Commission - Regular Meeting

be greatly appreciated. Can we do a roll call? Richard present. Steven here. Here is absent here.

Okay, if we could rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Distracted. Okay. The next item on our agenda is first public comment. Any person shall be permitted to speak at public hearing and all meetings at the Brownfield redevelopment. Do I really need to read all this? No.

Good. Thank you. In other words is if you'd like to speak, please go to the podium, state your name and address uh for the record and direct your comments to the board to the chair. Do we have any such willing public? Seeing none, we'll move on to number three, the agenda approval, addition, subtractions. Uh does anybody wish to add subtract from the agenda as presented? I'll make the motion we approve as presented. We got a motion by Seaffort supported by

a second. Thank you. Uh any discussion hearing? None. All in favor indicate by saying I. I. Those opposed say no. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh item number four. I'm going to hand this over to uh an

good morning everybody. So it's that time of year again. we have to um elect our board um for chair and vice chair. Um I did want to let you know that Amanda is no longer going to be serving on the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. She moved and so she's now down in Cadillac um and um so gave her notice last month to our um to all of us and um staff. So, um I would like to say it was nice to put on the record. It it was nice having Amanda as our chair. She was uh you know articulate and ask the good all the good questions. And so we will uh Amanda if you're listening you will be missed. So So moving on um we do need to recommend an appointment um for the chair position first and then we will move on to vice chair. Do we hear a motion for approval of the chair?

I'm going to move that we appoint key as the chair. I'll second that. I don't think you have to second nominations though. Do we need a roll call for nominations nominations if there aren't any other nominations? Okay, thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, we will proceed with roll call vote.

Uh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, moving on. Um, we would also like to um Uh we would like to propose a recommendation to nominate and appoint the vice chair and oh apparently Mr. Radkkey that would be led by you now. Oh that would be led by me and now you take over. I'm reading my instruction as we go

and we'll proceed. Uh as indicated is there any recommendations for vice chair? Well, I think Jeff would be support.

Is there any other nominations? This is awesome. Hearing none, roll call that, please.

Yes. Yes. Shaw. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion carries. Congratulations. Congratulations, Jeff. Don't forget to watch the meeting. Was there a second to that? I'm sorry. I didn't catch it. There was. It was um Heather. Yeah. No, it was me. It was you. Oh, no. It was Marv. I'm sorry. My apologies. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. With that being done, thank you everyone. We'll move on to item number five, which would be the consent calendar. uh the purpose of no reading of this either. I Okay, thank you. Everybody understand the consent calendar. Any questions? If not, uh I would entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented and recommended. So made second. Got a motion by Sea, seconded by Shaw. Any discussion? All in favor indicate by saying I.

I. Those opposed say no. Motion carries to approve the consent calendar as presented. Uh number six, special orders of business. I am not aware of any. Is there any that there? There are none at this time. Thank you. Okay. Uh item number seven, we will bypass. Number eight, we will bypass as there's nothing brought from the consent calendar and nothing added to the agenda. Number nine, departmental items. Treasurer Heidi Shepy.

Yeah. So, in the packet is your uh preliminary December trial balance. Um interest and everything is um recorded. Just working on the year-end uh journal entries um for the liabilities and just Gatsby stuff. So, um happy to answer any questions. Does anybody have any questions from the board staff? I'm going to ask members of the audience. Seeing none, thank you Heidi. Uh should we receive a motion? Should we have a motion to receive and file or just we don't generally Perfect.

Uh item 9B Scott. Uh the um the list of item is uh information from um Lauren the city attorney and myself concerning the um charter amendments and the tip policy amendments. Uh and that's there's a link to that in um in your uh packet. And uh without fur further ado, I turn it over to to Lauren to start things start us out.

So um I think that the purpose of the discussion this morning is kind about how the charter amendment may or may not affect the brownfield board. So um when you look at the language of the charter amendment and what it says, it really speaks to tiff plans about the entire amendment. So if a TIFF plan is uh created, extended or amended, then that would need to go to the city for vote, but not until after this board action on it. So, under the implementation policy, um this board would take whatever action that it would need to take leading up to the city having to take action on an amendment um or uh an extension or um a new tiff plan. Um and then that would go to the city commission that up for a vote. Uh so this board really doesn't have to worry about that too much um because you would take your the process and then send it on to the city commission and then they would send it on to uh the ballot um doing the procedures they need to that happen um before the city commission would then uh in this case concur in the plan. Um, so if you're doing something that doesn't require any city commission action, uh, like amending a work plan or um, some sort of a budget amendment or something like that that it doesn't go to the city commission. Um, it never never has. You've never sent something like that because it's not just not part of the process. Then you don't have to worry about the charter in that instance. Um, it's just really specific to TIP plans. And when tip plans are amended, extended or a new plan is so does that help?

Yes. So yeah. So I mean the the main question that came up in the last meeting on December uh 11th I believe was when we were going through a budget line item adjustment on the existing TC place plan would that be a conflict with the current right implementation policy and um you know this is all based on um legislation. you know, we follow Act 381, which is the act that governs uh the Brownfield Financing Act. And so, as an a a requirement to amend a plan is only triggered by addition of new properties and addition an increase of the original TIFF um budget. So if the eligible activities were increased by a million dollars, that would trigger a formal amendment of a plan which would then have to be recommended to go to city commission and then go through the process that Lauren laid out. Um similarly um so as we have a number of plans within the tra in in the city of Trevor City that have been active since 2002. We have been working with our state agencies Eagle Michigan Economic Development Corporation and um working through any subsequent amendments that were required or not not required. Um, and so I just wanted everybody to have that information um, in the packet so that it was clear.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody have any other questions or any questions to begin with, I should say? Seeing none, hearing none. Thank you for the explanation. It did help. Thank you, Lauren. We appreciate it. I'm going to scoot off to a different meeting. All right, everybody. Have a big day. Make sure you tell Jeff congratulations. Okay. I will. Oh my gosh. Please do. I will. I Can you take a picture of his face? I I uh You may be able to hear the reaction. We're just Oh my goodness. Okay. And anything else on this, Scott, that you want to add or

No, I just just again that that uh the only the the policy of budget item line item adjustments has been in place since the beginning of the of the brownfield authority in the first uh iterations of the the brownfield authority under the statute. So this is not this is not something new or different that we're doing as a result of uh how we treat you know brownfield plants. is consistent with past practice. So, um longstanding past practice and and so I feel very comfortable in in um Lauren's assessment and and agreeing with Ann that the line item adjustments are fine.

Very good. Thank you. Next, uh 9 C an Oh, whoops. Oh, no. Just a moment. I just had a glitch on my um Okay, now I'm fine. Uh 9C. Ah yes, that would be I'm like what are we doing? Um so um I don't have any comments at this time today. Um we are um anything that I speak to will be under new business.

Very good. I'm not aware of any old business so of number 10. So, we'll move on to item 11, new business, uh, which contains, uh, sub A, 124 West Front Street, Driver City, approval of the Eagle Grant and Eagle Loan, subgrant, and sub loan agreements between the Grand Travers County, Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, and GLC Northern Michigan Front LLC. And, could you do us an overview on this?

Yes. So, um the 124 West Front Street, uh was awarded a grant and a actually two grants um and a loan um back in 2020. Um the intent of that was to utilize the grant and loan dollars to address um any environmental contamination on the property um and make sure that the new development was meeting all of its due care obligations. Uh, do care obligations mean you want to make sure that people aren't exposed to um contaminated soil? Um, or that during the construction on the property that the soil is properly managed. And what that means is that if the soil is contaminated that it would be transferred to a regulated landfill that receives that type of contamination. Um, additionally, because um, it's a co-mingled situation there, we had releases from a former underground storage tank. So, we have petroleum products on the site and then there is a groundwater plume that comes from the former dry cleaner. Um, if you recall last month, we discussed that dry cleaning operation. Um, and that impacted the groundwater and so there's chlorinated solvents in the groundwater. So, part of the implementation of these grants and loans, a vapor mitigation system will be put in underneath the new development to prevent any vapor intrusion. So part of that process was we originally had a different development team. We had a different project on this site. Um in about 2023 they shifted um the uh project scope from a mixeduse uh workforce housing

with retail to a hotel. Um and so subsequently we've been working with Eagle on benchmarks to achieve certain um requirements to keep the grant alone in play so to say. So the development team's representative Eric Heler is here to answer any questions on that if you need. But essentially the benchmarks were do additional testing that was done over the last year to delineate the extent. How are we going to manage it during construction? And then the next benchmark is going to be related to the closure of that leaking underground storage tank. um and then some additional target dates for implementation of the um project itself. So the loan that you see before you, the subgrant or the sub loan agreement um is not going to be executed. We want you guys to approve it substance and forum today, but we're not going to execute that loan until we get proof of financing from the development team because our contract on the subgrant agreement and subloan agreement is with the developer. However, the grant and loan agreement is with the state. So the department of environment rate lakes and energy we don't want to draw on a loan and start incurring interest until we know the project is moving forward because we don't want to incur any obligation to pay that loan until we know that we'll have available tax increment revenue to pay that loan down. Um so that's where we are today. If you have any questions let me know.

Yeah. So I understand that a brownfield brownfield exists to uh fund and facil facil facilitate redevelopment but all reevelopment is not equal and this is $1.64 million uh of public environmental support to unlock a high value luxury hotel development not the proposed originally proposed workforce housing from 2020. Um I I think this raises all sorts of questions like why are we supporting this site over other sites? Why are we supporting tourism over housing? Why are we supporting uh uh a p a public subsidy of a project that appears to be financially viable? Um, is this subsidy advancing public benefit, which I presume is part of Brownfield's m mission as well, or just a private waterfront monetization? There is a finite pot of money for Brownfields. Uh, and this is $1.6 million that could be used someplace else. Um, I think it also risks reinforcing some kind of model or at least putting a model up at the top here that says, "Oh, if you've got Prime Waterfront and you've got public wa uh cleanup and you've got a luxury hospitality and private profit, we will support you." Um, redevelopment on this site may help a couple of high-end restaurants around here or some nice shops, but redevelopment like we're seeing on the next two projects. Um, that that helps uh schools, hospitals, manufacturing,

and all kinds of local businesses. Totally different project. So, um I'm not interested in this project. Okay. May I make a few clarifications just for point? So,

these Eagle grants and loans, they come from the state. They are to only deal with environmental contamination. they are not a subsidy to go into um providing additional equity or um other into the development. The the sole purpose of utilizing Eagle grants and loans is to as a public purpose remove contamination from an existing brownfield site. The original intent of the Brownfield Act was all based on removing contamination and properly managing contamination on sites that were contaminated. So these loan dollars are essentially and grant dollars are going towards that specific goal in downtown Trevor City. We're removing source area contamination that could further impact groundwater within our community. There is also as you are aware again with partnership with Eagle we are addressing the source area of this contamination from that dry cleaner. Um Eagle has stepped in again as partners. They are utilizing district money to address the source area contamination of the chlorinated solvents in order to facilitate um development whether it's a mixeduse development housing other there are obligations that the property owner has to meet in order to even build that pro project. So these grants and loans allow for the environmental piece of that puzzle to be addressed. Further, as a brownfield authority, I feel much more

comfortable when we are partnering with Eagle on grants and loans. The reason I say this is because there's an extra layer of scrutiny on how the implementation of the source area removal is conducted. The