City Council - Regular Meeting

uh begin um with the administration of the oath of office and remarks from the uh council members elect.

If you want to come up in front of the deis Please raise your right hand. I'm going to say the oath and then I will have you answer all answer together. I do at the end. Do you, David Ellis, Ron Batty, David Butterb, and Bruce Kelly, solemnly swear that you will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that you will discharge the duties of city council members in the city of Altuna, County of Blair with fidelity. Please answer. I do. Thank you. And I'll have you sign.

All right. Uh, whoever would like to go first. Go ahead.

I'd just like to thank the people of Altuna for uh, electing me to another term. I think council's worked well together. I think we've made a lot of progress and I think there's a lot of really exciting projects um on in the future near future. So we're working on housing of course we had prospect pool uh that's really an exciting thing for this city and uh I just want to thank everybody for their support. Thank you.

Thank you Ron. Uh I want to thank the the people of Altuna for the support they've shown and uh myself and in council uh in this last election. Uh we've gone through a lot of change in the last four years, five years or six years and sometimes change is difficult for people to accept and I think the results of this election showed that uh we are heading in the right direction. Uh this council has been great working together. It's a situation where we don't always agree with everything that we do, but we agree on the direction that the city needs to go and I'm looking forward to the next four years. Thank you. I also would like to uh thank the folks of this city and it's a great honor to have an opportunity to serve another term on city council and I'm really uh uh proud of what this team has been able to accomplish in the last term and I'm really excited about the opportunities and things that uh are going to happen over the next uh term here and uh I'm just really looking forward of getting down to the nitty-gritty and getting to work for you all. Thank you.

Um, I would echo many of the comments made by my colleagues. I I certainly am appreciative to the people of Altuna and the voters for the opportunity to be reelected and serve. There's a a lot of lot lot of things going on, a lot of good things. Um, and I just always remember that, um, I always try to keep in mind who pays the bills and it's the taxpayers's opportunity to pay the bills. And there's a lot of things we'd like to do, would want to do, but we have to temper that knowing who pays the bills and people's ability to pay and make decisions based on what's going to bring the the the most return for that taxpayer investment. So, I look forward to the challenges of the the next several years. And uh, mayor, I think we're ready to roll on into the meeting.

Thank you. And with that, I will call the meeting to order and we will have a moment of silent prayer.

Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Linda, would you call the role, please? Councilman Batty, here. Councilman Butterball, here. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis here. Councilman Ikis here. Councilman Kelly here. Mayor Pacificico here.

Uh we had an executive session last month after the meeting to uh go over real estate and uh I think that was it. Was that it, Mike? Real estate. Yes, we might have touched on maybe potential litigation as well. Uh, with that we'll open the floor for public comment. If anybody would like to address councel, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record, and please keep your comments to under three minutes. Floor is now open.

Hi, my name is Autumn Temple. I live in the city of Altuna. Um I'm here to talk about two of the ordinance uh things that you guys are going to be reviewing on the agenda number three and five. The first one with um the change in definition with um family and rental. I think like that needs to happen. Families should be able to support one another without bureaucracy or government. So I am um in support of that proposal change. And then the second one is the ordinance. It's number five in regards to uh recovery houses, boarding houses, halfway houses, and other institutional or licensing houses. Um I'm concerned in the way that is written where there's 1500 ft separation requirement be uh between any of those that are going to be started. I'm guessing you're going to grandfather some of the current ones in. But that 1500 ft um separation when you're looking at some of your other ordinances and populations of people such as student housing that that specific um feet separation is really discriminatory in nature. Um some of you guys had said in the altomir that this is for safety. By the way that the um ordinance is written, you're looking at a specific population of people. And the population of people that you're looking at that utilize the recovery houses that utilize um boarding homes or even group homes, they're going to be protected under the um protected people's act. So, I really suggest that you look at Fair Housing Act and the American with Disabilities Act uh before passing that ordinance. Tonight I did have a conversation with um Britney Mailinger with the Pennsylvania Fair Housing Association. She is going to be watching this. I provided her a copy of the proposed ordin ordinance and she also um felt

like some of the wording was discriminatory in nature. So uh you know like I said I do agree that safety thing is an issue in our community but you cannot be looking at specific populations of people and setting uh uh requirements that are going to limit their housing availability. And um for your convenience, I've uh given you some of the I'm going to pass around these. There are some case laws of some other um city or ordinances who have attempted the same thing with putting space limitations in housing that was found discriminatory in nature. Um so I'll just pass this around for you guys to look at. Thank you. I'm Lisa Han. I'm the executive director of Family Services Incorporated located at 2022 Broad Avenue here in Altuna. We operate the teen center and shelter at 16 at 17016th Avenue. It is licensed by Department of Human Services and Office of Children, Youth, and Families. We operate the family shelter that falls under the HUD guidelines for continuum of care, but we also operate five residential licensed group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities here in Altuna that are licensed by the Office of Developmental Programs. Licensed and seriously regulated. One of their regulations is that we can't create a group home within 1500 ft of another group home. Um so if your ordinance comes in with another 150 ft um restriction uh from these other licensed facilities, it again reduces the area that we can look for homes for these adults in the city of Altuna. Um our homes only have three people in them and it's their home and we care for them until they pass or their um issues

become too great physically for us to to maintain. So, we'd like you to take a look at that that uh restriction.

Yes. Hi. Hello. My name is Nate Germany. I am um I'm a owner of a licensed recovery house here in Altuna. I'm pastor of 18th Street Community Church and I'm also here for the ordinances uh that's being passed um or is being posed to be passed. Um yes, I too am concerned about the uh you know the 1500 ft where the license where where you can actually have another recovery house or halfway house or boarding home next to each other. That is a big concern because where affordable housing is, usually they're in that in in the area where affordable housing is located. Also, I do believe that it violates the Fair Housing Act. Um, you know, that the state approved. Um, also I have a few problems with uh uh the ordinance limits occupancy of halfway houses recovery house to only four persons. um which is more restrictive than the building code and the PA code. I mean a house can have more than four people in it in any building code but your ordinance is saying it's only we can only have four people in the house. Something's wrong with that. I don't really understand that. Also uh you can find out in your section B if you if you guys also the form of the application uh structures of the facility. Um what does that really mean? Uh do you mean the construction type accordance with the um with the building code? What does uh what does that really mean? I'm confused on that particular language. structure of the facility. Is it a building code? The structure of facility is the

building code PA or is it structure of facility? I understand that also um uh you know far as the building permits and all of that and the uh basically is the license is this to come through you guys. Is it a rental license in addition to the in addition to uh um the rental licensings? Is it also for the housing? I I'm confused on the rental licensings. Um so yeah, um couple things on that. And um also I wonder one other comment um I kind of mentioned that about the affordable housing um that you would restrict anybody from buying a house where it's affordable. I mean you guys uh I came here several times with the block grant and um looking for affordable housing in lie of individuals that suffer from disability and um this kind of violates this fair housing and affordable housing act which you guys give out grants for. Okay, that's all we got. Thank you.

[clears throat]

Item A is appointing Councilman Dave Ellis to serve as vice mayor with said term expir expiring the first Monday of January 2028. Item B is approving the city council meeting scheduled attached here two for the year 2026 in accordance with the home rule charter and administrative code of the city. Item C is approving the minutes of the Altuna city council meeting held Monday, December 1st, 2025. Item D is amending and restating the fee resolution to include business mercantile related licenses, land development fees, miscellaneous planning fees, sidewalk fund fees, plan development fees, subdivision and land and zoning fees. Item E is reappointing Barbara Kumman to the Altuna Water Authority for a term of 5 years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January, 2031. Item F is reappointing Chris Kerwin to the Altuna Housing Authority for a term of 5 years. said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item G is appointing Steve Kasein to the Altuna Parking Authority to fill the unexpired term of Sherry McGregor. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2027. Item H is reappointing UPMC representative Monica Clatt to the Amed Authority for a term of 5 years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item I is appointing Mayor Matt Pacific to the Amtran Authority for a term of five years. said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item J is appointing Joe Rpolei to the blighted property review committee for a term of two years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2028. Item K is appointing Dave Cervel to the blight of property review committee for a term of two years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2028. Item L is appointing Janice Ellis to the civil service board for a term of four years. said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2030. Item M is appointing Tom Beam alternate to the civil service board to fill the unexpired term of Ted

Beam. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2029. Item N is appointing Mike Blackie alternate to the civil service board for a term of four years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2030. Item O is reappointing Richard Fiori Jr. to the redevelopment authority of Altuna for a term of 5 years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item P is reappointing Horus Machino to the zoning hearing board for a term of 5 years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item Q is appointing Andrew Arnold to the zoning hearing board for a term of 5 years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. Item R is approving an agreement with PENDOT for the Meadow Street over Brush Run Bridge rehabilitation project with full funding provided by Pendot and authorizing the city to ex city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. Item S is approving an agreement with Pendot for the 13th Street Bridge over brush run rehabilitation project with full funding provided by Pendot and authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. Item T is approving a repository bid in the amount of $100 submitted by Thomas Nagel of Duncanville for property located at 209 to 209 and a half10th Street and further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form. Item U is approving a repository bid in the amount of $100 submitted by Derek Ogden of Clearfield for property located at 152120th Avenue and further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form. Item B is approving a repository bid submitted by C5 representation of Gaithersburg, Maryland as follows. $888 for property located at 182513th Avenue. $8.88 $888 for property located at 182313th

Avenue. $3,000 for property located at 15101 13th Alley. $520 for property located at 8106th Avenue. $520 for property located at 110817th Avenue. $520 for property located at 111017th Avenue and $500 for property located at 111817th Avenue. Further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form. Are there any is anything need to be pulled for separate vote?

B item uh I'll wait till you're done writing. Also item V. Item I whoops, sorry. And I do have a question then on one of the items, Chris. For um the fee schedule, what is that section or um letter D? Are there permits or fees required for um residential windows and roofs?

No. In an effort to uh relieve the burden over homeowners, we've removed windows, roofing, and siding from the fee schedule. Yeah. Because they don't have to be inspected. Correct. Correct. Thank you. Linda, I need to abstain from L whenever we get to that. Okay,

I have an abstension form. I'll have you sign it after the meeting. So, I'll probably have to pull that for a separate vote as well if he's abstaining. So, that's going to be item

L. Okay, we're going to start with item B. Item B is we will we will first call for the consent vote excluding items B, I, L, and V. Okay, this is the consent. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterb, yes. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis, yes. Councilman Icis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, yes.

And the consent vote passes six to zero. And then I will go to item B. Item B is approving the city council meeting scheduled attached here 2 for the year 2026 in accordance with the home roll charter and administrative code of the city of Altuna. Um I'll call for the vote. Councilman Batty, time out. Could we discuss this? Because I'd like to know why this is, you know, if this is being pulled. If there's an issue, I'd like to fix it. I think it's [snorts] having a meeting earlier. We're we're changing up by an hour. Is that what the going from five from six o'clock to 5:00?

And the reason I asked for it to be pulled is I have a I have a problem with the time. Um, and the the problem I have, well, well, first of all, you saw I barely made it in here tonight from work. And I know I'm probably going to be retired sometime later this year, so forget the the personal issue. You know, when I started on city council, we had two meetings, council meetings a month, and we had work sessions on Mondays before the Wednesday council meetings. They were at 7 o'clock. We we did away with the work sessions. We eventually ended up going uh we moved the times to we moved it to Monday, we moved it to six o'clock. We we now really only have one meeting a month and now we're going to move it to five. And and frankly, I I worry about one I think it was going to preclude some people who may want to run for council at some point and say, "Well, I can't I work I can't make a five o'clock meeting." The other thing I'm concerned about is the the opportunity for the public to provide input to a meeting. And I think at five o'clock it's it's um for some folks that's pretty hard to get here to if they're going to want to give public comment on something. So I I I would really rather see the time stay at six o'clock frankly. And that's why I asked for it to be pulled because if it's going to be at 5:00 I'm going to vote no on it. Now, my question is if if if there's not enough votes to pass that because we're required to set the schedule, can we amend that tonight even though we haven't published it?

That's a yes. Yes. Okay. I would be okay staying at six o'

Yeah, if that worked for me. Guess it doesn't matter. Okay. So, I'm calling for an amendment to the Well, then I So, I need a motion to I move that we amend the time back to six o'clock for the meetings. Second. Okay. So, we have a motion to to approve the city council meeting schedule attached here too for the year 2026 with a time change of from 5:00 to 6:00 in accordance with the home charter administrative code of the city of Altuna. And we have a second by a motion by Councilman Kelly and a second by Councilman Ikis. And I'll call for the vote. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterb,

yes. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis, yes. Councilman Ikis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, no. And the vote passes 5 to one. Then we have um the next is going to be. Item I get that on the screen for you. This is appointing Mayor Pacificico to the Amtran Authority for a term of five years. said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2031. I'll call for the vote. Councilman Batty,

I just need clarification. We're voting. Who pulled? I did. I need to abstain, which is why I pulled it for a separate vote. Oh, I didn't know that. So that has to be filled out. Yeah, I'll have to take care of some administrative stuff, but I need to abstain for Yeah, we have an extension statement that we have to complete that has to actually say why you're abstaining. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. Councilman Butterb. Yes. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis, yes. Councilman Ikis is abstaining. Correct. Councilman Kelly,

yes. Mayor Pacificico, yes. That vote passes five to zero. All right. Now, we're going to move on to item L. And this is um going to be the appointing and this is also an abstension appointing Janice Ellis to the Civil Service Board for a term of four years. Said term shall expire the first Monday of January 2030. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterb, yes. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis is abstaining. Councilman Ikis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, yes.

And the vote passes five to zero. And then we have item V. Item V is approving the repository bid submitted by C5 representation for the properties. Do you want me to read the properties again? No. Um, with all the addresses and pro and figures that I had mentioned in the previous reading, um, for further and further authorizing the city manager to execute the taxing district form. Councilman Batty, no. Councilman Butterb, no. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis, no. Councilman Icis, no. Councilman Kelly,

no. Mayor Pacificico, no. And the vote does not pass by 0 to six. I think we can just roll those in as one vote and just at the end for a separate time. All right. So now we have um ordinances. The first ordinance for introduction is an ordinance in the city of Altuna which eliminates chapter 700.20-22.1 of the Altuna city code off streetet parking. Is there a council member willing to introduce this ordinance? So moved.

This ordinance was introduced by Councilman Butterbar. We have a second ordinance for introduction. And it's an ordinance of the city of Altuna, Blair County, Pennsylvania, amending chapter 700, vehicles and traffic to create a new article 12 administration and enforcement of on street parking regulations as well as the enforcement of off- streetet parking lots owned by the city to provide enforcement power to the Altuna parking authority to provide severability of provisions and providing an effective date. Do we have a council member willing to introduce this ordinance?

So moved. This ordinance was introduced by Councilman Batty. We have a third ordinance for introduction which is an ordinance of the city of Altuna amending the code of the city of Altuna chapter 570 residential rental inspection adding section 570-1A family exemption and adding 570-10B general definitions of family provide severability of provisions repealer and provide an effective date. Is there a council member willing to introduce this ordinance? So moved.

This ordinance was introduced by Councilman Butterball. The next ordinance number four is an an ordinance of the city of Altuna amending the code of the city of Altuna chapter 295 entitled disposition of surplus real and personal property amending definitions eliminating unopen paper street amending disposal of other property amending unopen rights of way and orphan parcels provide severability of provisions repealer and provide an effective date. Is there a council member willing to introduce this ordinance?

So moved. This ordinance was introduced by Councilman Ikis. We have a fifth ordinance for introduction which is I'm sorry it's for adoption. It was introduced by Vice Mayor Ellis. It's an ordinance of the city of Altuna, Blair County, Pennsylvania, amending the code of the city of Altuna, adding a new chapter 571 to be entitled halfway recovery, rooming and boarding and institutionalized facility licensing program providing application inspection and licensing requirements and definitions for halfway recovery houses, rooming and boarding houses and institutionalized housing here and after called halfway recovery rooming and boarding and institutionalized facility licensing program. repealing of all other ordinances or parts of laws in conflict therewith, severability of provisions, and providing an effective date. Is there a motion for adoption?

So moved. A second. Second. This ordinance was moved for adoption by Councilman Ikis and seconded by Councilman Ellis. And I'll call the role for a vote. Could we have some discussion about this? Uh Mr. Solicitor, have We had a presentation here this this evening with uh some quoted case law. Uh just want to confirm whether we've done the research to make sure that we're fall within within federal law and case law such

uh if you want to put this if you want to uh defer for 30 days I can take a look at it. I wasn't involved in drafting uh the ordinance. So So we can motion to table it. Sure. I mean if that's what you want to do. I don't know know necessarily. I mean this was crafted by a solicitor. Correct. Who's that? Dan Dan Stan. Yeah. Okay. Well, if that's the case, then I I would trust Dan. Yeah, I would too. Yeah.

All right. Okay. So, we have a motion by Councilman Nikkas, a second by Councilman Ellis, and I'll call the role for a vote. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterb, yes. Councilwoman Clinich is absent. Councilman Ellis, yes. Councilman Icis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, no. And the vote passes 5 to one.

City manager updates. Nothing for the group. Uh, anybody from council have anything? Not tonight, mayor. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay. Questions from the media? Good to have stance here.

Oh, thank you. Um, Mike, could you explain and and maybe you won't be able to because of not drafting it, but can you explain and I think I asked you before in December possibly, but could you explain what the difference will be between the newly adopted the situation for those special um houses, you know, recovery houses and halfway houses, that that sort of thing before, you know, now And after this goes or yesterday and and tomorrow after this new ordinance goes into effect, what's the practical difference?

Uh, Bill, I'm going to have to defer because I uh couldn't answer that question. I would defer to either Dan uh or an appropriate uh city person who can look into it and get back to you tomorrow.

Okay. Okay. Um, given the presentation that was made that were presentations that were made by Autumn Temple and uh, Lisa Han and Nate Germany, I know you guys just voted on it to approve it, but um, any comments, first of all, Bill, we have to have some trust in our solicitor that when we ask them to look into ordinances and laws for us to operate under that that whatever they present to us is falls within the guidelines. We can't hear you back there. I'm sorry.

Sorry. We have to have some trust in the fact when we ask one of our solicitors to look into an ordinance or a law that needs to be created. We have to have some trust that they are following federal, state, and local laws and creating that. So, uh, the presentation was made. That's why I asked the question that was asked. So, Right.

Okay. Well, can somebody explain to me what the impetus for doing this in the first place was? Part of it for me is trying to prevent homelessness because the issue is we have a lot of excellent good-hearted people in this town legitimately trying to help people and we don't want to hurt that effort or block that effort. We also have people that are just in it for the money and when the funding gets goes away, so does the care and they kick them right out onto the street and then they become the next homeless person in Altuna. C

can you get a little more specific about the kind of things that you're talking about? Well, because when the subsidy goes away, the care goes away. There are people that are only in it for the money and trying to crowd as much in as they can. And so they so the way it works is I I almost sort of liken it to comparing it to the Somali daycarees in Minnesota in some cases in Pennsylvania. Like it just is what it is. We're trying to get a handle on homelessness in this town. And when you have people come in for help, get help until the subsidy goes away. Out on the street, they get thrown and the help goes away. And then then that creates a huge burden for our police and for public works and everybody involved and the general taxpayer of the city of Altuna. It's a it's a it's a very big problem that we need to properly address.

Which type of facilities does that happen with here or has it happened with here? Like the recovery house? Various. You mean all all the types? No. Various. There are a lot of people that do things the right way, that help people, that legitimately care, and that are there to help people. There are others. It's just a money-making business and they couldn't care less.

Bill, here's a good example. Um, a few months back, well, it was uh late summer, early fall, uh, Councilman Ellis and I were walking downtown because he got a call about some people that were uh, sleeping along the railroad tracks. So, we walked through downtown on our way down to see if we could um, find the these individuals. And uh we we were walking down Green Avenue and we encountered somebody. So we stopped and asked him if he needed some help and we were trying to um we were trying to make some calls to get him some shel to get him shelter. And we were asking him his story and um he was telling us that he uh came here through one of the halfway houses and then graduated to a uh three quarter house from there and then lost his job and was uh thrown out of the house that he was living in and was forced to

because he didn't couldn't pay. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's uh one of the examples that uh Councilman Butterball is trying to make there. Um, but yeah, I mean that was a a real life example that uh Dave and I, Ellis and I got to see for ourselves. So, yeah, it does happen out there. You know, there are people that um as long as they're paying, they're you know, they're they're they're okay, but as soon as they they as soon as they can't pay anymore, they're out on the street you go. Well, when when you're talking about subsidies, Dave, are you talking about subsidies that connect Wait, let me ask the question. Are you talking about subsidies connected with an individual like like maybe with their what they're talking about or subsidies connected with the

wherever the money comes from? Once the money goes away, the care goes away in some cases. Okay. And and I don't want another tent city in Altuna because that's not helping. Handing somebody a tent and a sleeping bag and a roll of toilet paper and telling them to live on the street in the city of Altuna is not the solution to the problem.

Bill, the other thing that we have to concern ourselves with is the [clears throat] safety of the occupants of these structures. you know, we we have a very comprehensive rental inspection program that my understanding is did not cover some of these these boarding houses, which now will by by us putting this ordinance into effect. And you know, you've sat at enough of these meetings to know that that rental inspection program has uh uncovered some really egregious living conditions. And that's another check and balance that we're trying to put in place. Okay.

People that need help deserve a safe place, too. What's your solution?

Sir, this is question from the media time. Well, I guess I'll I'll throw that question to you. What What do you believe the solution is if if I'm not sure if that's going to elicit any more of a response to get it right? Because as it stands right now, also the people being discriminated against are the taxpaying residents of Altuna. What about them? we represent them, too.

Well, one thing I I did get from I mean, I haven't had a chance to look at the or well, I shouldn't say I haven't had a chance. I didn't haven't yet looked at the ordinance itself, which is in my packet, but um from what um the the commenters were saying at the podium earlier, there are going to be more strict limitations about where these will be located. is that when you Dave were saying about being able to get people um proper housing to to help eliminate homelessness, isn't that going isn't aren't those restrictions going to work against that effort? And remember the key here, the way I see it?

Okay, we want to help Altunans. Well, we want to help Altunans and the way the system works is we go find we go in in some cases some people go looking all over other areas to bring people in because they can get subsidized by bringing people in and as many as they can in some cases and it creates an unsafe environment for the people that we are trying to help.

But did you understand my question? My my question is it seems like the the restrictions on on the requirements to have have these places spaced out. um tighten that having tightened that requirement is going to limit the number of these kind of um limit the number of these kind of supposedly now more safe facilities that will be available to help people homeless and you're saying that it's going to it's going to make it more safe for the people that need help.

Okay. Okay. So, Bill, Bill, to to add to what the council members are saying, um what we're trying to address [snorts] is the safety of the facilities. The state has inspection requirements. We diligently went through with our solicitor. We looked at all the safety requirements. We're not prohibiting anybody from opening a halfway house. We're not probing anybody from any of the listed facilities. What we're saying with the new ordinance is you will comply with all the zoning requirements. You'll comply with all the new code recurrence. You'll comply with the inspection requirements. That includes uh from code from building officials and from the fire department. So, this isn't a blanket no, you can't have a facility. It's just we're getting our arms around a problem. We found some substandard facilities and we're trying to address that

and it's the correct way.

It's the correct way to do business and it it's the greater good. We're looking out for everyone here. So I I understand that this is an emotional argument and and there's people on both sides of the equation. I've taken at least 100 phone calls in the past week from people saying that that the city shouldn't allow a single facility like this in our community that we're destroying our community. And I've sat down and talked to the people on the other side of the equation and I understand where they're coming from. But the housing stock that some of these facilities are being proposed in are not ADA compliant. They don't meet fire inspection requirements. They don't meet code requirements. So what we're saying is if you're going to operate a facility and you're going to be having people living in a facility, it's going to be a safe facility.

Thank you.

Yeah. And we've had too many firefighters injured in situations like this and too many first responders being injured going into places like this to save lives and putting their own lives at risk. And like he said, it's both sides and it's local government. And so, you know, it's it's very hard to make both sides happy and typically the right thing leaves both sides a little bit miffed, but we are really trying to do the right thing for everybody involved. Okay. Um Matt, why did you vote? Wait, I guess was that the same you voted no um on postponing it, right? I was wondering why you did that. on postponing the decision to for Mike to look it over.

You did. No, I voted against uh adopting it tonight because I felt we should have tabled it for 30 days to really make sure that it was airtight.

Okay. Yeah, that's that was what I was talking about. Okay. Um let's see. Oh, okay. regarding the the ordinance introduced ordinance number one the parking ordinance. Could somebody explain the significance of that? So we we have a parking authority and the language in the previous ordinances with the parking authority was outdated and when we brought when we brought on the new management company um there was multiple conflicts in uh ordinances and resolutions that have been adopted over the past several years. So this was um working with uh the parking authority solister and working with our solicitor. [snorts] Um the only way to to solve that issue was to um to sever this ordin or to by passing this ordinance. Uh we removed the previous ordinance and then um we voted to adopt the new ordinance which gives the parking authority the ability to uh manage the city parking lots. Uh and and in our research um it also gives them now uh the ability to do uh parking enforcement across the city. um they're they're not currently set up to do that, but that's something um that we will work towards. Uh the police department has far too many other challenges to deal with than to be dealing with uh parking citations. So, this rolled it under an authority and an agency that has the ability to to enforce the

parking requirements. Mhm. So the the individuals who come here or park here are not necessarily going to see a substantive change with all this, I guess, right? No, I I wouldn't imagine that anybody'd really see a substantial change. It it just sets the requirements for the city parking lots and the parking garage for uh if I remember right from being at the authority now the authority can I mean immediately start enforcing downtown parking ordinances on the street right that's correct okay citywide they can enforce the ordinance they can enforce right but that'll be

that'll be something that happens in the future they're not equipped to do that at this point the target area will be the downtown parking lots in the area downtown in the parking garage. How long do you think it'll take before they're equipped to do the entire city parking the entire city's parking enforcement? Probably a couple of years, Bill. We just wanted to get the framework in place now so that whenever that time is right that it's already set up to go. Okay. Thanks. We're still we're we're focused on downtown for right now. I mean, that's that's the main area for for parking needs. Okay. and enforcement.

And then I guess finally, what what is could somebody explain ordinance number three? It's introduced ordinance number three, the family exemption one.

Yes. So currently in uh the ordinance um that we uh repealed and replaced with with this, it broadens the definition of what a family member is. It was very restrictive and uh we found instances where um somebody was a property owner and had a family member staying in there that was that they were taking care of um and they put them in the house that they owned and it technically violated the ordinance. Um th this is um a situation where we had a number of people come in, talk to us about it. Um, we sat down and we looked at it and we realized that it was far too restrictive for what we're trying to do in the housing arena. So, we broadened the the definition to uh what the family members are so that it uh they can register their property in the rental program.

Bill, this was one that was very near and dear to my heart because for multiple years I fell into this like I I was living in a rental even though it wasn't a rental. My dad owned it. I didn't pay him to live there, but I still had to register my house as a rental, get it inspected every three years. So, this was kind of to help people out that kind that fell into the situation that I was in a few years ago. So, in your dad's house, you had to register as a rental living because it was a rental. He owned it. I didn't own it. Okay. Okay. I mean, for our from our definition, it was defined as a rental, you know.

Okay. And there are cases where people will own like a little side property where they'll have family live there, you know, to help out like older family and stuff like that, too. Bill, but this is an example of how if we don't have it right, we take a look at it and we'll make a change to make it right. And I think council's open to doing those kind of things. And this is a proof in the pudding kind of thing. Okay. Thank you. Is that all? Meeting adjourned. Mayor, what are you doing?