City Council - Regular Meeting

M roll call please. Alder person Evans present. Hurt here. Barnes here. Swanson here. Parker Pulis here. Keely here. And Mayor Harris present. Clerk, before we begin, um, Alderman Parker gave notice that he would not be physically present for the meeting tonight due to work obligations and made a request to participate remotely under 5CS120-7 attendance by means other than physical presence. Second, I have a first and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed.

Thank you. Uh, would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance? And after that, please remain standing for a moment of silence. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Silence, please. Thank you.

Agenda item five. Vote to approve the agenda. Motion to approve the agenda. Second. There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Uh yes. I would like to make a mo make a motion to for item 10A as two separate votes. one for provision 1637G, swimming pool filling, and one for the remainder of the ordinance. Second. There's been a first and a second.

Okay. Can you repeat that, please? I'm making a motion to have two separate votes on 10A separating provision 1637G for swimming pool filling and one for the remainder of the ordinance. So just breaking it down into two separate votes. Thank you. I had a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder person Swanson. I Parker. Hi. Can you hear me? Yep. Pis I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt.

I. And Barnes. Okay. Agenda item six. Oh, excuse me. Do we do a motion to um the agenda? Should we do like do we need to approve the rest of the agenda, please. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. Sure. So, yeah. Okay. We're going to go back, folks. I have a first and a second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes.

I. Okay. Moving on. Agenda item six. 6A. A Rock Island Public Library annual report presentation. Is it going to be on the screen? It should be. All right. Well, I'll get started. Um, one second. Yeah. One second, man.

All righty. Well, thanks for all of you folks for being here for the library tonight. It's awesome. It's the greatest place in the world. Um, and thanks to mayor and council uh for having me. I know that um we have a lot on the agenda tonight, but I also would like to thank the staff members who are here and we have our board member here um and our foundation director is here. So, thank you so much. There it is. Well, for those who are new or need a refresher, every year uh under state law annual outcomes report must be presented to the council. Um, it's not only a requirement by the law, but it's also an opportunity to talk about the library, and I would never pass that opportunity up. So, we had an excellent year this past year. Am I supposed to say slide? Um, I'm on page number three, so that helps. Yeah, there are required contents in the Illinois statutes of what I have to cover and that uh is listed up there. Revenues, expenditures, uh talk about our collections, any property acquisitions, partnerships, fund requirements, liabilities, accumulations, and then the most important and the fun stuff, the good stuff is the stats of note, which we'll get into. Next slide. We're going to talk about library revenue. So that we have the local library tax which we the city collects on our behalf and this year um as of February 1st because our books aren't closed yet. This is the most recent information that I have. We have collected $2.5 million from that. And then we also have the contract with

the Milan Blackhawk Area Public Library District and they um received 375,000 and change for uh their contract with us. So if you add those two uh percentages together, we're at 93% of our revenue is from local tax dollars and the national average is between 85 and 95%. So we're within within that range. And then our state grants are called per capita a grants and those um are earmarked for us. We uh apply for those for our collections. So that mostly pays for our electronic materials. And then our fines and fees. Um the found as you may or may not know we have some new members on council. We are a fine free library. So we do not charge fines because we feel that's a barrier for people using the library. And so our foundation with their uh quarterly book sales and other donations, they offset that and give us money for that initiative. And that also includes our hardship um when somebody say has a fire in their house and their library materials are destroyed or they are finding it very hard to pay um for lost materials or the cars stolen. We've had all of those incidents. um they'll come in and ask if if a hardship they could apply for a hardship form and and we let them do that and the foundation helps us pay for that as well. So we we want everyone to be able to use the library. And then our lease and rentals, we have a lease with Midwest Writing Center. They um are housed in our downtown library. And then um about 2,000 of the $9,800 is also uh generated from our meeting rooms annually. We had a big investment income this year. Um and then our donations this year are mostly from our restricted donations from the foundation. Um

meaning all of the donors have requested the money be spent in a certain way and they gave us a percentage of the investments on that. So 37,000ish of that is from the foundation and then the other money is from just donations from folks who come in and want to support the library. And then other is other I mean we sell things we have market adjustments etc. So that is our revenue. Our expenditures um operations wise we spent $3.1ish million dollars and we spend it on the items listed up there. So staff is our biggest expenditure because we're a public service. That's we need staff to be able to do that. But not surprisingly our print and electronic materials um combined is about 14% of our budget. And so that's anything that you would use or check out from the library. Then the rest are smaller amounts for just simple supplies that we need. Um and then our service contracts which snow plowing, landscaping, things like that that we pay for. And then other again is other it's our transfer for services to the city etc. So of the 3.1 million uh 103,000 is was spent on capital this year. We did some pretty amazing amazing project and I'll get to that in a second. So, collection statistics, we own 159,000 plus items. We circulate 150,000 plus. These are physical items. These are, you know, your traditional books, CDs, magazines, etc. And then our downloading and streaming platforms. We subscribe to eight different ones. Some of them are through our consortium, but we also purchased our own titles in the electronic um database world. And um we circulated over 152,000 items. So 302,000 plus items were circulated this

past year. So as you can see here, we're really we're just gaining people. We're not losing anybody. People are just checking things out differently. Um really proud of that number. It's very high. And uh I'll talk a little bit more about statistics in a second. We did not have any property acquisition this year. So that's a very simple slide. And then our next slide and it's in your booklet that I handed you of all our partnerships that we had. I hope we didn't forget anybody because we rely on our partnerships to be able to do everything that we do every year. Um we're always willing to partner with others. So, if there's anyone out here that has an organization or business and wants to talk to us, please please stop by the the table back there. Um, our next slide is our fund requirements for calendar year 2027. This is a requirement of the IPLR. Um, and the library board did discuss this and they voted to request a 2.815 815 uh library tax levy for CY 2027 and that would cover our general wage increases, merit raises, insurance premiums, and inflation. It's about 5% increase in dollars, but depending on EAV, it might not be an increase in the tax levy rate, and that we'll decide later on in the year. accumulations and liabilities, excuse me. We do keep a 90-day reserve per the city financial policy. Um, and that is variable depending on how much we spend every year. It's roughly around 784,000 um, at this point. And then we have an assigned reserve for building improvements um, unudited. I think it's around a million, but we won't know until the books are closed for this past calendar year. and that was created because we do have needs and we are saving towards something which I'll get to in a second. Um liabilities. We have

the JCI project bond which was our upgrades in the HVAC and the um the lighting at our downtown location and that's currently it's either in the CIP budget or perhaps it's a um city reserves or gaming. I really don't remember but um we're so grateful that we get that uh from the city every year to pay on that bond. So some of the exciting things here statistics we had an almost 40% increase in our program attendance this year. our summer reading program. Um, this is just summer reading is at 43% increase and we actually have a winter reading program, too. And we're we're doing that one right now and I think we're like 50,000 minutes over our estimate already. So, so excited about that. Register borrowers is one that I'm really excited about because when I started 13 years ago, we had maybe 13,000. We're up to almost 18,000 registered borrowers. So in that time we've really and increased the number of people who have library cards and it's significant because we actually purge that every year for people who haven't used their card in the past three years. So it's an it's an up-to-date listing of people who are using their cards. uh services huge increase at almost 59% that includes our social media videos, our online services, we do notary, um printing, all of those types of things that people use the library for. Database use is down a little. We're trying to get more involved uh more involvement with the schools particularly since they passed the law that they need to be teaching information literacy and and using real sources rather than just internet generated AI generated sources. So I expect that to go up next year. Circulation huge increase at 11% and patron count meaning those who walk in our doors every year 7.2%.

So next, this is the exciting part. Uh we're working towards our strategic plan, meeting all of the goals in there. Our strategic plan uh revolves around uh five words, transform, relevant, equitable, engaged, and sustainable. And that means for an acronym, of course, we use an acronym. Um but this is info about our amazing year. And the first thing I want to point out is the bottom left corner, our Watts Midtown branch. our debt has been paid on that. We do not owe any more on that project and that's a huge thanks to our foundation and their capital campaign. So, thank you Kathy. Um and then also this year we did some uh transforming of our facilities. The Milin Blackhawk folks gave us money to repaint the interior of the Southwest branch. It looks so much better. Um and then the big one for downtown was we got new restrooms on our first floor and they are so nice. It displaced our our microfilm room, but we put that out out on the public floor, which has been really great because people now realize we have that and our uh reference librarians are there to help them use the machine and do research. Next, we have our relevant programs and services. Um, we add value to our library experience all the time. This past year, we added musical flowers at our Watts Midtown branch outside thanks to a grant from Rotary and a fundraising effort by Dick Fistler, who um donated a huge prize package on behalf of his wife Mary. And so he who had just passed and so those are in honor of her and the kids love them. We also have uh new sewing machines thanks to a grant from Mid-American Energy. We had international best-selling author Tiffany D. Jackson come to Rock Island High School and that was in partnership with the Davenport schools, the Davenport Library and us and Rock Island

schools. Just a lot of things going on this past year as you can see from our statistics there. They've they've really grown. So, um equitable for all is our next one. Um huge thank you to um Alder Person Hurt and Swanson for their ARPA funding for our mental health initiative. This is actually the last year we have money for that and one of the things we implemented was the community comfort carts and this past year we handed out almost 18,000 items from that cart and those are personal care items, mental health journals, things of that nature. So it has just been wonderful. the rest of that money we used on mental health programming. Um I'm trying to remember and and then resources that we put in our circulating collection. We also have an amazing seed library. People know or know about it from all over almost 4,000 packets last year. And the reason that's it fun is because people then harvest the seeds that they planted um like through flowers and and food and they'll bring them back to us and then we can circulate them again next year. And then this year we also went through uh dementia friendly training and became a certified dementia friendly organization. So our staff now know how to foster the quality of life for people and families living with dementia. Our community comforts drive is the top left picture there. Um that's going on right now through the end of the week. We we partner with local organizations and bring them items that people donate. So this year we partnered with a third place and heart of hope pantry. So if you have any personal items you would like to bring in um personal care items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, we will distribute that to those organizations. Um all right, engaging programs. I can't talk about this

enough. We um did receive a grant from Casey Arts for uh our first ever um local art show with regional artists. So that's in the top right corner. That was at our Watts Midtown branch. We had openings for those. People really enjoyed the art. Um we have amazing amounts of people come to our programs. Like I said, 82,913 attendees at our online and off-site and in-house programs. A lot of those are actually art programs um because people really just want to, you know, tune out from maybe their phones or the news or things like that and they just want to create. So that is one that we are are really diving into. Um some great pictures there of those programs and then reaching out into the community. we may see our our uh bookmobile out and about. Um the foundation purchased that in 2020 for us and we're very grateful because that gets us into a lot of different places. Uh we have a lot of different stops all around the community, especially places that maybe don't have easy way to get to the library, but we are out there. We go to school visits. We do Head Start. We do JA classes. Read Across America. Uh skip along. We do. We're there every week. Um, and then we also have the library of things, uh, which includes anything from snowshoes to golf clubs thanks to the parks department. We have yard games, craft supplies, and medical equipment and more. So, if you haven't been to the library, I highly recommend you go check out that collection. And so finally, our major project of 2025 was the master plan of the downtown library because we said after Watts Midtown was done, paid for, we were going to focus on the downtown library. And so this past year, we did in-person

focus groups. We did surveys. And what came of all of that and the public uh wanted was to keep the historical aesthetic of the library. Um make it safe and welcoming. So there's some really great pictures there of our first floor reading room. And I want to thank all of the other people who were able to come and walk around and learn more. And I always invite you to ask me more questions about it. Um, our next page is the mezzanine. It's an area of the library that right now is really does need some upgrading for safety reasons. We need some more seating for comfort. And then we also need to have a staff presence up there. And so this design has some moves some of our staff offices up to the second or the mezzanine level. And we'll keep an eye on the area much better than we can right now. So, that is an area we're really excited about. Um, the next page is our proposed design for the lower level entrance. Right now, it's kind of where am I? And this is showing how we would move our staircases, our stairwells, which are right now very dark, very small, and not really probably up to code. But, you know, our building's 125 years old, so that happens. Um, and we also get every day questions about smaller meeting rooms. So, the bottom right picture is the second floor, which shows um a small meeting room, keeping the aesthetic of the building, but allowing um a larger conference area or one that could be divided into smaller area. So, this is really the first time we've shared this with the public. We're really excited. Um, we did purchase that south lot in 2024

because we want to create an outdoor program space. And the reason why is also we want to level it so we have better ADA parking for the downtown library. This sits right across from our handicap accessible entrance, the south entrance. And then also the outdoor space would complement our downtown renovations and show an area where people can go and if they just want to, you know, read or we have a program out there. It's fenced in. So if we want to do story time, so the kids would be safe. They wouldn't be running out into the street. Very, very exciting stuff. Um, so what's next? We had a great year. We had a great year. We're always trying to do better, of course. Um, I'm a big Chicago Bears fan. So, good, better, best. You know, I want to be the best. So, uh, what's next? We need to figure out how to fund the downtown library master plan. We have some ideas. We have our foundation. We know of some grants. So, we'll be working really hard on that. Starting soon, we're renovating the downtown library's children's restroom for ADA accessibility. I I I think what's probably within the next month or so. Um really excited in April 2026 um during National Library Week will start it. We're going to do a library citizens academy. We get a lot of people who ask, well, how do you spend your money? What um you know, how do you choose the items that are in the library? How do you do strategic planning where we're going to do a weekly program for those who are interested to come in and just kind of learn the nuts and bolts of what we do at the library. Our summer reading program, we're we're already planning. It's called plant a seed read and as in pastures we'll have a big kickoff at the botanical center and it really fits in this year. So we're excited about that. And then we have a lot of programs coming up uh recognizing our 250th birthday of our United States. And uh one of them will be the freeze lectures

coming up. Those are an annual lecture series with Augustina College in October and November. Um that'll hit that pretty hard but we have others too. And then we're we're gonna try to keep up with our demand on those analog craft programs where people are just really enjoying um not just doing the craft, but sitting with others and having community and talking. So, we always want to be the best library we can be. And I hopefully we have we've met that goal this year. And I would be glad to answer any questions. And as always, thanks to our amazing staff and board. We wouldn't be able to do any of this if it weren't for their creativity and their enthusiasm and their love of Rock Island. So, thank you, Angela. I guess I'll start off with a couple questions for you.

Sure. Um, thanks again for the great tour through there and uh able to recognize some of the issues that you're facing down there. So I guess probably one of the questions that anybody may be listening that may be listening to tonight's meeting first question be what is the projected cost and then what would be the city's projected contribution? I'll get right to it there.

I hate to throw the numbers out because we don't know hard numbers because we'll have to go through engineering studies, but right now it's estimated at $9.7 million if we were to do everything. Um, there are things that we absolutely have to do regardless of the master plan, such as the windows. We really need to take care of uh remediating some things that aren't healthy for our staff to be in. And um, you know, I do believe that the money is out there. I don't know the city's portion. I mean, what can you afford? We would love a five-year commitment of at least $500,000 a year to get us started. Um we know that the city can't afford the whole thing and um recognizing that we're definitely looking at other funding models.

Yep. Certainly didn't mean to put you on the spot. I just know that's going to be something that's going to be asked. So at least if we absolutely at least um response to it, it's great. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Hello.

I will uh I will say that I wish we could have blown those pictures up of the library master plan so the public can see exactly uh the new design and how much of a good look that will be for downtown Rock Island. And I had a meeting with the library a few weeks ago and I I took a look at the master plan and that is something that not only downtown but the city of Rock Island will have an opportunity to grow into

this is it's a magnificent design. So I would encourage you all if you get a moment to look online look at this presentation and take a look at those adines inside and out. Rock Island does deserve something like this. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am. Next presentation is the economic development strategic plan. Good evening, mayor and council. Tom Flity. here to talk about the economic development strategic plan. I'm going to be followed by my by my colleague Miles who's going to be talking about the uh the port district plan. So maybe hold the questions until both of us have finished. We might actually ask the question along the way. Um I'm here tonight to introduce Lindseay Blues with TPMA Consulting. Um they're the consultant we chose to pardon me to uh undertake our strategic plan. Um, we uh issued the RFP in uh the summer of 2024. We received eight responses. Um, we specifically chose TPMA because they stood out um with experience untangling things like we've got right here. Complex relationships um that that that are long-standing. Um they reviewed service plans, organizational bylaws, mission statements, budgets, and work plans. They interviewed the mayor, city council, the curl committee, visit quad cities, Rita Dari, the hilltop CDC, MLK center, West End revitalization, Chamber Grow, Quad Cities, Iowa, Interstate Rail, Mid-Americ, Augustana, Rock Island, Milan schools, and numerous employers. We have an exhaustive report that's already had significant impact. Two lines come out of uh I'd like to call out. The current economic development

ecosystem in Rock Island does not function in a cohesive manner. The partners agreed the roles should be clearly defined and the team should unite around a common vision. So tonight, I want to say thank you to Lindsay and her team. We have a workable strategic plan that's already having desired impact and will tie nicely with the port master plan which my colleague Miles will cover shortly. Lindsay,

thank you. Thank you council for allowing me to come and present today. I'll try and make it pretty brief uh as we go along here. Let me see if I can share my screen so that you can see uh the presentation. Is that good for everybody? Okay. So, my name is Lindsay Blues. I'm with TPMA. We're a nationwide uh firm and we've worked all over the country uh doing very much uh this sort of thing. The economic development, strategic plans, um targeted industry analysis, housing studies, all sorts of different things. I love my job and I was really excited to be able to come to Rock Island and work with uh work with the team there. So the scope of work um Tom already went through so I'm not going to uh you know go through it in in too much detail here. Um, but I think I want to pull out again that stakeholder engagement process and really that evaluation of the working relationships and the partner organizations within Rock Island and then developing a really workable strategic framework and I'll get into that a little bit more. So, um, he already explained uh, a lot of the strategic partners that uh, we engaged with. Um we did tons of interviews. We did organizational overviews for each of the primary partners and then we went through and kind of did a report of our gaps and challenges within that uh economic development ecosystem. So those gaps and challenges were the kind of unclear roles and responsibilities among the different partners when it came to the different core functions of economic development.

um some duplication of efforts and some kind of confusion when it came to that. Um there's a lot of kind of internal dynamics that were playing uh a significant role and I believe are probably still playing uh a a role in the efficiency and and the impact that economic development team can can have here in Rock Island. um also talked about private sector disengagement and I think that that really speaks to that uh ecosystem as well. And then capacity and resources was definitely uh and I think we all understand that capacity and resources are always uh in high demand and and can be a struggle. And then everyone was just really desiring vision and leadership and looking to the city for leadership in this and really wanted to make an impact and kind of shift things from where they've been really kind of get that strategic alignment. So, it really was an exciting time to pull everybody together and we had uh a kind of a strategic alignment session over uh you know two days and we um we did uh a number of really highly engaging activities that included uh elements of a design sprint. We did long-term visioning. We did a SWAT analysis. We did a discovery dive for them to go and and um do some research uh as we were getting started so everybody was kind of on the same page. We looked at focus areas and goals. And then in our strategic development, I think one thing that really stood out to me about this group is how thorough they were. We got to objectives and tactics. We got to desired outcomes. We got to, you know, different uh, you know, evaluation of of

how much uh, impact we thought the different strategies would have. We got to catalysts that might push us forward, resources that we had or that we needed. We talked about barriers and how to mitigate the challenges. U, we talked about key performance indicators. We talked about coordination and alignment with plans that already exist. and we talked about coordination um with the partners and we talked about timelines. So that's one part of this uh strategic alignment sprint and then the other part was really about the ecosystem itself. So we searched through core functions and who was doing what and program mapping around that. What organization had what programs and how do they all work together. uh we dug into some of those underlying issues and a lot of things came out in that um in that discussion and I think that there was a lot of of really great dialogue happening. Um and we tried to do some really good team building and really kind of working together through that to to define what roles and responsibilities everybody thought um should be in place. Uh, so this is the long-term vision uh that we came up with uh here for Rock Island's economic development. I'm not going to read it for you, but um I was really happy with the way that that turned out for everyone and we always take a pretty holistic view of economic development. Um I want to kind of set the stage for everybody here really quickly. Um these are kind of the core elements. We talk about those core functions of economic development. All these partners are doing all these different things and really we categorize them in this way. Business intelligence and strategic planning, business attraction and marketing, business retention and expansion, entrepreneurial and small business

support systems, and then placebased strategies and quality of life. So getting into how the strategic framework uh came came out here. The very first bit is all about those coordinated efforts. We wanted to start out with that leadership, start out with that coordination, really looking at the meetings um and making sure that they're impactful meetings um that they're looking at problem solving, really defining those roles and adapting to the different challenges that are coming up. So, uh there's a lot going on right there, uh just in and of these first couple of strategies that's really really active at the moment. And then trying to strengthen some of these relationships um as they go through um engaging the private sector is really important through this. um doing some research and and uh really kind of procuring some resources to get um you know to get going and and have some professional development as well. The next piece is what we call thriving local economy and this one is really about entrepreneurship. It's about um the development sites and the needs there. uh it was definitely brought to light that um Rock Island needed to identify development sites and create an inventory. They're really lacking in that especially uh in comparison to peer uh communities. Um evaluating those sites and site readiness was really important uh as well as regulatory compliance. And that all came out in these strategies that our partners all came up with together as a team. Um marketing, you know, dynamic retail

marketing uh was definitely part of it. And then uh reorganizing the business retention efforts which have kind of gotten a little jumbled uh as far as roles and responsibilities go. really want to see Rock Island come out with a really kind of formalized uh business retention expansion program. Uh the next piece is uh empowered and prosperous community and this is really about the targets right targeting attraction for high wage jobs for understanding the workforce needs. This is the part where we're going to align with uh workforce and education. we're going to align with uh housing plan um with transportation, transit oriented development, and then also working along with the nonprofits in the area um that are doing really great work. And we might not always see the ways in which some of these nonprofit organizations connect into economic development, but again, taking a holistic view, we want to make sure that everybody is at the table when it's when it really matters. And then this is always a fun one, vibrant and eclectic um place. And uh here we are looking at um uh investing in enhanced place-based efforts, looking at um uh arts and culture, uh looking at events, looking at downtown development, lots of great stuff uh within that piece as well. And then just a quick note on implementation here. Uh you'll see on the screen a whole bunch of um logos and this represents primary partners of uh the city of Rock Island when it comes to economic development. Tom mentioned some of those as well. And a couple of pieces about implementation of this plan. It's

really designed to be flexible so to adapt as time goes on. We put um roles and responsibilities for each one of the strategies and did some overlapping there on purpose. We had primary and secondary partners for each initiative to make sure that we always had somebody to push forward on those different um strategies. It also sets you up really well for transparency and accountability as you move forward. Um it's just really important that you empower the staff at the city uh to make the right decisions and their professional uh careers and their experience and kind of trusting that as you move forward. And then obviously allocation of resources is really um critical in this. Um we also included within the plan um best practices for economic development in general. We talked about um comparable communities that um you know Rock Island can look to. We talk about different structures of economic development uh organizations and economic development ecosystems so that you all can kind of decide what's best for you. Um, obviously at TPMA we are happy to assist as uh as much as we can on helping to guide and um and support Rock Island as you move forward. And I will stop sharing.

Thank you, Lindsay. I appreciate that. I want to echo uh my colleagues comments uh thanking you and your team for all the work that has gone into that plan. Uh at this point I would like to introduce our next uh guest speaker this evening uh who will be providing an update on the port district master plan. Scott Drum is a principal consultant with CPCS a firm that specializes in large-scale transportation and infrastructure projects. CPCS responded to request a request for proposals that the city issued back in the spring of 2025. Since that time, Scott's team has collected data, interviewed stakeholders, and drafted working papers, which will form the basis of the plan. Staff have found the planning process extremely useful, especially because it has helped focus our minds on how the port district and its assets drive economic development in Rock Island. that the port district master plan is coming on the heels of the economic development strategic plan makes that connection all the clearer where the one focuses on how we can be better organized as Liz uh Lindsay described the other focuses on the specific on the ground actions that we should prioritize. So Scott feel free to uh take it from here.

Okay, thank you very much. See, there we go. Miles, why while he's getting situated, will we have an opportunity to ask questions about the economic development strategic plan? Okay.

All right. Okay. For some reason, it is not expanding on my screen. I apologize for that. Uh, good evening, mayor and members of city council. Thank you for having me here this evening. As Miles said, I'm Scott Drum with CPCS. I'm a principal consultant. Uh, we've been hired to put together the port district master plan in partnership with our partners WSP and Will Freriedman. I'm having trouble advancing slides. Let me start over. I'm sorry. I'm having technical issues and it will not advance. Scott, uh, exit out sharing your screen and then go ahead and then, uh, start the presentation like move it into slide mode and then try sharing your screen again.

Okay. for the time being. You may have to read it.

Yeah, I can. Miles, what is your preference? I apologize. I do not know why this is not working. What we'll try to do here is project it ourselves, Scott. But for the sake of time, if you want to just kind of get into your comments and we'll catch up with you. Sure. I'll stop sharing my screen to make that easier.

So, our project um has a number of elements to it. Um as Lindsay mentioned, there's a fair amount of stakeholder engagement that has gone on and continues to go on as we work on this project. Um we expect to be done by the end of April. So, we're we're getting close to the end. Um, we started with some strategic direction work um and looked at where the city wanted the port district to head. Then we did a analysis of the freight system in the city of Rock Island and really dug into understanding what the assets were, um, how they operated, what was moving on the systems, what modes were available. Um, and in addition, um, also building on something Lindsay talked about was what was the vacant land, industrial land inventory? What did it look like? Where was it? Um, and so we would have a baseline understanding of um, where some of the key assets for the port district might be. From there, we moved into a strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis um to better understand sort of the headwinds and tailwinds for the port district. We are currently in um a phase, in fact wrapping up that phase where we're putting together some of our recommendations on site concept layouts. These are not detailed site development designs, but rather um bigger picture. If you had rail and you had truck and you had vacant industrial land, how might that all fit together? And then finally, we'll put together a final report which will synthesize all of our findings um and develop also a port toolkit where we'll be able to turn over to the city um all of the slide decks, the maps, the the graphs, the charts and the data behind them um so that that you all can make use of those after the project is over. So to to sort of level set understanding um talk a little bit about you know what

is a port um and first what I will say is something that you do hear a lot in the port industry and that is if you've seen one port you've seen one port and that's not meant to be flippant but I think in my opinion um that's really reflective of what a port can be what a port can do for a community and it meet a variety of needs. But typically when you think of a port, you think of a system of terminals and infrastructure um and things that help move goods and trade across multiple modes of transportation. Most ports, but not all, focus on waterborne commerce as well as connecting to rail and truck movements. One thing that I think though that most ports do have in common is that they are a nexus of public and private investment, providing a platform in which both public and private dollars can help create jobs, economic activity, and promote economic well-being. And some ports, again, though not all, may also have an economic development component tied to them. Um, serving as something of an economic development engine, linking the freight system with industrial land and other opportunities. So, how are ports structured? You know, we understand that this is a brand new port district. Um, there's no set or dedicated revenue stream yet. So, we understand that this will have to be aligned with the city and be part of the city in a short, maybe even in the medium term. Um, but we think that will work just fine because port function skill sets are similar, maybe not identical, but similar to city needs. You're going to need someone who knows economic development, community development, planning. there's a need for finance and accounting, engineering and public works, legal, HR, and other sort of admin departments. Um, and then I think also as the city would would experience, there will be additional

needs for services such as environmental services, um, grant application, grant management activities, any kind of real estate transactions the port district enters into, and then very project specific engineering, planning, or other consulting services. And so where we're headed right now, though we are not done um with the org structure work, is recommending a shared service model with the city supported by contracting as needed to be most effective in the short or medium term. Having said that though, um we are also looking at comparable ports on the Mississippi and Ohio River systems to understand how they're staffed up and many of them um have anywhere from one to five employees. As you see in the sample or chart, there's either an executive director or a GM. If there's more than that position, there's usually someone involved in day-to-day administration and running of the of the port district, a commercial director or chief commercial officer focusing on economic development, driving cargo across the the facilities, and then someone heading up engineering and planning. Again, it really depends on how big the port is, what assets the port owns, what the port wants to do. Um so there this is just an example of what existing ports are doing from there looking at how ports are funded. They ports need a revenue stream to meet the needs uh of the organization. Um most times it's largely through business transaction revenue um where they get revenue from leasing out terminals, facilities or other port assets that sometimes comes along with some sort of throughput um volume indicator which is then monetized sometimes with a minimum annual guarantee to the port district. Taxes are are a often a a big source of money as well. usually a property tax. Um

sometimes also tax increment financing, which I know you'll hear about shortly. Uh other funding sources include bonds and grants. And by having a port district, um that enables Rock Island to avail itself of grant programs that are specifically targeted only towards ports that without a port, Rock Island would not otherwise be eligible to apply for. And then there were other revenue sources. As I said, you've seen one port, you've seen one port. Ports have the flexibility to meet a variety of community needs and and help them take advantage of opportunities. And so some of these revenue sources can be from industrial or even commercial property sales and leases. Um some ports own and operate toll bridges, tunnels. Some focus on cruise ship docks and terminals. So there's variety of other revenue sources that that that ports often use to fund their activities. Having said that, we then looked at Rock Island's economy to try to understand why a port and Rock Island would make sense and what kind of activities um would have the greatest likelihood of success. And so looking at American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau um for Rock Island, we found that over 40% of jobs in the city are in industries that are freight dependent. that includes construction, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, warehousing, as well as a few others. It's not 50%, but it's a sizable part. So, that that says there's a lot of freight moving to and from the city, and that it's important to the economy. We also looked at uh an indicator of economic competitiveness. We use location quotients which compares the share of employment with a within a given industry in Rock Island County with a national average. Um, anything with a one means it's on par with the national average. Below one, uh, less of a concentration. Anything above one, a much higher concentration

of employment in that industry. And you see there, three of the freight dependent industries are above one. Retail is almost at one. Um but that also indicates some opportunities for the port. Um wholesale trade, trade transportation, manufacturing have a high potential for using barge, for using rail, for using truck, all of which the the the port has access to here and also are candidates for using industrial sites in Rock Island. So we know that that freight dependent industries are important. We know that some of them um have a greater concentration than you'll find uh around the country in general. So then we looked at what was moving to and from Rock Island County. Um this is transarch data, a private data vendor and thank you to the Illinois Department of Transportation for sharing this data with us to use for this project. But you can see in the left table which ranks commodities by tonnage um non-metallicores and minerals which would be aggregates and other sort of mineral bulks u make up the lion share of freight moving to and from Rock Island County but also farm products chemicals waste and scrap. Um but if you look at value, it's a little bit different, but the overall list doesn't change very much, which also indicates that there's a lot um of commodities that are big and heavy, but also have some value to them and they're very important to the regional economy. And that's also good for port because these commodities by and large are really well suited to using waterborne, rail, andor truck transportation. again sort of the focus of what the port district could be. From there uh we took a look at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Here we have categorize them as headwinds and tailwinds. the headwinds. So, some of the the challenges the port

district will need to overcome is that we heard from and we did this by the way both with city staff as well as holding a SWAT workshop and openhouse um for the business community. So, we got their input um as to what these headwinds and tailwinds would be and what we heard was um some of the infrastructure is aging and obsolete. Um there are industrial sites but many are not ready to develop. I will say for those two things, ports can be a tool to help achieve improvement in those things. Um, and then again, it's a brand new port district, no dedicated funding. Um, which was a challenge. Um, but you that also can be overcome, but there were lots of positives, lots of positives. Um, if you do have the slide on the screen, and again, I apologize for the the difficulties. Um the top map there shows um drive times broken out um by the hour of service regulations for truck drivers. So truck drivers have 11-hour limits per day that they can drive. So we've mapped this out in five and a half hour increments. So if you want a round daily round trip from Rock Island, you can get to St. Louis and Chicago. If you want a day trip with an overnight or teen driver, Minneapolis, Memphis, Detroit. So you have access to a very large chunk of the US, a very large market. Looking at the next graphic there on that side on the bottom right corner. Um the freight system um in Rock Island is really strong. The squiggly blue gray line down the middle middle there is the Mississippi River system. um barge access. You can see the different colored hatched lines. Those are all the railroads in the region, including the Iowa interstate, which runs right through Rock Island and serves a number of industrial parcels here in the city. And then finally, the the white lines with the blue and red shields are the interstate freeways uh that move through

the region. So, you know, there's there's this connection of road, river, and rail uh in Rock Island that's, you know, critical and I think something the port can benefit or build upon. Um, and then finally, what we heard um two things, there's great deal of business community engagement um and desire for investment. We heard from companies that are investing and that are interested in investing in in the region. The city and Alra logistics have submitted a grant application to the maritime administration for the uh port development port infrastructure development program grants um that will help alter um increase usage of the city's barge and get greater utilization out of their existing industrial footprint. We also heard along those lines something that that stuck with the entire team and is that you know Rock Island has grit and we've seen that and there is interest in in improving Rock Island and helping Rock Island grow from the business community side which is a real asset. And then finally, there is the potential to to create or redevelop industrial sites. Recognize that it wasn't going to be easy. It will take time. It will take resources. but something that was a positive for Rock Island. And then with all of that, what we ended up with um was a focus on what we call the four Rs, river, rail, road, and real estate, which is focusing logistics, infrastructure in service of economic development. So it's not necessarily economic development just about logistics and movement of goods. It's more about supply chains. It's about manufacturing, about distribution. With the river, there's the direct access uh that you have with the two barge um docks in the city. Rail, you've already got with one of those barge docks, some some interotal activity that goes on. So, transferring product from the barge

to rail and vice versa. Excellent road connectivity. Also, roads that aren't congested. And then real estate that's welllocated with vacant land and redevelopable land along rail service or rail tracks um that are being used today and you can develop spurs and other um offshoots from that. However, there will be the need for site readiness work as Lindsay mentioned on some of these parcels. Again, not going to necessarily be easy. Um it will take time, it will take resources, but it but it can be done. And then getting towards the end of my presentation here, site concepts. This is uh where we are today with the project. We're we're laying out what different sites could be. Uh we identified we developed a methodology, identified um currently industrially zoned and future industrial land. From that inventory, we removed sites that were wet or had natural resources and advanced those sites u particularly that were along rail and road corridors, taking advantage of the infrastructure that's already here. And that's another point I'd like to make too, if I haven't made clear already. One of the things that's really in Rock Island's favor for the port district is you have existing rail, you have existing barge docks, you have existing roadways, so you're not having to start from scratch. You're just using that as the base and amplifying on it um to meet future needs. So the area we have here is Sunset South. Um oops set south. Um we've identified three zones of potential development working with uh the railroad to understand some of their requirements for serving sites whether it's geometry whether it's distance um trying to factor that in so we could see how with rail tracks how different buildings would lay out. That is what you're seeing here. Um but again the key thing

is we need to make sites ready first. This part's the easy part. We can show where rail might fit and where warehouses, manufacturing facilities, drybuilt storage would fit, but we need to go through and clear the sites, get rid of brush and shrubbery, demolish any existing structures. Then need to put in rail switches and the tracks that serve the parcels and the buildings. Then put in, which we haven't shown here, roadways, driveways, parking lots, infrastru uh structure such as storm water, electrical, utilities. Um so there's there's quite a work bit of work still to be done but to have this kind of access um is not particularly common. So my final slide here remaining project schedule. We'll be finalizing our site concept layouts within the next week or two. Um, by the end of March, we'll have our recommendation on all of those concept layouts, including a phased capital improvement plan focusing on the near-term with order of magnitude cost estimates and potential funding sources. Uh, by early April, we'll finalize our recommendations on the organizational structure, also develop a framework of partnerships um for the port district to to develop and build on over the years, and some marketing tools as well. by mid April a draft report and by the end of April our final report with that toolkit of digital files with maps, charts, graphs, data um as well as um slide decks for the port district and the city to use. So, thank you very much. Appreciate your time this evening.

Thank you very much, Scott. I will uh continue on here. Um, I'd like to now take a few minutes to provide a related update on the proposed North Rock Island Port District TIFF before I hand it back to Tom. Uh, move to the next slide. As you can see, the proposed TIFF has a pretty large redevelopment area covering a portion of the city north of the Rock River, served by the Iowa Interstate Railroad, shown as that red hatched line through the yellow. Adjacent residential areas on the northern side are also included. Next slide. Just as a reminder, uh tax increment financing is not a tax on property owners. Uh it doesn't give the city any expanded powers either. It is instead a mechanism where the increase in appraised value within a given area over time is captured and then reinvested into that same area. Over the 23-year life of a tiff, uh the reinvestment should result in property values higher than they would have been without the tiff. Typical investments include improved roads, new utilities, and incentives to developers, especially with regard to site readiness work. The specific goals of the proposed port district tiff, are quite straightforward. Much of the public infrastructure, as you've heard, needs to be substantially improved or replaced. Utilities like water and sewer are deteriorated, requiring extensive upgrades. Developers need help cleaning up sites through site clearance, environmental remediation or extensive renovation of existing facilities. Residential areas are also in close proximity to industrial areas. Uh so there is strong interest in using the tiff funds uh for neighborhood

improvements as well as housing rehab. The investments made therefore in the industrial areas can benefit the adjacent residential areas by virtue of the tiff. All in all, this will prove to be an essential tool in advancing the port district master plan as well as many of the city's other uh broad development objectives. Next slide. At this point, I would like to hand it back to Tom, who can share a little bit more about how the TIFF can be leveraged with other tools to improve site readiness and how sites are being identified in the context of the port district plan.

Thank you, Miles. What we have here is a picture of industrial site we're calling Sunset South. This is at the intersection of 31st Street and um Highway 92. It's also connected by the rail to the to our port district which is just 1.3 miles away. Uh Jim Bowman with the Iowa State Rail actually brought this one to our attention and what we thought at first we had about a 100 acre site. Um this would qualify for a state of Illinois site readiness grant uh for $150,000. We can study everything that we need to study out there. Uh we met with uh the two property owners, Alter Logistics and Langman Construction. Both entities are very willing partners and are excited to to be a part of a project like this. But in our discussions with Langman, we deter we discovered that the the land is actually much more intensely used than we realized and we're going to have to subdivide more than half of it out. So you can see the red line that will be the area that we're going to submit to the state for our site readiness grant. everything to the north of that um is already heavily used. Um we did not real again we didn't realize how intensely used that was. Um and that kind of added to some of the the confusion and frustration that we all felt when the amount of uh misinformation went out about this being a natural site and all the animals and everything that's going to be destroyed. It's it's a heavy industrial site right now. Uh next slide please. So slide on the on the left is one Scott just kind of showed. Take that industrial site, run some rail into it. You can see how we've put some different buildings out there. That's a concept that could go out there. Just a concept. Um the uh slide on the right is the overview of m of the map of Rock Island and you can kind of see how rail is going to really drive a lot of our a lot of our u investments. We've got Alter

doing a $14 million project down on the river. Come up the uh up the rail a little bit to 31st Street. We've got an industrial site with potential development. Follow the rail a little bit further. You're at the Rock Island auction site. We've recently you recently have approved a development agreement for that site. Take the rail out to Andalusia Road and down a little bit and you're now at the former Campbell Sports Complex that we're now going to convert into an industrial site. So, you can really see the importance of of rail in the future of our development. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. 31st Avenue. I know. Yeah. Way to catch that. Yeah. Um one one kind of final comment and we can go into questions. We you can see I hope how all of these things are connected to one another. The one plan to the other and all the work that's been going on lately. So, we kind of wanted to do them all together to take questions collectively given that certain things answer one another. So,

yes. Um I do I do have a question. I'll start off with this. Um what is it more so of? A, B, or C? A that the port needs funding. B the port is the source of funding. or C initially we're going to have to fund the port and after a little while we'll get a lot more from that investment which it is what is it more so of I think we're just a little premature on that that's what we're still trying to figure out what our next steps are going to be

so my question to uh my question to the port professionals have you seen it in the past to where a port put a city in a in a worse position or a negative position. I I I I'm just trying to see our potential investment here. Can you hear me? Mayor, I I have not seen that situation before

in the port uh creates the opportunity to attract money. That was some of the motivation of it originally. I think a good example is is we were able to get a grant to do the port project of, you know, 400 plus thousand dollars. the uh the project that we are working with alter on if you were in a port district you wouldn't have been able to apply for that am I correct so the port really creates the opportunity to uh attract money but initially we'll have to fund it initially we're looking for funding options correct

so the port itself as like an entity is right now us so we're the port right so in the future as it generates revenues or we collect funds for it. We might end up having more that we need to spend for it, but right now, I mean, the port and the city are one and the same. Okay. Okay.

So, can you uh briefly tell me a few of success stories that a port district has done for another city? and and and and the answer that I'm looking for is pretty much like a percentage like like when when they were deemed a port district, the city, the quality of life, the investment, the funding, it all increased by 10% 15%. As far as a citywide, I'm looking for that number. Scott, maybe a good thing to do here would be to talk about your own experience leading a port district in the past.

Sure, I can talk about that. Um, mayor, um, a lot of port districts have been established for quite some time. So, some of them it, you know, it's been a while. Um, and we may or may not be familiar with the history. Um, but I will say, um, you ports have a positive economic impact on communities. Um, but again, the it has to be managed correctly. I mean, all those things you would the same with the city. Um but it it is a large economic engine. It creates jobs. Um it to the point of being able to redevelop industrial sites you if if the funding can come and again that can come through grants, it can come through other sources um to do that clean up, that remediation, the site prep, then you're able to bring in an employer whether it's a manufacturer distribution firm that would otherwise not be able to be in Rock Island. Um and in fact um I spent 28 years at the Port of Portland in Portland, Oregon. And um just by happen stance, the the Port of Portland was able to have a large real estate portfolio and that helped um underwrite some of the maritime division operations. um you know where as a public good um the price that was charged wasn't necessarily covering all of the costs but we were able to you know fund that because we had this other resource this other asset that we could lease or we could sell and that enabled us to continue to offer some of the the marine terminal services. So there again you have to you have to plan um and you have to manage it correctly um but generally um ports do drive economic well-being and economic development.

Sir from your experience typically throw a number out there. hate to put you on the spot, but what what amount are we looking at to initially fund our port district based off of the knowledge that you know from our real estate um from our area, from our economy, uh for our situation here in Rock Island, what number will we initially need to fund our port?

I'm not able to answer that question unfortunately, but it's still early on. Um, I think there's there's work to be done to figure out what will be needed to do all of the site readiness work. Um, and as part of our project, we're also going to highlight some of the funding sources. So, it may be that the the port will need money, but it will not necessarily have to come from the city. Um, there are other pots of funding out there that they can avail themselves. So, you know, unfortunately, I'm not able to to give you a a number. And again, um, you know, the port is brand new and so you could also manage costs by, you know, making decisions about we're not going to be overly ambitious in the first few years. We're going to have one or two major projects and really focus on those because that's what we have the resources for. Um, so that's how I that's the best way I can answer that question.

Okay. Tom, question for you for our site readiness. Uh uh we applied for that grant. Correct. So is it just for that one deemed site or have we applied for grants for a few of our site readiness potentials? This will be the first site readiness grant that we've applied for and it is restricted to that one site. Okay. Now would the figures on the site readiness would that come from us or would that come from their master plan as well? site readiness for this specific site, the cost of it for this specific site. That'll come from us. Okay. All right. All right.

As an example, mayor, just even doing some research, uh, the port districts federally, I believe, gave out about $450 million in grants last year. And I think in some of the research I read from 2021 coming forward, just the state has been about 108 million. Okay. with I mean the majority of the projects are in the four to$17 million range that got it. I believe Cairo, Illinois got like $40 million. Wow. To do it. So, you know, you're not talking when you get a grant. It is a large amount of a grant. So, the city's not expending that. So, I would hope we would go big game hunting or say the uh the

So, I'm sorry. Not Sorry for cutting you off. No, you're especially with the Alter project that you know you're you're talking they're spending $14 million. So if we can kind of piggy back with that, you know, to try to help fund them, you know, you're talking about even if we get one win out of it, that's that's a large large project. The council has approved the application for that. It's an 11 million request. Yeah. And in order to go after the big monies, you have to have a plan. You have to identify needs and things like that. That's part of what the master plan will will do. Yes. Yes. In the state of Illinois, how many port districts do we have?

Scott, do you know that off the top of your head? I don't know off the top of my head. And but I will say that number is growing. Yeah. There has been an emphasis in Illinois to create port districts on both the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. 10 or between 10 and 12. I'll take a guess. 10. 10. Okay. Okay. So, so out of that, out of thatund and some million for the state of Illinois, hey, yeah, on average, we're sitting pretty good. Any more questions? Do you know how many port districts are on the Mississippi in Illinois?

Not off the top of my head. No. But it would be if we're using 10 as a base in Illinois, I would say six or seven would be on the Mississippi and three or four on the Illinois. Just a guess. Says three. Okay. Three.

Uh I I I guess one last question, Miles. Uh according to their timeline, when can we expect to have some updates for the public? Well, again, according to their timeline, probably by April, okay, we will have a more significant update uh with a more finished product to present. Again, the the goal tonight was to try to make sure that everyone got an update on where this thing has been uh since it's been about a year that we've been working on it now. And also to make sure that we draw that clear connection between the strategic economic development plan and this plan. Kind of think of them like nesting dolls, right? They all line up and fit together. So question on the uh economic development strategic plan as it notes the real challenge lies in implementation and five years seems to be really aggress aggressive for completion. So where are we have we started the implementation? Is there a particular date where you've got like here's a start date, here's five years out and how do you plan to make sure to keep on you know make sure things are

sure the so the plan it's a fiveyear plan. It's not a five-year plan to get a strategic or to get an economic development plan going we're we're going right now. So it'll it won't take a full five years. what we'll do now we have the plan finished is uh work to refine the work plan so to speak you know what we're going to do when we're going to do it who's going to do it uh because there's a lot there and as we know we're limited on our resources so we'll have to continue to refine that

so there are short-term medium-term and long-term um initiatives within the strategic plan and so the implementation structure that's there will give you a guideline. But as I said in my presentation, um it is designed to be flexible for a reason. There's always kind of changing circumstances uh that happen. So we want to make sure that um you're able to move up the timeline on something if you if you can or push it back if you have to. You could need to pivot completely. And so a lot of the um front-loaded kind of um uh strategies especially with um the partnerships and communications piece of the puzzle that is where a lot of that um agility is going to happen within the plan. I had a comment on a question about the economic development strategic plan and I sure

I go uh comment. I I I guess I was disappointed by the lack of direction or detail um especially with respect to navigating our partnerships in the Quad Cities. It just seems like the report reports on what we already knew that we've got a lot of people doing a lot of different work and a lot of partners doing stuff and it's duplicative. It's uh complicated shall we say and the sort of plan if from what I recall reading just sort of says figure that out and it was my understanding that that was the point of this plan. Um the question I heard in your presentation that um uh where economic development partners and staff are looking to city leadership. Um what does that look like? Are they looking to city leadership as to uh we should prioritize the film industry over freight train? Are they looking for city council approving different incentive programs? Um what is the leadership that people are looking for from the city council? So I think when we're talking about that in terms of um the plan um I think people were primarily looking toward the city staff actually in terms of their um you know their leadership uh looking toward the council more in terms of vision uh and setting forth those uh those sorts of things. As far as the detail um within the plan, I think that there's a lot more detail that was discussed and we were um very careful

about what we wanted to put in the plan due to the sensitive nature of some of it. Um to be quite blunt with you and I think um when it comes down to it, we've got a lot of detail that can be acted upon. Um, I know that I have given city staff um several uh recommendations um both within the plan and uh within our conversations.

I appreciate that feedback. I guess while I defer to the professionals in our economic development team, uh I I I think that there's growing frustration at everybody not talking about the dysfunction that everybody recognizes because we don't want to upset regional partners or or whatnot. And and again, I understand the place for professionalism and doing it in a certain way, but to just say, "Well, this is sensitive, so we're just not going to include it in the report just seems like that was the whole point of why we procured this report."

I appreciate that feedback. I um will say that a lot of the specific uh structure changes are already underway. Um, so when we're looking at it, um, in the kind of bigger picture, um, I know Miles and Tom and Todd have already been working toward, um, some of these initiatives that are outlined within the plan and working off of a lot of the detailed uh, information that we worked on as far as roles and responsibilities and all of that goes toward um, building those relationships. I know that um the relationship between the city staff and uh grow quad cities in the chamber um has improved since the plan uh was completed and I think that there's uh a lot more to be said there. I'll defer to to Tom and Miles on that one though.

Yeah, I would agree with Lindsay. The uh the uh relationship between uh the city staff and the and the chamber has significantly improved. Uh we've always had a great working relationship with Rita. Um part of my job here is to get those relationships back in line. So I take that very seriously.

Okay. One thing I I if you don't mind, I'd like to add is that within our um two-day kind of intensive engagement that we had, there was a lot of energy in that room and a lot of um um really um excitement about getting together and even having those conversations that haven't really happened. And so there was a very distinct desire to continue that communication and to continue that working together um especially among some of those partners that uh maybe have not been as close uh in working with the city. And then of course uh like the Hilltop uh CDC that um there's a a opportunity there as they're getting started to work really closely with the city. Um I think there's a lot of opportunity to work with Weston revitalization more. Um there are a lot of those kinds of things that are happening in the background that are kind of difficult to explain and narrative within such a plan.

I would also say that you know we haven't been waiting around on the plan to uh start moving on certain things. I mean our relationship with the chamber and the way chamber does economic development has changed dramatically over the last year. Um they divided out the economic development section from the chamber work and there's now a board with public private participation you know directing the efforts of uh grow and uh we've seen a lot of improvement in that area. I got a question and um due to the fact that the port actually or the port and these plans are all surrounding part of my ward as well as um Mr. Alderman Herz's ward. What are we doing to make sure that the residents are fully aware of what's happening and what the cost is going to be for them uh as we move forward with this? Well, there shouldn't be any direct costs to residents in either the first or the second ward. What they should see instead is the benefit of investment. So, one of the goals that we have here is not just to see uh the industrial sites on one side of the expressway turned around, improved, made better. We want to see some of that uh value generation used for neighborhood improvement as well. you see along uh especially uh north of 18th Avenue along 92 kind of the conflict of uses, right? So heavy industrial next to residential areas, right? The two probably too close for comfort. there are things that we can do and hope to see happen uh to reduce some of that um conflict and also see whatever prosperity is coming in on the industrial side also being channeled into improvements on those neighborhood sides as well. So in terms of the benefit to residents versus say to the businesses alone uh it should only be benefit um we shouldn't see them uh face

any additional costs. Yeah. I mean, there really shouldn't be any direct cost. There should only be benefit, opportunity to have jobs, the opportunity to have additional revenue that, you know, won't have to be gotten through taxes. If the tiff is successful, there'll be new infrastructure, there'll be opportunities to provide residential rehab projects and and things of that nature. In the adding of the mobilization of the rail going through that, is that going to create any sound issues? You know, there's a lot of other different things that come with this moving into that area and have we dealt with any studies based on what that's going to do for our residents as well.

Actually, investigating exactly those sorts of questions is something that we can leverage the tiff to do. Um, one of the things I know we've brought up with our colleagues in public works is whether or not there should be uh any work done to understand the effect of sound uh pollution uh going into those neighborhoods. uh you'll often see a lot of barriers up along uh highways and interstates around the country in these similar contexts. We don't have anything like that here. Um how to do that, what exactly to do would require some studies and that's exactly the kind of thing that we could look into doing to try to buffer between those things. So that's that's kind of the novel approach we're trying to take here where we're we're trying to approach the two things together, not solely focus only on the industrial side.

Okay. I have one more question and the question is um it it it was said that the success of the port district is how well it's managed. How well it's managed. So where after this strategic plan, who will give us the expertise on managing this? Is that another contract we'll need or are we going to are we going to send staff to training or hire on a professional? What are we going to do to ensure this is a success because it's managed the right way?

Scott, do you want to kind of take a first jab at that?

Yes. Um there are a couple of things that we are looking at. One is um a recommendation, again this is not a final recommendation, but a recommendation about putting together inside the city of Rock Island a port team so that there's someone from planning, someone from finance, some someone from each different department that is needed for the port um to always have um the latest information on the port know they're respon they're the person in their group responsible for working on port things. Um so that there you begin to develop a team, you begin to develop the professional knowledge. Um at the same time we are also looking at establish or suggesting establishing a an external sort of advisory committee um that would help city staff in the city you know understand what the needs are, what the priorities are and and how best to move forward and get impact or input rather from the the business community itself. I don't I I I I don't I don't want to dig too deep, but I'm obligated. I'm obligated. So, the advisory committee, the the special task force, are those locals? Are those are those out of out of out of state, out of town people? I'm I I'm trying to get a grasp of what we'll need in house for the success of this operation. In house, what we'll need. That's what I'm trying to understand.

Yeah, this committee would be locals who understand the local market, the local needs, how each of the modes works in the region. Um, what the needs are, what the gaps are. Um, and internally, you know, again, there's a lot of similarity between, you know, what a city needs and what a port needs in terms of staffing. Um, you know, there there's planning competency, finance competency. Um, so there's a lot there. Um and it also ends up being you know how what assets the port owns and controls which right now is there's not a lot of of assets. Um so it's more that the port would be a convenor, a coaleser, a leader, um someone that would bridge um different groups and pull this together so that it wouldn't necessarily always fall on the port or on city staff to do things, but there are those in the community again like with the PIDP grant with Alter, uh you know, Alter put in a lot of effort on that as well. So there you can draw on some of those that expertise too.

And we had a steering committee for this and it would probably be made up of very similar folks. I mean you had people from the state, you had people from uh local businesses that had uh expertise in that and various things. So it looked fairly much like that. I mean staff has the experience in finance, engineering, grant management to to undertake the efforts that's required initially. Hopefully, it'll grow into something that produces some of its own revenue and we can uh you know uh uh hire dedicated staff. But the one thing that's significant is we've leased the port to Alter and they operate in management. So there's really no direct not need for knowledge in that area. Right.

Any more questions from the council? Thank you guys. Thank you Lindsay and Scott. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you. Agenda item seven, public comment.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. for the first name on the list. Uh, Adakus Garrison.

All right. Sorry about that. I'll make sure that I'm under the five minute time period here. All right. So, special shout out to Amanda. I was working on this until right before the meeting and she was responding to my email so I want to make sure she gets a shout out. So, uh, good evening, Mayor Harris and council members. My name is Adakus Garrison. I'm a Rock Island resident and a librarian whose professional work focuses specifically on information systems, digital literacy, and data privacy issues. I'm here today to ask the city to re-evaluate and potentially cancel its relationship with Flock Safety Corporation and automatic license plate recognition cameras. More generally, I want to be clear from the outset that this request is not meant as a criticism of the council or the Rock Island Police Department. On the contrary, Flock themselves are to blame for many of the criticisms I hope to outline tonight. I have full faith in our city and police have every intention of using these tools in good faith as evidenced by many of the transparency provisions outlined in the initial usage agreement that the city signed with Flock. My first issue is the data harvesting efforts that Flock has been enacting in over the past few years. So in the Rock Island Police Department operations manual ALPR system section, it stipulates that ALPR data will only be used for non-commercial legitimate law enforcement purposes. However, recent reporting from 404 media and others in May of 2025 shows that Flock is developing tools that connect license plate scans with commercial people lookup databases. In practice, this means that camera scan data can be connected to a person's identity, their address, and potentially their relationships or associations among other data that has been and is being collected by Flock and its data broker partners. That changes this system from one that just observes vehicles or license plates to a system that allows private entities to track people where they go, who they are, and what and where they worship among other deep invasions of privacy. My second issue is concern uh security concerns. My second

issue stems from the lack of security provisions in how Flock operates. There was a major data breach uh in the fall of last year that has led to increased scrutiny on the company. Hundreds of cameras in their feeds were compromised and openly accessible on the web. Folks were able to track their fellow citizens and that footage and data was collected and could have even been accessed by foreign governments. The FTC has been called to investigate Flock by Illinois Congressional Representative Raja Krishna Morti along with US Senator Ron Weiden of Oregon in a November letter where they outlined a myriad of security concerns with this technology. My third issue uh we are opting into a participation in a nationwide surveillance network. So uh by signing a contract with Flock, we have opted into their network of services. So both private entities and police departments far outside of the scope of the Quad Cities have access to data that we are collecting and sending to Flock through these ALPR cameras. In May of 2025, a Texas police department pulled data from over 83,000 automatic license plate reader cameras from across a number of states where reproductive services such as abortion are legal under the guise of a missing person's search to attempt to prosecute a woman that was believed to have left the state of Texas in search of receiving abortion services. Illinois was one of those states. On top of that, there are a number of examples such as uh in 2024, a Kansas City police chief that used flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend 164 times and her new boyfriend over 200 times over the span of four months. That's from the Witchaw Eagle. On top of this, we also know that federal agencies such as ICE have also actively been using Flock's network of cameras and data collection to facilitate immigration raids and is doing so through back-end doors facilitated by private entities and local police departments that have contracts with ICE. This way, Flock can state publicly that they do not have direct contacts with federal agencies, but can still facilitate access to the

systems uh of federal agents. In conclusion, for these reasons, I respectfully urge that the city re-evaluate its relationship with flock safety and begin planning how to end its contract rather than renew it. Additional incidents such as continued camera installation in Cambridge, Massachusetts after the city terminated the contract with the company uh raised further concerns about the vendor accountability and oversight. I want to emphasize again, my concern is not with our police department or this council, but with relying on a vendor controlled uh surveillance platform whose capabilities and risks are expanding beyond our local governmental oversight. I encourage the city to hold a transparent public discussion about alternative approaches to public safety that do not rely on expansive vendor controlled surveillance systems. If any council members would like to discuss these issues further, I will make myself available. Thank you. under the bus.

How how will you make yourself available? Oh, uh I uh yeah, you can email me. I'll have coffee with anyone. Uh just yeah, like I said, I work at Blackhawk College. I'm I'm a local I'm a resident of uh Alderman Herz ward. So, if anyone wants to reach out to me to discuss this further, I'm more than open to talking about this further. Thank you. Thank you for your time, sir. Yep. Thank you. Next name, Hannah Frell. H. Okay.

Um, good evening. Um, I am Hannah Ferrell. Um, I live in the district. Um, I've been trying to self- advocate for our homeless community and our, you know, poor community in the district. Um, we all have public housing. It's a lot of that down there. Um today I came to um ask Rock Island to pay a little bit better attention to the problem of domestic violence and harassment in our um in our city, but mainly in the district area and um in our poor community. It hasn't really been handled very well. Um this can come from anything when it comes to harassment um and domestic violence. It doesn't have to be an exartner. It can be anybody um that's doing that to you. And a lot of times when it comes in our community, it can come from family. It can come from either a partner or it can come from, you know, if you are out here talking about pedophilia or um sex offenders. It can come from that too. Um another thing this can come from is somebody needing shelter and they don't want to leave and that can spark domestic violence and harassment. Um, also, uh, harassment has not been treated the same in Illinois. Um, there is no longer, um, the same laws about who we're getting on it about. Um, so when there is, you know, harassment going on in the community, um, the answer I got was yes, this person is allowed to follow you around, they are allowed to stalk you, it's not really illegal, they're not really doing anything um, violent yet. So, if we put out those types of things, um they're going to finally walk that line. When it comes to abusers, um women in the community have not really been getting the answers they need. Um they have not been getting the help that they need and this is leading to a lot

of mental health issues. This is leading to um a lot of sabotage. It can lead to a lot of um uprooting from our you know, from homes that we were already at. Um that is a huge barrier for victims right now. Um so we cannot have that type of harassment in our community. Um if police this time it is getting towards summer, it is becoming that time. So if they can make sure that they get it in check, if it you have to talk to male or female about it, make sure that they understand that what they're doing is inappropriate. Um but that cannot continue in the district and that everybody sees that um when they come down here they say, "Oh, that's happening." And then they blame it on the homeless community or anybody else. Um and it needs to be in check by um the police. So I am asking Rock Island to pay a lot better attention to that this summer. Um and um definitely making sure if authority if authorities are involved in some of the victims or um some of the cases if they have like family members in law enforcement or um things like that to make sure that law enforcement is not um you know blocking the victim's ability to be able to get some justice from that. So, um, I thank you for your time and I would like that paid attention to a little bit more this year.

Thank you for your time, man. Thank you. Thank you.

The next name, uh, Janet Molen.

Miss Molen. It is. That's my teeth. That's my old teacher. And he was the best student. Hey, you're under oath, ma'am. You're under oath, Miss Molen. Wow. All right.

Um, Janet Molen, 3836 28th Avenue in Rock Island. In 2023, I was notified about an issue with the Indian signage by Regina Sosce, then president of the Native American Coalition of the Quad Cities. I am representing myself and no other group to which I am a member. I have lived in Rock Island uh since 1968 and an additional four years as a college student. In 2023, the Rock Island City Council made the correct decision to put the fallen commercial signage from 11th Street into storage. As I stated then, in light of all the places across the country where complaints have occurred about the use of mascots and native images without approval of the Native American nation, that is the Sock. Once again, the issue of commercial commercial signage has arisen by someone asking for the signage who is not a member of the sock nation. The fact that the black that Blackhawk continues to be called a chief is distur is disturbing. Blackhawk was not a chief but could be and indeed was a warrior and recognized by the sock nation as the leader of a political faction strongly opposed to the removal from Sakenok. Being a chief was a hereditary designation, one that he could never have had. In 2023, it was our time in Rock Island to stand up against racial imaging with a removal of the 11th Street statue. The University of Illinois, the Cleveland Guardians, and the Washington NFL team responded by

ending their inappropriate use of Native American na mascots and images. We too had our moment to end that racial imaging that was allowed to survive after the rest of the Watchtower Plaza was raised. A letter from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indians stated, "Some people believe that these types of names or statues honor Native people. On the contrary, that is not an answer an honor. Defeating racism is the work of generations. As individuals, we may not see the end of racism, but we can build on the world of our ancestors by devoting our lives to fighting it at every opportunity. The National Museum of the American Indian celebrates diversity, discusses wrongdoing, tackles stereotypes, and brings the world a more comprehensive and truer story of America. If we are concerned about the education of residents, including children, about Native Americans, we need only to look locally to the excellent Halberg Museum at Blackhawk State Historic Site and the work it does. The book 12 moons, a year in the life of the sock and msquakei 1817 1818 was written by Beth Carvey, then director of the Hawberg Museum and illustrated by Tom Wilcoxen, who is al also illustrated French colonial dart, a journey in time. This our our 12 moons the 55page 12 moon book focuses on the complete life of those nations rather than highlighting warrior activity and images. Both the sack and fox nation of Oklahoma and the msquakei nation of Iowa

approved the book before it was published. If the city of Ark Island wants to devote any finances resources to enhance the image of Sock in this area, it would better it would be better to to sp to spend it securing public access to the site of the original Sockan still available rather than restoring commercial commercial signage no longer appropriate. Thank you for your time. Thank you, ma'am. Janette Hall. Janette Hall. Janetta Hall. Oh, I'm I'm sorry, ma'am.

It's okay. No, I don't, ma'am.

Well, I don't have anything written down on paper. However, I've heard a lot about already pre-planned what people have envisioned for many years for our poor area of now industrial waste. Okay, we are the golden goose, golden egg underneath ugly goose. Because if anybody has studied the lower Mississippi, south of St. Lewis, they'll know that due to droughts and flooding that the Mississippi is becoming uh unavailable for barge traffic. Barge traffic is having a problem in that area because the Mississippi is lowered due to droughts. So it would be somebody to make a lot of money on our area which is prime with as I take it all three of the modes of transportation and logistics. You have rail, which been undeveloped since the 60s, which we've been trying to get a passenger rail system between Kansas City and Chicago for many years. And nobody wants to put money towards anything for the public good and social services. It's all socialism. Anything that's for the common person, it's all not for business. So irrelevant. Okay. So we have people, you talk about mismanagement. Let me finish. We have rail that's been undeveloped until now. And we we don't need to spend big money to consultants to tell us what we already know. And

they're already making money. And they don't even have all the answers. They're going to fly by the seat of their pants. And then they got tiff. Okay. We've already been charged. Some people have already been charged and we were told to come to a meeting. We could not ask qu answers or questions for. We were told and relegated what they were going to do and we had the um we had the opportunity to speak out public opinion. However, what good does it do when you can't answer ask questions? Okay. people that live in those areas, people that are supposed to be representative, but we don't see our representatives. Some of us never even get to come to council meetings because we work different shifts. Okay, this is the first city council me I have come to in my whole 60some years in Rock Island. Okay. Living in the West End since 1978. Okay. I bought my home and you know the West End, nobody want How many people come to the West End until it's business approved? Okay. We are redlined. We are redlined. We can't even get a pizza past 9inth Street because of something that we had no nothing to do with. Okay, we are dirt. People come down here and want to buy houses up to rent. They want to make money off the west end. We got the best marina in the whole section of the Mississippi River from Musketine to um north uh uh I want to say Kamanch somewhere in there. We were the best marina. Molen has nothing compared to our marina. We spend money dredging it,

but we don't improve it. The city did good by taking it over from private. However, they don't appropriate money to build in the West End for the betterment of its citizens. I've been trying to get an alley. The people on my block, and I I just said this last time, have been trying to get an alley put in. You know, nice neighborhoods have a cement alley with drains. We got a rock alley that the city has to spend money every year servicing it because that wasn't approved. We have petition, petition, petitioned the city. And we finally got access after like uh see I lived there in 78. The Ballards lived there before me. Several people before I even moved in there tried to uh petition the city to get city improvements that our tax dollars pay for. No, our tax dollars pay for pensions because of mismanagement because nobody wanted to have the public sector have a private pension that they pay into. I know we're going on time, but look how long they got to tell us what they want to do for our golden egg. All right. The tiff, getting to the point, the tiff is going to take the the money that you need beforehand. the TIFF is going to be put into tax uh funds and they said how they proposed it was cities and streets. Well, it ain't going for cities and streets. It's going to tear down other people's property that they had. Maybe they don't even live in the state.

Ma'am, you're Yeah, I'm going on and on. The t the tiff dollars are going into the fund to take care of the things that they need done. And we're still paying for 11th Street. We're still paying for the debacle on Zair's store. Thank you for your time, man. Need to hear it. Thank you.

Larry Lockwood. My name is Larry Lawrence Lockwood and I am a member of the Native American Coalition of the Quad Cities. And uh it's my understanding that you're going to hear a proposal tonight about the signage, the Blackhawk signage, and a proposal to sell it to Mr. Rudy Vjo and his group. I want to uh mention that I've been involved in cultural education here in the Quad Cities for over the past 25 years. From the Quad City Arts Council, I've received two individual artist grants to go into different schools across the Quad Cities and share my Native American heritage perspective. I've also worked at the Blackhawk State Historic Site in their school tours program um with my storytelling drum. Um I've also worked and I still am continuing to work with the Putnham Museum. I'm under contract with the Viking Cruise Ship Tours Program through there and I'm also part of a grant that uh is an interactive grant for their Black Earth Big River exhibit. I also work with the Figgy Museum bringing a Native American cultural education component to the Native American artists exhibit. The NACQ QC through numerous presentations over the years I've done at local colleges and schools across parts of Illinois colleges and Iowa communities. Rudy Valio over ye over the years including their own organization. I've worked for them too with a strong educational component and singing with a thunder medicine drum. Many of the local Indian community have supported Mr. Valjo over the years. Mr. Sanderson Jr. is one of them, too. He's here tonight. And his family is a performing group with authentic Native American regalia. And it's beautiful to see the Sage Sisters of Solidarity, uh, represented by Regina Sosi, the president of the Native American

Coalition of the Quad Cities and a member of the Navajo Nation, as well as, uh, one of my sisters who's part of the Ogalala Nation. They represent the uh murdered and missing indigenous women, MMIW, and they raise awareness seeking justice and addressing the systematic causes of high violence rates against women and and girls. These are groups too that have worked and supported Mr. Valio over the years here and we have supported Mr. Valio and his community. As a result, Mr. Valio was going to come before you in a position in the community that we have in essence lifted him up to because through our support we've kept things going in our Indian community and he doesn't stand here alone he stands here with us and by him wanting to bring this stereotypical cartoon of an Indian man and refer to the sign as a chief he is betraying all of us he is betraying the very Indian community that has supported him through these years and it would bring division and polarization in our community and it already has because we've seen him on TV talking about what he wants to do and he never consulted any of the people or any of anybody that has worked and supported him over the years including me. All of our efforts, all of our hearts and all of our knowledge we brought to bear in order to support him as an elder and he's betraying our trust in him. I have my own history with Mr. Vjo and you know we've sang together and we've prayed together and we'll probably continue to do so. Now um there was some uh what our last involvement was with this statue this signage was with the Blackhawk Bank. Their proposal was to put this statue on top of a a newly made ATM machine that had an ATM on all four sides. And they wanted to put this statue on the front of it on top of it in front of their uh their home branch. And we met with the president and Regina

Soi and I, the president of the Native American Coalition of the Quad Cities. And I brought my big pow-wow drum, the thunder medicine drum. And we spoke to him about the inappropriateness of it. And I also offered him to sit at the drum with me because the drum teaches us two things. And I told him it teaches us how to work together because he I gave him a drumstick and if we could drum together on one beat, that's us learning how to work together. The drum also teaches us how to listen to each other because as I'm singing, he's got to listen and learn the song and learn how to sing with me in one voice. And he sent us a note saying that he valued that experience so much and he had recorded it too and that he was going to keep it forever because it really validated the work that he was doing with regard to Blackhawk. And as a result, the sign was put in storage after that. We never heard anything about it until we seen it on the news that Mr. Vjo wants to purchase it. Now we I really believe that Mr. Vallejo is betraying us as an Indian community and he's exploiting us for his own personal financial gain because that's all really this is about. He wants to use this as a way to make money with the presentations that he's done and he we as a Indian community have supported him all these years and I still consider Mr. Vallejo an elder my elder and that I don't say that lightly to about anybody considering them my elder but Mr. Vallejo I consider my elder and he would use this chief statue to continue to exploit the greater Quad City sentiment that they have of the statue to make money.

Sir, you're over your time. I'm sorry. Okay. Well, I just want to thank you. I respectfully want to thank you for your time and I humbly ask you to say no to his proposal to sell this statue. Thank you. John Van Norman. John Van Norman. Is that you, sir? Step right up. Okay. Okay. Um after this. Okay. We're testing the microphone. needs to be longer. I need to be shorter. I want to give them a chance to talk.

Uh my name is John Van Norman and this is the third meeting I've come to on this tiff. Uh back Let me wait for my phone to move. Oh, that's what's missing is my glasses. Uh let's see. This was February 2nd of this month. Uh the meeting we came to, we had many neighbors and concerned other residents about the verbiage that was in your tiff regarding properties that would be let me see where it says displaced. And that's the same as eminent domain.

And like she was saying about following up with doing things for the people, she hasn't had proper road maintenance like she should have. where I live. We've been there since 2002 and I've been trying for probably since 2006 or seven to get a resurfacing of my road. I've had people from the city out so many times I had to go to a second hand to count how many times I've had alderman's out there. I've had people from public works uh don't have the money. Don't you can't do this. Not right now. I'll get back with you on and on and on. Broken promises. Uh I really don't have a lot of faith in the trust and the uh people's good word of I want to get back with you because it hasn't happened. Uh I had a inspector come up write me up because I didn't finish putting sighting the last bit on my storage shed which did not require a permit. But I got wrote up because he got an complaint from the gentleman that happened to own the vacant lot next to my property. But yet, when I call inspector after inspector after inspector to complain about 10 to 14 foot high weeds and trees growing in the backyard along the road that we have to drive by and nothing's been done to take care of it. They'll cut the front yard, make it look pretty, but you come around to the backside and it just this just goes on. So, you

talk about a tiff, oh, it's going to do this, it's going to do that. I really find it hard to believe. Matter of fact, on that same meeting back here, February 2nd, I had people signing their names, putting the addresses down, doing their signature, and this was a petition to the city council. Mayor Harris, did you ever receive anything from me?

I don't think so, sir. I gave it to the gentleman in charge of zoning that led the last two meetings here. He I said, "Can I write something up?" You give it to the city council or the mayor. Yes. Okay. So, that's been what about two weeks ago? I could show you. I made multiple copies on my phone. Okay. Can I bring this up? Um I I I'll take a look at it after after we're said and done. After what? after we're said and done, I'll take a look at.

Okay. So, anyway, we were requesting to have our properties, and I don't know if it's the same as what's written on this second page of multiple pages. Uh number 10B, it says here, approving 2026 amendment to remove parcels from the North 11 Street TIFF redevelopment project. Uh is that like exempting them more or less from the TIF? I don't know. But we were requesting in writing to be exempt from the displacement sentence. I ain't worried about the TIFF other part of the TIFF definition. And if they couldn't do it that way, then maybe they could amend the TIFF map to totally exclude it. So, uh just a little frustrating. You come down here and you spend uh almost two hours listen to everybody else.

And we did that other times, the other two meetings. and Oh, quick get out of our hair. We got somebody else to Yeah. Okay. So, there's a lot of inconsistencies with Rock Island and I don't know if complaining is going to do any good. So, I'd still like to have a beating on that issue. Absolutely, sir. Absolutely. We have we have time for one more speaker. We are at our 30 minutes. Huh? 7:18 started.

I would ask we we have about another I know it's been a long night. I know. I'm aware of that. Council, we have about we can wrap everybody up in about another 15 minutes. I'll ask for a motion to suspend the rules. Second. Roll call, please. Swanson. Yes. Parker I Evans yes her no and Barnes yes yes motion carries

thank you councel uh the next speaker I would like uh Mr. Rudy Vallejo Okay. Thank you uh thank you uh mayor and the city council. Thank you for your time in considering the next phase of the Indian statue that blew over on April the 4th in 2023. I, Rudy Vallejo, a member of the Kikapoo tribe of Kansas, would be honored to have the opportunity to find a place hopefully in Rock Island to put the Indian back up. I would like to restore the statue to the original look with the arrows. I spoke with the local company that can restore the statue. I believe I can raise the money to get this project finished. I have been a resident of East Smolene for 75 years. So with that said, I ask that you, Mr. Mayor, donate the statue to me, Rudy Vallejo, Ship Shiwano, Vision of a Lion. Okay, that's my Indian name. One other little letter I have here to the Rock Island City Council. The village of Hampton is willing to work with the Rock Island County Board to find a suitable location at Alinoick Forest Preserve to display the Blackhawks sign. I support Mr. Belio um in his quest to restore this symbol of his heritage. It seems that many people recall fond memories of seeing

the sign throughout the years. I believe that a second life is possible and more fond memories can be made with the restored sign. I know that Mr. Valjo has set up his tepee around the campground so that air so that area at Alina and that would be ideal for him to lead educational events there. I hope you will consider this as an option. That's the vice that's the village president. His name is Christopher Mournhof. So, with all that said, Mr. Mayor, I uh again um want to thank you for coming to to speak with you and you know, we talked before and um you know, and uh like I say, I'm I would love to have that statue back up. There's a lot of memories. That's our culture. That's our culture here. It's just not me or the Indians around here. That belongs to the Quad City area. That belongs to Rock Island. That's a Rock Island statue. And really, there's nobody that could do anything about that statue unless the residents of Rock Island, cuz I know that statue is not going to go anywhere but Rock Island. That statue is not going to go to Hampton. That statue is not going to go anywhere else. It's going to stay in Rock Island. and I want to really help put it up, you know, and I believe it's important, you know, for our for our community here in Rock Island. And um and like I say, um you know, I can raise funds as much as I possibly can. You know, I can go on that u I forgot what they funds they give out or what do they call that, you know,

huh? Goofund me.

Goofund me. Goofund me, you know. Um, but there's ways there's ways there's ways to raise money and and like I say, sir, you know, it's our culture, you know, and it's important and and you know, we want to put it somewhere where uh, you know, the the people can be proud uh to have it put up, you know, and um, you know, so that that's what I'm here for, you know, and and I would love to put it up in Rock island somewhere, you know, and uh let's just do it, man. I mean, you know, this has been 3 years and we couldn't find that statue. Finally, you seen the other day on the TV of the drone. It was laying down in the 50 yards from that crusher, you know, and we don't want it to crush it. We don't want to crush it up, you know. We want to put it up, you know. So, the last thing I want to say is when I talked to you the last time, me and my nephew, we was in your office and you said that you was going to talk to the committee members and if they didn't want it or whatever, you was going to give it to us. So, I'm asking you, don't break another treaty. Don't break a treaty. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your time. The next name, uh, Miss Linda Doard.

How are you?

Good evening, uh, mayor and the city council. Um, I am here for just a short period of time because I thank you for suspending the rules so that we could talk. But tonight, I really want to appeal to the hearts of everybody who is on this council and the mayor. And that subject is on homelessness. I am not homeless. My family is not homeless. And I truly praise God for that. But I know that we've got an issue in this city. I went to the Martin Luther King program, the keynote speaker, the MC, two students, and all of these people talked about the same thing. One of the things I remember hearing the keynote speaker say is within a city, you normally will have um homelessness because of your laws, your ordinances, and those kinds of things contribute a lot to that. So, my request tonight is to ask you to reook at your ordinance, look at it through a different set of lenses. You know, most people in this country are about two to three paychecks away from homelessness if the truth be told. And I don't know why people are homeless. And that's really kind of irrelevant because it can happen to anybody. It can happen to anybody. Just because you're doing good today and right now doesn't mean that you might not have something that may cause you to be in that same position. Our church did a fundraiser for one week with uh Quad City third place and I went down and asked them what are your needs. I wrote down those needs, took them to our

church and said we just we just need to do one week worth project and in that week our church was able to get donations for everything that was on the list. I don't have a I don't have any skin in the game, if you will, in terms of homelessness. And I'm grateful. I really am. But I'm concerned that when you take care of your entire city, you become successful. the downtown Rock Island. I know I've heard a lot about that and all that we're trying to do to build that up and we should, but that's not the only part of the city. It's not. We have an entire city we need to be concerned about. And within that city, there are some homeless people. And I listened to the news one night in Molen. And one of the people, and I cannot remember his name, he said, "We need to deal with the homeless issue because you cannot wait until December when it gets cold to talk about what's the solution. You need to be talking about that at the beginning of the year so that when you get to the end of the year and on nights like tonight and last night, couple of weeks ago, you've got some solutions. So I am asking the city if you would please revisit your ordinance. Look at it through a different set of lenses and take your hearts. Be considerate. Think not only of yourselves or your families, but think of those families who have much, much less. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, city council, for listening.

Thank you for your time. We have for this evening, we have time for one more speaker. For the two people that won't get a chance to speak, Mr. Yansy, I apologize. Um, catch us on the rebound. And, uh, uh, Denise, uh, whoever Denise is, ma'am, I apologize about that. I I I'll have to catch you next time.

Okay. Miss Struce, please. Good evening, mayor and members of city council. I'm Nina Strus. I'm a Rock Island resident and current chair of the wetlands task force. My comment tonight is in regards to agenda item 15B, approval of the memorandum of agreement with Augustana College. On behalf of the wetlands task force, I'm pleased to offer our full support for the memorandum of agreement and scope of work before you tonight. Since our formation in March 2025, the task force has worked diligently toward a single goal, the permanent protection of the southwest Rock Island wetlands. The city council's July 2025 resolution committing to register this land as a land and water reserve with the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission was a landmark achievement. Since this approval, the task force has taken steps to ensure designation of the land and water reserve remains on schedule for January 2027. The memorandum of agreement and scope of work now before you are the critical next steps to ensure the management plan for the land and water reserve encompasses the necessary components to maintain the health of this area for years to come. Long-term sustainability and stewardship are key to protecting the biodiversity of the wetlands and the health of our communities. Augustana College's Upper Mississippi Center for Sustainable Communities has proposed conducting a comprehensive ecological survey of the wetland area to inform the land and water reserve management plan. The scope of that work is thorough and impressive. Critically, it also includes stakeholder engagement conducted in collaboration with the wetlands task force through various outreach tactics. Together, the scientific data and community input will directly shape the management plan's goals and objectives prior to and after official designation

in January 2027. The wetlands task force is enthusiastic about what this public private partnership between the city and Augustina College brings to the table. Having a respected academic institution lead the ecological surveys means the wetland area will be assessed with scientific rigor and objectivity. The stakeholder engagement component ensures this is not just a top- down process. It is one where community members and diverse interests help shape the outcome. And perhaps just as importantly, local students will gain hands-on experience and real world with real world conservation work right here in Rock Island. This is exactly the kind of thoughtful community process this land deserves. This is not just a conservation milestone. It is a commitment to the wildlife, the watershed, and the residents of Rock Island who spoke up to protect this place. The task force urges the council to approve this agreement and move us one step closer to permanently protecting the southwest Rock Island wetlands for generations to come. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. And thank all the residents that spoke and thanks thanks thanks for the council for showing patience and grace tonight. Much appreciated. We're going to move on to agenda item number eight. Update Rock Island. Update Rock Island. Free kids haircuts. Call in all families in the community. Join the Rock Island Boxing Club on Saturday, February 28th for free haircuts by local barbers. Walk-ins are welcome from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Boxing Club, 17:30 Second Avenue, Rock Island. Come for fresh fades, clean lineups, and big smiles. Touneful Tuesdays. The monthly Touneful Tuesday series has returned to the Rock Island Public Library. The next free performance is Tuesday, March 3rd from noon to 1:00 p.m. at the Downtown Library branch located at 40119th Street. Join us for a free concert with Tony Hopner, Tony Hopner, and friends. This concert is suitable for music lovers of all ages. Light refreshments will be provided. Battle of the Buckets. Have fun and raise money while competing in the ultimate shooting and free throw contest for all ages. Meet at the Rock Island Fitness and Activity Center, the RIFAC, 4303 24th Street on Saturday, March 7th. Check-in begins at 9:30 and the competition goes until 11:15 a.m. All proceeds of this one-day fundraiser event go to Rock Island Foundation's financial assistance program. Kids and adults, everyone competes on the same court. Show off your skills, have fun, and claim your crown. Thank you. Agenda item eight

or excuse me, agenda item nine, excuse me. 9A report for the community development department regarding a resolution on the development of a land purchase and land sale policy. Motion to adopt the resolution. Second. There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. Hi. and Barnes. I agenda item B,

report from the public works department reg requesting approval of an Illinois state revolving a loan program resolution authorizing a representative to sign the loan documents for the southwest treatment plant influent pumping station replacement project. Motion to adopt the resolution. Second, there's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion?

Yeah. Um, Mike, can you just clarify the uh information like interest rate and loan the loan terms, whatever you have available? Yes, I can do that. So, it'll be a 20-year term for the SRF loan if if we are approved for the loan. Um, it'll it is estimated to be at 2.16% um interest. And um again, just a little background on this pump station. Uh, this feeds all of southwest Rock Island. So all the waste water from southwest Rock Island comes into the treatment plant in southwest Rock Island and comes to this pump station. The pump station then pumps up the waste water to the treatment facility of about 50 to 60 ft in elevation. So this is a very ne very necessary project. Um, the current pump station is almost 50 years old. Um, and was designed with a steel tank structure. uh that steel tank um down 45 to 50 feet below the surface is starting to um rust away and so the structural integrity of the um current current pump station is um failing. So we need to move on this. We've been working on the design and approval for the SRF loan um and plans for the past two to three years and we're now getting to the point to where we can move forward with the hopefully move forward with the SRF loan. So that's a little bit of background of the project and this is the next step in moving forward to secure the loan.

Thank you sir. Any more discussion? Roll call please. Alder President Swanson I. Parker I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes. I. Agenda item 10.

10 A. This is the one that's the uh the two-parter. I'll read the first portion. Report from the finance department regarding water utility billing adjustment policy and ordinance amending chapter 16 article 2 section 16-37 of the code code of ordinances except for the provision 16-37G swimming pool filling first reading. Motion to consider the ordinance and adopt the policy. Second. There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder person Swanson. I. Parker.

I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. Hi. And Barnes. I. Okay. So now, are we going to B or we going back? How are we doing that? We're going back. Okay. Um. And then this next vote will be for the provision 16-37G swimming pool filling. I'm looking for a motion from anyone. So moved. Second.

There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion on this matter?

Yes, I am opposed to this particular uh item for a couple of reasons. I feel like there's a issue with customer fairness. For example, there are customers or residents who water their gardens, but they still have to pay, you know, the sore fee. There's people who water their yards that can't afford an irrigation system, so they have to pay a sore fee. I know it would be, you know, kind of in very tedious to make that determination, you know, for those items, but I think if it can't be something that's everybody could, you know, get an adjustment on, then I think it should, no one should get an adjustment on it. So that's where I go. That's where I stand with it. And then furthermore, when we look at our loss of revenue, if this isn't implemented, then that means at some point with the next rate study, we'll all be paying for these swim the adjustments that are being made on the swimming swimming pool. So, that's why I am opposed to it.

Can I get some clarification? I don't even understand what we're voting on. Okay. Okay. Uh Todd, please. Yeah. Section G, swimming pool field, uh by pool filling allows for once per calendar year sewer charges, maybe wave for water used to fill a swimming pool. Customer has to apply. You do two meter readings within 72 hours and pay a $50 fee. And the rationale behind it is that that water will never go down the sewer. Did you catch that, Dylan? Okay.

Yeah, I did. And the motion that I made is to approve that. Okay. Right. To to approve removing that or to approve excluding that to approve not allowing us to pay the fee. No. The motion I think the motion that I made was to approve the ordinance section G as Todd just described it, which means that we would be able to wave or adjust utility fees related to swimming pools.

And Linda, you opposed against it, correct? Yes. So, I'll I'll vote no on it. Basically, that's why I want it separate. separated. So, does everyone know where we are first? Is there any more discussion? Okay. Not I mean I guess

yeah I I mean the matter of fairness I think this entire idea is a matter of perspective. You know what is fair? Is it fair that everybody who pays their utility bills is going to have their utility costs go up because some people can't? Um, one person's fairness is unfairness to another person. I'll just put it that way. So, uh, I suppose I support this because it's my understanding that there's a general desire to have some flexibility with addressing special circumstances related to utility billing. But the minute we start dicing and saying, well, this this group this thing should have a special exemption, but this thing should not, I just I don't agree with that. So, my motion stands. just approve it.

Any more discussion? I'm not understanding. I'm not understanding. I thought that the reason why we've pulled this out is based on the fact that swimming pools actually are exempt from this and I kind of agree with Alderman Barnes that it shouldn't be. Can everybody make sure you're using your microphones? I can't hear you. Okay. Any more discussion?

So, to be clear, you vote yes on this if you're willing to give them a variance and no if you're not. That's just plain and simple. Yeah. Say it like that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Roll call, please. Alder prison Swanson. No. Parker, I. Pulis, yes. Healey, I Evans, no. Hurt, no. And Barnes, no. Motion fails.

Agenda item 10B. Report from the community development department regarding an ordinance approving the 2026 amendment to remove parcels from the north 11th street tiff redevelopment project area. First reading motion to consider the ordinance. Second.

I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? So, my understanding with this is is it's to remove, correct me if I'm wrong, all the parcels that are currently in the North 11th Street TIFF, and then they will be moved, all those parcels will be moved to the North Rock Island Court District TIFF. That is not correct.

Okay. Well, then I'm glad I asked. At the north end of the north 11th Street uh tiff district, there are a collection of parcels representing maybe six, I think, blocks worth that will be removed from the north 11th street tiff in order that they be added to the new port district tiff.

Wait, isn't that just what older person Swanson said? Did I miss something? I believe that what Alderwoman Swanson was saying was that it was to remove all of the parcels in the entirety of the North 11 Street TIF District, effectively ending the North 11 Street TI District. That is not what we're doing. Alderwoman Swanson, have I understood you correctly? Yes, you did. Because I thought the North 11 Street TIFF was ending and so we were moving everything into a new TIF. Okay. Nope. The North 11 Street TIFF was extended. It has a little more than a decade left to go. Any more discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson, yes. Parker,

I. Pulis, I. Healey, I. Evans, yes. Hurt, I. And Barnes, I. Agenda item C. Report for the community development department regarding an ordinance approving the tax increment financing redevelopment plan and project for the North Rock Island Court District. TIFF. First reading. Motion to consider the ordinance. Second. There's been a first and a second. Do I have any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Alderson Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Keely. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes. I. Agenda item D.

Report from the community development department regarding an ordinance designating the North Rock Island Port District. TIFF. First reading. Motion to consider the ordinance. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. Hi. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes. I. Agenda item F. Excuse me. Agenda item E. Excuse me. Report for the community development department regarding an ordinance adopting tax increment financing for the North Rock Island Port District. TIFF. First reading motion to consider the ordinance. Second.

There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. All the prison. Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. Hi. Healey. Hi. Evans. Yes. Hurt. Hi. And Barnes. Hi. Agenda item F. Report from the community development department regarding the purchase of real estate at 103110th Avenue. First reading. Motion to approve the purchase and consider the ordinance. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. Hi. Healey. I. Evans. Yes.

Hurt. I. And Barnes. I. Agenda item G. Report from the community development department and public works department regarding the installation replacement of water line or water service lines. First reading motion to consider second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder Swanson, I. Parker, I. Pulis. Hi. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. Hi. And Barnes. Hi. Agenda item H,

report from the public works department requesting adoption of an Illinois state revolving loan program ordinance for financing the southwest treatment plant influent pumping station replacement project in the amount of $4.5 million. First reading motion to consider the ordinance. Second. There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder prison Swanson. I. Parker I. Pulis. I. Healey I. Evans yes. Turk I and Barnes I. Agenda item I

report from the fire department regarding an ordinance amending chapter 6 article 2 of the code of ordinances to adopt the 2021 international fire code. First reading. Move to consider the ordinance. Second. We have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder prison Swanson. I. Parker. I Pulis I Healey I Evans yes Hurt I and Barnes I agenda item 11 consent agenda items A through F. Motion to approve consent agenda items A through F. Second.

I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Haley. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I and Barnes I agenda item 12 claims A and B. Motion to approve claims A and B. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder prison. Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes.

I. Agenda item C, report from the public works department regarding payment 15 of Valley Construction, Rock Island, Illinois for the rebuild downtown Rock Island improvements project in the amount of $423,85949. Motion to allow the client. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Due to the nature of my employment, I need to recuse myself from this vote. Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I pul. Healey I Evans yes hurt I and Barnes I agenda item D

report from the public works department requesting authorization to purchase a rear loader refuge truck from Gator Truck Center Cedar Rapids Iowa in the amount of $312,53. Move to approve the purchase. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Alder President Swanson I. Parker I. Ulis I Healey I Evans yes Hurt I and Barnes I agenda item E report from the public works department requesting authorization to purchase a replacement spoil truck from truck country quat cities Davenport Iowa in the amount of $19,292 move to approve the purchase

second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson I. Parker, I Hulis I Healey I Evans yes Hurt I and Barnes I agenda item 13 a report from the community development department regarding bids for the demolition of houses at 3321 7 12 avenue in Rock Island and 1513 8th Avenue in East Molen move to award the bid as recommended and authoriz the city manager to execute the contract subject to minor attorney modifications second I have a first and Second, is there any discussion?

I just want to clarify again, maybe I'm making sure I'm right, that um the demolition will be paid for by the grant and not the city of Rock Island paying to demolish something in East Molen. That is correct. We are the lead on a grant in partnership with the city of East Molen. Thank you. That's a good question. Very good question. You're welcome, East Molen. I need to recuse myself uh from this vote due to the nature of my employment. Any more discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Alder person Swanson. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. I. And Barnes. I.

Agenda item 14. a report from the finance department regarding a budget carryover uh from uh calendar year 2025 in the community development fund 420 in the amount of $616,337.35. Move to approve the budget adjustment. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker, I. Evans, yes. Hurt. Hi. and Barnes. Hi. Agenda item B,

report from the finance department regarding a budget carryover from calendar year 2025 in the community development block grant fund 421 in the amount of $126,774.19. Motion to approve the budget adjustment. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I Evans. Yes. Turt. I. And Barnes. I. Agenda item 15. A report from the community development department regarding a housing and retail market study in the Augustana Hilltop area.

Motion to approve the memorandum of agreement and authorize the city manager to exe execute the document. Second. There's been a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Alder President Swanson. I. Parker. I Pulis I Healey I Evans yes Turt I and Barnes I agenda item 15B. Report from the community development department regarding a memorandum of agreement with Augustina College for ecological survey activities. Motion to approve the memorandum of agreement and authorize the city manager to execute the document. Second.

I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Alder President Swanson I Parker I Pulis I Healey I Evans yes Hurt I and Barnes I agenda item C report from the community development department regarding a variance request from Tim Finanella of modern woodman for property at 1701st Avenue motion to approve the variance based on staff's uh analy uh staff's Go ahead. Got to get it right now. Yeah.

Motion to approve the variance based on the staff's analysts and the commission recommendation stipulations. Stipulations second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion? Just a question. Just looking at that map of the fence, is it just replacing where it currently is or is it going further? Look like it's going further into the parking lot.

It's a mixture of both. So, in certain sections, there is already an existing fence that will be replaced with a higher fence. In other locations, there is not currently fencing and they will be adding fencing. So, how does that impact is that? So, that's is going over into that parking lot under in their ownership. Yes. All the part that they own. The portion that they own. Yep. So, the entirety of the entirety of of this request is subject to their property. Oh. How would So, would that change access? No, it will not change. Still have access. It will not change access the way it's configured now to that section of the park. Their predominant concern is with with making sure that their facility is secure.

Are you fine? All person. Okay. Any more discussion? Roll call, please. All person Swanson. I. Parker. I. Pulis. I. Healey. I. Evans. Yes. Hurt. Hi. And Barnes. I. Agenda item 16. A report from the clerk's office regarding a request from Bridges Catering to use sound amplification to close Third Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets and 17th Street between Second and Third Avenues on Saturday, March 16th, 2026 from 7:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. for a St. Patrick's parade viewing event. Move to approve the request as recommended. Second. I have a first and a second. Is there any discussion?

I will recuse myself from this vote being the applicant. Uh, any more discussion? Roll call, please. Alder Princess Swanson. I. Parker, I. Pulis, I. Evans, yes. Kurt, I. And Barnes, I. Agenda item 17. Does anyone have any business to discuss? I do. Go ahead. Real quick.

I would like to um I know we postponed item 9B of last uh meeting. agenda to the 23rd. I would like to move that item regarding the city initiated resoning request to March 9th meeting. Is that something that we can decide on now or Okay. Okay. Okay. You're just bringing it up. Okay. Understood. Just based on time constraints.

Understood. Understood. Uh Glenn, I'll let you speak on this. Um we had a proclamation that was read yesterday. Um we we we were a little late on reading it um at the last meeting, so it was read yesterday. So Glenn, I'll let you speak on that event. I just want to thank the mayor for coming out and supporting the uh Republican Women's Lincoln Day dinner at the Stern Center yesterday. Actually, they did an excellent job. Food was delicious and uh the mayor did a good job of uh standing up there supporting those young ladies. It was a great event.

Glenn is taking shots at me now, but that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Does anyone have anything else to discuss?

I do. Um, I just wanted to say that this afternoon, Alderman Pulis and I attended a tabletop discussion over at 180 regarding homelessness with lots of other nonprofit agencies. Um, so I just wanted to assure everybody that discussion is continuing and ongoing regarding affordable housing, homelessness. It's a very complicated issue trying to figure out what are the factors to try to work to fix prior to people becoming homeless. How do you take care of homeless people with something more than a band-aid of a shelter, which is great in the short term, but not um doesn't work in the long term. and what are avenues that you can take to move people out of shelter into permanent housing um landlords issues, affordable housing. So, I just want to let everybody know conversation in this region is ongoing with lots of different agencies trying to figure out a best solution to move forward um with that population that really need some help and support. So, I know there's been a lot of talk about Rock Island isn't doing anything and that we don't really care, but I just want to negate that by saying we really do care. And if you look deeply at what Rock Island does and provides, we really provide a lot for our unhoused population, lots of agencies, um, and and we really are are trying our very best to do the best we can for our residents.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Bear with me a sec. It's a little long and I know we had a long meeting. But while I understand that in government there must always be a separation of church and state, I would also like to respectfully add a butt to that because sometimes a life is so impactful, so woven into a fabric of a community that it deserves to be honored beyond those lines. This past weekend, the little old school on top of the hill, Alman, lost its shepherd, Father Marbelli. Father Marabelli was a priest for an extraordinary 74 years and 58 of those years he served right here in Rock Island at Alman. If you know anything about Alman, you know Father. Father wasn't just assigned to Alman. He was gifted to Alman. He walked the halls daily offering a smile, a blessing, or sometimes a little correction when it was needed. I was called a jackass multiple times. He stood on the sidelines at games, not because he was a priest, but to support his flock he cared for so deeply. He rode the bus to away games, sharing in victories, and consoling in defeat. He celebrated masses, but he also celebrated milestones, graduations, championships, weddings, baptisms. He buried loved ones, and grieved families. He was present any time and for all who needed him. Generations of students can close their eyes and picture that little old priest with green on. They can hear his high-pitched voice. They can remember the way he always made you feel seen, heard, and most of all, loved. His faith in his students was steady. His presence was a rock. And his dedication to a school was unwavering. For 58 years, he helped shape the moral compass and spiritual foundation of Alman and the youth in this city. Father's fingerprints are on decades of young men and women who went out in the

world carrying the values and toughness of a school and a city that he helped instill in them. With his passing, Alman Green is a little duller. A constant symbol that many of us simply assumed would always be there is now laid to rest. Alman and the Rock Island community are truly a much sadder place without him. But they are always better off because he was our father. Rest in peace, Father Marbelli. That was beautiful. Thank you. Sorry. Thanks. Thank you. Does anyone have anything else?

I will say uh for the few residents that are still here that stuck it out with us. I greatly appreciate that. You know, it is going to be some long nights. We only meet twice a month and we are up here handling city business. So sometimes that's going to require for couple long nights, especially if we're only two out the month. With that said, I want to thank all the staff that's here. I know you guys should have been at home at your dinner tables 2 hours ago. I I I realize that. So I I I appreciate you guys um sticking it out with with with us up here. Um I want to give a shout out to our officer back there. I always give him personal and private shouts out, but I want to do it publicly because he shuts the party down every single time. So, here's to you, kid. We we appreciate you back there. And with the council, um I want to say once again that I appreciate um I appreciate your guys' patience tonight. Um you know, we we we are really coming along um with our togetherness. And tonight, just a small gesture of allowing residents a little extra time to talk. It really meant a lot to me and it meant even more to them. So, I want to thank the council. And with that, uh,

yes, yes, yes. All in favor say I. I. All right. and all the post.