Regular City Council and Housing Authority* - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the study session meeting of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. I now call the meeting to order. Please stand and we'll do the pleasure of allegiance together. Ready, begin. 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. All right. So, Madam Clerk, could you please do the roll call?

Thank you. Would you please read the title to our study session item?

Okay, and we're gonna do a presentation by staff. We normally do with study sessions, it's a little bit more casual. If we choose, we can call each other by our first names and dress a little bit more casually. And then in terms of, we're gonna do a presentation, and then we'll hear from the public, and the public can have three minutes.

Any questions, Council? Council Member Reynolds? I'm sorry, Arliss?

Mike? I thought we were going to public first, but since I've got a couple, I've got a couple. Looking at the presentation, we saw the .5%, I think it was the slide four, and what we're here talking about tonight is this allocation to the first-time homebuyers program. And although there's the other 5% that we allocate to the arts. and just so I'm clear on the presentation or the study session, we're kind of just, when we talk about we could allocate this either to the general fund or allocate it to the housing trust or whatever, we're just talking about this first time home buyer's 0.5%.

Okay. So we could do something with this, and I just want to make sure we're not contemplating touching the arts. Right now they've got their same amount, roughly 230,000 years going to the arts. And we could allocate this 5%, or 0.5% over to the arts as well. We could go any place with this right now. Okay, and I'm just... I'm curious, the 7% that is generated from the cannabis resale tax, where's that other 6% go? Is that just poured into the general fund?

And would we have the flexibility to We could either do this 0.5% into the areas that you guys have identified, pour it back into the general fund. Could we specifically designate it to go to parks or CIP or something like that?

And just more of a comment, just seems first time homebuyers program, when it was first presented to us and which led us to this site, it just seems so cumbersome. And the dollars that we're looking to allocate to a first time homebuyers program hate to sound somewhat crass, but it really can't help that many people or have that broad of an impact it seems like. Whereas in the dollars that we're dealing with could conceivably have a pretty broad impact on improving a park or improving some specific, it would impact the quality of life for a large number of the community that enjoys that park o

Real quick, John, or did, okay, all right.

All right, I just have, I think I have this right. So the first time home buyer fund has approximately 600 grand accumulated with 242 projected annually. Staff projects 842 available after 26, 27 revenue. Proposed assistance 25 to 30 or 35 per household at 600 grand. That theoretically assists only about 24 households at 25,000, 20 at 30. and 17 at 35 before admin costs. So I guess my question is what is the estimated administrative cost per successful home buyer and what percentage of total program expenditures would actually reach the residents versus administration?

Okay. Just to dovetail a little bit off Mike, would the 0.5 require a ordinance change if we wanted to throw that over to arts, the 0.5%? Or could that be done administratively, Kim? If we wanted to move 0.5 of Q to arts, would that require an ordinance change? Yes. It would?

Okay. Okay. So okay, that's all I have for now, thanks.

Any other questions? All right. Oh yeah, go ahead, Arliss.

Thanks, Council Member, I mean, thanks, Lauren. Okay, so let's go to the public. A lot of people looks like they're interested in speaking about this. I don't see anybody. We'll just go to the public and you do them afterwards. Okay, anybody on Zoom? All right, there you go. Close public comment. It's Arliss, you got the floor.

All right. Well, let's get everybody. If anybody wants to make a comment, now is your time and then we can wrap it up. Want to go down the line? A couple questions then. Oh, yeah. You can ask questions too if you wish.

It occurred to me as I'm listening. What kind of federal, state, county first-time homebuyer programs or packages are out there? Because I know first-time homebuyers get special incentivized loans and reduced down payments. And so just in general, I mean, are we reinventing the wheel here a little bit by at the city level having our own FTHB program? And how common are these in other cities?

And it sounds like grants is the way to go so you avoid all the administrative costs.

And even this in a grant, you still, there's a certain level of administration to check for qualifications and make sure that the application checks all the boxes. Okay, yeah, that was it for questions or comments.

You wanna just go down the line? Lauren, you got any comments? Andrea?

Yeah, look, I know staff is looking for some amount of guidance and direction right now from council. I don't feel like I know enough, to be honest, right? I mean, I'm super interested to learn more about the habitat model, particularly in high-cost living areas. Funnily enough, my brother was volunteering on a project over the long weekend in New Jersey that is a very high-cost area, and They're making habitat work, so I'm curious about what's different. I was scrolling back through our old agendas on laser fish, Brenda. It is really, really fun to look at 2004 agendas, by the way. But, yeah,

know we can pull the thread on any of the things that i just mentioned i'm just cognizant that we're running out of time here too at least this council yeah that's that those are my ramblings thank you no that's good so um we're just going i'm just going to go next just going down the line so um i'm in favor of number one uh maintaining the set aside um i think we all We didn't all vote for it, but it was a majority vote of the body back in 2021, and now we actually have the money. So I think we should move, if it were me, my decision, I'd move forward on some form of a program to help people

Jeff? okay thank you john so to me this like a lot of things that we talked about it's really starts with a bigger i guess policy question um is it are we doing this permanent city program to make us feel better or is it a true program that's not just Benefiting a relatively small number of housing beneficiaries rather than returning it to a tangible thing that we can See and know we know where the shortfall is. I mean for me to get on board with this I'm not saying I wouldn't entertain the idea, but does 25 to 35 grant actually change the outcome The staff has said a reviewed comparable progr

All right, thanks. If there's nothing more, we're adjourned.