Please remain standing while council member Shaw gives the invocation.

I was gonna say actually you can maybe seated.

Oh well thank you.

Yeah.

Tonight, let us pause and reflect.

As we begin our work, may we be guided by fairness, integrity, and respect for our shared responsibilities.

May our decisions be thoughtful, consistent, and grounded in a genuine concern for the people we serve.

Grant us the wisdom to listen, the humility to learn, and the courage to do what is right, even when it is difficult.

May our actions earn public trust and strengthen this community with that purpose.

We begin thank you very much.

Well, would you please call the role?

Yes, Mayor, I will.

Councilmember Shah.

Nicholson.

Here, niece.

President.

Pitman.

Here.

Agua here.

Kennedy.

Here.

Aspen Liter.

He indicated to me that he'd be here via Zoom.

Okay.

We just need him to respond and to be on camera, please.

Here.

Lindley.

Here.

Boyette.

O'Donnell.

Here.

Mayor Nelson.

I'm here.

Thank you.

All right, folks.

Um we'll move on to uh our minutes for November 24th, 2025 and January 12th, 2026.

Any changes, comments, or motions to approve our minutes.

CM Boyette.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move that we approve the minutes from November 24th, 2025, and January 12th of 2026 as read.

Thank you.

Councilmember Nees seconds the motion.

Any discussion or changes regarding those.

Seeing none, I'll call for a vote.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, say nay.

The motion passes unanimously.

Any council courtesies this time.

All right, thank you.

There are no mayors.

Uh proclamations.

So uh council reports.

Mr.

K.

Mr.

Kokowski, sorry.

On the admin report side, mayor and council.

So handful of things.

So uh this morning, uh code enforcement and airport is what we did at orientation.

There was some extra packet material from uh code enforcement.

So that's what some of you have in front of you.

So uh just see those.

Um reminder that a week from tonight, so February 2nd, our work session will be with Dan Clark, the local government center.

We've got a number of things that Dan's doing while he's in town.

He's gonna be doing ethics training for our staff.

He'll be doing some board training for all of our volunteer boards, including I believe you guys have been invited to that as well.

And then we've got him for the council uh work session, which will be training.

So uh kind of all things Dan Clark next week, Monday for us.

There's uh let you know at the chamber board meeting this afternoon.

The board did vote unanimously to create a PAC political action committee in support of the county's uh jail and um operations uh levies that uh they I believe maybe the county's taken formal action.

They'll be on the ballot this fall.

That's been a very significant issue for us, the city and our police department through our public safety levy conversation.

So that just happened a couple of hours ago.

No ex parte communication came in after three today, and last right after this report.

I'm anticipating a motion to move action item number number three, that's the agreement between the city and the YW to a future work session.

So that ultimately though is up to you guys, and it will require a three-quarters vote if it is to be moved.

That's all that I have, Mayor.

Thanks, Mr.

Kokulski.

Um, and uh for the fourth time in a row, I've confused your report with council reports.

So uh I'll call for council reports this time.

Are there any council reports?

All right, thank you.

Um Mr.

Aspenlighter.

Yeah, uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I would formally move to remove regular business or regular business agenda item number three and send it to a work session to be determined by staff.

I'll second that.

All right, we had three seconds, so let me call for a second and then I'll pick on someone.

So is there a second to this motion?

Councilmember Kennedy seconds.

Um Mr.

Aspenlighter, would you like to talk to your motion a bit?

Uh no, I don't think there's any reason to belabor it.

Uh just some work needs to be done clarifying some of the contract language.

So I'm confident we can work through that, but I just don't want to stay in the habit of trying to do that on the fly on a Monday night.

So just request that we move it to a work session so we can work through some of those items.

All right, thank you.

Um City Code 2-213B allows us to do this, but it requires a 75 or a two-third seventy-five percent majority in this case, and that would be eight votes.

Um, prior to asking for a vote, uh, any discussion on the motion.

CM Pittman.

Uh Councilmember, do you have a date specific that you want this?

Um Mr.

Mayor, uh, councilman Pittman.

In light of what we got ourselves into the last time, uh, I was gonna leave it open to the city administrator to figure that out so we don't get in uh put ourselves in a box.

Preferably, I would hope that this gets done by March, would be my goal.

I I don't think it should take that long, but hopefully we get it done in Q1.

It just has to be done before budget season.

Um, as we're building out the budget.

Okay.

All righty.

Any other discussion regarding this motion?

So I'll move to a vote.

Remember, we require eight votes to pass this.

So all in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposition, say no.

All right, so the motion to remove this carries unanimously.

All right.

Thank you.

So that brings us to the public comment on non-public hearing agenda items.

Um, the agenda says one and three.

Um because we don't have an agenda item number three tonight.

But if you're here to speak on that, we'd be happy to hear you.

You can speak uh only one time on one subject per meeting.

Um please sign in.

Give us your name and where you live.

Good evening, mayor and city council.

My name is Michael Mayod.

I'm the executive director of Amen Park Development Council here for our annual meeting.

Uh, with me is Terry Stapleton.

I'd like to introduce Terry to the to the county uh excuse me, to the city council and mayor.

She has uh been hired as our general manager of the park with the anticipation she will replace me as I am getting old and gray and somebody's got to take over.

So this is uh a bit of a on-the-job training to bring her along.

So in your package, you were provided with uh the the required documentation pursuant to our memorandum of understanding that includes our budget for 2026, our financials from 2025, and uh the fee structure.

Additionally, we gave you a lot of information about who we serve and how many people we're serving in the community each year.

So with that said, uh, if anybody has any questions, we'd be glad to entertain them.

Thank you very much.

And we obviously are in favor of this being passed.

Thank you.

That's good to know.

Thanks.

And thanks for being here.

Any other public comment tonight.

Come on forward, tell us your name and where you live.

And uh yeah, three full minutes.

My name is Adam Combs.

I live in board three.

Can I have one extra minute?

I'm a slow reader and I timed it to four minutes.

We need three minutes.

Three minutes.

I'll give it a give me your best.

All right.

So two weeks ago, you guys voted in favor of ratifying the billings police department union contract, which ended a six-month mortgage of no contract.

Contract was ratified, was voted by members of the union, approved by you.

This contract gave union members a three percent raise each year for the next three years.

This put the BPD starting wage at 3233 an hour.

So Billings has the highest population of all towns in Montana at approximately 120,000 people.

The seven highest populated towns of Montana in order of Billings, Missoula Great Falls, Bozeman, Butte, Helen, and Calispell.

Violent crime rates provided by FBI in order to from high to low or Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, Helena, and Butte Tide, and Calispel.

Of these violent crimes, Billings had 920, and Mizzo, the second highest had 455, which means Billings had 102% more violent crimes than the second highest in the state.

All the violent crimes in the state of Montana, buildings accounted for 21%, while our population is approximately 10.4%.

If you look at the calls for service for these seven apartments, Billings again leads the way with 86,913.

The next highest, Missoula had 55,033.

Means the billings responded to 58% more calls than the second busiest department in the state.

Throughout the years, the city of Billings and BPD has agreed with 333 contract, and this year was the first year.

We didn't lose any benefits.

So thank you guys for not taking anything away from them.

The issue that a lot of the union members have with the current situation is we're the biggest town in the state with the highest highest violent crime rate, and we get the second lowest pay of these cities.

In order from highest to lowest for new officers, is Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls, Calisbell, Helena Billings, and then Butte.

This is for one year, five year, ten year, fifteen, and twenty-year officers.

We are all the second lowest paid in all of those.

So we don't get any on-call pay.

If you look at these other seven apartments on call.

So people volunteer to show up.

Oh dear Lawrence, sorry.

Uh people volunteer to show up for these on calls, waiting for their phone to ring.

And when their phones do ring, they show up.

Union members are willing to help the citizens of buildings at any time at the expense of their own family.

Other agencies in the state either get an hourly rate or a comp time for being on call.

Specialty pay, other agencies in the state get extra pay for doing extra work, whether it is detective, SWAT, FTO, bomb, canine, and what they get is obviously based on their agency.

On the low end, they get a 1% raise above their base pay, which is the low, which in the lowest department of Butte, they get $625 per year per specialty.

Billings gets $250 a year, no matter how many specialty positions they get.

Um every other department gets 11 or 12 holidays.

BPD union members get 10.

Um so we all know that the new legislation has caused buildings to be in a struggle to get big raises for the officers of billings.

I would put them where they need to be.

That is why the union voted for a 333 pay raise instead of going to arbitration because they knew if it went to arbitration, the city would not have an issue showing they don't have the money to pay the union members what they rightfully deserve.

So taking a 333 is better than getting a 000.

Members of the board, it is easy to see what is happening in the situation.

You're betting the fine union members of the BPD will continue to show up when the call arises without them getting anything.

Perfect.

Thank you.

What's that?

How much more you got?

Uh a paragraph and a half.

Oh.

Awesome.

Uh for years, the members of the BPD union have shown up to do their job because they value the city, the residents of this city, and want a safe place for their families to live.

At some point, these people are going to have enough of getting kicked.

They will leave this town and move to another agency.

You have two years until the next union contract is up, and I really hope you're willing to put in the effort now to get the people who you protect who protect you and your families what they deserve, so they don't move away.

I'm happy to email you a spreadsheet with all the breakdown of the crime rates, pay and special B pay if you would like.

And all the info that I gathered is from the FBI databases and those cities union contracts.

Thank you.

So thank you for your time.

Any other public comment?

Point of order, Mayor.

Yeah.

Yes.

We need to remind folks that this was uh item number one.

This was not an item number one that he was discussing.

He should have waited till the end of the end of our meeting.

Thank you.

Just for reference, this is item number one only.

Okay.

One and three.

Items one and three.

This is isn't open for any kind of open.

Oh, we have to stay on the business.

This is for agenda items one and park.

Yes.

And basically, they came up, and you guys had not opposed to it at all.

My name is Paul Clark, Mr.

Mayor, Council members, ward one.

It's gonna be a beautiful park.

I am all for it.

We just need to make sure it's being maintained.

And I would like to know is the county and the state going to help us by keeping the update of this.

And that wasn't very clear with the with the uh general manager Stapleton and the other member.

Those are questions we'd like to ask.

I've also heard people concerned about the aesthetics of it and how there's not really much flavor.

Well, give it time.

I mean, we're gonna have trees.

We're gonna have probably a playground.

There'll be some other functions there.

Right now, it just looks like a prison, and that's very disconcerning to people that are live around that neighborhood.

They look out the window and they see a great building.

They what do they think of?

Laurel forensic.

I don't know.

Anyway, I'm uh over what I wanted to really talk about.

So I'll be back.

God bless.

Hello.

Hi, how are you doing?

My name is Leona Price, and I just wanted to thank you, Mayor, for the police department in my community.

Uh they do a great job.

They on time, and we really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Any other public comment?

All right, we'll close that part of our hearing and move on to our consent agenda.

Um, I guess first question is any separations for the consent agenda.

Mr.

Mayor?

Yes, sir.

I would like to separate item J.

One J.

Correct.

Any other separations?

Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Um Councilman O'Donnell just separated that item.

I'll be recusing myself from one J.

Uh my firm is representing the developer.

Okay.

Councilmember Aspenlighter is going to recuse himself from one J.

Anything else.

Yes, uh Councilmember Shaw.

Are you ready for a motion, Mr.

Mayor?

I am ready for a motion.

All right.

I move to approve the items of the consent agenda as submitted, with the exception of item J, which has been removed for separation by Councilmember O'Donnell and Councilmember Aspenlighter will be recusing himself.

Second.

Thank you.

All right, it's been moved and seconded that we approve the uh consent agenda with the exception of item one J, which has been separated.

Um any discussion regarding that.

Councilmember Neese.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just wanted to ask uh Chief or his representative um uh a question regarding the item um one F is the uh RQI program.

Um as they come, I just wanted to mention I this is a great program, I think, for the city as the memo states.

Uh it's really gonna help our firefighters be trained um very effectively.

Can you not hear me?

Is this better?

Okay, I will eat the mic.

Okay.

Um it's gonna really uh impact our our the responses from our firefires, and I appreciate that.

But one of the things that we uh always are uh looking at the fire department is the overtime that on this and this other older training caused a lot of over over time, they did a modification to it.

But I'd just like to speak, uh asked them if they could speak as far as how much overtime savings you may see from this program as well.

So just to let the the public know that we're actually working to reduce additional costs.

So would you mind uh adding that to because that wasn't in the memo.

Thank you, Mayor Council, Councilperson Neese.

Appreciate that question.

I would ask permission to bring Captain Cameron McCamley to the stand to clarify that a little bit further.

Great, thank you.

So Cameron McCamley with the Billings Fire Department.

My apologies on that.

We talked about these numbers and they just never made it on your agenda.

So my my apologies.

But uh the traditional CPR class that we've done over the years uh is about three weeks long, roughly 150 hours of overtime at $50 an hour, comes out to about seven seventy five hundred dollars annually.

So not only is this system more efficient, is we we feel like we're gonna re recover a lot of those costs we're incurring with a more efficient and and more robust system.

And then if you you look at some of those other uh acronyms on there, so advanced cardiac life support and pediatric advanced life support are two things that we are required to do that also cost overtime, and with this program we're able to roll those in.

So we're gonna we anticipate uh seeing more than that 7500, but that's just on basic CPR across the board.

Um, and then additionally, our folks are going to be practicing these skills every 90 days instead of annually.

So our proficiency as far as um to the service to our customers, I think is gonna go up uh remarkably.

Both hospitals just in hospital have seen about an 8% increase in in hospital cardiac arrest and return of spontaneous circulation.

Uh so we're very optimistic that uh we're gonna see some very good return on investment.

Yeah, thank you very much.

And and I have family members to uh two nurses in our family, and they go through this program and they say it's really helpful, and so I'm glad to see our fire department moving to that to have our our our men and women out there actually really well trained uh in that.

So thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Well, and I tell you what, it testimony goes to Chief Hoppel.

He's uh he was he's forward thinking, and I brought this up and he let he let me run with it.

So uh hence why the numbers aren't there.

Thank you.

But uh no, thank you, guys.

Appreciate it.

Mr.

Mayor.

Which one?

Mr.

Boy Ed.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, also as long as they're here, I just wanted to say congratulations to Phillips 66, Walmart West End, and Walmart and Heights for uh their grant funding to the fire department.

We have to give them an applaud every time that we get a nice wonderful donation in this case.

Wonderful donation.

Councilmember O'Donnell.

Thank you.

Yeah, uh on the on this uh program also.

Uh I I think I was impressed with the fact that by transitioning to this program, it doesn't uh shut down a station for for training.

Uh so that station is always available for for calls.

I think that was really remarkable, and I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Well, again, thank you again.

And that I think that was the biggest thing is trying to keep our units at least somewhat in their first uh arriving area to where they're providing that good service.

And the other thing is it's available 24 hours a day.

So whether it's two in the morning or two in the afternoon, they can get these skills done.

So thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Councilmember Nees.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, and I this is regarding item G, H and I.

I'm not going to belabor this too much, but you guys saw an email that um thank you.

I'm actually done.

Yeah, definitely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um I won't belabor this more.

You guys saw an email uh that I I mean, emailed it Gavin.

He emailed it to me.

Here saw the response from one of the um the budget items here.

But I've talked to Gavin about this.

Uh there's a lot of different iss issues with these contracts, and Gavin is going to be working on those over the years.

Um, you know, he's fairly new still in the department.

A lot of things going.

So I appreciate Gavin uh acknowledging some of these things.

Um and Gavin, you're welcome to say anything or not, or just take what my what I've said is, but I I think um we're gonna I think if we can approve these budgets now, they're on the consent agenda, but I think we look forward to next year or to see some more standardization, maybe standardization and finance reports, stuff like that that actually helps us as council members make good informed decisions of what's what we're actually approving in that.

So thank you.

All right.

Any other discussion?

Well, I have something.

I too want to throw my hat in the ring and say thank you to uh Phillips 66 and the two Walmarts.

Um I was gonna say it takes a village, but it really does, and I appreciate and I know that we all do.

We have gratitude for the willingness of our businesses and billings to step up and help us fund the things that we need to fund.

So with that, we'll uh move to a vote on the consent agenda, except item one J.

Um, all those in favor of passing, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Uh any opposed opposition say no.

So it passes unanimously.

Let's move up to item one J, preliminary major plat for copper farm subdivision.

Do we have a motion for that?

Councilmember Nees.

Mayor I make a motion to approve item one J as presented and recommended by staff.

Who's second?

Councilmember Pittman.

I remembered your name that time, Dennis.

Is there any discussion to the motion?

Um Mayor, just quick point of order.

Um, because Councilmember O'Donnell had separated it, usually the mayor, I mean, uh just in the past, the mayor has usually looked to that council member to explain, I guess, why they've separated it so that we have an understanding if it's not just a straight recusal.

So that would be my question to Councilmember O'Donnell.

So if it's not too late, uh I apologize, Councilmember O'Donnell.

No, I'm I'm perfectly comfortable with the way that you did this to do it after uh it's actually uh legally brought to the floor.

So I have no problem with that.

My my purpose on uh having this to be separated uh was that I uh to indicate that I'm gonna vote uh a no on this.

Uh only I I'm not against that particular uh uh uh plan, uh, but to indicate that I have great reservations about the uh historical process of uh uh uh developments in the West End and then annexing to the city.

Uh I prefer to uh uh to uh the infill of the uh of the city instead of just going out further and further and further in a piecemeal uh wrap uh haphazard fashion.

So uh I just wanted to indicate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other discussion regarding this?

All right, so council member Aspenlighter is recused himself for this, so there'll be 10 of us voting.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And opposed?

No.

So it passes nine to one.

Item number two on the regular agenda.

And uh would the city clerk please read item number two.

I'd like hearing and resolution setting parks, recreation, and public lands fees.

Staff recommends approval.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, January 5th, we came before you with a proposal of fee adjustments uh pertaining to certain areas across the department.

Um after bringing that to you, it was brought forth uh to the PRPL board who who voted unanimously uh with those changes.

Um additionally, uh one question that was raised on the fifth.

Uh Councilwoman Shaw asked for an escalator to be done.

Um very uh very warranted, uh, for sure.

The intent, if I may remind you all of the January 5th was to bring kind of the reset uh to fees to the department itself.

Uh the last time fees came before you was 2020, before that was 2014, before that was 2008.

There has been a question of why do you why do I stand before you anyways and ask for fee adjustments?

Great question.

In city ordinance 19 301, the aquatics fees must come before you.

State statute 7-6-uh 4013 also says fees for fees for services should come before you.

Now at the fifth, I also said that there are there are fees that I think the department can adjust, city administrator, and then all of you.

Um that still needs to be explored more.

Um at this time, we're just bucketing everything together in tonight's uh resolution that I've proposed for all of you.

Again, this would be a one-year resolution then.

Next year at this time, this would come back before you with that bifurcation or division of administrative, council, departmental, um, legal, and I need to explore a few things uh more to have a better understanding of all of that.

So for tonight, the resolution is all encompassing of the aforementioned uh previously on January 5th.

This one works.

This this on good.

So as a reminder, the fee comparison.

One of the things that we looked at was oops.

Um don't say what I need is this.

Perfect.

So on January 5th, we projected that with the adjustments, if approved, would bring in about 105,975.

To keep that in perspective, one of the reasons that I stated in my memo is to offset some ancillary costs.

These ancillary costs deal with not only since 2020 uh fee changes, but it's important to note that since 2020, for instance, lifeguard wages have gone up 35%.

That's about $82,000 with additional revenue or uh operational expense.

The cost of chlorine has gone up, another additional expense of about $6,000.

The cost of caustic soda has gone up.

Again, that's with pool maintenance uh to about $5,800.

And then waiting pool uh wages as well, which is about $8200.

If you take all of those together, that that comes out to 102,000 dollars.

We're as I said on January 5th, we're moving yards, not miles with with uh decreasing the deficit margin.

But what that does do is it catches us up the 2020 since 2020 in just these four areas.

I'm full I'm fully aware that this is seems to be um not enough possibly.

Um some of you have expressed that.

Some of you have expressed that uh, you know, different user groups.

Again, I want to remind you that this was about five months of looking at the data, looking at the information.

To put it in comparison, Great Falls pool emission, $7 uh is their admission fee uh for ages three through 17, 18 plus is $10.

Missoula, $2 or from two to six year olds is $3 above that's $4.

18-year-olds, $6.25.

Bozeman, three to eight years or three to eighteen years old is three dollars.

We looked at our comparable cities.

What we came out with, I think is a very fair, a very reasonable um increase or adjustments in the fees.

One area of concern was the park permit itself.

I had a chance to go to the South Side Task Force meeting and talk about uh this very thing.

And at that meeting, I shared that I would bring back more information with our newly uh place our AI software where we can actually geofence different aspects of our parks amenities places.

We ran this one literally two hours before uh coming here today.

If we look at our we have 57 of our parks are geo currently geofencing this software in the last six months, 1.3 million people visited those 57 spaces.

They're not just passing through either.

They have a 70 minute duration that they're staying there.

If we look back at the last 12 months, we're looking at 2.7 million visits to those 57 spaces.

We want our parks active.

The corollary with that is the more active you make them, the more expensive it is to maintain them.

This is a good thing.

Okay.

To put in relation as well in some of the bigger programs that happen throughout our parks.

Mexican Fiesta at South.

That attracted 9,000 visitors to that event.

The balloon rally, aimed, 28,000 people go out to that.

Celebrate Freedom, July 4th, 20,000 up there.

Easter egg on its south, 1,500.

Night of Worship and Pioneer, four uh almost 5,000.

Medieval Fair or the Renaissance, that's 9,000.

Symphony in the park, 9,000 people.

That's above and beyond the wear and tear of the normal usage.

Okay.

We're not looking to become whole.

Well, again, I cannot stress this enough.

It's decreasing the margin of deficit.

That's the best we can do right now.

So with that, I've placed uh a resolution before you um to accept these changes in the memo.

The three options are you can accept the changes, you can amend said changes, or you can deny the changes.

Mr.

Mayor, I ask that the council accept these changes as presented, but I am open to any feedback the council may have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gavin.

Um, let's see uh at this point.

Any questions for the presenter, Mr.

Boyet?

Thank you, Gavin.

I'm I guess this is the first time in six years that we've ever had uh intelligent information.

I want to thank you for bringing in this.

Thank you very much.

It's what you get for getting a librarian, Mr.

Pivin.

So I just want to point out that there's also opportunities for people to donate to help support the program for people that can't afford it.

So um I'm gonna be reaching out uh to places like the Kwantas and the Optimus, and I'll probably be inviting you to join me as as ways that they can offer scholarships for for those that that may not be able to and Mayor and Council and uh Councilmember Pittman, it is important to note that last year we gave out 219 scholarship.

Yeah.

Uh one thing to add also is that for those nonprofits that uh if you all accept these adjustments and they have hardships, partners for parks, which is my foundation, they have agreed to give scholarships to offset the costs.

Anything else for Gavin.

All right.

I guess our next excuse me.

Mr.

Boyette, no, who said Mr.

Aspenlighter.

Go ahead.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, thanks.

Um Gavin, thanks for for the information.

I appreciate the efforts here.

Um a lot of good information, a lot of good data.

The only thing that I would question, and I I'd asked this of Director Walter and City Administrator Kokulski is we are the city council is flying at 100 feet on issues like this.

And we need to be flying at 30,000 feet.

Um setting pool rates and pool fees.

I understand that's a statutory thing and something we need to look at, but man, it seems like we should be having our director do this stuff and not bringing the day rate for a rental of a park to the city council.

Um there hasn't been any complaints.

There hasn't been any issues.

We've tasked the parks department with filling a whole bunch of holes and trying to keep the water out of the boat.

And I think they've done a good job here.

Um so I'm gonna support it.

I I hope we we can support it as it is.

Um, but I'd look for uh in the future us to stay out of this portion of things as it relates to fees and stuff with respect to parks and rec programming.

Thank you, Mr.

Neese.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Gavin, I did have a question for you.

I sent an email about some of the proposals I would like to make.

And one of the things I at the end, I you know, basically the two proposals is to add a senior discount uh for those over 65.

And the other would be to modify the what you're proposing as the um out of resident rate uh to uh similar to what Grey Falls and Bozeman is doing, which is 140% of whatever the uh citizen or the resident rate is.

Um can you uh as I asked, could you uh are you staff indicate what the kind of what these two changes may, how they impact the budget?

Did you guys have a chance to look at that?

I only sent it to you like 11 o'clock last night, but wanted to know if you had because I know during a work session there was a lot of uh talk about that non-resident rate, and there seemed to be support to do uh just like a flat percentage point over that.

So can you talk to that a little bit?

Um excuse me, mayor and council, councilmember nees.

Um taking the first or the second one first out of city rates.

So we are bumping that out of city rate from ten dollars to twenty dollars.

Keep in mind that's for every activity.

So if you sign up for five recreation programs, that's an additional hundred dollars now added to that participant.

Okay.

Um I see where you're going with that.

Uh in the in the larger aspect of things.

I do think we need to dive deeper into that uh because of the resolution and everything that was set.

Um one thing that we haven't talked about, let's say is we add that cost and it comes out on gonna make up numbers, uh $17 and 48 cents for a program.

Um, do we round down?

Do we round up, you know, in in the way of those numbers?

Uh, because we want to have uh whole numbers here.

That is a question that we are currently exploring of how is the best way to capture all of those out of city users.

The other thing is is that the out of city users, when you when you sign up online for any of our activities, you have to choose your zip code.

Okay, that is an automatic, there's no work around getting around that that out-of-city fee.

No, I understand.

Um I'm sorry if I interrupting here for a minute, but uh um, I was just talking about as far as the budget.

Did you guys get a chance to see what impact this would have on your budget?

Uh and on that, because I you know, it is I don't know if you had a chance to look at the worksheet I sent you, the PDF with the nice colored columns.

Okay, because that actually showed it was it would because I knew you were concerned about not having uh fixed, you know, pennies and nickels and dimes and stuff.

And so the formula in there was rounding up, and that's kind of what I made stated in my comments to you is that would be the policy is just to change that to non-resident rate being 140% rounded up to the next near, you know, nearest dollar, whole dollar, uh to to resolve that.

And um, so is it did you get any indication as far as how it could impact the budget as far as up, down, or do you just don't know because you don't have the data?

Um mayor and council, councilmember news.

Uh simple answer, no.

And the reason is that some zip codes sh share right city county.

So we we unless going to a deep dive of the street itself, we did not go further than that.

Okay.

All right.

Um thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um what about the senior discount?

Do you have any issues or any concerns over the senior discount?

Uh mayor and council, councilmore Neese.

So we did talk about that as well.

There are things that we can certainly do for seniors in the way of discounts.

Um, we could even include them into the scholarship program if that is a case that we want to explore.

Um additionally, um we get back to what is that discount.

We we've never offered one a discount of some kind uh for seniors or anything else.

Um what would that look like?

Yeah, so in this case, the uh as I stated, it's gonna be for the this start out would be pool only 10% uh discount is basically what, and again, to keep it to whole dollars.

Uh I I the formula I used was you know 100 uh uh or 90 percent of it rounded down to the you know the next whole dollar.

Uh and you can see for the seniors that actually it froze it for that for that year for so last year to this year for seniors it'll freeze the rates.

Um of course they'll go up next rates, except for that I think some of the uh seasonal passes they went up just a slight a slight amount.

Um and so that would be should be able to be instituted uh fairly quickly or easily.

Is that or are you are you telling me that this resolution that we haven't approved yet or looked at, it's already going out to the printer and all the rates have have been sent out that that's what we're doing.

Is that we're kind of approving it after the printer has the stuff ready to go?

Mayor and council councilmember Nees.

Nope.

Whatever changes are made, we would incorporate and it will go out tomorrow morning.

Okay, so it can still okay.

So it's ready to go, but it is ready to still go out tomorrow morning.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Sure.

Um thank you.

Uh so my question for you, Gavin is I I like the idea of a senior discount, but I my sense is because we've never done it before.

Do you guys don't have a good sense of how many people that would encompass?

Is that accurate?

That is accurate.

Okay.

That concerns me in terms of having this resolution in place.

And if we suddenly just put this in place, you have no idea if that's gonna reduce this revenue by $500 or $20,000, which seems like I mean, I'm just making up numbers here, but that's quite a big window.

Um is it would it be accurate or would you be able to bring us back that information next year of how many people are over 65?

Is that data you could collect?

I believe that would be data that we would have to create a new collection for.

Um, but yeah, we can collect the data.

I personally, I think that would be very helpful for I think I'm happy with the package as it is.

I know we don't we haven't done public hearing yet, but um, I would love to have that information next year.

Mr.

O'Donnell.

Thank you.

Um first of all, thank you for not being glib and just uh uh uh it's very apparent how much thought you've put into this, and I really appreciate that.

And I think the uh people of the city appreciate that also.

It does seem, however, that you you said several times that uh you're considering something, you don't know the the effect of something.

It seems like uh based upon what you've heard is that uh a vote on this is a little premature, that uh there needs to be some uh finality, and I really uh like the work that uh uh Councilmember Nees has put into this, and I'd like to get a better evaluation uh of uh what this would do to your deficit operating deficit uh of the year.

So, mayor and counsel, councilmember Donnell.

I wouldn't say I said it like that.

Um I would ask for a vote tonight um of a decision moving forward.

So that all of this information is gonna be advertised in our activity guide that goes to the printer here in a couple weeks.

Uh so you do have a deadline.

We do have a deadline.

Oh, okay.

That's a different situation.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right, sir.

Thank you.

Uh, we'll open up this part of the meeting to public hearing.

Any public comment on this.

Remember, we'll be talking about this issue, and you have three minutes.

Mr.

Mayor Councilman Paul Clark, board one.

I've asked I have talked to Mr.

Gavin, and the thing that uh I'm really shocked at, and I watched every one of your faces almost drop a jaw when he said he is able to ping how many phones are in a certain location from the hours of 10 to 11, 10, 15 to 10, 16.

You guys, are you sure you want big brother looking at you that hard?

Mr.

Gavin has a lot of information, more than he probably needs, and more than he should be using.

There's some rights in here.

It's called the American Constitution.

And whether you want to admit it or not, there's not a darn thing we can do about big brother coming in here and spying on us, let alone someone from the city who can look at South Park and see that we had 1,500 people in those two hours.

I was aghast.

Now, those are people with phones.

We're talking about a lot of children, 12 and under, they shouldn't be uh be it under the camera.

No.

So if there's 1,500 phones, let's put that times three.

So 4,500 people were in that park.

He said 7,000 at Pioneer Park for the for the orchestra.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

But again, these numbers are wild.

And he's able to tell you exactly how many.

He's probably able to tell you every phone number that's uh coming off that ping.

So you guys be leery of that, okay.

Nobody wants to see me in the shower.

Trust me, okay.

Let alone in the in the swim pool.

Yeah.

Okay.

I know you guys, every one of you guys looked at him like he was coming from somewhere you hadn't been before, and that is how they are can pinpoint where we are, what we are, how we are, when we are.

Whenever you walk in, how many cameras are here?

Twelve.

How many more do we need?

12?

My point.

Too much information.

Hi, my name is Leona Price.

And I think, and I know that we have a good community with the parks.

We have just such joy.

You know, I don't think I want to change.

I mean, we do everything.

Much love.

I don't want nobody watching me.

And I don't want nobody on my phone.

I think it's just fine the way it is.

And seeing a citizen, I'm 60, I'm thinking like 55.

Could get a little something, not just 65.

So I don't agree.

You know, I think we got good community.

Uh we just joy our parks and our freedom.

Love the birds to squirrels.

Thank you so much.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name's Jennifer Strong, Ward 3.

Um, I have three children, and we have had the privilege of enjoying the parks department for many years.

We've had a pool pass, summer pool passes many times, and I'm really grateful for that.

We've enjoyed it for years.

And um I I can tell you from my own experience that I there are grandparents who take their kids to the pool with their grandkids to the pool, and it's it's awesome to see that.

I strongly encourage you to support a discount for for senior citizens.

There aren't so many of them that I have seen, at least, that it would be detrimental to your budget.

That that seems a little extreme to say, but it could be a benefit and give those grandparents another little push and reason to take their kids to the pool or to the park or or whatever.

So I would I would encourage you to go for it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and city council.

My name is Jeff Kettlson, and I live on the West End.

Um I find it absolutely shocking, the information that just came from the parks director concerning the geofencing of the properties and knowing exactly how many numbers of people came there.

That to me is very concerning.

But what's even more concerning is that he's be able to he's able to pull out information that happened over a year ago.

There's no reason why our personal information should be sitting in this in some computer system that that he's able to pull out a year ago.

24 hours, okay.

I'll give you 24 hours.

But the question even gets further than that.

When we when we find out that we're under surveillance, you know, are you using AI for facial recognition on top of it?

Are you following us around?

Now I'm I don't break the law, and I'm sure everybody here doesn't break the law, and I'm not accusing anybody to do that.

But when I feel that my government is watching me in the in the manner that you've admitted that you're doing here, I find that very concerning.

And I, you know, I'm not a lawyer, I can't sit here and argue over that kind of stuff.

And I'm not gonna not going to.

But I I agree with with the other people that came up here that this type of surveillance has gone too far.

I don't understand why the city keeps that types of information that they can go back and look at.

I I have real concerns about that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, ma'am, you're limited to one speech per event.

Well, I know that certain circumstances that people want things to be a certain way up to date.

I'm I'm sorry, our our rules only allow you to speak one time per item.

I apologize, but yeah, we have to be fair.

Any other further comment regarding this item?

Okay, well, I'm gonna close the public hearing portion of this agenda item and move to a follow-up question or clarification to Gavin.

Go ahead.

Gavin, um, as I was talking about the different options there of doing the non-resident fee, and you mentioned the residence, different zip codes.

Um, and it'd be difficult to kind of identify who lives in what zip code versus county versus city or um and that or non resident versus resident.

But you also are proposing a 20 dollar uh surcharge for those registrations as well.

So how do you determine it?

How do you how do you apply that 20 dollars if you're not able to determine that res residential boundary for non-residents versus residents?

Mayor and council council member knees, excellent question.

So for those for those zip codes that share, um it defaults to city.

Okay, for those zip codes that are not within city, the automatic 20 dollars is applied.

Okay, so so that same rule could apply to if we use 140 percent of the city rate versus the 20.

You could do that way.

Okay, all right, and then later on, if we if we got sophisticated software, we could determine actual boundaries of city county.

Okay, thank you.

May I may I speak to the placer real quick?

I I I fear that I have caused unduly uh angst.

We are not collecting any phone numbers.

We're we are not collecting, we don't have a database of anything.

Okay, this is all autonomous information based off of your cell phone.

I do not know who's holding the cell phone.

I don't know where you're going with this cell phone.

I don't know where you came from with this cell phone.

This isn't to a geo-fenced area only, it is autonomous.

The information is scrubbed.

That means you don't know anything about anybody.

Is that what you mean by scrubbed?

Yes, sir.

All right, very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh before we go off the rails on this, I'm gonna call for a motion on the fees.

Councilmember Shaw.

Yes, having conducted a public hearing, considered written and spoken public testimony.

I move to approve a resolution setting parks, recreation, and public land fees as recommended by staff.

Thank you, Councilmember Shaw.

Do we have a second?

Councilmember Boyette.

First time you had your hand up first.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw, would you like to speak to your motion?

Yeah, I I appreciate this.

I I appreciate uh Gavin, you getting up and explaining about the AI.

I was gonna ask you to kind of clarify that that this is not a nobody surveilling anyone.

That's not the purpose of this.

It's just to get some more information so that we can accurately determine who's using what where, and that helps us set fees.

Um just to reiterate, because it kind of I feel like got glossed over a little bit that and Gavin went into more detail at the South Side Task Force.

The partners for parks still has to vote to ratify this, but they really are willing to step up and be a partner for nonprofits that are looking at this $500 a day fee and feeling like how do we do that for an Easter egg hunt or something like that?

So I really appreciate that that organization is doing that and is working with Gavin and his team.

Just wanted to hit that again.

Thank you.

Further, Councilmember Nees.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I um I I think the parks done a great job on on doing these rate the getting these rates up to date uh versus what they were five years ago.

And I I appreciate them wanting to bring these back to us here yearly.

I'm I'm also with Councilmember Aspenliner on the fact that you know we shouldn't be spending this much time on rates.

But if we if you consider that we what we do with public works, we're we're approving pennies on public works.

Um, but they they go really smoothly.

They go very fairly fairly quickly.

And so I think once the pub the uh parks department gets this into the the mode of seeing these every single every single year, we're we're not gonna spend this much time on it.

And so that we're just making up the last five years of time.

And so I I'm gonna support uh the rates, however, I do I am gonna make an amendment to the motion.

I'll make two amendments.

The first one is gonna be um to and again, as councilman Asselineer says, I I'm more concerned about the policy than I am about the rates.

Um I think I'm gonna trust them that they've got the right rates there.

So I'd like to um make an amendment to the motion to add um and I want to start out for the um to add a uh senior discount fee provided provide a 10% discount from the adult 18 and up rate and round it down to the nearest dollar.

Um and that's what I'm gonna propose for and pool and it would be for the pool rates at this time.

I I as far as getting into all the other activities, there's a lot of different senior activities.

I think we we can start with the pools and work with the senior discount uh later on after that.

So your amendment is to add a senior discount of 10% uh to what ages?

That's I'm sorry, 65 and up.

We can start there.

65 and above point of clarification, Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, sir, Mr.

You said uh rounded down to the nearest dollar, wouldn't that be up or down?

No, they would be rounded down if it was like 70 cents goes down.

So it would eliminate it.

If the fee was seven dollars, no discount.

Round it down to the next nearest whole dollar.

It would mean that there'd be no no change at all.

Uh that that's actually correct.

If you look at the uh the sheet that I passed out and it has the senior discounts in there, you'll see that actually the senior discounts from last year that for with the senior discount, the rates for the seniors are not going to increase in the individual pool rates uh because it's being rounded down.

So they'll stay the same.

Um, and the only thing the small increase will be in in the um seasonal passes.

They they do go up a little bit because the jump on seasonal pass is a little bit larger.

Thank you.

All right.

So do we have a second to this amendment?

I'll second that.

Councilmember Pittman.

Now we can talk about the amendment.

Is there any other discussion to the amendment?

Mayor, I'm sorry, I I did spoke a lot to my motion.

I I I want to clarify this is really a policy that I think that we want to try to help with, not trying to micromanage the department on their rates, but looking more as the community in a policy setting uh for them so that we can get this and also to get that data, because we don't know where that data is.

And if they can start collecting that data, we'll know have better information the next time these rates come back to us.

So that's that's part of the whole driver of this.

So okay, council member Shaw.

Uh thank you.

I I'm gonna vote against this, but I want to just clarify it's not because I think it's a bad idea.

I think it's a really good idea that we should have a senior discount.

I just tonight, I don't feel like we have the information in my opinion to say how many people this is going to affect, how this is going to affect what parks has estimated they're going to generate in terms of revenue.

So I would like that information before I vote to authorize that.

So that's the reason why I'm gonna say no tonight.

But I want to say I'll just as we asked Gavin a little bit ago, I would really love those numbers next year, so that as we set this for three years going forward, we can include that.

Thank you.

Councilmember O'Donnell here.

So um uh council member Nees, uh clarification.

Would this apply just to individual rates, not uh organizations?

I can see an organization uh that's uh mostly people under 65 recruiting somebody who's 65 to actually make the application so that they could save money.

Yeah, and so you're absolutely right.

This is the reason I I singled out pool rates only.

Okay.

And so it's not it's not um park fee rate wise the whole way.

So that's you're right, because I think that's something that we're gonna have to get additional data from the parks department to help us, you know, help expand this this senior program.

But to get it initially started, it all of the pool rates that we're looking at here are are uh for senior discounts or individuals.

Thank you.

Okay, any other conversation council member boyet about the uh senior discounts.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think Gavin gave us a lot of information that we never had before.

I I'm gonna vote against it because I would like him to I guess department to re-evaluate the senior discount and come back with their own plan next year.

Um maybe we can make it uh citywide for all the departments, but I'd rather have the department look at it themselves rather than us doing this on the fly.

Thank you.

Any other discussion regarding this amendment?

Adding senior discounts 10% to 65 and above pool rates.

Right, for purposes of keeping it clear, then in my head, let's vote on this amendment.

Um all in favor of the amendment adding a senior discount to 10 percent of 10 percent to 65 and above for pool rates only.

Please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

All those uh all those opposed say no.

No.

Yeah, I think we need to do it and vote.

All those in favor, please raise your hands.

We have one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six, four.

It passes.

All right, council member niece, you have another amendment.

I do, thank you, Mayor.

Um I think we all understand that non-residents need to pay their fair share.

Um, and I I appreciate Gavin putting forward a higher uh fee rate.

And so while it it's not perfect because we don't have these specific geofencing around, you know, in certain zip codes, even in 105 zip code, uh which has a lot of lockwood residents and and upper heights residents in the county.

That's not we're not changing anything there because we're gonna assess the 20 either 20 fee.

It really comes down to do we want to chart uh assess a $20 fee or we want to do 140% of what the city residents are doing.

And what really with this impacts is it actually for the higher cost ones, and so if you sign up for five programs on a hundred dollar program, you're gonna be paying 40 dollars instead of 20 dollars.

And so it's gonna actually uh the the non-residents who do participate in these are are gonna re recoup or or uh reimburse the city more for their uh cost to use in our city services that are really for residents.

And later on, as we get more data, I think the the parks department can build that a little bit forward to refine it down to outside instead of zip codes, they can refine that data more into uh non-resident versus resident uh through some geo fencing or however they do that.

That's that'd be more the technical expertise of council member uh Lindy.

And so I I would uh ask that we at least can instead of using the 20 fee, do the same thing they're gonna do with the 20, but convert it to 140 percent of what the city residents.

So my motion is gonna be to um state that the parks and recreational non-resident fee is 140 percent more than the city residential fee, round it up to the next whole dollar.

That's my motion.

And I'm sorry I spoke to it, but again, this is more policy than it is uh uh well, it's policy and making sure we're recouping it as much as we can.

So thank you.

So we have uh a motion from councilman niece uh to add a non-resident fee of a hundred and forty percent of the resident fee to the schedule of fees proposed.

Mr.

Bear, clarification, please.

Is that a good idea?

Pardon me, just pardon me, just a second.

Let me let me finish the motion so that we can we can talk to it.

Okay, of a uh 140 percent of the resident fee proposed by the parks recreation division, and we have a second by councilperson Lindley.

And thank you for bearing with me.

Um still on probation.

So now that we have a motion and a second, council person, would you be so kind as to speak to your motion again?

Thank you.

I'll make it brief because I already spoke too much.

It's really about policy.

It's helping uh the city recoup uh our are the services that the parks provide.

They we have great services through our parks department, and uh non-residents don't pay anything into that, and so this is helping them pay for the same thing that we as city residents are paying through our taxes.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any uh I think we had like four hands over here?

So we'll start with council person poyet.

So my I guess my question is why why 140?

Why not 125?

Why not 150?

What difference?

What what magic number did you come up with for 40 percent?

Yeah, so there's a few things.

I I I probably would have preferred 150%, because that's actually what we do at our landfill.

Non-residents and county are paying 150 percent.

I I did look around, I saw what Bozeman was doing, I saw what Great Falls was doing, and and uh Bozeman is pretty much 104% everywhere.

Although when they get to the larger items, they kind of rind up to the next five dollars, not the next dollar.

Um, what I saw in Great Falls, they were anywhere from 125 to 130 plus.

We have a better program than Great Falls, I think, and I think we have a better program than Bozeman.

And so we have a very good program, and it's here.

Um, so it's less than what we're doing in the landfill, uh, but it's comparable to what other cities are doing.

And it's a fairly easy calculation.

Again, it's on the I spent my XL spreadsheet out as well, so they can actually look at the formulas to see how it was calculated.

Uh council member O'Donnell.

Thank you.

Uh I think that I heard two different things.

And the motion as stated, uh, it seemed to be saying an additional 140%.

The motion as uh recited by the mayor was 140% of the rate that seemed to be contradictory.

One indicates 140% raised, the other one seems to indicate a 40% raise.

I like a clarification.

Thank you.

Yeah, so it's a simply if the resident is paying $100 for a program, multiply that by 140%, and it's $140 is what they pay.

So $40 more.

So it's $40 more, but it's it's the formula is 140%, just like we do, similar to the landfill, it's $150.

Councilmember Lindley.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, look, I I think that our parks department is the best in the state, um, for sure.

Um, and hearing the numbers about people that participate in the things around the city are amazing.

I think the big public events that we have, um, you know, obviously in a lot of cases, nobody's paying anything to go to those are just enjoying it, which I think is fantastic, and they're still bringing economic um impact to the community.

But to the extent that people that are not paying city taxes that don't fund any of these programs, are participating in the programs, which is fantastic.

I think it's only fair to ask for the extra percent to help cover the cost.

Anything else?

Any other conversation or debate?

Okay, so I'm gonna call for a vote on the second amendment to our original motion, which is to add a non-resident fee of 140% of the regular resident fees onto the uh schedule of fees as proposed by our parks department.

Um so all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, please say no.

All right, so that takes us back to the original.

Um at this point.

Do we have any discussion?

So I will call for a vote then on the original, the original motion with the two amendments.

And do you want me to read those again?

No, okay, you got it.

All right.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, please say no.

All right.

Motion carries unanimously.

So that moves us to public comment on non-agenda items.

Again, we'd ask that you sign in to give us your uh your thoughts on uh items not on this printed agenda.

Uh, three minutes or so, three minutes exactly, but no more.

Please give us your name and where you live.

Hello, I am Jordan Weber, Ward 1, 605 Park Lane.

Uh, I just do have I do have a quick question.

This sort of agenda, sort of non-agenda, uh, specifically for uh Councilman Royne's.

Did you by chance look at elasticity use before when you were establishing your uh increased rate for non-city uh citizens?

Oh, so sir, this is really just comment.

So we're here to listen to you.

My apologies.

Um if not, I would I would highly encourage that we consider doing so next year.

I my worry is when we're talking about 140% in or 40% increase, a lot of the outlying communities are a lot, they're up and coming, but there's also a lot of lower um income.

My worry is at 140%.

Do we know that we're not going to price out um more customers that we're gonna bring in with the increased fee?

Um, so just something to consider next year um or next time this subject comes up.

Uh might be worth looking at uh the LSP elasticity of these uh measures and endorsements to make sure we're not putting or not stripping over dollars to pick up dimes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any other public comment?

Okay.

Uh good evening, everybody.

Uh, thank you, council and council members or and mayor.

Um so I'm gonna comment on a few different things today.

Um, I'll keep it quick.

But the first is the energy and conservation commission that was discussed last uh.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Tucker Calvin and I live it by uh North Park.

Thank you.

Um so the Energy and Conservation Commission um and their report and the renewal of their charter.

Um I was a bit disappointed and confused on why there was such a narrow margin of votes to request the staff to draw a new scope and continue that commission.

Um in my professional capacity, I work with small governments on water, wastewater, stormwater and related issues.

Um and I'm really impressed by that by billing's proactive approach to stuff like this and the assessment and recommendations made by the ECC.

Um I work with communities that are not so proactive, and it really becomes a huge headache when something happens, uh, like their water infrastructure is no longer adequate for their community um and they don't focus on conservation run out of water rights, they don't maintain infrastructure and have huge fines by DEQ or EPA and or things like that.

Um having commission like this prevents a city from going um from that happening to them and the practices laid out by the commission conservative sources save our city tons of money.

Um and I know you're all in the council because you care so much about our community and our residents and is possible of missing something, but I don't get why um anyone would want to not support that continuation of the commission.

Um because it saves vote or saves um it saves money and it saves resources.

Um and so I encourage you when that vote comes back up to um really give them a lot of power and um really promote that.

Um and my second comment is just a um about ice and um I know myself and a bunch of people spoke about this last session, and I know other people wanted to come today, but weren't as weren't able to.

Um, but I just thought it'd be appropriate to comment just one more about um about the comp situation with ice after the murder of Alex Predi in Minneapolis.

Um so why am I here commenting to you all again today um when you really don't have a huge role in it at this point?

Um, and it's because of what government is.

Um there are many philosophies and definitions of what a government is, uh, but today um I'm gonna use a definition as the entity that has a monopoly on legitimized violence.

Um, this monopoly is enforced through law enforcement agencies and officers.

I mean, in theory in the US at least, this idea the idea is that the democratic process regulates when these legit when this legitimized violence is allowed to be used against and against whom.

Um, this is of course an imperfect system.

Um, but what we're seeing in Minneapolis right now is a breakdown of this oversight when the monopoly of violence is abused and using ways that violates people's constitutional rights, and the government that is supposed to limit its legitimized violence refuses to do so.

This is why the situation of violence is so much more significant now and so much more dangerous than violence committed by everyday people.

So anyway, um I'll end it there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, Council members, Paul Clark, Order One.

Uh that man there.

I'm gonna reframe because I don't know much I'd like to have a conversation with him.

But it sounds like he's not for having the local police officers help federal agents.

Now, wait a minute.

There's something called the Constitution in there, and there's about five amendments that Minnesota currently is stepping on right now.

So let's get our ducks in a row.

Let's not forget, let's leave that in Minnesota until it gets controlled.

What they're trying to do is bring it in through the sly through the side, whatever under the rug, sneak in here and say, oh, we're a bunch of good people.

When we're out protesting, causing a riot, agitating.

There's a way to protest, and there's a way not to protest.

Minnesota, that is not the way to protest.

South side concerns.

Street lights.

Again, I'll pound it on everybody's head, including Northwest Energy.

Let's get them streetlights going.

I have thank you for some of you that did send me letters and tell me that they are getting worked on.

This is good.

South Street, the South Street underpass.

Again, I did actually see a city washer come by and spray and wipe up one side.

I couldn't tell you what it looks like today, but I'm sure it's just as beautiful as it was last week.

The pool.

We're gonna bring down in a pool on the south side.

Nine million dollars.

Can't tell you what it's gonna look like because we don't know yet.

But let's stay on top of it.

And when we find out, please let us know.

Parking is going to be an issue just like it is at Rose Park.

Um South Side Sugar Factory.

I did see them moving berms against the fence to kind of keep the water on control once it overflows out of their leech pond.

Again, let's not forget how toxic that water is.

15-letter word called carcinogenins.

There's others, ammonium nitrates.

There's uh I got a list of the the stuff that seeps out of that Yellowstone into the Yellowstone River, like it was in the rain gutter and headed straight for the river.

There's no cleansing whatsoever once it leaves that sugar factory.

It's contaminated, as is anybody's well water that's down there.

Okay, I got a couple more.

Uh thank you, the billings met for having a talk with me about introducing a bus stop in front of family services on First Avenue South and 40th Street.

People, these are the poorest of poor, and we need to help them.

And there's some of them don't have a ride, and they're trying just to get back home with some free groceries.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I would love to see everybody here, including myself.

I've done it several times.

I've stopped in there and gave people rides to their home.

Very thankful.

Didn't ask for any money, didn't want any money, just wanted to help them out.

God bless.

Any further public comment?

Hello again.

I want to comment on Minnesota on the incidents that happened that people lost their lives.

And I wonder why.

Being in a place that you don't supposed to be at, and you want to blame the president?

No.

That's convinced.

I'm from Chicago.

They plenty of riots, but I didn't go out there uh busting windows and stealing people properties and killing people and bullying people.

You know, and I stick with the president on this because you got all these criminals.

It's bad.

It's really bad.

You know, and I have kids, so I won't want nobody raping and killing my kid.

And he's supposed to do his job.

So that's my comment.

Thank you.

Why do we have a president?

I might as well be the president, huh?

You can imagine the nightmare, right?

I think he's pretty good.

All right.

Any further public comment for tonight?

Seeing none, I'll close this part of the hearing and move to council initiatives.

Are there any tonight?

Council Member Lindley.

Uh, none specifically tonight, but one that will be coming soon.

Um Technology Advisory Commission.

Um, yeah, I was called a tab before, but TAC.

I don't know.

We'll start, we'll just call it by the acronym.

Anyway, uh, working on it, getting feedback from uh members of the community, other council members should be coming soon in the next few weeks.

Thank you.

Well, that concludes this uh edition.

So I call the meeting adjourned,