City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the July 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Fond du Lac City Council, first item of business, roll call done electronically, declaring a quorum present with all of us present. The item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Followed by a moment of silent reflection. Please rise at this time. I pledge 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. With no proclamations or public hearings, we're gonna move on to the consent agenda, which finalizes the proposed actions for the meeting. Consent agenda item A is July 8th, 2026 minutes, and the list of claims dated July the 24th, 2026. Any questions or corrections on the consent agenda? Seeing none of those, I'll entertain a motion at this time. Got a motion by Mr. Mullin and a second by Mr. Zimmerman. Thank you both. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. We're gonna move on now to our audience comments, agenda and non-agenda items. The presiding officer will limit the speaking time to non-agenda items to two minutes and items noticed on the agenda to five minutes. Ms. Hector, do we have anyone wishing to speak? We've got a couple. All right, I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start with Mr. Molitor who wishes to speak on item 7A, the hotel operator licenses. The floor is yours. Please speak into the mic, just because we had some mic issues today. Thank you, sir.

Like this?

Yes, got it, thank you.

Good evening, President Heisler, members of the city council and city staff. As always, it's an honor to address this group. I'm here this evening as the president of our community's official visitors bureau known as Destination Lake Winnebago Region to speak briefly on the general topic of hotel operator licenses and more specifically regarding the evolution of our local room tax statute. I've had the privilege of speaking one-on-one with everyone sitting on the City Council regarding our Visitors Bureau, and many in this room have actually served on my board, so thank you to all of you. That said, for the record, I would like to offer my broad overview of what a room tax is, what it is not, and how room tax revenue is used by the Visitors Bureau. The room tax is, in my opinion, a pass-through tax. While the tax is imposed on the seller, a lodging entity, such as a hotel or an Airbnb, the state statute explicitly allows it to be passed through to the guest, hence pass-through. And common sense tells us that rarely are locals guests in hotels in their own communities. Thus, this pass-through tax is indeed a tax on non-residents. As a practical matter, no local taxes fund the visitors bureau. Furthermore, we receive no grants or other types of fundraising from this municipality. The mechanism for collecting and activating this room revenue is super simple. The hotel collects it, from the gas at checkout. The city collects it from the hotel on a monthly basis along with occupancy metrics so we can monitor how the market is behaving. The city then retains a very small portion and forwards the balance to the community's official tourism entity. In this case, Destination Lake Winnebago Region, the organization I head up. We in turn utilize these funds to serve sort of in the capacity as the sales and marketing department for the community. Again, our sole revenue stream is bed tax, And so we have to be effective in what we're doing that's attracting tourists. But we also operate with this understanding that tourism is downstream from quality of life. So we focus a lot of our energy, our time, our effort, and our passion on doing our best to make sure this remains an awesome community to live in. The state statute is very specific about who can utilize these funds, how the funds are to be used, and how much of a room tax can be imposed. I'll be returning to this venue in the fall and will happily go further into detail on the specifics of our operation then. Happy to answer questions, though. I'll say, though, that we are a fully audited entity on a yearly basis, and we have recently closed the books on our 2025 audit. High five to Lisa, my vice president right here. Well folks, that's it for my preamble. I would like to conclude my comments by saying I fully endorse the changing of the language to section 65-A, the room tax statute. My inference from the proposed language is that we are attempting to tighten up the statute such that innkeepers that refuse to follow the law will face actual consequences. I'm proud to say that Destination Lake Winnebago Region is a well-funded organization. I'm not here today to decry the loss of revenue from hotels that flout the law, but I do feel very strongly that when a lodging entity does not pay their room tax, they are actually cheating the other operators that conduct business the right way. A property that breaks the law in this regard is either offering their guests an anti-competitive 8% discount or inappropriately keeping an extra 8% in their till. Either way, it is unfair to our well-managed and law-abiding innkeepers. I encourage all present to check us out at FDL.com and please do follow us on Facebook to take a look at what we are doing at your visitor's bureau. And thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate the background information. Very helpful. We'll move on to our next speaker, which is going to be Lisa Pauley-Lefebvre. And she wishes to speak on a non-agenda item, which is the Saputo property development. Lisa, the floor is yours.

Hello. As you know, my name is Lisa Pauley Lefebvre. I'm just a taxpayer tonight. When I was little, we would drive up Main Street, entering Lakeside Park, and on the left, there was this enormous building called Vulcan Manufacturing. No one knows it's there anymore because the city bought the property, they raised the building, and then they added it to Lakeside Park, which was a fabulous idea and it made sense. Unfortunately, it also took property tax off the rolls and added maintenance to the park budget. So I'm looking at the Saputo land every time I go to my gym, several mornings a week, and the city purchased the land of the Saputo, raised the building, but that one eventually needs to go back on the tax rolls. It could stay a simple green space for as long as it needs to for the right opportunity for development, but there's no reason to further expand the park, add more to the maintenance budget. At some point near or far, the property should be looked at as becoming no longer a tax burden, but a tax relief. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lefevre. And next we'll have Amy Loof, who's just to speak on the St. Catherine Drexel. Amy, the floor is yours, thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I did send our Chief of Police, Aaron Goldstein, a four-year kind of statistical update on what homelessness look like, what the statistics are, and what the trends kind of have looked like over the past four years to give you guys a clearer idea, which he is gonna speak on later. So this is just kind of me giving you what my perspective is and what my comments will be to that. So when people hear the word homelessness, they often think about statistics. But behind every number is a person. a child trying to get to school each morning, a veteran searching for stability, a survivor of domestic violence seeking safety, or a family who simply experienced one unexpected hardship that changed everything. Since opening St. Catherine Drexel Shelter in 2022, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in homelessness here in Fond du Lac County. Hundreds of individuals and families have sought shelter each year. Thousands have reached out through crisis calls, outreach, eviction prevention, and housing navigation, and far too many have had to be turned away because there simply wasn't enough space. What our data tells us is that today's homelessness is increasingly driven by the shortage of affordable housing, rising costs of living, and complex life circumstances. Not by lack of desire to work or succeed, but today I don't want to discuss... or focus on challenges, I want to focus on what makes Fond du Lac different, partnership. One of the most meaningful partnerships we have is with the City of Fond du Lac. Their investment in our work is much more than funding. We are funded by the City of Fond du Lac. It is an investment in people. It is an investment in safer neighborhoods, stronger families, and a healthier community. Because of the city's support, we are able to provide emergency shelter, outreach, crisis intervention, housing navigation, and prevention services to help people regain stability before their situations become even more critical. Their leadership recognizes that addressing homelessness benefits everyone. From businesses to neighborhoods to healthcare schools and public safety, the investment is strengthened even further through our outstanding partnership with the Fond du Lac Police Department. Our officers often the first encounter first to encounter individuals experiencing homelessness, mental health crisis, domestic violence, or addiction. Instead of viewing these situations as simply law enforcement issues, they viewed them as opportunities to connect with and help. When an officer encounters someone sleeping in a vehicle, living outdoors, or facing housing crisis, they know they have partners they can call. Together, we connect individuals with shelter, coordinated entry, outreach, case management, behavioral health resources, employment support, and housing navigation. Together, we help move people from crisis towards stability. What makes me especially proud is that our community doesn't stop there. We come to the table together. The city of Fond du Lac, the police department, housing providers, healthcare organizations, St. Vincent de Paul, AVOCAP, United Way, Holy Family, the Housing Authority, and other nonprofit agencies, and many other community partners continue to meet to discuss solutions, not just for those entering shelter, but for those who are sleeping outside with nowhere else to go. We ask difficult questions together. How do we create more housing opportunities? How do we better support individuals living unsheltered? How do we coordinate our resources so people receive the right help at the right time? Those conversations aren't always easy, but they are necessary. Real change happens when organizations set aside individual agendas, share resources, and commit to finding solutions together. That collaborative spirit is what makes Fond du Lac special. Because homelessness isn't just a housing issue, it's a community issue. It touches healthcare, education, public safety, employment, mental health, domestic violence, and economic stability. No one organization can solve it alone, but together we can. Every family finds permanent housing, every veteran who connects with services, every survivor who finds safety, every child who sleeps in a warm bed instead of a car, every individual living outside who is connected to hope instead of isolation. Those successes happened because of partnership, not because one organization worked harder, but because our city invested in solutions, because our police department chose collaboration, because our community partners continue to show up, share ideas, and work toward a common goal. As we look ahead, I believe our greatest strength isn't our shelter building. Our greatest strength is our willingness to come together, to have difficult conversations, and to never stop looking for better solutions for our neighbors. Together, we are not simply responding to homelessness. We are preventing it. We are restoring hope. We are strengthening our community. And together, we are building Fond du Lac where every person has an opportunity to find safety and stability and a place to go home. We need to come to the table.

Thank you, Ms. Loof. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. And with that, that concludes our audience comments for this evening. And for those that made audience comments at this point, if you wish to exit, you're not required to stay for the duration of the meeting should you choose to leave. With that, we'll move on to our action items. And we're going to begin with the resolution tonight, which is 9251, a resolution waiving open intoxicants for Fat Joe's for the After Fondue Fest on September the 12th, 2026. Ms. Hefter, our city clerk, has that introduction for us.

Thank you, President Heisler. Fat Joe's is requesting the city to waive the possession of alcoholic beverages on public streets for Fondue Fest on September 12th on a portion of Division Street between Main Street and Macy Street from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. No glass containers or carry-ins are permitted in the designated area. Applicant must post signs no alcohol beyond the special event area and must have staff monitoring for compliance. City staff has approved the special event application and recommends approval.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hefter. Are there questions from council for Ms. Hefter? Seeing no questions, I'll entertain a motion at this time. Ms. Loring is motioned. And I don't have a second yet. Oh, no, I have a motion from Mr. Biber and a second by Mr. Mullin. For some reason, yeah, that might've been what it is there. But either way, motion second on the floor. We're all set. If there's nothing further, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously, thanks everyone. We're gonna move on to the next resolution, 9252. It's a resolution waving open intoxicants for the Blue Line Tavern, tossing for Tommy on the August 15th, 2026 date. Ms. Hefter once again with the introduction.

Thank you again. Blue Line Tavern is requesting the city to waive possession of alcoholic beverages for three upcoming events. The first event is a fundraising event tossing for Tommy on August 15th. The second event is for Little Midget Mania Wrestling on August 29th. And the third event is a murder mystery dinner show on October 17th. All three events will be on a portion of Main Street from First Street to Forest Avenue. City staff has approved the special event applications with conditions that they must have staff security monitoring for compliance. No glass containers or carry-ins are permitted in the designated area and street is opened immediately following the events. And I would be happy to answer any questions.

All right, thank you, Ms. Hefter. Just as a point of clarification, we've got separate resolutions for each of their events, so we're gonna need separate votes on each of them. So this is the first one, 9252, tossing for Tommy. With that being said, I'll entertain a motion at this time if there's nothing further from council. Ms. Brultz has the motion on the floor. Ms. Mayweather, thank you for the second. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, let's proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. All right, thank you. We'll move on to the next one, which might be the only time in my city council career I get to say little midget mania wrestling. Let's do this one here. That's the next one on the floor. So Mr. Zimmerman has a motion on the floor for it. I need a second for that. And Mr. Mullin has a second. And with that, if there's nothing further, please proceed to vote. All right, that passes unanimously. And we're gonna move on to the next one, which is the murder mystery dinner show. And we need a motion and second for that if there's nothing further from council. We've got a motion from Ms. Luring, thank you. And Ms. Mayweather with a second. Yeah, I saw it. It worked. I got a motion from you and then a... Oh. All right. Well, either way, I guess we're going to go. For the minute's sake of the purpose, we're going to go Ms. Mayweather with the motion and Mr. Mullen with the second, and we'll proceed to vote at this time. Gotta love technology, right? That passes unanimously. Thanks, everyone. And we're going to move on to... Mr. Butler.

Oh, I just had a question on it. Yeah, go ahead. Chief, when the staff monitors, how does the police interact with that?

Hold on, Mr. Biber, move your mic closer. We can't hear you.

Sorry. How does, I guess they have their own staff monitor people coming in and out. Does the police, how do they interact with that? Do they come by to check and? if everything's going. Are you asking about the special event?

Yeah, the special events. So we, I mean, we have an incredible committee that is fire rescue and directors and our police department. And we have plans in place that, I mean, if it's, we'll look at participants and number of people there. If we have to staff it, we'll have officers there. If it's less people, I mean, we'll do check-ins, but yeah, we work great with the organizer, community organizers for these events.

Okay, just curious. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you, sir. And with that, we'll move on. I believe we're on to, I think we're on to item E already, right? All right, we flew through those, Maggie. Thank you for your help. All right, Resolution 9255, a resolution making appointments to the Historic Preservation Commission, Downtown Architecture Review Board, Redevelopment Authority, City Plan Commission. Mr. Moore, the floor is yours.

Great, thanks. Good evening, everybody. We have four volunteer citizens tonight, one for historic preservation. That's Bill Weinschrott. He's a longtime historian, loves Fond du Lac, recommend approval for his membership on HPC. Lisa Pauley Lefebvre, you just heard from her. She tends to volunteer for everything, so she saw an opportunity on the DARB, perfect fit, works downtown, knows everything about the history of downtown, et cetera. The RDA, we've got Eric Kuhlebert. One highlight I'd mention for him is he has experience working with HUD through many a different project. I think that's perfect for the RDA. And then lastly, for the plan commission, you've got Zach Beesom. He is a relatively new member at Envision. He's on the economic development team there. So I think he's a good fit for plan commission as well.

Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Moore. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Questions from council for Mr. Moore? Without any questions, I just wanna thank everybody who's volunteering and Lisa, thanks for volunteering for everything. With that, I'll entertain a motion, please. Mr. Biber's got a motion on the floor and Ms. Luring has the second. There it is, it worked, we got it. It worked on the second, I don't know. We're gonna go with it. Here we go, let's proceed to vote. That motion passes. Thank you very much. And now we're gonna move on to 9255, which is the ordinance amending the city county, is that where we are? Oh, yeah, 3831. I'm sorry. 3831. That's the City-County Building Board membership. Yes, my apologies on that. All right. With that, I'm going to give that to Ms. Hoffman for the introduction. Thank you very much. Sorry about that.

Thank you, President Heisler. This was previously here as an input item on June 10th. And this arose from, right now we don't have a tie breaker on that board. So I sat down with Lisa Fryberg and Megan McNamara from the county and went over their ordinance and they kind of asked that we change a couple things in here. So we cleaned it up and we cleaned up some of the titles. And what this will do, we will have a seventh member, so it's now an odd number and won't result in ties. That would be good. And we will open it up for applications similar to how we fill our boards and commissions, but it will be anybody from the county as well as the city. So anyone from either of those places can apply. And then that group, the board, once they have their applications, if they want, they can do interviews and then make a decision. And they will pick one, and then they'll have a seventh member.

Always good to break ties. Thank you very much, Ms. Hoffman. We appreciate it. Any questions for Ms. Hoffman on this? Ms. Brault, you're first in the queue and then Mr. Mullin, you're after that.

All right, thank you. Just a real quick question. I'm on the County Board and I haven't heard anything about this on the County side. I was just wondering if you knew what the timeline was for the County to consider this ordinance change.

I do not. Okay.

I don't either. Guess we're on the same page there. Thank you.

Mr. Mullin, you're next. Well, I can try.

Thank you.

How about now?

No, I just want to say that I think it's entirely appropriate to have a member of the public as the seventh member of that board. This building that we share with the county is supported by our taxpayers, and we should never forget that.

Well said. Thank you, sir. And with that, with any other speakers in the queue, I'll entertain a motion at this time. I've got a motion on the floor from Mr. Biber. Is there a second for that? Mr. Mullins got the second. Any further discussion? Without that, let's proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously, thanks everyone. And now we're gonna move on to our presentation of input items. And we'll start with the hotel operators licenses and we'll have Ms. Hoffman kick that off for us. Thank you very much.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. And this, we already have a room tax and ordinance. All we were doing is making a couple of, we added some definitions.

Ms. Hoffman, can you scoot your mic just a little closer? I'm sorry, I have one plugged here and I'm having a hard time hearing you. Thank you very much.

Oh, no problem, because I want people at home to get it too. We got it. Yes. So anyway, so we added some definitions. We cleaned up the title because it used to be the Convention and Visitors Bureau rather than Destination Lake Winnebago Region, which is a correct title. So we have a correct title now. And then we added a section regarding failure to comply. So similar to what we do with liquor licenses, if you're an innkeeper, you have to have a permit and this is what you use to collect your room taxes and it has to be displayed. If you fail to do your accounting and tell the city about your room taxes and then turn over the payments, your permit can be taken away and you'll no longer be able to operate. you know, it's not that we have to use this often or ever, but it needs to be in there. And that's it. So I welcome any questions if anyone wants, has anything.

You got it. Thank you very much, Ms. Hoffman. I'm going to go to Mr. Mullen first.

Yeah, I was just wondering, how often do we have an operator that is not paying their

Not often. I mean, I do collections for the city and I have written a collection letter or two and kind of said, hey, you know, where's the money? It, you know, occasionally happens, but not often.

Okay, thank you. All right, Ms. Brault, you're up next.

Thank you. So I don't actually have a question. I just want to say thank you for bringing this to us. I think it makes a lot of sense to have that little bit of teeth if something was to happen. And I want to say thank you to Mr. Molitor for coming and speaking to us and hearing your endorsement of this is really helpful since you're the one who ends up receiving the bed tax. So thank you so much for sharing all your thoughts on that. I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Ms. Breaux. I don't have to say anything because you said everything for me. That was awesome. Thank you for, no, that was great. That was wonderful. So I think we've got a really good consensus among council that this is a great idea to move forward. And we look forward to you bringing this back to us. Thank you, Ms. Hoffman. And with that, we'll turn it over to budget time. And tonight, our first budget presentation is the police department's budget. And Chief Goldstein has that one for us. The floor is yours, sir.

There we go. All right, thank you, President Heisler, and good evening, city council members. Tonight, I share how every dollar supports our mission. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Fond du Lac Police Department's 2027 budget. Please silence all cell phones. Tonight, we'll provide an overview of our department, discuss how resources are allocated, highlight key accomplishments and public safety trends, and outline future priorities. Our goal is to continue delivering professional, accountable, and community-focused policing while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. We are comprised of 79 sworn officers supported by a dedicated team of civilian professionals, including records personnel, property and evidence staff, digital forensic examiner, administrative support, community service officers, crossing guards, and volunteer chaplains. We also operate the Public Safety Training Center jointly with Fire Rescue. When people think about the police department budget, they often think about squad cars, radios, uniforms, and equipment. While those things are certainly important, this slide tells a much different story. Nearly 88% of our budget is invested in people. That shouldn't be surprising because public safety isn't a product you purchase. It's a service delivered by highly trained professionals every hour of every day. Those dollars represent officers responding to someone having the worst day of their life. They represent detectives bringing victims justice. They represent evidence technicians processing crime scenes. Clerks classifying and securing evidence. An examiner conducting digital forensic extractions and preservation of evidence from mobile devices and computers. And record staff ensuring transparency. The remaining portion of our budget, the equipment, technology, supplies, vehicles, and training aren't about buying things. It's about giving our people the tools they need to perform. This is more than a financial breakdown. It's a reflection of our priorities. We invest in people first, because people are what make public safety possible. This slide highlights our long-term capital planning strategy. Major plan investments include fleet replacement, facility preservation projects such as roof, window, and boiler replacements, technology renewal programs, tactical equipment replacement, and future public safety innovations. These projects are designed to maintain safe facilities, reliable equipment and modern technology while avoiding costly deferred maintenance. Everything we do begins with our mission. We are a values-driven organization committed to providing service, protection and leadership to all people. Those aren't just words on a slide. They are the standard that guides every decision we make and every interaction we have. Service means showing up for our community with compassion, professionalism and a genuine commitment to helping people through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Protection means proactively working to prevent crime, responding quickly when emergencies occur and ensuring our residents, businesses and visitors feel safe in every neighborhood. Leadership means holding ourselves accountable, embracing innovation, building strong partnerships, and setting an example of integrity both within our department and throughout our community. Our mission reminds us that policing is about people first. Every call we answer, every investigation we conduct, every youth we mentor, every partnership we build, and every dollar we invest is measured against one simple question. Are we providing exceptional service, meaningful protection, and trusted leadership to every person we serve? That mission is not just what we do, it helps define who we are. So let's start with leadership. The Community Service Officer Program continues to be a valuable and impactful component of our organization. Our CSOs provide essential support by handling a wide variety of non-emergency responsibilities, follow-up investigations, community outreach efforts, and service-oriented functions. By having CSOs take on these important roles, we allow our officers to remain focused on higher priority calls, proactive policing, and the critical work that directly impacts public safety. However, the value of this program extends far beyond the tasks they complete each day. Our CSO program is also an investment in people and in the future of our profession. Many of our CSOs are individuals exploring a career in policing, and this program provides them with an opportunity to learn, grow, and experience the profession from the inside. One of the most rewarding parts of this program is the connection we build with these young adults We are not just hiring them to fill a position. We are mentoring them, teaching them, and helping them understand the values, expectations, and responsibilities that come with serving our community. We get to walk alongside them as they continue their education, pursue their degrees, attend academies, and take the next steps towards their career goals. These relationships often extend beyond their time as CSOs. We have the opportunity to watch them develop professionally, learn from our officers and staff, and determine whether a career in policing is the right path for them. In many ways, the CSO program becomes a bridge between education and service, creating future leaders who already understand our culture, our mission, and our commitment to people. This program represents much more than operational support. It represents mentorship, connection, and our responsibility to help develop the next generation of public safety professionals. We are proud to have achieved accreditation for the third time. Accreditation demonstrates our commitment to best practices, professional accountability, risk management, and continual improvement. These accomplishments reflect the dedication of the entire department and provide assurance to our community that we operate at a high professional standard. This may be one of the most important slides in tonight's presentation because while it's easy to celebrate an accreditation award, the real value is what it represents. Accreditation isn't something you achieve once and place on a shelf. It's an ongoing commitment to excellence. Every policy is reviewed. Every critical incident use of force at a compliance hold or higher, show of force with a firearm or taser, pursuit, drone deployment, forced entry, and complaint is evaluated. Every process is examined. Every standard is verified. Achieving accreditation for a third consecutive cycle tells our community and this council that accountability isn't something we talk about. It's something we practice every single day. It also reduces organizational risk, strengthens liability protection, improves training, and ensures we're continually measuring ourselves against recognized best practices. Simply put, accreditation makes us a better police department. These numbers reflect the tremendous amount of work occurring behind the scenes. In 2025, staff processed more than 4,100 evidence items, managed over 112,000 digital evidence files, fulfilled more than 3,400 open record requests, analyzed 122 smartphones in-house, and maintained rigorous accountability through use of force and pursuit reviews. These statistics illustrate the growing complexity of modern policing and the increasing demands placed on both sworn and civilian staff. So now let's transition to protection. Our crime statistics show encouraging trends. Total crime declined from 1,068 incidents in 2024 to 972 in 2025. These figures demonstrate progress while also identifying areas where continued focus and resources are necessary. We are encouraged by the reduction in overall crime, property crime, burglaries, and vehicle thefts. Achieving zero homicides is significant and reflects the collaborative efforts of our officers and community partners. However, we remain focused on aggravated assaults, theft incidents, and reducing violent crime. These areas continue to drive operational priorities and strategic planning. If you look at our positive trends, our total crime is down 9%, our property crime is down 12%, our burglaries and thefts are at 10-year lows, and we had zero homicides. Domestic violence remains one of the most significant and complex public safety challenges facing our community. In 2025 alone, our officers responded to 600 domestic violence related incidents, which resulted in 287 criminal arrests. Dating relationships account for the largest share of domestic violence arrests, demonstrating that this issue affects individuals long before families are established. It reinforces the importance of prevention, healthy relationship education, and early intervention to stop violence before it escalates. Our officers remain committed to holding offenders accountable while ensuring survivors receive the support and resources they need. Working alongside victim advocates, prosecutors, healthcare providers, and community partners, we continue to focus on protecting victims, interrupting cycles of violence, and preventing future harm. Reducing domestic violence requires more than responding after violence occurs. It requires sustained investment in prevention, victim services, offender accountability, and collaborative partnerships. Every intervention has the potential to save a life, protect a child, and strengthen the safety of our community. This data shows substantial improvement since the peak experienced in 2022 with shootings and shots fired. While any shooting incident is concerning, the downward trend demonstrates the effectiveness of focused enforcement, investigations, community partnerships, and intelligence-led policing strategies. We remain committed to preventing gun violence before it occurs. Crime Trends When we look at crime trends over the last decade, it's important to focus on the long-term trajectory rather than year-to-year fluctuations. This slide provides that broader perspective. While individual categories may rise and fall in a given year, overall crime remains significantly lower than historical levels in many areas. These results reflect sustained investments in proactive policing, community partnerships, technology, intelligence-led enforcement, and the commitment of our officers and staff. So let's do a deeper dive into our crime. Violent crime. When people hear that violent crime has increased, it is natural to picture random acts of violence occurring in our neighborhoods and on our streets. This data, well, it tells a different story. Violet continues to be a safe community. While we have experienced increases in aggravated assaults over the past several years, those increases are not driven by random violence between strangers. They are driven largely by violence occurring inside homes and within personal relationships. This doesn't diminish the seriousness of violent crime. In many ways, it highlights an even greater challenge. Violence inside the home often goes unseen until someone calls for help. It is frequently repetitive, deeply personal, and significantly more difficult to prevent without strong partnerships throughout the community. There is encouraging news within these trends. The most serious violent offenses, including homicide and robbery, have remained relatively low. That tells us that Fond du Lac is not experiencing widespread community violence. Instead, our greatest opportunity to reduce violent crime lies in breaking the cycle of domestic violence through prevention, education, support, intervention, and offender accountability. If we want to continue making Fond du Lac one of the safest communities in Wisconsin, we must continue investing in the partnerships and resources that protect victims and survivors, strengthen families, and address violence where it most often begins, inside the home. Property crime is often one of the measures residents use to judge how safe they feel in their community. Whether it's a burglary, a stolen vehicle, or a theft from a local business, these offenses directly affect people's sense of security and quality of life. When we look beyond the total numbers, the story becomes much more encouraging. Property crime in Fond du Lac is overwhelmingly driven by theft, and more specifically, shoplifting. While theft accounts for the largest share of property crime, it is important to recognize that shoplifting is fundamentally different from crimes such as residential burglary or vehicle theft. Much of our theft activity occurs in commercial settings rather than people having their homes or vehicles targeted. Our department continues to work closely with retailers, utilize technology, and pursue repeat offenders to address this issue while supporting our business community. Perhaps the most encouraging trend is the continued reduction in burglaries. Burglaries are among the most personal property crimes because they involve someone unlawfully entering a home or business, often leaving victims feeling violated long after property is replaced. Over the past decade, burglaries have steadily declined, reflecting improvements in prevention, community awareness, technology, and targeted enforcement. We are also seeing encouraging reductions in motor vehicle thefts. While vehicle theft has become a growing concern in many communities across the country, FONLAC has experienced a downward trend. This reflects proactive enforcement, improved technology, and increased public awareness around vehicle security. Both burglary and motor vehicle thefts are currently at 10-year lows. School safety remains one of our highest priorities. The statistics presented here provide valuable insight into trends occurring within our schools and help us identify areas where intervention and prevention efforts may be needed. Through our school resource officer program and close collaboration with school administrators, staff, students, and families, we work every day to create safe learning environments while building positive relationships with young people. Our school safety is in the best place it has been in years. Ultimately violent crime, property crime, and school crime statistics I just shared reinforce that Fond du Lac remains a safe community. So now let's jump into service. Strong public safety outcomes depend on strong community relationships. We work hard to ensure residents are informed, engaged, and involved in public safety efforts. Building trust and maintaining open communication strengthens our ability to serve effectively. Might recognize one person that's in that picture. The Citizens Police Academy provides residents with a firsthand look at police operations, decision making, equipment, and community policing strategies. Programs like this increase transparency, strengthen trust, and foster productive partnerships between law enforcement and residents. We believe community policing means more, means being actively involved in the fabric of the community. Whether attending neighborhood events, participating in youth programs, supporting local initiatives, or engaging with residents, our officers strive to build meaningful relationships that strengthen public trust. Wildlife Weekend provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the value of an emergency alert system. This technology allows us to communicate critical information directly to residents and visitors during large public events. This highlights how modern communication tools can improve public safety, increase situational awareness, and strengthen our ability to keep the public informed during rapidly evolving incidents. Just a few weeks ago, I rolled out our community dashboard for crimes and accidents. Transparency is one of the cornerstones of public trust. Our community dashboard provides residents with direct access to crime and traffic accident information in an easy to understand format. Residents can view public safety trends in near real time, fostering greater awareness and accountability. The dashboard also serves as a valuable tool for community problem solving. Residents can better understand what's happening in their neighborhoods, businesses can identify trends that affect their operations, and city leaders can use data to help guide policy decisions. This represents another example of how technology can improve public engagement and trust. By making public safety information readily available, we empower residents to become active participants in crime prevention and community safety efforts. The dashboard reflects our commitment to openness, transparency, and providing meaningful information that helps residents stay informed and engaged. When the department implemented automated license plate reader technology, we made a commitment that transparency would accompany its use. The FLOC Transparency Portal allows residents to see how the technology is being used, understand the safeguards in place, and review performance metrics. This approach reinforces accountability while ensuring community confidence in the responsible use of technology. Since implementation, FLOC ALPR technology has proven to be a valuable investigative tool. This helped officers identify stolen vehicles, locate wanted individuals, support criminal investigations, and develop leads more efficiently. Most importantly, these results demonstrate how strategic technology investments can improve public safety outcomes while maximizing existing personnel resources. Technology often raises an important question. Is it worth the investment? I believe this slide answers that question better than I ever could. Since implementing FLAC technology, our officers have used it in more than 330 investigations. More importantly, it directly helps solve or significantly advance 100 criminal investigations. Those aren't software statistics. Those are victims and survivors receiving answers. Those are crimes solved more quickly. Those are dangerous offenders identified sooner. Technology should never replace good police work. It should make good police work even better. That's exactly what this technology has done. Bring you back to our mission statement. I want to once again emphasize that our budget is driven by the mission and values of the organization and the expectation that we will continue delivering exceptional service to our residents. What's on the horizon? Looking ahead, we continue to evaluate emerging technologies, staffing needs, facility requirements, and evolving public safety challenges. Strategic planning today ensures we are prepared to meet tomorrow's demands while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Last year, this council made a significant investment in the future of public safety by approving funding for our drone as a first responder program. I'm excited to share that after more than a year of research, planning, vendor evaluations, FAA coordination, and implementation planning, we are officially moving from the planning stage to the implementation stage of this transformational project. Over the next approximately 16 weeks, our team will focus on system installation, FAA approvals, training, operational testing, policy development and validation, and integration with patrol operations. If everything stays on schedule, we anticipate launching our first operational drone as a first responder flight later this year. This is more than adding another piece of technology. It changes how we respond to emergencies. In many cases, a drone can arrive on scene in a matter of seconds, often well before officers. It provides live video and critical intelligence to responding personnel, allowing them to better understand what is happening before they arrive. That information improves decision making, enhances officer and community safety, helps us deploy the appropriate resources, and in some situations may even allow us to resolve incidents without unnecessary risk. This investment reflects our commitment to innovation. We are not adopting technology simply because it's new. We are implementing technology because it makes our community safer, improves service for our residents, and helps our officers make better, more informed decisions. I want to thank the City Council for its support in making this program possible. We look forward to providing updates as implementation progresses and to demonstrating the impact that technology will have on public safety and Final Act for years to come. Some of you have not been in our building and we've talked about the PD renovation. Here's just a couple pictures. If you look in your upper left, that is our new criminal investigations conference room. In our upper right, there's our administrative conference room. In our lower left, that is the hallway that leads out to our garage and our squad cars to get them ready and mind prepared to serve our community. And then our lower right is our administrative area. And as you can see, we have our beautiful Fonaleck Lighthouse on the wall for all to see. Tonight, you've seen statistics, you've seen graphs, you've seen photographs, you've seen budgets, but I hope you will really seen is something much bigger. You've seen a police department committed to continuous improvement. A department that measures success, not simply by arrests, but by relationships. A department that embraces accountability rather than avoids it. A department that understands every taxpayer dollar carries with it an obligation to deliver value. Leadership, protection, service. Those aren't three separate ideas. They're the promise we make to this community every single day. Our budget is simply the tool that allows us to keep that promise. On behalf of the dedicated men and women of the Fond du Lac Police Department, thank you for your continued trust, your partnership, and your investment in public safety. I would be happy to answer the one question you may have.

I think we only have one. That was an outstanding presentation, Chief. Thank you so much. Ms. Lurang, we're going to start with you.

Thanks for your good presentation. I have two questions. One is, I'm just curious, I've always kind of wondered this, why is battery different in the school environment than it is in public because seems like it gets treated a little bit differently. And then also shootings, how are you able, I know you listed out the bullets on how you are able to keep the rate of the shootings down, like the number have gone down. Can you just expand on that a little? Because it's interesting.

Okay, so you have two questions. The first on battery, and we've worked with City Legal, we worked with our school district, our SROs, Lieutenant Bobo, Lieutenant Hahn. When you're talking about youth and young adults, and what I would say is sometimes making mistakes, we worked to have Battery be also a city ordinance, right? So we wanna have options as they learn, they grow, and they mature. And I would say that what happens in a school and the environment in a school is different than in a community. And we're going to, ENSURE, YOU'VE HEARD, YOU KNOW, LIKE THE PIPELINE TO PRISON. WE ARE GOING TO ENSURE THAT WE ARE THAT LEADERSHIP PORTION, PROTECTION PORTION, AND SERVICE INSIDE THOSE SCHOOLS TO ENSURE THAT WE ARE NOT CONTRIBUTING TO A PIPELINE FOR PRISON, RIGHT? WE ARE LOOKING FOR COMPLIANCE IN WHAT I WOULD CALL COMMUNITY STANDARDS IN YOUR SCHOOLS. AND I SHARED THAT, ACTUALLY, THAT SLIDE IS NEW BECAUSE IT'S A STATE STATUTE THAT REQUIRES NOW SCHOOLS AND THAT IS STEM IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL TO PROVIDE THOSE STATISTICS AND ACTUALLY MAKE THEM PUBLIC. SO THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE WILL NOW START SHARING. PRIOR TO THAT STATE STATUTE, WE DID NOT HAVE, THERE WAS NO SHARING OF THAT INFORMATION. SO WE'LL CONTINUE, AND I AM, LIKE I SAID, VERY HAPPY WHEN I TALK WITH LIEUTENANT BOBO and meet with our school staff and executives that our schools are in the best shape that I've seen in my 28 years. And it's something to celebrate as a community. On your second one for substantiated shootings and shots fired, When you're talking about something like that, that's community, it's multifaceted. And really, I think it is the efforts, it's not only the police department, we can own a part of it. But it's the efforts that I see in our community partners, in our parents, that the people that come to the table that take our youth advocacy program, and hopefully you see some of those pictures that we put out online. It is relationships. It is real relationships as our youth are developing into adults for them to better understand what violence can do to a family, what violence can do to them as the person that might do it, and what violence can do to a community. And I think we're seeing the... not the benefits, but we're seeing what we're getting from is all those things coming together and our community understanding that that is not who we are as Fond du Lac.

Okay, so thank you for doing such a great job. And I want to also thank you, ICU, around even at county, our county board meetings and committee meetings. And thank you for all your hard work.

Thank you, Ms. Loring.

Sorry, I might have more than one question, but I'll try to keep it short.

One question in 86 different parts. Exactly. I've seen that movie.

Well, so first I wanted to actually say thank you to Ms. Loof for speaking during public comment and talking about the partnerships that we have within our city and with our police department. And so one of the questions that I sometimes hear is wondering about the police response when it comes to our homeless individuals. Yes. I was wondering if you could kind of talk about that a little bit.

Wonderful. I was going to bring it up. And Amy, we talk quite frequently. I mean, and to have St. Catherine's as a resource and within our walls of the police department, you heard just incredible remarks. Couldn't have done any better. what you're talking about is some of that chatter that's out there of the city and or the police department criminalizing homelessness. So let's look at, let's take a motion out of it and let's just look at the facts. So when we came together as a city council and a community, and we said, We have resources, we have a plan in place, but we also have to understand that there's community standards we enacted in ordinance. And when that ordinance went into place in 2024 to share, there were two citations that were written, right? And we talked about a progress in progressive. There were two citations written and eight warnings in 2024. Working with our city legal, those two citations, they worked with those individuals to have them understand what resources are out there so it wasn't punitive. So let's now look at 2025. In 2025, zero citations have been written and there was one warning. And in 2026, year to date, zero citations have been written and zero warnings. So these are the narratives I ask a city council and community that's listening to it. These are facts. When you hear something like the city and the police department is criminalizing homelessness, facts don't support that emotion.

Thank you, I appreciate that. And then I also just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all the advocacy you've done for mental health care in our community. Detective Mylon's back there, thank you to you as well, because I know you've been advocating for that as well. So I guess I'd love to just give you an opportunity to also talk about how mental health care and public safety intersect and anything we should be looking at in that respect.

I think what's, I look at it from optimism, right? And you always find me to be optimistic as we go through this. And the great things when decisions are made is it brings topics and it brings concerns to light and it brings community together. What I'll share with this is That has allowed me a platform to be at more tables and I can tell you that I'm having meetings every single day on the phones on teams meetings to bring people together for this community to work with our health care partners to work actually with county with Jerry and Chelsea. We're coming together at the table so that we are going to put something together regardless of what decision was made last night. We're going to put something together that is collaborative, that is comprehensive, FOR OUR COMMUNITY, FOR MENTAL HEALTH. AND REALLY THE FOCUS THAT WE SEE, YOU KNOW, LIKE I WAS ONE THAT STARTED CO-RESPONSE, YOU KNOW, AND I USUALLY DON'T USE I BECAUSE I USE A LOT OF WE, BUT I THINK THIS COMMUNITY NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND I STARTED COMMUNITY RESPONSE, AND I STARTED CO-RESPONSE UNIT HERE. AND WITH AL BEACLE GIVING US THAT PILOT PROGRAM FOR THREE YEARS, SO GOD BLESS HIM. AND WE HAVE SEEN THAT THAT PROGRAM WORKS WITH OUR SOCIAL WORKER AND OUR POLICE OFFICERS UNDERSTANDING HOW DO WE SWIM UPSTREAM AND GET THESE INDIVIDUALS BEFORE THEY'RE GETTING AN ASYKOSIS, BEFORE THEY'RE BECOMING MANIC. And what we're gonna do and what you're gonna see is hopefully more of that so that we have those resources readily available for our community members. And then we'll get, when I say we, we'll have Detective Milan, who's at my side, and then Kim Miller, who is a social worker that's also at my side. We will get the right people at the table to make sure that we have when needed the acute inpatient beds and hopefully keeping some local here so that they have their support structure. So there's always that silver lining that comes out of those decisions. I look at it that way, Ms. Brault, that we're going to bring people together and hopefully we're going to be a stronger community based on this decision that the 24 county board supervisors made last night.

Thank you, I'm really glad to hear that. And I just really appreciate your leadership on this issue and everything else you do in your department. We're really lucky to have you, so thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mullin, you're up.

Thank you for your presentation, Chief. I just have a couple things I want to talk about here. First off, accreditation. That really is a big deal. And in combination with our fire rescue, their accreditation, we are very lucky as a community And it's really rare to have both of those accredited at the same time. And again, accreditation is a commitment to quality, a commitment to doing things right, commitment to openness, transparency, and these are all really good things. And that's why a few years ago, I think, when we had, public safety referendum, it passed two to one because of what both of you gentlemen have done in terms of building that relationship with the community. So congratulations to that. I also wanna thank you for how accessible you have been to city council, myself in particular.

We had an opportunity,

Mr. Heisler and I, you sat down with us to explain the whole flock system and the safeguards you have in place to make sure that none of that data is abused. And I left very reassured that, okay, I'm not crazy about the company, but you guys are doing the right thing. So thank you for that. I also like in your presentation that you took a little time to talk about aggravated assault and theft and aggravated assault, which is what people are really worried about, but most of it is people know each other. It's a lot of domestic abuse, dating relationships. I have never felt unsafe walking down

Main Street at night here.

It's just not a problem. I live over on Linden and people hear that I live on Linden and they go, oh my God, it's so terrible. It's not. They may have a lot of people down there who have problems with their roommates, so to speak. but it's not a safety thing. Same thing with theft. I think because we're on, and I also want to congratulate you on the website, you can waste hours looking at heat maps of where crime is happening and things like that.

I tell you there's more coming, so you might be glued to your computer after DFR is here.

But you'll notice that, and we talked about shoplifting, because we have 41, it's all concentrated right there because you can, you know, and they have organized gangs of people that go and they, you know, they hit a Walmart in this town, then they drive to the next one, and that's just their day's work. So I appreciate that. And the last thing I really want to commend you on because I know you personally had a lot to do with this, was the whole idea of co-response. You know, the mental health crisis that's going on everywhere in this country, the police are the front line on that. They really are. And you don't expect police to be social workers. I mean, that's not their job. That's not what we hire you for. We hire you to chase bad guys and arrest them. But unfortunately, a lot of people you have to deal with are not necessarily bad people. They're not necessarily criminals. They're just in the midst of a mental health crisis. And you're the guys that get called. And so I'm really... grateful and happy that you recognized that and did something about it. I mean, you know, I can recall several instances where you had individuals that were suicidal or whatever, and your response team came and they diffused the situation. And so, good job on that. So, and that's all I got. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bowen. Let's go to Mr. Biber next. You guys just pass the mic if you please.

Thank you, Mr. Eisler. He took some of my points away. That's okay.

So did Tiffany. No, thank you. Thank you again, Chief, for the great presentation. Several things, I've got to give shout outs to the community service officers, putting into a dual purpose thing where it's just, not only serving the community, but also you're kind of like an internship for bringing along officers and see how the fit is for both from our point of view and also from their point of view. So that's very good. Very nice with the two presentations with the social services and correspondence, because like Patrick, Mr. Mullen had said, that the... as cops just, you're there to protect, serve and protect, but also that it softens more where some of these crimes and some of these incidents that are happening, that there's a softer way that say, with the police presence saying there, hey, it's serious, but here's some help and you should follow that help. So I think that's very good to help for the community. Again, also the accreditation and both fire and police, that's awesome with both. Both are main services to have accreditation. And then... I think with the differentiation of crimes you had brought out with like theft, that it's more like retail versus then it's breaking an entry or something, stealing off of people. But is there a way more to cut it down that helps our community and makes it look better? If it's like say vehicle theft, is it where it's report? I don't know the difference, but if it's reported that say, an adult kid that you have on drugs or something and takes a car or does something with it versus someone outside are taking and stealing the vehicle. Is there a differentation for that? And I would personally, I would show that for that. Because again, that would show it's not just, you know, people are more afraid of, a stranger coming at us versus something inside the family happening type two. And again, with the, yeah. So the same with the aggravated assault.

So those are just some good points.

I look forward to spending some time with your department as well. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Bymer. Mr. Zimmerman, you're up.

Thank you, President Heisler. Well, I only have one like you requested. So I'm following the rules. Could you just give a... One total. One total. Okay, I'm done. Can you just give a brief, I'm not looking to get into technicalities, but when I'm talking to a citizen about the flock cameras and how you guys keep their information safe, help me help the citizens understand that?

Yes. And you can come by too and we can have the same discussion so that we can not get in the weeds.

It's a worthwhile sit down. You should do it.

YEAH, WE CAN DO IT, BUT I WOULD TELL YOU THIS, AND A LOT OF IT COMES FROM THE ACCREDITATION AND THE POLICY AND CULTURE, MEANING THAT, YOU KNOW, SOME OF THE THINGS THAT YOU SEE OUT THERE, THERE'S MISINFORMATION, BUT WE HAVE REALLY, REALLY STRONG POLICY FROM A.C. LARRIDEN, LIEUTENANT GALES, MYSELF. WE KEEP OUR FINGER ON THE PULSE TO SEE WHAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING OUT IN THE NATION, RIGHT, BECAUSE THIS IS EMERGING TECHNOLOGY. SO WE HAVE THINGS IN PLACE THAT OUR OFFICERS HAVE ANOTHER, AN ADDITIONAL STEP THAT SOME DEPARTMENTS DO NOT HAVE, MEANING IF THERE'S AN ALERT THAT COMES OUT FROM AN ALPR THAT MAY, LIKE A STOLEN VEHICLE, THEY ACTUALLY HAVE TO TAKE THE TIME TO ENSURE THAT THAT ALERT IS ACTUALLY ACCURATE AND EITHER GET THAT INFORMATION THROUGH DISPATCH OR GET THAT INFORMATION AS THEY RUN IT. WHAT THAT HELPS IS NOT HAVING, AS YOU SEE SOME OF THESE EXPERIENCES THAT PEOPLE HAVE, IS THEY'RE GETTING PULLED OVER AND IT'S NOT THE RIGHT VEHICLE OR IT'S NOT STOLEN. SO WE HAVE A LOT OF SAFEGUARDS THAT WE'VE LEARNED. WE HAVE SOME INCREDIBLE YOUNG OFFICERS. I THINK ONE IS IN THE BACK, OFFICER MEYER, LOVES TECHNOLOGY, IS ACTUALLY DOING OUR RADIOS RIGHT NOW WITH AC LEARN, AND THEY CAN HAVE THAT PART OF IT. BUT WE HAVE PEOPLE THAT HAVE LOOKED AT IT. Really as chief, our department understands it's not a gray area. There is a lot of trust that this community is putting into us with this technology. I could tell you, we did a lot of research upfront before we put the cameras in. And if you would ever, when you come by, when you look at the map, all of our cameras are on the ENTRANCES AND EXITS OF OUR CITY THEY ARE NOT TRACKING OUR COMMUNITY MEMBERS RIGHT SO THEY ARE THEY ARE ALERTING US IF IT A CRIME VEHICLE THAT COMES IN FROM A LARGER CITY TO OURSELF THAT WE KNOW THAT IT'S COMING IN OUR COMMUNITY AND WE CAN ACT ON THAT RIGHT AWAY THE OTHER THING IS, YOU HEAR MISINFORMATION ABOUT THE DATA. THE DATA IS OURS. WE DETERMINE WHO THAT DATA IS SHARED WITH AND WHY I HAD THAT FLOCK PORTAL UP THERE. YOU WILL SHOW THAT WE DO NOT SHARE WITH ANY FEDERAL, ANY STATE. WE WERE SHARING WITH, LIKE, ILLINOIS AND MINNESOTA. WE HAVE, BECAUSE OF THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING, WE HAVE REALLY put more control on it and we only share in the state of wisconsin so that data is ours and we are probably going to take another step in the coming weeks to ensure that those that we share with share our same vision and our culture and our policy to use that data and if you don't you won't be getting our data so those are just talking points that you can use thank you so much thank you

Thank you, Ms. Zimmerman. Anyone else from council want to weigh in? Otherwise, I'll give my thoughts and we'll close this input. Anybody else? All right, then I'll go quick. I promise, Chief, because I know I'm last. But I do have to start with a really genuine compliment. This is my last police budget presentation. This is the best I've ever had. Thank you for this. This is such incredible information, and no disrespect to any of your predecessors, but... man, are we lucky to have you in this community. And your accessibility not only to our community and your visibility, but also in my day job, in the media, you're always available, and you're always educating. And it's just amazing. I made a list of nine things I wanted to ask you about. and I crossed off seven of them with, before any of my counselor colleagues got any questions in. So, I mean, it was just amazing. But I did just wanna ask you to expand on two quick things for me. Number one would be, can you just give a little love to that SRO program? Because I think there's a lot to be said about how positive that, CULTURE IS IN THE SCHOOLS RIGHT NOW AND HOW MUCH BETTER THAT'S BECOME. AND THEN THE LAST THING IS I SIGNED UP FOR THE TEXT ALERTS AT WALLEY WEEKEND THIS YEAR. AND AS ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO'S ON KIND OF THE GROUND FLOOR OF THAT ORGANIZATION, I'M REALLY, REALLY PROUD OF THAT. IF YOU COULD TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT OTHER EVENTS YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SEE THAT BEING USED AT, BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT WAS A GREAT PROGRAM.

THANK YOU FOR THOSE LAST TWO QUESTIONS.

Our school resource officers, it really starts with a collaboration with the school district. So when we do our process, our process includes the schools. So they actually are part of the interview panels AND THEY GET TO INTERVIEW AND UNDERSTAND AND LEARN THOSE CANDIDATES. I CAN TELL YOU IT'S SOME OF THE BEST OFFICERS THAT YOU'RE GOING TO SEE IN OUR DEPARTMENT GO FOR THOSE POSITIONS, AND IT TAKES A SPECIAL PERSON TO DO THAT WORK. SO IT STARTS WITH, WE ALWAYS TALK ABOUT PEOPLE FIRST. IT IS PEOPLE FIRST. WE HAVE GREAT OFFICERS, AND IF YOU EVEN LOOK BACK INTO, WELL, DETECTIVE MILON COMING FROM THE SCHOOLS, TOO. WHEN WE PUT THE RIGHT PEOPLE THAT HAVE THE, YOU KNOW, THE VISION THAT WE HAVE AS PEOPLE FIRST, AND WE PUT THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN THE SCHOOLS, AND WE WORK COLLABORATIVELY TO COACH, MENTOR, LEAD THESE YOUNG PEOPLE TO BE GREAT ADULTS, WE WANT THEM TO STICK AROUND IN THIS COMMUNITY AND GET INCREDIBLE JOBS. AND HOPEFULLY SOME OF THEM BECOME POLICE OFFICERS OR FIRE OR RESCUE, OR I'LL EVEN SAY FINANCIAL, YOU KNOW. I GOT TO THROW IN TRISHA, BECAUSE WE LOVE TRISHA. BUT IT'S... IT REALLY IS PUTTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE. WHEN WE LOOK AT, YOU KNOW, LIKE YOU LOOK AT SRO BROWN AND WHAT HE BRINGS AND JUST YOU LOOK AT SRO TUTTLE AND CLAPPER AND PEMENTO AND JOST, THAT GROUP WE HAVE, THEY'RE COHESIVE AND THEY'RE LED BY LIEUTENANT BOBO. AND THEY HAVE ONE VISION, AND IT'S TO HAVE THE SAFEST LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR OUR YOUTH SO THAT THEY GROW UP TO BE PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE. AND WE KNOW THAT THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE UPS AND DOWNS AND MENTAL HEALTH CRISISES, AND THEY'RE GOING TO BE BY THEIR SIDES. The second one was the alerts. That was really our first shot at it. And I think, you know, with AC Laredon here and in that radio world and communication world is we wanted to see, you know, we'll get the data to see, you know, how many people sign up for it. But I think the more and more we do and get that out for those larger events, you know, I can see it happening at a fondue fest because that really has a lot of people that go downtown. It's an incredible event for us. And we do have sometimes, I call them missing parents, right? Because we find the child. That's the best part. You get the child, but the child's not missing. And we can get those alerts out. So I do believe that was our first step, right? And it's emerging technology for us, but it's for our ability to communicate better and faster with our community in large events. So I could see us working towards Fondue Fest, having that same thing.

Fantastic. That would be a great use for that. Thank you very much. And with that, that ends my questions. I would just like to suggest to council as a farewell budget item, maybe we need to get the chairs that are in the police conference room up here because those are the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in in my life. I just want to point that out.

Cameron Fales is the one that gets those and they're phenomenal.

There we go. Yes. So anybody that needs to take a meeting with the chief, you'll get a comfy chair out of it. That's what I'll tell you for sure. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate your time as always. With that, we'll close out that input item and we'll move on to our community development budget presentation presented by our new community development director. It's yours.

Thank you. I'm excited to give my first presentation as the head of the department. I'll start off by giving an overview of what exactly community development includes. Next slide, please. This department includes four separate teams. There's the community development team, inspections, the parking utility, and the senior center, also known as the Center for Active Older Adults. Next slide. Community development and inspections work very closely together. We work with existing businesses and residents and those interested in starting a business or purchasing a property to understand local, and in many cases, state and federal rules and regulations, and help them to bring their projects into reality. Under community development, we are working on a variety of economic development initiatives, working closely with existing businesses and new business owners to support the local economy. We're also working on a variety of planning efforts. Our overarching community planning document is the comprehensive plan, which was passed in 2021 and extends for long range planning through 2040. We also have a variety of neighborhood and targeted plans for redevelopment and revitalization of a variety of different areas throughout the city. When it comes to redevelopment, we're working with developers and business owners who are looking to reuse and repurpose a variety of existing buildings in the city. Much of that falls on my plate in working with developers who are bringing in prospective projects and helping individuals who have ideas to understand the steps that they have to take in order to actualize those ideas. Our planning team also works on advising on a variety of other items such as land divisions and combinations, creating new subdivisions, administering the zoning code and land use regulations. That includes updating the zoning code when necessary to reflect new technologies and new trends that we observe in community development. We also work with the Historic Preservation Commission to ensure that we are maintaining and updating historic homes and buildings in alignment with design guidelines and maintaining the character of historic districts, of which there are several throughout the city. We're also working closely with the Downtown Fond du Lac Partnership on downtown development, which I'll get into a little bit more later. We're working on housing rehabilitation through an allocation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through their Community Development Block Grant to maintain the existing housing stock and identify other opportunities to support low and moderate income persons in the community. Finally, community development also works on ensuring the community's resilience against flood events through administering state and federal laws and regulations around properties that are in the floodplain to ensure that the community is better prepared for those future flood events. On the inspections team side, the city is what is called a delegated municipality. That means that we are able to conduct reviews of building plans in-house through our licensed building inspectors. So we are able to cut off several weeks from the review timeline for building projects that would otherwise be reviewed by the state. Once those plans have been approved, we're able to issue building permits and help to oversee the inspections as needed throughout the process. The inspection team also oversees sign permits and code enforcement to ensure that properties are well maintained throughout the city. Next slide. A few highlights for 2025 and 2026 for the development landscape. In 2025, the value of construction projects that passed through the inspections team was $117 million. And as of mid-July, we were at $39 million, which compared to where we were last year at the same time is about on par for what we were seeing. In 2025, we saw 39 new one and two family homes built. We issued over 3,000 building permits in 2025 and have issued almost 1,300 permits in 2026, which again is about on par with where we were at the same time last year. In 2025, some of the noteworthy developments included a variety of new downtown businesses, with one highlight being the Fond du Lac Beer Company, ongoing redevelopment of the former Home Depot property into six new retail stores, additions to the healthcare landscape, including the Frederick ThetaCare Micro Hospital and the SSM Health Cancer Center, and industrial development, including expansions of existing manufacturers. Overall, we saw that commercial and industrial growth increased in 2025 to be three times the amount that it was in 2024. Next slide. As I mentioned, the Senior Center is called The Center, a place for active older adults. There's a little bit of an error in the file transfer, but it serves Fond du Lac residents age 50 and older with programming that is focused on the eight pillars of wellness that you see listed on the slide there. Social, emotional, financial, occupational, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and environmental. What that comes out to in practical terms is over 250 total programs and about 70 unique programs each month. The most popular programs include a variety of educational opportunities such as legal presentations from a local law firm, on a variety of topics relevant to the aging population. The Scam Savvy series to help individuals to avoid common scams that you might encounter. The City Transit and City PD as well as the County Sheriff's Office have given presentations that have helped to educate on the operations of those departments. And in the case of the city transit, they got to ride on one of the transit buses and get a tour of the community as part of that. And of course, one of the key goals of the center is to be a third place, a place where you can build community and make new friends, build connections. So the social activities are very popular. On the next slide, The parking utility oversees the maintenance of the city parking ramps and lots. They maintain the parking meters and collect the fees paid with physical change into those. We work closely with the clerk's office on receiving parking permits for residents and and downtown businesses, their staff. And we also collaborate closely with the PD on any parking enforcement matters. In 2026, we are beginning to implement a parking maintenance study that was completed at the beginning of this year that identified immediate and long-term maintenance needs for the parking ramps. We're beginning by addressing the immediate maintenance needs for the Portland Street Garage. And in our proposed capital improvement plan, we are focusing on the Macy Street ramp immediate needs. Next slide, please. A key element of the Community Development Department's strategy is focused on supporting housing, which is a comprehensive strategy that doesn't just touch upon new housing, as I'll explain. In 2024, we completed a housing study that demonstrated that the community would need 690 owner-occupied homes and 868 rental units within five years. To date, we've met We've been making great progress by constructing over 500 housing units or getting them into the pipeline. So we have about a third of that goal already in the works, but there's still more to be done. To meet that need, the city has been committed to partnering with local developers to build infrastructure for new residential development. We have also utilized tax incremental financing, including affordable housing extension funds from closed tax incremental districts to allocate to projects like those that you heard about on our June 10th meeting. We also work with developers looking to reuse existing buildings such as upper floors of downtown buildings, as some of you may have seen at the recent open house for the roofing lofts, and in repurposing other buildings throughout the city. In 2025 and 2026, the department has also overseen zoning code updates to increase housing density and increase the number of housing options that can be built within different residential zoning districts, allowing for developers to find creative solutions to meet a variety of price points and a variety of demands in this current housing market. A key portion of our housing strategy also includes partnerships to combat homelessness. I have listed a few of the partners that we have partnered with for 2026. These individual, a key goal of our support to combating homelessness is that we are just a piece of the collaborative efforts to enhance the efforts of those who have skilled providers on staff to avoid duplicating services in order to reduce the occurrence and duration of homelessness in the community. We also, as I mentioned, receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support rehabilitation of the existing housing stock and enable individuals to have quality, safe homes and live in those long term. Finally, we have also partnered with Habitat for Humanity and have worked with the Redevelopment Authority to use available city-owned properties to repurpose and donate for their efforts to provide housing that meets the needs of those in our community. Next slide. As I mentioned, we partner closely with the Downtown Fond du Lac Partnership to support the downtown district. That includes supporting grants to downtown businesses, to encourage new businesses to locate downtown, to encourage a greater mix of businesses downtown, including those that are experience-based businesses that encourage increased dwell time, encourage people to linger and enjoy the downtown district. We also have a long-term partnership on doing building improvement grants and creative signs to enhance the exteriors of downtown buildings. We also work on downtown landscaping, including the planters that you see around downtown. And a key element is also the implementation of the riverfront plan that was completed a couple years ago, where we're continuing to identify opportunities for placemaking in the downtown district. And when it comes to placemaking, on the next slide, what we mean by that is creating third spaces that invite people to create memories, gather together, and to make the community a distinctive and welcoming environment, as you all know it to be. A couple of the ways that we are doing that is through developing city gateways. In 2025, we are beginning to implement the design and construction of the city gateways on a couple of the roundabouts in the south side of the city, and we'll be continuing those efforts in the next few years. We are also looking at the 2018 placemaking strategy and identifying opportunities to implement those recommendations in a few locations identified in that plan for the downtown district. Next slide. In 2024, the city completed a North Main Street redevelopment plan that focuses on this corridor between Lakeside Park and the downtown district to create an inviting gateway between those two destinations. As part of that, we have an ongoing grant program that helps business owners in that area between Johnson Street and Lakeside Park to update the exterior facade of their buildings. We're also looking at the plan's recommendations and identifying redevelopment opportunities in that area. In the upcoming proposed capital improvement plan, we will be working to design streetscape improvements and implement those in line with the plan recommendations. Next slide, please. And in summary, this is the proposed capital improvement plan for the Community Development Department as it currently stands. Next slide, please. That concludes my presentation, and I'm open to any questions, plural questions.

That was good. Thank you very much. I'm going to start with Ms. Luehring.

Thank you. You did great for your first presentation for the budget. That's awesome. I do have a question about the gateways. They seem a little unnecessary to me and I just saw the 500,000 each. Is that accurate or is that for all of them?

It's not $500,000 each. We haven't completed the design of all of them, but it does not total $500,000 each, no.

Are they necessary? Is it going to matter that we have those?

In terms of the value that they bring, We've identified several areas where it creates an entry point into the community that allows for you to know that you are entering Fond du Lac in a way that you may not otherwise realize depending on what point of entry you are making. So it falls into that overarching placemaking strategy where you are trying to create a welcoming and inviting environment that encourages individuals who otherwise haven't visited the community before to have a desire to linger and visit again.

Mr. Moore, you want to jump in here? Well, yeah, I was going to...

I was going to offer that this has been in the pipeline for a couple of years, and the vision is that if you think about Good cities, they might have a medal sign when you come in. If you think about great cities, you know you're entering. Your eyes tell you that. And we want people who are in the region visiting for car races, golf events, remote airplane events, to know they're in a great city. So it is certainly discretionary. But I think we ought to make investments in things like this so that it's not just good enough. It's better than that. And that's kind of what motivates this vision.

I think it's nice. I mean, it will make it look nice. We have signs for the city. I just think that could go towards like our homeless population. I don't know. I just, the whole gateway thing, I'm not on it, so.

Thank you.

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and go to Mr. Beaver.

Thank you, President Heisler. Mr. Moore, yes, I agree. We have those in Florida and it does make a huge difference when coming into the city, it shows, hey, you're entering somewhere nice or you're better and we're trying to better the community. Thank you for that question. But I'd like to see more word placements and all would be nice too and what they design. North Main Street, I'd like to see something happen there because it's just ugly, to be honest. And we have such a nice park at the end of it and just don't, it would just make it so much easier. And Julianne, Ms. Stowes, we discussed a little bit with Winter Park, Florida, and it's a city that's had a downtown with the college tied to it since 1880s, and it's been very successful. all through history of the last 100 something years. And with also it's one of the national spots for attracting some of the national arts and craft fairs and stuff like that, that show up. And so it brings a lot of visitors and I like to see something along those lines. those lines and how it looked and what I saw that the diagrams that you gave me, that's kind of what I had envisioned as well. So I was very pleased with seeing those. Thank you for sharing those. Just how much, how can we see more of that, of the North Main Street or the progress forward and the buildup for it would be nice.

Sure. So some of it is, a lot of it is going to be driven by private development coming in and identifying opportunities, bringing proposed ideas and us identifying ways that we can collaborate to help those ideas to come to fruition. There are opportunities for redevelopment such as the property that was mentioned earlier this evening during the public input session, the former Saputo property, and that is one of the properties that has been identified as a redevelopment opportunity in that district.

I'd like to see all the existing, well, a lot of the existing buildings there, and it just doesn't reflect how our downtown buildings look like. So I'd like to see it grow a little bit more that way. Of course.

And if you can do more to promote our grant program as you're out in the community and interacting with business owners in that district, we would love to have more applications.

Okay, great. And then my suggestion too was I wish to see a nice electronic sign that shows all the events coming in. That's on that, where that squirrel, former squirrel, it's catty-cornered to a gas station, catty-cornered to a quick trip. I'd like to see something for our community just to be able to see that. I know we have one hiding behind the quick trip ones that's very hard to see, but I'd like to see somewhere as a resident. A lot of people are busy, and I'd like to see, oh, yeah, it reminds me. That's a nice event to go to this week, so I appreciate that. Mr. Moore, you want to jump in?

I just wanted to augment something Ms. Stowe said about North Main. Mr. Biber, when we completed the plan, we knew that we weren't necessarily ready to implement. And so what we did then is in the capital improvement plan, we started the real investments in 2027. So that was purposeful. And this first phase is going to be heavily involving public works because you imagine when you drive north from Johnson Street, it's a real stark environment. It doesn't look very inviting. And so the designer at the time advised us that the first thing we had to do was address that. And so there's going to be some work on the streets. So it... It should look like that picture as opposed to the way it looks right now, which is treeless, plantless. There's no separation for pedestrians, et cetera. So there's a lot of work to be done there because the consultant also told us that if we do that, it indicates to developers that we're making an investment there and then interest gets generated. So that's the thinking behind it. So that's why the money's landing in 2027.

Thanks for the explanation. It's needed and it would look great. And I have my own history I can draw from that shows how successful those places are. The senior center, I am a senior, I guess now at 64, but... I've never been there or had it. Is that open to everybody or is it just for a small community there?

It's open to everyone ages 50 and older. You don't have to get a membership. You can become a member of the Friends of the Senior Center if you want, but you don't even need to become a member just to go and check it out.

Okay. But I think that looked like some good programs there. So I guess I'll have to go to it.

Definitely. And our newsletter is up on the website. So you can see what we have on the calendar.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you for your presentation as well.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Perot, you're next.

Well, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Being just a few weeks into the job, this is a lot for anybody. So like, thank you for everything that you've shared. It's clear that you're getting to know the community. And so kudos to you. So I have a specific question. So I don't know if you'll know the answer. I realized I should have reached out to you before. So maybe Mr. Moore might know more detail, but a few months ago I was speaking to one of our service groups and we got to talking about housing and they were very interested in the ordinance we had, or the zoning code update we had updated with accessory dwelling units. And so I was just curious if there's been much interest yet from anybody in adding those to their properties.

Not really yet.

No? Because I think that's a really exciting way to try to, you know, infill and add more housing density. So I'm trying to get the word out. I think a lot of them had no idea that we had updated to do that, to make that possible. So I'm not surprised to hear there's not been a lot yet, but... I appreciate all the work to try to update zoning and try to increase opportunities for housing. So I guess my other question I kind of wanted to ask is just having been here for just a little bit, like, is there something really interesting or surprising about Fond du Lac in the community development realm of things that you've discovered or just something you'd like to share that you've learned so far?

The most exciting thing is just the volume of activity and interest in continuing to grow and revitalize and make this community such a great place to live and work. There are so many active projects in the works and quite a few in the pipeline that local businesses are implementing, local developers are working on. It's great to see that level of enthusiasm and how much

the degree of not just monetary investment but personal investment that those individuals are bringing to their projects awesome yeah that's great to hear um and i guess just to highlight one thing um because you mentioned the home depot redevelopment and that is a really exciting thing to see as somebody who's lived here a long time and seen that property just sit and i have three kids who are spending way too much money at the stores that have opened already And I've got, my youngest is so excited for that makeup store that's coming in. So, but like, it's just really exciting to see that we've had a lot of really exciting development happening in just the past couple of years. So, all right. Well, thank you so much. Of course.

Mr. Mullen, you're up. Turn on.

There we go. Just a couple of things. I'd also like to say congratulations on your first presentation. It went well. Very good.

I wanted to, would you refresh my memory on the Gateway?

Was that ARPA funded partially? That was in the CIP of 24, Tricia, I believe. Yeah, it was a CIP investment. Okay. And the reason for the timing of it, you remember, it wasn't all that long ago we didn't have any roundabouts.

Right.

And then we birthed a couple of them. And it creates real estate that, you know, in the middle of them that you might do something with, depending on where they are. And so that was the inspiration. And also the realization that we didn't really have any welcome to Fond du Lac. And so it was the combination of roundabouts becoming available, we thought, in the right places to make that statement. So it's been in the pipeline because it's been hard to find the right kind of contractor.

Yeah. Well, and, you know, this council has been involved since I got here in really a revitalization. I mean, we've... done the North Main Plan, we've done the River Plan. We've made a lot of investments downtown just to spruce it up and clean it up. And we've invested a lot of money in our downtown to make it nice. And we do need to extend that downtown now that we have the Saputo site. But if you're gonna attract a developer was gonna put up the kind of project that that site should have, you gotta have it nice to drive up. And so, that's the investment and the plan that we have to put in place. You know, frankly, north of Maine, that's been a little neglected, you know, over the years. And it really does need to spruce up, but that's not going to happen overnight because we don't own most of that property. You know, so we're going to rely, we need to rely on the private sector, just like with housing. We can set the table, we can put in infrastructure, but somebody's got to come in and build, and then somebody's got to have the money to buy them. And those are things mostly out of our control. So anyway, I'm glad to hear that we're still working on the North Main project.

We do have a lot of things in the pipeline.

I mean, we were really kind of accelerating over the last few years coming out of COVID. We really accelerated with the housing study and the things we've done, the changes we've made to zoning and at plan commission, we've cut setbacks to facilitate infill in the city. We've done a lot of stuff, but it takes time for the private sector to find out about this stuff and actually...

implement it. So anyway, that's all I got.

Congratulations. You passed your first big test.

These questions were the hardest part of the whole quiz. You'll be fine. All right, Zimmerman, you're next.

Thank you, President Heisler, and congratulations making it through your first one. We talked about ramp improvements. Once again, not going into the weeds, but a couple things you can, like what are we looking at? Like falling concrete, repainting, what are we looking at?

So we're starting off with some door replacements that need to happen for code compliance reasons in the Portland Street Garage and repairing some deteriorating concrete there. Then we'll move on to the Macy Street ramp where there's more noteworthy concrete issues that need to be resolved, but nothing that is structural. We just have to make sure that we're addressing these maintenance needs to make sure that we can maintain the ramp longer term.

I agree, preventative maintenance is huge right now with the cost of everything going up. Another question I get a lot, and I'm gonna take my chance to ask it, any updates on the Meijer site and that coming in?

That's my question I get weekly. I'll take that, then you can clean it up. Mr. Zimmerman, Jules and I have written to Meyer in the past couple of weeks, and we're waiting for some feedback on whether or not we're on what I would describe the 28 list. And so that's, we're waiting to hear. Meyer's got a point of contact for this part of the country, that manages their properties and that's who we're waiting to hear back from. So I don't know what 28 looks like right now for their program and I don't think they do either.

Good answer.

I'll take that.

Sure.

You know, just one last comment I want to make is, you know, that's a prime example, that area of town. I grew up on the West side. I mean, that was desolate for a while. The mall left, Home Depot was closed and it's really turned around. It's vibrant again. The West side is thriving, I believe. And so I would caution when we talk about North Main Street, kind of like how we did tonight. I mean, we got to respect the past while embracing the future. I mean, people have, you know, a lot to give to North Main Street. And it's going to get improved, but it's going to take some time. So I really encourage, you know, positive atmosphere when we're talking about North Main Street going forward. Thank you.

You know, it's a shame you're not running again. That's a good campaign slogan. I'll tell you what. That was great. All right, Ms. Lurie, you're up.

Okay, I just, I wanna throw in some compliments before I ask the next question. Downtown, it looks fantastic, I must say. I mean, it really does. Everyone who's involved in that should be really proud of that. I hear it all the time. I sometimes stand on the corner where the Rutlaw Hotel is and look down, and across over where Theo's and those places are, and that whole section is beautiful. And now if you stand where Veterans Park is and you look back and forth, it's pretty nice too. So yeah, congratulations everyone who worked on that. And then the corner of, I'm getting a lot of questions just recently because I sit at the farmer's market for hours on Saturday mornings. I love the farmer's market, and so a lot of people come up to me and they ask me about the old Dillinger's property, which is right across from the Rutlaw Hotel on the corner of Division and Main. What is going on with that property that is just sitting there?

You want me to hit it first? Sure. So let's go back to the motivation for that project. The city made a huge investment, the Rutlaw, huge investment in 18 Hands, et cetera, et cetera, that whole area. And that building was blight. And it was certainly a detraction from guests that are coming in and out of the rent law where we'd made this huge investment because aesthetically, it was really, really ugly. And people ask about it. And so the idea, that's the motivation for either demoing it or renovating it. Those were the only two options because the private sector had passed on it UNANIMOUSLY. NOBODY WANTED THAT BUILDING. IT WAS IN SUCH BAD SHAPE. SO THE REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY ACQUIRED IT. ARPA, popped out of COVID and we leveraged ARPA funds to then apply a vision for that building to renovate it. So the building's about 95 plus percent renovated. And I mean, incredibly. So we're gonna invite you all over to come view it next month, middle of next month, and have a walk around and see what's been done in there. The little bit left to go is mostly equipment, like the walk-in cooling equipment has been custom made. It's gotta be put into the basement once it arrives here, then commissioned, et cetera. So that's really the long pole in the equipment tent. Supplies, furnishings, and all that, those are all in the pipeline as well. The hardest challenge we have right now is we have to have a manager who is a who has a contract relationship with the city to navigate and oversee and schedule the various vendors, because the idea is that in the food hall, there will be a collection of vendors, some who may stay there a long time, some who are in and out of, And we thought that the primary target audience of vendors would be food truck operators and folks like that, people who don't want a restaurant necessarily. But maybe they do, and that's an incubator for them to see if the recipes are working, see if their menus are working. So what we're doing right now is we are endeavoring to find that contracted manager who's got some restaurant experience and the time on their hands and the willingness to be that person to recruit vendors, manage vendors, manage supplies, et cetera, et cetera. And so that's where we are. And when you're over in the building in a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks, you'll see a finished building. The question is when can we find that person that's gonna meet the needs? So that's kind of the whole story with the background. Jules, you've been in the building. Did I miss anything that you wanted to add?

Just a few stats. On the main floor there will be seven food vendor stalls for different small businesses and one bar space that could be dual purpose for serving alcoholic beverages or coffee beverages or both. There will be an outdoor dining space in that space where another blighted building was demolished next to it. And on the second floor, there will be indoor dining for people to take their food that they've purchased on the lower level and enjoy it while looking out on the beautiful hotel. And also, we're looking into having a couple of pop-up retail vendors up there.

Is there an amount, like what are we losing on that just sitting there every month, like per month? What do we lose on that?

Utilities. And because it's not occupied, we're not cooling it as if somebody were in there full time. Other than that, that's the extent of our operating costs right now. And that will also be an ongoing operating cost. We think that the person that we want to contract with, and Tricia, you jump in if you want to add anything, wouldn't be, they would be working on our behalf to manage vendors, and to oversee the operation. We would still be paying the utility bills, for example, for the duration. That's been our expectation, that we wouldn't, pass that on to the onsite manager that we would recruit.

Have you heard, so I have a few business owners who serve food and are worried about that business, the city competing with their restaurants, also because we stuck money into that. Mm-hmm. Do you, I mean, what kind of response would I give? Because this is a concern and then also there's the rental space upstairs and there's a couple of businesses that are offering rental spaces and can't even rent out their spaces.

Yeah, those are good points. So let me help the narrative. The upstairs is not a rental space. The upstairs is a dining space for the people who got their food downstairs. And you'll see this when you're over there. The upstairs is a vast open area where there will be tables and what you would expect to see if you were in a dining area. So not an event space, not for rent. So we can take that off the table. What I have said to people who have... just express curiosity is to take them back to the choice, demo it or renovate it. There were no other choices. I suppose we could have let it sit there, but that's not really an alternative when we're trying to strive for excellence. And so that was really, I think that's an important point to make with people is we need that building to look that good. Even if it were an office building, it still needs to look that good. I mean, at the corner of Division and Main, that's very important, right? And so that's why the investment was made. And I don't worry about the competition with the restaurants because I think the kind of vendors we're going to get in there would be Sure, there's some competition, but I think it's different. When a food truck is downtown, I don't foresee it drawing people away from restaurants. I think it's drawing people to the food truck who otherwise wouldn't be going out to eat on that day. Because there are food trucks who come downtown, and I don't think they're making a dent in the restaurant business. I might be wrong, but I haven't heard any complaints about food trucks being downtown. So you're talking about a pretty low volume operation for the vendors that are in there. Does that make sense?

Yeah, so it's kind of like the public market, but on a really small scale.

Yep, that's right. Yep. Sure, thank you.

Ms. Mayweather, it's good to hear from you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you and congratulations on your presentation for your first time here. I don't have any questions, but it's per se to give you some kudos in your department here, just because you touched on two things that I hear from residents and that is repurposing city-owned city-owned buildings into those housing options, which I think is a great opportunity. As well as those third places, I think I hear a lot of there's nothing for folks to do and that I'm very excited and optimistic. So I just wanted to give you and your team flowers, kudos. Thank you for touching on those things. So thank you.

Thanks, Ms. Mayweather. Mr. Mullen, you're up.

Yeah, you covered this, you covered most of this, Joe. The people who were complaining about the food hall or wondering what's going on or the, you know, the property at Main and Division, It is supposed to be a food hall. It is supposed to have probably seven different kinds, seven different smaller venues. So these are people who are going to have a limited menu. And the big goal, well, there were several. One was to increase food options in Fond du Lac. Fond du Lac does not have a lot of options. I mean, if you want, my wife and I drive to other cities when we want to have a nice dinner. You know, you got pizza, you got Mexican, you got burgers, and that's kind of it. I mean, that's fine for most people, but, you know, we're hoping to, you know, maybe get some Indian or some Thai or, you know, other kinds of food. goal with that was to be like a business incubator. So you have somebody who wants to start a restaurant, thinks they want to, it's incredibly expensive to start a restaurant. And that's why most of them fail in the first couple of years, because you need to make so much money to cover those costs. And so this would be a less expensive way for people who are interested in opening a restaurant to get in there, try it, see if they're really cut out for it, see if what they are offering or what they want to offer is something that people are gonna buy. Because it doesn't matter if you got a great restaurant if nobody comes to it, if nobody wants it. And it also, it revitalizes downtown because you will have some more food options. And look, restaurants competitive. Everybody who thinks that when you open a business, you know, it's going to compete with my business, doesn't realize that when you get density, you get more customers coming down. You're going to have more customers coming to downtown to eat because they have variety there. And, you know, you may be one restaurant sitting out there alone. You're going to find out when you have a bunch of them around you that the traffic helps you. So, and you know, hey, this is capitalist country. If somebody makes a better hamburger or, you know, better food that people want to eat, you know, you got to step up your game if you want to compete. So that was all I wanted to say about that. But we agreed at the time as the council is that If downtown is important to us, and it is, it's important for the future of the city. When you let your downtown die, it doesn't take long for the rest of the city to die. We were gonna make some investments. We've done rooping, which was great. I walked through there and boy, I felt like, I spent the taxpayer's money well on getting that project off. And we're going to feel, I'm confident we're going to feel the same way about the old Dillinger's. So that's all I got. Thank you.

Mr. Mullin, I take this opportunity to just add that I know that you don't, and I know that we don't want to be long-term owners of a food hall. So the other goal is to get this thing to the point where somebody's interested in buying it. I mean, to have created something that's got value to the private sector so that they, you know, there's a market for it, which is what we didn't have prior when it was a blighted building.

If this is at all successful, we're going to be able to sell that business, turn it into a tax base.

All right, Mr. Biber, it's yours. Thank you. You're in the mic tonight, guys. I know.

Sorry about that. I thought I was ready to do mine. Like Mr. Mullin, I'm like, what? Mr. Moore, I second a bunch of what you said, Patrick, was a lot of good things there. And one similar place that I experienced is in Boston, Quincy Market, which is the Faneuil Hall is a very historic spot and right across this Quincy Market. And the biggest problem you have is all the great smells and foods. And it's like, which one do I choose today? Because you can't eat it all. So I think I'd keep that in mind for that place. And then like you said, good down the sales down the road. Are we charging rent for these new owners too?

Yes, what we would expect is that each vendor would pay for their space and the manager, that we would have recruited is managing all of that. And then ultimately, the manager would see a little bit of that for their own compensation and the bulk of it would come back to the city as the landlord.

Pay for his position, right?

Yeah, and so once, as I said to Ms. Loring, we'll have the ongoing burden of utilities, for example, But once the revenue's being generated, that's creating funds to pay that so that it's not coming out of our city operating budget.

It's part of the historical part of downtown, it looks like, and they did a nice job. And it's at a key location, as Mr. Mullin said as well, right there at Division and Main. I mean, it's the divider for the city. And then again, I think that it'll be good if they develop it and do more with it. And then also the rope, we didn't get to mention much on the roping, is it? I went to the opening on Friday. It was very nice. It's good to see these beautiful buildings come back to their original glory as much as you can do that.

Thank you for your answers.

Certainly.

Mr. Zimmerman, you're up.

Just to piggyback off this conversation, you said we're looking for a manager for that? Did we have one lined up at one point, or was that some hearsay I heard in town?

No, we were close. Okay. We were close. This is a pretty big commitment, you know, because it's new. And so we got close, but we couldn't close that deal. And so we're still, Mr. Zimmerman, you interested in running a firm? No, no, no. Too busy running the city, as you guys can see. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

No, no, we... So anyway, that's where we're focused right now, is trying to find that right person.

I'd be home with like six cheeseburgers if I ran the place. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Thanks, Mr. Zimmerman. The speaker queue is empty, so thanks, everybody, for a productive conversation. I'm going to try to go fast because I'm last, and this has been a long meeting. I'm hungry. I wish I had some cake. We're going to just go really quick here. I'm just hoping that maybe we could fire up a quick overall discussion on why there's no flood mitigation in the 2027 CIP. I'm just kind of curious if you could walk me through the process of when you decide to put some numbers in for flood mitigation. Is that only when there's a property that you're eyeing up, or how does that usually work for putting those numbers in?

So that line item is for acquisition of properties where either the home has been so damaged, the building has been so damaged from prior floods that it is no longer worth saving or it is past the point when it can no longer receive improvements without coming into compliance with existing flood proofing standards, which in some cases can be prohibitively expensive. We still have some leftover funds from this current year available. So at this point in time, we don't have anything in the pipeline.

Thank you. And then the only other thing I had, just two other really quick things. Can you just talk a little bit, expand a little bit more on the placemaking vision that you've got? I know that this is a brand new undertaking for you and it's been a lot right away, but can you kind of just give us that vision that you've got for the future looking at that planning document?

Sure. So the placemaking strategy is actually only focused on three key areas in the downtown. As I mentioned, it was completed in 2018. It's looking at Hamilton Park, at the Main Street Plaza around the clock tower that you can see up on the screen, and the green space next to the U.S. Bank building and the adjacent streetscaping. So we have some designs that are ready to move ahead depending on connections with property owners and continued conversations internally as I'm still getting up to speed on a few of those items. But I would also flag that quite a few of our other plans also incorporate elements of placemaking. Whether we're talking about the North Main Street, plan or the riverfront plan, there are also major place making initiatives there to incorporate creative elements, to improve the aesthetic on the streets, to improve pedestrian and biking infrastructure. There's a variety of ways to encourage people to gather in those areas and I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues on implementing some of those ongoing priorities.

Mr. Moore, question for you. Did you ever notice that every time you put Ms. Davey on the spot, she's got the answer like immediately? Like the answer was right there. Did you put that in 2024? Yep, got it right away. Anyways, just a quick observation. We appreciate you so much, Tricia. And then last thing for me is, while I'm grateful that we had a discussion tonight about the homeless situation, I think that anything that we as a city would do would be kind of... for lack of a better term, a little bit reactionary in response to a short-sighted and inept County Board meeting last night. So I think we should further that conversation later on down the road. So thank you all very much for a great presentation and a great night. With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Mr. Zimmerman, but everybody might have to refresh your screens in order to do so. I've got a motion by Mr. Zimmerman, but I need a second. And I know, I'm so sorry. I'll take a voice second from Ms. Mayweather, because we're not cooperating. I'm sorry, Maggie. We'll just make this all happen. All those in favor? I think we're out of here. Thanks, everybody.