The Erie City Council convened on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, at 9 a.m. for a regularly scheduled meeting. The session included a presentation on a proposed workforce housing development, public hearings on two historic landmark designations, lengthy public comment periods addressing police brutality, media conduct, and systemic racism, and the passage of several ordinances and resolutions. Three council members were absent for portions of the meeting, leaving four members to vote. The meeting was adjourned at 12:26 p.m.
Roll call for the city council meeting of Wednesday, July 1st, 2026 at 9 a.m. Councilmember Titus. Here. Councilmember Brzezinski is absent. Flores here. Tor Horton. Hole. Here. Shaw. Here. Choop. At this time, we will stand for a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. There are a few individuals that we would like to acknowledge. Stephen Polarius, the owner of New York Lunch East Ave had has passed away. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Marcello Woodard's death. I don't know. There's also two retired firefighters that passed away this week. Who was a longtime employee? And Norm Vote. They both passed away this week. Both good gentlemen. I knew them personally. And just want to put sympathies out to their families and the firefighters. I have a motion to accept the minutes from the Wednesday June 17th, 2026 City Council meeting and bills for payment on July 3rd and July 10th. Council members Flores Horton, Paul Shaw, Troop, Titus. Yes. All right. Just so you give a brief overview for because things are a little bit out of order this morning. We do have a presentation that will happen this morning. And so we'll we'll go into that next. But then we will also have public hearings today at uh 9 30. Prior to going into public comment, we will have an executive session. And so it's gonna look a little bit different than it usually looks this morning. So we'll have our presentation and then we will go into executive session. Then we'll have we might get one or two public comments before we have to go into the public hearing, and then we'll pause the public comment. Go into the public hearing and then come back. Just so everyone understands the flow of what will happen this morning. So we'll go ahead and go into the presentation that we're gonna have this morning from uh Dr. Marcia Farrell at uh who's the executive director of best about a project that they have at 6th and Parade. Thank you, Dr. Titus, and thank you, Council and Mayor Devlin. Um I'm here today to talk about a project that really came out of the Infinite Erie Housing Needs Assessment Study that started last year. Uh so as I was talking with Wyatt Schrader uh from Infinite Erie about the housing needs assessment, one of the things that we talked about is the need for more housing in Erie, and best owns a lot of green space. So one of the things that we talked about was why not build something for Erie on that green space. So in particular, we were talking, or we were looking at the block at Sixth and Parade. And I sent this to Dr. Titus to send all of you. All of the, and I'll turn around so everybody can see. The orange with the exception of this tiny parcel here, best owns on that block of Sixth and Parade. Um that parcel we are currently talking to Erie Insurance about purchasing.