City Council - Regular Meeting

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Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Sustainability and Environment Subcommittee meeting. Today is Monday, the 18th, and I'm calling this meeting to order at 948. Here in the chamber, we are joined by Mr. Brian Skelly from SCANS. Good afternoon. And so why don't we go around and introduce ourselves. So we got Brian, we got Ed Collins, member of SCANS. and collins thank you mr collins and uh attorney ken shay from the law department all right thank you uh attorney the sheriff for joining us and remotely we have mr uh juan latorre one

Good afternoon, Counselor.

We're also joined by Mr. Bernie MacArthur, also members of SCANS.

And also a Springfield Climate Justice Coalition member.

Springfield Climate Justice Coalition. Good to see you, Bernie. And we're also joined by our intrepid forester, Mr. Alex Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Hello.

Thanks for having me.

Welcome back from vacation. Thanks. We've got lots of work for you, Bernie. All right, so we are following up today the last meeting that we had about two weeks ago regarding the woodland ordinance. Mr. LaTorre was kind of a little bit of a group of scant and several other people. to protect or for stocks here in the city of Springfield with the aim of not only keeping our trees, which are so important for oxygen consumption, oxygen recycling, but also to keep our canopy shape, which is defined by, Alex, is that 39%? Is that the standard? 40% is the recommended.

And we are 39%?

And we're slowly getting there. And then just before we get into the Minotia things, the importance of the canopy shade is that the more trees you have, the more it keeps the area cooler. As I said before, in my own district, Forest Park, where I live, it is significantly 10 degrees cooler than any parts of the city during the summer months. And that's a big, big difference. And so... and we have a lot of development here in the city that is happening. So we wanna find a happy medium between responsible development and keeping our resources, our trees, which is so critical for our own survival. So Mr. LaTorre was gonna go back and he was gonna make some tweaks as per suggested in the last meeting. So Mr. LaTorre, if you don't mind, sir, I will turn the floor over to you for an update.

Thank you, Councilor Davila. I appreciate it. I have two main updates I'll share on today's call. But first, if I can, through you, Mr. Chairman, a quick anecdote to your point. I had the opportunity to see you and many others on July 4th at Riverfront Park for the 4th of July celebration. And You know, it was very interesting. You recall it was a pretty hot and humid day. And leaving downtown, you know, we now have with more modern cars the opportunity to kind of monitor temperature as we're driving. And I was speaking with my girlfriend as we were driving up State Street and looking at the temperature. And I said, you know, just watch this as we climb the hill on State Street. Drive through Mason Square and start driving towards 16 acres where we've talked about previously. The tree canopy is percentage is significantly greater when compared to the rest of the city. And sure as could be, you know, we saw that 10 degree difference between the time we left downtown to the time we got back to 16 acres outer belt, which, you know, maybe it was a 12, 13 minute drive and it was. It's something we knew, but it's pretty astonishing when you're watching the temperature change in real time, just as you're driving through the city from an area that has very little tree cover and is well aligned to have re-radiation of heat from the ground. to a more suburban area of the city where there's a lot of tree cover. So just an interesting anecdote that I think underscores the importance of what we're trying to accomplish here. For my first update counselor, I'm just gonna share my screen and I do have screen sharing capability. So let me just hide this on Zoom. And before I continue, could you see my screen okay in the room and those of you participating remotely?

Yeah, maybe you could make it perhaps a little bigger, perhaps, if you could.

Yeah. How's that?

That's fine.

Okay, great.

Can you see it? Yeah.

Great. Great. So my intent during this meeting is not necessarily to go through this entire document. And I believe that those of you at City Hall may have this in front of you. I sent it over online. to Daisy a couple hours ago. But just to refresh everyone's memory, we met previously in June and Solicitor Bonacanti was in attendance and gave us a lot of great feedback. And one key point he said was, it would be easier for the law department to rather than try to take a ordinance document that scans had created and attempted to mirror, you know, city law and our, you know, charter and our, you know, the legal language we typically would use in municipal law. He suggested that if SCANS put together a summary document that basically explained the vision, the goals, and the hopes of what this ordinance would cover, what would be applicable, and how we would address a number of different scenarios, that document combined with a clear, I'd say, vote of confidence from this committee that the committee shares the view of this document would be all the law department needed to start to draft their own ordinance. And they would take into account this document along with existing local municipal law and the various relevant law that exists either in the state or across the country to put together what I would say is our vision in their words. And then, of course, I'm sure they'd have the opportunity to make any edits Uh, that they felt fit, um, to make sure, you know, what was being proposed to be, um, you know, enforceable. And inappropriate and takes into account all the different viewpoints. So, um. Before I go into the document, I just want to make sure I explain that and, um. that we've produced this document it has not been voted upon by this committee i think it's important that the committee members and all interested counselors have the opportunity to read this um you'll recall um mr chairman that the solicitor really wanted to hear from the city councilors themselves to say that they endorsed this document before the law department began to commit resources to putting something together. So I'm going to pause there and see if there are any questions.

I do have a quick question, actually, if I may. Thank you for the introduction. With regards to the square footage, I'm a little confused here. I'm going to read it verbatim. The intent of this ordinance is to apply to any buildable or developed lot within the city of Springfield that is 5,000 square feet or more. and overlaps or contains woodlands or parts of woodlands totaling at least 4,000 square feet. So I'd like to understand that a lot of the 5,000 square feet or more Whether it's private or not, this applies. I know there's a section for owner occupied here down the road. The only private. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. This is an ordinance that only applies to private. It only applies to privately owned because we already have a tree ordinance and. That was written up and has been passed into law. That covers all public sector trees and significant trees. So this. ordinance would be covering, would not cover public sector trees or individual significant trees, but it would be covering woodland trees.

Okay. And so, Jay, can you speak to, thank you, Brian, to the 4,000 square feet that I got to do myself up on that part?

Yeah, no problem, counselor. So I think it's best to break up the two numbers. So the first thing we're saying is that if you have a lot size in this city of at least 5000 square feet. this ordinance applies. Let's just start by talking about the parcel size, 5,000 square feet. But then what this ordinance is saying is that if at least 4,000 square feet of that individual lot has a tree canopy covering it, those two facts together constitute an urban woodland that would be regulated under this ordinance. So let me try to provide a very clear example. Let's say you had a 5,000 square foot lot and there was only a single tree on that lot and that single tree had an effective tree canopy of 1,000 square feet. So to use some percentages, you know, a 5,000 square foot lot, one tree, 1,000 square feet of tree canopy, so 20% of the lot has a tree canopy. That type of lot does not fall under the oversight of this ordinance. because there aren't enough trees or tree canopy on that lot to constitute an urban woodland. It's just a single tree. Does that make sense at like a very simple level?

Yeah, I do. That's clear up. Okay. I have a question. Anybody has a question? No? Can we move on? Yeah. Online, anybody has a question? Vern, Alex? No, I'm OK. All right. Go ahead, Jake. Continue.

Great. Thanks, Counselor. So like we said, what we basically did was we took all of the legal language that we had put together and just organized it into, I would say, summary sections that explain what we're trying to do. The first section talks about applicability, which is what we're just talking about now, the parcel sizes that this ordinance would regulate. And we talk about the fact that we're trying to come up with a proposal that recognizes that there's going to continue to need to be periodic tree removal from privately owned parcels for very legitimate reasons, such as removal of a tree because of utility work. or removal of a tree to make an effective solar panel system or removal of a tree because it is old and represents a fall risk to the homeowner. The ordinance is not attempting to to nitpick those small number of trees that are being removed. And so we've written here and we've discussed the fact before that, you know, less than five trees being removed is not something this ordinance covers and less than 10 trees being removed there is uh we're proposing basically uh uh a solution to opt out you know homeowners from this ordinance right we don't want to be overly burdensome to homeowners who may have legitimate reasons to cut down trees but The goal here continues to be to either eliminate the practice of clear cutting and in cases where clear cutting can't be eliminated to make sure that the city is fairly compensated for the removal of those trees and the impact they will have on the effective climate of the community and to make sure that there is a mitigation plan in place in terms of replanting of trees to ensure that over a period of years and decades that some of that tree canopy that is lost in a clear cut is restored. And so we do this with all of the things that we have previously covered, which is the establishment of a permitting process for any entity who's looking to perform what we would call a more significant removal of trees on a private lot. That permitting process will require obtaining a permit, which we described in this document. That permitting process is going to require notices to abutters, which we feel is very important because today Existing regulations don't require that type of communication for the removal of trees. We discuss the type of information that we believe would be useful in a permit application to make sure that the city and this new regulatory authority would have the information they would need to make an informed decision. and basically what an approval might look like, you know, granting the individual applicant the ability to perform a clear cut of the majority of the property allowing the developer or applicant to have a partial removal of the tree canopy and potentially the denial of the ability to perform a clear cut of trees. And Just continuing through this document quickly, we discuss our recommendations about how if a developer feels, an applicant feels that removing a significant number of trees is a necessary aspect of their proposal, that mechanisms be established so that the removal of those trees would trigger a fee that would be paid into the tree fund for the City of Springfield and that replacement trees be planted so that the long-term know impact on that particular lot that was cleared is mitigated not in days and weeks but you know in in years and decades and we recommend to this committee that to regulate this we uh establish a new commission within the city that would have the requisite experience to um you know review permits and act on them. We talked about last time who we felt would be appropriate members to make sure that there was the necessary skill sets on the commission. We also talked about making some adjustments and allowing the president of the city council to have a little more voice in the appointments, which we included in here. And to kind of wrap up here, we just include a couple sections about making sure that there are adequate protections to ensure that applicants follow the process and don't necessarily try to circumvent it. and that there are appropriate penalties in place should we uncover scenarios where applicants or non-applicants simply ignore this regulation and perform a clear cut without going through the process. And that's the document. It's a hair over three pages. In this document, there's really nothing substantially different from what we talked about a couple weeks ago, except for some of the discussion points we had during the last meeting we worked into here. And so I think at this point, Mr. Chairman, you know, it's... it's up to this committee to kind of analyze this and give their blessing to the law department that this committee kind of embraces this idea or potentially make any last adjustments before this goes to the law department so that they can hopefully craft something.

Right. Thank you, Jay, for this presentation and for clearing up some of your points that were discussed during the last meeting. Quick question, which I'm sure is going to come up. The $50 fee permit, did we, refresh my memory, did we say that's going to go into a special fund or does that go into the general fund?

Yeah, I can refresh your memory on this one, but I'm sure others will keep me honest here. What we discussed during the last meeting with the solicitor is that fees... through legal ordinances can be allocated towards specific funds within the city. And we're proposing that if an applicant made a submission to the city that was approved and they were removing a certain number of trees, the fees associated with that removal of trees, which would be based on their proposal and the size of the trees, would be deposited into the City of Springfield's Tree Fund, which is an existing financial line that already exists within the city. But we also discuss that, I believe per Mass General Law, fines for violations that might occur in violation of this proposed ordinance would go to the general fund for the city because that's the way mass general law requires funds be deposited into the city's financial system.

So let me just summarize this to see if I understand it, Jay. You're saying that any fees that may arise on this will be deposited into the general fund. However, any fees will be deposited into the tree replacement fund, which always exists in the same.

Right, right, right. Fees into the tree fund, fines for violations into the general fund.

Okay, all right. Thank you, Jay. Well, I open it up. I open the floor for discussion, thoughts, comments. Who wants to take the first job with us? Alex, you look like the expert, so I'm going to hear from you first.

So one of the things I was thinking of after our last meeting that may be sort of a helpful exercise would to possibly conduct some sort of case study to pick a parcel, see what kind of the process would be, actually calculate out what the cost for these fees would end up being, just so we have a sense of what the financial and other burden may be for a property owner that's trying to comply with this. I just think it's a good idea to kind of go through a dry run just to make sure that what we're doing is you know within reason that that $50 per diameter inch number was what we use for our public shade tree ordinance and when applied to an individual tree I believe it's It's very reasonable. It's actually probably on the lower end of many of the ordinances. Other communities charge upwards of $100 per inch. But the point was for it to be not cost prohibitive. We wanted to make sure that it was reasonable and fit our community. So that applied to... a large scale you know when you're not talking about one 26 inch tree in front of someone's house that they're trying to put a driveway in but you're talking about um you know many many trees across a multi-acre property i think it would make you know i think it's a good idea to understand what that cost really may be um because it's likely going to ex exponentially increase depending on what the forest cover, obviously the size of the trees, but also the size of the parcels. And just to kind of see what a potential fee schedule might be for someone that's trying to comply.

All right. Thank you, Alex. Any other thoughts?

I'm just wondering who would be equipped to make such Hopefully we wouldn't rely on somebody who was already adverse to any kind of tree ordinance to be doing such a study.

I mean, so I would certainly be willing to walk you guys through the process, work with scans or the subcommittee, whoever wants to participate. in the process and have it be an open process. I mean, you know, I think, um, otherwise we'd have to hire a consulting firm or something like that, which is, there's a cost associated with that, but I'd be willing to, to, uh, you know, spend some of my time working through that process. Um, if that's helpful.

The real intent of my question wasn't the question, whether or not that's something I didn't, think you are going to be doing yourself. But certainly would want someone who does that type of work on behalf of developers to be the one doing the survey.

I understand that. Eventually, the developers will be hiring their own consultants, theoretically, to assess their properties. how the current ordinance is written. I believe that's what the intention of of the ordinance is. So I don't know how we get around that in the long term. But, you know, this would just be something that we would do internally with this group to to determine how the kind of how the process works and what it looks like in a very general sense. I mean, we don't obviously we don't have all the letter of the law written as of yet. And maybe we do it again once we do have all those regulations written. But as it stands now, there's a pretty good draft that was presented at the last meeting. And then we also have these guidelines now that Jay has presented. So I think there's enough information there to kind of get something started and get an understanding of what the fee schedule may end up being and what kind of the the process is and how difficult it may be to collect the data that we're asking and to process it and figure out what the mitigation costs would be.

Mr chairman, I'm in support of this idea. I think it's important that we have as much information as possible. And I've already got a couple ideas. Of perhaps a way that we can. Put together a little calculator. You know, so that we could. finagle what the fees might potentially look like. I believe, Alex, you've said before that in the absence of performing a full tree survey of a lot, there are some rough standards on you know, what we would call mature woodlands in a suburban urban city like Springfield that we could say, you know, on average, we would have, you know, this many trees per acre or per, you know, 100 square feet, things like that. I think we could put something together. I think it would be a good exercise.

Uh, thank you. So before I go on, so my Tony Stan, Alex, you and scans are going to sit down together and you're going to do an exercise of what the cost may look like on average per lot in the city of sprint. Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to figure out what the exact metric will be that we'll present, but yes, I'd like to. sit down because I've done some calculations on my own. I don't have them here. It was at a previous meeting. But there are, as Jay mentioned, there are stocking tables that are used in traditional forestry that could be applied on a larger scale basis. And I think It really depends on the scale of the project. So if you're talking, like I said, about one lot and they're cutting six trees, they're over the limit. It's very easy to go out and measure six trees when you're talking about larger developments, which I think this ordinance is really targeted at. You're talking about multiple acres, tens of acres, 15 acre parcels. There needs, you know, determining exactly how many six inch trees are on that property, their size type. And then the percentage of those that's going to be removed and then what that mitigation fee is going to be is a significant task. And it could end up also presenting a significant cost. And whether or not the committee decides that that's an acceptable cost to developers, that's fine. I mean, that's their decision. But I think it would make sense to understand what those costs could potentially be before something is set into law.

All right. Thank you. So just quick question. How long do you think that it might take you to come back with something to us?

I think if we put our heads together, I don't know if there was a thought about a next meeting for this group, but at least two weeks, we could probably put something together. Shouldn't be a problem.

So you think in two weeks?

Yeah, I think we could put something together.

Okay. Before, I'm going to have Bern follow up, Brian. Go ahead, Bern.

Yeah, I just want to endorse this idea. I think it's a great idea. Things always look a little different when you go out and dry run something and try to do it. So I think that would be a crucial step. Thank you.

Thank you, Bert. Brian?

I just wanted to also give my support to what Alex is talking about and also volunteer to be part of that. I mean, first part of August, I'll be out of town. But other than that, I would love to be a part of this and help put that idea into action.

All right, so I guess you guys have your charge. Alex, you and Scott work together trying to figure out what this idea of $50 in diameters, what is it called, the diameter per inch, DBH, will cost the average household here in the city of Springfield to get a rough idea. But I do have a question, Jay, and I can't seem to find it here. I've been looking at it. I know I read it somewhere. The application, once the person gets it, and the plan will have to be approved by an engineer. Did I read that correctly?

We did recommend in the initial summary that the planned removal of trees should be documented on a formal engineering drawing that was stamped to signify its authenticity. Um, but certainly if there were others within the city or this committee. Uh, that felt that that was overly burdensome. Um, that's something that we could. Certainly discuss, but I would just say this, Mr chairman. The individuals that are working on these large parcels for development and clearing are hiring professional engineers to do their surveying and a lot of other work. You know, you think about utility work and things like that. So it didn't seem inappropriate to make that ask.

Right. No, I am definitely, I'm sure that the developers, they have a Rolodex of engineers at their disposal, but I'm thinking of the average Springfield residents. Where do they go and get an engineer? Where do they even start?

I don't think that we're talking about the average homeowner who wants to cut down two or three trees needs to go to an engineer. Right now, we're talking about the developers that cut down enough trees that really... Put this that would put this ordinance to the test when we have acres and acres of trees, some of which might be 1 or 2 or 3 inches and therefore don't count. As trees legally for our purpose, so that's because we're going to have to find some way. The process having acres and acres of trees. The homeowner is not going to have trouble because they're just most homeowners are one, two or three trees. They don't fall on into this problem. And if they happen to have six or seven trees, usually some of those are below four inches even. So it's only the six inch trees that we really are trying. protecting when we're talking about this ordinance. So that pretty much, and Alex's concern is mostly, and our concern is mostly how do we process the fee structure and process the handling of this ordinance when it comes to developers that have multiple acres of woodlands and they want to develop it.

I got you. All right. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. That was a good clearing up. Thank you. Uh, very well, um, anything else and your thoughts comments.

Yeah, Mr chairman, I have just 1 other update. I wanted to share. You'll recall during the last meeting that council president Whitfield made, I thought a good suggestion, which is that we really needed to get the developers to the table with this discussion. Um. You know, the reality is, is if there's tremendous pushback, it will make the job of the city council passing this more difficult. And so I started that process today. I had a nice conversation with Tom Breda, who is a local home developer in the city. And I just want to share, we had a brief conversation before the meeting, and I'm going to be following up by sharing with him the summary document. I appreciated his thoughts. He's personally of the opinion that he doesn't know how his work gets done without clear cutting. And so I don't wanna say he's in favor or against what we're proposing, but he did communicate to me that in his line of work and what he does, he feels a more effective strategy is to clear cut and then to work with the city forester to come up with a, I guess you'd call it a mitigation plan. And by that what I mean is replanting of trees that over time will grow. And so one of the things he commented on that I thought was useful for us to keep in mind was he brought up the example of a 7,500 square foot lot to develop a single family home on. And that when you take into account not only the property itself, the house that you're building, but also all the utilities that come on site and the spacing, as he describes it, that local and state regulations require as far as spacing and separation of the utility lines, you could start to envision a scenario where a wooded lot that has a lot of trees that you would like to save becomes difficult to save, you know, because of just the different requirements that come with building a home. And certainly scans doesn't suggest that we know everything we need to know about home building. So I thought that was important to put out there because we do understand that this will not be effective if we just try to, you know, ram down Our vision down the throat of every developer in the city. So. I'm going to be working to share some information with him and I also reached out to Graham's construction, but I do think it would be helpful. Mr. Chairman if this committee. Reached out to an appropriate department within the city to obtain a list of. all of the developers in the city. And I'm not sure the best way to do that, if that's by maybe working with someone in the building department or maybe in procurement. But ultimately, I think to be successful, we need to have the diverse viewpoints of the developers. You know, Mr. I would say is a, as a fairly large. Single family home developer and so is Graham's construction, but there's also probably developers in the community that, you know, their focus is developing 1 house 1 lot. And so I just want to make sure that.

the final product gives everyone an opportunity to have weighed in you know i just think it will strengthen the finished product so um that's my recommendation to you sir right yes um thank you jay um another thing we should consider also is not just the developers and the views points of the developers but the the people who are hired to take down the trees because uh I've spoken to some developers who privately agree that they're not developing as well as they could be by clear cutting, but that it's just the competition demands it. And so they have an idea, this is what we've always been doing. I wrote a document called, and I passed it out to many of you, and I would like all of you to have it. It's called the Preamble of the Ordinance and Statement of Cost. And it talks about the invention of a machine that changed the way we... They got us to start clear-cutting in the first place, in the 90s. So these guys, they haven't been developers... They weren't developers in the 70s and 80s, but in the 70s and 80s, we weren't clear-cutting the way we are now because we didn't have the technology. So I wanted to make sure that... Just like Jay says, we talk to the developers, many of whom or some of whom are amenable to some sort of regulation of this. Because they don't like having to do it. And also the same thing even more so with the tree removal specialists. Many of them don't like to take down healthy trees and would be happy to have regulations to regulate their profession as well.

Thank you, Brian.

Yeah.

All right. So do a time check. The time is now 149. Alex. Can you comment on Jay's, where, talk to Team China about the list? Can you provide us the list? As to the developers, because I do recall in the past, trying to reach out to developers, and apparently there was no luck. And the one thing that I would hate is for us to, we'll need them to, but we can't get bogged down on this either. Either they show up or they don't show up. Either way, we'll move forward. You know, I wanna say, honestly, personally, I'm just gonna rant a little here. I really could care less if we do this and they show up and start pounding their chest and throwing their way around. Dude, we called you once, now it's gonna be twice. They show up or be square. I guess this is where it gets there. So anyway, with that being said, Alex, point us to the treasure box.

How do we. Well, so, so we have, you know, limited interaction with, with developers. I do know Tom. I do know Mr. Graham. But we also have had individual interactions with other individual developers. I don't personally keep a list of everyone that we interact with. I think the building department probably would be the best source of information because they're issuing the building permits. Most of the time when I work with a developer, by the end of the process, my permit is being issued to a tree company. So I may work with a developer to get there because they're the ones hiring the tree company. But when I issue permits for particularly for city trees or for significant trees, it's usually to a tree, a tree company, not a developer. So where I do have a couple of ins, I certainly could not provide a comprehensive list of folks that are building in the city, especially when it comes to, as Jay mentioned, the smaller single lot development type of businesses.

Alex, I think we should be interested in your list of tree removal people too, because based on what I just said, I think that they're part of the process and their voices should be, we should give them an opportunity to get involved.

Thank you. That I could provide. I have a you know, not every single company that's working in the city, but I have a pretty comprehensive list of players and the most, you know, the folks that I interact with the most on permitting issues. So it'd be a pretty, you know, at least a dozen probably companies that I could put on a list for us to reach out to if that's something that you'd like to do.

Got you.

Thank you, Alex.

And so, all right. So let me just recap real quick. In terms of action steps, SCANS and Alex are going to get together. They're going to come up with some sort of a sample of what the average lot in Springfield may be paying for tree removals, five or more trees that are more than six of an inch diameter in the city of Springfield, just to give a sense of what that financial cost will be to the residents. in terms of the, I will reach out to the appropriate departments to get a list of the developers and Jane, if they don't show up, sorry, you're square. So, with that being said, I think, Jane, how long have you been working on this? Close to two years now, right?

Yeah, I would say about that, Counselor, yeah.

So I think I'm going to make an executive decision today. You've been working on this two years. It's a long time, Jay. And we've been going back and forth, and we want to get something done to protect our trees. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to ask the law department if you're good for now. start drafting something about what we have, okay? And we're going to go back and look at it, then make a decision later. What I don't want is to come to the end of the year and then make it three years that we'll be working on this. We've got to have a resolution on this either up or down somehow. And so, Ken, I know, as Steve told us last time, I know there were some concerns with that idea at the last meeting. But we got to get something in the books for God's Sakes, in my opinion. We got to get something in the books. And I think that will also force the developers to come to the table once they find out that we're doing something in an ordinance that has been drafted. So I'm not saying that's going to be it, but I want to get something going. Because I feel like we've been, for the lack of better words, dragging our feet a little bit here. And we've got to get something done with this. Any questions, Ken? No, we can get a draft ordinance. Just a general draft, nothing fancy. Is there anything you want to apply right now? Anything you think we should know from the law department perspective of what's being presented today? No, I think we've got enough from all the stuff we've been doing. Come on, we're gonna work this. Okay, okay. All right, thank you. Now, so I'm gonna set the next meeting for July 28th. That's two weeks, because I really want to hear back what the case is gonna look like. What's a good time? I'm wide open for you guys. I'm gonna be right back. You are? Okay. All right. You guys want to do it at one? You want to do it at four?

So, Davila, could I ask you to verify the date? We've been previously meeting on Mondays. You mentioned the 28th, which is a Tuesday.

Yeah, on the 27th, we have a subcommittee meeting. Yeah, I can't do it on the 5th. Yeah, I got, yeah.

Okay, all right. I just wanted to make sure I understood the date that you were trying to do. Let's see.

Alex, you want to do it in the middle of your lunchtime?

Well, whatever works for me, that's fine. I do have a meeting with... a state with DCR at 1 o'clock on the 28th.

Okay. Counselor, is there any chance, if it would please everyone, that we could try for 11 a.m.? That would work for me right now.

I don't have a problem with that.

That works for me.

11 o'clock is good with me.

Okay.

Ed, is that good with you? Yeah. I'll turn the show up to your work date. July 28th. It's a Tuesday at 11 a.m. Okay. I don't need a draft by that day. Oh, okay. No. Maybe like a month later. I just want to put it on the record that I would like to start seeing something. We're starting to massage the dough, I guess, or preparing the dough for the final cake here. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, those are questions. All right. Anything else? Nope. All right. Thank you, everybody, then. So we're going to reconvene July 28th at 11 a.m. And I'll be saying thank you, everybody. Alex, please give me a call as soon as possible.

I will right now as soon as we hang up. And Jay, when you get a chance, if you want to reach out, just send me an email. Maybe we can coordinate our next steps as far as the case study. Okay. Sounds great.

I've got some ideas. I'll send you a message and I'll include everyone in this group.

Sure. Thank you, everybody. Jay, is that Jay?

Uh, counselor, if you're, I was just saying to Alex that I'll, I'll, you know, start that process of communicating about the case study.

I think Ed was asking you to call. Could you call me later this afternoon?

Oh, yes. Ed, I'd be happy to call you in a couple hours. Okay.

A couple hours would be great.

Thanks.

All right. Well, with that being said, the time is now 1 58. Uh, take care. God bless you. Thank you.