All right, you're alive.

Great.

Thank you.

Welcome everyone.

This is the regular federal city council workshop.

Today's Monday, September 22nd.

Around the table, we have Council Beck, Councilor Crumble, Count Mauer, myself, Council Pournier, Councillor Dean, and Counselor.

Is uh city solicitor update, and we have uh our city solicitor legal subject here.

You're right.

Uh on the tech city solicitor.

I wanted to just give you a solicitor's update.

Um the first item I wanted to just let you see is that since August 12th, we have had uh on the city's website a frequently asked questions uh uh section in the legal department.

Um, and I just wanted to show you that.

Um we have it's easily accessible.

There it is.

There it is.

That's been up since uh August 12th, and you go ahead and click on it if you would.

It as you can see, it has a section on the uh Freedom of Access Act, uh, the section on accessibility and accommodations, a little section on quick claim fees, and it's uh a section on a fields and variances, vacant building registration, um a section of legal assistance, and also on rights and responsibilities of residential sentence and life.

I just wanted to show the council that let you know that the public has that uh ability to go and look at those frequently asked questions now.

Um I also wanted to um unless you have any questions on that.

I'll go to the next bullet item, which is just an update on the uh vacant building registration ordinance enforcement.

Um the spreadsheet was included in your materials.

It is um has been updated since the last time.

Uh the last time I did this listed update was in July.

Um since that time, there have been um five more properties that are no longer vacant that had been vacant at that time.

Uh there have been uh two new properties identified uh newly identified by the code enforcement department, and so there are now uh 65 properties or three less on the vacant property list than there were last time I have to update it you um there has been uh a up in the right-hand corner of the spreadsheet, there's a green detail section that gives just a number of details about where the properties are that are not registered.

You know, there was a 20 uh 20 uh increase in the number of properties that are I'm sorry, decrease the number of properties that are registered and current.

Last time I updated you, there were 53 properties registered current as drop.

There are now 30.

Um, and what happened there was uh there was a large number of them who had been registered there six months just recently uh ran out and uh there have been code renewal registers since regarding those properties, but it have not reached the point where the NLPs have been issued yet.

Um so the properties that are not registered had been 15 last time.

I uh updated you and it's 35 now for that reason.

And um anyway, that's that's just an update in that regard.

If you have any questions on that, I'd be kind of answered them.

Um there will be other rule 80k actions on the way that that's the type of action that's land use enforcement in the court, and they will be uh actions regarding um properties that are have trash or junkyard problems, and uh that will be on the way.

Um are on the way are already in the litigation, but uh there are others that are on the way.

If you have any questions about any of those.

Um I just want to give you a very brief update on the Bangor Mall uh rule 80k cases, which the hearing was continued to today.

I spent all day in that hearing until just a few minutes before your finance committee uh meetings guarded.

And unfortunately, it did not end.

Uh the um Bambor Mall, it was their turn to present evidence of what they have done to abate the violations, and in fact, there was a lot of evidence that they put on in that regard.

The good news is that uh there's there's been significant progress in abating the violations, uh, particularly the happily the uh the uh stormwater uh structures, but the the uh violations have not been abated and the proceeding is not over, and we I don't know exactly when it'll be continued to um at this point, but I don't really want to talk about the details of litigation uh in open session, but I just didn't want to give you that update that that occurred all day today, and it's uh it's not finished.

Well, the judge set a date for continuing the hearing or the judge is inquired as to whether we could finish the remainder of the witnesses by deposition.

Okay, so that's why it takes some up in the air.

Okay, and then the last thing on my uh list was just that to let you know that we are continuing in the legal department and in the city to get more freedom of access act requests and more complex freedom of access act requests, and um we're doing our best to keep up with them, and I believe that that we are, and but I wanted to just let you know that it's an ongoing thing, at least it's just more and more of them, and more complex one.

So I don't didn't have any um requests in that regard, just wanted to let you know.

Thank you.

If you have any other questions about anything about the legal department, anything's going on in the legal department lately, you'd like to answer okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All right, next up, city manager updates.

First on the list, exciting that uh the airport's runway refurbishment is completed, and Jose is planning over and cutting in October.

Um I'll be invited to.

If you have no conflicts or would prefer a particular date and time, please let me know.

Otherwise, um Jose will just plan it at a time convenient and send around the invite.

Very excited to officially cut the ribbon on that project.

Um another sort of fun update.

If you look at the white wall on the back of council chambers, Courtney's turned her attention to working with the historical society to putting in a historical timeline installation on that back wall.

Um we saw a mock-up earlier in the week, and it was very cool.

It had artifacts and information about the history of Bangor.