I want shapes.

Great.

Order.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Under how it is with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all for attending.

Will the clerk please take the attendance?

I'll council members of heaven, Mr.

Mayor.

All right.

Entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So please take the role.

Avery?

Hi.

Warren?

Hi.

Nee, Maya.

Specker.

Hi.

Tilton Burn.

Hi.

Okay.

Next item is open forum.

Is there anyone that wishes to uh address counsel on an item that's not on tonight's agenda?

Okay, we'll move on.

Our first presentation.

Update on the first impressions secret shopper program.

Emily Clun and Kelly Cole, both from the SDSU extension.

Community vitality program will present the site.

Super, thank you.

We have a handout for you.

So you can kind of follow along.

So we'll uh we'll pass that out to those in the audience and then you as well.

All right.

Is that not being uh familiar with how things go in your I'm used to presenting and standing, but Emily, you want to knock take us off.

Um good.

All right.

Beautiful.

So we are here tonight to report on an update for the first impressions program.

Uh so to kick things off, we like to just start with outline the process of first impressions to get you all kind of familiar with what the first impressions program looks like.

Um so to begin with, a community, in this case, yourselves, Brookings.

Um, requests first impressions, a second community of similar size and proximity is then chosen to be the partner community.

In this case, it was Aberdeen called Dakota.

Both communities complete an application and acquire relevant signatures.

The next step, we gather volunteer visitors, uh, or the communities gather volunteer visitors to participate in the program.

And so extension, we then train these visitors in an orientation to prepare for their trip to their partner community.

Um from there on out, visitors will make their trips over an agreed upon time frame.

In this case, it was over the course of this summer, about a month and a half from July through August.

Um so they record their impressions of their partner community, take notes of these, bring them back to us.

The next step, um we had extension and compile the reports.

Um, and then we present out the key findings of those reports.

Um, so everything that the visitors collected during their trips.

We're here to kind of give you the key highlights.

Um, and then after that, the final step is communities will then use these results for further action planning and discussion.

So that is the hope.

So, why first impressions?

Um, this is a feedback-based assessment.

So, what it's really trying to answer is how does a visitor view my town?

Um, it's an attempt to evaluate successes and strengths that a town has, as well as setting goals and priorities for kind of next steps.

You know, what are some opportunities that we can have um to improve upon our town?

Um now going through some of these, we won't go into extreme depth, um, but of course, if there's any questions you have on um any point uh of the visitor's comments, feel free to ask us.

We'll have time for that at the end.

Um but if you don't agree with any of the observations here today, be really curious and inquisitive.

You know, why does the visitor see um see their impressions in this way?

Um also consider you know, is this observation worth considering?

If they say something way out there, is that an observation we need to be considering, or was that somebody just having a grumpy day?

Um, and then furthermore, you know, we do if there is a place to improve an opportunity to kind of make some positive change.

What can we do to kind of overcome these obstacles or overcome some some of the less positive perceptions?

Great, super.

So a little bit of a background.

Um, with extension, we do a lot of asset-based community development.

And why this is important is we are trying to focus on the positives.

We're looking at the opportunities and trying to carry that conversation from there.

Uh, once you start thinking about the problems in a community and really start dwelling on them, that's where that conversation is leading.

And we would like to see those conversations lead to opportunities and create that momentum forward for those those conversations.

So the this is like I said, a core principle, um, a core tenant of what we do within community vitality, and by doing this and having this program, um we are just trying to accelerate those conversations and help with community growth.

Um other thing that I would like to visit about quickly here is this gentleman right here, he's a senior research fellow at the U the U of M, the University of Minnesota, and he has done a lot of research on what is bringing people back into the community.

And it's not necessarily, you know, you know, we're taught taught that you know the young people of our communities are leaving, but they truly aren't.

We're starting to see this brain gain in rural communities, and what does that mean for communities of Brooking size or the communities of Volga size or anything in between?

Um whether Sioux Falls and Rabbit City would like to admit it, they are rural.

So you just don't want to admit it, I don't think.

But anyway, so we are a rural state, and and there has been an influx in our state, and why is that?

So not only did he do some research, um, but you can see that a job is not one of the top 10 reasons that people move into these rural communities.

It's the safety, it's the simplicity, the better life that they can afford to have the the better housing, you know, the more affordable housing.

So those are some things to keep in mind when when you're thinking about you know what's gonna attract people to my community.

Okay, so yes, jobs are important, people have to have have work to live, but there's a lot of remote workers and things like that to be considering.

Um then also when you think about those people coming into your community, everybody's like, oh, small town, small town, everybody knows everybody in a small town.

Well, they really don't.

So he's really encouraging everybody to reach out to those people, introduce yourself, you know, really get to know them because when people come into a small community, sometimes it doesn't stick because they feel like an outsider, and sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

So being able to reach out to those people and make them feel like they're part of the community is going to be very important.

And then just a little bit of a teaser here.

So we had Ben Winchester as our guest on one of our webinars.

You can find that on our website.

But we did our own uh survey for why people come to South Dakota, and we are in the process of uh getting while we're really excited, we're we're so close to getting that published, and when it does get published, it'll you'll see it first on our on our website, so be looking for it there.

But that's gonna help people realize you know these are some things that we can do.

This is the perceptions people have coming into our state.

So that's a broader view, and this is more of a micro view, obviously, for Brookings itself.

So now we're gonna get into kind of an eating potatoes of the report itself.

Um so first off, we just have some overall report content, stuff that really isn't that dived into within this particular report, but we wanted to cover anyways.

So overall report data, um the report itself is about 24 pages long compiled.

And when the visitors made their trips here, they spent between 45 and 788 dollars either during their day trips or overnight stay when they visited.

On average, it was about 358 dollars and 76 cents, and the total impact of that was $3,500, $3,587.58, excuse me.

As for ROI, it's hard to calculate because this is a pilot program that was offered free of charge.

So calculating that is a little bit difficult, but we wanted to provide some of those other statistics to kind of just give an overall idea of what some of that data looked like.

As for the report itself, it delves into a variety of categories, which I've listed up here.

I won't read them all off for you, but some of them we'll cover today include some of the pre-visit web search, the five-minute impression, and then we kind of condensed the remainder of the areas into kind of like the key highlights.

What did people most like?

What were some of the challenges that they noted from these areas in particular?

So getting into the first part, we have the pre-visit web presence.

So the very first thing we have the visitors do before they even make their trips is conduct a web search.

So see what they could find on Google, on Yahoo, on social media.

Um what does the town look like just from a web perspective?

And so what the visitors found is they really thought there was a strong online presence through very well-linked city visit bookings and chamber websites, um, all of which really had a very cohesive brand voice and very consistent updates.

They really liked how frequently these updates happened and how up to date the information was.

So additionally, there was really comprehensive information available on multiple different areas, so events, parks, maps, um, civic uh meetings, um, and so they were really impressed by the amount of information available.

They were also impressed by the friendly website, user-friendly website designs.

Emily can ask a question.

How many visitors are you talking about?

How many participants were there?

So for Brookings, there was 10 visitors who were signed up as visitors, but many of them came with a spouse or a friend.

So that number was a little bit higher than that, but eighteen, and these were Aberdeen-based folks.

Correct.

Who were encouraged to folks.

And had those individuals ever been to Brigins before, or do you find people who have like never visited the community?

A mix of both.

So there were some that had attended Brookings before, some that this is their first time ever.

So we tried to pick, oh, yeah, go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say, and I think between our program leads and the ones in Aberdeen, they kind of decided that they would like, you know, maybe a realtor and some specific type of um you know, family, the older people, yes, retire bees, whatever.

So they when we look for visitors, I think that's kind of something they kept in mind.

Yes, trying to get as wide of a perspective as we possibly can.

So exactly like what Kelly said, we try to get people who are more family-oriented, somebody who's we had I think university students from each group, um, since both Brookings and Aberdeen are university towns.

Um we had realtors.

Um, and so we're trying to get as broad of perspectives as possible.

Somebody who's a student might have a very different perspective on a town than somebody who has you know a family of four kids.

So they're looking for different things, they enjoy different things, and so trying to get that broad, broad perspective.

Um there they also noted um there was really good event promotion across multiple calendars and social media pages.

Um, one challenge that they did find was some visitors struggled to find some parking details, um, but they ultimately noted, which we may see later in the presentation, um, that parking was abundant.

And so even though the details weren't as prolific online, um, people really didn't have an issue finding parking.

So a few also felt promotion was more geared towards family-oriented content versus local business or college town offerings.

So that's something also to consider is um maybe focusing more on some local businesses or college town um college town offerings.

Um yeah, all right, so five-minute impression.

Um, so this step, um, the next question after the online visit is when visitors come in, we ask them to just drive through town, don't even get out yet, just take a drive, five minutes.

What are your impressions?

So the immediate impressions right when they get to town.

Um, and so what they noticed from this, um, very clean, a well-kept community with abundant flowers, greenery, eye-catching landscaping.

Um, this was something that was noted across the report.

Um, visitors were very, very happy with the amount of flowers, although they thought it was really beautiful.

Landscaping was mentioned across multiple different categories, and so they were very, very impressed with that.

Um, they also thought there was really charming historic neighborhoods with visible home improvements showing reinvestment into the community, um, and just a general care and upkeep.

Um the downtown area is very central and easily navigable.

People were very complimentary towards the downtown area, um, though they did mention some buildings and sidewalks, show a little bit of wear and tear.

Um, some entrances offer mostly positive impressions, especially via Pioneer Park, um, though some commercial areas and signage could be updated, was a comment that they also had.

They also noted intentional land use and visible construction, which was actually viewed favorably.

They thought the construction showed a lot of reinvestment in the community and making sure that things were off cap.

So yeah, showing that ongoing growth.

Alright, super.

Alright, so key themes again.

This is just a base overview.

So there was probably four or five different areas where five, six.

Obviously, welcoming and friendly.

That kept showing up over and over again.

Business owners, residents, people on the street were seen as kind and helpful, approachable, genuinely welcoming.

And you know, the minute I walked into this room, I had people helping me get up here.

So it is definitely a culture thing here.

I love it.

Um strong sense of community.

Again, that family friendly oriented community.

Um, people are actively participating in the community, they're actually out and doing things in the community, and and our visitors recognize that.

Um local events, uh farmers market, yogurt, yoga in the park were some of the things where people were actually seen out enjoying those community events.

Um the town was seen as safe and comfortable with a neighborly feel, so that's a really good overall impression as well.

Uh, downtown and local businesses, again, it just kept coming up and coming up and coming up.

You guys have a beautiful community, and it is well landscaped, and the flowers.

I don't know who who does it, but it's amazing.

Pat them on the back.

I love it too.

Um so again, frequently mentioned as a highlight, the beautiful landscapes.

Um, and it's it's vibrant, it's walkable, again, bikeable.

So kudos again, the flower displays, boutiques, um, the visitors really appreciated seeing all that, also having the mix of retail and the coffee shops, the antique stores, even though some of them were not open when our visitors came, um, they they would come back just to to be able to partake and and and go into those stores.

Um, and despite ongoing construction, um, downtown was again easy to navigate.

So it was it was very nice and welcoming.

Um, other key themes, cleanliness kept on coming up again.

At the end, you'll see that that was one of those words to describe the community.

Um very strong impression when it comes to cleanliness, lots of great infrastructure, curb appeal, things like that.

Umscaping and green spaces again.

I'm I cannot reiterate that enough.

That just that's a theme that just kept coming up and coming up and coming up.

Um very visually appealing from the moment you drive in.

The attractions, the parks, again, you have a number of parks throughout the community.

I mean, I'm looking out this window, and it's beautiful.

You got the courthouse here.

I mean, every time I turn around, there's something really nice to look at.

So the children's museum, the community parks, outdoor events were seen as major assets for Brookings for both families and visitors alike, so that's that's something to keep in mind.

Um, again, navigation is really easy to get around, good infrastructure.

Um, parking was was easy.

Um, granted, most of those places that people were parking in front of was during the summer, you know, not during school season.

I don't know if there's a lot of change with that when when the college kids come back in, but at the time of the visits, parking was not an issue.

So frequently mentioned positives again, these are the things that that kept coming up.

Um the friendly, safe, family-oriented community, vibrant, attractive downtown, um, clean, well-maintained city, cityscapes, streetscapes, um, abundance of parks and trails and outdoor activities.

There's a lot, a lot of things for people to do when they come to Brookings if they want to be outside, strong community engagement, uh, events.

There was you know, the city was getting ready for an event when I was here the last time they had little signs on the street, so I know for sure that there's just you know, you guys rally around those events.

It's a very welcoming and inclusive atmosphere.

Maybe you get that that great curve appeal across businesses, you know, your residential you name it, um, active local economy, quality businesses, thriving downtown, and then you have that strong university and community connection.

Um, active local economy, quality businesses, thriving downtown, and then you have that strong university and community connection.

So you have that, you know, the university isn't just you know, over there.

There's a lot of interaction between the town and the university.

So now we're gonna move into some challenges and or opportunities as we like to phrase them.

So one thing that came up was housing availability and affordability.

Um, so some of the visitors noted um one task we had them do was take uh you know, drive through, see if there's any for sales signs on housing, you know, take a peek in your online search, what if they're available?

Um so something that they found is a more limited housing supply uh supply, so a little bit more barriers for entry level or affordable homes.

Um older homes and historic areas may need reinvestment or updates, but that was also something that they noticed earlier on in the presentation.

If you remember that they noticed there was reinvestment being putting into those, being put into those homes.

So that was also mentioned as a positive, so take that one to grade the salt.

Um newer developments may be priced out of reach for some, especially some of those college students graduating from like SDSU and wanting to kind of move back into the community.

Um rental prices and limited availability could deter long-term settlement.

So that was something that they noticed was about housing availability.

Um public transportation, and this was mainly outside of downtown.

Down in town was frequently described as very walkable and very easy to get around.

But outside of downtown, um, they noticed a lack of public transportation or noticeable public transportation was a barrier for some.

Um they described it as very car dependent, um, as well as kind of a lack of walkability in some of the areas outside of downtown, um, with some sidewalks that are aging or needing improvement.

Um then we get into economic and cultural opportunities.

Um, so one comment that was mentioned was more youth-oriented culture, and by youth it was very much phrased as um like late teens through like late 20s.

Um and it was specifically opportunities outside of like the collegiate sphere, because I think that's something that was noted as being very good is is um the uh the pride of the Jacks and um and collaboration with SDSU, um, but more youth appeal outside of the collegiate sphere.

Um so encouraging things like grassroots arts and cultural programming to kind of retain and attract some of those younger visitors.

Um you say that encouraging grassroots arts and cultural programming, are you thinking maybe like a jazz festival or something like that?

Yeah, I think that's what they were thinking.

At least that's what I got into from the from the report and from their uh from their notes.

Um just more things to draw in kind of that late teen to late 20s range.

Something that they mentioned, and I know I'm kind of jumping back into some of the positives, is there was a lot of really good family-oriented things.

There was lots of really positive community uh comments on things like the children's museum, and so they were just looking for more things for kind of that middle range between family and kids.

So um, but yes, um, then into growth and planning.

Um there's visible signs of expansion in industrial residential areas.

Um so it's kind of a challenge of managing growth while maintaining community character.

Um, and something they also mentioned as a positive was there's a really good um division between like residential areas and industrial areas, so keeping maintaining that, um, maintaining the um the attraction of yes um and and that sort of thing.

But um then balancing new development with preservation of small town charm is another thing to just um consider as well.

Um and then we get into kind of the the things that popped up most often um between all of the visitors' reports.

So we already kind of touched on housing um shortages, particularly affordable and entry level, um, looking at options for public transportation or visible public transportation or even some pedestrian infrastructure outside of the downtown area.

Um focus on strong community identity to keep proximity to Sioux Falls.

Um there was one um participant that mentioned when they went into a store downtown, they had asked uh one of the one of the customer service reps there, you know, hey, what's what's there to do around town?

You know, we're here for the day, what's what's there to do?

And they're like, well, you know, you can hop on the interstate and go down to Sioux Falls.

So we want to make sure that we're retaining visitors and um that we're promoting the things that we have here in Brookings over just bumping on down to Sioux Falls.

So some other things they mentioned was just some older infrastructure and neighborhood upkeep, um, as well as maintaining um and balancing you know the small town character while being a very growing community, and so keeping the balance of the small town charm with with the growth.

Yes, it seems like this one was the picture of the water tower of one of the challenges.

Yes, um, one of the comments, one of the comments mentioned um the tower just in need of some upkeep, like maybe painting it and uh making it look a little a little bit more eye-appealing.

It's getting torn down as well.

Wait, but you guys bought it.

Yeah, we have those in everyone too.

We're freaking all right.

So most remember it.

So one of the things um at the very end, we asked visitors, um, you know, what are you gonna most remember?

What are some things that are gonna bring you back to this community that would encourage you?

Yeah, I'm like, I'm gonna come back and spend another day, another day or two, um, or even to to move to this community.

So some things that they really enjoyed were museums and galleries.

McCrory Gardens was mentioned very positively, as well as the Dakota Nature Park, um, the children's museum was mentioned multiple times.

Um, downtown and the variety of stores and businesses downtown was really positively mentioned as well.

Um, people loved downtown, they spent a lot of time there.

Um, I don't think there was a visitor that didn't stop downtown.

So that was very positively mentioned.

Um, the outdoor areas of flowers and landscaping.

I know we've touched on this already, but people loved the flowers and the landscaping.

Um, there was great opportunities for young children, um, especially with the children's museum.

Um, farmers market, many people stopped at the farmers market over the summer and they really really loved it.

Um that was positively mentioned multiple times.

Um, things like downtown concerts as well, shopping, dining experiences, um, friendly business owners.

People really thought that folks were very friendly and very welcoming and very helpful.

Um, and so yeah, I kind of already walked into the second or the next point there.

Um, the energy of downtown um was also positively mentioned, people really loved downtown, and then the family-oriented attractions as well were seen very favorably.

All right, so we're wrapping up here.

Um so we had asked our visitors if they could describe the community and three adjectives, what would they be?

And so this is this is what we came up with.

Um, obviously, people can't count very well because we have somebody that you know only provided two, and other people like, hey, we hypernate, we can you can add more.

So again, that welcoming and that clean just kept on rising to the top.

Just um, if there's one, two, three, three welcomings, and I think there's probably three cleans just in that list right there.

Um so between clean friendly, welcoming that kid friendly, that college town that kind of goes into that that Jack Pride, you can see that when you are out and about again as far as the the work that you guys have done to reinvest in the community that's coming up with that invested um emerging vibrant, so very well received.

I I think we had uh work pretty hard to get some opportunities to list, but um, very very impressive.

Um, so what's next?

So, what are what are the next steps?

So, you know, we originally thought we had a little bit more time and we had a little bit longer of a presentation that that delved into the report a little bit more, and we would be willing if you guys wanted this back to go in and have that longer uh report out if you so desired.

If not, that's fine too.

Um, so that would be possibly a next step.

Um, but we would really encourage you all to to keep this conversation going to keep these discussions going and to have a planning session, even amongst yourselves on what to do.

What what should we do next?

What can we glean from this and what can we do?

Um, and set some priorities, goals, maybe you know, or a specific strategic planning session.

I I don't know what that is for for you guys in Brookings, but um, we really want you to keep this conversation going.

Um we will check back, we'll circle back around, and I don't know if that's to you, Sam, or to you two ladies, uh, whatever you guys choose.

Um, but we will circle back around and see if there's anything that that we can do to help out.

Um, you know, we have programs like marketing hometown America, strategic planning, um a lot of different things that could probably help with next steps if you guys are so interested.

But general recommendations is to have each and every one of you think about ways that you can help send this positive message because remember, these potential new residents, they're they're researching online before they even come to town, and and when they are in town, you know, they're looking, you know.

Can I make this my community?

Can I, you know, can I fit here?

Is this something that um I can see myself living here for the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years?

So when I know that you guys have a training, right?

For your customer service.

Uh and I actually ran into that a couple of times where they got their certificates, so well done.

They did they did awesome.

Um, but also, you know, your residents, you know, how can your residents, you know, Joe Blue on the street, you know, what can they say to help tell that positive story about about brookings instead of sending them down to Sioux Falls?

And if I had to guess, I was probably the college person that they mentioned in the report, it was a young person.

Yeah, yeah.

Um but anyway, you know, have everybody tell that story and use that city and school website because if people are looking at coming into your community, that's probably where they're gonna hit first rather than you know, visit Brookings, they'll probably hit that as well, but they'll probably hit the school and the the public utilities and things like that first.

So use that to your uh best ability in addition to the tourism and chamber websites.

So I actually looked over your original presentation, which is quite a bit more detailed than this one.

Yes, and I'm just wondering if that's not something we could put on the city website.

As I mean, I think it's a it's a good report, it's essentially the slideshow, but it's on the packet.

So we asked the one that like the AD some slides, yeah.

That's in the package, it's available to the public.

No, but I mean as a link of the actual survey, you know, what that this was done more up on a dashboard rather than inside of a study session.

So I'm sure we can make a post with a link to it.

So that's an excellent point.

Um, this is being this is our pilot, this is our beta test, right?

Um, we base this off of K-State, and if you go visit um K-State's website, first impressions, they have at least 130, if not more.

They said they've been doing this and they have 150 under their belt right now, but they actually post the presentations and the report if the if the um communities approved it, and you guys did.

Um, we're not quite to that point yet where we're gonna put it on our website because this is just our our first one out of the gate, but hopefully at some point we would post it on ours as well.

Um, but you're more than welcome to put it wherever you would like because this is now we have officially handed it back, handed it, handed the research back to you guys, and you can run with it however you see fit.

But that is a really great point.

Thank you for reminding me about that piece too.

Thank you for doing this.

Yeah, any other questions?

Um first, I just want to thank you for this work and for putting together a report and and for just running this program.

I think it's really interesting to kind of see what the feedback from folks from outside of our community would be.

Um, and uh clearly there are a lot of things that were positively highlighted here, and I want to give a lot of credit to the people that are sitting in this room because it is the hard work that all of you guys do that make our community so beautiful and vibrant and uh and easy to navigate both online and in person.

So thank you for that.

Um when it comes to the general recommendations, um, what I would love to see is these folks who are leading these efforts kind of come together and maybe work with you on that more extensive um uh workshop that you had mentioned to to set some of those goals because I think whether it's the folks from our staff, you know, through parks or Sam and the work that she does, or if it's through visit bookings and downtown and and the other community partners, they're gonna be the ones that are definitely gonna know what those best goals are to set, and then if you're willing to do that and you set those goals and then bring those back to us, I think that might be a really great way to continue the momentum on what's happening here.

Um, because I mean we can certainly give some ideas, but you guys are the experts, and you guys are the ones that are already doing this stellar work.

So I I would defer to your your expertise.

I don't know if other counselors, but I'll agree with that.

Completely different.

No, I think that's great.

I I would defer to the experts too.

I just had two questions.

On one, um for the online presence.

Did you encourage them to just stick to the official websites, or did you have them look at like social media or have them kind of see what other online presence there is just organically and get information from that?

Yeah, we have them look at everything.

So when we when we trained them, it was do a general web search, do Google, do social media, do Yahoo, whatever you prefer.

Um, however, you would normally research um a destination that you are planning to go to for a trip, or if you're and we also encourage them to look at if you are going to be a new resident, look at it through that lens too.

Um, and so it was a general um general search that included things like social media, um, the official city websites.

I think a lot of them deferred to the official like city website, chamber website, and that sort of thing, um, just because it was probably something they're familiar with in their town, and they knew that they could get information from there, but they were encouraged to look across um a whole wide spectrum of media perfect.

And then uh the other question is downtown was talked about a lot, which is great.

We have invested quite a bit in that.

I was wondering if you got a general sense of kind of like a hotspot map of where else I visited.

We have other like shopping areas in town, and I'm just curious of what drew them to mainly downtown, but if they visited those other areas, yes.

Um they did visit that'd be back to Bonnie's point with that longer presentation.

Yes, so in the longer presentation, um we do delve into some of the other retail areas that they visited.

It's less of a hotspot map and more of like here's what I noticed, or I stopped at this store, and it was great, or I stopped at this store.

Would it be good if there was a target was one of the yes, target was mentioned.

We will get rid of the water tower.

All right, and just a nod to you over there and your your uh firefighter people very positive, both fire and police.

So I would say the three comments out there from new residences that is welcoming.

It's that's clean, and the quality of life is exceptional.

It's like this captured a lot of that.

So there was a comment.

I'm go ahead, Nick.

I'll save my question.

Go ahead.

Oh, I I had more of a comment than a question.

I would echo the sentiments of appreciation.

Um maybe my comment comes more like as a South Dakotan than a Brookings.

City councillor.

Okay, I'm really glad we could participate in the pilot, and I think that Brookings and Aberdeen were two really great communities to serve in this pilot exchange.

I'm really curious in other communities, um, how participatory they are and what how they receive the reports.

And I don't say that because I don't think we have a lot to learn.

I think we do in reports like this are helpful to us and guide the decisions we make.

But I can see a report like this also being really useful in communities where they need a catalyst to get like their council to invest.

They need their chamber to invest, right?

And this report to me seems like it could be really powerful for folks that might be naysayers in your own community.

So I hope there are other communities in the state, perhaps smaller communities that will participate in this program because I think if I were in some of those communities, I hear from friends that are trying to do great things in their towns, and they've got a lot of folks that are like just don't get why it would be worthwhile to invest in the park or in the tennis courts or on Main Street in a report like this to me feels like it could be really powerful in a mid-sized community in the state that just needs a little wind at their back.

So I'm I'm excited to see where this could go in our state.

I think it could be really powerful.

Super.

And and the biggest piece about that is that this is an unbiased report.

So you know, it's the intention is that it's presented as such, and that you can use it as such when you're talking to some of those um naysayers or those people that haven't quite turned the corner yet, but that's not to say that we don't have that in Brookings and that we can't learn a lot from this too, but I just think there are other communities that eventually this could be a great tool for.

Thank you.

So one of the questions I have, and maybe it's because we had people come from Aberdeen, and they said something about um lack of public transportation.

Does Aberdeen have a bus travel?

So I mean I'm just asking the question it's like how could we enhance public transportation without having them have to call beta to pick them up and get an appointment to have them picked up somewhere.

We don't really have bus stops, and so I understand that part walkability.

Most of the time we're trying to maintain our sidewalks best as possible.

We take sections and uh and then I was looking at that too.

It's like I know whole time evening, there were quite a few uh live cars and available.

And so it was possible.

Um that and we just got our multi-use uh sidewalks just made now in the last couple months in the south end of town all along the 20th.

Otherwise, it was a little difficult to navigate through there.

So we've done some improvements, which I I understand we could do more, but public transportation one kind of kicks me a little bit.

That's that's been a difficult called issue up in Aberdeen for many years.

Um, and for the longest time, our our taxi would not even allow the Ubers or the Lyfts, so um, we finally turned the corner on that.

But okay.

Yeah, I think probably coming from Aberdeen orly sensitive to it, maybe, and I I don't know, I don't want to stick my final personal opinion in that, but that would be my guess is that we notice that it's not up there, and there too, or not here.

Right.

And I wonder if some of it isn't just better telling the story that we do have those options, like that.

We do have lift that we do have taxi services that we do have beta as a as a public transportation route.

Maybe it's just not finding the information available because we do have some options.

Is beta the one that takes people to doctor's appointments in Super Balls?

Uh they do.

Okay.

Because there was a mention of that.

Yeah, because I think it was really visibility.

I think that was a lot of their comments, and I think because a lot of them came in their own vehicles, they would have had no way to encounter public transportation.

And so um, even if that visibility is having like um something posted to uh a website, a city website, being like, here's you know, here's how you can schedule a lift um or something like that, so that way it's visible.

Um, but I think it was more so a visibility issue than anything.

They were coming in their own vehicles and so they just didn't correct.

Okay, go ahead.

So one question that I have is more about this program moving forward.

So you mentioned that K-State has this program and they've done it about 150 times.

So what is their recommendation in terms of when would a community want to participate in this program again?

That's a good one I'm not sure.

I don't know if we've ever encountered that, but I will I mean I could make inferences about well, of course, maybe once you've you know implemented a lot of the recommendations, or maybe your community has undergone you know substantial growth in a particular area or something.

But yeah, I just wondered more like what the professional maybe recommendations.

Like come back after we turn on the water sound.

Well, and you know, it's kind of funny too.

So we did um provide all the pictures on on zip disk to you can use those pictures as kind of a frame of reference as well.

So even if you didn't have the official, you know, first impressions, second impressions.

Um again, you can use those to to do a comparative analysis of you know what it was like five years ago.

You know, were the photographs taken by the by the secret shoppers.

Yes, yeah.

So that's kind of fun because then you can kind of see you know what they were looking at and what they thought was interesting and fun.

Trust me, there was a lot of flower pictures.

Well, here's an interesting one here for public infrastructure, public safety.

Um, and this is a picture of the police.

I love the police facilities.

Facilities if you're in modern, well maintained, and literally located.

Maybe it's a statue.

I was disappointed there wasn't any turkey vultures on that water tower.

They were all they were all circling, they had landed yet.

Any other questions for Emily or Kelly?

Well, thank you very much.

Yes, thank you so much.

A lot to learn from with it.

Contact information if you guys need it.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, that's great.

All right.

Our next presentation and discussion is for patients.

Mike, new development director will present this item.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members.

I'd like to introduce you to our associate planner, Mayley Maka.

Um I apologize, she's been with us since uh early May, but uh we thought this was an opportunity to introduce uh her to the council, and then you get to uh put uh face with some names that you're gonna get to see and hear from here coming in the future.

And um one of her first tasks that we actually had her working on um even before council member Duran brought it up about the home occupations is we knew we had some things that we needed to look at changing, and so Bailey did a lot of research and uh put together some recommendations that we discussed internally as staff.

So with that, I will go ahead and kind of get started a little bit.

I think it's good to understand kind of um home occupation, it kind of seems you know, it's should be pretty easy to acknowledge it's just some sort of occupation occurring within the residence by a member of that immediate family.

In Brookings, we class we have two classifications for home occupations a major and a minor home occupation, and how do we distinguish between the two?

Well, we give an applicant a checklist, and if they check yes on anything, it kicks them into a major home occupation.

We also have some uses that are specifically listed uh within our zoning ordinance.

Uh the approval process for minor home occupation is we uh they go through, they fill it out, we talk to them a little bit, they sign everything, we issue them as a zoning and use registration for rent.

Uh the major home occupation is a little bit more detailed.

They do a similar questionnaire, they're uh a little bit different than the minor, but um the the big difference is is a major home occupation.

We do allow one individual outside of the residence to be employed in that occupation.

Uh the square footage is different.

I think in a minor home occupation, you're limited to 500 square feet of one floor of the structure.

We're in a major home occupation is 50% of the floor area.

We do allow the storage of materials not only within the principal building, but they can be in an accessory uh structure as well, which would be a detached garage shed, whatnot.

Uh there are parking requirements for major home occupation in addition to what is required for a residential area, they have to uh provide two off-street parking spaces.

Uh there's some other criteria that are associated with it, but the way the approval process is for major home occupation is through a conditional use per minor coup.

I think what probably led to this discussion is recently we've had some uh conditional uses that have had to come forward with the for the major home occupations, and we started to kind of question is why are we putting our citizens through this process in particular for like a single hair chair, single chair hair salon, uh somebody just wanting to cut hair out of their home.

How would we ever know that that is occurring in their home?

Uh typically they're not really well advertised, it's word of mouth, they get an established clientele and they're stick pretty close to that clientele.

And how do we know it's any different from somebody just coming over a visit, socialize and having coffee or a drink or whatever versus actually getting their hair cut, unless we were to sit there for the duration and see that they come out with their locks a little shorter.

So it was time for us to kind of look at this and re-evaluate it.

So and feel free to interrupt and ask questions anytime along the way.

Um we're proposing to mix it up a little bit, occupations and go more to an intensity-based type of system.

Uh, that's kind of how we when we updated our comprehensive plan, we went to a land use intensity.

We thought here might be a little bit more appropriate to go to an intensity-based, and we looked at three different categories, uh, no impact, minor, and major.

I think another thing that's probably uh helping in our favor is think of um a recent pandemic and how did the workforce change?

Think of how technology has influenced how we work today.

And so it maybe is appropriate to look at some of these, and so with uh a no impact type business, uh our initial thoughts was this would be supplemental to a business with the principal place legally established elsewhere in the community.

It's completely computer internet based.

There's really no change in the parking or traffic.

Um you're not doing on-site sales.

As I was sitting here listening to the previous one and uh discussion we had earlier today, I'm not sure if the very first bullet point should be applicable because I'm thinking of how many self-employed people that are doing a business that is strictly computer internet-based, or I mean a friend, they they do voiceovers, they're near they narrate books, they sit in their house, they read books, they record them.

Um but that place of business isn't anywhere else, they're independent.

So is that a major concern for the council is if it's uh self-employed, um, or would you I mean they really have no impact on the neighborhood on the structure itself, but uh if they don't have a place of business elsewhere in the community, then it would trigger it to move to a minor home occupation?

Which I think there would be a lot of no impact.

I think people that consult an SDSU, you know, on the side would get thrown out of this, I would think authors who write books.

I mean, they're no impact, but you're saying the A would be minor.

Because they don't have another, they don't have like a quote unquote corporate business established in the community.

So that may be one that we want to talk about, and I think as we proceed through and you kind of see how the different classifications come, uh you might have different ideas of how we approach this too.

Are these people even re requesting the any kind of permit if they're just doing it?

I mean that I think that is a legitimate question.

Like is our current expectation that people who are doing like strictly online businesses or are even like are we expecting that they are doing minor home.

I think the way it's really the question is are they violating potentially the current code?

Correct.

And how yeah, and how do we ever know?

I mean but would they I mean that that is the question, like would technically would that be in violation then of our current code?

You know, yes, because they did at least come get a minor home occupation and get a ZERP.

Um but yeah, like the artists and it's like we don't have time to scour every potential resource out there to see if somebody's operating a business out of their home.

But I like your train of thought because I'm gonna come back to that question after we get through some of this.

Um with a minor home occupation.

Can I can ask a question real quick?

So is the current code how that first bullet point even got on that previous slide?

No, or was that I I think we were just going back to it.

Yeah.

Uh no, I I think you were thinking more remote workers.

Yeah, we were probably going down that line of remote working.

Because we're thinking it's like what happened during COVID.

Yeah.

And then I've got a number of individuals that they never went back to their place of employment.

Sure.

They're working from home.

And it's like technically they would need a minor home occupation.

And I think if we all look around, I mean, there's a lot of us that we could really do our jobs from home.

Um, and what impact does it really does anybody even know that I'm working from home?

And what impact does it have on the neighborhood?

The structure itself, and so I really like where you guys are asking questions and go on and make sure we circle back together.

As far as the term no impact, I don't think that first bullet point gets at that theme that the other ones do.

Because it really doesn't matter if you have that legally established corporation or business elsewhere, it's still having no impact on the neighborhood.

So you know, we'll kind of let you read through the minors.

Uh there's a couple of things that we would we would like to you know propose changing in this slide already because we were kind of working through it today.

Is a lot of these are by appointments only, but we kind of discussed it uh earlier today, and we thought we needed to strike that you know not to exceed four visits per day.

How are we gonna actually enforce that or track that?

Typically, a lot of times with these minor home occupations, you might be thinking of like the hair salon counseling services, maybe somebody that does massages.

You really only have a one client at a time, anyways.

It's by appointment.

Um we're gonna require them to submit uh logs of their visitors for the day.

I you know and so we're thinking maybe to eliminate four visits per day as well.

I mean, these are just some suggestions that we've kind of thrown out there is kind of working through the research and what we thought was appropriate.

Uh but anyways, you know, with the zoning and use registration permit, that is an administrative approval process.

Um they they fill out the the checklist if they answer the questions correctly um based upon the uses that are currently in the ordinance, then they can get a serve.

Is there like a like a grace range?

Because if you do have visitors that it's going to increase it, so that it's already abnormal to residential neighborhoods.

I think what we're really looking at there's you know, I think in a typical residential neighborhood, there's the expectations that you're gonna have people that come and visit.

I think the the concern is is if you're having people come in every five to ten minutes to stop and pick things up and get things or deliveries, I'd be careful with deliveries because with Amazon FedEx UPS, they might as well set up a shop in my neighborhood.

So I mean that's the way it used to be, is you thought that deliveries dropping products off, but now with the way that people shop, uh they're those those companies are through those neighborhoods on a daily basis, so it's not really as delivery-based as it was maybe previously.

So, Mike, uh I don't know if you recall well, you probably weren't here when they had pulled or had Fuller had uh a picture framing business in this home.

Um older gentlemen retired from state government or state employment, and uh I'm looking at this one part that says no onsite sales of merchandise or outside training.

My wife actually went to having you know some projects that she did that he would frame in math where's that slice of you know sales of merchandise because he's he's actually performing the service, but he's also providing product too.

Obviously he's not in business anymore, but um it's it's a really it's a really great area because the reality of it, Mayor, is it's very it's gonna be very difficult for us to be able to enforce all of this.

No different than somebody having a hair salon, too.

They might sell shampoo and conditioner, that kind of thing, also.

So I mean there's gonna be a little bit of attachment to services that we provide.

Uh when you get into the major, it's contained within the principal building or the accessory building.

You still try to prevent uh any sort of outdoor storage of materials.

Um it's limited to 50% of your gross floor area.

You'd actually be surprised is we actually have one home occupation that it's actually a machining business.

They set it up in one of their spare bedrooms or something, it's it on a smaller scale, but they are actually able to do some machining in there.

And uh it's kind of little niche thing that they found uh that they can do some certain parts.

Um you're allowed to have one person outside of the residence employed, uh it's limited signage, parking requirements, there's limited retail sales, uh, no more than one major home occupation would be allowed within a dwelling unit.

And then it's uh approved through the conditional use process.

So with our conditional use process, it's uh presented to the planning commission for a recommendation that's then brought forward to the city council, and then council size ultimate approval.

One of the things with the major home occupation is is uh it's you know the clause in there that does not include any of the prohibited activities, which these are some of the prohibited activities.

Um the primary use of the property cannot be as a business.

It's a residential area, it's residential purposes.

Business is an accessory to the primary use.

Uh really uh limiting any sort of display or exterior storage that would indicate that there's a business going on there.

It really needs to be all uh enclosed within either the accessory or the principal structure, uh really limiting uh the exterior alterations so that uh it wouldn't be obvious to someone new to the neighborhood that there's a business operating there because of the exterior appearance of the home.

Uh, and then preventing the toxic explosive, liable combustible corrosive types of materials.

Uh we also get into things um, you know, it's looking at those offensive orders noise things to the neighbors.

Typically, when you get into these types of things, types of businesses that come up is a lot of times things related to woodworking, cabinetry shops, but it's noisy, it's dusty, potentially some vibration.

You also get into potentially when they're doing the finishing, you get some smells.

But we've also had taxidermists that have done it too, and really what you notice there is usually if there's some sort of dressing or hide or something, um that is outside.

Uh most of the work is done inside, but they see we've had lots of complaints where they see it being hauled in and they see the finished product hauled out, and they just complain about it.

So the other thing is limiting the hours so that they're really you know between 9 p.m.

and 6 a.m.

Um can't really do home occupations during that time period.

We put together kind of a uh table, so you can kind of look up and down and look at the no impact minor, major, and then the prohibited um sort of prohibited uses, you know, you can do it in any of the districts, but uh as you kind of look down the left side, you can see some of the requirements, and then uh what they apply, and then no impact the minor or the major.

But I think one of the things that we're kind of wondering, and I'd like you know, to see if this is if we're heading down the right road, if this isn't the path that you want us to go down, but one of the questions that maybe have is how much interest do you have in really regulating no impact and minor home occupations, or is the emphasis more on the major home occupations?

And I think the other thing that is different from what we've maybe been used to with our current zoning is we don't list out specific, or we're not proposing to list out specific types of uses, it's more based upon the intensity, and if it's you know determined to be a lower intensity, not as significant impact in the neighborhood, then it would fall into that no impact or minor, or it's maybe those more intensive uses based upon uh the type of business the materials utilize uh the frequency, the amount of traffic or storage that would even the amount of space that it would take up is that would trigger moving into a major home occupation.

So say a person rents from somebody and they run a business, would they have would there be like a landlord consent?

I would think that's the way we do it right now.

So the uh owner of the property has to sign off.

If it's uh rental situation, then the person that's applying for it could be the applicant, but we need consent from the owner.

I guess I don't sorry, but I I guess I don't see the reason to have a no impact permit.

I think it's takes sucks up staff time.

We probably have quite a bit of uh no impact situations already in town that people don't even know about.

So a no impact would basically be allowed by right.

So it it's there would be no permit that would be written before it.

It's just if somebody's interested in doing a home occupation, we kind of start the interactions and communication back and forth with uh the checklists, and no impact.

Just go ahead and do it.

Right.

Don't worry about it.

I I think that adding no impact as one of the options is probably necessary, especially if right now the businesses that would be considered no impact under this matrix are currently considered minor, that seems a little bit absurd, right?

Like if somebody is just working remotely, or if somebody is um uh you know, writing books or you know, painting and not selling any of it on site, it would seem um it would seem silly to have the city have an administrative process in that, and so if that's our current expectation because of the way the minor situation is identified, I think we should adjust that and move to a no impact where there would not be a permit process.

Um I'm curious to know where in this matrix something like um like some of your what are they called, the MLM, right?

Where like people you like become a Mary K distributor and like those kinds of things, where would that land in this?

Which is interesting because I think during the research technically kind of allude to the fact that um some of those are kind of almost going by the wayside.

Um, all the names of that we grew up knowing and help aware and that was probably as one of them.

You know, depending on how much of the the house, but it'd probably fall into a minor because how much of the selling are they actually doing on site?

Well, and I that was a follow-up question I was gonna ask is like when we talk about on site sales.

Are we talking that that is the point of sale where somebody walks in with their credit card and pays for it there?

Or if somebody purchases it online and then goes to the residence to pick up the item, is that then considered on site sales?

It's a very gray area.

Like, what about people who make things and sell it on Facebook marketplace?

Right, or something like that.

Like my gut reaction is we should be trying to regulate what people would typically think is a home occupation that needs to be regulated, and trying to not make people wonder if I you know sell something on Facebook marketplace, it might no impact.

If I work from home, it might no impact.

That would be like my gut reaction to this.

So some of these regulations were kind of I think crafted, drafted at a time where they were trying to prevent uh the never-ending yard sale.

Uh there's actually regulations that you only have two garage sales a year.

Um but I think what you'd find is uh some people that are maybe do the crafts or something, make some you know furniture or different things like that, they would put them out and display them in their yard and offer them for sale, and it was just never ending in the thing neighbors, you know, we're getting a little bit of concern.

So I think if there's an opportunity, it's it's maybe you know, if there are on-site sales, but there's really no display exterior display of items for sale to try and keep it out of the yards uh that might be a way to address some of it.

I think maintaining the minor makes sense because I think there are times when it's maybe not a major home occupation, but it would still be something that we would want to kind of have documentation that yes, this business is existing in here.

Um, but again, I would say also implementing a no impact category makes a lot of sense to me.

I think where we probably still just need to do a little bit of work is in answering some of these like gray area questions is you know, what would this be classified as if this and obviously you're never gonna be able to identify all the questions and have all the answers?

That's not at all the expectation, but I think there's probably some gray area that would probably happen frequent enough that we might want to be prepared with some answers for it.

I also think what would be worthwhile is maybe thinking about what the state regulates too, and like what paperwork individuals are already having to file, like with the state, because like if you're a contractor and you provide some sort of consulting services, there's state regulations around some of that too, and so again, I think that's a good argument as to why we should implement a no impact because the state's already sort of regulating some of that stuff, and there's in my opinion, not a need to regulate that at the city level as well.

Mike, I forgot what was staff's recommendation.

Uh we were kind of just proposing uh the no impact, the minor and the major.

Uh, we were proposing to eliminate specifically listing out the uses and more creating kind of the criteria that is you know, this is consistent with the with the um major home occupation, like the intensity type thing.

Uh so we we haven't actually um well we kind of have put in the ordinance format, but we needed to present to make sure that we were maybe going in the right direction.

It hasn't been to the planning commission or or even the DRT yet.

Uh you know, it's more our internal staff kind of doing some research looking at you know what are some trends or best practices on how they're addressing uh home occupations in general, and then we wanted to present it to counsel and kind of get your feedback to see if we're heading in the right direction.

I am curious.

One of the slides mentioned that there would not be um allowed items such as like combustible materials, I think maybe the one where you're this uh combustible pros and radioactive flammable uh explosive.

Recently we've seen a couple of major home uh occupations doing like gunsmithing, so I'm wondering, and I I think with those applicants we had addressed the fact that they would not be having ammunition, it would be more the the firearm itself that they'd be working with.

If an individual were to come forward with like a gunsmithing business, would this make it so that ammunition would not be allowable?

Like would that qualify as one of the items because it is explosive and combustible and I think you'd start looking at the quantities that are probably considered outside of what a normal household would have.

So, like uh when I look at some of those materials, we all have cleaning supplies that some of them may or may not be combustible.

Um, but when you start buying it in quantities that that's not consistent with a typical household use when I buy 50 gallons of whatever cleaner it may be or something, and that was one home occupation that was denied um you know several years ago is they wanted to run a cleaning business where they would have a ban, they'd store all their cleaning materials, but they were buying it in such quantities that if you had an incident, would that quantity quantities be of such a nature that if there's spills or were they toxic enough that it would cause significant damage or impact not only to the home but into the neighboring neighborhood properties as well, and they just didn't feel that that was appropriate and that you need to go get like a business location uh from a gunsmithing perspective, it depends on kind of the quantities of some of the the materials, you know, like um obviously if they're like cleaning and if they're buying some of the cleaning solutions that I you know how big or how large quantities are you gonna buy them on a typical person that's cleaning a gun, depending on how many guns they have, it's probably a small little bottle of the oil and cleaning solution.

But if you're doing several hundred of these, you might be looking at much bigger bottles as you know for economies of scale.

Um so those are some things that we'd have to take into consideration.

I think in addition to the amount, the other thing that should be taken into consideration is the purpose, right?

I mean, there is I can imagine that there are probably some individuals uh in our community and other communities that would identify themselves as preppers that probably have very large quantities of flammable or combustible items, right?

Um, and and so I think the purpose for the item is also something to be considered.

If personal use is the purpose, then that's one thing.

But if business is the purpose for the use, that could be an added layer to it as well.

Um because I think when you start to talk about quantities that you know that could make another gray area, right?

Um we we did have an incident where somebody was running out of their home insect pesticide type business.

They were getting semi-deliveries with pallets, they were rolling them up the driveway on a rolling rack, uh 55 gallon barrels, they were mixing it in the back of their uh tanks and their pickups they didn't you know each day, and so I mean we we did um had to uh do enforcement on that because that's not typical at those quantities in a residential area, unless you get it severe butt problem.

So but they were going off-site and doing all the work, they were just mixing the chemicals on the database.

So those are the areas where you're you get concerns.

I like the grid.

I mean, looking at that, you know, the difference between the first two, the no impact and the minor essentially is traffic of clients.

I mean, that's what's defining the difference there, and it seems like minor to major is the additional employee and having possible sales on site.

Yeah, and it does expand the amount of area that you could use, but yeah.

But I think that having something like this for mining one.

I really appreciate the the cleaning up of the minor to no impact.

I think that was very much needed.

Thank you.

So it sounds like Bailey did a lot of the research here.

Yeah, yeah.

So, first of all, thank you, Bailey, for your work um on this.

Uh, for those that don't know, Bailey's got a background in landscape side, uh, right?

Landscape architecture.

Uh so it's really about place for me when I I think about the work she's doing.

But can't get away without uh putting you on the spot here.

What are some of the interesting things you found in your research uh when looking at this?

I definitely noticed that most of the communities I looked at did not have specific occupations listed out like we do.

So that was kind of a leading factor and kind of looking at more of an intensity and use-based.

Some of the communities didn't even have it broken up this much.

They just had one set of criteria for home occupations and then prohibited criteria.

So some were even more simple.

So eliminate eliminating the specific occupations, but still having different categories.

But that was the main thing I noticed that they didn't list out specific ones.

A few of the bigger, I think Minneapolis listed out specific occupations to prohibit.

They did have a few things that they explicitly prohibited, but otherwise no listing out of things.

So we were off the top of your head with those.

Definitely was a big one.

That might have been at a couple different uh communities now that I think about it, a couple of them had prohibited listed ones.

So and restaurants was definitely something that they were restricting.

So do we have somewhat of a consensus that we're on the right track here?

You proceed.

Okay, thank you, Mike Bailey.

Um move on to uh future topics.

Does council have any things, future agenda that they would like to discuss?

Our next meeting is next week, October 28th.

Um we've got a few items on consent agenda some surplus property, and then uh we're accepting a park and rec donation to Dakota Nature Park.

Um Student Association report.

We have three first readings, uh budget ordinance for 2026, application for a conditional use permit, and a zoning change.

Currently we have no second readings, and in other business, we have uh preliminary flat for Northeast Hansen edition.

Um transferring city management contingency funds to city departments, and then authorizing special assessments for lawn care and union contracts, uh HR department will present and then uh progress report, and uh that's pretty much it.

Um motion to adhere.

Thank you very much.

All right, the closing tomorrow.