City Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. At 6 o'clock, I'm going to call this meeting to order. Everyone can please join us in saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Okay. First item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Commissioners, do we have anything we No, I'm sorry. What was this? That was doesn't have something. Do you want to add or take away from this evening's agenda? U Madame Mayor, we do need to amend the agenda to on item nine. Um we

a little bit of internal confusion on our part. We have uh six rugged notebooks for our um police cruisers that need to be um approved this evening. I'll get more into the details when we get to the item. Okay. um at that time, but we ask that uh number nine be amended to include the um purchase of the um u rugged notebook PCs in the amount of 19,000 um 1934. And everyone should have that um adjusted agenda in front of you. And there is a paper copy of the request um before you. Okay, perfect. Do we need to vote to amend that? Yes. So, we need a motion and a second to amend the agenda to include that item. Okay.

Vote on that. Could I have a motion and a second? Motion to amend. Okay. Second. Okay. Um, all those in favor say yes. Yes. Yes. Any disapprove? All right. Motion carries. All right. Next, we will move on to public comment. Is there anyone here to make public comment to something not on this evening's agenda? Please do so now. Okay, hearing none, I will close public comment and move it up here to the report of mayor and city commissioners, including committee leaison reports. Can start with you, Commissioner Berdick, do you have anything this evening? Nothing this evening. Commissioner Wesley, not for me tonight. Thanks,

Hunter. I'd just like to thank city staff for uh the cleanup efforts that are I think still underway but have been ongoing for the past few weeks with uh unpredictable Michigan weather. Thank you. Nothing this evening. Just a quick congratulations to Goot Cafe. I hope I'm saying it right. I guess I don't know if it's a cafe. I don't know why I said cafe. Delicious Indian food. We ordered a bunch last night and I'm looking forward to going there a lot in the future. Even my small children like it. So, butter chicken's delicious. It's a win when everybody likes the same restaurant.

Yeah. So, yeah, I will reiterate that we went there as well and it was delicious and I'm so glad to see, you know, them open and I just wish them all the best of luck. And yes, we had the butter chicken, too. So, can't go wrong. I have nothing else to add. We go to you, Mr.

Just a a couple items. Um um um as Commissioner Hunter noted um kudos to uh city staff. Um we've managed to have all four seasons in the last um uh week and a half. So um their ability to shift gears and adapt um has just uh been absolutely amazing. Um and just reminder our next commission meeting is two weeks from tonight. uh we had moved the first being in April to the March um 30th date uh due to spring break. So just a reminder on that. So that is all.

Great. Thanks for the reminder. Okay, moving on to the regular agenda items. First on this evening's agenda, we have to consider acting on the draft master plan update amendment. That introduction is by zoning administrator Mr. Gianat.

Thank you, Madame Mayor and Commissioners. So tonight, uh, our planning consultant, uh, Paul LeBlanc is here to present, uh, the final draft version of the city's master plan amendment. Um, this amendment is a result of over two years of work beginning officially in February 2024. Um, focusing mainly on four distinct areas within the city for additional study in terms of recommendations for how they can um, adapt and um, evolve in the future. Um this is the results of extensive public input as well and research with over 600 um residents participating in an online survey. Uh three dedicated neighborhood meetings for three of the identified sub areas. Um eight study sessions with the plan commission and other various forms of outreach uh throughout this two-year process. Um I'll turn this over to Mr. LeBlanc to present this draft plan. Um at the end of his presentation and discussion and public comments, uh the city commission has the option to vote to um adopt this plan either as presented or with uh modifications. Um with that, um unless there's any sort of technical procedural questions you have for myself or staff, um I'll turn it over to Mr. Leblanc.

Thank you, Mr. Tinady.

Welcome, Mr. Leblanc. Well, good evening. It's good to be here. Um, I have a a presentation just to summarize what's in the document and give you a little bit of background. I'll try to keep it short. Um, the purpose of what we did was to uh amend and supplement the 2018 plan. Uh, it's not replacing the plan, it's just an amendment to it. um and reinforce some of the recommendations that are in that plan. I know we've discussed in the past that many of the recommendations in the 2018 plan have been implemented. Uh which is kudos to you, the planning commission and staff because that was a lot to do in in about a 5-year period. But there are still a few things that are still very relevant in that plan. So the idea was to just supplement it and and uh add to it. Um one of the things we did in the amendment is to update some of the data. Uh the 2018 plan relied on census information from 2010. And so we wanted to take a look at um what has or has not changed in that time. And then I think the big thing was to recognize that we have specific areas in the city that have changed or uh are subject to change or have new opportunities for one reason or another. And so the idea was rather than the 30,000 ft view of the overall city, we wanted to focus on those four uh sub areas.

And then the other point was to provide another uh opportunity for public input um which was pretty extensive in the 2018 plan as well. One of the new things is a vision statement. Um the 2018 plan didn't really have uh a vision statement as such and so based on uh a lot of the public input we received as well as some of the things we've identified as we went through the process we developed a a vision statement which I think uh very accurately hopefully very accurately summarizes what we like and want to continue uh seeing in East Grand Rapids, the school system, uh Gas Light Village, housing options, uh preserving open space and parks, things like that. Um and then we identified a number of goals, some of them new, some of them continuation of goals in the the 2018 plan. again um increasing a variety of housing options, expanding the network of trails and pathways um and create a a complete streets mobility system. Um achieving universal accessibility for persons with mobility challenges. Um providing more open space in Gaslight Village in particular for social events and community events. um enhancing the image and vitality of Gaslight Village, um preserving the city's attractive and desirable neighborhoods and striving to achieve carbon neutrality for public

buildings in 2040. Um, one of the things we found when we looked at the uh, statistics was uh, sort of an anomaly for communities like East Grand Rapids. I mean, you're clearly a builtout city. You're uh, an inner ring suburb. You're an older m very mature community. Um, in most cases, what we would expect in a community like this is either stability and no change or a decline in population. What we found in East Grand Rapids since 2010, we've actually seen an increase in population, uh, about 700 people. not a massive influx, but again, something that's contrary to what we would expect for communities like this. Um, so one of the things we did was um some analysis of key factors of of the demographics and compared East Grand Rapids to other communities as well as Kent County as a whole. And we picked Ada Cascade and Grand Rapids as uh while they're townships, they're comparable as uh affluent communities um their nearby neighbors and we wanted to see how we stacked up against them. What we found is um again contrary to trends for community like the communities like this um East Grand Rapids median age is actually going down rather than up. Uh it's comparable to Kent counties, but it's much less than Ada Cascade or or Grand Rapids Township, which is surprising for

another reason because those are townships. Those communities have open spaces to be developed, lots of open spaces to be developed. They're getting new development, and yet their their median age is much higher than uh what we have here in East Grand Rapids. Uh likewise, the population of persons 65 and older is only 11% in East Grand Rapids, much lower than Kent County and any of those other three communities, which again goes sort of is uh counterintuitive for this this type of community. income and housing value. Rent is uh are things not unexpected. Uh we generally compare uh pretty closely with ADA and are slightly above the other communities. Uh owner occupancy uh same as ADA's uh but higher than everybody else. And then again the persons per household which supports the the drop in median age. We're at roughly three persons per household which is an increase from what it's been uh and is greater than any of the other uh comparison areas. So that does indicate that people are moving into East Grand Rapids, families are moving into East Grand Rapids and the population is is growing. So those are all positive things. So uh as Jay mentioned as we went through the process of developing this plan amendment uh we had a lot of engagement through a variety of sources. We did create a special web page just for the

master plan. uh city staff did a phenomenal job of getting notices out uh putting signs up, inviting people to look at the website and participate. Uh we had an opinion survey that was uh citywide and uh we ended up with 615 respondents, which is roughly 16% of all households in the city. And I think I've told you before that for a survey like this, 15 or 16% is pretty good. Uh, and when we we asked people to tell us where they were located in the city, we found that there were responses from all sectors of the community. So, we felt pretty comfortable that we had a good response and the the response was representative uh of the whole community. And then uh we also on the web page uh had separate pages for the sub areas and asked people to provide their comments regard regarding those specific sub areas. Uh and we we did get uh pretty good response in each of those as well. And then we had a uh meetings with the sub area residents. Uh we had a Gaslight Village uh meeting. We had about 25 people there. Uh St. Steven was our best attendance at 59 and then Northwest wealthy was about 45. We did not have a sub area meeting with the green uh uh Greenwood sub area uh because as we started the process and started discussing the sub areas uh the planning commission was of the opinion

that having just gone through uh a lot of meetings regarding the the conversion of the antique store to something else uh we had a lot of public input about that that there probably wasn't uh a need right now to do any tinkering with that sub area and I'll talk about that a little more in a minute. Um so in the opinion surveys communitywide um we asked what people liked and didn't like about the community. I didn't find anything surprising about those responses. uh school system and walkability came in at the top two. Uh what they didn't like uh taxes are probably no surprise. Uh expensive traffic cost, speeding, lack of diversity and parking and gaslight village. So some of those were expected, some uh maybe not. And then we asked the similar question in a little different way. Asked what the the major concerns were. Housing cost was number one, traffic enforcement number two. And we talked about that since then that um since the survey was done, um even before the survey was done, uh things have changed in terms of traffic enforcement. uh lack of shopping, property maintenance, lack of housing options, overcrowding, loss of natural resources, and neighborhood decline. Those were the top eight concerns that people uh came up with. Some other things that we we looked at, uh one was the age of

housing. Um what we found was 69% of all the housing in the city is at least 65 years old, meaning that it was built before 1961. Uh 27% of the homes were built prior to 1939. So that makes them 87 years old. and uh only 6% of homes in the city were built in the last 25 years. So again, probably no surprise um because we are built out, but I think it points to one of the concerns that was expressed uh by the the public was maintenance and upkeep. Um, you know, uh, in my walking tours of the neighborhoods, I've been impressed with the amount of construction activity that's going on. There are contractor trucks on almost every block, residing, re-roofing, landscaping, what have you. Um, so it's not a a terrible problem, but it's something that with housing this old, it's something to keep in mind going forward. other concerns. Um, we looked at non-conforming conditions and found that there are over a dozen what I call clusters or neighborhoods throughout the city where the lot size andor the lot width are actually nonconforming. And because of that, in our zoning ordinance, we say that uh there are some limitations applicable to non-conforming lots, regardless of how they're zoned, uh that don't apply to conforming lots.

Uh one is that uh under our zoning, we allow a 35 foot 2 and 1/2tory height for dwellings, but if it's a non-conforming lot, they're only allowed 25 ft. Um and likewise there's limits on the maximum coverage for buildings and for um all imperous surfaces. So uh you'll see when we get to recommendations. That's something we really want to zero in on and take a look and see uh do we come up with a new zoning district? Do we reszone some of those areas to a different zoning district to make them conforming? Do we amend the ordinance? number of options to look at. Uh so in sub area planning uh as I said we picked areas where there are changing conditions, new challenges and new opportunities. Uh the northwest wealthy neighborhood, Greenwood neighborhood, Gaslight Village and St. Steven. the Gaslight Village area. Again, when we started, the intent was to look at the uh Gaslight uh Village Plaza and Gaslight Investors PUB and come up with concepts for both of those areas. Um, by the time we really started getting into it, Gaslight Investors had approached the city with an application to amend their uh, concept plan. And so after a conversation with the planning commission, we felt that we probably just assumed that that concept plan was what they were going to go with and focus our attention on changes to uh uh Gas Light Plaza. Having said that, we also wanted to look though at the

interplay between those two properties and uh uh changes that could be made to make sure that they all blend uh together better. So um we came up with a number of uh potential concepts for development of the area. Um, we've not recommended any of these, but we wanted to show examples of what could be done and what would uh what we'd like to see done. The one concept in the upper uh left hand corner, basically leaving the existing building as is, but putting what we call liner buildings along Wealthy Street. um which is something that we've heard comments about over and over and over again that uh Gas Light Plaza is a suburban shopping center with a parking lot out front like you'd find on 28th Street. It's not in character with um East Grand Rapids. So uh one important consideration is to put some buildings up along wealthy. With the other three uh in all those cases we recommended a new building as well as buildings along wealthy. And in each case, we proposed uh up in the uh southwest corner um some kind of public space, plaza, open space, areas to sit, whatever it might be. Um and then in the the three schemes, we also played with different parking configurations because we

recognize parking is is an issue. And while um some of the concepts might take away from some of the parking, we didn't want to just get rid of parking all together. So, uh that was important. Uh again, Greenwood, um what we found as we looked at the neighborhood is it's already a mixeduse neighborhood. Uh I was surprised when you look at the uh multif family and two family residential as well as the office uh uses there probably half of that entire area is non-s single family residential. So creating a mixeduse option uh wouldn't really change much. But we did decide that uh until we knew what was going to happen with the gaslight investors property and uh having changed the zoning along um love it a couple years ago to allow for multif family. Uh we wanted to see what might happen there before recommending any changes or or leaving Greenwood the way it is. So, um, that was pretty much it. Uh, Northwest Wealthy, again, primarily a single family neighborhood. Uh, it abuts the city of Grand Rapids on the west. Uh, it's a block from Gaslight Village. Um, what we did find is we've got a number of two family and multif family buildings along wealthy. Uh but we also have a number of two family and I think one multif family uh on the interior of that neighborhood

south of wealthy. Um so when it came down to recommendations, we recommend that uh we have existing multif family residential zoning uh along Wealthy. Now, what we've proposed extending that further east to Rosewood and on the south side of wealthy extending it one lot beyond Rosewood because there's an existing two family dwelling there already. Uh so we we wanted to get rid of that nonconformity. And then with St. Stephen, uh, the school is closed. Uh, several months ago in one of the I think the one of the planning commission meetings, somebody said, "Well, uh, apparently the church is being closed as well." Um, so I did talk to a representative at the dascese a couple months ago and he said they have not made a decision to close the church yet. So we haven't toyed with that part of the the property. Um but the rest of the block is all owned by the dascese and everything surrounding the block is single family residential but just to the west of um the neighborhood is the city of Grand Rapids and a large Clark home complex. Um, one of the things we we found uh as we had our looked at our survey responses for the neighborhood and the uh uh meeting comments with the neighborhood, uh, the photograph on the the bottom of of that slide is uh the the former school playground. And more than a playground, what we were

told is it really has become a focal point for the neighborhood. That it's not just a a play place for the kids to play, but it's a place where families congregate, where mothers get together during the day and and uh uh do whatever. uh so that became a very important part of of any options that we considered as we moved forward. So again the one in the upper left is pretty much uh leaving the buildings as are uh but converting the school building to any number of uses. Uh it was suggested maybe a community center, offices, apartments, uh senior housing. Uh at one at our our neighborhood meeting, someone suggested contacting the uh East Grand Rapids public school system and apparently that has been done and they said they they weren't interested. Um so we looked at a number of possible options. The difficulty with something like that is with an older building that was built and designed as a school, uh renovation costs may make it impractical to uh to really reuse the building. So, but that's up to a prospective developer and and the dascese. the other options. Uh the other one on the top is uh proposed town homes. The one on the lower left is additional single family lots to mirror what's existing in the surrounding neighborhood. Uh and then the one on the lower right is

essentially um converting uh the whole space to uh public neighborhood park. Um in each of the scenarios in addition to the one that was all park uh we proposed a much greater area devoted to um um call it a pocket park, neighborhood park uh that might be part of the development or it might be acquired uh by the city or what have you. But again, building on what we heard from the neighbors that having that open space, that place to congregate was really important. So that was an element of of each of the the uh scenarios. And then in recommendations, uh, as I mentioned earlier, we want to look at the, uh, non-conforming conditions and see what we can do through amendments or changes to the zoning ordinance to address those. Uh, increasing opportunities for housing variety and attainability. Certainly, that's a goal in the current plan and something that both the city commission and planning commission have talked about in in numerous meetings. So, we just want to emphasize that again. Um again looking at ordinance amendments to see if there are places where um we can uh provide more administrative reviews rather than uh requiring variances for some things. Um and looking at again the older neighborhoods and the coverage and

setback requirements. Uh what we heard from some people is uh you know in the uh uh northwest uh wealthy neighborhood uh some of those lots are like 4,000 square ft. The minimum zoning requirement is 5,000 and some are even in the threes 3500 or so. And those people are saying, you know, I'd love to have a garage or an accessory building, but I can't because of the lot coverage requirements uh or the setback requirements. So, we really have to go back and look at fine-tuning some of those things uh and improving communication regarding enforcement of the city's property maintenance code. uh that that again from the the Northwest wealthy neighborhood, they brought up property maintenance and I think it was mo mostly in relation to those two family units in the midst of the neighborhood south of Wealthy. And after talking to staff, um, you know, we we said, well, the the city really doesn't go out and look for violations. It's on a complaint basis, uh, for staffing reasons and and other reasons. Um but um what we're saying here is um you know, let's make sure we're communicating to the residents what the property maintenance code is and uh procedures and and how enforcement happens. Uh and then uh creating or enhancing public spaces with Gaslight Village and Collins Park. And I think that came as a recommendation from the city commission

that we needed to expand that to Collins Park because it is part of Gaslight villages as well. Uh then working with the owners and tenants of Gaslight Plaza to promote infill along Wealthy Street. Uh that's going to be a challenge uh because the uh DMW folks uh have a long-term uh lease that's running, if memory serves, they've got another 10 years to go and then they have two five-year extensions. And uh the owners of the plaza are all for putting liner buildings up along wealthy. So, it's a matter of hopefully working with the owners of the the grocery store and everybody uh coming together on that, but it needs to be done. Uh enhance the western gateway into Gas Lake Village and again that was a recommendation out of the current 2018 plan. Uh work with Rapid to expand transit routes, service and convenience. Um the idea there is um if we can make transit service more accessible and more convenient uh maybe we can re further reduce some of the traffic and the parking demand and you know we've all heard about parking needs and and so on but um I I'm frankly always surprised because uh East Grand Rapids ain't that big and for people to be driving a few blocks to go to Gaslight Village or go to school

or whatever it might be. Uh if there was some way we could uh ease that, it it would really help in a lot of respects. um and incorporate inclusive design of all public facilities uh for those with physical disabilities and age related impairments and continue to implement other city plans. And I think that's something that um we heard from even members of the planning commission as well as uh members of the public that well this proposed amendment to the plan doesn't cover this and this and this and we had to remind them that uh there are a number of plans uh parks and recreation mobility bike action plan uh climate action that are all important. important elements of what goes on in the city. So they don't all have to be put into one document. And then uh the last part of the plan is a zoning plan and that's required by the state planning act. Uh basically to say how do how does existing zoning relate to some of the recommendations in the plan. And essentially what we're saying here is a lot of the recommendations will require a review of the zoning ordinance or an amendment to the zoning ordinance to make some of these things happen. So the next steps uh uh tonight we may hear public comment. Uh we're asking the city commission for your review and hopefully adoption if you're comfortable with the the document. Uh and then above all else once it's adopted uh we want to begin

with implementation. We've given uh a laundry list of things to be tackled and staff has shown and the planning commission has shown that they're very good at at doing that. So, uh, we'd like to see that continue. Any questions or comments? Any questions?

Um, I have one. Um, when it comes to implementation and we have some recommendations from in this plan, do we have like it it'll say something like amend the resolution. Do we have a a more specific recommendation from planning commission on how they think the best way to amend that would be or what zones they're recommending? Uh, no. Because we haven't studied it yet. All we're saying is we've got all these non-conforming conditions, not just an isolated lot here or there, but neighborhoods that don't conform. It's going to take some study. Uh, what is, you know, is is a new district the way to go or amending the existing districts or uh changing something from R2 to R3. Um, you know, there are a lot of options. So,

maybe I'm this is like getting ahead of myself, but like what is how is that typically done? Like when you say study, um, is that something that that we put a committee together for? Is that something the planning committee would study? Um, how do we go about getting th those those studies done once this is adopted?

Sure. So what we typically do is we will work with the planning commission to prioritize what those what those those goals are and um in terms of how we how those the the review is done is based on those topics and the prioritization uh we'll do a series of uh study sessions with the planning commission um where we'll look here's what we found in more detail. Um this variable stuck out to us. Um a a lot of um those study sections are a lot basically they're they're they could be like work sessions then where we work through with the planning commission um and get their input or you know did we miss something etc. And we continue to refine that process um until we have an understanding of the issue and then we look at and study what recommendations would be and how those may impact etc. So, um, sometimes those can be relatively short depending on the topic and sometimes they can take 6 months, 8 months depending on what they are.

That answer the question. So, it'll chug through planning commission. Yep. And then they'll like sharpen the pencil and then it'll come to us later. Perfect. That's what I need to know. Paul, I had a Yep. Uh, quick question here. Uh, first off, thanks to the city and staff and planning commission for and yourself, Mr. Leblanc, for uh, preparing this document for us. Um, is the amendment of the 18 plan is that kind of the normal course of events uh in the way this normally goes or is there why in this case wasn't it a a entirely new uh visionary guiding document for us to vote on? Uh great question.

Uh the planning act says that every five years the master plan has to be reviewed and it doesn't say we have to change it. it says has to be reviewed. Uh there are two option or three options. Do nothing. Say we reviewed it. We love the plan. Nothing's changed or uh the plan has been fully implemented or there have been gross changes in the community that we really need a a new plan to look at this. Or third, which is what we did. Um, a lot of what's in the current plan is still valid. Uh, some of the recommendations still have not been fully implemented. Um, so the idea was let's update the data from that plan and let's take a deeper dive into some specific sub areas rather than reviewing the whole city again. Uh, so that's how we arrived. Uh and I think both the planning commission and city commission agreed with that approach.

The the city commission agreed with that approach. Made a joint meeting with the county. Okay. Okay. Um good. Yeah. Thanks for you know thanks for that update I guess. Um you know the the alternative then I guess would have been a new master plan, right? just kind of taking a blank slate, of course, incorporating what was already there from the previous master plan, but um first time through it. So, I'm trying to just get an idea for the two different uh channels. Yeah, I I don't know that a a new plan

would have been warranted. Um you know, like I said, some of the data was outdated that needed to be updated. Uh but with a community like this that's fully developed and it's primarily a single family residential community uh there isn't much more to uh plan for and that's why we focused on some of those challenging areas. Thank you. Yep. I'll just process questions follow up to that. Um, so this amendment process was begun in 2023, so almost three years ago. Does it usually take that long? No. To go through this process? Can you talk about why it took?

I think when I started out, uh, I think we had a schedule of about a year. Um I think because of some of the other things that the planning commission was facing and then ultimately again the city commission um the the plan amendment got put on the back burner frankly. So to what year is our next review keyed? Is it to 20 23 or 2026? uh if it's adopted in 26, which I hope it will be, uh then five years from now would be 31.

31. Okay. And and at that point then I think uh you'd probably be looking at a a new plan. Mhm. Okay. Just a quick followup on that. If there was appetite for it, like you could do a new master plan before then, right? Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Okay. just at least every five years you have to look at it. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

I just got one. Mr. Leblanc, um thanks for again for the putting this packet together and and um and uh and for your hard work. I I remember when we voted to open up the master plan again to to revise it. Um one of the driving reasons was acknowledging that the the high speed of technology rising um and the everchanging of that. So, I don't really see it. I was hoping to see at least a paragraph addressing that. I think just it helps the community understand that this is the things that we're thinking through and as we're touching things, we're keeping that in the back of our mind about how things are changing. So, I was hoping that maybe I'd see a paragraph under at least under the assets and challenges about technology, rising technology. Um I know in just this year in the past year we've been talking about keeping um you know people traversing the tra roads and sidewalks safer especially in the onset of all of these ebikes and e- scooters. Um, so I I again I I thought I maybe I'd see something like that in there and unless I missed something in there in in the packet, but

um there is there is something in the 2018 plan about changes in vehicle usage and uh not only electric cars but uh auto automated uh transportation. Um so we didn't get into all that. Um uh I I don't know what will that stay then is that is this is just the additional things that stays. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Um so we we didn't go any further with that in the the amendment because it's already in the the existing plan.

Okay. All right. Thanks. Go ahead.

I've got I've got at least one more. Um on the chart which is on page three of uh of our paper document, uh the comparisons are to suburban communities either to the north or to the to the east of here. Just curious to know uh if there was any thought to doing any comparisons to our neighbors to the east. Um you know, we're looking at things like lack of diversity, right? Didn't necessarily have a slide on that and that's fine. That's a harder one to kind of define and maybe approach and tackle. But, you know, I think the correlation to those communities were probably our housing value, right, which is reflective of our net worth, which is cultural. And I think those two things tend to be linked um demographically, right? So, in in terms of trying to tackle, you know, the the idea of lack of diversity, perhaps um either before we vote on this or um in a next iteration, really trying to link us to our neighbors to the east, I think would help in great degree to um understanding just how we could better connect, right? both in terms of mobility and and traffic and safety, but also just culturally uh to those folks who maybe don't show up side by side in a neat, you know, statistical way um in terms of of home values. Uh but I that just stuck out to me in terms of the lack of comparison to other other demographic um variables.

Okay. When you say community to the east, uh sorry, west is what I meant to say. uh city of GR cuz I was thinking about Grand Rapids Township. I've got my left and my right. Yeah. So, yeah, that um kind of stuck out to me and just in terms of testing and analysis um would would prefer to see that going forward. Okay. Yeah. Any other questions? Are we having discussion after public comment on this? Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Leblanc? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, I will open this up to public comment. Is there anyone here this evening that would like to make public comment to this agenda item? Now is the time to come forward. He's got me.

Hi, I'm Jerry Anderson, 435 Edgeir. Um, congratulations to the people working on this. It's It's got to feel good to be near the finish line of a a very long process and it it looks great. Um I would like to comment to the commission. It's out of the planning commission's hander going there. As I read through this, there are certainly details and some numbers that I think aren't accurate. And I'm sure everybody would like the everything to be as accurate as they can. Please don't rush to vote on something where you could spend another week looking through it and make sure that everything that you folks now want to have in it is included. I'd like to point out just just one um probably just an accident or omission that was uh that probably should be in in there. Lori, is this thing on? Anyway, if on page 44 of the current agenda packet is notes from the last planning commission meeting and in it um Mr. I think his name is Brian Miller had a motion to approve the resolution recommending the master plan.

You got to turn it. Um, and you could zoom that a little bit. Um, and he said, "I'd like be believe we should remove the parking study graphic on page 15 and that and comments that future developments would require parking studies recognizing the observation that parking is a challenge in the current state of Gaslike Village." that was seconded and it went through with a a vote of 8 to zero at the planning commission. What they're referring to is this is page 14 going on to 15 of the master plan where it says the 2018 master plan included a parking study that concluded the parking was sufficient. Skipping on it says there was a new study conducted in 2025. its findings were consistent with the 2018 study. The implication of all of this is that our studies show that parking in Gaslight Village is fine. I think that most people in here have experienced enough of Gaslight Village and the surrounding community have to know that really the parking situation isn't fine. And I think that the planning committee acknowledged that by passing this resolution 8 to zero. Let's not say that it's let's not even imply that it's fine. Let's just say that there needs to be more discussion about it. And Mr. Leblanc referenced that in his comments today. We need to include the Guinan the DNW owners and the community in trying to figure out a way to fix the situation there. Um if I had more time, I'd be happy to talk with any of you about it. But thank you.

Thank you. Is anyone else here tonight to make public comment to this agenda item? Now's the time to do so.

Good evening. My name is Mark Armstead, 2202 Elwood. Um, look forward to all the activity that's going on in the city. Uh, not opposed to development at all. uh just uh looking to see if there's ways that we can better maybe integrate some of the things that we're trying to accomplish. Uh it seems like sometimes there's things that uh by themselves they're uh I mean they're they um they're they're great but yet they only include a a portion of the community. Um and the as although the community pays for everything um you know only only a few people or a portion of the community gets to use it. Um so that's uh that would be one thing I think um you know as we're looking at development or economic development um you know we need to have a draw um into Gaslight Village if if that's what we're trying to uh accomplish and uh just to put shops in to bring shops in or to bring national chain or national stores in. I don't think that really accomplishes the goal. Um, you know, and if you're going to draw people in, there has to be a connection to communities outside of East Grand Rapids, uh, whether it be, uh, businesses andor other neighborhoods, um, different professions. Um, and there needs has to be something unique, um, that that that's not already served, um, within the, you know, greater uh, West Michigan area. So, uh, there's there's a lot of different ways to go about doing that, but I don't think that we're doing a very good job of that, quite honestly. And I think there's, uh, a lot of, uh, opportunities that were, uh, we either haven't explored or we just simply, um, haven't, um, taken the time to consider.

So, those would be some things. The the other thing too that concerns me is you know as we look at um you know trying to for lack of a better term increase housing or or whatnot in East Grand Rapids I think um one thing that there there's impacts every time we make a decision there's an impact and we don't always know what those impacts are going to be until after the fact. So, but one thing that is happening is as we reszone properties for multifamily development, we're actually taking away opportunities for single family homes. And when you do that, um, you actually I think of a single family home as something where it's it's affordable versus an apartment simply because you're able to build equity in something. Whereas an apartment, I don't know how you build equity if you are renting an apartment. So, you know, that's just another thing I want to bring up, but uh there's there's a whole lot to say in three minutes. You don't really have an opportunity to say a whole lot, but uh anyways, I do appreciate your time and and thank you. I hope we take some of these uh things give it more more deep thought and take them into consideration.

Thank you. Anyone else care to make public comment to this? Okay, hearing none, I will close public comment and bring this agenda item up here for a motion, a second, and discussion. I have a motion, a second, and then we'll go to discussion. So moved. Second.

Okay. Any follow-up conversations, comments. Um, I'd like for us to take a look at page nine of the draft. Um, we're talking about traffic safety. Um, I do appreciate that the specific language in the recent a recent draft uh took out a sentence. I believe it was something to the effect of this is not a problem anymore. Um, and I I would like to see this middle paragraph and charts removed as well. um in that they don't include the most recent data that we have on traffic stops and citations. Number one, uh where we've seen again a 33% drop according to the annual report on traffic stops in the LA in 2025. Um and I'll keep pushing on that we don't know what these traffic stops and citations are for. So we don't know if they are responding to the community's concerns or not. Um, and I would not want this master plan to give to either downplay the community's concerns um or give the impression that those concerns have been addressed and we're done. Um, so all of that is to say I'd like to see us remove again that middle paragraph and charts from page nine.

Any other comments?

Yeah, I guess I just to piggyback off of that. I guess I missed that in my review. We don't have the 25 data in a document for 2026. Um yeah. Um, you know, we've talked a little bit more as of late about parking and, you know, I think we've done uh somewhat of a good job here, but again, you know, here we are um with with issues in front of us related to parking decisions we have to make and and I'm just not sure a lot of those conversations are are here. So, I get it. With a master plan, there's always going to be something within the city that's not fully decided upon before having to decide on a master plan. Correct. But at the same time, I think I'm not sure I'd love to hear from commissioners about, you know, some of the issues related to parking currently and whether this master plan does a good enough job setting up not only what may be in front of us, but also some of the contingencies if plan A, B, or C isn't isn't viable over the next year or so. Um, so I mean does it address I guess the question for the commission is does it address parking in a way that we're comfortable in taking action on the document this evening?

Were there any other comments or questions? I guess my question would be sorry I want to understand what you're saying. What would you suggest? Um cuz yeah, park parking's like on all of our minds and like you said, it's hard to nail down a document when we're always trying to improve and iterate. So what

I just love to know like what changes you think we could make? Well, you know, do we have to call for for instance um in this document, do we have to call for um any of the changes that might be discussed over the next few year or two uh or whatever time frame it is, right? But do any of those changes have to be called for in this document for them to be brought forth into action? I don't think they do. That's my question. Okay. I don't think they do. No. No. Short answer, no. Okay. Okay.

Short answer, no. Um, and Paul and Doug and Jake can probably speak to this better than I can, but as we consider the impact of this um sort of document doesn't bind this commission or future commissions that oh well we don't talk about parking all we can't have any other other conversations about parking. that is um just the kind of the reality when we think about the legal implication implications of um this torant type of document we think more of the land use zoning things of that nature um regards to that. So it helps set a vision but it does not um

precludeclude preclude going oh gee we want to go this way we go this way when we think about the um um the guidance that it provides and again it's more of a um land use development type vision that is the legal implication of that is the best way I can just say that duck

wanted to yeah and I mean just to just to chime in on a couple things I I think that the only reason why we included um um the traffic safety piece at all was because it was the number. It's very uncommon for for the public to come back with for a master plan um update or a new master plan to talk about that. So really the acknowledgement wasn't that it's solved and whatever it was to acknowledge that what they actually the the the feedback was and to provide some context not a solution. So certainly I think we would be fine from a staff's perspective actually removing all of it but then there would be no response to the community said that was their number two issue. Um, so in no way were we doing that. Uh, perhaps maybe it's removing all of it and just deferred to the Department of Public Safety. Um, we could certainly do that.

Um, in terms of uh, parking, as Manager Charles noted, u, we already have in our ordinance and, um, um, uh, requirements regarding parking and we note that it's no different than um, how we would we look at uh, reviews for development in terms of utilities, whether that's water, sewer, storm water, etc. So, while I know that that's parking is a a something that is more visible than other public aspects of development, um generally what we see is that uh we're we're trying to acknowledge that and understanding that there's not a consensus on what that is and I don't think there ever be a consensus of what is perfect for parking. Um and uh there's there's not going to be a uniformity in the community, but we acknowledge that there isn't a uniformity um but that we do require these studies for the development. So that's that's that's basically what we have here in in the update in terms of that. So to answer both of those topics, um that's why they're there in the way the manner that they are.

Thank you. So go ahead. I say I do recall that the 2018 master plan does speak to parking and talks about a shared parking solution. So in the absence of conversation in this amendment, I would assume that we are still focused on a shared parking solution.

Right. That's what the system is. Um specifically for that master plan um that was actually request uh by both the city commission at the time and planning commission to actually do a dedicated study to uh Gas Lake Village which was done. Um in terms of follow-up uh studies we we have done a variety of them. I know you're all aware of different parking studies that we have and have copies of those etc. Um it's really yes it's a shared parking it's a shared parking system currently and that's something that we look at in terms of any new or changing development. And then to follow up on the traffic safety piece number nine I think we could certainly leave in the last sentence of that middle paragraph the city also intends to work with the consultant etc etc that gets at what the future action will be. Um I certainly wouldn't want to see this removed given that it was the number two issue identified by the community. Um, again, I just would like to hear from other commissioners as well about the removal of that that it's incomplete data. Um, and so we probably just don't want to have it in here, but we do want to be responsive to the community.

Could we include Sorry, you're done. Yeah. Could we include 2025 traffic stop data in this chart? If if I could, I think it would be best for us just to reference existing public safety 2025 report or something like that. Um, I think if we get into we pick parts out of their annual report, I think we're going to lead to more questions than than that. And I think that would be

um, then we're dealing with different departments handling another department's data, which we don't like to do. Um, so I think I think if we remove the middle paragraph and the graphics as Commissioner um Graph Blazak noted, uh, we can leave the the last sentence of that middle paragraph and then we can reference uh, public safety reports or where where they can be found um, on our website. Maybe that would be more appropriate. I I like that solution because it's there's so much data, right? Um, that you all put together and so to take pieces out of it. Yeah. And then if somebody looks at this, you know, two years from now, they'll be able to know where we house current data. Otherwise, day one or day two, it's already almost maybe. So, we could certainly do that if that's amunable to the to the commission.

Sounds to me solution.

I do like that last sentence staying in. And I also wonder, you know, taking that concept and applying it to our parking conversation, unless I I missed it, if we have like a if we could throw a sentence in somewhere that the city intends to constantly iterate on solutions for shared parking. Seems somewhat redundant to what's already there, but also acknowledging that like we aren't saying mission accomplished. Everybody has parking everywhere. Just trying to find that middle ground there. Mr. Charles, follow question on the parking. Just similar to talking about technology. Are we going to find any parking um some of the dialog that's in the 2018 master plan that's going to be remaining? Is this is this kind of adding to it where some of this is correct?

Because you know, it's mentioned 26 times. I think they do a great job of highlighting that, you know, the need and that we're watching this very carefully and um and and it's a it's a moving target for us constantly as as development hugs happening too. But uh but I I I do agree like leaving the data in even though maybe it shows the trend and of course this is the number two uh talked about or hot topic for the community. I think maybe it is smart to leave leave it as is. Maybe amending like you said um maybe a last paragraph or last sentence.

I support pointing it to the most recent data. Just just it was a great point brought up that the second we release this it's going to be out of date and if we have a link that shows the most up-to-date data we can keep it populated, keep it up to date and people can get the most current information to see where the trends are going. I like that like Mr. Lefay's suggestion. Yep. Okay.

Any other thoughts or questions? There is one additional piece um that I'd like to to see changed. Sorry, it's the next page and it's still under the same heading. Uh but the final paragraph on the top of page 10, um I think we could leave it at other measures designed to accommodate non-motorized traffic and reduce conflicts are being explored. Period. Uh, I don't think it benefits us to include the Gaslight Village plan as an example, especially when later in the plan we refer to that as only a schematic. Um, because we don't have a final plan and we don't know for sure that that's going to happen.

Why was it put in there? That's fine with us. Why was it included to begin? just that's why just as one example of this was just to sort of iterate what we what we do but I could understand I mean one of the reasons why this process took so long was because there's a lot of um lack of understanding of what a master plan is and when we go through a current plan um oftentimes we would see that flow over into when we would get to this document. So um it was intended as just just providing an example but we can certainly strike that that's not a problem. But the PUD is still in existence, right? So we it's kind of on a hold, but like I guess it would it wouldn't doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah. Any other thoughts, comments?

Yeah. Again, I'm I'm using this a little bit as a learning opportunity. So, um you know, comments from Mr. Leblanc and city staff are really appreciated. um you know when we talk about city of or yeah our city's age of housing stock I mean I don't think it was something that was brought up as a challenge for the city by our residents was it um in the survey respondents or anything of that nature um I I didn't I didn't remember seeing it um in too many of the surveys but I mean it is old um you know 70% of the homes are at least 65 years what what does that data do I guess in terms of this document you know what what is the illuminating kind of take away from

generally I think it what it means is that you're going to see uh which we do see on a regular basis more redevelopment more renovations those types of things and I think as um Mr. Blanc noted um and when he was doing his survey walks in the community, he he referenced that and um we as staff see that too, not just from um in my case living here, but also working here um also just our building permits which we provide to you all monthly that you see there's a tremendous more amount of redevelopment. Um it was a question kind of I think kind of blended uh together as Mr. Blanc noted as on the one hand um it it was in reference to for some uh for some residents that um perhaps they were concerned about certain particular types of properties and how they're maintained um and the city strategy and in addressing those. And then on the the other flip side of that is when you when you typically have a more aged uh community that is that is one of the the things of concern is to make sure that things are kept up to code um etc. I think what we're suggesting is that from when we had those conversations and um looking at the community, we're really not seeing that as a as a concern um related to redevelopment, just to be aware of it. Um and um again on the the other side of the coin for um for code enforcement was more of um understanding what those what those standards are and then how the city goes about it. because um um as you're all aware the um that's done on not done on a proactive basis but a reporting basis um by the city and some residents in some of those areas I I think their preference would be to be the opposite.

That would be more of a policy change in the future if if uh that's something you all wanted to do. Perfect. Thank you. Any other thoughts, comments? Do we need to amend the motion to include the changes? Those are just light changes, I think. Um, so the so the motion before is to um approve the proposed resolution.

So um from our standpoint, I think it um just a motion to um what motion? Um, so Commissioner Berdick made the um initial motion. Um, Commissioner Wesley did the second. If Commissioner, if you would like to simply um um if you're open to amending your motion um to account for the changes articulated um and if the second is fine with that, then we don't have to go through the whole rig. I'm very comfortable amending my motion to include the uh small minor changes as as discussed.

Okay. You amenable with that? and the second is also also agreeable. So with that, that's now the motion before the commission is to approve the resolution. Um and with the changes discussed this evening. Okay, Lori will make that sound official. So

somehow official I have an official. Great. I just wanted to thank um all city staff for their hard work. I know this has been a long process and I wanted to thank the planning commission and a special shout out to Commissioner Schwarz. I know those are long long meetings and thank you for all you've done and to Miss Mes, thank you for being here tonight and thank you for your leadership on the planning commission and getting this done. We really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, that means we can go to a vote. All those in favor say yes.

Yes. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have to consider approving facility HVAC equipment replacement for wealthy pool mixed air unit 2 in the amount of 1,00 $166,11 plus a 10% contingency. That introduction by Mr. Lefave.

Okay, there we go. Uh good evening, Madame Mayor and city commissioners. Um we have uh this is the last uh HVAC uh equipment we have from our capital improvement plan and budget uh for fiscal year 2526. This was a prior deferred item from a a former fiscal year uh due to some of the supply chain uh challenges and associated pricing. Um, our facilities coordinator, Ryan Russell, uh, who's responsible for our facilities, um, worked with the Kent County Purchasing Department to to bid out, uh, this equipment. Um, and we received two bids, uh, for this, uh, wealthy pool, uh, mixed air unit number two. So, we do have two of these, which refreshes the air um, in accordance with the health department requirements um, in that facility. Uh, we did receive two bids uh, or three bids, I'm sorry. One of them was really um um extremely high uh due to we felt uh didn't have a grasp of the of the uh uh the proposal information and information provided from the walkthrough that we had. Um i.e. they didn't take measurements, didn't take photos, those types of things that typically we see from those that are more interested. Um that is with Northwest Kent Mechano Mechanical of Cedar Springs, Michigan. Uh the budgeted amount was 150,000 for this uh HVAC equipment. Um that bid the base bid was 157950 uh with an al alternate option uh 166 uh11. Uh we do have uh the ability to uh um account for uh that difference of just over $8,000 within our existing budget from savings from other capital projects. So there will be no budget amendment needed. Um, that alternate that was included allows our facilities team to remotely view uh the HVAC system inside Walthy Pool, which is essentially a conduited out unit within Wealthy Elementary School. Uh, rather than

having to um uh contact this the uh the school maintenance team and ask them for why there's an alarm or what's going on. Um so it'll make that more efficient for um our team when they check in every day to more proactively look at any issues that are happening there which will help our parks and recreation staff as well as um uh those users of the pool facility. Um to align with our climate action plan uh the the the the unit noted um is 20% more efficient than what's existing um in that facility. Um there is a limited amount of uh of suppliers out there for that type of facility as well. um giving the nature of the the heated element to that pool and u associated air that has to be exchanged. Uh with that I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Mr. Lefave? Could you remind me again just is this a part of a joint facility uh situation and are we good question?

So well wealthy wealthy pool was taken over by the the city in the late 1980s um from the school system and used for recreation programming. it was uh through a bond initiative in uh 2002 was totally rehabbed um at that time. Um and we're seeing we're planning for a lot of those elements to be refurbished or replaced uh in in the coming years because of the lifespan of those. Um because it is a city facility um it is uh fully handled by the the city of East Grand Rapids. It is not part of the joint facilities agreement. Oh, it's not. Okay. No,

I'll ask some questions offline about it, but I appreciate you. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Lefave? Okay. Thank you. Was there anyone here that wanted to make public comment to the HVAC item on the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, we'll bring it up here for a motion in a second. So move. Second. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have to consider amendments to the Department of Public Works yard waste rules and regulations to integrate yard waste and food scraps composting service. Again, introduction by Mr. Lefave.

Okay. Um um as you're all aware um or most of you are aware uh based off of a a requested uh a goal from 2022 um the city commission uh asked the department of public works to work on um uh food scraps composting and and to move the needle forward um on on that particular service issue. Um, as Kent County Public Works, uh, has estimated through the the stream of all waste in Kent County, uh, they estimate 35% of all the waist stream is organic waste. Um, and so, uh, not only East Grand Rapids, but others are looking, um, at ways to, um, to to address this issue from from a service um, u perspective. Um, we went move forward with a food scraps drop off site um, in that that pilot time from 2022 to 2025. And during that time, we've worked with representatives from Eagle as well as our uh current composting um operation, which is Kesburg Wood Products, which operates out of uh kind of the Rockford Cedar Springs area off Northland Drive. Um to look at how we could introduce some element of uh food scraps into our curbside uh composting program with with yard waste. Um I did provide some numbers of some variation um in the memorandum uh uh to illustrate just the the amount of material that we are composting each year. Um there are uh some really wonderful small businesses that do uh composting um here in the Grand Rapids or West Michigan area. However, when we're looking at more uh industrial scale production of composting, uh some of their uh approaches are just not scalable at this time. So um please note that you know these changes here not necessarily forever but more of a step in that direction uh furthering that direction. Um so the amount of material that we that we do uh compost from the

city um um is between 16,000 and 25,000 um yards of material each year. Um and uh you know really that material is the the biggest cost associated with that are obviously the the city employees and equipment to collect uh from uh approximately 4,000 properties uh each week. And then we have a um basically an on-site uh storage location for a very short period of time. Uh typically within a week um all that material um essentially a transfer station is then sent up to the composter. So it's here for a very short period of time. um key changes to the program on the second page of memorandum um that the food scraps composting would be um combining some uh of that uh food scraps materials with yard waste with limitations as I noted with regulatory and composting requirements and capabilities. So there's just certain uh types of material that might register as something you would compost from a food scraps perspective that that we can't receive. um the the the uh way to address that um that we we uh move forward with with uh maintaining the 247 365 um drop off center site that we still have at public works. So, if you were to look at um the revised policy, uh if you were to look at uh compliant materials for curbside service, which would be 3A and 3B, you'll note that 3A is really everything in alignment with what we currently do. Um in terms of yard waste material, uh and and B would be um the the food scrap stream that would be allowable to be introduced. So looking at things like fruits, vegetables, and associated pits, peels, nutshells, and then other items um um that that uh uh that that don't have the um nuisance uh aspects uh including breads, grains, pasta, rice, coffee

grounds, and and the key part here is other natural vegetation materials. Um and then we if you go down to number four, that's where we allow for those other items uh to be composted for residents um at the the food scraps drop off site. Um really focusing on things like that that we can't introduce like meat, fish, dairy, pizza boxes, and the various types of paper that um a different type of processor can handle for us. So, what we're trying to do is allow for more of a um more of the community to participate um in this this type of composting to reduce what goes to um the landfill or waste energy facility while also being cognizant that we have residents that may want to participate at a higher level um for them. Um and we would not uh as noted in the policy uh currently um to sort of test the community and who participates. Uh currently that facility um it hasn't been uh consistent in the last year because we have seen participation being very compliant but initially out of the gate we we had the the facility locked on a regular basis just so that we could make sure we weren't having things show up like uh that was refu um toxic type of disposal items that that that can be common in certain types of drop off sites. Um uh some of the minor changes that are noted um related to containers. Again, the city's not specifying a specific type of container or providing one in a cost associated with it. Um but we are request we are noting certain uh regulations around conditions of them that they're designed to be lifted in a safe manner and that they maintain um that that condition. Sometimes uh we we have some communication where maybe a maybe a a barrel has one handle left on it um and half of it's not functioning or torn apart. But we just want to be explicit with the community to

understand that um our team members are um emptying 4,000 of these a week. And so for worker safety, we want them to understand that we need that container to be in an appropriate condition and be the appropriate type of container to maintain their safety. um many of us could lift one of those containers like some homeowners can, but when you're doing it 4,000 times a week, uh that's a different story. So, we wanted to be intentional about noting that to give some context to residents to understand uh that that component for our team. Um as I noted, the drop off site would be maintained uh 24/7 365 uh for uh lapses in service um as well as certain types of items we can't introduce into our stream. And again, we just wanted to make sure we had uh more descriptive information about the service and operations for the community. And there are no changes to service routes. There's no decline or change that would restrict any of the service, just enhancements at this time. And we feel like uh internally between um our staff reviewing these these changes um and working with our compost processor as well as Eagle that as noted here in the policy that we can execute um this this particular uh uh version of this service at this time. Again, as I noted um we do expect to see changes in the future, but we feel like we're ready for this next step. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions any of you may have. Any questions for Min Mr. Lefay? Go ahead.

Yeah. Um, Kent County has set goals to reduce landfill waste by 90% in less than four years. It's still on their website. I know that they're working through some some different iterations regarding the South Kent landfill. Okay.

And uh sustainable business park aspects of that. Um they haven't updated that at this time. I know that they're working through um really some trans transformative uh options countywide. Um but um you know, as I noted in the memo, East Grand Rapids has been a leader when it comes to solid waste. Um even though we don't have space um uh here in the in the community to address uh some of those types of things. U we we're we are still the only community that requires recycling, single stream recycling here, whether you do it or not. Um but it's a requirement by ordinance and this would get us to the next level in terms of composting where it's going to be offered to every every property here in the city at no additional cost. Um it's the services including your property taxes. So a way to really allow for people to participate if they've never done it before. There's again there's no cost to them. They don't have to go and do anything different in terms of if they have compliant containers and barrels. They just need to be compliant with the materials that we're allowed to accept.

Okay. Yeah. Um, I guess I didn't realize organic food waste was 30, you know, a third of all all waste. Um, so this will make a meaningful impact in the stream of of trash headed to the landfills. Yep. Or the incinerator. Um, that's where all of our materials go. There's some exceptions to that, but um, that's certainly the the direction that we're continuing to try to move. Okay. Yeah. had a question about the the containers to be used. So, have has this been executed in other communities using the paper bags? I'm just thinking of like all the little critters

just break it into the paper bags and

so so you'll notice there's a distinction between um as I noted under section um and that's intentional for a variety of reasons. Um so under um the that section 3 point 3 3. A and uh A and B and then uh for the drop off site um those particular items noted under uh 4B. So what we're really trying to do is align similar items that are also found in your your general food scraps to to yard waste. So things like uh meat, fish, uh dairy, those types of items generally have more of a nuisance aspect to them. Um they also um affect the composting process. They generate more heat. And so when they're at our transfer station and on site there, we want to pull those items out because a there there can be some nuisance orders. Uh b they can attract more pests and

those types of things. That's why our compost drop off site um is very secure in terms of uh the walls. And uh we have not had any uh intruders at this time that I'm aware of. Uh we have uh video surveillance of that of that site as well, but that has worked out really well. Um but again, we're trying to um limit to items that are not going to disrupt or or create a disruption in the community in terms of odor um uh types of animals like raccoons or skunks that might want to dine in some of these items. We know that they're more interested in um some of the items that are required to go to the drop off site like the the meat, fish, dairy that have more of an attractant. Okay. If that makes sense. It it does. It does. I'm just thinking like

I'm worried we might have to pivot in the future to say like you have to use a plastic container. You know, I came from a community before this that did have a rodent issue and I just would not wish that on us. Yep. And certainly like any like any policy or anything we do, um you live and you learn and we've we've we've spent really last couple of years working with Eagle and our our composting processor and most importantly with our staff um to get their feedback on what issues that they experience daily that we can make better um and any concerns that they they see um as well. So, um we may be back here um by the end of summer saying, "Hey, we need to tweak a few things here that that we we learned, but we we have put our best foot forward to try to um to do the best we can."

Are there any specific um containers that like the city is going to recommend? I just wonder if that would be helpful for people like, "Hey, go to go to Home Depot. They have this certain bucket." And

Yep. So, in terms of in terms of the the containers, um we recommend here under 5B um either the paper bags or uh or the the barrels that are limited to 32 gallons in size with they're designed to be lifted, so handles. So, that those are typically what we we recommend. We will typically the the bags um some some people just have those as a preference. Um, I think those that probably ventured a little bit more into our food scraps composting might prefer um, but maybe not depending what they what they do. Uh, those those 32gallon containers. Um, u, but we we do um, note here what we specifically cannot do, and those are wheelbarrows and long carts and their likeness, those types of things that are not designed to be lifted. It's great that residents can do that in their yard. uh it's great for them, but when again as we're noting uh our staff has to do 4,000 of these a week, you can imagine uh what that can do uh to someone's health.

Yeah. I don't imagine filling up 32 gallons of food scraps a week. I was thinking more of like a five gallon. Yeah. And and to that point in in the memorandum, I did note that, you know, what we what we did see now, I know that there's there's some differences here between, you know, going to a drop off site, right, versus having it provided to you curbside. Um we did we did see about I think it was 260 or so 50 or so homes that that did sign up and we we saw that about 60 of them were very active.

Um but in terms of the material that we were collecting we also saw that it was even on the active side was pretty limited to about five gallons a week. So if you look at a 32gallon barrel and five gallons is related to that. we feel like in sort of the um at least at this point in time um you know where that is in terms of those who are very active in the community that want to do it um we feel like that'll it'll operate within that bandwidth and again we may have to I'm certainly certainly we will probably have to make some changes going forward but we we do feel really comfortable right now that we're not going to see probably more food scraps composting than what we're getting from yard waste because some houses here somehow they generate you know sometimes between 20 and 40 containers a week um that we are picking up. So, we've we're hopeful that they they're not going through that much food. Um

I remember having I remember having a compost bucket growing up and the stench that that generated and being a little man on the totem pole carrying it to the backyard compost pit. So, yeah. And and I think and again, I think just because we're we're we're addressing some of the different types of items perhaps maybe the community that um where you lived maybe they allowed for a bit more. I don't know. It was our yard. It was okay. Okay, it was the back back of the lot. Well, I can tell you that that just yard waste alone that we already collect, if you if uh if you want to stop by public works sometime on like, you know, like a 90° day before it's shipped out, um it does not smell anything like it did when it was in your yard, but I assure you that. I appreciate your service. Any other questions for Mr. Lefave?

Just a comment. I want to thank you. I think this is a great like little step for people that aren't um composting food scraps, which is probably most of us. I can, you know, call myself out as one of those. Um it's just an easy way to get started. So, I'm really happy to see that as an easy way to get started. I also wanted to compliment you on the brief western the the the subsection G and 8 on the weather conditions outside seasonal norms to do a special pickup or drop off time at public works for that day in February where everyone makes a bunch of leaves and we don't know where to take them.

Thank you that I I appreciate bringing up That's an omission that I I didn't intend to make um uh this evening, but yeah, we're we're looking at um the the city discontinued allowing contractors to drop off at our facility. Um back in 2007, we saw a delta difference between somewhere between like 25 and like $35,000. So, it was showing us that some contractors were bringing in material from outside of the community. We've seen that stay fairly steady since that time. Um so, uh so that's the reason why that was closed at that time. But uh to your point too, we like like uh as manager Charles noted LA this last week and a half or so, we've seen every season here. And when we're trying to change over an operation, we're looking at kind of doing that for for an entire season, not a reaction. So, while we are doing a storm cleanup and pickup in the community, we're not ready for everyone to be raking their yards out there. It's snowing out. Um but yeah, we as you noted, we get we get this every year. Well, we get a day in or two in February or March where it's great and this community changes on a dime. Everyone's out with their dogs running around doing stuff with their lawns and then the next day we can get three or four inches of snow. So, we we rent some equipment. We have a lot of stuff to change over, but we also have to be ready for this type of weather we're seeing out the windows right now. So, changing all that over, you know, is a is not something that is just easy to do. Um, but we want we wanted to offer a solution too for residents that if they really love raking their their lawn in February, that's great. Give us a call. We'll let you know where you can drop it off, where we can inspect it, make sure it's not something we shouldn't have, and then we'll we'll take care of it with our composter. So, I appreciate you bringing that up.

It's a really big deal. That's great. Yeah, we have some Yeah, we have some very active uh residents that love working in their yards for sure. I know one. Yeah, I just want to thank you for all your hard work. You're you and your team, you've been working on this for years and this is a huge team input here, just so you know. This is Yeah. And this is a lot of hard work. So, and I you've been looking at options for years and um and like you said, this is unique to our community and it's no additional um dollars to the taxpayers and it's just it's really unique and it's a big deal. So, thank you. Thanks.

Agree on all accounts. Um, since we discussed this in infrastructure on Friday, I've been celebrating like, "Oh, well, this is a great step." Uh, and as I communicated earlier today, then someone crashed in with like a big old blind spot for me, right? When I was like, "Oh, hey, guess what we're doing?" And she said, "Well, you can have our raccoons from Grand Rapids then." Um, and then heard from a couple of other folks as well. I was like, "Wow, yeah, I had not considered that." Um, and I know that in the best case it likely would be a small problem, right? If folks are putting the things out the day that they get picked up like they're supposed to. And we know that folks don't always do that.

Um, I am just wondering if there might be some appetite here in the commission for us to take two more weeks and just get some more information about what the risks might be related to that so that we can have those conversations with the community. um and we don't find ourselves I've also lived in a community where where it's been an issue um and just get really solid and feel really confident like that really was kind of a like I that's a blind spot for me. I'm very supportive of the policy very recognize all the work that's gone into it and I really want to be able to reassure folks on this. I I think I think we're um because of where we are and with the service starting on on uh on the 6th of April, um I think there are going to be some things we're going to learn. we're not perfect and we don't we don't aspouse to be. But I do think in terms of uh by limiting the types of items that we know um if if you if you do do uh if there's more research you do around like what attracts um animals, it's going to be some of the items you noted from some of some of uh your friends or colleagues in Grand Rapids. And so we try to limit that for that aspect too. Um and um we also have a fair number of fair uh number of the community that for their ref use right now they they don't they don't necessarily keep it in their garage. They keep it outside. I'm one included and I use a bungee cord to keep the raccoons out of my trash. And so um I think we can address some of those types of um concerns with just some FAQs too. Like hey, you know, if you're using a container, use your lid. If you're if you're concerned, if you're having any issues, uh consider those types of things. Um, I really feel confident that we can we can address this uh with what we have here today and perhaps just a little more education to your point uh with some FAQs when we roll this out because I know that even just from a from a policy perspective there they're side questions to some of these two and that's why we we intentionally threw in

a few things that we normally wouldn't do in a policy by just providing context of like I said the 4,000 you know you know uh properties a week. Yeah, that's one thing that public works does is we t one way or the other, whether it's yard waste or utilities or something else. We touch every single resident in this community every week. And so, um, I think we can address your concerns as noted, but we intentionally left out certain items that we knew would be a nuisance, uh, for attracting critters, but also on the composting end of it,

but that's that's up to you. I would I would just really love two weeks to more education for myself and I I think it it might behoove all of us. I know that that our deadline is pressing against us. Um and I think it's a really valid concern that we can really help with the communication on is there an appetite to delay this? I no appetite. No,

I wonder if there might be like a we can do both. Um because I would I would like to explore like not allowing the paper bags like cuz I worry about people setting a paper bag outside on their yard waste on Monday and it's supposed to get picked up on Thursday and what that might bring. They already do that. I know they do it with yard waste. So if they're doing it with compost like do we want to look into like having a approved plastic container? Like I just did a quick Google search and I know you put like so much time into this like I'll echo like the thank you from everybody but like also like can we encourage people to use a

ceiling closing lid?

Well, I would tell you that um because the service has been in this community for so long. Um I don't think that that's feasible because they're they're not trained that way. Um it's even hard to get them to put out containers to think of others have to pick them up. Um I think that um I I do think that the materials we've selected um certainly minimize you know the the you know the as I noted the critters or orders those types of complaints and certainly a lot of this stuff u you know when I've been out with crews a lot of the stuff people are putting in their stream anyway. So um do we dump it out to find the you know the watermelon rind or you know the coffee pouches or whatever they put in there. We don't, but some some folks are already doing this and um by being more intentional in how we educate on what we can do and what we can't do, uh we feel like we can make a difference, get more people involved. But um I'm not concerned from uh the uniform container piece. I think that excludes people um in the community. I think people will put out way more things that um again are not necessarily intentional for uh for our staff to pick them up. Um but it's up to you all what you want to do. Um, I have a comment to follow. So, um, just to answer your question. I'm not I don't really have an appetite to pause for two weeks. It sounds like you have a I like your answer. Um, Mr. Lefave, I think you put a lot of work into it. I think that you have a good grasp on on how that might work. Obviously, like you said, nothing um is perfect, but I think that just getting the program started, you're going to it's going to be a learning curve. You're going to learn a lot and you'll make changes and you'll pivot quickly, which you have done. Uh, it's been proven you've done that pretty quickly. So, I'm I don't have any um hesitation on that. One thought though is as we get into it, you know, and if you start to find that, oh yeah, maybe a a universal container uh that is on brand that has yeast on it that looks really great, maybe has a list of the things that are acceptable that are not acceptable. And then um this leads me on my other point is that if you find that

if it's not too much more of a spend to retrofit a truck that can lift these things in because my thought here is that um and I glad I'm glad you brought up the point about you know saying how many time these guys are just out there like hundreds a day you know cuz when we we sometimes will get a little ticket on there and says hey you know it's too heavy for us to lift like I'm like wow it's it's not that hard. Um, and that's what I'm thinking. But then I'm like, but again, I'm like, oh, but now that you say that, I'm like, if this is the 200th one I'm doing, I could see that becoming a non-ergonomic situation. So, in in in hopes of maybe saving our our team's backs and um being able to capture 100% of of all of them, I you know, if that came down the line, I would be I wouldn't be opposed to it. I'd love to take a look.

Yeah, I think a lot of these things are at the table. I I feel like for for what the service is, I don't think it's going to move the needle in terms of the amount of the volume of material. I think we demonstrated that just just with those who are, you know, more engaged in the community with this with this particular service. The other thing too when you're looking at uniform containers, we do, like I said, we don't have a limit, too. So, when you're looking at specialized containers, which some communities do, you limit what they can actually dispose of. And as I noted, there are fair number of property properties in the community that will put out 20 30 uh bags. You know, if they had 20 or 30 carts, um I'm not sure where they even fit them, but um and we'd be there for probably an hour tipping them all. So, um, sometimes those bags actually come into play for the larger volume and are actually better for us. Um, and and as I noted here for bulk pickups, what we do is we maintain a list of properties. We go through there's a lot of material out there. Um, our our staff members are are creating a route list for Friday and then we go out with different equipment. um our claw attachment on on a loader for example and then we'll get that get all those to the community with one route on a Friday versus having them uh lift you know a bunch of bags or different things that that uh that that's that's concerning. So we do that's another countermeasure that we've worked in over the years that we do to address the the worker safety piece. Um but addressing the volume piece too because we you know some people won't put one out every week. it'll just be one and others will be a jillion every week. And um while that may be where we end up down the line, I feel like trying to keep the program is as close to what people expect and are familiar with too is probably the best way forward at least at this time.

Just to clarify, I am not suggesting uniform containers for all yard waste. I'm I'm picturing like everybody having a ideally everybody having a compost bucket kind of thing. So just just to clar I'm not saying like I don't picture people having 32 gallons of yard of of kitchen scraps every week. Sure. And certainly they could do that cuz I would be compliant with our regulations which is doesn't exceed more power to them. Doesn't doesn't exceed 32 gallons. It's less than hopefully less than 40 pounds. Who knows when I'll get into juice. Has it has a handle to has a handle

pick it up. So, I'm not sure if this has been discussed here or if I picked this up from another community, but those types of approved containers you can go and purchase at any hardware store, but um cities, I believe, have uh produced some kind of adhesive or a sticker, right, to show that it's approved where we could have something with the E on it and or the seal and just say, "Okay, now that I now that your workers come by and see that particular bucket sitting there, they know that it's approved and it's

tell you that in most cases just a just a sticker with our rules and regulations and they highlight it just just so the I mean yeah we have we you know we can issue citations those types of things here but I will tell you generally um versus many years ago we used to actually send letters to people and then they wanted to know why and what we just do now is the crews that are out there make the decision uh they do it all day long so they're very familiar with with what the rules and regulations are and how it affects them they just will take the the tag with the rules and regulations strike it with a highlighter so you know what

if it was over 40 lbs. Um and then you know for next time not to you know or to take some out and transfer it to other container. Um I just think that this is so ingrained in East Grand Rapids culture um that if we if we try to put too many barriers in place not for negative reasons um I think we're going to end up where we're going to be managing things to make this less less able to execute it actually. uh we only have a few people who answer phones here and I don't want to inundate them with is this certified registered is it you know we want it we want to be flexible with the community to allow them to participate in the service and we feel comfortable with these parameters that we can accomplish it and and keep it as

as normal as possible. Some people may not even read any of our communications um out there about the food scraps piece to this and they won't even know. They might find out and reach out to you two years later that they can't believe we're doing this. But we're trying to make this so that there's not a Titanic shift and change that it's just an enhancement to an existing service. I mean, I I think it's worth acting on today. My request would be to keep a very very close eye on it and for all of us to be ready to pivot and react if there if a problem arises. Our employees are ground zero. They'll know

for sure. No, I agree with that. I think the I like appreciate the concerns and you know, point sharing those, but I also think that you have a really good handle on what this looks like and like you said, we're going to learn as we go. And so, yeah, we'll take any takers if this gets approved, too. If anybody wants to do a ride along, we'll take any of you. Yeah, you I would like to highlight too some of that like half of these food scraps is also just me when I mess up a fruit or vegetable garden and throw away the parts that you took my comment that like I I it would be I I'm sure a lot of this is already happening when your cucumbers get too big and turn into zucchinis and throw them away in the fall anyway. So,

are there any further questions for Mr. Lefave? Well, you know, that question uh was going there's a question that I think comes out of that and and in the past I've felt a little bit guilty about throwing discarded, you know, garden plants in with my grass clippings. Um it's not like they've ever been left there. You guys come along and clean them all up. But is that

Nope. That's totally fine. And like I said, there's there's we already know there's there's a lot of that happening in the community. So, it's just being like this is okay and you can do a little bit more. Um I I also know that from our our transfer station location behind public works too we don't see an inundation of of of animals hitting that site either. So and it's sitting there for a few days not too long but a few days more than it is in people's front yards and it's in a habitat of a lot of those animals too. And so we we feel from the lived experience with it that may not may be different from other communities or how they do things. um we feel like um it can be successful here and we'll be back to report to you on and any issues uh good or bad we'll make sure we report those to you all.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Mayor, you have a public comment. Is this open for public comment? I will take public comment in just a few minutes. We're still asking questions. Once we're finished with those, we can go to public comment. Thank you. Go ahead. I'll save for discussion. It's not a question. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Now I will take public comment.

My apologies. Questions and discussion they kind of get kind of get blurred. Uh okay. Michelle Brown. I'm at 538 Levit Avenue and I am a avid avid composter. I had service prior to um when the community service was set up and I was just tickled to see it come in and I'm also very excited to see this go forward um with the yard waste. Slightly disappointed that it won't be during the winter months but big step forward. I think that um in terms of rodents that um they love nutrientdense foods just like we do and the the items that are on the list I think are going to be a pretty low risk problem. I think we're going to be okay. The two ingredients in there that I would have paused to put in my own compost in my home are the rice and pasta. I think that was also listed. Um, it's not so much the starch, it's the seasoning and the flavorful the broths. Like, I think those could attract rodents. And I wouldn't put them in my own compost for that reason. And if there was a item to pull off of the list, I think those two would be tops. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks. Would anyone else care to make public comment to this agenda item?

No, I was just going to speak on um behalf of the city. Um the paper bags work out really well because then you don't have containers and lids and things floating down the streets or all over um rideaways and things. So uh anyways, nobody made that comment, so I just thought I'd bring that up. Thank you. Good point. Yeah, good point. Okay, we said I will close public comment and bring it up here for a motion in a second. So moved. Second. Wonderful. Any further comments? Okay, we can move.

No, I do have a comment. I I Man, I really really want to vote yes on this. And I it's 3B that I would just like a little more time and a little more education. And so man, I I just I don't like being put in this position. Um I would love a couple more weeks. That's all I'll say. Okay. Any other further comments? All those in favor say yes. Yes. Opposed? No.

All right. Motion carries. All right. Next on the agenda, we have to consider approval of the purchase of 11 Just make sure I read the current one DellPro Micro QCM1250 desktop PCs in the amount of $13,15853 and six Delpro rugged notebook PCs in the amount of $19,1934. That introduction is by Miss Seath.

Uh, good. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh so the first one the 11 um lab or the 11 desktops were were in the budget um and they're coming within pretty close to budget. Um so these are were set to be replaced this year and have been already budgeted. Um in Gary so Gary has been working on getting all of the items budgeted or that were budgeted um purchased as quickly as possible. We have word on the street that Dell is going um up about 25% in their costs starting April 1st. Um and then the the M MDC's also those were budgeted or purchased in 201. So they're 5 years old. Um so both of these computer sets are 5 years old and set for um end of life replacement. And this is a good time to do it before costs go up um with the changing in the computer market that we saw in COVID with no sight of it coming down. So both of these were budgeted the uh Dell's the Dell MDC's came in a little bit higher. They were budgeted for 15,000. Um but that's just what the market is current trending. And just to expand on the comment on or at least um further explanation on the rugged uh notebooks, these are the notebooks that are inside our um law enforcement vehicles, the cruisers. So they um very rugged cases, much higher end. They're designed to be um utilized in the field. So, um, trying to use a normal laptop in in that environment, we'll we'll we'd be back about every other week trying to having to buy a new laptop um for that. So, we do spec out the rugged are um based on our work with Kent County Dispatch, assuring integration um with the vehicles um back to central dispatch,

record management systems, etc. So, um, yes, they're much higher than you would see for a normal PC, but they are a very specialized piece of equipment on, um, for those. So, thank you. Any questions for Miss Heath or Mr. Charles?

Just a comment. We went through this in finance, uh, before this meeting, and I think we all felt the same way where this stinks cuz this is like the worst time ever to buy computers with how expensive RAM and everything else is. But um right now is a pretty bad time, but we just don't know how bad it might be in a month or two or three. It might be even worse. So, uh it's like reluctantly um we need these for our service vehicles and um so we were we acknowledge that it's like just terrible timing, but it might be better timing today than it would be in a few months. Wait. You said there was a price increase. Yeah, Dell has already told us that their prices would go up April 1st by 25%. Wow. Okay. So yeah, I just have

to meet up the market current market demand. Okay, go ahead. I just have a comment as well and then you know Mr. Charles and I spoke a little bit offline about just like I was a little sticker shocked at the cost. Not I don't know anything about the rugged ones, but I'm talking about the 11 um desktop uh versions and just um just seems, you know, for something that's going to last 5 years, dropping over $1,000 per unit seems a lot. And so, but with that being said, I know if we're moving forward, um uh I found on Amazon the same identical ones for $840, just a 27 27% savings if we if you want to go that route. Okay,

throwing that out there. Just uh try to find ways to save some money. I know Gary Gary tends to look and he doesn't like to shop on Amazon because you really don't know 100% what you're getting. It could be refurbished. He likes to stick with the dealers that just focus on that as you can see in his pricing. Um he did look at other dealer uh other CDW or CWD. Sorry, I always get those mixed up on um SCW um which do my deal pricing and then you get you get the warranty back up with them. So you can contact Dell easier because you purchased it from them. So you it's just easier for him to keep up with that. So he will shop on Amazon but not for something like this. Yeah. Or just maybe worth comparing to say, "Hey, can you price match?" Um you know, but

I won't bring that up. Yeah. Thanks. Any other questions for Miss C? Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Is here to make public comment on this agenda item? Okay. Thank you. I'll close public comment. Bring it up here for a motion in a second. So moved. Second. Wonderful. Any further? I think. Yeah, board did. Yeah. Any further comments, conversation? Okay. Thanks for the update from finance, Ryan. Mhm. Appreciate it. Um, okay. Then we can go to a vote. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed?

All right. Motion carries. Next, we have the budget calendar update just forformational purposes only by city manager Charles.

Uh, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, our original budget calendar had um the budget being delivered to the city commission on April 16th. Um, I will actually be out of town uh at that time and for the preceding two weeks. So, um we are updating city uh city charter requires that the budget be submitted no later than May 15th. We like to go a little bit earlier to give commission time to digest the budget and whatnot, but we are now targeting um May 4th. Um if it comes to fruition that we can get out the door uh sooner than that, we will obviously endeavor to do that, but just wanted to um make commission aware of um the adjustment. This is not something that requires commission action. It just

right. been a busy spring for us and um we've had some other matters come up as uh taking staff time away from getting locked in and finalized on our budget. So with that, it just was an update on where we're at um and go from there. Great. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda, we have the approval of tonight's consent agenda items. May I please have a motion and a second to approve tonight's consent agenda items? So move second. Wonderful. All those in favor to say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Motion carries. Now we go on to our work session items with the goals and objectives. Um introduction by city manager Charles.

U thank you madam mayor. Um as part of our budget process we like to bring uh the draft goals and objectives uh departmental graph that departmental goals and objectives to commission to get some feedback see if there's anything that um commission has concern about or did we miss something. Um we have not done this the last couple years in part because our strategic planning session um has been had been pushed um almost to end of March. So timing wise um we try to get through the strategic planning session to make sure there's nothing that um necess that necessitated a shift in thinking on our part. So, I'm not going to go through and read them, but I will go department to department. Um, and um, we have team members here available to answer any particular questions. So, any questions on the city proposed city manager goals and objectives?

Any questions? City manager goals and objectives. I have a weird I have a weird comment on page one. Should we get an updated photo? an updated what? Updated photo. It's a very old commissioners are on the names. We can handle that. That's very important note. Sorry. Or perhaps a picture with us actually in those seats even. Right. Um, uh, parks and wreck. Parks and wreck.

Have a couple of questions on the parks and wreck goals. Um, and I didn't write page numbers down, sorry. So, uh, the goal to investigate opportunities to enhance usage of Reeds Lake for swimming and other recreational uses. I know that that's been one of the goals for several years now. I'm just curious as to any updates on especially for swimming access, which I hear about every year.

Yeah. Yes, certainly. We um over the last well the last year when it was included as a goal last year as well um have done some additional investigation. Um I was able to work with Karen Brower the former city attorney who or excuse me city clerk not trying to give your job away John um who actually had a file of past discussions uh related to that. And so I was able to educate myself a little bit on some of the reasons why like John Collins Park for example is um not able to be used as the as a swimming area due to deed restrictions and and some of other discussions that have um taken place over over time about other parcels. I think the reason why it's uh remaining as a goal is because there's still additional avenues that we could uh pursue and though it would involve um bringing in some consultants or some folks that have uh lake beach consultant type uh folks that we could bring in to have them take a look at parcels and either give us a thumbs up or thumbs down if if some of the other areas would be uh appropriate for for swimming. Uh, so there's additional work that does need to be done outside of um reviewing past discussions.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on parks and work?

Yeah, I had a question, Derek, and it is goal number three, uh, providing recreational opportunities and programs for EGR residents of all ages and abilities. Uh we've discussed this one offline a few times and I'm just wondering yours and the commission's appetite um to look at activities uh that are using field or gym space any type of EGR facility uh for those particular um either directly through parks and wreck uh enrollment or just those that are you know renting out gym space for those groups. that are able to exclude EGR residents from participation. So, I'm speaking specifically to some club sports and other activities that are currently in use and facilities that don't have a bylaw within their group uh that they must include all G EGR uh residents and their children. So, um it's an issue that's come up and I think um there there may be a couple uh groups right now that um are denying entrance to EGR residents but are still using our facilities. Um, if I if I may, Commissioner, um, before we look to refine that, um, and as I noted in my memo that as we get through the budget process, we have the ability to tweak that, um, if it's meaningable to you, commissioners, I'd like uh, you and u, Mr. Melville to connect to further understand um, what the request is um, or what the concern is in regards. I know you and I had a brief conversation about it. um last week. Um but um I think I would like the two of you connect to make sure we understand um um what the focus is to help refine a potential goal. So

Okay, perfect. Thank you. I have one other question on the parks and recreation. This is on the park improvement project list 2026 to 2028. Um, can you say a little bit more about the Gaslight Village popup park?

Yes. So, the Gaslight Village pop-up park was identified as part of the 2021 Parks Improvement Mill as a potential uh space uh um in the Gaslight Village area that could act as park, which could be multi-use, could be some of the things that Mr. LeBlanc mentioned earlier this evening about a gathering space or um places to sit and and have lunch or whatever the um the user decides to utilize. So, this has been a a space that has been on the the list of potential projects without a defined location or defined um exact type of use. uh but I didn't want it to get lost or forgotten in uh future discussions because that is still one of the outstanding items from the parks improvement mill.

Uh thank you. So I guess part of my question is there's no we have no public land in Gaslight Village. So is this just kind of a nod to this is what we want to see in terms of private development because it's not something that we necessarily have control over. Right. So it's something from an implementation standpoint. The 2018 master plan called for the south what? Southeast cornertheast corner

corner of the DNW lot to be a potential uh site. Um we view this as as things come across our desk in regards to projects, opportunities, things of that nature. We know that okay this is a priority for the ultimately the community but for the commission. So as we consider uh proposals and we think about stuff creativ you know take uh creative new looks at okay what about this and whatnot our team our team is constantly kind of in the back of our mind. So in regards to that opportunities

yeah your question of you know the challenge of we don't control the property fundamental but as we continue conversations on a multitude of issues it's something that we know is lurking in the back of our minds. So, if we find an opportunity, we think it makes sense, we'll bring it forward to the commission.

Great.

I have one more thing to add for parks. I wouldn't uh I'd have to say it, so I guess I'll say it. Um I would love to include and continue the exploration of installing a seasonal sports dome. Um either in partnership with the schools or on our own field. Um it allows the cool thing about this it allows um year-round programming increases uh programs and activities and thus that increases revenue for the city. Now I've run some numbers myself in a very high level proform and I found that a dome is significantly less costly than a traditional brick and mortar and a potential break even point is within a 24-month reach yielding additional revenue again for the city which will help offset other budgetary costs. So, um I'm knowing that we are landlocked and knowing that uh winter does put a does cramp our our our ability or hinder our ability from being able to have um outdoor sports being played year round. Um this could open a number of possibilities. And beyond sports, I'm just thinking of other activities. We're talking about group activities, community activities, that kind of thing. So, I'd again love to help in any capacity as well, but uh but very interested. Have you just quickly Chris I know and I don't want to sideline but I know that you've mentioned this but have you had the conversation have you guys had that conversation have you

yes we've had had some preliminary conversations and um Chris and I have met on this and it's probably been about a year now that we did get some just conceptual costs um for u from one specific dome company but there's certainly others out there so it's um this is not a new idea from me certainly at all And I'm just also just echoing some of the things I've been talking with community members from residents. Uh, you know, especially those heavily in the sports on on the middle school and high school level. Um, and so I think there's a strong support from Sorry, is that feedback on my own? I'm not sure.

Anyway, there's a strong support from I think a lot of the residents I've been talking to and even some that are very interested in saying how do we help fund raise or is there something that we so they're really interested so interested that they want to see how uh get, you know, creative and how can we afford this? So, um, so I again, I thought I'd just bring this up just knowing that this is something I've been hearing from a large group of people and, um, and again, personally, I think it could be a great asset for the city. Thanks for bringing it up. Thanks.

I have I have one comment which simil similar to yours, I'll be the squeaky wheel on this. Um, could we include in the objectives a focus on an under five playground focus? I know I know under the strategic priority one it's considered waterfront park natural theme themed playground placement options it doesn't preclude the under five grouping of features but um just just trying to make sure that whatever is put in there knowing that that's what's available during the school day to make sure that there are features that um benefit our very young residents and their parents. Thanks. Not. Definitely noted.

Five years running. No six-year-olds. Just the five-year-olds. Nice. Six six-year-old uh preschoolers also welcome. Any other questions on parks and work? Uh public safety. Okay. Uh, public works.

Okay.

Okay. Um, we'll, um, start to incorporate this in the actual budget document. Um, as I noted before, as staff, as we get through budget process and whatnot, if we suddenly uh identify something else, we'll um tweak this and make commission aware that we um did make it um make those adjustments. Um we'll take note of what was discussed today. Commissioner Hunter, when we get a chance to connect with Mr. Melville, then um we'll evaluate kind of a way to articulate that. So, um with that, that's all I had. All right. Well, thank you. Okay, thank you. Work session is finished and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

I agree. Is this the timely grand?