Commission - Regular Meeting

We're going to start in about a minute here.

Sorry. Oh, no, no, no, you're fine.

Okay, I'm going to call the regular city commission meeting of Monday, July 6th, the order.

Please all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty

We begin as always by acknowledging the land on which we gather as the territory of the Ottawa and Chippewa peoples who have stewarded this land through the generations. Thank you for your strength and resilience in protecting the land and inspiring us to uphold our responsibilities to do the same. Okay, so with that, we're going to go ahead and get started here with the roll call, Sarah, first and foremost.

Commissioner Boehmer? Here. Commissioner Anderson? Here. Commissioner Funk? Here. Commissioner Shaw? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Ness? Here. Commissioner Treadwell? Here. Mayor?

Here. And we're going to go through our usual, but I'm going to add a little something on our announcements, unless anybody objects, for a little recognition we got unexpectedly over the weekend before we start with the regular agenda, if that's okay with everyone. Great. All right. So we'll start out, though, with announcements from the city manager, please.

Yes, and I do want to first welcome Dan Kelly, our new city attorney to his first city commission meeting. Thank you, Dan. Yes, so I wanted to just make a few announcements for this week, the week of July 6, 2026. First of all, we are pleased to announce the successful completion of the 2026 pavement marking. for the first time, I believe, in Traverse City's history, or at least for a long time, those markings were completed by June 30th. And those markings, of course, play a crucial role in safety for motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists. And so they also advance the city's Complete Streets objectives. And I want to thank you, our mobility infrastructure team, headed by Chris Weber, as well as our city engineering department, headed by Ann Pagano, who helped make that happen. I also want to congratulate Traverse City Police Officer Krista Frizinski. She was named the 2025 National Alliance on Mental Illness Michigan Law Enforcement Officer of the Year. Officer Frizinski was recognized for her outstanding work through the city's resilience program, which supports individuals experiencing substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and homelessness. We're grateful for Officer Frizinski's compassion, her dedication, and commitment to serving some of our most vulnerable residents. So thank you to Chief Richmond for supporting her in that work, and a special thank you to Officer Krzysztof Brzezinski. I also wanted to announce, as has been announced, that the Traverse City Police Department has increased traffic enforcement this summer in response to concerns regarding excessive vehicle noise. Officers are going to focus on violations such as excessively loud exhaust systems, tire squealing from rapid acceleration, and amplified music that causes disturbances and the goal is to create and maintain a safe, welcoming and enjoyable community for residents, visitors and businesses and those rules will be enforced with up to a $500 fine per violation. I also wanted to share that President Trump declared a presidential disaster for Michigan as a result of the April 13th flooding event. Grand Traverse County is included and eligible for individual assistance and categories, all categories of public assistance. More information will be shared here soon, but for information about the public assistance process, that'll be released in the coming days. And if anyone believes that they or residents believe that they have losses that may qualify for that process, we encourage them to check Michigan.gov slash April Storms. Michigan.gov slash April Storms. We'll be sharing that through our communication channels, and I just learned that about an hour ago. So I just wanted to share that. And that's all that I've got. Thank you.

All right. Over to you, Sarah, from the city clerks. I'm going to keep my voice for the consent calendar. I don't have anything.

Also, kind of a light week here. So yes, welcome Dan Kelly for us. I know I figured Ben would address you at the top, but we're very excited to have you join us here and become a more familiar face with the city residents. So thank you for that.

Thank you.

But the other thing I really wanted to carve out and like I said this was very unexpected to the point where I was standing in the crowd for the welcoming ceremony of Cherry Festival and they called us up to the stage and we didn't know we were getting this award. So we, the City of Traverse City was presented with the Arnold Family Memorial Award. I was at the Cherry Festival when they started doing this a few years ago. And Cherry Festival has always had ways of honoring volunteers and people who are actively engaged in the Cherry Festival kind of internally, I guess you could say. And they started by naming it after the Arnold family who have been integral to the Cherry Festival and making it the event that it is for years and years and thanking them for their unofficial official service and so this year the city of traverse city was the recipient uh for the 100th anniversary and so the thanks to us was for being wonderful hosts every year for being the heart of the county and cherry country and everything else um i'll be honest the way that when they were talking about all the coordination that goes in within our city limits and and how the work gets done. I thought they were going to give it to Greg Bird. So I was sitting there prepared for them to say his name. And then they said the city of Traverse City. And I think this is a great testament to the work that our clerk's office does with all the permitting and coordination that both our chiefs do and both Traverse City Fire Department and Traverse City Police Department do on the ground, boots on the ground. Again, if anybody's had the chance to check out the the kind of headquarters for all of the security. It's amazing and well done. We obviously work with the county, we work with Michigan State Police on that, but it is centered here in Traverse City and it is the work of our great team and our great staff. And I don't want to diminish the streets and everybody else who got us our lines so the pedestrians are safer and everything else that makes this a really first class event in the world that we hear about all the time. I got to meet the incoming Coast Guard commander and she was saying, what we hear a lot but true, you know, everybody buys for this spot, and then half the time they retire when they're done with it. And so there's a reason for that. And so this is all thanks to our staff who does such a great job helping to host this international event here right in Traverse City. So want to take a moment to appreciate the staff and everyone here and just say thank you for them. And we'll hang this up somewhere soon, I'm sure. But it was a nice surprise to get called on stage to make an impromptu speech to thank all of you for doing your great work. So thank you. Okay and with that Sarah now you're on to your big moment of the night.

Forgive me ahead of time if I stumble over words. The purpose of the consent calendar is to expedite business by grouping non-controversial items together to be dealt with by one commission motion without discussion. Any member of the commission staff or the public may ask that any item on the consent calendar be removed therefrom and placed elsewhere on the agenda for individual consideration by the commission. And such requests will be automatically respected. If an item is not removed from the consent calendar, the action noted in parentheses on the agenda is approved by a single commission action adopting the consent calendar. One, consideration of approving the minutes of June 15th, 2026 and June 22nd, 2026 meetings of the City Commission, approval recommended. Two, consideration of authorizing the issuance of a new manufacturer microbrewer and small winemaker liquor license with on-premise tasting room privileges with Sunday AM sales, dance entertainment and outdoor service area permits to obligatory LLC, Doing business as Stonehound Brewing Company located at 750 East 8th Street, Traverse City, Michigan 49686. And authorizing the city clerk to issue such registration. Adoption and approval recommended. Three, consideration of adopting a resolution authorizing the transfer of ownership of a B hotel liquor license with SDM privileges with Sunday AM, PM sales, outdoor service. dance entertainment and additional Bar 1 permits currently held by Regency Midwest Ventures Limited Partnership doing business as Park Place Hotel and Conference Center to Park Place Hospitality LLC in consideration of authorizing the city clerk to issue the related registration allowing the operation of licenses and permits at 300 East State Street, Traverse City, Michigan 49684, adoption and approval recommended. For consideration of adopting a resolution authorizing the transfer of ownership of a retail on-premise liquor license with Class C privileges with Sunday AM PM sales and dance entertainment permits currently held by Bronco 851 LLC Pistoleros Mexican Grill LLC and consideration of authorizing the city clerk to issue a related registration allowing the operation of the licenses and permits at 851 South Garfield Avenue, Unit 10, Traverse City, Michigan 49686. Adoption and approval recommended. Five, consideration of adopting to make permanent traffic control orders which provides for ADA signage as follows. Number 766, 300 East Front Street, Northeastern Corner at Park and Northwestern Corner at Boardman Avenue. 767, 200 East Front Street, northwestern corner of Cass Street. Numbers 768, 100 East Front Street, southwestern corner of Cass Street. Numbers 769, 200 South Union, west side north of bridge. Didn't do a bullet there. 770 200 Lake Avenue northwest corner of Cass Street and north side of mid block bump out. 771 Hull Street west side of south beta station entrance and west side north of beta station exit. Adoption recommended. Six, consideration of authorizing a purchase order for the repair of a street sweeper with cost to be reimbursed by the insurance carrier, approval recommended. Seven, consideration of authorizing a blanket purchase order for asphalt as needed use for trail and street repair and maintenance, approval recommended. Eight, consideration of waiving the competitive bidding process and authorizing a purchase order for disposal services for street sweeping. Storm filter cleaning and catch basin debris, approval recommended. Nine, consideration of authorizing a purchase order for Google workspace licenses, approval recommended. Ten, consideration of authorizing a purchase order for telecommunication consolidation services, approval recommended. Eleven, consideration of authorizing a confirming purchase order for unleaded fuel for city operational use, approval recommended. 12, consideration of authorizing a confirming purchase order for diesel fuel for city operational use, approval recommended. 13, consideration of authorizing a purchase order for the purchase of a 2027 Ford E-Transit van with RapidView IBAK sewer camera inspection system for use by the sewer and water maintenance department in consideration of declaring a 2002 Ford E-250 surplus, approval recommended. Fourteen, consideration of authorizing a purchase order for three critical spare pumps for the wastewater treatment plant, approval recommended. Fifteen, consideration of authorizing an amended purchase order for water meters, approval recommended. Sixteen, consideration of authorizing an agreement for consulting services in connection with her prior role as city attorney with Lauren Tribolat through August 31st, 2026, approval recommended. Seventeen, consideration of authorizing a three-year agreement for cardiac monitors for the Fire Department, approval recommended. Eighteen, consideration of authorizing an amendment to the agreement for critical building masonry and restoration repairs of the front street lift station for installation of rain gutters. Approval recommended. Nineteen, consideration of declaring used legal books as surplus and authorizing it for sale at market value to lower and tribal lot. Approval recommended. Twenty, consideration of declaring various items and equipment held by the fleet management department as surplus so they may be auctioned for sale. Approval recommended. 21, consideration of authorizing the right of entry for improvements on city property in connection with the mill district project, approval recommended. 22, consideration of rescinding the social media site posting policy, approval recommended. 23, consideration of rescheduling a public hearing regarding the Parks and Rec five-year master plan to July 20th, 2026 approval recommended.

Okay. Is there any commissioners that like any items pulled?

Jackie, then Ken. Number 7 and number 16, I have questions on. Okay.

18.

Okay. Any others?

Does anyone from the public, would anybody from the public like to pull any item that is not 7, 16 or 18? Seeing none, I'll bring it back for motion.

So moved.

Move that we accept the concept calendar as amended? Yes. Great. Thank you, Lance. Support. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. And opposed? None. Okay. So we'll start with number seven, Jackie. Thank you.

Sure. I had a question regarding the share of the asphalt usage that was dedicated to trails versus roads. And I was hoping that based on last year's usage, we might have some estimate going forward of what that would be.

Yes, I can tell you that of that total, about 6,000 to 8,000 is anticipated to be used on trails.

And that was out of a total of? 100. 100,000. 100,000, thank you. Great. Not to exceed you. Thank you very much for tracking that down. Absolutely. I appreciate it. At what point should I make a motion? You can go ahead and do it.

You've got the floor still, so.

I move that we accept the recommendation for purchase of asphalt as noted in the agenda.

Actually, there's the official motion that's on.

I won't be able, I'm sorry. The city manager, I think what Jackie's making is that the city manager be authorized to issue a blanket purchase order to Team Elmers of Traverse City, Michigan in an amount not to exceed $100,000, and a blanket purchase order to Molon Asphalt Inc. of Traverse City, Michigan in an amount not to exceed $20,000 for asphalt materials with funds available in general 101, major streets 202, and local streets 203 funds. that's the one i support yeah okay that was uh heather yeah okay thank you ladies write it down you're faster than i am okay any further discussion on this item seeing none any public comment on this item Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. And then number 16?

Yes. I just wanted to clarify that there is some flexibility in terms of the hours availability, you know, if we have, one week where no hours are needed and the next week 15 are needed, do we have that flexibility?

And just because we didn't get into it, this is for the, no, no, it's okay, for the contract work with Lauren Triple Lout if we need some help after she's, now that we've made the transition.

Yes, and you did ask that question in your email, and I'm sorry we didn't answer that. That's okay. I'm realizing that now. Yes, there is flexibility. The idea is it's five hours per week, but a cumulative total that would be the equivalent over, you know, essentially, almost two months, we just wouldn't exceed that.

So the amount we're committing to is five hours per week as a cap for the total contract?

Yes, yes.

And we might not use it all. Okay, that was going to be my next question. It's billable. Is it possible that it would be below that?

I anticipate it will be quite a bit below that.

Thank you. Then if someone could help me with reading that motion, I would appreciate it.

move that the mayor and city clerk execute a professional consulting services agreement with lauren triple lock associated with the transition to a new city attorney with the terms outlined in the city manager's july 2nd 2026 communication with such agreement subject to approval as to its substance by the city manager and its form by the city attorney with funds to come from the city commission's budget second okay i'm gonna do that for anderson and shaw again although assist by bomer um any further discussion on this item

Seeing none, any public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. OK. And our last one is 18, if I can read my own writing. Is that right, Ken?

Yeah. Go right ahead. Sorry. I was concerned about the cost of these gutters, $15,000. And it looked like there was a nearly $5,000 credit. So the ask of this was for the $9,965.56. Has this work already been done?

No, this would just be a, the reason why there is the difference is we'd be getting a credit of $4,800 from the other work that they've done. Right. So the work has not been done yet.

The work has not been done yet? No. Correct. It has not been done. I wouldn't feel comfortable without seeing at least two other competitive bids for this. This seems like a lot.

This is, sorry, Art Krieger, Director of Utilities with the city. The general contractor did get three prices and this was the best, most responsible bidder. There was one lower but it was not by much and it had a caveat in it where they had to go around some antennas that are up there for communication purposes back to the wastewater plant and it kind of left everything wide open. This was a complete price, and it is an ornate-looking building. It's special gutters compared to what you'd probably buy for a home, say.

Okay. So there were three bids collected on this? Three quotes. Okay. Yes. I guess I'm comfortable with it then.

Okay, great. Do we have any other questions, or would somebody like to make a motion? I will make the motion. Thank you, guys.

I move that the mayor and city clerk be authorized to execute a contract amended with quality maintenance contractors in the amount not to exceed $10,962.12 which includes a 10% contingency, $9,965.56 plus $996.56. Such contract has to its substance with the city manager and it's formed by the city attorney with funds therefore available with the sewer fund, fund 590.

And in supporting that, I'll say that the front street lift station is a fine example of the art deco architectural style and as such is an important part of the historic character of our downtown. Yes, it is just for maintenance equipment and for pumping sewage, but it is a nice looking building.

That's true.

Let's keep it that way.

Any other comments on this? Go ahead, Ken.

I had zero problem with the putting of placing of gutters on this building and protecting the investment that we're making in the restoration of it. I was just a little concerned that that seemed like a lot of money. And if a bid process was put in place and that was the lowest one, then I'm fine with that. Great.

Any other comments from commissioners? Any public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Okay, so now on to old business. And the first one we have is consideration of a five-year management agreement with now Studio Academy for the Con Foster Building.

Formerly known as Parkway Theater. So at a recent City Commission meeting, the commission authorized me and the employee team to engage in negotiations, if you will, with the folks who submitted this proposal. We've done that. The proposed arrangement cost the city nothing other than, of course, use of the building. This would be a five-year agreement, and Studio Anatomy would provide community theater, music venue, cultural gathering space, and the intent is to provide year-round recreational activities educational and cultural programming with some free events each month and reduced cost events so I'm really excited at how this will provide accessible arts and you may recall I just want to highlight because we don't get a lot of comment from younger folks but someone here from a high school who said hey you know we need some stuff to do to stay out of trouble and I think that this is a really exciting opportunity they are going to invest approximately 58 almost $59,000 in building improvements. Uh, and the hope is to get started this fall. I believe that they would actually open their doors. Uh, and while I anticipate that everything will run smoothly, it's a five year agreement. There are termination clauses that for some reason things weren't working out. I have no reason to believe that's the case, but that's a standard provision in our agreements. And with that, I would be, Happy to answer any questions. I did want to mention, correct, that there would be one free event for the public each week. I think I said each month, but it's each week. That's all that I've got.

Do we have questions? Go ahead, Heather and then Jackie.

If we approve this tonight, do they get the keys to the castle and so somebody can go in and clean the windows?

Well, our parks department is going to take care of that right after Cherry Fest.

Didn't quite make it, Heather. Jackie? Well, you didn't answer the question though. Are they, do they get the keys?

Not right away, but they'll be getting them relatively soon.

Okay.

Yes.

Not this fall, but relatively soon.

No, well before that. Okay. To do all the work they need to do in order to get things open.

Basically once I's are dotted and T's are crossed. Yeah.

I would imagine within the next couple of weeks they would.

I think I recall that when we began the conversation about both this and the Sixth Street property that one of our objectives was to achieve break-even status with maintenance costs on the buildings. And I know that we're looking at an accelerating lease rate payment to the city. Does that accomplish our break-even objective at some point?

Yes. Yes. At what point? At what point exactly? I mean, it's over the course of the five years, but exactly when on that mark. Michelle, are you able to answer that in this moment?

So, hi. Michelle Hunt, Parks and Recreation Director. So, the way that the management fee is structured is that we took what the approximate utility costs have been historically, along with other costs to run the building, security, things like that. And that's the management fee that was designed. It increases over the five years so that it doesn't, you know, it starts out small and gets larger. And then they had a conversation where if the utilities end up being more than that, then we'll go back to the company and have a conversation about what it really costs to run this building. So right now we're comfortable with the management fee as it is designed because that's what we know it costs to maintain the building.

May I ask a follow-up? Absolutely. So this covers monthly recurring costs like utilities. Yes. But it does not include costs of regular maintenance?

It does. There's not a lot of regular maintenance in terms of anything outside of the utilities. I would say like there's the utilities, there's the security, there's the upgrades that we have to make to the roof which we did. really the fee that we designed incorporates the cost of running the building.

Okay, so maintenance, standard maintenance like roof replacement and caring for the siding, you know, sheathing, things like that are not incorporated in those calculations.

Uh sort of it's like we have we have like a buffer but it's not much and also one thing I will add is Benjamin has asked the team to look at creating a a con foster building fund so that the money will be in this fund so that we will have money moving forward to make costs or excuse me make improvements with the dedicated revenue coming into the city from this management fee so everything is going to be housed in a fund so we'll know exactly how much it's going to cost.

That's wonderful. Thank you.

I have a question in the comments. I'm super excited about adding this. amenity to our parks. But I do have a question. The staff memo gave great details about the operations and the programming that's going to be provided in the building. It didn't discuss alcohol service though. And if I recall, we had some discussions about alcohol sales related to this particular project early on in the RFP process. And I just wanted to connect those dots since it was silent in the staff memo on alcohol sales. Are we going to establish a parks policy around alcohol use or sales in this building? Because I think the city has a current parks policy on alcohol, or is that individual to each park?

It's individual to each park in the sense that basically beer and wine is allowed in all parks unless prohibited by resolution of the city commission. That's established in an ordinance. Okay. uh and then there are times where we have special events where hard liquor is allowed but that has to be approved by the city commission for your park and public land use policy we will be establishing uh or having a policy that will govern alcohol at this building okay that'll be something that's established through that management agreement And so with, but you're right, when this was brought forward to the commission, when I recommended that we negotiate with these folks, I mentioned that alcohol would be part of that. And I just respect, I know that some had expressed concerns. I didn't share those concerns because we have alcohol, frankly, all sorts of establishments within a tunnel's walk away. The marina, lots of boaters have beverages there. And so this is kind of just an extension of that in my mind.

But will that detailed policy that you're talking about be coming back to the commission for approval?

No, that's part of the approval as to substance piece. If you have specific concerns, I'd like to hear them. But otherwise, it's going to be a pretty standard don't serve people when they're visibly intoxicated, which is folks who serve alcohol are required to follow those rules anyway. But it would be grounds for penalty under the lease or revocation of termination of the lease.

Quick question to follow up on that and then I did see Ken and Jackie's hands go up too. Is this the idea then this would be a standard like a standing liquor license or is it kind of by event and just because there's different types of liquor license you can apply for and get for.

They would have to have a standard liquor license.

Okay and so that includes tip certification and other things that are regulated by the state. Okay and then Ken and then Jackie.

this this would be the first time that we've allowed this permanence in a park as far as like the sales of it is that's what the understanding that i got from the emails that we received and i'm always worried about the first time that we do something because then other people are going to want to ask stuff too so there's a restaurant right across the sidewalk from there that is is that city owned to manage that little cafeteria city owned and we give permission for them to run it Is it unfair if they ask to serve alcohol now?

I think that that's a very different animal in my mind. That's all outside, uh, versus an indoor venue. I mean, that's ultimately a policy decision of the city commission, but those are in my mind, two different things. Uh, just like the, I know it's not a park, but the opera house has alcohol that's allowed versus, you know, setting up a concession in a park.

I don't have any qualms about the evils of alcohol. That isn't what it's about. For me, it's about once we allow the first person to do something, who is the next person that's going to ask, and is it important for us to allow for others what we allow for one person? And the first time we do it is when we set precedents, and that's the concern I have in regard to this.

I totally appreciate the equity issue, but I have that distinction in my mind that's pretty significant.

Jackie, go ahead. And my question was regarding precedents also. And I thought of City Opera House. I also thought of Hickory Hills Lodge and our interest in using that as an event venue. Right. And I wondered are those policies, do those provide an underpinning or a precedent for this decision?

Not in my mind other than just that we have some momentum that we've, like you said, Hickory is a facility that is within a park, technically a city-owned park, but within Garfield Township. And Mr. Kelly can correct me if he feels differently, but the city commission has, I understand the equity concerns, but you have the ability to address these issues on a case-by-case basis as part of your policy authority.

The one thing I'd share really quickly is as a non-city representative but a member of the Opera House Board, they recently did go through the process of getting their own liquor license because what they were running into was doing it as like a pop-up for certain events. Every business that participated was really great and they were really you know, excited to be there, but then it gets into the problem every restaurant has of staffing. And so did they have enough people to cover the event that night and everything like that. So as we're considering him as kind of wisely pointed out into this slightly different foray. I mean, we've had, I'll call it other establishments like you noticed or you said, Jackie, um, that we own. But this being a park space that Others have moved to that model of having more control over it than just doing like a pop-up or a special licensing because of the issue of honestly staffing and things around here. So just wanted to share that from the non-official City Opera House part. And Mitch, you had your hand up? Yeah, to that point.

just liquor license law if you're a restaurant yes you can serve within your four walls but if you are serving outdoors on a patio or whatever you have to have either a railing or a fence or something with little sign that says no alcohol beyond this point the exception to that is as the state legislature saw, was to create social districts, which we have one in Traverse City at the intersection of 8th and Garfield. It is quite small, but it is a social district where you can leave that immediate premises. However, that still has an invisible line around it, and you can't take your container beyond that point. Both the Opera House The Carnegie Building and now the Bijou Building have four walls that when they have alcohol served there, it never leaves the four walls. Hickory Hills, it's not served strictly in the lodge itself. It can be, and I have seen it, on the grounds, but nobody is going to be walking from Hickory Hills with a drink in hand to all the way down to Sletters, which is the nearest other bar. Somebody could, but it's impractical.

Well, they shouldn't, and that would be where good change personnel is.

Yeah, and I'd see this as following that clear distinction of the Bijou building has four walls, alcohol served within those four walls will remain within those four walls, and if somebody else wanted to have an event in a park or a vendor in a park wanted to get a liquor license, they would have to find some way to construe four walls, either physically or with a fence around it.

So we ventured a little off of questions. So would somebody like to make a motion? I have another question. Okay, ask your question then. Yeah.

I appreciate that this is coming forward and that though it took a lot of negotiation to get here and going through bid processes, neither of which are initial bids, Matt what we were looking for what we got a proposal that we're willing to move forward on Considering the recent past of this I am a little apprehensive with a five-year timeline for something that is a new organization in a new space so what is the fallback if say two and a half years down the road this organization is either financially or organizationally no longer viable and the city is left holding the bag of what's happening with the space again

Well, I will say, I'll answer your question directly, but just to refresh everyone's memory, the RFP that was issued did say that it would be a minimum of a five-year arrangement. So those that submitted proposals were approaching it with that understanding relative certainty for at least five years uh but with that said uh we have like i sort of mentioned at the top of this conversation standard provisions for termination so if they were no longer able to operate in a way that was acceptable to the city meeting the targets that are outlined, including things like weekly free events, then we have the option to terminate. And if we did that, yes, absolutely. Then the reality is we have a building again that we need to decide what to do. I don't see that as, in my mind, a risk beyond what you have right now, where eventually you're going to have to decide if you're going to enter into an arrangement with somebody and it may or may not work out. The indications are it hopefully will.

Yeah, that wasn't a risk that we foresaw with the Traverse City Film Festival, but it turned out to be. First, they were scaling back the number of public events that they were having and the screenings that they had and then they ceased operations entirely there.

Just a quick question. The weekly, is that much like we were talking about with the previous contract, averaging 52? Yes. Okay. That's what I figured but I just wanted to clarify for the public. Jackie and then Heather. Heather actually and then Jackie. Jackie, yes. Okay. Go ahead.

I'm just twirling my pants.

Sorry. Go ahead, Jackie.

I'm sensitive to the fact that the current seating in the building, many of those seats were endowed by individuals or families in honor or memory of family members. Is there any way to maintain our recognition of that contribution and preserve some elements, maybe the tags?

Yeah, I appreciate your question. I'm going to ask Michelle to make sure that we address that

with the folks that would be moving in there and do that to the extent possible thank you other questions go ahead lance i'll make a motion go ahead thank you all right i move that the mayor and city clerk execute a five-year management agreement with studio anatomy llc for the proper use maintenance operation and management of the confoster building in clinch park with such agreement subject to the approval as to a substance by the city manager and its form by the city attorney second thank you commissioner and commissioner shaw any further discussion we did venture a little in discussion but if anybody has any go ahead yeah i'm just very excited to support this um this you know having a free arts venue i'm a former arts student myself as a kid and i'm just excited to support this because we're giving uh our youth uh and our just our residents just another venue to express themselves um and we had resounding uh public support if you all remember the probably hundreds of emails we got and the also just almost hour long of public comment that we had uh supporting this so i just wanted to make that that comment

Yeah, go ahead, Laura. It's a great project. Super excited about it. But I do want to tie up the loose ends with the alcohol service back to the parks policy and make sure that somehow in the policy we note that there can be distinctions for separate management agreements. It just seems it is in a park and that our policy should reflect that we are allowing this. Is there a way that we can connect that back to our existing policies?

We can if you desire. The one context I would offer is that park and public land use policy is really specific to events. So not really like a philosophy on parks as a whole. If there is a desire for that kind of conversation, I would keep it higher level. But that policy is really specific to events.

I'm comfortable with keeping that at a higher level. And I know that we have policies for individual parks. So if we need to revise or amend the policy that we have for Clinch Park to address that we will be serving alcohol in the building, that just makes sense to me.

And I can just tell you, because I know you wanted to have that loop closed, that the policy on Clinch Park is specific to the public bringing alcohol into the park, like as part of just sitting there on a blanket kind of a thing.

Okay.

Any other comments right now?

I'm just going to say really quickly that one of the reasons why I won't say I stumbled, but I paused on Studio Academy is I have fond memories of Studio Anatomy, which was in one of our spaces that we've been losing downtown, which is why we're, to Lance's point and others, why we're excited to have this opportunity at a city-owned space. There's been a lot of places that have been incubators or third places or slightly second but mostly third places where it's not expensive or there's a low barrier of entry or free to have some events and like benjamin mentioned i spoke at the high school just a couple weeks ago and that's the one thing we hear all the time too is everything here is alcohol based or it's late night and what are we gonna what can we do as younger people to just go out and have some fun and so i like that that is right now the current name of it because it harkens back to a place that i have fond memories of and i know a lot of people do and really the spirit of which we are kind of going forward with this building. So I just wanted to give that two cents, too, of our kind of missing space that we're getting a little reclaiming on right now. So with that, I will go ahead and open up. If there's any public comment on this item, please feel free to address the podium. All right. Go ahead.

Well, I just, we've said it twice. We want to have a space for young people to enjoy because they can't have alcohol, but we're part of the We feel torn on this because there's going to be alcohol served in this, but this is also, it's required for the business model, we understand that. For them to be successful, there needs to be alcohol served at events. But we also want this place for young people to enjoy activities and spaces. It feels conflicting and I just wanted to raise my hand to mention that right after you had said, I remember being a young person and there not being things to do. I wasn't that young. But it just, I think this larger conversation of parks and approved usages and certifications and dedications of parks is going to be a really important conversation.

I agree. I would say too, though, much like the contract with Lauren that we did, it doesn't have to be at every single thing, though, too. Right. And so I think that's where we have some options of certain shows might be 21 up, some might be wristbanded, and some might be family friendly, and all of that. So I think that's the important thing to underline, that we're not just opening up a bar, basically. And I know that's not what you're saying, but I just wanted to clarify that for the public, that we're not turning this into the Con Foster bar either, so.

And I think that's a real important expectation that I have for the management agreement, that we do have some guard rails, if you will, that it's not just here's a liquor license and it turns into a bar. I think it's important that the primary purpose of this building is arts and culture, and I think it's just a fantastic use of the building. But alcohol sales and use should be ancillary to that primary use.

Agreed completely and just to help make you feel a little more comfortable perhaps is the folks have indicated that they could have their, They could be there without alcohol, but what allows them to have these free events and low cost events is the revenue from that. And so just to your point, it's meant to be ancillary and supportive, but not primary.

And I appreciate that. That's what I was looking for in terms of policy and oversight. Thank you.

And just in case, because we kind of interrupted our own process, if anybody has any public comment they'd like to make now, we kind of interrupted it. So just in case that sparked anybody, go right ahead and approach the podium if you'd like to make public comment.

And it's regarding this item specifically. Otherwise, there's general comment on any item at the end of the meeting. Is it about this item? If it's about this item, please come to the podium. Otherwise, we'll take your question at the end. If you could share it at the podium so everybody can hear you.

I'm going to read the rules real quick.

Thank you.

We ask that you state your name and address, indicate if you're a city resident, non-city resident, and or city business owner. We have a three-minute time allotment per speaker. When your time is elapsed, the timer will beep.

Do I have to tell you my name? Yes. We'd love to hear it one more time. The only thing I know nothing about this project you're talking about, but I'm thinking what kinds of activities and you're talking about liquor primarily, but what kinds of activities are planned to draw people to come?

what are they we don't usually do q a as part of official public comment but we want to accommodate you and miss hunt is right behind you she's the parks and recreation director she can answer your question uh uh right after this so you can talk to her right now if you'd like well oh yeah so for public comment on anything we really know nothing The public comment purpose is for you to express your thoughts to the city commission as far as questions. Those are supposed to go to staff either before or after the meeting because we don't get into a Q&A during official city commission meetings. But we can accommodate you by Ms. Hunt talking to you right now. So it just wouldn't be part of your public comment. Okay?

Thank you. And we'll have that answer for you. Well, no. Okay, they're going to take it offline, but I think that an excellent point that was raised here was we're talking a lot about the liquor license. That's not what the proposal was. We had a very robust conversation a couple of months ago now when we made this decision that this was going to be a place where we could have performing arts, where there could be other art exhibits. There can be cultural events. There can be public events with nonprofits. It could be movies. It could be it could be a lot of different things, and that was the appeal of the space, I think, for all of us when we commented at the time. So to address to the public what that public comment fairly brought up, this conversation is mostly revolved around questions about the liquor license, but the bigger picture for this space and where we're at with it is much more of a community gathering space for entertainment and events than it is a, like we said, this isn't meant to be a bar at Con Foster, it's meant to be a public gathering space and where people can enjoy themselves and enjoy different types of art in our community so um with that i'm going to bring it back any final comments from commissioners since we've kind of gone all over the place on this one okay all in favor then aye opposed motion passes thank you everybody and we look forward to seeing what's coming next we don't usually allow it but we'll allow a little clapping Also to all the supporters I saw at the last podcast on the left show, it was great running into everybody. My computer just froze up with the phone. Hold on one second, there we go. Okay, so next we're moving on to other old business, which is consideration of authorizing agreement for the ethics ordinance arbiter services. So this is for complaints involving the city attorney. A couple weeks ago we had an arbiter that we brought forward for complaints involving the city manager.

just a different process and different people so that we're bringing this one forward now if you want to go ahead benjamin yes and the other arbiter is for complaints under the ethics ordinance for anybody not just the city manager except for the city attorney and that's because the city attorney recommends the arbiter for all other complaints but shouldn't recommend one for themselves And so I spoke with TJ Phillips, who's a former district court judge who is also currently doing a lot of mediation work and is well respected as an unbiased finder of fact. And my recommendation is that you approve this agreement. It is just for future complaints alleging ethics ordinance violations of the city attorney. We don't anticipate any of those, but forward we need to have a process and I'm really glad that the city has an ethics ordinance and that it's required in our city charter and so the hourly rate for mr. Phillips is exactly the same as the other arbiter I will note that he offered to do it for free it's very gracious but we need to compensate him for his services and he can donate that money wherever he likes So that's all that I've got.

Just a really quick question for clarification just because of how it was said. The ethics ordinance itself, though, allows for anonymous ways to bring complaints forward and such. So that would all apply here. It's just this is a different arbiter. So I just want to make sure that people understand that it wasn't asking people to self-volunteer or put forward. So do we have any questions or would anybody like to make a motion? Go ahead, Heather.

I move that the mayor and city clerk be authorized to execute an agreement with Thomas J. Phillips to serve in the role of arbiter for any possible future complaints alleging ethics ordinance violation by the city attorney under ordinance chapter 225 with such agreement subject to the approval as to form by the city manager and to substance by the city.

Support.

Turn. Oh, I asked to form by the city attorney and asked to sub by the city manager, sorry.

Support. All right, thank you, Jackie. Any further discussion on this one? Straightforward. Any public comment on this one? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. All right, here we go. Okay, so this is the next topic of discussion is our follow-up to our conversations about the housing tools. We got into some really good back-of-the-napkin numbers on stamps on this one. It was very riveting. No, it was a good conversation. I'm just joking because we did get a lot into postage. So this is kind of the follow-up that's been brought to us. There's a lengthy but detailed motion in here, but also do we have any questions to kick it off? Go ahead, Heather.

Yeah, I thought the commission had discussed the cap. On the number of accepted or approved applications, I don't see that in there. I do see this 5% statutory taxable value provision, but that's not an application cap. That's like a financial warning threshold. So I'm wondering what happened to that.

So I think, as I recall, that we kind of were talking about potentially having a cap, and I was a little surprised because we kind of talked about bringing it back here of did we want to have one or not because of the short sunset period on it. So if people, I would allow, you know, It's a lengthy motion, I guess, to open that up again.

I would like to see a cap because staff is estimating 6.5 hours for one application. So, you know, if you had 25 applications, that's 139 hours. At 50 applications, 270. You know, this isn't trivial. And it's not just a one-time burden, there's also annual compliance and state taxes commission reporting. So, I would very much like to see a cap.

In order to support this. Benjamin, did you want to share any ideas on the numbers and how you got there?

I think I'd like to ask our city assessor, Amy Robbins, if you could join us up here and if you can just respond and if you've got any guidance. You know the program inside and out and I know that there's, I don't remember all the details with respect to when the cap has to be established versus when the program ends and if you can just share anything that's relevant in that regard too.

If you were to set a cap, I'm not sure that it would make a difference because I'm not sure how many people we would get initially. I think I mentioned in here that I thought, you know, 50 might be the maximum that we would get in a year and that's about all the time we have. Ken, go ahead.

Can we waive Robert's rules on this and go into discussion before making the motion? Yes, I will. We've been so good about following this. Today's been a little off, anyway. It's questions first, then the motion, and then the discussion. And I think this warrants heavy discussion.

That's where I was. I'm happy to open that up to a point. I don't want us getting too far afield. I think we can limit it to, is there consensus on wanting to see some kind of a cap or not? Because we did kind of leave that a little open at the last discussion to bring it back. So I won't over abuse Robert's rules here. I just want to make sure we stay within, don't go too far afield. So let's all just keep that in mind. Yes, please, Kent.

You still have the floor. These 22 pages were very informative and very helpful. I think this had answers to a lot of the questions that we had about what can we do and when can we do it and how much of certain financial and commitment requirements, the $35,000 to kick it off in order to send out the certified letters to everyone. I know there will be work involved, and we have to have a hearing on every single applicant. that will potentially come forward with this. ADUs are included in this, and that kind of got my train of thought going on ADUs right now. We're capped at 10 per year. Do we need to waive that? And if we were to consider waiving something like that.

We lifted the cap on ADUs.

In 2017?

Yeah.

Sweet.

Not an issue then. Learn something new every day.

I just had to look over to double check so I don't feel bad. I apologize. So I think that's good. But this could be a discussion to consider design standards for ADUs coming through planning, potentially, if we might get a lot of applicants that are ADUs. And that was a very touchy subject. So I don't know if we wanted to get things moving with planning on that at all. Just something to consider. But I don't think that this initial cost, I was a little surprised how much staff time will actually go into this initially with the application. That could be a lot. Okay.

Lance, go ahead.

Yeah, I have a question. Just around that staff time number, is that a conservative number, a liberal number? Like what are we talking about like when you generated that?

I honestly think that that would be about an average per application as they come in and then, of course, after the first year. All you're doing is the auditing stuff, except for new applications coming in, so. Okay.

Yeah, so my, I think what I'm recalling to part of the conversation, certainly my thought on this, and I don't think maybe you are the person to ask Amy, is we uncapped ADUs a while ago, and there was a concern that there was going to be this flood of them, but the reality is they cost anywhere from average two hundred to five hundred thousand dollars to do so not a lot of people have that just sitting in their back pocket even with potentially this bit of tax assistance on it so do you know how many we've done in the last year or two couple years for ad use if you don't it's okay I'm springing this on you I think we saw ten applications and I want to say over 18 months since I've been okay yeah So that's where I would say we could say a cap or maybe even adding a line of if this program was renewed, it would come back to the city commission to review the policy. My thought on this is that we have 18 months basically that this is going to be viable. And if we're getting 10 ADU requests a year, we might see a little bit more of an uptick. But the concern was that we'd hit 50, and that seems like a bigger pull. that just um to me would be like okay if this is a program that's going to go on in perpetuity or they get a five-year extension or something from the legislature we could always revisit it and have it in the motion to force that to be brought back to us if it is done but and i don't want to

demonize ADUs on this because, I mean, there are people that own multiple houses in town from when the market was a lot better and they could afford to buy multiple houses and they have been looking for opportunities to make them affordable to people and getting rid of the homestead exemption. or the non-homestead exemption was the way to do that potentially. So with a minimal investment into that second, third, fourth, whatever house, it creates that opportunity. So, I mean, I think this is a good thing.

Yeah, that's a good point because that applies to duplexes as well.

And just recalling that conversation we had last time, where the flood also costs $5,000 for the owner. They have to put $5,000 worth of investment into the property after we pass this, right? No, it was before. No, it had to be after. It had to be after. It had to be after. I wrote it down.

Yeah, because I asked that question. In here, it said 2022.

If we pass this right now and they want this tax exemption, that $5,000 worth of work has to start after we've passed it. So anybody who owns one right now and is working on it doesn't count.

Yeah, that's correct. And so we've kind of got an artificial financial cap I see in place. I totally get the concern though of are 100 applicants going to come in? Is there a line that we could put in the motion that. I don't know, doesn't set an arbitrary number, because that's all we're doing is setting an arbitrary number. If we put a cap in, but allows us to revisit, like you had mentioned.

Yeah, or legally, I guess we're putting you on the spot, Dan. If we find that suddenly the office is getting flooded, and they raise the alarm to Benjamin, hey, we're, this is way more successful than we thought, or is that something we're allowed to tweak with certain amount of notice? Or is it once we've opened floodgate, it's open?

No, no, you can come back and do an amendment and tweak it after for specific reasons, sure.

Yeah, that's good because I agree, Lance. That's a good question. Go ahead, Jackie. Well, I would want you to bring that to us. Yeah, definitely.

I would definitely let you know.

I had two requests. One was to support the idea of requesting of the planning commission that they accelerate their work on looking at, pre-approved ADU plans that might make it easier and less expensive for people to pursue ADUs. And then my second request was that I would really like to see perhaps quarterly, if it's feasible, reporting on the uptake on this program, as well as any other responses to our density zoning changes that were passed in 2024. That would be up to Benjamin to instruct.

Yeah, if you can make sure we talk about that in our next one-on-one. As far as the request for the Planning Commission on them coming up with pre-approved ADU plans, I would recommend that you add that to a future City Commission agenda, and then the Commission can give that formal direction to the Planning Commission.

Thank you. Go ahead, Ken and then Heather. Ken had his hand up first.

Item 26 on page 10 is a minimum investment required for a rehabilitated facility. Yes, a rehabilitated facility must have renovation investment of not less than $5,000 on or after December 28th of 2022.

To bring the property into conformance with the minimum local building code standards for occupancy as determined by the local governing unit But it still has to be it's after that date, but it has to honor after that date, but it has to be I'm okay The City Commission has to adopt the program first is my understanding and then they can start that kind of work

Go ahead.

I think this is going to open up more attainable housing.

Yeah.

Not opposed to it. Hold on.

Yeah. So really quick, Heather had her hand up and then I'll go to you, Lance.

So I know you ran on this issue, Lance. So maybe you talked and you said you talked to a lot of people and there was a lot of excitement about this. It's a very It's very experimental. Hardly anybody has used it in all the time that it's been available which to me raises red flags. I will go along with it because I feel that there's support here for it and, you know, I'm all for obtainable housing even though I wish it wasn't 120 percent AMI. But if our goal is really infill housing, small infill housing, we can do this. For the cost of the mailing alone, we could have those pre-approved. And I really think you could get more units out of those than you, well we'll see. I would love to have both.

Yeah. So really quickly because I'd like to see us get to a motion now if we can. Are we all good like we kind of had information of we haven't had a ton of uptakes on ADUs, there is the $5,000 minimum. We will get checked in if the numbers are out of control. There's some hesitancy to arbitrarily pick a number. Are we good with proceeding but knowing that staff has been acutely made aware that if there's an influx that they will let us know and we can later go back and amend it if that's needed or did somebody want to or are we looking to have that baked into the motion?

I have just a point of clarification on the cap because I'm trying to understand Heather's request or suggestion that we include a cap. Is the cap for staff time that you're trying to protect staff time or does it relate to the underlying loss of tax revenue?

I think it's going to cost us more in staff time than it is in the revenue loss.

That helps. Yeah, I guess I'm where, like, if we're going to, if we're starting this out, we don't know where it's going. I'd rather err on the side of staff letting us know and bringing it forward than picking a random number only because I've, going back to ADUs, although this is not limited to ADUs, I've heard from some people saying, well, aren't the permits really hard to get because there has been a cap in the past. So I think if we arbitrarily put a cap out there, I don't want people worrying that there's been this rush or that there's some magic number that we might have already surpassed, and it's not worth them checking into it. But I also do want staff to incredibly, definitely feel like they could come to us if it's becoming, hey, we refigured it, it's like 15 hours a person, and so maybe we do want a cap, even if we're not seeing a major influx, or you know what, this is going at a great pace, here's your quarterly update, or some kind of update, and we can see the numbers ourselves, or man, everybody wants to do this now, and we really do need a cap to help us, even if it's only five and a half hours. So I'd like to, that's where I'd lie. I'm seeing some head nods. Is anybody really, is everybody okay with that, of that being the standard?

I'm comfortable with the quarterly reports providing a gauge on staff time and if it's out of control, we can tweak it.

Yeah, amend it. OK. So then with that, do we have a motion or does anyone have other questions? Go ahead, Lance.

I'll make the motion. Let me get to it.

It's really long. It's a big one. Yeah, it's a 147.

Very top. Very top. It's not bolded. It's not this time.

It's all the language under recommendation. Starting with that, the city commission.

There we go. Thank you. I move that the commission concurs with the proposed attainable housing and residential housing districts as submitted with the official meeting materials for the July 6, 2026 meeting of the city commission. And further, that the commission approves any necessary documents required to complete the required public notice in an amount not to exceed $35,000. And further, that a budget amendment for use of general fund balance fund 101 in the amount not to exceed $35,000 be approved. And further, That the public hearing regarding the establishment of the districts be set for a date not less than 10 days or more than 30 days after the mailing of the public notice.

Support.

Thank you for that, Jackie, and thank you for that.

More discussion.

Yeah, I was going to say now if anybody wants to discuss something other than caps, please feel free, although you can still discuss caps. Ken and then Laura.

There was an additional cost potential for requiring electronic signature potentially for this? That is part of the certified, isn't it?

I'm not sure what you're referring to, I'm sorry.

All these letters are going to go out certified mail. There was a provision in here that I'm not 100% sure. I thought it showed that you may potentially there be a small cost increase if you require an electronic signature for the certified mail. Anybody recall reading that?

I think that was in the quote and it had to do with when you send certified mail.

If needed.

If you need to have a signature that they signed for it, that would be the additional cost.

Oh, like if we had to retain a copy of their signature? Correct. If we needed to verify the signature? Yeah. Yeah. After the fact?

So the postal service requires the signature, but if we wanted to go fact check later, we would have to pay for that. For the printout or whatever they do.

I can't tell if that was included in this because it's 78 cents for the letter and then $5.30 for the certified letter. And then electronic signature, if needed, is an additional $2.82. So I'm just trying to figure out if that was included. TODD BANDUCCI. It's not included.

I don't anticipate that we would need to do that. TODD BANDUCCI.

And that's kind of what I was asking. Do we need to do that? TODD BANDUCCI.

Well, we're required to get certified signature under the program rules. But as far as going back and actually verifying and saying I want to see the signature, that's the $2.82. And I don't anticipate us needing that. TODD BANDUCCI.

The retention of it? The retention and actual showing the .

That would just be if we had to like go back and actually verify is my understanding.

Because we're paying. If there was litigation for instance. Go ahead Jackie, sorry.

If there was litigation for instance.

Yes, right. And the other side of that is we are paying the United Postal Service to do it. So they are collecting the signatures and that is their. they're agreeing to get a signature before handing it over. So if somebody said I didn't sign that and we need to prove that they did, that's when we might pay 282 if somebody later on says something. But we don't automatically have those handed over to us and we don't automatically need those because we are basically using the third party of the US Postal Service and trusting in their process that they would not deliver a certified mail without a signature.

And if you go to page eight of that item in the packet, it says certified first class postage, $6.08 per piece. And then if you go down and you look at the breakdown estimated postage pieces, it's at a unit rate of $6.08. So it clearly doesn't show or reflect the $2.82 digital signature retention issue.

Lance, go ahead. And the motion was to not exceed $35,000.

Right, so if we did exceed it, you'd have to come back to us for approval anyways.

Correct. No reason in particular why I would say no to this. I'm not going to. I was just having a question about this, I guess, a wonder.

Yeah. Did you get a satisfactory answer?

Yes, I feel satisfied.

Laura, you had your hand up.

Quick comment and then a suggestion. I did receive a couple of calls and questions about the AMI threshold. And I just wanted to point out that it's clearly stated in the memo that that's not something we can play with. That the maximum is 120% and that's what the state has said. So that's not something that the city can. lower to 80% or 100%. So I just wanted to point that out and thank you, Amy, for clarifying that right up front. And then I have a suggestion. So somewhere we have this ongoing spreadsheet. I may have seen it in the budget. It might have come at one of our meetings with. everything we're doing with respect to housing. I would really like to make sure that this program and the financial implications of this program is attached to that spreadsheet on an ongoing basis. I think it's important. It is a step forward for the city, and I just want to make sure that those dollars are captured in that document.

I support that, and I see Ms. Robbins making a note. That'd be great, thank you.

Also, as we are the largest municipality that's using this in the whole state, I think it's important to keep track of that.

Any metrics that we have as we're learning, I think it would be important as the state struggles with attainable housing. The region is struggling with attainable housing. As a nation, we're struggling with attainable housing. things we can learn and what we can track, I think that would be extremely beneficial not just for us but for others to learn from as well.

Any other questions or comments right now?

We were just talking about the AMI a second ago and it specified that it's not, it's the AMI calculated by MSHDA.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right, thank you. I'm going to open up for public comment, so you don't have to keep standing there, Ms. Robbins. You're all good.

Take a load off.

Yes. I would like to make a comment. Oh, sure.

Go ahead. So you were talking about how this program hasn't been used very much at this point. I can tell you that the same thing happened when they had the Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act program back in 2007, 8, 9, 10, 11. I worked in Bay City at that time. There were very few across the state and we actually in Bay City set up a policy and a lot of the forms that are actually being used now with the OPRA program. So that could happen. I mean, it was ready to expire in 2013 and it got renewed. So it's just a matter of people starting to embrace it. That's great.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Great that we've got a veteran on this too. All right, any public comment at this time? seeing none i'll bring it back all in favor aye opposed motion passes all right great lots of good work went into that so thank you to all the staff and thank you to um lauren triple out who's not with us but i know did a lot of the early work on that so yeah

um okay next is our consideration of enacting the um rezone of 10 well i won't go through all the numbers i'll hand that over to you benjamin yes and the only reason this is wasn't on the consent calendar because it was already introduced by the city commission it's up for enactment was uh it didn't move forward unanimously so that's why it's uh under old business but i don't really have anything to add it's the same package you saw before and this is the second and final step to approve it

Does anybody have any questions on this?

I'll make the motion.

Thank you, Heather.

That the amendments to the Traverse City Code of Ordinances, which would rezone 1026, 1028, and 1040 East Front Street from HR Hotel Resort District to C3 Community Center District, as recommended by the City Planning Commission and introduced on June 15th, 2026, be enacted with an effective date eight days after publication.

Support.

Okay, I'm going to give that to Frank.

Aye, though. Good job, guys. All right. Any further discussion on this item? OK. Seeing none, any public comment on this item? OK. Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. OK. On to new business and now we're going to our continuing services contract with Resilience. So why don't you take that away Benjamin.

Yes. So you have a memo in your packet from me and also one from Parks and Recreation Director Michelle Hunt. And this is for design services related to an assessment of things that would need to be done to enhance shoreline stabilization and coastal resilience along Grand Traverse Bay. And I just want to refresh everybody's memory that, The city commission put forward, bless you, the city commission put forward a ballot proposal for use of $3 million of Brown Bridge Trust Fund principal. Commissioner Shaw served on that ad hoc and advocated heavily and the commission supported a million dollar allocation for shoreline stabilization. This work, which would be for $357,000 up to that over a five year period, would be to have the analysis work done and then tease us up for what we hope to be several million dollars, potentially up to 20 million dollars in grant funding. That would end up coming back to you. It's not a guarantee, but we think that we know that this work is important regardless and it sets us up for success in securing substantial grant funding. I will say that $20 million is a big number and is exciting. It might be even a greater need than that just in terms of managing expectations. And so I just wanted to mention that the motion that's recommended should be modified slightly to state that it is a not to exceed $357,280 amount over the entire five-year period. So I just want to make that really clear. So it would be a one-year agreement for $357,280 with the option for me to extend it for up to one four-year terms but not exceed a cumulative total of $357,280.

I just have a quick clarification. It wasn't just me and the commission that advocated strongly for the shoreline restoration. We had extensive public input and that was the number one thing that people wanted. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, yes.

And just to clarify as we go forward, I appreciate, Ben, you underlining all the potential that this brings, but this is a $357,000 contract for consultants to help us leverage that. So I don't want somebody later on, sometimes we get this of, weren't we getting $20 million from somewhere? So potential for that, potential for more, maybe less, but this is just hiring consultants that are going to help us because our staff is working a ton already. Go ahead, Jackie.

I think this is a follow-up to your comment. Yeah. I know there was a scope of services within our packet that had 13 separate bullet points. For the benefit of the public who hasn't perhaps read the packet in depth, could we get just a thumbnail overview of, you know, what do you expect in the coming year?

Yeah, so they're going to evaluate existing survey data to support planning and design. I say it's topographic and bathymetric survey data, wetland delineation, a dashboard, basically an entire inventory that is developed and analyzed by a team that brings a strong combination of coastal engineering experience and ecological restoration as well as landscape architecture.

Perfect. Thank you. Good question. Other questions or motion? I have a couple questions.

So I know that there was a lot of time and resources spent like going back on plans and shoreline plans and I'm remembering Your Bay, Your Say and all sorts of other shoreline planning efforts. So I'm hoping and this is kind of a question, kind of a hope that, that prior work will inform some of this work. I mean, there was a lot of work that was done previously. So that's just kind of a, I think it's important that we go back and look at the plans that we have done before and the stabilization efforts that have been made with the shoreline because I think there was some good work in there. And then my question is, so, I went through the proposal, great, looks like GEI is a perfect firm for this. They have significant coastline experience and Great Lakes experience. But something that distinguishes our shoreline from other communities is that, as Mitchell has pointed out before, it was an industrial mecca for decades. And we had an old power plant that sat where the open space is now. There was a coal gasification plant that sat on Hall Street. There was an old railroad connector that came through there. Does GEI have experience with those types of environmental mitigations? I mean, there's got to be contamination on those sites. And is that included in the scope of service or will that end up being an additional cost? Because that is a very complicated piece of the shoreline puzzle.

Certainly. That's my understanding but Ms. Hunt can elaborate further.

Thank you. I appreciate the question because that came up. That was a significant component of our interview process. That was my next question. Was this discussed in the interview? Yes, it was because we said basically everything you just said like, hey, we don't even know what we're going to find when we start digging in the open space. And I think I said it exactly like that. And one of the reasons GEI rose to the top is how they answered that question and the experience that they have. Yes, they have experience working in Illinois and Wisconsin and other places around Lake Michigan in addition to Michigan but what we're finding out is the regulation is different all around the lake depending on what state you're in and they have very good experience working with Eagle which is important because our Eagle functions differently than so doing one of these projects like off of the off of Green Bay or in Illinois and so it ties in with their ability to leverage the conversations with Eagle to have the conversations we need to mitigate whatever's going on underground at the same time because the partnerships that are going to be involved in accomplishing what we have to accomplish are going to be extensive and they have extensive experience doing that. And if anyone's interested, I can send some project examples of where they've worked in the past so you can get an understanding of where they've worked. But yes, to answer your question, it was a large conversation during the interview process and we felt the most confident that they'll be able to navigate that and help us leverage funding.

And is it included in the scope of service and it won't be an additional cost? No, it isn't. Okay, great. And I would love to see those projects if you could just send those to me. Sure, yeah, I'm happy to. Thank you.

Mitch, you have a question?

Yes. The vast majority of public shoreline along East and West Greenwich Harvest Bay is city property. But are there opportunities for this to also include the little bit between the volleyball courts and the open space that is the joint rec authority or the section of shoreline that is the Great Lakes Maritime Academy?

I think the rec authority property would be easy to incorporate through an understanding that we would talk to the rec authority about that for sure being that it's another government entity owned property. We didn't discuss the maritime property however the maritime property in its existence affects what happens on city property so it will need to be discussed but improvements aren't necessarily going to be proposed for that property.

They do have docks and I don't expect they'll take their docks away but I wouldn't want, especially with rec authority, a situation to emerge where we've restored shoreline on both sides of that, but then we're left with a gap.

I don't know exactly how it works with the rec authority, but I would imagine we would approach them and we would say that we're not going to go around you, you're going to be included, and I'm sure that would be easy to do.

Good, that will be earning their keep. Some paperwork we'll do to make that happen.

Yes, do we have any more questions or, okay, go ahead.

I'm interested, perhaps the city manager has some ideas on how we can best align this work with the repair and buffer ordinance work that's been going on in the planning commission for the last five or six years. Can we connect those dots?

I think, yeah, I mean, let me connect with Leslie and Michelle and figure out the best way to do that. Thank you. And Leslie, don't let me forget, please. Thank you.

I can make the motion.

Please go right ahead. But I want to make sure that I reflect the, Sarah's got it. Yeah. The amendment.

Let me read an option for you. You read the option and I'll say so moved. Sounds great, sounds great. That the mayor and city clerk be authorized to execute a one year continuing services contract with GEI consultants in the amount not to exceed $357,280, which includes a 10% contingency, $321,552 plus $35,728 with the option to extend annually for up to four additional years with the total five year cost not to exceed $357,280. Such contract subject as to its substance by the city manager and its form by the city attorney with funds therefore available in the capital projects fund 447.

So moved. And if I may, I know. Wait, I need a second. Yeah, second.

Okay. I know you Google chatted that to me and I said it looked great, but I did miss that. We just want to make it clear that the city manager has the authority to approve those extensions. So if you're okay with language like that, we'll include that.

I'm fine with that. Okay. Mitch? Yeah.

Heather? And just to be clear, we're only spending 321. Yes. Okay. 357, 280.

Plus the total over the five years. Over the five years. Yes.

Great. Okay. Other questions or comments? Mitch?

Yes. During the last period of high water on the Great Lakes, we weren't as impacted as other communities. We did see some damage to West End parking lot. at western beach um that has since been repaired we saw some flooding uh at clinch park marina that's also been repaired we had some subsidence at the open space that has all been repaired but i am very excited about the prospect going forward that we are looking at a long-term vision of coastal resiliency and how we can improve our shoreline for the next period of high water for future floods that we in all likelihood will have whether they come from runoff from streams within our city whether they come from the river flowing out whether they come from the bay itself We are threatened by potential changes in water, and this is something that can improve the resiliency of our shoreline. It can improve the ecological health of those wetland and riparian ecosystems. And as we've seen during the air show during the fireworks this weekend, there's a lot of people that love to sit on our beaches and the grassy areas immediately beside them. And if we can protect those areas and make them the best park setting that we can, that's a win-win-win for Traverse City and all who enjoy it. I'm excited to see this moving forward. I don't want to say that we will automatically get tens of millions of dollars in grants, but I am anticipating that there will be additional funding. I'm hopeful that we can do a fantastic job and get a great shoreline for the future.

Great.

Any other comments?

All right, any public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? And just to thank the voters of Traverse City who gave us the money to do this in the first place. So next item up for discussion is the DDA tax increment financing plan that will go on the ballot. And I believe, Mr. Kelly, you wanted to kind of offer up something that has been noodling since an email earlier today.

Yes, right. Okay, I've had an opportunity to review the packet and all of the information with regard to the ballot language for the extension of the DDA. We received an email that laid out a couple of good points. However, having addressed those points and talked with two of the three lawyers involved, this is a recommendation from the Downtown Development Authority. the proposed ballot language. I'm comfortable with the ballot language. There could be some adjustments with regard to the costs and the actual revenues that might be estimated in the future. And that's legitimate to put an estimate of what you might expect as long as that's based upon some good faith factual analysis, which in this case your finance director has given us numbers. And with regard to the reference of the taxing authority having a refund of 30%, that is what the DDA's plan provides for. And so I think that the ballot language as written is satisfactory, and it is transparent in terms of what the actual underlying DDA plan intends to do. So I'm comfortable with it, and I think there was a lot of thought put into it by the lawyers that prepared it.

And if I may just add to the projected revenue that would be captured, that would be included in the ballot language, we specifically recommend that it say approximately $127,358,608, which is the dollar amount that was initially indicated, uh 139 million 959 327 and that is as mr kelly alluded to that's been verified by our city treasurer finance director these are estimates but given inflationary factors and those things it seems legitimate to have that range in there again it is indicated or proposed to be indicated in the ballot language that those are estimates because we don't know exactly but they are good faith financially

vetted by professionals estimates so I just wanted to make that clear as we move forward that as we discuss this which ultimately does have to go on the ballot but that we did have our new attorney give it eyes on it and that there will now be this amended as this range of estimate so just as we start our discussion or have our motion that that is clear that that's part of that conversation now so

Laura, go ahead. So the proposed ballot language is amended from what we're seeing in our packets to include a range of the 127 million to 139 million.

In some change, but yeah. Okay.

Yes. And it will be clear and transparent to the voters that that is an estimated range because that's our goal as tonight as city commissioners. It's not to weigh into the merits of the plan. It's to approve the ballot language so that it's clear and transparent to the voters to make that decision.

That's correct. At this point, it's a ministerial function and you're obligated to put it on the ballot.

Okay. Lance, did you have your hand up? No. Oh, sorry. Everybody's playing with their pens tonight, which is totally understandable. Heather, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm confused about the refund language. I mean, it's my understanding that there is no refund going on. There's just not going to be the whole capture. So, I mean, if you're saying, okay, well, the DDA has decided that they're not going to capture, the 100%, they're going to give back 30%. That's still not a refund.

Well, the city would be collecting the money so that just so everyone's clear, the DDA doesn't actually like, The money, they don't collect the money physically, right? So it's, but I'm only saying it because some people think that that's the case. So the city treasurer sends out the tax bills, collects the funds that are to be collected according to all the lawfully in place, millages and so forth. And then would return the 30% essentially of that capture to the taxing jurisdictions.

Go ahead, Jackie.

And Heidi Sheppey, our treasurer, is here and she can correct me if I misspeak.

Can I, I can let you come back, but Jackie, I just want to clarify.

As you describe the process, it occurs to me that rather than return, it's actually retain, isn't it? No.

I think you could, I mean, you could consider that to be a more appropriate word, I suppose. Retain means retain. So Heidi, can you say if I, did I say that right, how the process would work or is there a clarification?

Yeah, so when we calculate the TIF capture, it's in the system so we kind of plug the numbers in and let the system do the work. We do what's called exclusion factor so you have your base and then you have your taxable value and then it calculates that difference and then so wherever we land, we would incorporate those numbers into the exclusion factor so the system would calculate exactly what everyone should get and then we would distribute it portionally. So it actually, the system, it should be relatively easy.

So you're saying it will be collected, but because of the new, if it passed, the way this would say is you collect the whole thing, and then you collect the whole thing, not the DDA, you as the city, collect the whole thing, and then 30% within that TIF district will go back to the different authorities based on the slice of the pie that that's supposed to be.

So I'll collect a tax bill. I'll get $5,000 and that'll be a proportionate $100 here, $100 there. What I will do is I will withhold, when I pay TCAPS, I will withhold only the portion that the DDA is eligible for and the rest will just go to TCAPS.

And then Heather, sorry.

Well, actually, Heather, you had your hand up.

Yeah, please go.

Yeah, so that's why it doesn't make sense to me to use the word refund because, in fact, it's not being captured anymore. It's not being refunded. It's just not being captured.

It's being captured and then refunded, correct? Or re-given?

That's not what she said.

And I think that's where the attorney, I mean the capture because it is a DDA and it's being extended versus not new, I believe capture is the appropriate word. Okay.

But that's legal as far as what the word is. I'm sorry, yeah. So my understanding is that the city will collect the full 100% and that 30% whatever language you want to use, refunded, reimbursed. The plan actually indicates shared back so there's a couple of different ways of describing it but 30% would go back to the tasking authorities under the plan.

The DDA will never get it. Just to clarify, it's not like the DDA will get it and then the DDA will give it back. The DDA will only get what is the agreed amount, but the city will get it because the city is the entity. So the city will get it and we will disperse it proportionally as appropriate.

I think the issue for me, We're all confused about this. And when you look at what Michigan election law says, questions submitted to electors, the language shall be not created or shall be, the language used shall not create, this is really small, prejudice for or against the issue or the proposal. The question shall be clearly written using words that have a common everyday meaning to general public. And we're kind of confused about it. So maybe that's good enough reason to omit it then.

It's part of what the people are voting on. So when we passed the policy, we said that we wanted the policy that whatever went on the ballot with this charter amendment was going to be clearly explaining what people were voting on. If you take the 70-30 out of it, that's a part of the plan that they are voting on.

change from the current one that is not insignificant I don't think that it was suggested that we take out the 70-30 part we were suggested we take out the refund that we're getting it that there'll be a tax refund because if you were just a general voter and you looked at this and you read it and you saw and in there you saw a tax refund oh that means I get money back I'm more likely to want to vote yes to that and that could potentially create create prejudice so I guess

Shared could create prejudice. I mean, every word could create prejudice.

I don't want to slice this too many ways, but I'm just kind of looking at it based on the confusion that it's caused for us. And if it's confusing to us, is it possibly confusing to electorates?

Lance, did you ever hand up?

No.

Okay. Well, I guess I would also say that nobody else in the state does this because nobody else in the state votes on this. And so we're kind of trying to figure this out as we go of what makes sense for being fair based on the policy that was set after this election was held to have this vote. I would think that leaving that out or being too vague about it would be unfair as well, so that this is changing from the 100%. So do we have- Can I just ask one more question?

Go ahead, Heather. So I had three problems with this. One was that it didn't seem right that it was a refund, but okay, I get it. And my second one was that the number in there should be 70%, Not the total, but since we're going with the refund now, it needs to be the total, correct? Yes. And my third issue was the accounting, the actual projected dollar amount. But with this new range that we're inserting into the ballot language, that is also covered, correct? Yes.

Yes, because that will be the- Mr. Kelly is shaking his head.

Okay.

No, no, I was not, sorry.

Yeah, I'm sorry, is there a question? I missed it.

Yeah, so my third issue was the accounting proposed total capture over the 20 years and how that was accounted for. But now that we have this new language in the ballot, language that gives a range from the 2.3% to a somewhat like 7%, is that correct?

Is the 127 million to roughly 139, is that accounting for the up to potentially 7%, Heidi?

That is the difference between how we would calculate it to calculate the taxable value based on CPI and Mr. Bimber's calculations in regards to inputting in the taxable value and the uncappings. All right. And again, over 20 years, we can look historically, but we don't know what's going to happen in the next 20 years.

No, but we do have 29 years of history here that definitely seems to point pretty clearly that 2.3 is not enough.

And I will say that when we calculated our millage rates, we assumed that Hedley would roll back with every year. And over the last 20 years, Hedley did not roll back every year. So it goes both ways.

So I, just in terms of clarification because accuracy is important to me, this new range, the 127 million represents 100 percent of the tax capture based on the CPI or the inflationary index, correct?

The 127 represents our projection of taxable value over the next 20 years based on CPI and rolling back Hedley accordingly based on the way that the city would assess it when she's assessing tax bills going forward. That's correct. But it's 100% of the tax capture. Correct.

The 139 million plus represents 70% of the tax capture using the 7% calculation. I'm quite certain that that's correct. So if you do the 7% average running historical experience based on what the taxable value and capture has been for the DDA, that adds up to like more, $199 million. So the 139 represents the 70% expected tax capture.

So I just wanted to point that out for clarification. I'm sorry, the 127 is the amount of tax revenue projected to receive by TIF fund on its 70% share over the life of the extended TIF plan is what Mr. Bimber's memo says.

I'm sorry, we're getting into discussing a memo that not everybody has and that is not produced by staff. So can we, I'd just like us to have a very clear answer of what percentages are represented and what that range represents without referencing anybody else.

Right, that's just the methodology so that we can understand it. What the 127 million represents is my understanding, it's 100% of the taxable value, the tax capture that the DDA would, that the city would collect, it's the 100%. I'm quite certain about that.

127 is the estimated TIF in total.

Correct, 100%. And the current ballot language, adding now a range, we would distribute 30% back to those other taxing jurisdictions. And we have a sentence that accommodates that. I just want to be clear that the new range does not in fact look at the historical experience of the 7% annual.

It does not. Getting to the ballot language, that's not my expertise. Yes, I got it. But the 127 is the total capture, but the DDA would only get to keep 89.

Yes, but I think it is really important for everyone to understand the public, the city commission that none of us know. We don't have a crystal ball on what the economy is going to look like, what our taxable value is going to look like. In three years, much less, over 20 years. Right. And if you look at the 29 year experience that we've had, there's quite a bit of volatility in that. And I do appreciate the tables that were presented to us in terms of the taxable values over that course of time. We've gone anywhere from 12% increases to 1% increases. So there's a lot of factors that go into this. It's not just inflation, it's uncapping of properties, commercial development it's what our how our downtown is working and none of us know what the number is so i feel comfortable with an estimate like a range feels better to me rather than saying it's going to be 127 million dollars or it's going to be 199 million dollars or it's going to be 130 none of us know And I think all we can do is provide a good faith estimate based on varying methodologies. So the CPI is, it's an easy, quick number. And it's something that I think is a conservative, kind of a conservative approach. But there are other methodologies that you can look at and use. So without espousing any of the methodologies, I feel comfortable with a range.

Well, we're getting, do we have questions still? Okay, Heather and then Jackie.

Yes, it's like why are we going to ask voters to authorize another long-term capture if we're, and use this less than accurate historical methodology. According to the 7%, which could be a compound interest calculation, it doesn't have to be, Fred Bimber's calculation, you could do the same thing with the compound interest calculation and get pretty close to that 7 percent and maybe get 6.9. But why are we giving it 139 million when the actual number is 199 million? So we're just, the range is completely skewed.

I want to just respectfully say it is the best estimate that financial professionals can do. It's not skewed to try to.

But it goes against the 29 years that we've been keeping track of.

29 years, we don't know what the next 20 will look like. We just don't.

And it follows the state's prescribed. I mean, when we set the taxable value, we do it by what the state tells us to do, which is the CPI. So when we're setting it over the next 20 years, we're not going to use, we're going to use the CPI, but things will be taxed, uncapped, and taxable values will go up. But what we're going to follow is the state prescribed. So that's, we calculated it based on how we would handle it and how we would do it going forward. There are things that are going to happen over 20 years. I mean, there's no question. And that's why we're not disputing a range because this is where we're starting. This is how we would handle it. This is how we would project it. But we do know, we don't know what's going to happen over 20 years. So there's, we have no issue with that range.

And a question I would ask you, Heidi, and Mr. Kelly is what is the standard approach when lots of millages, I'm using millages as an example. When a millage proposal is put on a ballot, it'll say, you know, do you authorize a millage increase of X amount? And then it estimates the anticipated revenue. How is that calculation done?

Very similar.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, a brownfield would be done this way and this Grand Traverse County brownfield has done numerous and it's never been disputed or been an issue like this.

And millages are a little easier because they only usually include the first year expected revenue. And I would also point out you've adopted a policy that mandates certain language. I mean 90% of this ballot is already adopted in your policy. What's not allowed or accounted for in the policy is this revenue sharing of 70, 30%. So I think that what we're trying to do here or what the language was trying to do is to be transparent to say that we're going to follow the policy, this is the language that's required to be in the ballot, but we're also going to let the voters know that there is this revenue sharing of 70, 30 percent. And that's why it's maybe a little clunky, but if we're going to follow the policy, it has to work that way.

Jackie? I guess my concern and question is if we're going to provide a range, are we confident that we are calculating both ends of that range consistently? You know, that we're comparing apples to apples and that it's a meaningful range because of that.

Again, I can tell you how ours was calculated and we know how Mr. Bimber's was calculated. There are hundreds of ways this could be calculated. If you would like to see it calculated another way, I would need that direction because, I mean, I could go in 20 different directions and then come back here and have the same. That's not what we were hoping for. so i mean if you wanted to offer a direction we can definitely work on it but this is how we had calculated it based on how historically it has been has been done in brownfields and how it's been generally done across the state of Michigan. Not discounting the work that Mr. Member has put into it. We saw the logic and the rationale and that's where the range came from.

So. I would suspect that using that kind of consistency is important for not creating bias one way or the other. Just using that consistent approach that has generally been used is important.

So we're already moving that bar by using another fair but pointed out value that wouldn't necessarily be consistently used for a brownfield or something else. So I think that when we take this and when we're talking about this with voters, it's very important to be clear that where Heidi is coming from and where we are coming from on this as far as what's on the ballot is looking at The first bite at the apple was Brownfield and everything else like that is calculated. Everything else has been on their ballots in the past. We're also adding in this on average over 30 years. We've had in the last 15 years a couple recessions now. If that continues, we might see this be much lower. If we see the housing market crash here, we might see that go lower. So we're doing the best we can. This is a 20 year forecast just like these other things. So I'm also going to remind everybody that we It is our job to put this on the ballot. And so we have a policy that doesn't exist anywhere else in the state. We are doing this for the first time. We are trying to be fair about what's on it. Fair. So I just want to remind everybody of that. Mitch, you've had your hand up. Yes.

I am not a lawyer. I'm not an accountant. We have both on staff, both here present, and I have faith in their expertise and their professional opinions on these matters. I trust that the numbers and information we have before us is fair and accurate and reflects good quality of work. But to that point, yes, we are in literally untested legal waters. We are the only municipality in the entire state that has any sort of charter provision that requires this. Not saying that you couldn't have a vote that would guide city, or village, township, county action on a millage renewal or something, or even like this, a TIF, but We're the only entity that requires it. It can be potentially troublesome, but we won't know until it's actually for voters and something has happened. And if we end up in court, then that's what happens. And it will have to be for the courts to decide. As far as the financial protections, They seem reasonable to me as a non-accountant, but.

Do we have any other questions at this time? Do we have a motion at this time, please? Understanding again that this is now including the range. Lance, your hand up.

Yeah, I'll make a motion with that. I'm just trying to read this and see if I have to like amend it. That's what I was trying to figure out.

I'd be happy to.

Is there any amendment to it or does it just have to be as it is?

I think as is, but then there's a little bit of language to add to clarify that there will be a range.

It's just a very wordy motion. What's that? It's just a very wordy motion. It is. It's written here. Okay, so that the MOTION THAT THE RESOLUTION APPROVING BALLOT LANGUAGE FOR A TAX INCREMENT FINANCING PLAN WHICH SCHEDULES A BALLOT QUESTION ASKING VOTERS IF THEY APPROVE OR DISAPPROVE OF THE TRAVERSE CITY DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT INFRASTRUCTURE FIRST AND DEVELOPMENT TAX INCREMENT FINANCING PLAN FOR THE NOVEMBER 2026 ELECTION WITH THE BALLOT WORDING AS OUTLINED IN THE RESOLUTION SUBMITTED WITH THE PACKET MATERIALS FOR JULY 6, 2026. MEETING OF THE CITY COMMISSION SUPERCEDING THE BALLOT WORDING FRAMEWORK AS OUTLINED In Section 3C of the City of Traverse City Implementation Policy for Charter Section 28 TIF amendments, in order to have the ballot wording articulate that 30% of the TIF capture will be refunded annually to the taxing jurisdictions during the life of the plan, acknowledging placing this proposal on the ballot is a ministerial action,

be adopted the board and i would just suggest that you also amend the motion to say that the ballot language would say with a projected total capture of 127 million 358 thousand six hundred and eight dollars to one hundred and thirty nine million nine hundred and fifty nine thousand three hundred and twenty seven dollars i agree do you agree okay so we've got a motion by boomer second by treadwell

That is what's on the ballot. This is not debating the policy or if you agree with it. Does anybody have any clarifying questions about what's on the ballot or comments to that nature? OK. Seeing none, is there any public comment on this issue? Please give Heidi a moment to leave the podium. Thank you.

Fred Bember, 1223 Randolph Street, city resident. This is an important question. You should really get it right. And if it's, you don't have to decide tonight what you're going to put on the ballot language. Your deadline to do that, to have the ballot language is about August 10. You could at your next meeting on July 20, come back to this with a better understanding of the facts. The materials that we emailed to the commission last evening were extensive. We regret that it took that long to produce everything that we did that provides some analysis on this subject. But there are some complications to it. I would simply note at this moment There's a good deal that I have to say that I would like to say. You can, under your rules, by sufficient commissioners agreeing, suspend the three-minute limit on the time I have to speak. In fact, what your procedures actually provide is that I have five minutes to speak unless the mayor has decided to limit it to three. Are there sufficient commissioners that would agree to suspend the three-minute limit on what I can speak?

I would move so.

I would support.

I can support that. That's and no one asked, so it's fine. You can have five minutes. Okay.

First off, just to address very quickly the things that you've tried to patch together this evening, if you're going to try to include this refund language, then the range should be $127 million to $200 million. The number we have is $199,900 and some odd dollars. It's nearly $200 million. We all recognize that these numbers simply by the nature of what we're trying to do can't be precise and it won't project exactly what happens in the future but the exhibit G that we emailed out last evening contains a really good test of the two methods that are being used to try to project or estimate what would happen in terms of the growth of taxable value in the TIF 97 district. And that comparison is really amazing because the 7% annual growth number that we came up with is in a lot of years very, very close to the actual number, particularly when you get out at the end of your timeframe. And the 2.3% annual growth assumption is way off. At the end of the day, the actual number for taxable value in the district is $231 million and change. Our 7% estimate. said $233 million in change, and the 2.3% method said $63 million. That method is a gross understatement of what taxable value will grow to in the TIF 97 district. It deals with inflation only, and in fact it's a little bit below the 30-year average of the rates of inflation that we've had. Inflation is one of the things that affects taxable value, but it's only one of the things, and it's about a third of what actually matters in determining taxable value. We normally think of increases in taxable value, new construction, and uncapping. when a property sells its taxable value is uncapped, those two things matter a great deal. And there are some other things that cut the other way. Demolition, that takes away from taxable value. If a property gets transferred in a way so that it's now going to be tax exempt, and that has happened in the last 30 years in the TIF 97 district, that reduces taxable value. But the one thing that we knew that was a list of reliable data that we have to project, develop a better projection of taxable value is the historic actual numbers in the TIF 97 district. The city treasurer keeps a TIF activity spreadsheet that shows for every year what the total taxable value in the district was. We know with certainty what that number was. And that number reflects the net result of all the factors that affect taxable value. So we can take that number and the CPI number that's being used, 2.3%, that was somebody's calculation of a long-term historic average of the rate of inflation. We don't know that the rate of inflation isn't going to change over the next 30 years or the next 20 years. It probably will some, but that was regarded by whoever decided to start using it, well, we're taking a long-term average. If we want to try to project what will happen with inflation long-term or with taxable value to the extent that inflation affects it, that's a reasonably reliable number. But it's not a reasonably reliable number if we really want to know what's going to happen to taxable value. The best indicator there is actual numbers for taxable value. And that's what we did. And Exhibit G shows that's a pretty good indicator. It's not going to be exact, but it's the best projection that can be done. And if we're going to try to be honest with the voters, We need to say at least if you think there's any merit to the 2.3% method that if we're going to use this 100% number and put that in the ballot as part of the range, it'll be somewhere in a range of probably $127 million to $200 million. In terms of this, if you want to come up with a range, One of its benchmarks, one of its ends really should be $200 million. That is of course one of the issues here. The methods of projection that was being used is ridiculously low. Second, we have the question here that what you're proposing in terms of this refund language is in violation of the city's implementation policy after we passed these charter amendments relating to tips that they're going to be voted on the city attorney said we need to develop an implementation policy that implementation policy sets forth precisely and completely what is supposed to be on the ballot And part of it is very good. It's normal, as Mr. Kelly has recognized, when you have a ballot proposal that's going to impose a tax or take some money, you do an estimate. How much money is this tax going to raise? Now, that's a very easy estimate because it's normally done only for the first year of the tax. And you can take taxable value times the authorized millage rate and that will tell you exactly how much money it's going to raise. We're trying to deal here with something that's 20 years out into the future, but we are going to do something based upon a projection. The implementation policy already anticipates we're going to use a projection. The projection that we're proposing here should be then for the 70% number. Because with that, we can fall within the requirements of our implementation policy. We can give the voters clear information. This is projected to capture or, as more commonly thought of, divert $140 million of tax revenue over the life of the plant. We are supposed to state as that blue highlighted number, the projected total capture. That is supposed to be the projected total amount that will be diverted to the TIF fund over the life of the plan. We state it that way. It's simple. It's as prescribed by the TIF implementation policy. It's understandable to voters and We know the number. If you want to state it as a range, the proper range would be if we're stating the 70 percent number. We anticipate or we project that this will, that the total projected capture will be within a range of $89 million to No, no, we're talking the 70, excuse me, $140 million. That would be the stand-up way to do it. It would not be cheating on the implementation policy. You won't get to try to say this, save for the campaign literature, what you want to say about that. Let's stick with the straightforward implementation policy we have under which the 70% number should go in the blank as the projected total capture. It's simpler. It's unbiased. It allows people to see very quickly what's there. They don't have to sit down and pull out their phones and try to calculate that something's different?

We gave you two extra minutes. I thought I was waiting for the buzzer. We have given you more than that now. So you've had more than five minutes. You've had more than five minutes now, Mr. Bimber.

May I ask for a clarification here? Four commissioners indicated.

We gave you more than five minutes is what I'm telling you. You're not above three minutes. You're above five minutes now. Do we have any other public comment at this time? There is one behind you, Heidi, please. You're in public comment right now. Mr. Buckholder has up, or Buckholder, sorry, has up to five minutes.

Eric Burkholder, Executive Director of the DDA. This idea of a range, like, just came up. So it's the first time I've heard of it coming to this meeting. We followed the recodified tax increment financing act to a T to develop this plan. And that plan calls for the exact number of the estimate of the tax increment capture for the next 20 years. IT DIDN'T CALL FOR A RANGE. IF YOU LOOK IN THE ACT ITSELF, IT DOESN'T SAY CREATE A RANGE. IT SAYS CREATE A TAX ESTIMATE. SO WE'VE FOLLOWED THE ACT TO A T. SO TO HAVE THIS LIKE RANGE JUST THROWN UPON US AT THE LAST MINUTE JUST SEEMS UNFAIR. AND FRANKLY, I DON'T THINK, I THINK IT'S MORE CONFUSING. SO WE HAVE A RANGE USING THIS MATH, BUT WE HAVE ANOTHER RANGE USING DIFFERENT MATH. HOW IS THAT ANY MORE CLARIFYING TO THE VOTER? I DON'T THINK IT DOES. I THINK WE REALLY NEED TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS THE NUMBER HERE AND FOLLOW THE ACT THAT WE'VE BEEN FOLLOWING WITH THE DDA AND THE CITY ALL ALONG. The language that's in the TIF plan states the first number, the 127 and change. It doesn't have the range number. So you're going to have a buyout language that's inconsistent with the actual TIF plan that was approved by the DDA. These inconsistencies are just not, I think, working for all of us. So if we need to take time and come back to this in the 20th, I think we should. This just seems like got a left field. Thank you.

Karen Nelson, 1223 Randolph Street, Traverse City. I'm a city resident. I'd just like to remind you that what we're trying to put together is a ballot. We're not trying to explain the whole program or define it or tell it how it works or how the, your office calculates.

Please direct the comments at the commission.

Excuse me, all that's irrelevant. As a voter, what I want to know, is what am I voting on, what are the elements of the plan, what's the time period, and very importantly, how much money is of my tax revenue, if you will, is being diverted to the DDA in order to do the things that they are telling us they want to do. And my understanding of the thing is that the best estimate is the 70% number. uh... because that is the what has been agreed to and to put in other language to put in that the gross number of what you might collect and what the talk about refunds and all these kinds of things is only going to confuse the voters that's information that should be in the campaign literature and and and and other communications to the voters what on the ballot What I want to see as a voter and what I believe really is the intent of the implementation policy is that I'm being told what you're going to do, how much money you want from me, if you will. And I also look at it where you're talking about diverting money and refunding it and all this stuff. We voted the money, the revenue is coming into the government, to our government. And because of what the DDA's request is, part of it is diverted. How much is diverted? It's that 70% number. The rest of that money goes where it, you know, to the veterans and the beta and NMC, just as it would have gone before. We're simply taking a different percentage of it, if you will. But we don't have to spell that out on a ballot. That should be spelled out in campaign literature and discussions among voters and things like that. I do think this is new, it's important, and I would like to see, you guys consider deferring this, giving time for there to be more discussion on this. And there's time for you to act on it at the next meeting rather than having to put yourself under the pressure of deciding it tonight. And I respectfully request that you give yourself the time to let that discussion happen. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other public comment at this time? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the Commission. Heather.

harry isn't happy heather isn't happy fred and karen aren't happy god is smiling i i would uh i would support sending this back to four more we have to vote so you can just vote no on it then why can't we

Because we have a motion. We have to vote on the motion to take care of it.

Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah.

All right. I'm not saying you're right or wrong about that. I'm just saying that's the process.

You know, it's not my job to determine or even to discuss at this meeting whether this proposal is good or bad, but it is my job, our job, to get the clearest, most neutral description possible for the spout language, and I don't think we're there yet.

Jackie? I certainly support Commissioner Shaw on that. I think there is more work that can be done to make this transparent and understandable for the voter. And I'd like to see us take the time to do that.

Can I ask a procedural question?

You can ask a procedural question.

If the motion fails, can we bring it back?

Yes, at the next meeting.

Okay.

Yes. Okay.

Okay, I'm calling the vote. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. I have more questions. Roll call.

Commissioner Boehmer?

Yes.

Commissioner Anderson? No. Commissioner Funk?

No.

Commissioner Shaw? No. Mayor Pro Tem? No. Commissioner Treadwell?

Yes.

Mayor?

No. Motion fails, so we'll see it in the next business meeting, which will be the 20th. Okay, so moving, sorry, I can't get my screen to.

Is it possible, because I'm assuming that I'm going to be helping maybe draft some new language. So I hear that is the range something that you're agreeable to, but more specific language, is it the 70%, the 100%? Can I just ask the commission that?

I actually would agree with Harry's comments about the range being more confusing for the voters because the range creates a question of whose methodology was used, why were different methodologies used. I think that we need to land on an appropriate methodology for the number. And then I think we need to have some discussion around this wording of the revenue share. And I agree that it's an important part of the plan that is distinctive from the original TIF 97 plan. So I'm not opposed to including that language, but I do think that the wording needs to be as clear and accurate to the voters as we can get it.

Ken, you had your hand up and then Mitch.

My concern was if there's something didn't pass tonight, what is the absolute latest we can get something on the ballot? I was concerned that we would be able to get this back by the 20th because things happen and I've seen stuff get drug out. Okay, it will be back.

Because we do not have a meeting the first week of August because of the election.

So it will be the 20th. And that is my concern is that. If there are numbers that need to change on the ballot, does that have to be consistent with what's going to be on the DDA's plan? And if they have to change their plan and re-vote on that?

We do not have to change the plan. What we are doing right now is only regarding the ballot language. The plan is the plan. It's been passed. So the question that's before us now is, what is the most fair way to put the language for the vote on the ballot? That's the only thing in our purview.

Even if it's in perfect language, I want to make sure that this is on the ballot. It has to go on the ballot. It has to be on the ballot. We don't have a choice. We could have a special election. The deadline is August.

No, no, we cannot. We statutorily must put this on the ballot just like when we get charter amendments that have been ruled illegal, we have to still put them on the ballot because that is how the laws of our state work. I don't agree with that.

I'm sorry, I agree with that.

And to just be crystal clear, the deadline for approving the ballot wording is Tuesday, August 11th by 4 PM. That's your deadline.

And I do think it's important, and Amy, thank you for pointing that out. It is our job to put this on the ballot. Yeah, that's what it is. The voters get to decide what happens. It's our job to put something on the ballot. And so coming back with something that we can agree on that is clear to the voters is important.

Yeah, so we're trying to give Mr. Kelly some input here. Mitch, you had had your hand up, and then Lance, I saw yours too.

Yes, to Dan Kelly's question, nowhere in the charter amendment nor in our implementation language is the concept of a range brought up. So I don't see any place for it. I see it as Mayor Pro Tem Ness said, imparting undue confusion about what number actually is valid. If we must put a number, as long as we're following consistent methodology, that is most clear. OK. Matt Lance.

Yeah, I'd actually concur with Commissioner Treadwell on that and Mayor Pro Tem Ness. I would say that some concern I heard was just around the word refund. So change that to share. You know, that would be a simple change, grammatical change would be my opinion. If we're bringing this back, I would not like to deliberate this to death again where we're here until late hours of the night. We do have an obligation to put this on the ballot. The voters literally voted on this to make us put this on the ballot. So let's do our jobs.

Yep, and I will just close by saying that I also would like to see us use what's used for millages and everything else that goes on our ballot. And that is what we were given initially. What other people's, we've heard a lot, this is for the campaign, this is for the campaign. Other people's interpretation of the numbers are for the campaign. We use what we use for millages, we use what we use from our office, and that is what I think should be on the ballot. It's going to come down to the vote. People can vote no if it winds up coming with that. If it winds up coming back with a range, others might vote no. We might go to a couple different rounds. So that's part of the deliberation. We're not deliberating here. We're trying to give some clarification. So both Jackie and Heather, you've already spoken, so please keep it brief. This is for clarification for Dan, please.

My input to Dan would be if we are finding this range problematic, that my preference would be to take the approach of up to a maximum so that voters understand their maximum exposure.

We can't do that because we don't know what it would be over 20 years.

We have, no one knows.

Even if we went by the most conservative number, it could still go beyond that. Real estate can go by 50% a year.

Then maybe they have to stop spending. That would be my personal preference. Any other?

Speaking to Mr. Kelly, concern, I leave the range thing up to you. I think that Mayor Pro Tem and others, maybe it's confusing. Harry's confused by it. I'll leave it up to you. My concern is that 29 years of actual TIF 97 history shows that that CPI 2.3% calculation is not even close. So I'm looking to see some different methodology on the number that comes up for the total capture.

Thank you. Any final thoughts that weren't already shared for Mr. Kelly to bring back to us? Thank you. All right, then with that, Clear as mud, I'm sure, for you, but we'll give you time to sit down and digest that. All right, now you're up again now, Mr. Kelly, with our attorney services. You've had a chance to speak to all the commissioners now. I know you kind of had a thought going forward with it, so if you want to lay that out for us and kind of tell us where you're at, that would be great.

Well, similar to the interview of the law firms, at that time I think there was a very good discussion with the commission that you're going to need some kind of gatekeeping because you have not had this in the past. You've had an in-house counsel who was generally for both the administration as well as I am assuming the commissioners right down the hall and available at least 40 hours a week if not more. So now you're going to be technically on the clock, and I'm sure the administration wants to make sure that we're not just calling the lawyer every time. I've done it with many communities. I obviously interact with boards on a daily basis. I'm half the time driving around, so a lot of times I don't even bill it. But I think you do need to have some parameters. First and foremost, my thought is it has to be related to commission business, right? You can't be just calling about your own personal desire to get something done. It might be city related, but it really has no traction with the commission or it's never even really been discussed or brought forward by the administration. So there's got to be some parameters of what you're looking for the legal advice on. I think that's number one. Number two, I'm all about taking phone calls and trying to answer quick questions. So if you're in the middle of taking a look at the packet or the agenda, I think that that should be available to the commissioners until abused. So I wouldn't shut it down completely. Some commissioners are going to use that more than others, and that's true with every commission, board, or council. So that should be one of the parameters. But the real issue, and I know that the administration is going to work out some kind of a policy for the employees of the city, which is great. That might include office hours so that there's a set period of time that we're available. So, you know, you line up your questions over a course of a week or two weeks, whatever the case may be. The real question is, does the commission want to adopt a policy, consider a policy? I can take a crack at it. Maybe once we know what the administration's policy is finally, you can take a look at that and adopt some of those ideas. But it's up for, you know, discussion. And if we are going to develop a policy that you want to consider and pass, you know, I need some input on it. And I think that that was pretty much the purpose of the agenda.

So kind of, to be fair, very generous terms for us as being laid out right now. Checking in with everybody, are we wanting to check back in when we see what the city has? Are we wanting to kind of go forward? It seems pretty reasonable that a quick phone call here and there, but anything substantial would be more dealing with business that already exists and not personal desires. And then we've already written in that we have quarterly check-ins with Mr. Kelly, just like we do with our other employees. kind of take a gauge of where we're at with that. We're also going to be financially looking at things. Um, or does somebody want to start? Do we think we want to start hammering some stuff out right now? Lance, you raise your hand and then Jackie.

Yeah, I was just a couple of things that I think I would love to see. Um, I was in questions for the group, you know, would the policy apply equally to like all seven of us or is there further allotment of time to the mayor and maybe the mayor pro tem as they review things. Are we going to set a time amount that any of us can have? And if we don't set a time amount, what's stopping anybody from unilaterally taking all of Mr. Kelly's time on something? So just some things to think about. I don't know. Those are just questions I had that I

And I agree with those. One clarifying point too, Mr. Kelly, you've been talking about calls, which is totally fair. And I still think this will be our MO for a while is when we have major questions about, for example, things in the packet, they go to the city manager usually to find out where the staff was coming from on it. Um, I think that in that kind of case, it could be a quick question that somebody would have if they're not still sure if that what how it came from the city follows process or anything like that. But I think I would say to the commissioners to my thought would be if you think it's going to be a substantial answer. Um, you know, maybe put it in writing first. So we're not just surprising you in the car as you're trying to have you think through something. Um, but I think that You know, I think the biggest thing that we're hearing here is, you know, not just coming with things that are just our own ideas to tax hours on, right? It can be a quick check-in. So does that, like, I think if, and I'm just saying that to you, Mr. Haley, as more of like, keeping that in mind as you're noticing our patterns and stuff over the first few months and then can advise based on that? Does that sound succinct? Yeah, that makes sense.

And the reason why I suppose I focus mainly on calls is because I'm assuming that most legal opinions or reviews are going to come from the manager's office. He's the one that's in tune with the commission and or the agenda items that are coming up in the future. So, if a single commissioner, were to contact me and say, I want a legal opinion on, you know, rental ordinances. I don't think, I'm not going to be doing that unless the manager says, yeah, that's going to be on a future agenda item and that is approved, if you will. Unless you guys want a policy otherwise. That would be my recommendation.

Can I make my comment? I would be very interested in waiting until we see the staff guidelines that are developed. And my interest is then in figuring out how we can avoid redundancy on topics that have already, your input has already been requested. You know, what's the most efficient way for us to understand the guidance that's already been given and not to ask for another round, another serving.

Ann Marie Buerkle So another thing I think I would like to check in right now while we're talking about this just to the point of redundancy and we will see when the policy comes, you know, especially as different, you know, I speak about this over the years, not in general, but, you know, as new commissions come in and things they might not be as familiar with process, we can still assume that if a new policy is being brought to us, for example, It's been legally vetted, right? Like that is not, I'm looking at both of you, and we'll see it officially in a policy. So I want to make sure that we'll get the policy, but also like some of the standards we've had, is it ADA compliant? Is it, you know, legal? What we're putting forward will be answered by the time those come to us as issues. Nuances, I think, is where we're kind of getting into our parts of the conversation and other parts of the conversation with staff. So I just wanted to clarify that kind of for the public, too, to know that we don't,

if we're like nobody's checked in with the attorney it doesn't mean that things are just coming to us willy-nilly and i can even say that we'll probably do a little bit more of that in the beginning like for instance i had a conversation with some department heads today and i said well this is what we would normally do but we have a new city attorney and i want to make sure that that person's comfortable with this so that's part of having new eyes on things yeah yeah

Lance I guess my only I guess where I would want to see maybe something is around because we do have the rule where any one commissioner can make an agenda item on a regular meeting and so say for example like commissioner funk and I decide to bring an amendment to some parking ordinances to a meeting what's the procedure look like for making sure that we get that legally vetted and that it's you know we don't want to I wouldn't want to just bring something willy-nilly to the commission without it going through legal first And we just don't have a great policy around that.

So could our policy be even, and we can still wait till we see what the city brings forward, the city staff brings forward. But I've thought about this for a long time too, is if any commissioner is putting an item on the agenda themselves, just like anything that came from staff, if it's a policy suggestion or a policy discussion, it should be vetted through legal to make sure it is legal to do in the state of Michigan.

Right. I think that if, I'm sorry. That's okay. I just wanted to say that I think, you know, normally if a commissioner wants to bring something forward, we do an initial flyspeck of it, but we don't spend a lot of staff time on it until we know a majority of the commission is interested. So, I would say other than really quick legal review, Like, for instance, with your parking ordinance example, if he's like, well, this is a 20-hour legal research question, that should be, hey, Commissioner Bomer and Commissioner Funk have this idea. Does the city commissioner want to have it legally vetted? And there would be that disclaimer, this hasn't been legally vetted yet, sort of a thing. I think that's a better approach.

And that said, though, I think that, because I've seen it a couple of ways. I've seen it come out that way. I've also seen it with commissioners. presenting factual slideshows that are factual but with policies from Houston, Texas or things that literally legally don't apply in the state of Michigan. So I appreciate the flyspeck on a lot of things. I think that serves the purpose of, hey, this is the idea. Can we go forward with it? But it's still like an up or down of like I wouldn't even put this forward. First glance, I wouldn't even put this forward to the city commission because three of these things are illegal. Like I still want that kind of a little bit of gatekeeping so the horse isn't out of the gate before we – even start a conversation. So I think to Jackie's point, we're talking about some of these ideas, so if we can still contribute some more, but I'd also like to also see what staff ultimately looks like, and we can kind of use that as a framework, but for adding our own for our own pieces, if anybody has other things that they'd like to see right now, and again, we check in quarterly, so we can always plan, you know, what is it, plan, check, adjust? Plan, check, verify. There you go. No, that's a different system, but verify is good too. Others, ideas or anything that people are kind of itching about? Go ahead, Laura.

Yeah, so I'm comfortable waiting to look at the staff policy and kind of looking at what the framework for that is. But I do think that the policy for how city commissioners access legal services is very, very different. then how what the staff expectations are because we have a potentially a gatekeeper model is what we spoke about during the interviews and how we interact with the attorney is very different than how staff interacts, because we're not looking to use a gatekeeper model. I liked Dan's approach in terms of, from a big picture policy standpoint, that our interactions need to be on relevant city commission business, not individual agenda items. I think that's important to incorporate into a policy. I also liked your suggestion that if we have questions specifically about agenda items that that's fair game and that makes a lot of sense and I think can help to streamline some of the conversations that we have here. So I think it's fair to at least start with a draft approach to what city commission access would look like and I'm sure you have plenty of experience working with municipalities and then we can kind of compare what the the staff policy looks like but I feel like they're two very different beings is that is that was that coherent I don't think that individual commissioners should need to ask permission to

Dan Kelly, about basic legal questions, agenda items. I mean, nothing substantial, but quick things that you would just drop into the office. And I mean, I'm just supporting what you have to say. I think that if it's anything more detailed, then yes, it should go through Ben first.

Well, no, I think, I was just going to say, I think what we're kind of getting down to, and this is where my thought with Jackie's idea is, it's more, I don't think we're going to copy word for word what is being said by the city staff's policy. I think it's just more inspiration. Do they see a gap that we don't see or something that might apply to us? Where I'm kind of landing and where I'm hearing here is exactly kind of what Laura and Heather have just said, we're not gonna say everybody only gets an hour a month or something like that at first. Maybe if there's some discrepancies as we check in, we might have to look at ourselves, but I think we all kind of get the gist of what's going on. I think where the substantial conversations would happen and where we might see some more solid billing is policy questions, right? And I think that's where we would have a little bit more conversation and inspiration what that kind of gatekeeping looks like, but we obviously wouldn't have it go through a primary point. Not Benjamin, not me, not anybody else as a primary gatekeeper. I mean, Jackie had her hand up first. I saw yours go up.

Just to say that I'd like to see us address both policy and also process. I'd like there to be a series of documented steps for how we go about this and everybody be on the same page process-wise. Heather?

I think that you'll be able to see a lot from the quarterly reports if they're real. Who's calling, and what do they want, and how many hours have been spent? Is the commission asking the questions? I mean, you're going to be able to see what's happening here pretty quickly, I think. We've got quarterly reports, is that correct? So probably within the first six months.

yep i agree with that go ahead ken um mr kelly one of the reasons that we hired you is because of your experience with municipality and then on the side you had considerable experience as a board member of some significance around the state and those boards all had legal advisors so i'm kind of curious what you've seen work well what not so well and have you formulate that into part of the recommendations you're gonna make but just for us for thought right now what's worked really well and what hasn't worked well what hasn't worked well is adopting what you know a budget and

that then eventually runs out. And the budget was used by two commissioners, almost 90% of which. And so then halfway through a year, you have no more budget to call the lawyer. That doesn't work. But you'd be surprised at how many communities adopt that. Usually they adopt that after what they feel is being years of abuse somehow. So hopefully we're not there. I think the best approach is maybe we try it for a while. I'll get you some drafts to take a look at. But we try it for a while and see. And then just give me the authority to say, hey, Ken, you know, we've spent a lot of time on something that I don't know whether the rest of the commission is involved, has any interest in this. Let's put it on the agenda. Let's talk to the administration. Is this doable? I mean, if you're willing to have that honest conversation with me, I'll have it with you and give you a heads up. I guess what I'm really saying is don't make the policy too complicated. The gatekeeper was probably a bad term, to be honest with you, because I think what you all want is to have access when you need it. And if you're being reasonable and responsible, I don't think anybody's going to fight you on that. And if you abuse it, let me tell you, you know what, we're going too far. That's a policy. Pretty simple.

I think that's kind of puts us in what I'm kind of hearing just so everybody knows is when the for where I'm at Mr. Kelly told me if you disagree I just want to kind of summarize we're going to see what staff brings back or kind of get the gist of that we're all kind of taking this as everybody's going to have access there's going to be no gatekeeper here nobody has to go through me or anybody else to get permission we're going to check in quarterly like we said and I think the inclination I'm hearing from everybody right now and even from you, Mr. Kelly is let's see how this goes. We're checking in in a quarter. You'll tell us in the meantime if something's really off balanced or if you, you know, if you also tell us if you think that you're getting, seeing, watching some meetings and being like, I kind of wish they called me on that, you know, or like either raising some questions. I would have been at that meeting or zoomed in if I needed to because we didn't think that was going to be something that was going to raise legal opinions. So it can sometimes go the other way too, right? We're not used to paying hourly and we might be a little bit know a little more conscious budget conscious so i think that can be a two-way conversation like you're saying and so um we'll continue to kind of have this conversation as evolves in the meantime i'm getting the sense from myself and from what i'm hearing from many commissioners none of us have a worry that if we don't adopt a policy in the next week or two that we're going to suddenly get up these gigantic legal bills so i think this will be kind of an ongoing conversation that we'll have as we check in as we hear what other policy looks like and we start to kind of feel out what we're looking for and what we want to see does that work for everybody and and obviously this is our Employee. So we don't always even have to make it full blown agenda with PowerPoint presentations, we can just kind of check in under reports and stuff to if we if we want to do something. On the spot, but also we've got our quarterly reviews. So does that work for everybody for right now and we'll keep kind of working through it. Great. Thank you all.

So it sounds like When we access the city attorney, there will be an invoice developed of some sort. There will be a tracking of our time.

Yes, but Mr. Kelly is even saying.

Yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do. You should. If it's a 30-second, two-minute phone call, I'm not usually going to track it. Right? Quick call, hey, how many votes does it take to pass that motion tonight? Hopefully I know the answer. You're not going to get billed for that. That's just not, you know, it takes me more time to put it down. So I'm pretty liberal with that because, you know, and also I run the firm. So now if you call some of my associates maybe, they're going to bill everything. So there's a little bit of give and take there. Okay. Yeah.

And again, Bill just referred everybody because we did have that as part of our deliberation comment. Bill, as we discussed when we did our deliberation and hired Mr. Kelly of kind of the standard fare that was the six.

I just assumed there would be like an accounting for the time just to say this is working well or this is not working so great because I can show it with this evidence of this accounting for this time.

Well, and my concern would almost be, to your point, Ken, and we can feel this out as we go, we're going to go a whole quarter and there's going to be, you know, an hour of billed time to us because you helped us with one policy question and everything else were really quick questions. We want to make sure we're not going too far the other way either of taking advantage of your liberal policy. So we'll all just kind of keep the conversation going, I think.

Yeah, so you will get, you know, actual time entries. In fact, we'll have to meet. In some cases, they'll be broken down by different accounts, different funds and so forth. I do that for all my communities. So, and I don't know if that's summarized for you or not, but, you know, we can work through that so you can see it.

Yeah.

Perfect.

And that'll be a part of the quarterly check-ins I would expect because, you know, the fiscal oversight is important. But I think Amy made a really fair point. It can be also very expensive not to call your lawyer. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I think we need to keep that in mind as well.

All right. Well, do you feel like you've got good marching orders right now? Yeah. Great.

Yeah. That sounds good.

Perfect. Continuing on our Mr. Dan Kelly focused agenda items, we have our next item, which is to go into closed session after public comment to discuss a land deal. So does somebody want to make the motion? Lance, and then.

I move that the city commission enter into closed session immediately following the public comment portion of the agenda to discuss an attorney-client communication as authorized by MCL 15.268H.

Second. All right. Thank you, Lance and Heather. And roll call, please. I remembered this time.

Commissioner Boehmer? Yes. Commissioner Anderson? Yes. Commissioner Funk? Yes. Commissioner Shaw? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Nass? Yes. Commissioner Treadwell?

Yes.

Mayor?

Yes. And just to let everyone know, we do anticipate having some action after that item. So usually we'll say, don't bother sticking around. But if you'd like to know, please stick around. Moving on now to appointments, we have our Traverse Area District Library.

I closed my computer by mistake. Go ahead.

I'll make the motion.

Thank you. I move that David Summerfield be appointed to the term expiring December 31st. 31st, 2030, previously held by Michael Vickery on the Traverse Area District Library Board of Trustees as recommended by the ad hoc committee consisting of Mayor Shamro, Commissioner Anderson, and Commissioner Boehmer.

Second. Okay, thank you so much. And just a quick two cents on that one. This was a tough one because both, we had two interviewees, and both David and Jesus were avid users with really great ideas and you know, really great programming insights and wanting to get involved. So we kind of just made the choice. We hope that Jesus will keep his name on the list. We hope he'll join the Friends of the Library maybe or come help us. And just really appreciate the active engagement that everybody could tell us the programs that were going on and when they get the newsletters and who they like on staff. And it was a really kind of very heartwarming interview process, I think. So I just wanted to give the two cents to both the candidates. It was a tough choice. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. All right. Any other comments? Any public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes. Okay, everybody. Any reports for tonight? Go ahead, Heather.

I didn't give my reports. You didn't, that's true. Like a month ago. Because we had such a long meeting. And if I don't do it, it's just going to be all gone and. We want it while it's fresh. Okay. Well, it's not really fresh. So this one's from the EDC, the Economic Development Corporation. So they are reestablishing a regional planning department. And they sent out RFPs and the firm that was chosen was McKenna Placecraft and they presented their fact finding. So this is like six weeks ago now. I'm very encouraged by what's happening here. They were way better than your typical cut and paste stuff that I see a lot of. So the EDC meeting was the day after the county commission got the presentation and they were all, everybody's converging on the same points which are coordination over control, implementation over planning, trust before expansion and local choice over mandate. I'm really again encouraged because this is happening before you actually set up the department instead of afterwards which often happens and then you get chaos. Also at the county commission meeting, maybe you are aware that there was a presentation of a housing study. You should take a look at that. Apparently the need arose during a TIF ad hoc. So they're going to be counting short term rentals, medium term rentals like seasonal rentals, number of occupants per rental, and vacation homes. They're looking at projects that received incentives versus those that didn't and they will be tracking those to see if we're overemphasizing incentives and did the incentives achieve what was intended and what can we do besides tax breaks and this looks like a really valuable and unbiased document and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. Finally, parks and rec. few weeks ago now as well. We had a very in-depth discussion about how to score high impact events at our parks with a major focus on the open space and charges, you know, what are you going to charge for these kinds of events? The item wasn't actually on the agenda which was kind of strange. We were presented with papers at the meeting But obviously a lot of research was done ahead of the meeting and there was good input from commissioners and also during public comment because a couple of people were there just randomly including .

Fantastic. Okay, that's all I got. Okay, great. Anybody else? Thank you for that. Thank you, Heather. That was a good wrap up. You've been busy with good stuff, so thank you. Okay, with that, we will now move on to our final public comment. This reverts back to three minutes. If anybody would like to make public comment, please feel free. Okay, seeing head shakes. Okay, well now we're going to go into closed session. We'll be back to take action likely and close out the meeting.

Happy church festival, everyone. We're not done yet. You're wearing your cherry-colored shirt. We're not done yet. It's my mission. It's my mission.

all right we're bringing this back to session and as anticipated we do have action to take so um would we like to have somebody make a motion that Sarah will then read uh I'll make the motion Lance

That Clark Hill be retained to provide legal counsel related to eminent domain and zoning matters with Northwest Regional Airport Authority as recommended by the city attorney as required by the city charter. And that the mayor and city clerk execute an engagement letter with Clark Hill to provide legal counsel in the amount not to exceed $15,000. With such engagement letter subject to approval as to its substance by the city manager and City attorney with funds to come from the city attorney's professional and contractual budget in the general fund.

Beautifully done at this hour, Sarah, thank you. Second. And second was Sarah, that was Sarah and I meant to say Shaw. From Heather, let's make it easier on me. Okay, any further discussion? Any public comment? There's no public, just for the record. All in favor? Oh, no, wait. Is this a roll call or not? No, not if it's unanimous. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you all. I'm adjourning the meeting for the night. They gave me a gavel again, so I'm going to use it. And now, happy jury festival. There we go. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I did deprive you of that. I'm sorry. All right.