City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening and welcome to tonight's city council for monday september 14th at first wait a motion to leave the non-public and to seal the minutes of that non-public session so moved second all in favor aye any opposed uh sally will you please take the role uh here

Assistant Mayor Kelly? Here. Councillor Cook? Here. Councillor Tabor? Here. Councillor Belaylock?

Present.

Councillor Moreau? Here. Councillor Flynn? Here. Councillor Hopkins? Here. And absent is Councillor Bagley.

Thank you, Sally. Before we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, I wanted to thank again Chief McClellan and Chief Newport for the 9-11 ceremony that we had on Friday it was incredibly moving to see as many residents from Portsmouth show up to honor the memory of those lost that day and and to recommit to making sure that We feel like we did the day after more as Americans. It was a very powerful and moving ceremony. I also want to call out the efforts of one Portsmouth resident who worked incredibly hard to bring a dream alive on the top of Mount Washington in terms of the two lights, that is a tough place to do anything. And, you know, it was inspiring to see not only the effort and the light that that came out of that, but really what that signifies about our country in New Hampshire, that those that that was started as an organization here and in portsmouth by renee plumber i just want to thank you uh for for being a great example of uh holding the office of citizen uh and and and doing the work uh that that office requires um so so thank you now please join me for the pledge of allegiance now we have um is there does the sound sound different is it just too close i talk too loud is that better all right well okay um uh we have uh minutes and actions of the august 17th 2026 city council meeting your honor i move to accept and approve the minutes of the august 17th 2026 city council meeting second All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Abstain. I was not there. Oh, any abstentions? One. All right. And now we have three proclamations. We're lucky to be joined by a fourth grader named Ainsley Bennett, who won a competition in New Franklin School to become mayor for a day. And so it's really cool. They get to come in. and do a better job than me and everybody tells them that whoever i introduce them that they're doing a better job than me but i think ainsley really did the work that is required she's a great testament to what our schools are producing at new franklin and everywhere incredibly curious and you can tell that she's incredibly empathetic but she wrote a proclamation and she has agreed to come read it. So I'm going to go step down from the dais, and I'm going to ask Ainsley to come up, and she's going to read her proclamation, and it's a good one. So, Ainsley. We can clap while walking down. Thank you.

Thank you. For the record, my name is Ainsley Bent. I'm a fourth grader at New Franklin Elementary School, and here's my proclamation. Whereas it is fun to explore and discover new things that are exciting. And whereas trying new things allows you to love something you never knew existed. And whereas you don't always need to stick with it, but at least you learn something new. And whereas it is important for everyone to try something new. but especially our elementary school students. Therefore, I, Ainsley Bennett, Mayor of the City of Portsmouth, on behalf of the members of the City Council and the citizens of Portsmouth, do hereby proclaim Try New Things Day in Portsmouth and call upon the community to host a Try New Things Day on the first Friday of September at all the elementary schools. Given with my hands and the seal of the City of Portsmouth on this... 17th day of August 2026, Ainsley Bennett, Mayor of Portsmouth.

Thank you, that is all.

council so the council can be a part of the two is that right great one two three one two

as you can tell ainsley is quite impressive so thank you again ainsley and look forward to watching what you're going to do and maybe one day you'll be you'll be up here but i know whatever you do you're going to be doing great things so thank you for sharing this with us very much The next proclamation is a harder one to read, but incredibly important, because when we don't bring awareness to suicide prevention, we fail in our responsibility as leaders and as a city. Whereas the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has designated Stronger Together, Connect, Support, Prevent as its 2026 theme for National Suicide Prevention Month, a reminder that preventing suicide depends on the relationships we build and the support we offer one another. And whereas we know that suicide is preventable, although suicide is complex and influenced by many interconnected factors, Hope and resilience grow when people feel heard, especially in their darkest moments. A simple check-in, conversation shared, story, or helpful resource can make someone feel less alone. And whereas suicide prevention is not a single moment, it takes knowledge, compassion, and care over time. It takes recognizing warning signs and helping and making help easy to find. When someone is having suicidal thoughts, connection and careful planning and follow-up care can help keep them safe. And whereas suicide prevention works best close to home and over time, it works best in small group conversations with peers and professionals, with people with lived experience speaking openly to reduce stigma and to build the kind of trust that leads to lasting healing and recovery. Now therefore, I, Diggle McCackren, Mayor of the City of Portsmouth, on behalf of the members of the City Council and citizens of Portsmouth, do hereby proclaim September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and ask everyone in Portsmouth to check in on the people around them and remember that help is available through the 1-988-SUICIDE and Crisis Lifeline for anyone affected by suicide, which is one of the leading causes of death in this country, given with my hand and the seal of the City of Portsmouth on this 14th day of September, 2026. Now, I would like to ask one member of our community, Elizabeth Robinson, who tragically lost her son, Eli Robinson, and really lives the message of this to raise awareness and started the Robinson Family Foundation to raise more awareness. When we reached out asking if she would accept this award, she said yes without any hesitation, knowing that while this is a difficult, incredibly difficult thing, it's worse to stay silent on this. And she works tirelessly to make sure that it's easier for others to do the work of reaching out. And so we're very grateful, Elizabeth, for all you and your family do in Eli's honor. And we very much appreciate it, as does the entire community. well I I know that there's never an easy time to leave the City Council meeting but you can always leave and you don't have to stick for the rest of the time here so appreciate that you guys have you you skipped out on some other obligations to be here tonight so certainly understand last proclamation is direct support professionals appreciation week Whereas direct support professionals are essential to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of New Hampshire residents living with disabilities, and their dedication to caring for others reflects the true meaning of community. And whereas direct support professionals, direct care workers, personal assistants, and in-home care providers are the primary providers of publicly funded long-term support, services for individuals with disabilities in Portsmouth and whereas direct support professionals assist New Hampshire citizens with disabilities and leading independent lives and are dedicated developing close and trusted relationships with individuals their families and their community to provide a broad range of daily living support and whereas direct support professionals devoted commitment enriches lives by enabling residents impacted by disabilities to participate in civic life and by strengthening communities to the inclusion of people with disabilities and whereas 2026 marks 19 years of celebrating direct support professionals contribution to improving the lives of those they support and the communities they enrich now therefore i dago mccachren mayor of the city of portsmouth on behalf of the members of the city council and the citizens of portsmouth to hereby proclaim september 13th through the 19th 2026 support professionals appreciation week and encourage everyone in Portsmouth to show appreciation for direct support professionals and support efforts that recognize the value of their work in helping people with disabilities live full and connected lives given with my hand and the city of Portsmouth on this 14th day of September 2026 So we have a, we're gonna make a motion to, there's a Friends of the South End Fosse fundraising for Point of Grave's cemetery wall replacement. And Councilor Cook?

Your Honor, I'd like to move up item 16C. That item is the acceptance of donations for Point of Grave's cemetery wall repair with a brief presentation. So I move to suspend the rules and do so. Second.

all in favor aye aye your honor um i believe that martin hansman of fossey is going to be the first to speak followed by a brief um set of four slides that martin and dpw project manager christine sproviero will share and then we'll close it out with kyle a chance from foster good evening mr mayor madam assistant mayor and council members

My name is Martin Hansman. I live at 130 Gates Street, and I'm here on behalf of Posse for the Point of Graves rebuild of the wall. I've been very fortunate to live in the south end of this wonderful city for almost 25 years, and I really appreciate the importance the city of Portsmouth places on its history and the need to promote, preserve, and educate others on its treasures. Shortly after moving here, I was introduced to the Friends of the South End, known as FOSSE, a local neighborhood association whose roots date back to almost 50 years to the initial historic preservation efforts of this city. For many years, I've enjoyed helping FOSSE to protect and enhance this legacy in partnerships with the city, its historic sites, along with many nonprofit organizations in our neighborhood. A few months ago, the Fosse Board was approached by several of the Fosse members to help with a city initiative to rebuild the Point of Grave Cemetery wall. This wall has sadly deteriorated over the past decades, maybe centuries, and has fallen to significant disrepair. The Point of Grave Cemetery, I think most of you know where that is here. and are familiar with it. It is one of the oldest cemeteries, if not the oldest cemetery, in the state of New Hampshire. It has a lot of history, not only here locally, but to many places in New Hampshire. And I think there is a lot of effort in the city to maintain its cemeteries, but in this particular case, it needed a little extra help with a wall. a generous local donor has agreed to help finance a substantial portion of the cost to rebuild the wall and fossey has formed a small committee to focus on fundraising efforts to date this has resulted in several meetings with local community members the distribution of hundreds of pamphlets throughout the south end and participating retailers throughout the city as well as multiple liaisons for the city to better understand the scope and timing the proposed project i'm also very pleased to say that in only a few weeks there have been over 20 donations today totaling almost ten thousand dollars with um i'm sure many more to come so i want to really have a very heartful uh thank you to all of those who have donated so generously A complex project of this scope is always most successful when there is a close partnership between the community and the City, and I want to thank City Council, the Cemetery Committee, the Planning Board, and so many others that have brought this initiative to this stage. On behalf of FOSSE, I respectfully ask the City Council to approve these FOSSE and other donations and to move forward with the rebuilding of the Point of Graves wall. At this time, I'd like to introduce Christine Sbarriero, who is the project manager for the Point of Graves wall project. Thank you.

Thank you, Martin. Good evening, everybody. Christine Spraviero, Public Works project manager. I'm very excited to talk about this project. I won't repeat too much of what Martin said, but as he mentioned, this is a historic cemetery deeded to the city in 1671, located in the city's historic district adjacent to Prescott Park. If you go to the next slide, please. Thank you. So the current perimeter wall is 287 feet. It's in significant disrepair and requires replacement. Obviously a very important historic feature. And in 2013, a conditions assessment was completed and found that the wall had actually been rebuilt numerous times since the cemetery was deeded. using a variety of materials and construction methods as a result the original wall is unknown what exists today is a patchwork of granite field stone brick mortar repairs and spray applied concrete from different eras so while those repairs extended the life of the wall a comprehensive replacement is now the most appropriate long-term solution next slide please thank you so we had a local landscape architect firm terra firma landscape design the new wall it will have a dry stacked stone appearance with granite capstones and it is designed to complement the character of a 17th century cemetery and the surrounding historic area so this will be durable attractive and much easier to maintain a big part of this is making sure that it can support the mechanic Street So that was obviously an important consideration. Next slide, please. So historic preservation projects of this nature require substantial investment in design, engineering, archaeological oversight, and construction. so the donations we are requesting council acceptance for this evening will provide an important funding source that allows the city to move forward with wall replacement project and i think that's that's all i have to say and with that i will hand it over to fossey president kyle a chance thank you thank you

Thanks, Christine. Hi, I'm Kyle Lachance. Fosse would like to thank the city for working with us as we undertake this fundraising effort. Specifically, I'd like to thank Suzanne Woodland, Christine Sproviero, and Peter Rice for meeting with us and answering our many questions. We appreciate the partnership. We'd also like to thank Martin and Nancy Hansman and the rest of the Point of Graves Committee for organizing the fundraising. Thanks to Brian Lachance for the regular Fosse Point of Graves website updates, which were not easy. And lastly, thanks to everyone who made generous donations, some of whom are here tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Kyle. Is that it?

Your Honor, as part of Item 16C, there are two motions that are necessary as part of the acceptance of the donations.

Your Honor, I move to accept with thanks a donation from an anonymous resident from the South End of up to $240,000 for the Point of Grave Cemetery wall replacement. Second.

Any discussion? Councillor Cook.

this is an extremely generous donation on the part of a resident of the South End and I just wanted to extend my personal thanks to this individual for contributing up to two hundred and forty thousand dollars for this project it's certainly significant there's you know words that we could put in there but there's a you know

there's a phrase the freddie patron uh says a lot you lift a finger or you point a finger you gotta lift a finger this is raising your whole arm uh you know jumping up and down so just appreciate um uh the the financial uh contribution um but equally as important is the the view of preserving our history uh for for future generations to come and that uh is the work of all of all of us in portsmouth and i just want to call out especially the work that that goes into the friends of the south into making sure that this is preserved so thank you uh on behalf of the city of portsmouth your honor all in favor aye any opposed i also move to accept with thanks the additional donations for the point of grave cemetery wall replacement from kyle the chance robert lambert

Emily Rosler, Lenore Leonardi, Peter Morin, Elizabeth Grady, Jolanda Fannin, Donald Margeson, Nancy Hansman, Jolanda Fannin in honor of Jim and Minxie Fannin, Douglas and Mary Nelson, the Bodook family, Daniel J. Brown, nancy hammond diane schaefer in memory of alicia biard two anonymous donations and gino's chowder and sandwich shop with amounts as presented in the attached memorandum second apologies if i didn't get anyone's name right

i see how hard you have it now mayor that's uh um again uh thank you uh to the to the project uh manager christine and and i know uh suzanne has uh done a lot of work on a committee that she don't intend I don't think ever intended to spend as much time on but certainly did the cemetery committee and again all the friends of the south end listed and and not listed here it's incredibly impressive and should serve as a inspiration to others around the city in that we can we can contribute in many ways big and small to the future of our city and so thank you for that

all in favor aye any opposed thank you again guys appreciate it your honor um i'd like to move to suspend the rules to bring up item 11b under city managers items which require action the memorandum of agreement for portsmouth school district parent educators second

Thank you, Your Honor.

We're excited to present to you this evening a one-year memorandum of agreement with the Portsmouth School District Paraeducators. We are in the process of determining how best to allocate a whole bunch of different terms and contracts across unions, and this one-year extension with COLA of 3.03 retroactive till to july 1st will um get uh us through this year with the paraeducators and we look forward to starting negotiations again shortly any other any discussion oh we don't have the motion we do need a motion right i'll move to accept the memorandum of agreement for portsmouth school district paraeducators as presented second

I'll just say these are some of the most valuable members of our school district. I know I see them every day, but they support our students. We are a better team with them, but they are necessary, and I'm glad we have them.

Indeed. Oh, Councillor Flynn.

Thank you, Mayor. I was just going to, I would echo what Councillor Bloodlock said, and this feels very straightforward and well-deserved by the paraprofessionals in town.

i get to see uh now i got aurelia in class uh in kindergarten um and i i think that it's i'm just speaking as uh as a parent um that gets to see uh firsthand um and i think we just saw it um i was hopefully ainsley doesn't um isn't upset but when she was uh sitting in the back um one of the uh of paraeducators in attendance that if you get nervous, just pretend you're talking to me. And I think that there is so much that goes in those paras in the classroom when assigned to a child or not brighten the entire classroom and make everything work throughout the entire education system that we have in here so whether or not there is a with a plan with an individual IEP or not the the effect on our classrooms is the same that we all benefit from the pair educators doing a very difficult job but one that we could not could not have the school department that we do without and so thank you we look forward to having a a full contract and i'm glad that this gets us to the point where we can and and looking forward to another great school year so we'll call the vote all in favor aye any opposed thank you again thank you all next up we have anything that we're taking out of order again public comment all right oh yeah okay we got one more contract to do and then um uh we will um could we uh await a motion to take uh eleven a eleven a eleven a i think a motion to suspend the rules to move forward eleven a second

all in favor aye any opposed city manager thank you your honor we're pleased to provide to you a memorandum from our labor negotiator tom clausen and a proposed employment agreement for newly promoted recently promoted deputy fire chief scott egan who's been with the department for a long time we are pleased to work with scott and he will focus specifically on training and es ems functions for the department so we're happy to bring you this employment agreement for three years

Your honor, I move to accept the proposed employment agreement for Deputy Fire Chief Scott Eging as presented. Second.

Any discussion? uh the chief and scott would be here till midnight um if we didn't do that and i appreciate that there usually are uh we're not gonna be here to midnight tonight right guys um but uh that uh they're they're always uh here whether it's a um a piece of equipment or a budget uh item um always here so happy to bring this one up a little bit uh earlier uh well deserved and look forward to the work that you're going to bring to the force the department all in favor aye any opposed thank you congrats all right now we have a public comment moving around um first uh we have stephen longstaff on food street bike lane park

good evening everyone my name is stephen longstaff i live at 244 crescent way in portsmouth in atlantic heights i wanted to show my support for the fleet street contraflow bike lane i often use it to get from atlantic heights to downtown and there's not really any other safe ways for me and my child to ride through the city So we ride on a cargo bike. It's heavy. It's slow. We love it, though. And having that connection to get through kind of the heart of downtown to get to the library, the park, the middle school is a key kind of connector for me. So I just wanted to show my support for that. The second thing, Atlantic Heights, we have a prime location for a park underneath the 95 bridge. it's the space that's sitting there um i can't think of a city i've been to that doesn't have either like a park or a market or something um in space like that so i would love to see something uh come to fruition there thank you thank you stephen thank you uh next uh is nick hobart on uh the alpr alternative oh oh the flock yep

Yeah, that's like the public face of it. Different things. Yeah, hi, my name is Nick Colbert, Fort Smith resident, and I'm here to talk about AOPR. So, sorry, I'm a little disorganized here. So fog cameras, nah, that's not my problem. They've been a bit of a debate lately, so, People like to say that the Fourth Amendment, you know, there's kind of like a gray area. But here's the thing. Flock cameras, they don't ask you. oh, can I get a warrant to look up your license plate on the database? Anybody across the nation, doesn't have to be in New Hampshire, someone in Washington state could look up your license plate, accidentally read it as a long license plate and be like, oh, this person's suspected of a murder. Let's send a SWAT team after them and pull them over and, you know, you're surrounded with a bunch of guys with guns and it wasn't your fault. So, technology can't be trusted. That's what I'm trying to say here. So, Flockner operates over 100,000 cameras across the nation. So many contracts are, you know, Dayton, Mountain View, San Francisco, Columbus, Denver, elsewhere. I found thousands of searches by or on behalf of federal agencies, including immigration-related quarries, even where local policy forbade it. So, ICE has been using it to round up immigrants and, you know, suspend their rights. An officer in Kentucky used it to look up his ex after more than 2,000 searches for his ex, and a Texas detective searched tens of thousands of images in connection with self-managed abortion. So I guess what I'm trying to say here is I'm going all over the place. Flock cameras, they can't be trusted. It's the public face of ALPR, I still can't say that right, cameras. And yeah, we can't have them here in New Hampshire.

yeah thank you thank you nick um next week um i'm going to just because we have a council policy to listen to portsmouth residents first uh john i will come right back to you but next up is tower garza

Good evening, Mayor, Councillors, Tyler Garza, 62 McKinley. I just wanted to briefly support the following. Item 15A, which looks like the adoption of $3 an hour parking fees. I hope that's what will happen. Item 15I, Councillor Hopkins shuttle loop working group. Item 10B, the removal of parking regulations from the zoning ordinance, which is wonderful. i don't know what will come of all the wrap items uh but just a reminder that the converting the parrot lot into a fee-for-use facility is indeed a 2025 parking study recommendation thank you thank you tyler um and is there anyone on yeah there is your honor oh yep annie hello can you hear me loud and clear

Excellent Thank you. So, my name is Annie from 160 Bartlett street. I'm a member of the bike in pedestrian blue ribbon committee, but my comments tonight are. Only as a, as a resident, I'm here to strongly support the proposed changes to feed street between Hanover and Congress, especially the contract flow bike lane. I think the proposed design makes a lot of sense. 18 feet is a lot of space for one car lane. A bike lane and buffer would use that space more effectively, would clearly guide drivers and make it unmistakable that southbound car traffic is not permitted. The bike lane would also make the street feel narrower and so drivers would automatically slow down and hopefully and make the streets safer and more comfortable for everyone finally this is not just about one street the contraflow lane will connect downtown bike routes will reduce unnecessary detours and make our cycling trips shorter and easier. So please support the Fleet Street changes and the contract-filled bike lane. And to quote Mayor Anjali Bennett, it's important to try something new. Thank you.

Thank you, Annie.

And now back to John McCaw from Lee on ALPR.

Good evening, members of the board. My name is John McCaw. I'm a member of Young Americans for Liberty in New Hampshire. I'm here today to urge you to protect citizen privacy by banning fixed automated license plate readers in Portsmouth. New Hampshire has long held one of the strongest privacy traditions in the nation. Article 2B of our state constitution guarantees every resident an explicit right to privacy regarding their personal information and movement. Stationary reader networks like those deployed by private surveillance companies turn our public roads into continuous digital dragnets. They do not just track criminals, they record every innocent neighbor going to work, running errands, or picking up their children. This isn't a hypothetical concern. We have already seen this data misused across the country. Civil liberties organizations and news investigations have documented hundreds of cases of ALPR database abuse, including officers using plate readers to stalk ex-partners, run unauthorized background checks, and track individuals without reasonable suspicion. When thousands of cameras are networked together, all it takes is a single search box for a bad actor to track an innocent person's daily life. Furthermore, our state statute RS-261-75B was specifically crafted to limit automatic plate readers. It strictly regulates them for specific law enforcement needs and requires data not tied to any active investigation be purged within three minutes. Deploying fixed continuous surveillance cameras undermines the direct intent of this law. Outsourcing our travel patterns to private vendors creates unnecessary security risks and exposes residents to potential data sharing beyond our state borders. We do not need to sacrifice fundamental liberty for effective public safety. I respectfully ask you to uphold New Hampshire values, honor and constitutional protections, and ban these automatic surveillance networks and our municipality. Thank you for your time and for your service to our community.

thank you John and just as a note to the folks following this the police commission will be meeting tomorrow night at 7 p.m. to discuss 530 530 530 that's early and there has not yet been a report back from legal it's waiting till after that meeting but it was raised but councillor bagley is not here this evening it will be likely at the next council meeting but 5 30 police commission meeting tomorrow discussing this matter next up uh thank you again all of the public comment um i get so thrown off when i when we're jumping around here all right uh public comment public hearing and vote on ordinances and or resolutions

first reading to amend chapter one administrative code article three boards section one point three zero two appointments tenure and removal your honor i would move to pass first reading to chapter one article three boards section one point three o t three o two d appointments tenure and removal and schedule a public hearing and second reading for september 28th 2026 city council meeting second

any discussion again this is for first reading we'll have the opportunity to speak or the public of the opportunity to speak on this at the next is it for the next it is for the next council meeting all in favor aye any opposed item number b first reading to amend chapter 10 zoning ordinance by removing most parking regulations from the zoning ordinance to the site plan review regulations except one and two family dwellings by amending article 2 administrative enforcement section 10.240 conditional use permits article 5 a character-based zoning section 10.5a44 street parking and loading requirements section ten point five a four four point two zero number of required spaces article B 5b gateway neighborhood mixed-use districts section ten point five B eight zero parking and loading requirements and standards section ten point five B eight two number of required spaces section ten point five e83 location of motor vehicle parking facilities article 6 overlay districts section 10.685 parking article 8 supplemental standards section 10.815.30 parking requirements article 11 site development standards section 10.1110 off-street parking section 10.1112 number of required spaces section 10.1113 location of vehicular use facilities section 10.114 design of off-street parking facilities section 10.1115 off-street parking provisions in the downtown overlay district section 10.11

16 bicycle parking and section 10.1120 off street loading your honor i move to pass first reading and schedule public hearing and second reading at the october 13th 2026 city council meeting i second that any discussion

your honor attorney McCourt could address the issue there are a couple issues with this ordinance and you may have seen some correspondence in your City Council email so he'd be happy to address those and you can contemplate whether you want to make an amendment to this prior to publishing for a second meeting oh yeah okay

Thank You mayor members of the City Council there as city attorney Morell noted there are two sections within the zoning ordinance which were I think missed on the first pass-through this is brought to our attention by zoning board member Tom nice was sent to all of you and These are just 2 small pieces to bring the complete package of removing all parking requirements. Most parking requirements from the zoning ordinance and placing them into site plan review regulations. The 1st is contained in 10.232.38, which is relative to special exceptions. This allows the zoning board as a part of the special exception process to add additional parking requirements in addition to what is in the zoning ordinance. Most of those requirements are being removed. You could either leave that in because there are a few very narrow circumstances where a special exception is necessary for single family or two family homes which would then be exempt from site plan review regulations. But there is not really a good reason to keep in the phrase all loading zones in that section. So I would recommend at least removing the phrase all loading zones. You could remove the entire section. Or you could leave it as is, I suppose, but that would be my 1st recommendation. The 2nd would be, and I can talk more about this, what that specifically affects if anyone's interested, but I'll keep moving here. The section, the 2nd section would be 10.244.50, which is relative to conditional use permits. since conditional use permits for parking are proposed to be eliminated entirely as a part of this particular set of amendments the only situation where you would need a conditional use permit for a single or two-family structure would be for a wetlands conditional use permit and i can't think of a scenario where the planning board would be issuing a wetlands conditional use permit and requiring more parking so i would certainly recommend and that is for off street parking and loading spaces so i'd certainly recommend that the council amend the current motion to eliminate entirely 10.244.50 those are the two sections and i'll answer any questions anyone has thank you attorney mccourt any questions

so the second one was pretty clear in that the special exemption would where the zba in that case would be adding parking uh in a wetlands and that there's no reason that that would exist correct is that

Right. The planning board issues can issue these permits and that would that's only would only apply in the wetlands context. Doesn't really make any sense there with a special exception under the zoning ordinance as it's written. You need a special exception to construct a townhouse in the or the. And you also need a special exception to convert a pre 1980 constructed building. with less than the minimum lot area to have two dwelling units and the gra the grb and the grc um so under those scenarios as written the zba could require more parking than than is required uh for those that would be the authority you would be leaving them with but would like I said there's not going to really be a rationale to require that any of those properties have a loading zone so it's certainly recommend removing the reference to a loading zone you could also remove the ability of the ZBA to require additional parking above and beyond what the zoning ordinance already requires in those zones or you could leave it but that's up to you okay councilman under our state law though wouldn't the cba be limited to how much they can increase it because under state law we're only allowed to ask for so much parking well it's different because there's you're in the the land of special exceptions um so it's a it's a separate analysis i think to be uh true to the spirit of what has already been advanced up to this point by the planning board i think the thing to do would be to strike just the all loading zones phrase but you could certainly strike the entire thing

I'm prepared to make a motion if you would like me to.

Please.

I'd like to move to amend section 10.232.38 to strike the words and loading zones.

Second.

And I'd make another motion to amend to strike 10.244.50 relative to the conditional use permit conditions of approval and move to strike the entire section.

second okay so those are two separate motions there are two amendments to the oh two amendments yeah we vote on one person so we vote them each though right correct yeah all right we'll take the second one up i guess first since it's now on the floor um would you repeat that motion again sorry that's the one on all right uh move to strike section 10.244.50 relative

to conditional use permit conditions of approval but i do have to ask a question because i'm now seeing it's 10.224 for 10.244 i have it two different ways written down which one was correct i have ten point two four four point five zero two four four okay so it's right here thank you so i said it right any further discussion

all in favor aye any opposed and now the first with regard to loading zones and yeah that's moved to amend to strike from section 10.232.38 to strike just the words and loading zones same Any further discussion? I think it was pretty clear from Attorney McCourt, and also thanks for Tom Neese for pointing some of this out. Certainly look forward to his public comment, if he chooses to give it when this is scheduled for public comment. But any questions on the amendment? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Attorney McCourt. Any conversation or questions, comments on the motion to schedule second reading as amended? Councillor Murrell.

i just like to say this is something we've been working on for a very long time and it's always easy to miss different areas when you're trying to go through such a voluminous thing and it's in several different places but this was an originally part of our request from housing committee it's been one of the ways that we feel like it's going to be more streamlined because one of the things we've always talked about in our council goals is to try to streamline and make projects easier and we have a lot of trouble sometimes when it's written into your ordinance to be able to say okay a development that's outside our downtown court compared to one inside really has different market conditions and needs for parking and therefore by putting it into the site plan review regulations it gives the planning board a little bit more flexibility on what it's going to require and we can actually have them bring us their you know expert opinions from each project basically you know letting us know because of these conditions this is what parking will be so I look forward to hearing the public's conversation about this but I do think it will really help to streamline projects especially where parking is considered counselor counselor

Thank you, Your Honor. I look forward to seeing, if this gets through the three readings process, what implementation looks like on this side, and if it does actually streamline this process effectively. It is a nice step in the right direction. I personally would favor eliminating parking requirements, and hopefully this gets us to a place where we can start looking at that more seriously down the road.

Councillor Tabor and Councillor Cook.

Just to echo what Councillor Moreau said, this has been an initiative from the Housing Committee for a long time. If you want to find out what you need to do to make it easier to build housing, you talk to people who build housing. And we did that. We talked to a number of developers. some large some small and nearly all said that projects can really get hung up on our exacting parking requirements so this makes it part of site review it's limited to buildings larger than three units so it it doesn't do radical things to neighborhood character. And it will get us a long way towards easier construction of multi-unit housing.

council tabor council morrow i'd just like to point out that we are going to be taking public um comments regarding what has been put into site plan review regulations i believe at this thursday's planning board meeting so anyone's interested to know how it will put in it it's part of that package so in council morrow i look forward to this conversation the public comment i will say that it is um

It's hard to read this. just this first reading and i don't mean that the work that has gone into it has not been clear it's just the work that goes into the zoning ordinance just in general section 10.240 i mean there's a lot of sections i doubt a single person followed a single thing that i said as i was reading through all this um and i and i'm hoping out of the master plan we're going to be we're going to be looking at all our zoning to make it understandable i think that sometimes as we create all of these different character-based zoning, all these rules, it becomes very complicated. In that complexity, I think there's opportunities for things that we didn't really intend to ever happen start to be the norm. And so while I can support the idea of moving this to site plan review where it's maybe easier to understand, my broader hope and my broader goal is to get closer to the type of zoning that we had when we were really building the Portsmouth that most people really love. I asked Attorney McCourt to show me the first zoning book that we had, and it was about, I don't know, this big on this postage stamp. Now we have, you know, a Bible wouldn't do it justice. It's a very large amount of text. And in that, I know it's hard to simplify it, but I do believe that if we can simplify the zoning to a point, and again, this is a start to simplify the zoning, but I hope that this is not viewed as as the end result and what we're trying to achieve and not to you know listen to what developers would would want but just so that we as a city understand the zoning that that we have in our master plan and to to begin to trust ourselves to be able to build the things that we want to see built in our own city. So this will be a step to a big conversation that we'll have around the master plan, and I appreciate not only the work of the housing community to go into this parking is you know all we talk about in the last couple weeks will be for quite a while it's important but it also has pretty big effects on on the quality of life that we get to have here in the city so look forward to second reading and for folks that are incredibly smart to come and speak to for against this um and to make the case on why this is a good idea or a bad idea but i appreciate the effort that came uh to bring this idea to the table all in favor aye any opposed next is first reading to amend chapter 10 zoning ordinance city of portsmouth zoning map to be amended to change the district boundary of the historic district by adding and removing the following parcels pursuant to chapter 10 article 4 zoning and district use regulations section 10.421 district location and boundaries section 10.421.10 i moved to pass first reading and schedule a public hearing and a second reading at the october 13th 2026 city council meeting second um and i'm just uh is this in the if somebody wasn't you got to read the packet to see what those you do there are several maps and okay but we're going to have this in terms of for second reading uh we're going to have all this information but uh counselor

uh thank you your honor um this these changes just bring the map in line with the intent of the district was which was to preserve middle street so when the map was drawn lines were drawn at a certain distance from middle street rather than based upon lot lines and as a result some properties that are not on middle street were captured accidentally in the historic district and have been subject to review by the historic district commission for projects the goal of this is to remove several of those properties that are not on middle and truly capture the middle street district by realigning the boundary lines with property lines

I'm glad to see this before us. I remember Discussing this on the HTC when mr. Wyckoff was chair So glad to see that this is moving forward You know as councillor cook said yeah the the intent of this is to keep the front row of the houses on that street as preserved as historic But it was involving more lots than it needed to and raising costs for some homeowners So I'm glad to see this

thank you council bug do you miss the hdc i miss it so much two meetings a month you know i mean it's we only get one you know only one committee does that councilman um i'd just like to add if if the planning board actually looked at the entire hdc district and other changes we got some pushback on some of the other areas but when we had a joint meeting with the hdc and planning board we really came to the conclusion that this is this one strip doesn't have a whole lot of pushback um to not go forward because it actually is really helping a lot of homeowners so um we looked at it and we moved forward at least with this section of historic district and maybe in the future we'll take a look at other areas as well excellent again to pass first reading and to schedule the public hearing all in favor aye any opposed

uh next is the public hearing and second reading to amend chapter 10 zoning ordinance article 2 administration and enforcement section 10.234 procedures for variances special exceptions and appeals from decisions of code officials section 10.264 expiration and abandonment of appeal approvals and article 10 environmental protection standards section 10.1017.70 expiration and extension uh and we have a presentation thank you peter for being here mayor and city council um this should have a few slides on this presentation of these um

Zoning amendments that impact Board of Adjustment notice and conditional use permit expiration and extension procedures. The proposed changes address two primary topics. First is the public notice requirements that we have for applications before the Board of Adjustment. second involved the expiration and extension process for conditional use permits the Planning Board voted to recommend these amendments at their July 16th meeting to go to the next slide the first topic is section ten point two three four point five zero current language requires notice for Board of Adjustment applications beyond what the state law requires Um, and these amendments will remove the local notice provisions that exceed the state requirement and they'll align with state law. Um, and really rely on what the statutory definition of what in the butter is. Is that me?

Nope.

All right. just some background music so again these these amendments will align with what is required for state law to for notification and it will also reduce mailing costs for applicants and processing time for staff to process the excess requirement for notification um having said that it's not going to reduce the amount of notifications we we have last year we created a notification system that residents can sign up to to be notified for any and all land use boards and city council and i think we've had success in the numbers we're going to continue to promote that so that anyone can get any sort of notice for any any board or commission if you go to the next slide so that that sums up the the noticing the next change is related to the conditional use permits currently for a conditional use permit you can get one one it's good for one year and then you can get one one year extension We find that a lot of times condition these permits are in conjunction with site plans and. Well, the site plan can be extended for multiple years. The conditional use permit expires after a year. And so we found that projects have had to go back and get a brand new conditional use permit. so the goal here is to sync those approvals so if you have a site plan and a conditional use permit that condition use permit can be extended as long with as along with that site plan so this would be an effect for anything that that comes before the planning board for site plan approval and a conditional use permit Go to the next slide. For standalone conditional use permits, so something that is just a standalone, it could be a wetland conditional use permit that doesn't require site plan, the change would be that the planning and sustainability director may grant the initial one-year extension, and then that applicant could receive additional extensions through the planning board following a public hearing. And the next slide is related to wetland conditional use permits. So this section in Article 10 has separate procedures for wetland conditional use permits. The change is just to reference the proposed amendments in Section 10.246 so that it creates a single consistent extension process for all conditional use permits throughout the ordinance. and that is the sum of these amendments i'll take any questions if there are any any questions for mr stiff

We'll see anybody open the public hearing to for against these changes for additional public or additional council questions. Seeing no one rise and no one on Zoom closing the public hearing. the I guess on the seems to make sense in terms of the being able to make this all kind of follow the similar pathway for CUPS and tying it to the site plan approval when it comes to the the notice Is there, could we just describe a little bit more in terms of like, I guess like my, and I could be wrong about this, but the proactive nature of signing up for all projects is kind of skewed at people that are you know super involved are we thinking of anything for a casual observer to come in terms of the city website that can find more easily projects if they were noticed or learned about them is there efforts underway to make it easier for somebody to look it up i mean i i get the folks that are super interested in everything that's happening in the city

they're gonna kind of figure it out on their own it's just the the folks that that may be more surprised what are the plans to the notification is for would be for a specific board so if I want to keep track of what's going on with City Council I would sign up for alerts to get notified when a City Council packet is published so it's the same for a zoning board or planning board or historic district commission or the conservation commission so it's just signing up to get to get an email notification that hey a a packet has been published for this board or commission so it's not project specific

board specific right i guess i'm just like i the um support this because the the process right now supporting things in terms of the paper which is a other very small subset of users now i guess i would just love if there could be thought uh brought into on a notification that i guess there's a there's a group of people that are going to sign up for you know a litany of of boards or be very focused on boards and then there's the people that i would say maybe more normal people uh that are not you know and i'm not i'm putting myself in the weird you know uh sign up camp here you know as a person the city council but just is there a way that we could um have people be able to sign up for things that are in a you know in their neighborhood uh down the road is there a way that we can have notifications instead of by board by by region that's that's more specific to a um you know uh a part of town um i think we would have to talk to it about that about how we could you know expand that sign up notice for um

All right. I mean, it could be possible. I mean, they're working on search things now with AI through searching the website for projects. So if you wanted to find out something for an address that was before board, it would pull up anything that we have on our website related to that property, even the video to the minute of where it's discussed. I know our IT is working on that right now.

Okay again and this is easier from a standpoint of its limiting our ability to kind of you know like be able to do things and relying on the paper which is not reaching as many people as it might have previously done but we just like to try to think about how do we better engage and it's probably searched through the site of being able to when they hear about it find it more easily without having to search through that but appreciate the effort thus far. Councillor Tabor.

question here so just in terms of if I'm a resident and let's say Woodbury Avenue there was a project there that took some Lots combined them and turned them into several houses if I were a neighbor how would I be notified of that project well currently we

Currently for any board, we select within 300 feet of the lot, subject lot, which is beyond what the state law requires. It requires direct abutters if you're across the street or stream or directly connected to that property or diagonally. So it would reduce the amount of notification for your neighborhood because you wouldn't be considered a direct abutter. So that's what the change is to be conformance with what the state law requires. And right now we're doing beyond that. And in a lot of cases, people are like, why am I getting this notice? I'm 300 feet away. So we do get that. Thank you. Councilor Cook.

um your honor i'm going to go ahead and make a motion so i would move to pass second reading and schedule a third and final reading to amend chapter 10 zoning ordinance article 2 administration and enforcement section 10.234 procedures for variances special exceptions and appeals from decisions of code of code official section 10.264 expiration and abandonment approvals and article 10 environmental protection standards section 10.1017.70 expiration and extension for the september 28 2026 city council meeting second any discussion counselor cook Thank you, Your Honor. I wanted to thank the Planning Department, Planning and Sustainability Department, and the Planning Board, I'm guessing, for the work that was done here on these changes. I think it really helps reduce some of the paperwork burden on applicants, and it also reduces the burden on the Zoning Board to review cases that we've already granted extensions elsewhere. So thank you.

Councilor Cook? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Next up is public hearing and second reading to amend chapter 7 vehicles traffic parking and parking article 3 traffic ordinance section seven point three three zero a no parking which will be which will move parking spaces from west side to east side of Fleet Street as presented and there is a presentation there is welcome Eric Eby

Good evening. I'm Eric Eby, traffic engineer with the DPW, and we're here tonight to present the proposal to change Fleet Street from two-way traffic to one-way traffic running from Congress Street to Hanover Street. This has been before the PTS, and there is a lengthy project behind this as far as the public process. Dave here could explain that but it's been going back several years where we did a public questionnaire businesses and residents and what they would prefer and the results of that came out that they would prefer one-way street with wider sidewalks it was about a split on whether or not to keep parking or remove parking And the current proposal was to keep parking. And with some changes that have also been going on in that time, which is the approval of the changes to Gillies, closing off their parking lot, it gives us the advantage or opportunity to move the parking to the other side of the street. and with a one-way flow uh requirement of minimum width for emergency vehicles is 18 feet from curb to parking space 18 feet so that leaves room for either 18 foot travel lane or in this case what has been proposed is an 18 foot i mean 12 foot one-way travel lane in a six foot wide contraflow bike lane because we need that 18 feet to meet emergency requirements it's a lot of pavement out there and we wouldn't want to leave it at just a single 18 foot wide lane so the proposal is to make a contraflow bike lane in the opposite direction separated from the travel lane the travel lane would be reduced down to 10 feet width and there would be a two foot buffer in between the bike lane and the travel lane And the bike lane would be marked with arrows, only bike symbols, making it clear that it's only traffic going in that one direction for bicycles only. And the reason for, you know, normally bicycles have to follow the same rules of the road as vehicles. So in order to allow this contraflow bike lane, it does take a special wording in the ordinance to specifically call out allowing the contraflow bike lane to be going against normal flow of traffic. If the Contraflow bike lane is approved, we also recommend shifting the parking to the other side of the street. That way parked vehicles trying to access the parking spaces don't have to cross that Contraflow bike lane. The doors wouldn't be opening into the bike lane and they wouldn't be exiting traffic across the Contra bike lane. In addition, moving the parking to that side of the street also makes it easier for vehicles turning right into the Hanover Garage. Anyone who's tried making that right turn from the curb lane now, it's a very tight angle and you can't get to the parking gate very easily. You're at an angle and it's a long reach out your window to try to get to that ticket. So this would have better alignment getting in and out of the garage. As well as coming out of the garage, be a right turn only going up to Hanover Street and allows for a lot wider sidewalks there. And also under current conditions with the two-way flow on Fleet Street, at heavy times coming into that entrance of the garage, the left turns coming in and the right turns will both queue up and effectively just blocks Fleet Street traffic in both directions. So with one-way flow, you'd only have a right turn waiting to get into the street. You wouldn't be blocking traffic. You could get around them. If there's a queue waiting to get into the garage, one-way traffic, you can get around the stopped vehicles. It provides for wider sidewalks possible outdoor dining if needed if desired and So this is the overall concept plan showing the design where the sidewalks have bumped out at either end and there is a cross-section we have all right so we have cross sections there in the packet there's one here at the parking garage another one near here at Gillies and Newbury Way and then another one down at this and if you could change the slides I will walk you through those cross sections there you go so this is looking from Hanover Street looking down Fleet Street towards Congress Street on the left here is the on the left is the parking garage building and then we have a wider sidewalk in this area with tree this would be the 12 10 foot travel lane the two-foot buffer double yellow line with buffer gore lines. And then this is the six-foot-wide Contraflow bike lane heading to Congress Street. And then this is the sidewalk along that side of Fleet Street. Next to that, the parking lot at Legends. If you can go to the next slide, I'll show you that this is the cross-section where the parking is provided along Fleet Street. This is the Gillies on this side here. The sidewalk would be closed. This is the entrance to their parking lot would be closed so we'd have a full sidewalk with curbing. Parking spaces in this area, eight feet wide of parking. Then the 10-foot wide travel lane one way from Congress to Hanover. Again, the two-foot wide buffer area for between the Contraflow bike lane heading towards Congress Street and the travel lane heading towards Hanover Street. the wider sidewalk on the green room side and the next slide is last cross-section showing down near the Congress Street end this is the that's 55 Congress Street here at the corner the sidewalk the 10-foot wide actually a little bit wider here 11 and a half foot wide travel lane at Congress as we make the turn onto Fleet Street it gets wider a little wider painted buffer as well, and a six-foot bike lane with a wider sidewalk along the Franklin block. So in order to accommodate the Contraflow bike lane with the new signal that's going in at the intersection of Congress and Fleet, there would be a special bicycle signal head up on the mast arm. So the bicycles would have their own green signal for the bike lane. They would have a red light at other times and a green light, so they would have to obey traffic rules just as vehicles do at that intersection. um i think you know dave can explain some of the uh thinking behind the the the reasoning for the uh the project a lot of it is due to getting the sidewalks more usable in this area we have a lot of pedestrian traffic coming out of the hanover garage and the sidewalks out there are very minimal and hard to maintain and yeah so dave defoe is from dbw thank you eric

um so we talked last time uh we were here two months ago about um really the necessity to bring the sidewalks into uh ada compliance and uh the ada requires that um certainly there are there's you know the accessibility going to the shops the pathways coming in and out of driveways minimum widths which are technically smaller than well you know the minimum widths are four feet is actually allowed but a sidewalk of that width is not maintainable with our current equipment i mean more you know just bottom line is um our equipment is really set up for sidewalks of no less than five feet and at five feet it's extremely challenging For our employees to get down the sidewalk without causing damages to the buildings so a few years ago Probably probably five years ago now we we've switched our standards so that we don't build sidewalks in this city less than five and a half and that's in a residential zone and when there aren't things immediately on the side of the sidewalk that are very breakable so uh you'll see in these slides that we're trying to we're trying to build sidewalks that are you know of downtown size so that multiple people can pass on a sidewalk without having to step into the street uh and so that our tractors can clear up the sidewalk and maintain them of snow and ice so that they stay ada compliant year round

Thank you, Dave. Any questions for Dave or Eric on this? Councillor Moreau and then Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you for the presentation. I love the cross-sections. That really helps to be able to see what it's actually going to look like for me. I guess my only concern at this point is how are we going to prevent people from parking in the bike lane and like trying to unload? You know, we get trucks that do it all the time. Is there a way we can make sure there's signage to make sure that we don't have people illegally parking in the bike lane?

yes councilman moreau of course we would sign that probably every couple hundred feet the striping will be very obvious that you're not supposed to park there it's going to be there will be the bike symbols that you you see on middle street that just got painted and those be going down um every so often down the lane to make it very obvious that this is hey this is not a parking space this is a travel lane You're not supposed to be parked here. In addition, you know, if we do entertain some loading on Fleet Street, it would be in the areas that's reserved for parking now. So we would have maybe split parking on that side. You know, maybe you do early morning loading, and then it switches to parking once parking is more necessity than loading would be, if that makes sense.

Yep, thank you.

Councilor Hopkins and Council Butler.

Thank you. Thank you guys again for a great presentation. I have a question about the cross-section. I'm noticing on the first cross-section closest to the Hanover Garage, the biker appears to be on brick on a shared sidewalk. And then when they get to Gillies, they're on blacktop with the sidewalk. And the first one, to me, would be helpful with that buffer at that intersection of fleet and Hanover to really show people, like, you can't turn here. This is a sidewalk. But also, having just visited Amsterdam, where this is the setup of all of their streets, it might be confusing for bikers and pedestrians to the biggest risk that, you know, whenever we were saying, like, how do we not get hit as dumb Americans riding our bikes in Amsterdam? was don't walk into the bike lane when you're on the sidewalk. So thank you for being observant.

we had to get the council packet out a couple weeks ago so we are still playing with I want to use the word playing with the idea of what to do at Hanover and fleet intersection to make sure that cars don't enter a thinking that that's a travel way so our current thinking was to extend the pavers out and create a bump out and then somehow create a very narrow bicycle lane through that but at the same time that's all plowable so we can maintain it so we're we're still playing with what materials we're going to use uh but it will make it obvious whether it's a change in you know maybe we use the same bricks that we used um in the crosswalk across hanover street at vaughn mall and portwalk So those are pavers, but they come in gray. So maybe they're a different color than the normal sidewalk color. So that's obvious that the bike lane actually does continue, but then there are other colors on the other side so that a motorist doesn't think that they can turn down there. It's just kind of giving you a color clue that, hey, this is not the way to go in. So we're still kind of playing with materials, but that's why that one cross-section is a little different.

Thank you.

council hopkins council book thank you honor um and thank you dave and thank you eric um i'm excited to possibly have ada accessible uh sidewalks in downtown year round um but i was actually gonna have the same question i noticed the bike lane was flush with the sidewalk in one and then um on the street level and the other um the flush that would obviously that would eliminate your problem with people parking in a loading zone or you know using the bike lane as a loading zone um but yeah i would especially this being a change and new you know people probably turned down fleet street off hanover for you know many years um so i wouldn't make sure that would be clear but thank you again hey cancer cook

uh thank your honor um i had two quick things i have no problem with this plan i think it's actually a fantastic plan um the one thing though that i wanted to make sure that we weren't doing is putting parking in front of the new uh walkway that will be connecting to essentially connecting from fleet all the way to commercial alley that we don't put a parking yeah haven court exactly so we don't put a parking spot there that makes it look like it dead ends into a car so that is one concern i have but the other is is time frame i know we're also doing von maul soon and i just wanted to know kind of time frame that you expect to do fleet street because the residents that are on the other side of hanover i i want to make sure that they have still have access to downtown easily while we're doing these two projects

Thank you, Councillor Cook. Right now, the timeframe that we're looking at is we are looking at, we have M. Granice & Sons still working in downtown. They're still under contract. We're thinking about doing the utility work in that section of Fleet Street late this fall and early winter, similar to Congress Street. We don't have a full proposal yet for city manager yet to sign off on, but that is kind of where we're thinking that we should head. if we go down that pathway then I would be thinking that we would be putting Fleet Street back together as far as sidewalks and bike lanes and that sort of thing in the spring sort of on the same timeline as what's going on in the barn wall um

can I follow up sure we will make sure that there's access for residents coming from Hanover during that time frame specifically if we've got both torn up at the same time understand your concern and we will keep in mind thank you other questions before we get to public comment

We have. Now we will open up public comment on. On. number II sorry first is yet moving the so there's there's two for so just we have this plan we've walked through it first move the parking place spaces second would be to introduce the counter flow parking so first to move the parking spaces anybody speaking to for against this portion of the Fleet Street

good evening mayor and councillors Matt Glenn 34 Harrison Ave this is my last month as president of Seacoast area bicycle riders local nonprofit so I can speak for them that we very much support this plan thank you to staff for all the work put into it I thank you to all of you for great questions I don't want anyone to think that this one block of bike lane is the most important thing you can do for bikes downtown. It's really not, to be honest. I think we've been consistent in saying the most important thing you can do is connect the buffered bike lanes on outer Maplewood to the buffered bike lanes on outer Middle Street and really have a spine that's connected through the middle of downtown. I think the multi-lane section of Maplewood is a real scar from urban renewal. meant to get cars out of the downtown quickly. And so I hope that you take that up and we're gonna be pushing for that with the CIP process. But I do know that over the last few years, planning the mayor's bike ride, we often like to go to the North Cemetery to see where the North Mill Pond path will be coming out. Hopefully very soon that'll be opening up. that's going to be a real game changer that's part of the east coast greenway but then we weave from there through portwalk and we all ride down fleet street to get back over towards the middle school and the library so it is a useful route it's a good way to avoid maplewood and it will be a great thing to have in addition to maplewood having two-way flow there so thank you for all your attention to the details here and we hope to see this move forward thank you matt

Anyone else rising speak to for against.

Thank you, Arthur from 77 Hanover. And of course, our residences at 77 Hanover are probably among the most concerned about Fleet Street and has long been an issue with the sidewalks and safety of that street. Not only our building, but really everybody lives in Port Walk. And of course, with the expansion of All the buildings going up further back, that's your access to downtown, is Fleet Street, Vaughn Mall, but mostly Fleet Street. So this improvement they've been working on for quite some time, we're wholeheartedly in favor of, particularly widening the sidewalks, making them safer. One way makes a lot of sense. The concern about offloading is real. Currently, they will block the street to offload for a couple of businesses there on the upper portion, almost at Congress. That's something that's going to have to be monitored. But thank you not only to the council, but to the whole team's been working on this. I've been through a couple of sidewalks on the projects that are about to get underway and so forth and planning meetings. It's a comprehensive approach, and that's appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. Tyler Garza, 62 McKinley. Thank you all for your support of this. I'm very supportive as well because it creates a 10-foot travel lane consistent with the council's complete street policy, the city's complete street guidelines, and NACDO design guidelines. The bike lane also addresses council goal number two for a multimodal city and reduces a 18-foot roadway in a way that works for everybody, including the fire department. I was hoping that DPW or engineering could address cross-section number three where the travel lane becomes wider than 10 feet. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Tyler. any other speakers two four against any on zoom seeing none um any other uh council questions

I move to pass second reading and schedule a third and final reading to amend chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking article 3 traffic ordinance section seven point three three zero a no parking which will move parking spaces from the west side to the east side of Fleet Street as presented for September 28th 2026 City Council meeting second any further discussion

So noting this will not prevent anybody from putting different loading zones or striping that. This is simply to move that across. Hopefully those will be taken up and monitored. All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

um second public hearing and reading and public hearing and second reading to amend chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking article 3 traffic ordinance section 7.336 a one-way streets changing fleet street to one way from congress street to hanover street with a contra flow bike lane as presented i believe this is the same presentation that we just had any additional city council questions before we have the public hearing opening the public hearing to speak to for against the changing of to one way and making a contrafoil bike lane on Fleet Street seeing no one rise everybody that spoke spoke about it before and nobody on zoom closing the public hearing any additional council questions or deliberations

just because it was brought up in the public hearing earlier the wider I'm assuming that the slightly wider lane when you're coming off of Congress Street is because of turning correct

i will support this and appreciate those that have reached out those that have been involved with the advocacy of the seacoast area bike riders and some new folks and especially i think the one of the hesitations that i had is at the end of the day somebody that's not watching this meeting and did not come to public comment is going to say that we removed this to create a bike lane And that avoidance of that confusion is not a reason to not move forward with this. We're moving forward with this predominantly because of the ADA, but being able to do something better with the space than to have it sit as a very, very wide road is positive. The second reason supporting this, specifically I had When we did the Middle Street bike lane, it wasn't enough to really connect two places. And it caught a lot of arrows because of the fact that it simply was in the middle of two distinct, very tough places. It got you into the downtown, and you were fending for yourself, and it was no real way to connect you. It was just one protected area that the kids already used the back roads in anyways. I was surprised in some of the emails from the younger parents that I know. It is a connection point to the library, to the middle school, to the downtown. And the mayor's ride, while it is a great tradition and look forward to doing again, uh requires a police escort um through you know because we have a lot of little kids and we're going up uh maplewood and that's a tough street i mean it's a tough street when you're in that so i i hope that we can um in the cip process improve uh what that is but uh being able to cut through uh this part using that would otherwise just have cars going faster that we can't fit you know parked cars on anyways because of the requirement it makes sense to put that to being able to use it for um able bites writers and and those that are you know just kind of spreading their wings um and figuring out how to get to the downtown so we'll support this and uh impressed with the reach out from the i'm not calling saver the usual suspects on this although you are well organized uh machine but i was certainly uh impressed by the breadth of response that we got from folks that are not usually advocates that engaged on this issue in search of a safer route to the downtown and the more that we can get are downtown used by our residents the better it is for businesses but everybody to remember you know when you get downtown without parking so we'll support this counselor cook

Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that we did receive some input about removing the flow of traffic from two-way, taking it down from two-way to one-way on this street. And I can understand that concern. Today I was parked on Hanover Street and I took fleet across town to court, which is usually my route through town when I'm in my car. because i live on the opposite side of downtown so that's the easy way to go but when you really look at this from the perspective of a car driver versus someone who's on a bicycle it takes me an extra two minutes to drive hanover to maplewood and to go around that way to court street in a car It only takes me an additional two minutes versus a cyclist that doesn't feel Maplewood doesn't feel safe at that location because people do speed through there. So I would rather make sure that individuals riding their bicycles feel safer crossing town across Fleet Street. And then we have one way traffic on Fleet Street. And I'm happy to go around if I know that we're providing that additional safety. So thank you.

Any additional questions, comments?

all in favor move to pass second reading and schedule a third and final reading to amend chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking article 3 traffic ordinance section 7.336 a one-way streets changing Fleet Street to one way from Congress Street to Hanover Street with a contra flow bike lane as presented for September 28 2026 City Council meeting any further discussion

in favor aye any opposed next up we've gone through the city managers items which require action we do calendar meeting counter I don't see you may recall every time in this part of the year it's

In the fall, typically, we ask that the council acknowledge the upcoming year's calendar. And this is a work product of both the clerk and the finance department. So what we've outlined before you does our best of representing, avoiding all major holidays. And you'll note that there are three Tuesday council meetings because they fall near MLK Day, President's Day, and Labor Day. But otherwise, this largely takes the form of what you've seen this current year.

Your Honor, I move to approve the 2027 City Council Meeting Calendar as presented. I second that.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you.

All right. Next up is the Consent Agenda.

Your Honor, I move to adopt the Consent Agenda as presented. Second.

Any discussion? congrats on 50 years for the market square day all in favor aye any opposed next up is presentations and written communications petition a petition for discontinuation of abandoned portion of cornwall street rsa 231 colon 43.

Your Honor, I move to request the Planning Board give us a report back and schedule a public hearing to consider the discontinuance to coincide with receipt of a report back. Second?

Second. Any discussion? um so just so folks at home know we'll send this to the planning board planning board will give us a report back uh i mean this is all in the motion uh but then it will uh we'll schedule a public greeting uh or public hearing based on that all in favor aye any opposed next up uh email correspondence um you're already moved to accept and place on file second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed on to the council agenda um except uh acceptance of resignation of anna howard from the economic development commission effective october 1st 2026. your honor i move to accept with regret the resignation of anna howard from the economic development commission and send a letter thanking anna for her service to the city second congratulations Anna who won her primary uh and uh it will also be busy uh if she wins the general so uh thank you Anna for your service to the city uh appreciated uh certainly by everyone in the council and and those that you've touched in here in Portsmouth all in favor aye any opposed we have a number of appointments to be considered John Bohanko to the public art review committee Richard sand Sam pearl appointments to the library board of trustees Jason Goodrich Tom Watson Andrew Ward and and Weidman all reappointment to the Economic Development Commission and the appointment to be voted and so those will be under consideration for next meeting and then the appointment to be voted John nickname Jack Holzman to the Board of Adjustment your honor I move to appoint John Holzman to the Board of Adjustment second any discussion spoken jack uh seems like a great guy understands the uh the commitment and uh wants to be able to to give back uh to the city that it's been in for many decades um support uh this and uh wish him well and thank you for putting yourself forward it's not an easy uh commitment at all um but it's appreciated all in favor aye aye any opposed the citizen or the capital improvement plan citizen request committee I was hoping that councillor Tabor Blaylock and Moreau would serve again on this committee and find a date to review the citizen deadline for citizen submissions is this coming Friday September 18th I believe we have eight on hand we have ten we have ten now excellent and then through an email that we received gonna request a status of the former report back or wait a motion for report back of the former recreation area under i-95 that's in the Atlantic Heights so moved second there is a there's a long history uh of this park uh there's you know certainly uh grew up playing in it and then um the state uh said that we can't accept the liability any longer with the construction now there's a construction is over but there's drainage issues so want to get um one uh complete accounting of what's going on and then to an effort to reopen this park it seems like a big waste not to have that park being utilized by the residents of that neighborhood that's about thank you honor yeah I've had a lot of questions about this park you know since I've joined the rec department before I was on the council

But I know the bridge was being worked on on any freight bridge is being worked on for a while So New Hampshire DOT, you know said it wasn't safe But I you know, I coached Little League down there at his slop. So I spent a lot of time right there and It's it's troubling to watch Irving trucks, you know come and travel underneath the bridge And then tell and then have New Hampshire DOT tell us that it's not safe to play tennis you know so i'd really um i look forward to seeing this report um because i'm very curious but i do i've always looked at that as this underutilized space uh when we were growing up mayor you know that was those were tennis courts they were fully utilized um you know robert sullivan's told me stories of playing tennis down there and um you know even if it's like a dog park or even area for art you know at worst um

but just do something because right now it is quite uh derelict um kind of an eyesore um you know there's all these homes that look right on it so counselor hopkins um yes thank you so much for um requesting this report back i know my neighbors and i have um wanted to see that area revitalized when we had a dog i walked by he was a husky so i'm like oh my god if i could just let him run And one of the unintended consequences of that is because there's a lot of dogs in that neighborhood. And in lieu of an open space specific for dogs, a lot of people not legally let their dogs run on the ball field. Most neighbors are respectful. They do it in the winter when it's not Little League season. But you see an open space. You want your dog to run. that's that's where folks go so I know that there have been several efforts over the years from my neighbors to check into this see what's happening when is the construction done you know why can oil trucks safely pass under but we can't recreate under there so I really am supportive of of finding out what we can do again like counselor blaylock said to make this a better space for this the atlantic heights community and the portsmouth community at large so thank you for bringing this up this is certainly an email that we got so um it's all starts at citizen uh counselor cook uh thank you your honor um and thank you to counselor blaylock for mentioning uh public art um

this space would not only be a wonderful park but it would be a great space to consider public art there is public art in the state on highway posts specifically in manchester so we have examples of that so it would be great to enhance the space with some form of public art that would enhance the park space where residents can use utilize that space effectively

get violin back here you know yeah um all right um all in favor uh before um any other comments before uh and again um appreciate uh the staff um the work that they're going to do and then appreciate in advance new hampshire dot recognizing that this is reflects on all government that we cannot have space being utilized in a city and it reflects certainly poor on on us if we cannot do this and want to get to the bottom of why and what steps need to be taken in order to improve this all in favor aye any opposed all right uh before uh we get into the parking palooza we'll take a 10 minute recess and come back Welcome back. I will wait a motion to suspend the rules to bring forward the presentation on the report back on the parking as requested.

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Carl Weber, start us off.

Thank you, Mayor, Assistant Mayor, and members of the Council. It's a pleasure to come here tonight and talk about parking. And again, we have the parking team here. Even though I'm up here speaking, we've got Peter Rice, the Director of Public Works, Ben Fletcher, the Parking Director, and Mike Asad, the Parking Manager. our goal tonight was really trying to provide information that addressed most of the questions comments and the feedback we received during the work session and the last city council meeting really looking at areas that might help inform the discussion tonight and so we're going to go over the highlight of a lot of what you see in this report next slide One of the things that was important, it became really clear, I was at the farmer's market for the building project and I was speaking with a mom and a young worker that worked downtown and what we realized while we were talking is they had no idea how much free parking the city actually provides. And I thought, okay, we need to do a better job of even explaining the free parking there's over 450 free parking spaces in lots and if you think about the City Hall lot off hours it brings that up by another hundred and most people just don't know that there are a lot of places adjacent to the downtown that are free including that like the Mason lot they had no idea about that when I was sharing with them showed them on the map they checked it out on the way from the farmers market but the city actually pays and leases that to allow free parking for folks downtown and there are additional spots that are adjacent to downtown we've got free spots for residents in the rap zones and the library lot that has a lot of use for the library and some mixed use in there as well next slide this is some preliminary numbers on rap and we know that we're going to give you a much more in-depth presentation in october but but so far we're seeing some trends happening in rap where the resident access has increased so one of the goals that was requested was have a program that put residents first and increase the access for residents it is working we're seeing that more midday availability more evening availability for those residents And, you know, about 88% of what's happening in those RAP zones is really resident-driven. We did see some change initially in the adjacent streets. We're tracking all the adjacent streets to RAP to see what happens. We saw sort of a little bit of a spike where availability dropped by about 8% and 4.5% or 4.8%. now that we're seeing some increased activity with the foundry downtown workforce parking and some downtown workforce unpair it we actually saw that go back down so availability came back up and so we're just going to monitor that and when we come back in october we'll give you a more comprehensive report on where the hot zones are we're already getting some requests from some residents who are on those adjacent streets to say hey would you consider it for rap we said we'd bring that back to the council in october next slide downtown workforce is growing and you know what we see is the the foundry workforce program went from 130 a day to 160 per day and also on peridab we went from 100 folks using it to 130 in august the average day is about 6.6 hours and then what you'll see is on the agenda tonight the council has a lot of requested improvements to the downtown workforce after hearing from the downtown businesses in the downtown workforce if adopted one of the things we realized was we want to make sure the word gets out there about sort of where can you park for free but where is the downtown workforce parking and how does it work so if whatever changes happen tonight what we're going to do is create some flyers that employers can give to their employees and we're going to actually go downtown and give them to employers so they actually get the word they can ask questions i think we can do a better job of getting out there and just walking the streets and really interacting with those downtown businesses and make sure they have flyers that they can give to their employees and answer any questions that they might have as well one of the things that's important to note couple of questions came up about middle school library and recreation employees we have all their their license plates registered so those folks are parking in these zones for free and so that was one of the questions that people wondered what would happen to them and we're monitoring that The interesting thing about ParaDAV, initially we saw a real big jump in availability. It went from being almost unavailable to having real availability. That was before the middle school came back. Now that the middle school is back, we'll have some more data in October that shows you what the impact was of the middle school coming back in session as well. next slide one of the other questions that has come up is what about downtown volunteers and specifically the music hall reached out we connected with them and you know in addition to the 550 spaces that are out there that people can use and we actually had some volunteers from the music hall map all the different places from the free areas to see how far away it was we're actually looking at a proposed pilot that might use we're looking at the back of the middle school for off hours when school's not in session or evenings and thinking about maybe we'll do a pilot where we register volunteers and only park in that area off hours and see how it goes and give it again the beauty of this pilot we can try out some things see if it works and then report back on that next slide There were some more questions as well about the Parrot Avenue lot. This is really interesting. You know, the downtown workforce is almost not using it at all. We think partly because it's just not available. If you look out there, we can see it from City Hall. It's full most of the time. And what you see is, you know, downtown residents that are registered about 10%. everything else is out of state you know out of state and about 30 percent of what you see there is out of state and about two-thirds of that is Massachusetts and Maine and then we just have a big chunk of we don't know what they are you know they're New Hampshire plates but we don't know what what it actually is I think any changes that happen to that will help us gather more data so the more we can collect information If you make some changes that we can then track, that helps because we can actually report back a little bit more about what happens in a lot. Next slide. There's also some question around the on-street rates. And we just wanted to compare this on what the cost of a stay compares. And what you'll see is before July 1, there was a step down. The on-street was the highest than Hanover and Foundry. And you see it sort of steps down like a ladder almost. And today, a four-hour stay, it got inverted because you raised the garage rates but didn't raise the on-street. And so the proposed rates that you see to go from 2.5 to 3.6 for non-residents, residents would experience a change, would step, if you notice, the pattern steps back to where it is. But one of the things we wanted to make sure we mentioned was If you go from the four-hour stay currently to the five-hour stay currently, the step happens again. So it still is happening. It's just happening a little bit longer, which means the stays on the street will probably end up being a little longer. And what you really want for longer stays is folks to go to the garage. Next slide. the other important thing was we wanted to talk about the impact of what the rate changes were because the garage changes happened and what you'd see is without that change we would have had about a million dollar deficit instead and we would have used fund balance to pay for that but the garage changes actually fixed that it actually corrected the gap it not only closed the gap But it increased the projection by about $1.2 million for the year. And again, these are all projections. It really depends on what people actually do. We typically study it for a while and see what the revenue is actually doing, but here are our projections. And then what you'd see is the on-street and lot rates, you know, in a full year would be about $2.27 million of a change, but what we did is we calibrated that down because We're close to October already, which means we'd only have nine months to collect the additional rates. So what you'd see is those would buffer down to 1.7 million, and the total collection above would be about 2.9. I just wanted to be really transparent with how the changes have happened. And so the changes that were already enacted got you out of that sort of deficit spending into a slight surplus along the way. Next slide. And this is so I don't get stumped on how these all work. We have three pieces of, especially when people are using ParkMobile, and we think this is important to make sure it's clear. There's a parking rate. This is what people pay to actually park. That could be the workforce parking rate. That could be the 2.5 on the streets or the residents paying the 125 and 225. Everything but the garage, essentially that's what the rate you pay. In addition to that, there's a 35 cent transaction fee from Park Mobile, and that's every time you initiate a session. Registered residents do not pay that 35 cents when using the app, but it's paid by the non-residents. Then there's a third section that people have asked about, which is really the credit card or gateway fee. That's about a fee Every time money transfers from a session to us we pay a fee We absorb that fee most cities absorb that fee the the Parker the driver never sees that The things they see is the parking rate and they see the transaction fee Next slide And the next two pieces we wanted to talk about was the wallet. There were questions about the ParkMobile wallet. What that really is is just a preloaded balance. So instead of having your credit card get hit every time you do a parking session, you can preload money on that. And ParkMobile does advertise lower fees if you're using the wallet, but that doesn't apply to us because we have a really flat fee at $0.35, so it doesn't vary based on what people might use. It really is convenience on the part of a person who wants to preload money onto that. And then the one thing that folks might be interested in is they recently, Park Mobile came out with a monthly membership. It's currently $3.99 on their website. what this does is it's a flat rate instead of paying all the transaction fees you pay a one time a month fee and what you realize is if you part more than 12 times a month you actually sort of break even and you start to you know save money by doing it so for people who park more than 12 times a month that might be a good option for them they can check out the park mobile website for more details and with that next slide

thank you carl assistant mayor thank you carl um just a question on slide number six who parks in the pear ad lot um it seems like so that is a five weekday mornings was there a reasoning behind um doing the the five weekdays and not adding adding a weekend

I think that was the time that was all we had, and so I think we're gonna continue to collect more data at different points to really get a feel for that. Again, this is, most of the data you see in here is very preliminary. We're looking at more comprehensive data when we come back in October.

Perfect, thank you very much.

Council Butler. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation and all this work. The slide three, we just, the 88% of parking on pilot streets in our residence, what was it before? We were measuring stuff, right? We got to know what it was to start with.

we didn't we didn't have the data because we didn't necessarily know who was registered and who wasn't so it's hard to tell we don't know okay yeah what we knew is that folks residents were saying they didn't have availability so now we're seeing some some freed up spaces so that's the the 23 and the 19 we know but we don't know what it was before all we know is there's more available parking on those streets than there was before again some of it is like we don't have all the data because unless you're registered we don't know what you are

councilor hopkins uh thank you um for the last slide about the wallet i just wanted to be clear that the monthly membership would replace the 35 cent fee but the 35 cent transaction fee is only paid by non-resident parkers so that would be an option for a non-resident to apply for the monthly membership with park mobile and flatline their fee or is that something that residents

could apply for as well so residents who only park here wouldn't need it because they're not paying that fee but if you use Park mobile elsewhere and park other places that you could look at that but we're looking at it just in this comparison if you're if you're a resident that only parks here you wouldn't need that but we wanted to just make sure we drew attention to that because there are folks that probably do park more often than 12 and this might be better we still get the 35 fee but it's it's a flat rate to the consumer which is helpful thank you any other questions car or any of the other staff here

okay thank you oh counselor cook oh uh thank you very much uh for the presentation i'm sure that there might be some additional questions as we go through emotions counselor cook your honor i move to suspend the rules and bring up items 15 b e f and then c they get a second second could you say those again 15 b e f and then c these are the all the parking items uh beyond 15a we'd consider 15a last

so these are uh regarding the rap program the pilot or in the workforce parking program and then we'll move through those and we'll come back to the one that increases the rate on the street uh after okay after we discuss all of those all in favor aye any opposed all right so now i forgot the the orders okay all right Assistant Mayor, Councillor Cook, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you, Your Honor. We're bringing to you amendments to the resident access parking program policy that would change, help clarify some of the issues that have come up in discussions with downtown workers. Those changes would include removing the 35 cent transaction fee from the downtown workforce parking program on Parrot Avenue. Increasing the number of hours per sticker and these stickers are used in the foundry garage from 10 to 12 for the downtown worker parking program at the foundry that's the number of hours per sticker and increasing the number of monthly downtown worker parking program stickers available from 20 to 26 for workers who work more than 20 days in a month and clarifying who qualifies for the downtown worker parking program with the following proposed definition the downtown worker parking program was created to support small business owners and employees of restaurant hospitality retail and personal service businesses located downtown And so I would move to adopt the amended city council policy 2026 01 resident access parking program pilot as presented. Second.

Any discussion?

Councilor Hopkins, I think you know it was it was great to sit down with my fellow counselors after we heard all of the feedback from the downtown workforce program or the downtown workforce. I should say because I think it is. a good program, it just seemed that access and clear definitions were needed and some other adjustments so that it is more beneficial to the folks that make our town as vibrant as it is. So it was, this is what we came up with, the definition I think was either unclear or not there before But this, we hope, speaks to the heart of, we want this to serve folks who, parking downtown had become a hardship. So that was our aim, that was our intent with this, or that was my aim, I'll speak for myself, I won't speak for everyone in this group, to make it something that is supportive of our workforce. And I'll just note again that we're one of three cities in the state of new hampshire to even have a workforce parking program and 30 cents an hour is very generous residents are paying 1.25 an hour so when we look at that in perspective a resident would spend three dollars after meeting downtown for coffee for two hours three hours versus a 10 to 12 hour stay for 30 cents an hour so i am um I'm impressed and thankful for the city's generosity in this and I hope that the downtown workforce signs up and uses it because it's a good program and you know parking spaces are limited parking inventory is limited and that's something that everybody feels it doesn't matter who you are if you come to park downtown and it's busy it's hard to park so we can't solve that one yet but I believe that this is a good step forward and response to what we've heard from our downtown workforce.

Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Assistant Mayor.

Thank you, Your Honour. And just to add a little bit more clarification, as we were talking about who would qualify, there was a lot of small business owners or managers who felt like they potentially wouldn't qualify. We had gone back and forth if we wanted to actually put a number on that, whether that be the median income or look, one of the big parts of the conversation we came up for is that the 80% AMI in the state of New Hampshire, so you could qualify for workforce housing, but you potentially, if we had an income restriction, would not qualify for downtown worker parking. So we wanted to make sure that we had a broad enough spectrum and clear on that spectrum, but also understand that there are larger corporations that are downtown employers a lot of banking that has their own parking, and we wanted to make sure that we had a demographic we were aiming to try to assist. And I know now the staff is tracking employers, when people, who the employers are, so we can really hone in and get more data and so i thank staff for that just getting as much data as we can just figure out too who it is utilizing this program um so i'm really excited for the next round of data that we'll have from the parking uh staff in a few months that's cook assistant mayor

Thank you, Your Honor. The goal really is to protect the workers who can least afford parking downtown because we want them to be able to work downtown. These are individuals that are coming from out of town. If they were residents, they would qualify for free parking in the RAP. They're coming from out of town, so they don't have access to great public transportation options to get into town, so this is their best way to get here to work. and then they do have to park for the entirety of their shift. So we wanna make sure that they're included, especially workers that in the past maybe have been overlooked because they were not employed by their business. Think of individuals who would cut hair downtown. If you're a barber or a hairstylist, you are usually an independent contractor, and so you don't necessarily receive that paycheck but yet you're not at um you're still providing that service downtown and you're essentially a small business owner so we wanted to make sure that all those individuals were included in the program where they may have not been included in the past because they're providing a service individuals who work for small non-profits that provide a front door service like the new hampshire art association is a great example anybody who worked in that that is a retail space but it is also a non-profit and we all know that you know nonprofits don't pay at the same rate as large corporations so we want to make sure that those individuals are protected when it comes to parking and having access to parking when they're providing the work that we've we really need to keep our downtown growing and

for it to be a really vibrant location so hopefully these changes will help provide that better access for those individuals Councillor Bullock thank you your honor thank you councillors and assistant mayor for bringing this forward I have a little experience working downtown I did have a nice half an hour interview today with the owner of the clip joint oh she cut my hair but no you know these it's hard you know I mean I won't give any names but you know the woman cutting my hair today you know she was talking about how much money she does have to spend on parking and that just comes out of her income you know she comes here to work so that really just goes right to her bottom line i think these are these are you know little things we can do um but i hope we can do a little bit more too for the downtown employees um you know because the 35 cents off the fee you know that's a little bit and more stickers and getting the word out i think um i hope that can help um you know have more more business more employees participate in this um because i have heard that some is just it's more of the toll you know what i mean it doesn't matter that the toll is a dollar or 30 cents or five dollars it's just that it's another transaction and it's just another headache um you know and it's just a it's a yeah um but i'll be supporting this because it does give them something um i just hope we can do a little more too

um I actually have a question uh for staff that I'm hoping they might have an idea around if we were to waive the 35 cent fee for the downtown worker program would you have the revenues to cover that yes okay thank you that's a point

thank you your honor um i just want to uh i would echo every you know what my colleagues and counselor counselors have said and i do want to just reiterate that this is just an amendment to the pilot program um just seeing you know getting a temperature and seeing how things work and hopefully there is more that we can do but in response to folks that are an economic driver in our community um and whatever we can do to support them and i want to thank the parking department and dbw and deputy city manager for their really thoughtful their thoughtfulness around this great um thank you uh

I mean, I think this has the votes. All you need is one on this. So I appreciate the effort that went into talking to staff and with each other on this. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. So next on the agenda, we're going to Keith. All right. Councilor Cook and Flynn.

Your Honor, I want to move to amend the RAP policy to limit parking in the Parrot Avenue lot to resident and downtown workforce parking only with a small number of parking spaces set aside for the Portsmouth District Court defendants. Does that get a second?

Second.

Councillor Flanagan, I am bringing this forward. This would not have us charging at the Parrot Avenue lot. In fact, this suggestion came from Councillor Moreau in our last meeting. It would just limit the Parrot Avenue lot to workforce only and resident only. And if you saw in the presentation about who parks in the Parrot Avenue lot, it's absolutely not what our goal is for that lot. We're seeing very little downtown workforce parking, 2%, at least on the five-week days we monitored that, and a small percentage of registered Portsmouth resident parking. Now, we might have several cars there that are residents that are just not registered in the program, but we also have a significant number of out-of-state vehicles, 30%. of the vehicles that are parked in that lot and one of the biggest complaints that um i heard i know when talking to downtown workers was that you provide this free parking for workforce at masonic lot and but it's full and the parrot lot is always full so you're saying you provide free free parking but it's it's not available to us so um the goal was to provide more to actually provide the parking for workforce and residents at that location the lot is currently free already so this doesn't really change the status of the lot it just changes who gets to park there with a small set aside and and the staff will have to determine how to do this for defendants at the district court because many of the defendants that coming to district court are coming based upon that they have and you don't want to add more to their financial burden already. So that will have to be a discussion with the court.

Councillor Beilock.

Thank you, Your Honor. Thanks to Councillor Cook and Councillor Flynn for bringing this forward. I have one question about the court. Do they have some parking spaces? I have some questions about that. But before that, I'm glad to see this. I'm glad to see more of the information on who's parking at Parrot Lot. I'm going to go off on a little tangent. when i was 16 you could park there before 11 o'clock in the morning you know then when i was 17 you had to get there before 10 30 and then it was 10 o'clock the next year uh by the time i was 21 you had to get there by like eight in the morning you know if you want to park there for your work um so i've always wondered who what who's taking up this parking lot you know that there's never any spaces there um but i would hope i think it should be used for down for residents and for downtown employees um and i'm glad to hear that

we wouldn't be charging downtown workforce at this parking lot um yeah thanks Councilor Blaylock Councilor Morrell to answer the legal question you're a lawyer I've actually spent a couple of days in District Court um unfortunately um there is some parking directly behind the court but actually all of the parallel parking that's on the driveway going it out belongs to the city So those spots could definitely be reserved, but I would like to suggest that they be reserved just in the hours the district court is open. Because I know for a fact, half the time you're standing outside at 10 a.m. waiting for the doors to open. So if it's only from like 10 to four, and then otherwise it could be open to other people, I think that would be important too.

Thanks, Council Member. Councilor Flynn. Oh, Councilor Hopkins, sorry.

Is it because I have my glasses on? All three of us have our glasses on. I was just kind of a broader question here about who parks in the Parrot Avenue lot. Do we have any data on length of stay? Because I remember in the winter months there was ticketing and towing out the wazoo because you guys were clearing that lot and no one came to move their car. So I'm wondering if you're gathering data on length of stay so that we can move forward with these incentives to free up spaces for our residents and workforce.

Basically, we assume there are a lot of cars that just move from in the lot to other spaces in the lot. Others, they'll go shopping, come back, and park in the lot. lot of the same cars are in the lot um every day and you're not you're not chalking tires we do truck tires we do yeah um i think when we were doing it every day i believe we probably had like three or four vehicles that were there more than 72 hours that answers your question okay would there be value i wonder in limiting and moving that from 72 to 48 hours or

some other thing to help move vehicles at a higher frequency?

I guess this depends on the goal of the council.

if i can one of the things we thought was at least if this moves to resident registered residents and downtown workforce we can study it more and give you more feedback on what we see before you change the hours and so we might have recommendations but this would give us time to start collecting data because right now there's just a large unknown in that lot this will give us some real knowns we'll actually be able to track availability because right now it's zero essentially

yeah so one point on that just to bring it back to the data that we do have there's two percent downtown workforce but those are folks that are registered uh for the downtown workforce um and then you know portsmouth not registered and then registered reticence you know it also just nobody's there or nobody is registered in there it could be that you know between the 30% out-of-state those folks could be you know certainly they could be tourists that see that this is listed on the one of the sites you know you can find free parking you know but it also could be you know folks from Elliott or Kittery working here and it's certainly certainly could be this 51% of unidentified new hampshire plates could be a lot of workers there the reason why i would support this even though it's going to be i would say on the order of magnitude of of things that people are going to have an adjustment factor to it's going to be very uh annoying And I go on the record and saying, I'm not looking forward to all of the emails on it, but this is probably one of the biggest ways that we can get people to register for the program, get in the system. And if we have a if that's the only thing we get out of this, I think that's worth doing it right there. If we can free up space of folks that are just leaving the car there and, you know, you know for for long periods of time or you know using it for different purposes that's going to be that's going to be a benefit there as well but just being able to identify the cars that are there i think will be worth doing it right now and then i think it it would be a change that we could start looking at in terms of you know it's 72 hours because that's the limit that we have for all of our streets and parking lots unless we do anything else to limit that and so then i think we could make a more informed decision on the length of you know stay that we want there to get the outcome that we need but right now you know we're not charging for it it should be for residents and it should be you know for downtown uh workers and right now at the least we change in terms of you know length of stay or certainly fees would be, I think is the best to collect more data.

councilor Tabor my first term I was gonna attach anything to that you're right this is gonna cause a lot of reaction I went down and interviewed people who were parking there And, you know, it got some people so upset that they called the police and said, somebody who's saying he's from the city and he's interviewing people. It was a political disaster.

But I talked to about 20 people and.

The pattern that was emerging was these are white-collar folks, often professionals, folks who have a downtown business address and are commuting in. And so it's not restaurant workers, obviously, because of the hours. most of piscataqua bank staff rolls in there at 7 30 in the morning and then you have other professionals and white-collar workers and if we make this change and we also change the definition of what a workforce parking permit is those people will be dispossessed and we'll hear a lot now is that should we tailor our policy around that i don't think so i think those folks can probably um afford the the parking solutions we already have um but that's just my input and it will be loud when we do this customer

i'd like to make a suggestion for a small amendment to the motion to um really spell it out that the lot uh that the parrot avenue lot resident in downtown parking workforce parking only at no cost just so that it's in the motion and we know it's clear as day that there's no fee if i get a second then second was there a second oh okay counselor hopkins

Um, all right. Um, any further discussion? We'd like to just reiterate, um, to nobody really in the room. Um, uh, well, Sue and, and, and Tyler and stuff. Um, um, I would say that, uh, this is a pilot and a part of, um, know a part of of of learning is learning faster and being able to react i know that there's this this will be it will be harder to get as much information out you know and there will be a plan obviously to support this information but to get the data that we need out of this we we can't wait for a year get you know the data that we have and then operate in another year uh to change that so i'm glad that we're making adjustments in this as we've received feedback and i think this is one that could be good if if folks give it a chance maybe they don't and we'll be back here in november but uh talking about it again but i i like that we're going to get a lot of data out of this because we're going to force folks to register and be a part of this you got to take a vote on the amendment yes oh uh all in favor aye aye aye any opposed on that was the amendment to say at no cost right and then motion on the floor uh to change it to resident downtown employee parking as amended as amended all in favor aye any opposed

all right next up is um council blaylock all right thank you honor and i am going to amend my motion a little bit so i'm going to move to amend the wrap policy by removing the section of paradav from rogers street to richards ave if i get a second i will second thank you um so really i this is the section of peridav that abuts the library about connie bean about the little league field um i really just don't think this section of town this section of the street um should be part of this program i i just think these the library the connie bean um those are supposed to be amenities for everybody you know those are really supposed to be and a lot of times the people that use those amenities aren't the most affluent people in the world yeah it's just it's all recreation it's all library it's all it's just I feel like that's it's supposed to be for everybody it's supposed to be all inclusive and you know open door and but I know I've been alone you know on this wrap program but I bring this up and

see what happens any questions comments I have one I was able to drive it quite a bit there's I think between Rogers and and Pleasant there is a significant amount of usage on that and I think the rap is doing what it can in there I think when you get past Rogers and go down to Richards there's a much less usage there's also a seasonality to this where every you know whether it's school whether it's the library whether it's the connie bean in the winter when basketball starts going up or where little league is going to come back in the in the summer or the in the spring we're going to have to do a lot of education around that and i think with the folk the change that we've just made to the paradise lot there's the opportunity to remove some of this and also removes some of the outflow to the uh to the neighborhood on the other side uh where people will find because the folks that are going to look for free parking they're you know die in the wool good yankee new englanders that are not going to stop until they find that that free parking and i think giving an outlet to that before it gets to the impacted neighborhoods is going to be a positive while taking the majority of the spots where the density and it feels like the downtown rogers to rosters to pleasant street is a as a better focus of this Councillor Moreau, and then Councillor Cook, and then Councillor Hopkins.

I was against this when I originally read the motion, but as you've revised it, and especially with the changes we're making to the Parrot Avenue lot, I think I can support this.

Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. The residents I've heard from the most live on Parrot Ave between Rogers and Richards, the ones that are the happiest with the RAP program. And the reason they're so happy with the RAP program is suddenly they don't have a camper in front of their house every single night. sleeping there living there in front of their home and by removing this section essentially we're going back to the way things used to be in that area of the street in fact we're pushing everybody who was doing that to that end of the street um right now what's happening within the city is those individuals are moving towards i've seen several at goodwin park and they're moving to other areas of the city. Whereas this neighborhood and this particular street and these residents, because that's actually where the concentration of houses are on Parrot, have been taking the brunt of that for several years. So I would have a hard time supporting this change. I'd be more amenable to supporting the other end, frankly, because there isn't housing there. There is actually housing. from Richards to the ballparks. So that's why I have a concern with that.

We'll go, Councilor Hopkins and Councilor Boyla.

Thank you. So I think that while I agree with the sentiment of offering relief to folks that come to recreate in this part of town, I would hesitate to support it at this time because I feel like we're still really early in the data gathering phase. What was proposed is, oh, these are the people that are using it, this is the thing. Do we know that, or is that just what we think is happening? Again, the RAP pilot was designed to solve a known problem, and it's going to pick up more problems along the way, but I would, for instance, in six months, maybe after the second report back, where it says, yeah, we see this pattern that would support you know, removing a section or changing something, I would be open to it then, but at this point, I think we're still too early in the data gathering, and I do agree with Councillor Cook that that is where the residents live, and this is the resident access parking program. So while I do agree with the sentiment of the motion, Councillor Blalock, I just don't think that I am ready to support it just yet.

this winter the connie bean will be very active right like all the recreational basketball all the you know the different elementary schools playing against each other rye middle school playing portsmouth middle school playing greenland middle school um you know all the kids at the high school that don't play on varsity basketball or jv you know join the rec thing and they're all from rye greenland newington they're from our school district right I mentioned the library. I do think if the goal of this is to just get camper vans off of Pear Daff, then we should do a policy for camper vans. I don't know why we're trying to get a res, yeah. You know, my Richard's Ave is very tight. I don't know how many times you've driven down that, but it's often you're pulling over and waving the car up at the end of the street like, you go, you know, because there's really only one lane. So that's a tricky street. So I don't want people parking there for, Connie being in the library, so what's going to happen is this winter is we're going to hear from all the basketball people right they're going to come in once they find this is the case they're going to come in and get really angry and um and then whatever happens there then we'll get to the spring and the little league you know families will get we'll find out about this they're not going to find out about it until they have to park there And then they're going to come in all angry. And then the whole time, people that want to use the library, if that parking lot's full, we're making that unaccessible. I'm very familiar with the three houses that live there. I know the owners. Rick Bean was my middle school basketball coach when I was 12. but like i said the they have access to park on their street they can always park on paratown that's never been the problem but um if we want to do a camper van thing we should we should do that i don't think we should just hope that's the result of this program um but i do think in spirit of the open door um just you know it's the library you know that's where you're supposed to not pay for things um and then not to charge you know the high school kids that are going to just play in their rec league It just seems very un-Portsmouth-like. I understand this is only a study, but I think this could save a lot of headaches and make it a better study.

I guess I'll pass the gavel. so um yeah i never thought that the rap program was about uh camper vans um and i think when uh we were asked about or when i was asked about camper vans a long time ago we have rules that we we regulate camper vans uh with in terms of noise ordinance if they break the law if this council wants to take up camper vans more um you know we certainly could but there's four houses you know on that or three houses and then one on the corner um which i just they there's driveways that exist in all of those houses and i don't see a i don't see this as a largely residential part of this street there's certainly residents that live there and the effect is pushing more into the richards avenue neighborhood i think being able to remove this and continuing to have up where it is. I mean, again, if we want to regulate camper vans, we should simply regulate camper vans. That should be something that we bring up. I just don't see a route program that is not allowing parking, but preventing those that you don't want to park there as at least something that I uh supported uh or at least you know as the pilot was not something that i supported it wasn't about keeping folks from from parking as a type of or as a vehicle type it was more or less uh keeping people from uh you know making it inaccessible for uh a neighborhood and i feel like there's a lot of uh whether it's school the library the kind of being the the ball fields uh the you know the the I'm sure the pickleballers, you know, they park a little closer. But I just did not, I think that with the changes we've made at the lot, I think that there's an opportunity to remove this and get better data from the other side there. All right. Councilor Hopkins.

I have a question for staff. Do we know what the parking habits have been with, with this end of Parrot, are people spilling onto Richard? What is the preliminary data showing?

We were discussing this earlier and we're still studying sort of Parrot Ave and what we saw was we thought what might be helpful is to study it in three zones instead of just picturing it as one street, picture it in three zones. One is Richards to the entrance to the library library to Rogers and Rogers to Junkins and report back on all three zones, which might be helpful to sort of discern what's actually happening, because those are a little bit more distinct. If you look at it, we were sort of playing with the map today and thinking maybe it would be helpful. We've got a report back coming in October to report on those three zones and see which one we might have some data on that would help.

Thank you.

Assistant Mayor?

Carl, just a quick question, and I know that we're asking you guys to do a lot of monitoring. Do we monitor the usage at the Connie Bean? Obviously, I know that, I guess I'm talking kind of the back parking and the parking around. I know as someone who goes to the library usually about like once once a week once every other week um that can get packed up but i just i just wonder right now how many i guess how many spots are back there and how high of usage they get during

The answer I'm getting is we don't specifically do it, but we certainly can. It'll be random looks where we go, okay, you go through and you sort of inventory, you gotta write down the plates and figure out, okay, are they registered residents, are they not? And we can start looking at some of that to see, again, if we can bring more data back.

and i just i guess maybe too like a just a conversation with as we talk about making sure that the connie dean and the library and just making sure that we're obviously you guys are amazing at this but making sure we are having conversations within with the rec department too to say like what problems are you seeing do you have cons i don't know if that conversation has i know it has come up with the library yes

sorry so we have met with the school the rec department we're looking at changing the signs for where their teacher I think it's like 7 15 to 4 p.m. yeah teachers only and then possibly changing that to 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. for recreation and and after school activities um that's something the rec department really requested rather than having other people pulling in there and then taking away all the spots that are used for the the rec department um one of my concerns though with the uh parrot ave with um uh breaking it up yeah breaking it up or you know council might want to consider you know maybe doing like a time limit in a certain area take 10 or 20 spots and make it two or four hours there's like 10 two-hour spots inside the library lot right now that anyone can use but it does limit to two hours and parking enforcement doesn't force that but if if you want to keep those spots for lake recreation My only concern is everybody that's in the Parrot Ave a lot right now is going to be on Parrot Ave. Yeah.

Thank you. That's some good insight.

Councillor Hopkins? Councillor Tabor?

A question about how a change to Parrot Ave, you know, in sections and whatnot, how a change at this point might affect the teachers and library staff who have been granted free parking on Parrot Avenue. That's correct, right?

how would that affect so so right now they they're in a we have like a permanent module so when the enforcement officer walks up they type in their plate number and it comes back as you know library lot employee which is you know teachers rack and and library staff so a library employee parking on parrot avenue under the wrap it does so the parking enforcement officer knows that yes they're they they they're a city employee and they're all set

okay so in the in the spirit of what counselor cook was talking about earlier you know i would again be concerned of taking spots away from the library lot workers the collection of folks there should we remove the portion of the rap from or the portion of heredity from the rap again it's it's who is there in our residence And then I would look to employees who show up there five days a week for receiving the parking benefit before teams from neighboring communities. But also, I'm not a coach. I'm sure, Councilor Wainlock, you hear this so much more than we do. But also the city, like the email, when they say people are upset, it hasn't reached me. and you know i haven't received emails and you can send them to me i'm not asked that wasn't a challenge to the public but um i i just think that you know it's i i would again i i would like to see a more official report back with the data before making any changes to this and specifically you know if we did adjust this how would that affect our employees

we could exempt them i mean most of the i'm assuming most of the games um and a lot of the activities are during non-school hours i think most people would agree that maybe i don't know i have a three-year-old i don't play ball yet so i'm looking for data that's counselor tabor um

I appreciate the sentiment that we have ballparks and rec programs and those are amenities and we wanna have those easy to use. But pre-RAP,

i don't think there were those spaces available anyway you know i think parrot avenue has been full all day now it's empty right now like i'm just getting all these texts that people were at connie bean at 8 a.m it was empty at 4 30 it was empty um you know they're like do you want me to send pictures they like they're getting well And every time I drive by, that section is empty right now. No one's using it because the people that do use it have to pay now, so they're not there. And then there's no, I mean, I'm down there like three times a day.

Who are they?

parking there so we just have parking spots aren't being utilized I mean granted yeah when the change happens to Parrot Ave lot then you know it's hard to predict what will happen but right now there's just empty spots in front of you know what I mean on that side of Parrot Ave so it's not giving access to any residents or you know we're just charging for people that are trying to take their kids to basketball

think the pro like one of the problems and i understand in terms of feedback that we hear i think that um there's not feedback because people expect it they think oh we're charging for this parking that's just what we do and they move on with their day and they park somewhere else and i think a part of the problem with our policies to date is that we're we're trying to work with a We're trying to work with a scarce resource that we understand we have to charge proportions of that scarce resource in order to have turnover and create opportunities for this. I think the problem that we're facing with this program is that we ended up We ended up making some changes. We didn't engage with enough stakeholders before, and we got feedback from the small business employees, maybe not the owners, some owners, but the small business employees that this was a cash grab when it was the opposite to begin with. It was an opportunity to create resident access so that we could build more housing in the areas where we don't have um you know we have a lot of pushback against any development because there's no place to park for the current residents we took the foundry and we extended it to paradav because there was an opportunity to kind of fix one of the things that was wrong with the foundry and that it was on the other side of town and we created that you know opportunity for the lot on this side of town but we still were in a position where we were not um i would say meeting the moment in terms of the perceptions of parking in portsmouth now i don't have a crystal ball um and you know these three houses might be uh the uh worth the whole thing uh for us in terms of protecting these residents here in these three houses um but or four houses because there's one on the other side of the street too um but i i do think that uh every time that we're gonna have it's not that we're gonna hear we're not gonna get the the the email uh counselor hopkins they're just going to say this is what portsmouth does and that's what i worry about in terms of you know we've changed the the paradigm a lot we've restricted that more and if we don't make this change it's going to look what are really good changes are going to look more restrictive um than you know what could be a opportunity to take and reassess where i don't see a lot of people parking again just the and i'm looking at i'm trying to put it in data it wasn't split out but uh where was it uh in terms of pair of

what was the number Carl three prior to was about 96% full after rap was 67 so essentially prior to the program there was no availability on a pair down and now there's one out of three spaces is available is that what I should be but that was before the middle school came back so now we're evaluating where we are we just don't have that data today okay so I think that the

You know, Rogers to Rogers to Pleasant seems like the downtown more than Richards to Rogers for me from a standpoint of of workers making this change is I think is going to go. It's not everything, but I think it's an opportunity to take a step back from this program and say, how can we improve this? and with the change to the paradave lot if we see a bunch coming in there uh there's a another opportunity to extend but i do think that if we don't uh we're going to be the opportunity to meet the moment and um and to and to kind of get a a tone change in terms of where we are as the city when it comes to parking is going to be a missed opportunity concert table

i just wanted to finish what i was going to say i think there are a lot of people who work in portsmouth who are not service workers coming in the afternoon who are white collar workers and i believe they will be they will lose their free parking in the parrot avenue lot if we redefine that what a workforce parking permit is and i think those people are also pre-wrap we're filling up paired avenue and they will fill it up again if we do this um so i'm not sure what we can we we see data that says that we're we're creating open spaces and nobody likes to lose free parking right people this is uh it gets to some uh part of the brain that you're taking something away from me nobody likes to lose free parking but we have growing pressure on a fixed amount of inventory and um so i think we've we've set this program in motion we haven't fully gave it gathered the data so i think we should i would oppose this motion and i would want to continue the rap program as it was originally defined on paris avenue and ultimately i think if we make that section free again um it will fill up with people who park there eight to five well let's make it free for four hours is that an amendment to the motion yeah

Is there a second?

I'll second for conversation.

Then you'd eliminate camper vans. You would, you know, you could go to the library for four hours. You could go to your little league game. You could go to your basketball game. It eliminates all the problems I've heard bring up just now.

Assistant Mayor. Thank you.

Well, I overall support this. I do feel for me that we need to have Carl in the parking department and in that department needs to have more conversation with the rec department of figuring out what their needs are, what their obviously that conversation has been started, but figuring out where to change of season right now. So it is really hard when you walk down and you say, oh, well, there's one in three spaces open. that was kind of the point was to was to turn over those those spaces more open more availability push more non-residents into garages and into paid spaces um so i'm i'm i'm on the fence of this i also think that there's something we said too that now we have we do have school workers back in there we do have um more people going to the library in off hours versus in the summer hours so i think there's a lot more data that we can pull in i definitely think it's a better motion with the four with the hour limitation the amount of hours and limitation that does have me gather some more support but i i'm on the fence of this because i think they're we have a lot of hypothetical data to start um with parking in general um and so as we start seeing more concrete numbers and more more actual data that's gathered it's easier to support some amendments like this to the program and i personally do think well maybe not everyone agrees i believe that this pilot is a living breathing program and will need to be continuously adjusted to get to the best version at the end of the year um but i think right now again where i'm on the fence of this is we just started school these these winter and in fall sports that we'll be having at the connie bean haven't initiated yet um you know the the wreck is the recreation department is working with the parking department and dpw to look at signage to look at our usage things like that so that's where i kind of ride the fence on this one richie

council morrow um after listening to staff and how they're going to break down the street and really be able to give us data based off of the three different segments because i do think it's a long street and they're used in many different ways i i kind of agree with some of the other thoughts of let's get more data on this before we make too many changes because you know then we're just making changes every month versus actually having the data to back up why to make the changes so i think maybe we should hold off at least four until the end of october when we get back more information some concrete numbers school it started things have started and really then try to adjust how the how the program works johnson hopkins

i uh both assistant mayor kelly and counselor moreau have said basically what i was going to say so i will just throw my i mean i i don't i won't say it in different language i think we should gather more data and um the four hour change is a more attractive shift but i think just not yet

Council Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. I agree. Thank you, Councilor Blaylock, for this shift to four hours that does handle some of the challenges, I think. I would like to see a few more weeks of information on utilization just because I want to know what it looks like with the teachers back. I don't want to start changing parking on Parrot Ave until we know that we're still at only 60, what is it, 67% instead of, back at 90 plus percent utilization and so that's kind of the number i'm looking for if we're if we notice that we're only at 67 with the teachers back and we have that data in place then i would absolutely be amenable to to moving to change this section if it has an hour limitation but I also want to know from this city what it would take to implement a change in a section that has an hourly limitation versus the rest any other discussion

councillor tabor if this came back at the next meeting with the four-hour proposal um can we integrate that into what we're doing to launch the program

sorry launch what program the wrap and the signage the implementation of the wrap the signage isn't there signage at the moment this would be different signage so whenever we want i suppose to take down the signage i mean i guess i appreciate counselor like would we change the signage or remove the signage or add different signage the signage is there right yeah so i think that the the programs launched you know as i appreciate council blaylock uh trying to address the camper vans uh with this four hours i don't think we need a a four-hour limit i think that if we have a problem with camper vans we should just eliminate camper vans i don't you know um sometimes for people there's people's main vehicles guys so um i think that uh again a um sounds like we have uh the direction of the vote uh is uh is set um just anecdotally it's uh there's a lot of space there um at the moment uh even with the the teachers back um i do think that as the um I guess the biggest thing around this is you can look at the data, but it's the it's the the feeling of what the city is to a lot of people that are coming and that's something that i think the data misses completely and again we're not going to hear from it and i think it's worse that we don't hear from it because people expect it and if we want that to be the city of portsmouth where um you know for four houses we're eliminating a huge chunk of paradigm that is utilized by many different parts of our community I mean community and like the kids that are coming to rec basketball the the kids that are playing Little League the library that's a that is what this you know not making this change will be and you know it's when the data supports it will make the change but I don't want us to take an absence of people engaging us as an absence of or an approval because I think it's quite the opposite it's just the expectation that they're going to be let down by a city that's charging for every inch of parking that we can and so that's the that's the issue that I have with this and there's gonna be a lot of people that just kind of go along and say yep that's kind of what we expect out of this and so with the change to you know the the the the paradigm a lot I think there's an opportunity to reduce some of this pressure and I understand the opposite argument has been made but I think creating a will be no parking in the paradave lot for a couple weeks as people hurry to sign up and then when they do i think that's going to be a a big uh a big you know opportunity uh for them um this i think is a missed opportunity and and we'll fight this uh we're not fight this we'll just uh not hear about it um in the future when uh the kind of bean starts back up but um we have this we'll have a roll call oh yeah on the amendment the four-hour oh I guess all in favor of the amendment this first is the amendment of four hours could you could we reread we were voting on the amendment just that part okay

So if you wanted to keep it what it was before the amendment, you don't even need to vote against the amendment.

So the vote now is to include a four-hour limit on the Paradev section between Rogers and Richards. Those in favor? those opposed no the eyes have it we will now vote on the amendment as or the the motion as amended for our limit and to remove the paradigm from Rogers to Richards from the wrap program all in favor aye

any opposed this is the main motion we'll just do a roll call vote yes councillor Cook no councillor Tabor yes councillor Blaylock yes councillor moreau no councillor flynn yes councillor hopkins no mayor mckendrick yes okay so the yeses have it five to three five to three five to three no badly all right uh do we have any original motion this is on the original the amended motion amended amended original motioner that does not include the four hour it does okay okay includes all amended yeah okay all done amended all around okay now we're on c yes now we go up to c don't we go back to a yes we are on c c was next in the name

move to maintain the existing parking fees for on street and lot parking for residents fy 2027 1.25 per hour first first three hours and 225 per hour thereafter pursuant to chapter one administrative code article 16 adoption of fees section 1.1601 procedure second

I'll just say that this is affirming the current resident parking rate through ParkMobile. So we're just saying, yes, there's a lot of change. This is not one of the things that's changing in setting the rate for residents who are registered through ParkMobile.

Any discussion? So everything stays the same? okay i love votes like this but all in favor aye any opposed okay um next is hey hey oh back to a okay your honor i move uh to change the existing non

resident parking rate from $2 an hour for the first three hours and $5 per hour thereafter to parking fees for on-street and lot parking for FY 27 to $3 for the first three hours and $6 an hour therefore after pursuant to chapter one administrative code article 16 adoption of fees section one point one six zero one comma procedure second

any discussion I was trying to help out this is the motion that I voted against at our last council session because I was concerned about providing for the workforce and making sure we made changes to include the workforce in in the program and I accommodate their needs before we did anything to raise on street parking that might negatively impact them because they aren't participating in the rep so hopefully with all the changes that we've made to the wrap now we can go ahead and make this change and bring the parking in line with what we would anticipate for on street given our garage rates

Thank you, Your Honor.

I second what the Councillor Cook said. I also, now that we have, you know, re-ratified and confirmed the resident rate again, I'm much more comfortable with this increase to, again, match our policy.

Councillor Moreau now. Thank you, Sister Mayor.

Since I was actually one of the people who voted to raise it last time, I will support it.

Councillor Hopkins.

Same.

Councillor Tabor.

Yeah, one of the comments at the last meeting was, there's a long-term problem and we're trying to solve long-term problem with short-term fixes a long-term problem is the increasing demand each year the demand is increasing we got a fixed amount of inventory some cities they have private lots that take care of parking 70 percent of our parking is is city controlled so we run it as a utility for the public and we have to consider all the uses and all the users and that's what we've been doing but the long-term problem is is rearing its head and demand is outstripping supply and to me there's two long-term solutions either a third garage or some more multi-mold solution a shuttle maybe free parking or low-cost parking outside the downtown core and shuttles and either way increases inventory it's too soon to know which is best it may be a combination of both but to me none of that will ever happen if we don't have a way to fund it this three dollar increase is the way that we fund uh the exploration of how do we create that extra inventory and you know fund some kind of shuttle loop this generates two and a half million dollars we need to put money back into the parking reserve but i don't think we need to put all two and a half million back in i think we can be funding shuttle options and would i like to have a more solid plan for all of that before i vote absolutely but if we set a direction of not putting this three dollar rate in that's the policy that stands until some of this council or a future council changes it so um given that i feel i have to vote for the three dollars and six dollars to to um and it's we don't have a solid plan yet but we also have the parking study which we've all adopted which clearly says this is the long-term problem these are it recommends both those solutions both

shuttle solutions and and more more garage parking so that's why i'm going to just add a point of clarification in terms of being able to implement this we would want the effective date of this to be october 1st if that could be somehow represented in the vote thank you uh your honor i'd make an amendment to add effective date of october 1st 2026. thank you

Any other comments, questions? Cancer cook.

Thank you, your honor. This is a question for the city manager. Can we implement all these changes to the workforce? Downtown workforce parking program and the parrot lot before October 1st?

I believe so, yes. I think that the challenges in the signage and. Things related to upping the rate on street, but yes, tier question.

cause has given thumbs up from the bench there excellent signage team so I would agree with the the points that concert ever made we are going to be very limited in the the thoughts of how we're going to support a growing working population in the downtown if we do not have money to support things it's a chicken the egg and we're just not going to be able to support It's one thing to talk about Coast and maybe moving some of the money to here, but Coast serves a population that needs their support and it's not a nice to have thing for them. I think the ability to have the funds to go into shuttle loops or other garages potentially outside of the center of the city so that we can support more people coming into the city through other means is the reason to do this. it's a it's you know the committee that we're gonna come up with and I will support the working group that counselor Hopkins the working group not a committee counselor Hopkins if they come back and say you know we're gonna have other people pay for it the answer to that is we won't they will not show up and pay for this the way that you know certainly not enough to you know they can be they can come to the table with some new ideas, but we need to be able to fund these things ourselves to be able to invest if we want to continue to have the place that, I mean, I was just struck at Councillor Blaylock recounting parking downtown over the years, it's just changed so much in terms of the demand and it's just demand it's not like decisions that we've made it's you know this is one of those decisions but it's just people like to be there it's not a lot of space and we haven't done enough to support other modes of transportation in and out of the downtown and so this is one step to be able to do so and I feel confident that we've made enough progress on the other parts of the wrap program and the worker Parker program that this can now go forward so I will support this Motion's on the floor. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. I thought that was a friendly amendment but okay we'll take the vote again it was October so effective date of October motion is amended on the floor all in favor aye any opposed thanks all right so we've gotten through parking councillor Bagley's thing he's not here but that's oh we got d now yeah no no oh the municipal solar generation but i'm just saying in terms of like parking uh counselor bagley had one on there on parking but that's moved now that we supported this okay um counselor tabor yes yes after parking you always have to have a deep cleansing breath

the uh the i i put in the packet of lots of briefing material but essentially what we're asking for is a council vote to develop a plan for municipal solar on buildings and municipal property like jones avenue The last CIP had an element which I put in there. We've got $5 million in the capital plan for both the Jones Avenue solar array and behind the meter solar on city rooftops and other properties. we had a couple of studies since that cip element was created and the first one was on jones avenue which said that the consultants said what are the benefits first of all this is a excellent piece of property for a solar array it's south facing it's up on a hilltop the project would is feasible it would be cash flow positive from day one in other words it would be paying its own debt with 167,000 annual reduction in utility costs in addition to that and that grows to 200,000 a year and 500,000 after we pay the bond off. In other words, it pays for itself and at the end of 25 years, it's paid for itself and given the citizens millions, $4 million of savings in our electric rates. and then it of course reduces the city's carbon emissions our electricity emissions would be reduced by 36 one of the bigger steps we could take in our climate action plan and lastly it it takes some land that's now behind a fence and is of no public benefit and puts it to use so It's direct reduction of cost for taxpayers. It gives us resilience. Solar is the cheapest source of electricity. And I think we've seen in the last year electric rates really jumping up for all kinds of reasons because hydrocarbons are volatile. They're subject to political disruptions. and we could have the confidence that for future residents of the city and for us and my kids and my grandkids we'd essentially have 36 of the city's electricity hedged and safe from a predictable low-cost source and it's just also one of the biggest carbon reductions we can make so those are the benefits and staff has also said based on a report by of ways that the city can be more efficient well you've got the opportunity to be behind the meter on rooftops specifically at city hall at the dpw building at fire station 2 at the madbury water treatment plant behind the meter is always a better return and so we need to sort these programs these different opportunities based on the data we've been given by these studies and that's what the motion asks so i'll give you the motion now move the council request a plan for solar generation on city land and buildings incorporating dpw recommendations including both near-term smaller high roa projects and including a solar array project at the jones avenue landfill site as a 4.1 million item in the capital improvement plan carrying forward and refining the current cip element vi27-pw52 solar arrays and potential power generation

and furthering jones avenue as a city council goal for this term with a report back at the october 13th city council meeting second any discussion councilman um i thank you for bringing all this information forward and i have one question does the five or the money that it's going to pay itself back does that also include all the any expense to um repairs during that 25 years

yes okay so I'll meet with all the operating costs and is there a tax credit that's available until the end of 2027 that this would be that week if we begin construction by the end of 2027 no unfortunately you have to be completed construction you have to be in service Would this timeline have a feasibility of being in service by 2027? No.

Honestly, the staff doesn't think that's realistically possible. The permitting, which you might have seen in the slides from APEX, there's a number of permits you have to go through from state DES. at this late date if we try to start it. I don't think we can get those tax credits. But the return amounts that I just discussed are all without the tax credit.

I know how hard DES could be. I would simply ask that we try to see if it's possible to do so.

just put the effort in there knowing that it's going to be difficult it's a landfill etc but to be able to put the 40 tax credit here would be something that would be oh yeah uh pretty uh pretty effective the numbers really sing if you do that another difficulty is that over one megawatt eversource requires a much more in-depth process to be allowed to put your power into the grid and that

means like a six to nine month process that they have to do to put the power into the grid if we weren't put into the power into the grid at the beginning would and we stuck it over to the high school would that change the and would that lock us into having to do that forever guess I just like to think about as creatively as we can right to get the is there any way to get this to get that investment if not you know is there ways that we can work with every source in terms of power generation helps you know everybody's right come down and creating more opportunity and I'm sure every source would want to be a part of creating lower rates for their consumers regardless of where they are in the state and so if we can figure out ways to go as hard for those tax credits, even if it means something that might not be the ideal plan at the moment, knowing that once we get them in there, it's an opportunity.

That's a good challenge, Mayor. We'll see what we can do.

councilor flynn thank you mayor um i have to say that this is a language all of its own this document so trying to read it and absorb it and given the scale and the long-term you know financial implications as well as um the intersection of the climate action plan i thought eventually it might be helpful to have a work session for the community to learn more maybe after the report um i feel like there's a lot more for me to learn about this as well sure yeah thank you

Council Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to say thank you to the Energy Advisory Committee for all the work that's been done on this. I know it's been a few years in the making. It started before the committee was even a permanent committee. So thank you for all the effort that you've put into this to get us to this point. And this analysis is wonderful. It's great to know that this would be net positive for us.

all in favor aye any opposed and we had a motion very long one on the floor uh i'd wait a motion to go past 10 30. so moved second all in favor aye opposed for esteemed assistant mayor all right so we're through that council plan

Thank you, Mayor. I move to request that city staff, in coordination with the Portsmouth Housing Authority, provide the city council with a status update on the Sherbourne School project. The update should include current progress, anticipated timelines, key milestones, and any recent developments or challenges that may affect next steps. I think this information will help the council and the community understand where the project stands and how it's moving forward. And I would just say that...

I second that.

Thank you, yes. I was just going to say that I have had a couple of people in the community reach out regarding this, and I think it would be a benefit just to sort of get a status as to where they are in the project process, yeah, simply put.

indeed any other questions count assistant mayor uh thank you for bringing us up council of clinton we were going to make this request at the housing committee and so you have beat us to it um and then our goal will be to invite the housing committee members that day or that night that the presentation is so that we don't have to duplicate efforts so thank you excellent

all in favor aye any opposed uh counselor hopkins yes i moved to establish a shuttle loop and public transit working group as outlined in the attached memo to serve as a task force called for in the 2026-2027 city council goals this time-bound working group will consolidate existing studies plans and data on expanding public transit in portsmouth and report back to the city council by january 29 2027 with either a recommended pilot scope or a consultant-ready design scope.

Second.

Thank you.

Assistant Mayor?

So you were just asking for two options, correct? So option of like, I guess my question is what if we come back with the realization of like, hey, We are not in a position for a shuttle loop. You can't find adequate places to park. We can't find an adequate partner. Um, you know, or. You know, coast says, you know, they can do it for X amount of dollars if the city help funds it, blah, blah, blah. Um, so I just wonder if because the way that I read the motion is, you're giving us, you're giving 2 options, um, a pilot program. or a consultant-ready kind of RFP.

Yeah, so it's, you know, this shuttle loop multimodal microtransit has kind of been, you know, brewing for a while. Just ask Bill Lyons how many times he's put it into the CIP. And when I looked into it with Bill, there's a lot of different studies and some things have been tried. There's been some monies and then not. And it's just really been all over the place. So what I want this working group to do is sit down look through all of that start from a working like a working set of knowledge and facts look for through lines and you know we already have i believe um you can correct me if i'm wrong in the budget money to put out an rfp for a consultant to do another study and personally you know i another study doesn't interest me as much as something that is actually happening like a pilot shuttle loop So if this working group finds all the low hanging fruit and a straight through line and can get it done without spending the money for a consultant, great. If that's not the case, then what I think really needs to happen is a clarification of what exactly would be the best fit for Portsmouth in light of things that have been studied and presented and recommended in the past and looking at where we are today, what, you know, where our stakeholders, you know, where their thoughts and feelings, where the community's thoughts and feelings, and, you know, really looking at it in, with an outcome that generates action. So does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So looking at the study, the studies that have been done, and if we can figure out something that we can do in a pilot, take that, go do the pilot. If we can't, look at something that we need to study more that hasn't been studied to date. Seems like a good use of time and time bound. is great you know bound that up and you know let's let's get to doing it and if we can if we can spend the money on doing something rather than studying something all in on on doing that so uh if we could you know this is uh this would be uh this would be great and aligned to one of the council goals so uh i'll you know certainly support this

Thank You councillor Hopkins for bringing this forward I've always hoped we could get some sort of public transit for Smith, you know then proof I know we have coast in the trolleys and I just Yeah, I worried that our, we've always, you know, I know the examples we've come up with the past or the sustainability came up with were examples that happened in 120,000 populated cities. So I wanna make sure that we're not wasting efforts. I just, I want it to be reasonable, right? I don't wanna end up with just a shuttle that's driving around and nobody's using it and then we end up paying for it. And I know we've tried it before, you know, as you've included in your, in the description for the working group. But even then, we had the community church parking lot that was at least one destination. You could be like, hey, this is where the cars are going to go. So that part kind of worries me that this is just kind of like, hey, let's find a consultant that's got an idea that I don't have. Because maybe that idea actually... We haven't come up with it because I don't know if there is a perfect solution And you know these sort of things someone has to pay for it, right you ideally you want enough people to use it that That cost is spread Amongst the users and amongst the community and But yeah, I guess those are my concerns. I don't understand, you know, I don't really have any answers. I just have concerns right now and

I'm wildly in favor of this and it's been something we've wanted to do for a long time I like I think councillor Hopkins has laid out the deliverables very clearly with a tight timeline and yes we don't know if we'll come up with something practical there are cities our size Hanover has a shallow in New Hampshire very successful ski towns all around the country have shuttle loops newport rhode island and you know up in maine so let's see what we can find out and you know it's like the turtle he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out

all right uh counselor cook thank you your honor um we're always talking about the need for a program like this because of our parking challenges but i think it's really important also to highlight our sustainability goals and how this really feeds into our long-term goals with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and finding alternative transportation sources so thank you councilor hopkins for introducing this and hopefully we can find a good option for the city

i'm excited for this working group i think your um the request gives them a good ample amount of time i think that one of my biggest concerns on going into it and i'm look and i'm excited to hear the creativity of people and a potential consultant down the road for this is um we talk about the parking crisis downtown but there's also a public kind of parking um availability issue outside of downtown so that's always you know when we talk about a shuttle loop that's my biggest question that i raise all the time is well where are we going to tell people to park and the city doesn't own a lot of a lot of um parkable uh land outside of downtown And we've already seen a reduced amount of parking through C and J. If you drive past any of the parking rides, Monday through Friday, they're full. So I definitely think there's gonna have to be creative solutions within that too, as partnerships with other businesses, which I think is sometimes easier said than done. When you look at Newport and some of the other places, they have publicly owned lots that are further out that you shuttle into, I think it's easy for us to say, well, we'll approach Walmart. Well, that also then leaves a liability insurance issues things like that for some of these larger corporations um to allow us to use their land obviously not that it's impossible i'm excited to see what this group of like dedicated individuals are going to really put forward um and you know look at some realistic way to apply some of the studies that have been done before with today's nature so with that you got my support

I think that's what happens. Thank you. So, you know, to your point, Councilor Blaylock, I share those concerns. Whenever we look at other studies, we are not Savannah, Georgia, for many, many reasons. And I think that part of why I wanted to kind of bring this in-house first is so that it can pass that filter of like, oh, that worked there, but this is New Hampshire. And, you know, we have all these different rules and regulations, and we don't have the funding, yada, yada, yada. I think any ideas I envision coming through the table have to pass through the filter of will this work right here, right now in today's climate. And then the other point that I wanted to bring up, because this, well, yes, this could help with the parking concerns and all of that, but all of that aside, this also will help with affordable housing if you don't need to own a car the affordability of living somewhere improves and also public health can you access medical care can you access the grocery store without a car and the answer in portsmouth is maybe depends on where you live so you know a shuttle finding a shuttle loop that is more than just a single purpose single use like connect church to downtown as just a remote off-site lot, I want to see something much more robust that actually supports and provides a safety net for people that live here so that we can reduce costs, improve public health, improve carbon emissions and all those kind of things as well. So all of those will be part of my to-do list when we convene this working group. But I'm hopeful that we can do some of that because I in to my mind and this may be incorrect is you know we don't need another person studying this to tell us something that's pretty much the same or wildly different that isn't helpful either um when so much has gone into this over the past decade so um those were just that was just something else they wanted to bring up there that's our office counselor thank you uh where were you thinking the loop would be so you know bill lyons um has proposed a cip item um for a shuttle loop and he kind of outlines it um roughly you know it hits the the hospital corridor you know it runs along forthwick to c and j to downtown and then along route one ish and it's market basket yeah it's a market basket with a possible like extension down to the walmart um and you know i i i interact with bill lyons in several committees and he's a wonderfully smart man and um really passionate about this so i think and and the other thing you know he's he brings fresh ideas fresh perspective tyler is also um a wonderful brain behind all of this too. So something that is not just downtown to the hotels or from C&J to downtown for the hotels, something that really lets people access grocery, medical, schools, and other places that might only be accessible by car.

I love this idea. I just think it's a feel-good idea. It's not realistic. We know Portsmouth. We've been thinking about this since 2013. My father was assistant mayor back then. No one has come up with a solution. Why not? Why haven't we come up with a solution? Why is it going to happen in this group? That's all my

well we will find out if it passes I know I'm just not hearing any new ideas I'm not hearing any solutions I'm just hearing like feel-good ideas well I think the I think well not saying that there's any ideas that will will work right now I think the the goal if the goals are part of it is to feel good then we won't do it and not enough people do it i would say like i i love giving the example of the uh progressive climate activists of texas who have beaten the pants off every other state with wind and solar because it actually produces cheaper electricity that people tend to want to want so they build more of it and i think that where we've to meet that moment is that we try to do things that feel good instead of doing things that people want to do because it helps them not feel good but live good. And so, you know, with a focus of this not to take cars off the road, with a focus, I mean, it can do that, but so that you know anybody on this day as you're coming here would be like oh yeah i'll get on that bus it's it's it's better for me um and and cheaper uh than than doing it i don't think we're going to live in a car-free society in a place that has more driver license than residents here in new hampshire and so if we can actually work on something that's going to improve the the the quality of life for residents I'd love to see that and not just as like a climate goal but a climate goal would be a result of doing something that was actually beneficial to people and I'd like to see you know what's the benefit here and there seems to be a number of people that want to work on this that are outside of city staff and this council to be able to come back and say hey here's where money can be well spent this is not as signing up for us to do it it's assigning up for us to not spend money on an outside consultant to get people that want to do this first counselor tabor

um there's never been any success of this because new hampshire funds public transportation less than almost any other state um and you know but if we we just passed uh an increase in the parking rates for non-residents only and I think that's a twist that there's never been before and I think that because the state statute allows parking money to be used for transportation as a legal use there's a funding mechanism that is not burdening the taxpayer

I guess my two biggest experiences using public transportation when I lived in Tahoe they have the TART but like you said that's funded by the state you know that's funded that's actually probably going away out there but also up in in using an example in New Hampshire up at Waterville Valley I'll use the shuttle there you know to go to the mountain I only use the shuttle because the parking there is so difficult and so limited you know so if we limited all the parking downtown you know what I mean or half of it or something like that this would become more feasible but that's gonna be a that's a different change that we're talking about

well we've got a lot of people coming into town you know and as you said we have a a lot less parking than we used to and that trend probably continue in terms of like the amount of people that want to come in here and so you know i guess my point is it's a change of behavior right and you got to change the behavior um so you'd have to make you have to incentivize them to change their behavior certainly yeah I think that's you know and again I think we'll see this what the working group come back with if there's something more than you know but if it's if it's an effort to say you know I think it's maybe I'll take you know another position if it's worth being able to say we looked at this again and there's nothing to be seen here I think that would be useful conversation when we have the CIPs and we're trying to put money towards something I'd rather study this before we dedicate the money and it comes back before the cip so we can say hey this doesn't belong in the cip anymore because there's simply not something that we're going to do here i think having you know working group willing to do that work before we commit money to it and the next year would be positive too because we won't spend the money if there's not something there okay all right those in favor aye those opposed all right Next up, approvals of grants and donations. Donation to the Senior Activity Luncheon Fund, $500 from Karen Parnes.

Move to accept the donation in the amount of $500 as presented.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Karen. Donation of the granite bench or odd granite bench at Fortry Island.

Move to accept the donation of the granite bench as presented. Second.

um all in favor aye yep question uh counselor cook thank you your honor um i just had a quick question for the city manager i noted that the initial letter requested to put this bench at haven park but then we're placing it at four tree island i just i didn't know if there was a reason why um the letter asked for one thing and we've decided to go elsewhere good question

I know that in looking at the memo, and I believe what we've done is talk to the resident about suggesting a more suitable location at Portrait Island because there is limited bench space in Haven Park, but I will provide that in a report back.

All right, thank you.

We're going to accept the bench. all right bench non-transferable all in favor aye aye opposed uh acceptance of oh we went through that and thank you again for that Uh, peace development authority board meeting update.

I've got three real quick items, your honor. The first is an update from the peace development authority board meeting held in August. It seems forever ago, um, at the dais. And I know the, the site Herald has reported on this. I provided the PDA annual report along with their economic impact report. Uh, long story short, creating over 20,000 jobs. There's 4 million square feet, uh, working, um, buildings on the trade port. supporting over 250 companies with a diverse industry mix 200 000 plus passengers going through the portsmouth airport in 2025 so a great success story and the only other update of note at peas would be that the air traffic control tower is back in normal operation good next up and god love eric fiedler for sticking around for this we have a mechanic street pump station feasibility study public input meeting this coming monday a week from tonight 6 30 here at city hall to give residents an opportunity to see the latest plans and ask questions of city staff including eric along with the project consultants aecom and underwood in continuation of the public outreach process that we started when we held a work session back on june 22nd so please come to that if you're interested we'll also record it lastly is the changing of the guard out in the room outside you'll notice there's only one remaining piece of art from our first exhibit the next exhibit will be here in the installed next week and there'll be a reception to welcome the new pieces with the exhibit called light falls or the next council meeting on the 28th so look forward to new art anything under miscellaneous I will wait a motion to adjourn

All in favor?

Aye. Annette Portsmouth.