Okay.

Good evening.

I now call to order the Wednesday, January 15th, 2025 meeting of the Apple and Common Council.

Please rise for the invocation, which will be delivered by Alder Schultz.

Call this a matter of perspective.

As I deliver this invocation, our current president is beginning his last public address to the nation as he prepares to hand the reins over to the next duly elected president.

Many of us are feeling more than a little anxious about what is to come and the potential negative impacts that might stem from the stated goals of the new administration.

Also at this very moment, a resurgence of hurricane forest winds widen the footprint of destruction through an already devastated LA and surrounding areas, expanding the worst catastrophic fire event this nation has experienced this century.

More than 13,000 homes, business schools, and other structures have already been destroyed by the raging wildfires.

Unless you live through it, you can't possibly understand the magnitude of these or despair these tragic losses of life, home, and entire communities represent.

But it is also true that in the face of such catastrophic disasters, our best traits as a species rise to the surface.

We let go of the petty differences that divide us and instead focus on helping each other cope physically, financially, and emotionally as we rebuild from nothing but ash.

And on occasion, the missed possibilities of prevention compel community leaders to take long hard looks at the root causes that often change the status quo approach to rebuilding our communities by reshaping the rules for new development with resiliency and adaptation in mind.

Some examples.

By making this effort, Greensburg has not only become a model for wide-scale use of renewable energy, they've also poetically taken the wind that once destroyed their city and harnessed it for something good.

There are many other examples throughout history, including, of course, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which began in a barn and eventually grew to consume one third of the city.

17,450 buildings destroyed, 100,000 people left homeless, 200 million damage.

Yet every building became and may still be one of the most fireproof cities in the US.

All this is to say that sometimes the world appears to be in really rough place.

And sometimes we have incredibly difficult hands dealt to us.

With a little foresight and a whole lot of retrospection, we can recover in better ways and create more resilient places to live, work, and play when we come together as communities, putting aside our differences and building a brighter future, looking at the challenges ahead with collective eyes wide open.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Meltzer, Croate, and Doran, who are excused, and Alder Person Alfheim is joining us virtually.

Roll call of officers and department heads.

All are represented.

Right.

Need a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Hearing none, please cast your votes.

On a business presented by the mayor, uh item 25-010, confirmation of appointment amendment for CDBG advisory committee.

We have a motion and a second to approve any discussion.

Hearing none, please cast your votes.

And we appreciate you uh taking this over.

Alder Jones.

All right, with that, we come to a time of public participation.

And uh, we do have two members of the public who signed up to speak.

But if you miss the sign-up sheet, that's okay.

We're gonna make sure that anybody who who'd like to speak on an item that appears on the agenda has the opportunity.

Uh, we'd like to remind you to limit your comments to five minutes or less.

And if we if we take longer than 30 minutes, uh the council may extend uh public participation, but we'll deal with that if and when we get there.

Uh so with that, we'll get started.

Uh, first is Jamie Papenfuss.

Jamie, welcome.

Hello everyone today.

Sorry, I'm gonna weirdly put this down.

Um, I would like to introduce myself.

My name is Jamie Pop and Fuse.

I own Violet Social Club Salon at A23 West College Avenue.

Um, I've been there for about a year and a half, and I'm coming today to talk about my upcoming neighbor, Delaire's gaming lounge, and their liquor license.

I am hoping to ask the council to reconsider their liquor license or to consider stipulations that I would like done for my health and safety of the salon on behalf of several of my neighbors and my stylists.

Um, I did tune in for last week's meeting, and I was disappointed and truthfully a little heartbroken to see that it was going to pass five to zero.

Uh, since the beginning of them from the construction up until today, I have been in the know with what's going on, and uh infamously back in October, someone working for Mr.

Bullinger accidentally came into my salon, and when I said to him, this is gonna be a spiked coffee lounge, correct?

He said, Well, yes, but not serving drinks for gambling machines, which I took at its face value.

I immediately reached out to my representatives, I asked what could be done about this.

I reached out to Katie Van Zieland, who has been so helpful and pointing me in the right direction, who to talk to, who to rally for my cause.

And one of my greatest shocks is that I truly feel what Mr.

Bullinger is doing is a bait and switch.

I feel like he's trying to hide crime in plain sight, not only because someone who worked for himself told me, and where would an electrician working for Mr.

Bollinger get the idea of illegal gambling machines, if not for Mr.

Bollinger himself.