education, and long-term partnerships with families. This is not a strain on the city. This is a profound asset to it. And if we ultimately deny this project, we're signaling that not that only those with wealth or luck have a place in Portage's future. And I don't believe

that reflects the values of this community. So I hope you all move forward with this partnership to reaffirm that Portidge is a city where working families, aging parents, and everyday residents can belong. Thank you. Thank you.

Good to see you. Oka Velasquez 5050 Park Avenue. Uh what I've given clerk treasure is a copy of a couple of emails. I'm here today to try to find out what is the best way to communicate. Uh I've gone through channels, the appropriate channels. there are uh issues with a neighbor that is in violation of uh several codes. I've gone through the code enforcement officer who said that he has forwarded up to his superiors. I've communicated with the police department. Assistant Chief Yuzilac did respond to my concern. We met um six German shepherd dogs who run loose unleashed uh open burning and operating a um a business in a residential area. This is not the first time that I've communicated uh with the city, but it continues on. And I've sent an email to you, mayor, to your chief of staff, and to Mr. cherry and back in June again July and here it is August and I have not received I've even checked my spam to see that perhaps your response I would expected at least we've gotten your uh concern we know what's going on and the reason I uh emailed you because the situation escalated as you can see here the neighbor uh attempted to intimidate me and say that he was angry because I had called um the non-emergency number as I was instructed to do regarding a large fire. There is a a woods behind our home that have caught on fire before and he uh does big open burning and I called the next morning.

Um I was outside and he you know said a few choice words and said that um go ahead and call the police on him. He was not afraid that I better watch out. He has bail money. I take that as intimidation. Um, last year several situations of open burning. Um, and each time the fire truck comes and you know we're wasting our city resources because obviously this person has been informed, code enforcement has communicated with him, but they continue to do open burning. I called uh chief the fire chief uh Crayle and said, you know, how many times are we gonna send uh our resources out here to tell this person, you can't do open burning. And then he did advocate and get the fire inspector and I believe a police officer to come. That was last year. Here we are again and he's continuing to do the same thing. Open burning, six dogs operating. And I think the burning, can't prove that of course, but the burning is the debris that he's bringing back from his landscaping jobs back to the property and and getting rid and burning. I've asked what type of uh evidence is needed to prove that this is a business uh operation and I've sent videos. Um I'm in the process of getting a camera to be installed on that for my own safety purposes. Uh but it is a uh concerning situation the situation is and concerning that I get no response from the city regarding my concerns in my emails.

Let me start by apologizing on my own end about not being able to follow up with you in a timely way because if I didn't I clearly did not. I was under the impression that other entities being the fire department, police, and code enforcement have been in communication. If that's not been the case or not in a satisfactory way, let me explain something in two ways, but it feels very awkward because you're of course a former mayor, so I feel like you know this as well, you know, as I do, and I don't mean to take what you're having and call it a neighborhood dispute. I understand that it's much more serious what you're describing. But when someone is doing or maybe I should say allegedly doing multiple different things that hit multiple different departments might be a code enforcement violation one day might be a fire matter another might be a police another it's not always that we can get all those things and bundled and again I know I'm preaching to the choir and I appreciate you being here. Tom, I hate to turn this into the Tom Cherry show, but I would be happy to schedule a sit down meeting with you and Tom, and I'd be happy to bring fire and our police together to go over that and just see what areas want to phrase this the right way because again, I appreciate you being here, but just speaking as carefully as I can just because there's another, you know, family that's not here. Just be able to lay it all out and make sure that we can catch what hits each area so we can answer your questions. I hope that that makes sense. But if you're okay scheduling that with Tom and me after this meeting, I'd be happy to get that together with you this week or next week, whatever works best for your schedule. They sometimes but not always.

But I mean that so respectfully. Please don't think that I sat in your chair. I know you have. Oh, no problem. Uh but I think that code enforcement and Mr. Cherry that you know you can communicate with me, respond to the email. um 2 3 months is not a reasonable or respectful amount of time to get back to me regarding a serious concern. Certainly not. And I apologize. Thank you. Miss uh Luke, are you coming up to speak? All this time I kept trying to call you up, but now here you are. Come on. I said all this meeting I've been trying to call Oh, no. Please come on up. It's good to see you. Not a problem.

Okay. Uh hi, my name is Luke Wyman. I've lived in Portage since 1977 over on Scott Street. If you don't know where Scott is, it's one block east of Airport and Central Avenue. Okay. Um I am a member of Nativity Our Savior Parish. I remember Knights of Columbus for many, many years. I am also a member of Habitat for Humanity. I am a volunteer. 95% of us are. I only know of one paid position that happens to be our project manager, Bernie. Uh, so if there's any other paid position, I I'm not right now aware of it. That could have changed. Um, so we're all volunteers. Okay. So I I love the question of if you drove by a Habitat for Humanity house, would you recognize it? And I can tell you 100% no. You will not recognize it. Except it might be nicer than the houses next to it. Okay. Uh I I think you all have seen the nativity scene at nativity saver parish. I was a chairman. That was my idea. Okay. Uh with the working with the Knights of Columbus, we built that. Okay. Uh it's a very nice nativity scene. Okay. So, uh I would not I'm also a former mill electrician. Okay. Uh I am a landlord. I own I'm down to two properties now, two houses that I'm getting ready to sell. All right. Uh so I'm aware of those expenses. I'm also originally from Philadelphia. Uh I lived in a row home. Okay. So I fully understand the one lady's comment about having land around you because my family when I first moved out here thought I moved to the country. Okay. Because literally my front yard, which I hated cutting when a kid was about 12 feet by 20 feet. All right. It was 12 by 20 and that was the the grass I had to

cut and I hated doing that. Okay. Now I have like a quarter acre. So, um I I thought it was a great question of would you see a Habitat for Humanity house when you drive by it? The answer would be no because I would not put my name on a house and I this will be my 10th house coming up now uh of a house that was not uh a good quality house. Okay, I could tell you my house when the original house which was a trile was built on 2x4 walls. Okay, all our houses are 2 by six walls. Okay, why? Because the insulation requirements now versus what they were back in the day. Okay, we meet or exceed all the qualifications when it comes to energy efficiency. Okay, we generally get awards when NIPKO was awarding them. Okay, uh we have to test the house for all that it's required. Okay. So, there are quite honestly they are outstanding houses. Okay. Uh any neighborhood would like to have it as far as I could see. Okay. The other thing I wanted to bring up was and I don't know who coined this phrase. Uh I I was told it was it was I know what the phrase is, but it's it's not a hand up a handout. It's a hand up. Okay. Uh as a landlord, I understand what it costs for a renter to rent one of my houses. Okay. the uh my realtor tells me, okay, I should be asking more. Okay, because rentals are now and I rent houses. I rent single homes. I have two single homes left. Okay, I had four and I'm down to two. All right. Uh and they are um he should I I should be running, okay, between $1,200 and $1,500 a month. Okay, that's a lot of money, okay, for someone to rent a house. Okay. Uh because my mortgage ain't that big. When I first bought my house, it was 460

bucks. All right. Back in 1977. All right. So, I understand when we when when you look at it's around 800, you know, a $318,000 house, okay, that someone we don't give it to them, but they they effectively buy from us, okay? Use the new mortgage and everything else. All right. That's about $800 to $850 a month versus the average rate now of $1,200 to $1,500 a month. So, we're giving them a hand up because quite honestly, they couldn't do it on their own. Okay? So that's part of the reason why because we're not giving I probably wouldn't be involved if I was just putting my time and effort, okay, into building a house, okay, just to give it to somebody when they have no nothing in the game. Okay, so that's why I love the qualifications that Habitat has had uh over the years uh because of of what they do. So, uh, I just I just want to kind of let you know that that, um, I would love it's a shame we couldn't have brought you out to one of the houses, the last house we built, okay? Uh, before we even had these meetings, okay? I don't know if anybody had the chance to do that, but I would love to invite you to one of our houses, okay? As we're building it and when it gets finished, okay, because I think you'll be impressed, all right, of the quality uh, and the workmanship because we hear it all the time from the inspectors and everything else. this is better than we expected it to be. A habit of house looks like this. I mean, we get that all the time, you know. So, uh, and that goes to our team. That goes to our project manager. I mean, he runs the show. You know, Bernie's the man and we just follow his lead and and we build a really good house. So, um, the neighborhoods are going to really benefit from this, okay? Uh, from what what what we'll do, okay? Because it will be a quality effort. So, just want to put that out there. Uh, I'm I'm proud

of what we do. I'm proud of what they do and the Habitat does and how we help people out. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much, Luke. Mr. Droack, are you coming up? You're just standing back there. I I hope you don't mind the appointment of being our historian. I appreciate it. Said my part about habitat. I agree with them 100% though because I say I'm kind of my Any other speakers tonight? And if not, is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Thank you all.