City Council - workshop

for what she's looking for. I just wanted to explain, I will be up here taking notes when you speak about these five items from the strategic plan, so that's what I'm doing. You also have sticky notes if you wanted to write your notes instead of saying them out loud, and they can be stuck up here. And then everybody should have received three dots. By the end of the meeting, our intention is to identify the top three priorities, so we will use those dots to vote, and then hopefully that provides us an easy visual of what the top three are.

Just a reminder from Chris in the back, when you do speak, you don't have to speak right into the microphone, but make sure you have one in your vicinity.

Madam Chair, may I start? Yes, sir, you may. Okay. For my three things, first of all, I would like to... I think that in this term, I'd like to see some solid movement forward on the fleet facility building. That's been something that's been stalled for five years now. And if we need to keep our police department and our fire department going, we need a decent fleet facility. And I encourage anybody who hasn't taken a tour of the fleet facility building, go do it. You'll see exactly what I mean. SO THAT WOULD BE MY FIRST ONE. MY SECOND ONE WOULD BE TO STOP BUYING UNNECESSARY PROPERTIES. AND MY THIRD ONE, I WAS GOING TO SAY, BUT I'LL SAVE IT FOR A RULES COMMITTEE BOARD, BUT I WILL SAY WE NEED TO ALSO MOVE FORWARD WITH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN A MANNER WHERE WE'RE NOT PICKING THE TAXPAYER'S POCKET. THANK YOU.

Who would like Alder Neal?

Thank you. Well, there's some things up there that I don't really see us having. Hello. I see. Well, this one is much better. That I don't really see us working on historically, not really making much ground and whatnot, and I wonder should they be up there considering other things that I think are probably more in our bailiwick. The cohesive and connected culture, it feels good and sounds good, but it's not something that we work on on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. it's just something we would like to have happen out there maybe organically but it's not something we work towards uh concretely it seems to me it's a bit too feel good to be up there and i think we have other things to go to go up there that are priorities for us uh as a city so My feeling about that is I would strike it. Secondly, strong regional alliances is another example of something that we don't have a track record of. We don't have really a whole bunch of players in the region that seem to be wanting to step up to the plate, to be our partners in anything, from buses to you name it. I would maybe look at the regional alliances not from the lens of us working with local government, villages, cities, towns, whatever around us, even the county itself. I would see more maybe working with regional businesses, employers, we might be able to strike up some good alliances with employers in terms of housing initiatives, marketing initiatives to bring in workforce. To me that's going to be, that could pay dividends much better than looking for, you know, this regional board, that village, council or whatever working with us on some kind of alliance because we've tried for years we've gone back and tried to you know make things like that happen and they just don't happen because basically you're talking about allying yourself with a competitor and they don't seem to be wanting to do that so If anything, if we would change that somehow to reflect that we're strengthening our relationships with regional employers, I think that would be a good strategic thing for us to do. Thriving economy. Well, economic development is really, really important. Probably number one and two are attracting new businesses and attracting new residents. And I don't think that we should downplay the importance of attracting new residents. We might be bringing in workers that work in Weston or work in Rothschild. They might work at Greenheck or Crystal Finishing or whatnot. But we could maybe have that. They might prefer to live here because it's a funner place. place to live than Weston or Rothschild which doesn't even have like a downtown per se. So I mean we can become a better destination if we market ourselves and work towards getting new businesses here and focusing on economic development. I would be very careful about what Alder Larson said about achieving economic development with taxpayer money. It's something that we really need to be careful about when we're talking about like a TID project or whatnot which is not taxpayer money. It's a whole different ball of wax and we all really need to understand what TIDs are all about, what kind of a tool they are, and we have to get away from this over putting taxpayer money in rich people's pockets. WHEN IT'S NOT TAXPAYER MONEY. TYPICALLY IN A REVERSE TIF, IT'S THE DEVELOPER'S MONEY, WHICH IS GOING BACK TO THEM AS AN INCENTIVE. AND THIS IS SOMETHING THAT ALL OF OUR COMPETING COMMUNITIES ARE GOING TO BE USING. AND IF WE TRY TO, YOU KNOW, PRETEND THEY'RE TABOO OR VOODOO OR WHATEVER, AND WE FIGHT AGAINST THAT KIND OF ACTIVITY, THEN WE'RE TAKING OURSELVES OUT OF THE COMPETITIVE GAME AND JUST GIVING IT UP TO THOSE THAT ARE WILLING TO USE THOSE TOOLS. SO WE... As a council, we really need to understand when we're talking about some proposal in a TID and some sort of developer agreement that involves like a reverse TIF, that sort of thing, we need to understand what we're talking about and we need to not parrot what we're hearing from social media when people say things like they're giving taxpayer money, my money, to some rich person. They're not understanding the function of a TID. It's one of the few things we have as an incentive tool as a council for economic development. So we really need to get away from this overgeneralization about taxpayer money as an economic development tool. We tend to not do that. THE COHESIVE AND CONNECTED CULTURE COULD BE POSSIBLY REPLACED. I THINK I MENTIONED THIS WITH THE MAYOR JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, MAYBE, ABOUT OUR BRAND, WHICH WE DON'T REALLY HAVE ONE. WE NEED TO DEVELOP AND MARKET OUR BRAND. AND THAT'S A WHOLE discipline that we overlook this is how you position yourself as a desirable place to live a desirable place to invest to bring your business and that brand is not a logo and it's not just like a motto a slogan it does include those things sure but But it's also a personality. It's a whole list of support messaging. It's your USP. In marketing, it's the unique sales proposition. What makes Wausau great for you, our audience? We can't just say we're great. and move on. Wausau, great place. It has to be, it's great for you because we have to put our audience into our brand. So I think if we have a marketing, a brand and marketing initiative, that's how we go forward to put ourselves in the marketplace in the best possible manner. by stating who we are, what we are, what we have, and what that means for you, the person that we're trying to connect with. We don't have that. It just doesn't exist. So there is no emotional reaction to our brand at this point because we don't try to develop one. We don't have one. And any successful business places their brand at the top of their priorities. AND WE JUST DON'T AT ALL. AND IT'S WHAT? BECAUSE WE'RE A CITY, WE'RE DIFFERENT? NO, WE'RE A BUSINESS JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE, AND WE NEED THAT. SO OKAY, AND LET'S SEE. ALSO, THIS MIGHT GO UNDER THRIVING ECONOMY. I REALLY THINK THAT WE NEED TO GET DOWN TO PRIORITIZING OUR TACTICS. NOW, WE'RE TALKING RIGHT NOW STRATEGIES. But strategies are kind of like that big picture. But going forward for the next two years or the next three, four, five years, what are our prioritized tactics? What are the things that we're saying, this is the first thing we should do. This is the second thing we should concentrate on. This is the third thing we should be developing more detailed thinking on. We have to have a list of tactics outlined as part of our strategic initiative going forward. We don't have that. We're very reactive. You know, we do things as they come. We throw something out there, see what happens. But we're not really being tactical. We're not talking about the Wausau chemical property. out there. Well, what are we doing with it? It's been sitting there for years. Is it something that we want to market and then go down the whole years-long effort of mitigating any kind of pollution, which is definitely there, and try to fold that into some huge development with some developer? It's going to take us years and years and years to think about that and make it work. So should that be a priority or should maybe covering that with soil and making it a green space and cutting our losses right there and then using the area to the north of it and to the south of it as bookends for development because we don't have the problems there that we have with the Wausau chemical property. AGAIN, THIS IS KIND OF LIKE IDENTIFYING TACTICS AND SAYING THIS IS SOMETHING WE'RE GOING TO CONCENTRATE ON AND MOVE TOWARD. AND THAT'S ALL PART OF OUR MARKETING, WHEN WE SHOW PEOPLE OPPORTUNITIES THAT WE HAVE HERE. AND STOP BEING REACTIVE. SO FOR NOW, I'LL CEDE MY TIME, AND I'LL PROBABLY HAVE MORE TO SAY IN A BIT.

just say like point number one and i'll put a little check so we know that's a double point to tom's point am i on to tom's point about why some of these are up here so alder killian selected this because this is our document that we adopted for strategy So that's why they are there. And if they don't make sense today that they did five years ago. Right. Okay. And strategy drives tactics. You're right on there. So then there's the other point coming up. So anything else we could add in here as we go?

I'll return you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Three of the things that I thought were important were, critical needs we've talked about this at our last retreat a couple of years ago and with the city being in the financial situation it is and I think when requests for items that are budget mods during the year we really need to look at is this something that we need right now is this something that WOULD AFFECT PUBLIC SAFETY. AND IF IT'S SOMETHING THAT MAYBE YOU CAN WAIT UNTIL BUDGET TIME, MAYBE THAT'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO CONSIDER. AS FAR AS BRINGING RESIDENTS, I THINK IF WE HAVE JOBS, RESIDENTS WILL FOLLOW THOSE JOBS. BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, PEOPLE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN LIVING IN THE CITY OF WASA, REGARDLESS OF HAVING THE GRAND AND HAVING FESTIVALS, HAVING THE WHITE WATER COURSE. IF YOU LOOK AT OUR CITY EMPLOYEES, FOR INSTANCE, LESS THAN 50% OF OUR FIRE DEPARTMENT, OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT, OUR DPW DEPARTMENT, AND THE LIST GOES ON, ACTUALLY LIVE IN THE CITY OF WASA. So if we can't make it a place where our own city employees want to live, then we have to somehow find a way that people who work outside of the city say they work at Greenheck. Why would they want to live in Wausau? because right now our own employees the majority of them don't one of the reasons one of the things that I can think of is we have put up buildings but we're looking at putting up a couple of no market rate buildings and those rents are substantially those are high rents for people who work at Colby and Colby or you know if you're making $20 an hour or $22 an hour being eighteen hundred two thousand dollars a month is it's a stretch so we want people to live here but we have to give them a good reason why because thus far we have not done that so and again I think by if we can get you know jobs into wasa that have a living wage attached to them that would be a huge difference and i think that's big on economic development i've kind of uh said a lot about that the last couple of meetings um so and i like glue want to be very careful about the um continuing to build these apartments, there is a big public cry out there about buildings going up. And any media you've seen, read, there is not a lot of people who are in favor of going down that road. So if that's the road we want to continue down, there needs to be a lot of education so that people understand how these are being financed because they all think it's coming out of their back pocket. And they're not going to think anything different unless there can be information out there for them to access to see how that's being done. So that's mine. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll return it. Alder Wilkins, did you wish to speak?

Hello. Okay. Thank you. Well, so... I do think that economic development is important because my the big thing that I've been thinking about is diversifying revenue so revenue I think is is probably my number one but how we do that and since I'm an educator I guess I mine maybe don't apply as much to those but to education what i would really appreciate um since we're still in newer council is to get people that are the league of municipal wisconsin municipalities economic development, what are some of the trends, what are some good ideas, and to explain some things like TIF and TID, and as far as development, like buying buildings, and Lou and I have had this conversation many times because we have different views on that, but my view on like the river property is well because municipalities are in a unique position to buy that property and clean it up with help you know from the dnr and then sell it or whatever so i guess you know i think it's also complex that i would really appreciate if we could have some presentations and whether it's you know even having someone online do it you know like through the league or whatever but on some of these big item issues like economic development you know i mean there there are i appreciate the the view about um you know bringing in business and partnering with businesses and you know serving on transit i um you know one thing that the director and i were just kind of talking about a little bit is even you know the school districts is there a way to somehow partner with transit with the school districts instead of you know I don't know so these are things we have to look at but what are some things we haven't tried and cohesive and connected culture fun and vibrant community I personally think some of that kind of goes along with thriving economy or falls under economic development and let me just see really quick here oh the other thing but you you said about home homes and apartment buildings you know one of the i think one of the problems too that i've heard from people is well i know is the high rents but also landlords buying up these homes and i don't know if there is anything we can do as a council to protect. I don't know. I don't know that there is to to protect, you know, the homes just being bought up and then the rent so high that people can't afford them. I don't know. But that has been brought up to me a few times as a question by residents. So maybe that is something. But I think i think that's it um the only other thing i've heard too with ed is it may not be happening right now but projections on climate migration will we be getting more people you know in this area eventually hope you know, that's what the projections are. We'll see. But my big thing is education. And my little plug is for and I know this isn't one of the broad areas, but somehow to find a way in a thriving economy to things for teens to do, because we also talk about a lot of people leaving and I work with them all the time in high school and I hear all the time, like there's nothing for us to do that doesn't cost a lot of money. And I agree with them. And I mean, I don't have any solution. But is there a way? Is there even a way? There used to be a, it was called Mayor's Youth Council or something. Yeah, that was way, way long ago when I worked in law offices. And I would love to see, you know, is there a way we can get some young people involved or find things for them to do? Will that help them want to remain in this community? I don't know. But those are just some of my thoughts.

Anecdotally, I just wanted to make a mention. I had heard this, and I don't know the truth of it, that the city of Wausau used to have an ordinance or some type of law where we limited the number of properties that a single individual or entity could own, and that is no longer in place. I don't know the validity of this. This was just shared to me in passing. BY SOMEBODY, THAT IS SOMETHING I WOULD LOVE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT, BECAUSE I DO SEE A LOT OF CONCERNS IN THAT. BECAUSE I WOULD AGREE, I THINK THE NUMBER ONE THING THAT I HAVE HEARD FROM MY CONSTITUENTS, THE TOP MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS ON THEIR AGENDA IS IS MY JOB ECONOMICALLY VIABLE FOR THE COST OF LIVING? THAT'S LIKE THEIR NUMBER ONE CONSIDERATION. AND THAT'S NOT TO SAY THAT IT ISN'T IMPORTANT THAT THEY FEEL SAFE WITH THEIR FAMILY, OR THAT THERE'S FUN THINGS FOR THEM TO DO, OR THEY HAVE A GOOD EDUCATION SYSTEM. BUT IF THEY... THAT'S ALL DOWNSTREAM FROM, CAN I AFFORD TO LIVE HERE? I think that's one of the reasons why we've seen so much backlash about some of these housing development opportunities. It's not to say that we don't necessarily need the housing. It's whether or not this is housing that our residents can see as viable for themselves, right? I think that's probably one of the most difficult things as a taxpayer is not necessarily, and I would agree with Alder Neal about the idea that people are very, I think, ill-informed when it comes to tids and tiffs and I will say on that issue in particular I do think it's beneficial for all of us you know maybe even as a council to take a look at the tid and tiffs and see do we need to reevaluate what the structure is of what we deem appropriate for a tit or a tiff like is there a line where we say no that's not really appropriate for that that use But I would say that when people look at it and they say, okay, well, the city is giving a nice deal, not necessarily taking my taxpayer dollars, but even if they see somebody is getting a proprietary deal to build a development that I will never have the opportunity to engage with because I can't afford it. I think that's something that is something we should keep in mind. I do just want to give props to the idea that we definitely do need to have, obviously, jobs that are going to employ people in a way in which they can afford to live in the city of Wausau. I would say I do... I do see the numbers as well on how many of our city officials and just in general people I know who work at my own employee who commute, who don't live in the city of Wausau. And I think there's so many different personal reasons for a person choosing what house they want to live in and where they want to live. I do have interest in trying to dig down and see the city's outstanding debt obligations and where they stand. And that kind of digs into one of Alder Tierney's points about wanting to really understand that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I see a lot of residents who, for one reason or another, regardless of what this administration would tell you about a strong economy, I know a lot of people who are struggling. they have to decide do i have money to take my family to go do the fun thing or do we not have the ability to do that for six months because we're barely making our mortgage payments or barely making rent um i i think it's a little it's i think it's very important for the council um and just for us you know as a city government to maybe meet cognizant and and more um I don't know, just more willing to reflect on the idea that if our residents are struggling in that nature, our taxpayers, that maybe to some extent then we also need to be willing to say, again, is this a want or is it an absolute need? Because our residents don't necessarily have some of the freedom that we do in government to be able to borrow money or be able to spend now and pay later and I do realize that in a lot of ways you know what we do as a city is different than a household and we're making investments they are two entirely separate things but that comes down to what is an investment is it is it a want is it a need I think that's really important. So for me, I think it's just all of those really just tie into the idea of just wanting to get a little bit more like a finger on the pulse of like, how are our residents feeling? What are the issues that are important to them? And are we reflecting those same values and those same considerations that they have to make in their own personal lives at the government level where we're managing their tax dollars?

Okay, so I'm gonna jump off of that point because that was, there's a lot of stuff up here that I absolutely agree with. One of the things that I'd like to see us do as part of a cohesive and connected culture is to really kind of embrace the opportunity that we have as a council to do the things collectively that individuals would not be able to do and it kind of drives me crazy when people talk about government as a business because of course it's not right government we have an obligation to take care of our citizens and our residents that can't take care of themselves the children are elderly the poor are disabled population so as part of what I would like to see us focusing on is making sure that those voices are heard this is this is my client base politically they're not terribly engaged usually they're super busy right just trying to make ends meet but somebody needs to be the voice for that community and I'd like to see the council take on that role and making sure that we're not leaving behind our community members who are not homeowners and aren't terribly worried about property taxes but are worried about finding a place that they can afford to live that's near enough to where they work that's near enough to affordable child care that's near enough to the quality schools that we are fortunate enough to have in wasa so as part of that I would like to see us focusing on expanding our public transportation routes and times to make sure that people who can't afford a personal vehicle or can no longer afford to run their personal vehicle all the time can get to where they're going especially to our local businesses and our regional businesses i think the whole region could really benefit if we if we look at that and i'd also like to make sure that when we're talking about our residents and our constituents that we're not forgetting the renters I have also heard from people who are upset about multifamily housing going up some because it's too expensive and people would like to see more affordable housing but having been part of the affordable housing task force I've also heard from community members who really seem to think of people who need more affordable or lower rent housing as not being an integrated part of our community. And I'd like to make sure that we keep that focus on integrating everybody into our community. affordable housing, market rate housing, renters, owners, people with vehicles who need parking and people who can't or don't drive who need to still get to wherever they're going.

I took a slightly different approach to this and thought more about not so much the issues that we're all going to be approaching, like housing and transportation and all that, but the underlying threats or obstacles that are preventing us from achieving them. And I think two things that I really think we need to change and change rapidly. which is opposite to what you say. I think it actually goes under cohesive and connected culture, but our civic culture, which is address the profound disengagement that we have between residents and government and their absolute absence in this process in a lot of ways. We talk about talking to our constituents a lot, but I don't think we talk to huge numbers of constituents. It's very small numbers. We have one member of the public sitting here right now. Thanks for coming. But routinely at council meetings or committee meetings, we have empty houses. I know from watching and running the YouTube channel what the analytics are on people watching online. It's very low. The only times we've had big engagement are the firefighter referenda and all the ballot box stuff that went on last year because people became impassioned about that. I think we have a serious communication problem going on with the city where we have multiple forms of communication. Every department has their own social media. There's no cohesive, connected, centralized form of communicating what's going on in the city. No education really is going on through those channels with the public. And if we don't reverse course on this soon, we're just gonna continue to face the same turnover of city council and elected representatives and angry people. So I just think we really need to engage residents and people who live here and find ways to get them in, even if it's once a year they come to a meeting, That sort of connects to another thing, which is I think we need to really work on compassion in the city as well. During the election process for this, I had a lot of people whose doors I knocked on who actually just said, why do you care about your neighbor? You should just focus on yourself. And I found that really kind of disturbing as a thought. And my response was, well, I don't know, I just do. I care about what you guys are going through, so somebody's got to do it too. But I feel like a number of the people that I've talked to and neighborhood groups that some of us have gone and sat with, Their concerns over property taxes distilled down into why should I be paying for the school district? I don't have kids. Why should I be paying for other people's entertainment on the 400 block? I don't go to that. Why should I be paying for all of these free or government-enhanced programs? And I think it's just like that's a problem. And it's a problem that we can make a difference on. And I feel like if we start doing that, many of these other things that we're talking about are going to slot into place a little bit more. Or we're at least going to get the opinion of the residents. And if they genuinely want us to cut stuff, We will cut it if that's the community that they want. I guess I wanna reflect what the residents actually want, but they have to be educated and understand what that means if we start cutting programs or fracturing things out of their property taxes and finding other means to pay for it. I don't think it'll be a better community, but we might be, I don't know, I don't know. I feel like we need to engage residents more.

Just to comment on your engagement of many citizens or many residents. I know when I started on council, I think one of the most frustrating things for me was lack of engagement from residents. And what I have found in my district is fortunately it was my son who started our neighborhood group. But I found that that neighbor to neighbor program can be extremely positive and extremely helpful. We have right now in a district that had no voice. The people had no voice essentially for years. We have a packed room for our neighborhood group almost every month. And as Alder Lucan said, much of it is about education, much of it is about just listening to their needs and really being compassionate and driving what they want. And so I agree with you that talking with multiple residents and trying to activate them and motivate them to participate is really a critical issue for us. Oh, excuse me, Alder Martin gets to go first.

I think I'm the last one on the list unless Alder Kellyanne wants to get first. Go ahead. I'm on. Out is on. Test one, two. Oh, hey, there we go.

You're just loud naturally. I am. I do know how to project.

Okay. You know, when I look at these lists here and I think about my three things, my three tasks, I think what I'm thinking about is a little bit more is going to fill in the gaps a little bit. First off, I'm going to circle back to Lou's idea or thoughts on the fleet facility building. That's something we need to get done, and that's something that we need action on at this term. That's I've been on the council for eight years. Six of those eight years, we've been talking about fleet in one sort, in form or another. And we haven't gotten anywhere on it. And it's just been, we've been grinding and spinning our wheels and it's demoralizing down at Public Works because of the place they have to operate in. And we need... We need to be able to do better, and that's something that's just waited too long. I know we're at an impasse with land, a place to put it, but We can't wait another two, three, four years until the possibility of that county site opening up. So we need to make some big decisions on that fleet facility. And it needs to get done this term. My other thing has got to do with housing. And we talked a lot about housing here this evening. And I am still a very strong proponent of housing. at all levels for everyone. And that means a lot of things. It means market rate at apartments. It means affordable housing. And it also means we need to strengthen our single family homes and smaller duplexes, quadplexes, things like that. Our community, we're a little bit stuck. We don't have a lot of land to expand in. But we still need to look at the things that we can do in order to strengthen our housing stock. Because our single family homes are old. And that's the problem we have in our community. And that's why when these apartments come in, there's this big disparity. between the rents, these market rate rents, and what the values are of these older homes in our community. And we can do some creative things with our zoning codes to allow for duplexes, two flats, accessory dwelling units, things like that. Things that will make people maybe stay in the community longer. Maybe there's an extended family. Where an 80 you would be the perfect would be the perfect solution and we need to we need to think about about things like that housing at all level and then finally a Transportation, you know, I was just gonna say transit, but it's kind of it's it's more than just it's just more than transit We need we need a strong transit system because metro ride is the thing that wasa has that no other community has and we need to leverage that and You know, we've been trying to get, you know, Metro, we're right, you know, our transit buses to expand into the other communities, and we've hit that brick wall. If we can build, if we can grow our transit into something that, these communities want us to expand into, that's, that's the thing, you know, that's what we need. That's that next step we need in order to, um, you know, uh, draw people back, back in, into our community is people don't always necessarily want to drive. You know, they'll, um, if, if the bus goes where they want them to go at a time in which, it will take them there. It fits their schedule. People will take the transit. One of my kids lives in Madison. They take the bus all the time because the bus does what it needs to do. And that's something we've got. We've got a system, and that's something that we can absolutely figure out how we can make that work. If it means reshaping the you know, the routes or how the buses operate, the size of the buses. I don't know, you know, it's, but we need to look into that. And then, and, and in that vein with transportation also, you know, we need to strengthen our, you know, our bike and pedestrian routes. Yeah, I hear a lot of people say, you know, I don't want to ride the bike because it's dangerous being on these streets. Well, let's work on ways in which we can improve bicycle safety on our city streets. Let's look at pedestrian routes that make, you know, walking from place to place attractive. One of the nice things about these apartment units is, you know, they're sited in places where, Other amenities are available, the foundry, down by the river. We need to develop other amenities, businesses, shopping, so that you can work, you can live, you can play, all in the same place, and you don't necessarily have to worry about having a car. I was going to say one more thing. No, that's, oh, it has to do with transportation. And Michelle, you can probably put this on the parking list. We need to do something about these e-motives. Did you see the newsletter? Yes, I did see the newsletter. But we need to take a stronger action on those e-motives.

Are you wanting to do something else?

Well, I think it's all been very interesting. I do think we say a lot of things that I'm not sure our constituents understand what they mean. So innovative public service is great, but if you read the statement, it doesn't really mean what we just put up there. or just just like us right but they all I mean it it's an interesting concept but develop strategy this is thriving economy develop strategies and services to support existing business and workers and attract and retain a skilled workforce and innovate innovative businesses What are we doing to support that concept? For example, I completely agree we need something done with the fleet buildings. Many of our city buildings need help. If you walk upstairs, the veneer is peeling off the walls. A business, a prospective business coming to our town and seeing our city hall like that, if we can't even take care of what's ours, why would they think we're gonna take care of them? The transit building, how long is it going to take to get a new transit facility? Six to eight years for a fleet facility just to be talked about. So what can we do now as we work towards these nobler goals? I think what we are looking for is that white whale off in the future, and we're not necessarily doing anything now. We can look back at history and see lots of times where we needed more housing. So after World War II, they put up Quonset huts. Those transitioned into mobile homes. When was the last time you saw a mobile home brought into town? We closed the only mobile home park that was close. Yet in Stettin, they have a really nice one. If you've been on Stettin Drive, there's a really nice mobile home property out there. Kept very well.

That is the city of Boston.

Okay. I thought it was in Stathina. I apologize. Close. Close. Close. It is a really nice facility.

It is. They put a lot of work in it the last few years.

Yes, they do. But that is what I would consider affordable housing. But that's one of those buzzwords, affordable housing. $15 million is not affordable housing if you're Willie Nelson. Because that's what the government took from him was a $15 million home. He couldn't afford it, so they took it. So it depends on the perspective. And I agree, as was said earlier, I think we're looking at this. And there's a difference between complexity and complicated. Things can be complex. Watches are complex. But we can understand them. Things get out of hand when they become complicated. So what we have, as far as I see in the city right now, and I may just be seeing it completely wrong, we have a very complicated city structure. So when I use business-like terms like siloing, those are terms people understand. Our city needs to work together. And as Drew said, we need the city working as a single engine to promote the needs, the desires, the efforts of itself as a city, but also as a government representing our citizens. So I do believe we need that connected culture first in our government and then in our greater city. because why would somebody want to come to a, um, one committee meeting when then that same thing goes to another committee meeting and they hear something else and then it goes someplace else and pretty soon or worse, they hear the same thing in multiple, multiple meetings. And then you hear the public come up and go, well, you've already decided what you're going to do. So this probably makes no difference what I say up here. well, what's the point of being engaged if you already think it's already decided? And they're told it's already decided by our offices in this building. Well, this has to be done because so i do think that goes to uh cohesive and connected culture i do think that education part lou mentioned is incredibly important the reason we have a terrible bus a terrible um bike and pedestrian uh society here is because again we build for cars and then we don't educate bike bikers and walkers on how to move about the city So the bikers are up on the sidewalks, the walkers are complaining they're up on the sidewalks, and there's a perfectly empty bike lane right there. And they go, well, that's dangerous. Okay, so the rule is if you're driving, you have to move over so you have three feet. So if they're in the bike lane and there's an empty lane between you and them, you're supposed to move over to the right, but we don't teach people that anymore. So it's all about that educational portion, and that goes back again to the communication. So I'm all for a fun and vibrant community that costs a lot of money. If you were at the event on the 400 block on Saturday, you saw all of our wonderful law enforcement members there. You saw our ambulance there. We don't get reimbursed for any of that stuff. Why not? That's just money. I was told it was five. I was told we got reimbursed five by the tax room tax. Is that correct? Or is it up to seven?

No. There may have been room tax involved in supporting the event, but the city did not get room tax. No, there was no room tax.

Well, we still don't get reimbursed for any of our time down there.

In that particular one over the weekend, you're correct.

Yeah. So figure, I think I saw eight law enforcement when I was down there. Plus an ambulance is down there for 12 hours. And most of that's overtime. Plus we paid, what was it? 15,000 for the water barriers. I'm all for fun and vibrant community, but that has to come from somewhere. And when we lived in Chicago to address the youth, there's a lot to do in Chicago. And talk about transportation, just like in Madison, those buses ran late into the night, and they were going early in the morning. And you could go anywhere. And you could get on the L, go way out to Arlene Park. You should not do that as a youth, but you could do that. You could do all kinds, all over Chicago. And they had free museum days and everything. And what we complained about was there was nothing to do. Because it's all about perspective, and it's all about, again, that education. And if parents are unwilling or unable to help their students understand, hey, Wausau is a great place to be. Because unfortunately right now, Wausau is a take it or leave it place. And most people are saying, eh, we'll leave it. I agree our renters are not concerned about taxes. They don't understand how it directly affects them. Rents are not high because necessarily landlords are greedy. But a big portion of that comes right off because of the taxes, because they're passing on the water bill, they're passing on the sewer bill. So if we look at this collectively, I think the most important thing we can address is the thriving economy. We're not going to get a... And I mention this because in the past, Wausau has always been the innovator. Wausau Homes with the... Modular homes after World War two to address that issue washer insurance with the What they start? Yes, we're calm. Thank you Wasa paper the mills all they were innovations where was all looked inside. Okay, what's coming up? Because we know everything is going to change So what's the big need coming up that was I can address? Well, we we've discussed it recently with energy. We have the dam. We've always been energy innovators. So what can we, what businesses, what things can we bring into Wausau that then we can sell or rent or share with people all over the state or the region? Whether that's, you know, they're going to close Station 3 down at Rothschild. So that's one big power plant they're going to close. is there i mean we we're talking about uh solar panels and i realize those are generally just for the buildings but how can we encourage people how many flat roofs do we have in this town that we could put a solar array on or you know and i throw out ideas because that's what they are we're idea people so as we're looking forward how can we Leverage the things we have we are a centrally located central, Wisconsin Upper Midwest area we have railroads out the wazoo We can send your stuff by rail north south east west whichever way you want to go So how can we leverage what we already have? to build our thriving economy without necessarily adding a bunch of expenses. Because whether we call it a fee or a fine, a charge, it's still a tax. Because if we're not generating it, somebody else is paying it. So I love the cohesive, connected culture. I love the thriving economy. And I really believe somewhere up there we need something about the education part. And that may be all under connected culture. So there are no, it's the old teacher saying, there are no dumb questions. I don't think at this point there can be any crazy ideas. No idea can be too crazy. Because think of two guys selling shoes out of the back of a car here in town and they became East Bay. Or, yeah, think about Greenheck. Think about Colby and Colby, two guys who just thought, well, we could do that. Yeah, Marathon, well, Wausau Paper, again. Think about all the innovations that have come out of Wausau that have become major movers and shakers in not only the region, but in some cases, the country. So where are those people and how are we encouraging those people to do it again?

Who's up? Okay.

I JUST HAVE ONE THING, SHORT THING TO ADD ABOUT THE FLEET FACILITY. I'VE BEEN ON THE INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE FOR SIX YEARS, AND A LOT OF THE LEG WORK HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. THE CITY ALREADY HAS THE BUILDING PLANS FOR IT. WE SPENT $100,000, $200,000 ON BARRIENTOS AND STUFF, SO A LOT OF THE LEG WORK HAS BEEN DONE ON THERE. and you know if if you if and when you decide to take this up i would gladly attend your meeting to give my input or my history or whatever where we're at on that and i would also like to say to you madam chair uh thank you for rescheduling this meeting so that everybody could attend thank you

The mayor has not had an opportunity yet, but I'll be sure.

Well, thank you. Just briefly, just a couple, two, three things. First of all, we operate in a kind of like a catch-22 here. U.S. News and World Report recently listed Wausau as the number four best community in the state of Wisconsin to live in. Didn't say necessarily to retire in or to live in. And the metrics they included were things like, you know, we talk about, you know, high rent at market rate departments or whatnot. But we are below the state average in housing cost. We are below the state average in cost of living. These are metrics that are true. We don't tell anybody that. We don't market that to anybody. U.S. News and World Report is doing it for us. Our taxes are unfortunately high. Our utility rates are unfortunately high, and we need to keep working towards that. But even though we have a lower cost of living and less than average housing costs here, our median income here is low. This all harkens back to not a thriving economy. This harkens back to we don't have, as Alder Trueblood was talking about, people out there that are innovating and bringing things here. We have to remember that as a council and as a city, we're not developers. We don't have the ability to be developers. We work with developers. And developers develop what they know they can get paid for developing. You know, anybody that wants to build an affordable housing apartment building, it's going to cost them just as much to build it as it would to build a market rate. And they're filling the market rate apartments, so why would they do an affordable one? It's just the ROI is not there. They're still putting out the money, but they're not getting the return to offset it. But I know some people in my district and nearby who in recent months have moved out of their homes. And now they're living in the foundry. And they have very nice houses, regular, just good old houses in my district and nearby that then went on the market and became an opportunity for somebody else. It might have been a first-time home buyer or somebody that just wanted to, they've always been renting and they want to own their, whatever. But that migrating thing happens when you have this sort of moving housing situation. When things aren't moving, then nothing's happening. This is something that we need to think about in terms of thriving economy. The economy does not thrive by not moving. There's so many things that everybody has mentioned that I want to see happen. I wish that it would happen, but we have to really focus on the things that we can help happen, that we are in a position to help happen. you know so i just and lastly this is really important to me when i was out knocking on doors and people were talking about taxes or utilities or problem with the next door neighbor who's crazy or whatever i always said you know they would ask me so what what's your big deal what's your platform what and i said i feel that as a council we are the stewards of the future of this city and our future is moving away. Our young people are moving away. Young people are not coming here. Young people are not on there as a prime strategic thing that we need to focus on. all the time i mean if we don't if we don't have a plan and if we aren't actively doing everything we can to attract and retain our youth here our school you know our schools are emptying out it's just not sustainable That should be one of the key things up there as a top-of-line item is youth slash future. Because without it, we're going to turn into a retirement community where a bunch of old people are griping about how much it costs to live here. Youth should be a major strategic focus for us and we should not undertake any project with any developer, anything that involves engagement with the city where we are not folding into it some concern for youth and how do we leverage that to make it youth-friendly? What are we doing as a fun and vibrant community slash youth? Where is it? We have teen activities. That doesn't talk to me about a young family, somebody with one baby, somebody who doesn't live here, but we want them to live here, to come here and be the next generation workforce here.

Tom, can I ask a clarification? When you say youth, I think children, when you say youth, are you talking about?

I'm talking about the young working generation and the future generation of workforce. I mean, it's our next, it's the next generation workforce and also the current young workforce. We need to make this, you know, My kids live in the Milwaukee area and Madison area, and they live there by choice, and it's a lot more expensive to live there than here. They could live here. We'd love them to be here. I just went and visited our kids' family gathering in Madison, our son's new apartment. It's like on a high rise. There's no way in hell I know I could afford to live in that high rise. but he and his girlfriend have good jobs and they can afford it. They're there because of all the things they can do there. If we are not that fun and vibrant community to make this place a place where people want to be here because of all the things they can do here, we're blowing it. Our job is the stewards of the future, not the stewards of last year or this year's tax bill or that's not the priority that's something we should work towards and work on but that's not our number one thing number one thing here is the future and if we're not if we're not doing things with that in mind to create things like that fun and vibrant community for the next generations we're blowing it and we we didn't do our job that's all we need to say

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To Tom's point, Michelle did a press release. We put out a press release. Is that not working? Okay. So Investopedia did a ranking. Well, Wausau is in the top 100 cities in the United States for retired people to live. Wisconsin has four of the top cities. Our partner in Illinois has two. Michigan has one. I don't think Minnesota has any. But the point is, we are a great place to live. And why not Wausau? Bentonville, Arkansas. The thing Bentonville has, we have similar, we have foundations that are very, uh, supporting, but they have the Waltons and they have a ton of money. Are we still having trouble? Uh, we've got a group of people come up from Bentonville, Arkansas for, uh, A couple of different events, AirVenture Cup, they come up here to bike, and we're trying to learn from them on what they did to transform their community to make it a fun and vibrant place to live. Walmart has a policy that if you're a major vendor of theirs, you must spend two years at their corporate headquarters. People would come down there, they'd spend two years at corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and when their two-year time was up, they'd scram. there wasn't anything holding them there and they tried to figure out why that was. Now they were able to tap into some things to build their trail system. They've got one of the best gravel systems, bike trail systems in the country. A lot of that was help from the Waltons but they found now that is reversing the trend. People now want to live there. They have things like the 400 block. It's a fun place to live. It's not just a place to go and earn a paycheck. What do you do with a paycheck? I guess you get on an airplane and go somewhere else. But if you want to enjoy your own backyard, that's something we need to look at. Transit was mentioned. I'm not putting these in rank order. I guess commenting because I've been writing as you guys have been talking. We have a new transit director, Ron Schunke, and he has been charged with trying to find ways to bring transit other areas. The past method of going to a neighboring community and say, hey, you need to put transit in here because we want to bring buses down here, and oh, by the way, we're going to charge you X amount. They all say, well, what's in it for me? Ron's taking a different approach. He's going to go speak to them and try to sell it. What is the benefit for them? Because they look at it as a benefit for the city. It's just busting our people off to go shopping or shopping. But we were looking to service their community. We're looking to bring workers to their community. So he's got a plan. We're looking at things like microtransit. And I think that will be revealed in time here. And I think we have some, we've gained some ground with transit at Northern Valley. Ron took a look at it. We put in an ask. He was able to figure out a way to get out there at a very low cost. He's servicing 40 plus people a day. So that's, I think we're moving in the right direction there. Talk about the pipeline of youth. When I moved here in 2000, we had 8,400. Oh, do you have the thing to lock the door? Thank you. Good catch. It must have just went off at 9. So when I moved here in 2000, we had roughly 8,400 kids in the Wausau School District. They currently have total enrollment, K through 12, roughly 7,400. So that's shrinking. However, if you look at the 1990 census, let's see, we had 37,400 roughly, and I drew that from 37,400. We're just about to crack 40. Latest reports is we probably are over 40. So that's a good thing. We have more people here. What's interesting, a little groundhog exercise here, Groundhog Day, is... 30-plus years ago, 32 years ago roughly, six mayors ago, Mayor John Hess and the council sat down and they created the Wausau Plan. This is mid-'90s. It's hard to tell, 94, 95. And they identified strategic goals in seven key areas. And a lot of them are similar to what we're talking about here. So I cooked down a couple of them that I think are important. And first is to maintain financial strength and a stable tax rate. Taxes drive affordability. Taxes drive rents. So I would put that under thriving economy. Promote economic growth and job creation. We've heard job creation, job creation. People can't, if they can't afford to live here, we should be bringing jobs that they can afford to live if they have good paying jobs. Our goal in the economic development department right now We're not looking for the whale, if you call it that, Tom, the next company that's going to bring 1,300 employees. It's probably not going to happen. Where are the next 100 jobs that we can bring into the city that'll pay $75,000 to $100,000 a piece? You start getting those jobs. They drive services. They drive restaurants. They drive affordability. And lastly, maintaining or improving our infrastructure. According to this document in the mid 90s, they were spending $500,000 in maintenance on roads. know we did last year roughly about the same and we we were lucky in two years that we had light snow and we didn't use as much of our overtime budget on snow plowing we put an additional 200 to 250 000 into asphalt overlay so adjusting for inflation we're probably spending one-third on maintenance today on our roads potholes are a negative selling point. So when somebody, you talk about coming into City Hall and seeing the veneer coming off the wall, which has been repaired a number of times, we've got some work to do there. But when you come in and you drive around and see where you want to live and you're hitting potholes, that's a negative selling point. So we need to address that. The city needs to look like a good place to live. It is a great place to live, but we need to show it and sell it. So, Michelle, I'll fill you in. Where are we at? What did I miss when you were out? Financial strength and stable tax rate under thriving economy, and we might have hit that already, and promote job growth and economic growth. Strategy drives tactics. So when we did this multiple terms, We'd meet down in the basement, we'd come up with a plan, we'd put it on the shelf and we forgot about it. So I think we can't forget about it. We have to decide what they are and then start putting that structure underneath. What is the priority of effort? What is the priority of work? What's the priority of staff and who's assigned to each of these areas so that we are achieving goals You have to take it one step at a time. And I think this is a good start.

Thank you, Mayor Diddy. I would like to read the email from Alder Watson. She apologized. She had to go to a Marathon County board meeting. She has three items here. Number one is infrastructure asset management and road condition improvement. Build upon the city's existing pavement management and infrastructure planning efforts by establishing measurable goals for improving overall roadway conditions, reducing the percentage of streets rated in poor condition, and increasing transparency around project prioritization and funding decisions. Regular reporting on system-wide road conditions and progress toward these goals will help ensure accountability and provide residents with a clear understanding of how infrastructure investments are improving the community. The second item is regional collaboration and shared services. Strengthen Wausau's leadership role as the region's largest municipality by intentionally leveraging and expanding partnerships with Marathon County, neighboring communities, regional organizations, and community stakeholders. This includes collaborating through existing efforts such as the Wausau Marathon County Partnership Initiatives, the Wausau Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Visit Wausau Economic Development Organizations, and other regional collaborations to pursue shared services, coordinated planning, infrastructure investments, housing solutions, transportation improvements, tourism development and grant opportunities. The goal is to maximize regional resources, improve service delivery, and advance priorities that no single organization can accomplish alone. Long-term capital and financial sustainability planning is the third item. Develop a rolling 10-year capital and facilities sustainability plan that identifies major infrastructure, facility, fleet, utility, park, and equipment replacement needs before they become urgent or compliance driven projects. The plan should include projected costs, anticipated replacement timeliness, funding strategies, reserve targets, and debt impacts, allowing the city to proactively prepare for future investments, rather than react to unforeseen needs as part of this effort evaluate enterprise funds dedicated reserve funds grants public private partnerships user fees and other alternative revenue sources to determine which options should be pursued to support long-term financial sustainability she says I believe these priorities align particularly well with a strategic plans focus on innovative public services and strong regional alliances while also supporting long-term fiscal stewardship and quality public infrastructure and Sarah has said thank you for sharing the thoughts

So, we should move forward. I know there, oh, Alder Tierney.

Who was first? Alder Tierney, go ahead.

I have one rather quick thing to say. One of the things that I think WASA needs to think about is a lot of county um events are held in wasa because we have the size we have the um the facilities that are needed such as the 400 block or marathon county uh park but yet wasa is paying for the police uh to be there the ambulance to be there and that's coming off of overtime for the wasa taxpayers I think we need to talk to Marathon County because we are providing a service not just to Wausau when we have these events here, but we have people from all over the county coming to the fair, to 400 block, Art in the Park, things like that, where we have a police presence, an ambulance presence, and Wausau taxpayers are paying the overtime for these things. And this is something that I think we need to talk to Marathon County about a shared responsibility. because these events um the air show that's coming up again not just for wasa residents for county-wide people come here so county-wide people should have to help out with the protection that was paid overtime prime overtime for so just one of those thoughts

Is this one on?

Okay, great. Because constituents have been writing relentlessly about the overtime issue, I have sat down with the mayor, the clerk, payroll, the chief of police, the chief of fire and EMT, DPW, and I've asked them all why overtime is occurring and what's going on, and it's a lot more nuanced than just overtime, and I think before we start going to our partners like that, we need to clean house first, which is... We have to address what, over time, is being subsidized by external companies that are paying some amount for these services, but maybe we need to increase those amounts. Stay tuned. Yep.

There will be a nature meeting on July 13th.

July 7th. 13th. 13th. Okay, yeah, so because I asked for it to be on the HR meeting, anyone who's interested, please come because I'm going to invite all of those heads there, and we want to put it on the record, and any questions you want us to ask them about over time, we will, you can email it to Victoria, me, who else is on HR? Lou, and yeah, okay, and Terry, and we can ask. Yeah, but it's not as clear cut as we're just paying tons of overtime. That's what I've discovered. It's a lot more tricky. But anyway, that meeting.

So to, and I thought Tom made an excellent point. What questions are we not asking? So one of the things the council can do that we control through committees, through the budget, through our oversight of everything the city does, really, we can encourage innovation. We can encourage systems to be established that will promote a broad... development of wealth rather than top-down wealth. And we do that through innovative policies, innovative ordinances. And I'm not talking reinventing the wheel. We can see where other people have done this, such as Bentonville, Arkansas. So I think that's one of the things we as a council can do. And I do think it's those strategic questions. When we moved here, one of the things the youth I was familiar with at the time enjoyed doing was going to the nightclub. And it got shut down because of a noise ordinance. Did they have a noise problem? Yes. Yes, they did. When you could stand across the street and feel the ground shake. But were there alternatives to shutting them down? And as soon as they shut down, the message went out that Wausau isn't for that kind of business. so we have nothing like that anymore and we haven't for years so what are we as a city currently doing that's prohibiting that innovation and what can we look at an address that can promote what we would like to see in our community so i i do think we need those series of questions and when things come to us like developments we need to ask hey how is how are you pro this this is a great plan but how are you promoting the youth So if the old box company, if we put in an apartment building there, could we put a nightclub in the basement? I mean, what can you do?

Again, we don't have bad ideas.

Because what are we trying to do? If we're trying to promote youth and offer something that we currently don't have, how are we going to do that? And they may say, no, we're not putting a nightclub in there, but You know, maybe somebody else will go, hey, I'd open a nightclub. So we can't just hope it's going to happen. I agree with Tom on that as well. We have to start making our actions meet our words.

Thank you. So I agree, and I'll plug in again for teens as well. So my daughter's fiance, his dad works for the United Nations, so he's lived all over, traveled a ton all over the place. and they were here I don't know last summer maybe and we went to the farmers market and he was like they both were like they've lived a number of places and but they were like wow for your the size of your city you have a phenomenal farmers market and I know that at one point community development or ed or whatever had like a plan possible plan for like a year round you know building whatever and i know that's money but my point is um that would house the farmers market and other things um but they said to me like why don't you have that on the 400 block why don't you have that more centrally located because it would bring you know more people here so like that's just i'm not i'm not advocating for that specifically but again to think about these different things that we have like that does draw a lot of people because i go all the time and how can we hook in with these different you support them have have a public private i guess partnership in a way like the UW building I don't I still I don't know exactly what's all going to end up happening with that I've heard a lot of different things but they're in the city you know so like I think we I guess as Alders even to could maybe play somewhat of a role even in maybe say attending some of those meetings if they're talking about those issues or whatever um and then the last thing is um to the mayor's point I believe it was yeah about the past strategic plans because I would pull mine out you know every so often and look at it you know i'm wondering if it's possible once we kind of get an idea of things to get even a little infographic for each of our just to keep at each of our seats or something because maybe it would jog our minds like to think about that more you know as we're having our different discussions and committees and you know on council and things like that

okay does anyone else have any more discussion related to item a on the agenda item 5b council members additional priorities that are absent from the city of Wausau five-year strategic plan 2022 through 27 along with goals and visions for those additional priorities this is anything that might be not on our strategic plan not related for example if you have a district issue or a resident concern that you uh want to prioritize um anything else that you wish to discuss in that regard which is sort of this i think most of them went on to the parking lot there

one thing that I think that we need to address is not so much a strategy plan it's just an information plan which is I think that when property taxes are listed we need to break them down further because a lot of constituents complain about that well they don't know where their taxes are going and I think if we could actually break the listing down further into many more you know there's no items on there that indicate how much is going towards events in the city specifically I think they would appreciate knowing exactly which categories of use are being their taxes are being applied to and I think I don't know how we even do that but I would highly recommend it because I'm doing a lot of legwork TRYING TO PULL THIS INFORMATION TO RESPOND TO CONSTITUENTS, AND IT'S JUST LISTED IN THEIR TAXES AS A BREAKDOWN, I THINK THAT WOULD HELP.

MAYOR DINNEY, IS THAT SOMETHING THAT COULD BE ADDRESSED WITH OUR CITY ASSESSOR? So that there's some breakdown of where everything's going. I don't know. Is that where we could get that information? That would come from our finance. Okay.

That would come from the finance director. But we do have some pie charts in our budget that discuss where some of the categories go. And if there's other metrics you want to take a look at, we could talk about that. You also get the dollar bill. Little one out that you see on the tax bill. It does give you some more information. It gives you the percentage. Look at that. Back in 1994, the city collected 24% of the total tax bill that residents paid on the levy, 24%. The school district, 52%. That equation is flip-flopped. But that's one metric. But there's different ways to pie chart some of that data.

Any other? Oh, Alder Tierney.

of course one of the things that i think that we need to do a better job of is follow up by that i mean for example the city knows that we filed lawsuits for pfos they don't know where we're at on that they don't know what money we have that came in and what we're doing with that money they know is okay we have PFAS problem it costs the city 50 million plus for our new water plant water treatment plant we had court action against sit various places where we add on that how much money right right because Yeah, and I mean, you put a snippet in on one of the reviews that come, or one of the newsletters that comes out occasionally and give updates on some of these types of situations where, okay, we knew about this, but whatever happened to it type of thing.

Yeah, and that's going to be a combination of responses. I mean, and that was the next thing I was going to provide to you was the litigation update, which I used to do every six months, and now it's gotten away from me. But that is moving, and I can give you the procedural updates. We have received the payments from 3M, Tyco, BASF, and DuPont. So all the payments we were supposed to receive we have gotten. Remember, we didn't. sell out a settlement amount so that we're going to get payments over the next nine years. And we're writing that summary now to get ready to prepare that update to the auditors. So I will put out a confidential litigation summary updating you on all the litigation and where we're at procedurally with all of it. But that is a really big issue that could be addressed in the newsletter too now. We don't have to spend it toward remediation. It can go in the general fund. How much of any of that's been spent would be a finance question and where it went. That I don't know, but I can give you the procedural update and the amount of money we've received and all of that.

Okay.

I would think that we would have some sort of a say in finance as to where that money's going because last time I had heard is the money was sitting there sorry yeah it would be a nice thing to know if that money has been spent because the last time that I had heard anything on this was we were holding that basically to determine what we were going to do with this were we going to put it towards the expenditures that we faced because of the PFAS situation um to my knowledge at this point at least we hadn't spent any and if we had i would really be interested in knowing what we spent it on we haven't gotten our special needs claim administered yet but that's going to happen this summer we're providing them additional documentation and then we expect to get more money yeah so i guess yeah so if money has been spent i'd like to you know our finance director to tell us how much and where it went

No money has been allocated to anything. And that's the process that will come through.

Finance, I take it?

Probably start in a water utility.

That's exactly what I was going to say. One thing that I la when the taxes took the hike when the revaluation was i spent hours literally hours conversations with rick rubell all of this to try to get it all straight through my head and then explain it to people what in that process i saw youtube videos from other municipalities some not all but they will put out videos saying okay welcome to the city of wasa you know the tax you know the budget and they they explain it or like they explain the tax bill and i think something like that would be super helpful a youtube video on that from the department but they have to explain it like a kindergarten level i mean and i don't that's not i don't mean that as a diss to anyone but meaning you know like if you're not before that I had no idea like I had no idea and so when you work with it every day you know you just you know it but so you really have to try to really simplify it so people can understand and I think you know then we could all say you know because the risk of otherwise is our own like i was like okay do i have this all right rick you know because i wanted to make sure i was giving right information to people but that way is coming from a finance director or finance department and on that have an update and then we can just direct people to the youtube so i would really like something like that if it's at all possible to do Yeah, and communication.

Communication. Communication.

We need a comms manager.

And a video. We need a comms manager. I'll close one there.

Get this meeting under control. I'm just kidding. All right. Can I just offer an opportunity for our visitor this evening, a young man who's been here. I wonder maybe what you came here to expect and maybe anything you wanted to add to it.

Maybe later?

All right. Well, I'm glad you came. You know, we'd be interested in anything you had to, you know, contact any of us individually or whatever you want to do. And we can talk.

Since you're still doing innovative ideas, right? That's where we still are?

I would like to really evaluate or pursue the greening of the city. So... So, because even as you and I have talked about, there are many innovative ways of healing our city, if you will, through green innovation rather than, I mean, there are plants that'll pull lead out of the ground, that'll pull PFAS out of the ground. You can't, you have to harvest them and dispose of them properly, but we are just treating brown spaces like dead spaces. So I really think, yes, yes.