Sorry, I just think about Billy.

That's what I'm I guess was the stairwell.

Um, we're gonna kick off uh our committee meeting uh our roles, chambers intergovernmental relations and strategy.

Um I have my committee members here, uh Ms.

Gerlock and Vice President Mota, and we'll start with Bill 26.

Uh Bill 26 amends Article 8 Allentown Parking Authority by removing the requirement that a member of the parking authority must also be a representative of the Allentown Economic Development Corporation, allowing the mayor to designate and counsel to approve any resident of the city of Allentown.

Okay, thank you.

Um this is something I push forward.

Um currently the the setup of the Allentown Park and Authority Board mandates that um an Allentown parking authority board member comes from the AEDC board.

And uh I felt that um while back when the authority was formed, you know, 40 years ago, maybe it made sense.

Uh today it it doesn't.

Um it actually I think makes the board a little too municipal.

Um, and I believe that it should open up an opportunity for someone from the community versus um someone from the AEDC board, which by the way is 97% non-residents of Allentown.

So um I think we can do better picking from a bigger um subset of of folks.

So um this is all this does is it removes the AEDC requirement, and then that slot becomes available to any resident of the city of Allentown.

Um any questions or comments from my committee?

I guess think that this will be very that this is very important because I believe that um the committee should reflect the residents.

Yeah.

Ms.

Gurlock.

Would we be able to uh write in excluding council members because we're technically residents of the city?

So we don't get another situation where we have three members of council serving on there.

So that and that's one of the reasons um this happened to be honest.

So I I was appointed to the ADC board, which would have put me back on the parking authority where we already have a member, so I didn't want that situation to occur, which is why we're doing this uh amendment.

Um I think there one councilperson's enough.

And um I don't know, um Mr.

Hanlon, is there an opportunity to put I mean do we put something along the lines of maximum of one councilperson?

You've done stuff like that before, you would have to run it by your solicitor.

Okay.

Want us to do that for the and maybe even going beyond that, like elected in general, like not just council person, but uh not necessarily a county commissioner that happens to live in Allentown or just be just a resident.

And um the thing is I think without explicitly stating it, um that one can be an elected and be a resident, and if that elected, you know, is maybe not with this administration, but maybe a future administration, you can kind of stack a board that way.

But isn't it like if we set a council person, a council person, the requirements will be a council person, they have to live in the city of Allentown.

So I I believe uh Ms.

Gerlock would um so currently the board is set up that it has to have one council person, um and it has to have one finance director or designee um as so we to Miss Gerlock's point there couldn't you can't be a second council person on the the board, there's already one.

So I mean we could talk about language and we can make the amendment the night, you know, when when Ms.

Montero's here.

Um I think we should yeah um hold one second.

Any thoughts on the my only my only thought is that a lot of the appointments have a council person on the board just as a liaison to that board, like ADC, right?

The pension board.

And I I'm assuming that's the same way with the parking authority.

If you remove elected officials, uh Mr.

Glazier, for example, is an elected official on the parking authority.

But he's there as a designee of the finance director.

So it does get tricky.

Yeah, yeah.

Um if the language only includes just a council person, just leave it like that then.

If we could just put maximum, I don't I don't know.

We can think about it.

Um, Ms.

Half a I was on there 13 years ago, but I was on there as a uh landlord, I believe.

I was phone by Pulowski.

And every board, whether it's DCR, any of them, we all have a council person on there, and that's what happened with the parking authority.

It was only at that point, I think it was Ray O'Connell was the council person.

Then what happened was I got elected and I was on the board, and then Darrell was on the board only because he was I forgot what he was, and then he got elected.

So it turned out, and then you you got on, so we had three of them at that time.

That was a point.

What happened what we need to do is once we're elected official, and there's too many on there, we should always keep it at just one.

That's why I dropped out.

And I think it it just happens that we're on as as a resident, and then we get elected, and then they we just at one point we had three of them.

So I I think that's a problem, and I think we should always we always have to have at least one council person, but then we'll have to make a decision.

Someone's gonna have to leave if if another one gets elected on the board.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it should be stated.

I think it should be stated.

Yeah, because I mean that's what happened with me.

I mean, I was a merchant and I just happened to become a council person, you know, two years later.

So um I I think we can work with our solicitor and maybe come up with some language that makes sense.

Is that fair?

Yeah, that's fair.

So um okay.

Any other comments regarding bill bill twenty-six?

Um questions or comments from the public on bill twenty-six.

Okay, just need a motion.

I would like to make a motion to move this favorably.

I'll second.

Okay, all in favor, say aye.

Is it is it with the caveat of the case?

With a yeah, with a caveat, yes, adding that language.

And we're gonna clear with Ms.

Montero.

Um just the night of the meeting.

Just but um cool.

Okay, so that's it for bill twenty six, and that ends uh this committee meeting.

Our next meeting is scheduled for six o'clock.

Thank you.

Are there any requirements on that?

No.

No.

So it could be anyone.