Welcome to our meeting.

The date is December 9, 2025.

The time is 7 PM.

This is an open meeting of the Grand Island City Council.

The City of Grand Island abides by the Open Meetings Act in conducting business.

A copy of the Open Meetings Act is displayed in the back of this room as required by state law.

The City Council may vote to go into closed session on any agenda item as allowed by state law.

Now I ask, will you please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

The City Clerk will now perform roll call.

Council President Shearden.

Present.

Councilmember Stelk.

Present.

Councilmember Conley.

Present.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Hassee.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Councilmember O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock will be absent.

Councilmember Lanfear.

Present.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

Also present are Jill Grenier, the City Clerk, Patrick Brown, the City Administrator, Carrie Fisk, the City Attorney, and Keith Kurtz, the public works director.

Individuals who have appropriate items for city council consideration should complete the request for future agenda items form located at the information booth.

If the issue can be handled administratively without council action, notification will be provided.

If the item is scheduled for a meeting or study session, notification of the date will be given.

Council members, do you wish to remove any of tonight's consent agenda items for additional consideration?

Seeing none, we shall continue.

A sign-up sheet was available in the lobby for individuals wishing to provide input on any of tonight's agenda items.

If you did not sign up to speak on an agenda item, please come forward.

State your name and the agenda topic on which you will be speaking.

Resolution B and C.

Thank you, Mayor Steele.

Um great to see a full council chambers, isn't it?

Must be something going on tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's on consent agenda.

Is that what you wish to speak?

7B.

Resolution.

Thank you.

Council members, we have representatives here tonight from Nebraska Game and Parks for resolution 2025-422.

Do you have any objections to us moving that to the top of the resolutions so they do not have to wait for an extended period of time?

That being the case, we will move resolution 2025-422 to the top of our resolutions when we get to that point of our meeting.

We now take up special item 6A, election of City Council President.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor Steele.

It's my privilege to nominate Ryan O'Neill for council president.

And Mr.

Lanfear.

I second.

Any further nominations?

Then your ballots are being distributed to you presently.

We have to make a motion to seize nominations.

Is there a motion to cease nominations?

Mr.

Hawsey.

I'd move that nomination cease.

And Mr.

Lanfear.

I second.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Congratulations, Ryan.

Congratulations to Council President Ryan O'Neill, and thank you to outgoing President Jack Sheard for all of your excellent work this past year.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Mr.

Lanfear.

I move we have to approve the consent agenda A to V.

Mr.

Brown.

That motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Public hearings.

A public hearing on acquisition of utility easement 611 Carey Avenue N Express Inc.

Mr.

Schmidt, good evening.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

This is a 20-foot easement for 24plex.

This is located between Custer and Broadwell on Fadley.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brown.

I move one.

Sorry, we need to announce the public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Please proceed, Mr.

Brown.

I move we approve 2025 TAC 419.

Mr.

Lanfear.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Our first resolution is now 9D, number 2025-422, approval of memorandum of understanding between the City of Grand Island and the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation regarding Camp Augustine.

Mr.

Brown.

Thank you, Mayor.

So a little background on June 27, 2023, City Council approved resolution 2023-164 authorizing purchase of Camp Augustine from the Overland Trails Council of the Boy Scouts at 12,500 per acre.

On November 6, 2023, Grand Island purchased the 156 acres for approximately two million dollars.

In cooperation with the Nebraska Game and Parks and Game of Parks Foundation, the attached memorandum of understanding has been developed to prepare the site site for purchase so that the city can pass off stewardship of this property to the state park system.

In furtherance of the spirit of the memorandum of understanding, as the state takes its next steps, the city has started the process of securing necessary appraisals and other work needed to ensure the property is ready for acquisition.

When the state is ready to complete the purchase of Camp Augustine, the City Council will be asked to approve the final sale.

The MOU represents the city's commitment to work in partnership with these final transition steps.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did you want to speak on this item?

Well, I would uh just commend the city staff on its vision to bring this forward in cooperation with the Nebraska Game of Parks.

And I was just uh sitting there reminiscing a little bit.

I can remember when there was a lot of acrimony about actually widening South Locust Street and remove all those trees going south, and now we'll look at what that provides for a corridor to our state and Nebraska State Fair and everything that goes with it.

So uh boy, this is a win-win.

Um great memorandum of understanding, which I think uh would meet our community needs, and also signals maybe uh added reinforcement for our residents to also aspire to journey there with a hike and bike trail and other ways, as well as the visitors that potentially would be there to come and enjoy Grand Island.

So uh appreciate the uh the leadership of this item.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Sheard, thank you, Mayor.

I proudly move that we pass resolution 2025-422.

Mr.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion?

Mr.

Lanfear.

Hi, Daryl.

I'm always the troublemaker, but I want to know what this state's gonna do with this.

The only people in the this council that I know that camp are you and me, Mayor.

And we've been camping for 40 years.

Yeah, I know.

But what you have out there is a real gem.

The last time I camped in a nature area was I don't know, 20 years ago, down in Arkansas.

You have a natural area.

I do not want to see them go in and destroy it.

You have six cabins, those are like the gold standard of camping.

You have a chapel out there, you have a uh area where that could be used for receptions.

I do not want to see them the state come in and just plow everything down.

It could be done as a nature area.

That's my concern.

That's it.

And I don't think that that's the state's intent.

Uh Mr.

Swenson, can you address uh the vision for Camp Augustine and also the other state land, including Mormon Island, and just uh fill in some uh information gaps for us.

I'd be very happy to, Mayor uh Mayor Steele, Council members, pleasure to be here this evening to represent the Nebraska and Parks Commission, speak on behalf of this this great project.

My name is Jim Swenson.

I am the deputy director with the Nebraska Game of Parks Commission located in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Uh so great questions, Doug, and very sensitive uh to uh the items you have brought forward.

Um we have definitely had discussions during their initial design phases of preserving as much of that area as we can for good conservation and education purposes, as well as the development enough to allow us to finance the operation as well.

That's going to be one of the big challenges that we have coming to us.

So, you know, what we've looked at initially is some campgrounds because there is very high demand for camping opportunities, and that's consistent, of course, with the way the property was utilized previously by the Boy Scouts of America.

We look at a lot of day use type programming, uh again, reflective of what might have happened on that landscape over the years, uh, and great opportunity for people to attend events there and then come into the community here for food service items, overnight lodging as well, and fun other fun activities.

We're looking at doing some shooting sports activities there, again, consistent with what Boy Scouts of America may have offered there previously, some fishing opportunities, and certainly taking advantage of the great kayaking opportunities that exist there with the thread of the stream that comes through there.

So we're pretty excited about it.

We do have some cabin development in there because there is high demand in our state park areas for overnight lodging opportunities, and certainly I'll be supportive of some of the major events that occur in town.

So we'll be very tasteful in our approach.

Uh we do have to be sensitive to making this a cash flow opportunity for us, uh, so all those things will come into consideration.

But we've been long underway having good discussion with members of with the mayor and other members about what that landscape should look like.

So I just my thought was we don't have any really nature trails.

This is basically over time Nebraska.

I mean the nature trail, you got a swamp out there.

You have all sorts of critters, birds, snakes, possums, raccoons.

You know, it's a nature area, and there are very few of those left in this country.

I would hate to see you just move the grass down.

And I understand why you would, but I hate to see it.

I'm done.

Sounds like you're pretty well placed.

Part of their property out there is actually mitigation ground that we have acquired.

So we'll have limited opportunity to develop it beyond much more than a conservation trail interpretive trail.

So that'll stand up as a perfect example of what you're talking about.

And also a large component of Nebraska Game of Parks is nature education.

Correct?

That is correct.

So it's uh in fact tomorrow I'll be speaking at a conference on that very subject.

Uh it is certainly an important element in our agency.

Thank you, and thank you for being here tonight.

Thanks.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Um Doug, I I think uh what they've just said maybe wraps that up, but the idea that we're going to bring more people to Grand Island to actually experience the things you're asking for makes this a in so many ways a home run.

Um I think win-win was a great way of putting it.

This is one of those things that I think reshapes Grand Island forever.

Uh Mayor, how many did you say?

Eight state parks?

It's my understanding.

They're nodding.

There are eight state parks in the entire state of Nebraska.

And they take great care of them, and they do wonderful things.

I am so excited to say that Grand Island's got a darn good chance of being number nine, and maybe the best.

Just the best.

And when I think about, I see somebody in the back corner back there nodding his head, uh, the love and care that the scouts put into that land for so long, and the fact that it's going to stay as a nature respected place uh for youth to explore and and have those adventures uh like I did at state parks growing up.

I think the scouts will probably uh take great pride in knowing that that's tradition's gonna continue on that land forever.

So I'm so excited.

Please vote.

Motion adopted thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

I appreciate you making the trip and all the hard work you've done.

We will now take up uh nine approving update of the Jack Rabbit Run fee schedule.

Mr.

McCoy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so during the budget process, we usually approve all the fees for the city.

Um the golf course was going through uh a renewal of the contract with landscapes unlimited.

So um we're bringing those to you tonight.

Um Sadonna Manfell is here, she's with Landscapes Unlimited, she's the golf manager, and with your permission, Mayor, I'll bring I would like to invite her up to maybe highlight those fees that we're recommending.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Nice to see you all again.

Uh we're excited that uh landscapes golf management has um renewed its partnership with the city of Grand Island and proud that we're gonna be managing Jackrabbit Run through December of 2030, um, at least, hopefully longer.

Um, but we're really excited about that.

Um here tonight, just wanting to speak about our uh rate fee proposal for the 2026 season.

Unfortunately, we are proposing a rate increase.

It's not something that we want to do, but unfortunately, with the rising costs and all aspects of the business, um, the increases are necessary.

Uh minimum wage is increasing to $15 an hour come January 1st.

Uh since LGM took over back in 20 December of 2020, uh minimum wage was nine dollars an hour.

So it's been a significant um increase, has impacted our um just the hourly pay by about 125,000 dollars um per year.

Um we have additional continued increases in chemical supplies, repairs, parts, food and beverage, insurance utilities, uh, etc.

Um, both pass and around price recommendations are made after researching both of our main competitors current pricing.

Um, both Carroll and Indian Head, who would be considered our main competitors for golf, um, they have different business models than we do at Jackrabbit Run.

Um we pride ourselves on having leagues and running some tournaments, but also having a lot of tea times available for public golf because we are the city on course for a public course, and that's what was expressed to us by the city council that the desire for Jackrabbit Run to have that in their business model.

Um the budget submitted for fiscal year 2026 uh was based on the rate increases that we're proposing.

Um hoping that they get approved tonight, otherwise we may have to go back and I dread going through a budget process again.

So I guess just to be honest, I mean, uh we need to choose a path.

Okay, so if the goal of Jackrabbit Run is to be well-maintained golf course that provides excellent customer service and a quality experience while breaking even financially, we don't feel that's even remotely possible without taking price increases.

If the goal is to always be the least expensive course in the area, um I'm afraid there's going to be some significant sacrifices that'll have to be made that will be detrimental to the course, the quality of the experience, and taking huge steps in the wrong direction, which I don't think are going to be received well by our patrons.

We've worked really really hard the last five years and done some amazing things at Jack Rabbit Run.

Um, and I just don't want to see us go backwards.

Um we are already a little bit behind in selling our passes.

Generally, we start uh doing that in November.

Um, as Todd mentioned, um, because of the RFP process that kind of delayed that a little bit.

Um, and then um not being on last city council agenda has delayed us an additional three weeks.

Um, so that is having an effect on our bottom line at this point.

Um, we've rolled back some marketing that we had put out there.

We were hoping to start selling passes on Black Friday, um, and so we've kind of had to roll that back, and so we're hoping to with approval tonight, we're gonna be able to start selling passes the end of this week, as long as I can get everything in the system all ready to go.

Um I just was respectfully request um that the council approve the rates as proposed and welcome any questions or anything that you uh might have as far as rates or anything.

Thank you, Mr.

O'Neill.

I move that we approve 2025-401.

Mr.

Hawsey.

I'll second the motion.

And Mr.

Hawsey discussion.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I asked this item to be pulled uh from the last council agenda because this is the only time that the council literally gets to talk about it.

And so what my observations were when they came in front of us the first time, there were just red flags that that I needed to follow up on, and so I wanted to.

I'm supporting it tonight, although I'm I don't necessarily agree with 100% of it, but I don't have to.

Um but I want to point out the things that I wanted to bring up, and I have had conversations with uh Justin Arl, uh landscapes uh division manager in Lincoln.

And the first one I want to talk about is just the rate increases.

Uh I understand the minimum wage, and that was a driver, but in two years we've raised our nine-hole rates 22 percent in the last seven years, 51 percent.

In the last 13 years, we've raised them 73 percent.

So prices are definitely going up and per the cost.

This is one of the greatest golf courses in Grand Island.

I mean, this is a fantastic course.

But one of the things that another thing that I was looking at when I was looking at negative trends, one of the first red flag that went off at a negative trend was the number of junior golfers was going down 33 percent.

We want to support junior golf because they're gonna be the next adult golfer, they're gonna be the next senior.

And so I want to know what's causing the trend.

And unfortunately, in the middle of a council meeting, it's hard to have that conversation without pulling it from the agenda and seeing it again.

So in talking to Justin, he thinks you know he's assured me that there's some fallacies in the numbers.

The numbers on their reports aren't reflective of what's really happening.

So I've asked Justin to help communicate better because I look at their monthly reports and I'm looking at what's going on with the junior golf.

And so I see a 33% drop in junior golf participation.

I'm assured from Justin it's not there.

So we're still working on that one, but that was a red flag to have that conversation.

The next thing that I noticed with the kids is there's a line in our in our uh golfing fees from aid from age 10 to 15.

If you're gonna golf with a paying adult, so I had two grandkids with me uh over the years, and I took them through golf lessons out there, and I've had them go with me when I golf.

Well, when they were six years old, the best that they probably do is chip up and putting.

You know, they they're not golfing, they're not driving the fairway, they're not hitting a fairway way, they're just maybe chipping and putting you're trying to spark some interest.

Well, we're moving that age to where they have to pay from 10 down to six.

I don't think that's the right idea.

I don't like a six-year-old having to pay for golf.

I mean, if if I have a six-year-old grandson with me and he's who wants to golf and and I'm trying to spark an interest, I'm okay that he goes with me and chips on a couple of holes.

He's only gonna do it a couple of holes.

I you know, I I even though it's discounted, I just thought it was too much.

By the time they're 10, I agree.

They can they can golf three holes, they can golf six, maybe they can golf nine, but by the ten, they're actually can start swinging.

And I'm okay at 10 year olds paying, but below that, I disagreed with that one.

Then I looked at uh the complementary rounds.

We I have been around this golf course for the whole time, 40 years, however long we've been doing it.

And uh before we went with landscapes and Don Cruz was golfing, our complimentary rounds were a dozen or two dozen.

I mean, you you could count them on your fingers and toes, maybe.

Uh when landscapes went in in year one in 2021, there was 395 rounds of complimentary golf.

Well, I'm looking at that, and I'm kind of I don't necessarily understand the number, but it's no big deal.

Well, it has been escalating every year.

So go five years forward.

Last year was 1,800 and some odd complementary rounds.

My question is if we need to raise the revenue, what's this?

What's driving the complimentary golf?

So I've had those conversations with Justin.

Um part of it is uh their employees at uh JackRabbit getting do that.

Justin sees that maybe you know he assured me that there's excessive use there, and that he thanked me for bringing it forward, he's now seeing something, and he's gonna take it up with Sedana.

I'm looking at these trends, and I don't know who else is.

If I don't look at them, I don't know who else is.

And so the last thing, they're pricing model to me seemed to be you know, where Indian Head's pricing is plus a little bit from their 25 rack rate.

Um, but I you know, we're not Indian Head.

First of all, I think we have a better golf course as a municipal course, but we don't have the same clubhouse, we don't have the same cart barn, we don't have the same paved parking lot, and and we don't pay property tax where they do.

So there's some reasons why our expenses should be a little bit less because of the facility, because of the taxes, and so there might be a real reason why our rates should be a little bit less.

And when I look at the last uh in this last year from 24 to 25, our revenue per round went up four dollars and 78 cents.

That's a good increase per round, and that could have been from concessions, it could have been from a number of things.

But our expenses went up six dollars and forty-eight cents per round.

So I'm thinking when I'm looking at rates, not everything is solved on the revenue side.

Not everything is solved by higher fees.

So I think it's time to make somebody just ask the question.

Is there any room to lower the expenses?

So I'm looking at both sides.

I've looked at it all.

I'm in a conversation with Justin.

He's been very wonderful to work with.

Sedonna has been wonderful to work with, but these are my observations from the council side because I'm here representing taxpayers, and I just want to make sure that somebody's looking at these types of things.

Mr.

Shear.

Thank you.

Uh, you know, Chuck, I saw that same six.

That was the thing that jumped out at me.

I don't look at all the numbers you do.

You are the watchdog of all.

And I appreciate it.

But that six down to six, that was something that caught my eye.

So how much more are we gonna make off of six-year-olds golfing?

How do we have numbers that show that that's gonna be like helpful?

So if it's okay, I might go ahead and just I was taking some notes as Chuck was talking, and then I will that is part of the notes that I took.

So as far as junior rounds, junior rounds are not down, junior rounds are actually up.

What you were looking at on the financial report was a line item of people that come and golf, and they have a um not a membership, but we have like a public rate, and we have the pass holder and we have seniors and we have juniors.

So that junior line item that you were looking at is it is not by any means full of fully encompassing what we do for junior golf.

That line item of junior senior golf actually was our biggest um increase in rounds, um, was like a over 110,000 dollars over like our other um player types.

So one thing, another thing with junior golf is that there's a program, it's across the nation, but um it's called youth on course.

So any kids basically from any age the time that they can pick up a club until they turn 19 years of age, can go online and they can purchase a membership through the Nebraska Golf Association, cost them $25 one time for the calendar year, and then they can visit courses across Grand Island across Nebraska and actually across the entire United States, where they get a golf as many holes as they want in a day for five dollars.

So we then the courses that participate in youth on course, which is Jackrabbit Run, uh Indian Head also participates in that.

Um I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure if Centura Hills does, but numerous courses again, all over the state of Nebraska are making youth golf affordable to everyone.

I had youth on course for my son, you know, raising him as a single mom.

Golf's expensive, and to pay 25, 30 dollars for him to go out and golf around.

I mean, it it wasn't happening.

But by golly, I made sure that I paid that $25 membership and and I could give him five bucks, or he could get his own five bucks and he could golf.

We don't generally have a lot of the younger kids, as Chuck mentioned, that are gonna come out and they're gonna golf a full nine holes.

They're going with mom and dad, or they're going with their grandparents and they're going out on the course, and they're basically like you said, putting chipping.

And so that rate is on the sheet, but honestly, I can't even remember a time when I have charged anybody under $10 to go out at golf.

But what we do is we do highly promote this youth on course program.

So if we can get the $550, and then we also get a supplement that's sent to us from Youth on Course, that kind of helps us to recoup a little bit more of those green fees.

The other thing to keep in mind, and nothing against children, but when parents or grandparents are golfing, the six-year-old's got the putter on the green, or in the carts, or we maybe are finding a little bit of mischief, which is I think is natural.

Um, and there are some costs associated with doing some repairs again, very focused on promoting youth golf and want all the kids out there.

But um we find that promoting youth on course really is what gets them out there for that.

Uh so I just wanted to kind of clarify our youth rounds are up significantly.

Uh now, as far as the complimentary rounds go, though those number of rounds um providing complimentary golf to employees at Jackrabbit Run is a landscape's golf management benefit.

So everybody that works at Jackrabbit Run is an employee of landscapes golf management, and that's one of the benefits of working there.

And Justin and I are gonna have some discussions going forward because we have opened that up a little bit more about that, but again, having free golf is a great recruiting tool and helps me to hire those excellent people and retain them that are providing that excellent customer service.

Also in the comp rounds are gift certificates that we provide.

I made two gift certificates today, one for Northwest High School post prom party and one for senior highs post prom party.

So if somebody requests a gift, they want a donation, right?

I mean, who doesn't want a donation, right?

They're selling candles, they're selling cookies, they need a cash donation.

Well, I we can't do cash donations, so what we do is we provide a gift certificate.

So when those gift certificates come back in, yes, they're getting complimentary rounds, but I tell you what, those people are spent because they're not spending money on golf or cart, they're spending money on food and beverage and buying merchandise, and so we get the ancillary spending off of that.

So that's kind of for uh complementary rounds.

Um the other thing when, like you were referring to when Don was at the course.

I it was in Don's contract that if he provided complimentary rounds, that wouldn't all avoid his contract because I have copy of the contract that was left there when I left.

The only person that was allowed to hat to golfer free at JackRabbit was PGA associates.

So, and I don't know without a point of sale system, everything was on a paper T sheet.

Like I I can tell you, I mean, you saw the report exactly how many of each kind of rounds I'm doing.

I don't know with paper and pen if that necessarily was the case.

Um as far as our pricing model goes, I guess uh my argument would be I understand.

I mean, Indian Head has a lot nicer clubhouse than we do, and they have more space than we do.

But that's also maybe a reason why we need to be charging a little bit more, and we've had numerous discussions here.

I've been in front of council numerous times.

We've talked about 50-year-old irrigation system, we've talked about a 50-year-old septic system, we've talked about not being hooked up to city sewer and water.

We we don't have a cart barn.

I mean, the the clubhouse is a double wide modular that's been added on to twice, and and again, not to beat a dead horse, but the infrastructure challenges that we have at Jackrabbit Run are massive compared to other area courses, is what I would put out there to you.

And no, we may not pay property taxes, but we do pay a significant money to the airport for the land lease every year, right?

Which was renegotiated, but that is money that has to be paid.

Um, and also with the infrastructure that we have, it costs us more to keep that up.

It costs us more for when things break down because things break down a lot, and there's a lot of repairs that we have to do.

And you know, we make capital requests, right?

But if something breaks down in the middle of the season and we have to spend 12,000 to replace something, then it that comes out of operating.

That that doesn't come out of capital.

Um so I guess I just kind of wanted to um address those those things.

Uh one thing I also might, you know, if we're talking about over the past five years, I might go ahead and pull up a slide and chuck.

This was one that you were sent.

Okay, so on the left is a year-over-year financial excuse me, comparison from fiscal year 21 through fiscal year 25, which just ended September 30th.

So our rounds have increased from 22,000 five ninety-nine up to all just under 28,000 rounds in 2025.

So we've had over a 23% increase of rounds, over 5,000 rounds increased in the five years that landscapes has been there.

Our revenue has increased from 718,000 to over 1.2 million dollars.

Total change of over half a million dollars in additional revenue that we've brought in from year one to year five of the contract.

Gross profit is at 420,000.

Yes, our expenses are up.

Um, and there's a lot of reasons that our expenses are up.

Um there's so many things that are now being paid for out of operating that did not used to be paid for out of operating.

So, for example, when the city was managing or had Don Cruz that contracted that basically took care of the sales in the Pro Shop, and you had Doug Sweeney, who was actually in charge of the course, all of the maintenance crew was paid for out of the city budget.

I think after it was after it changed from an enterprise fund to the general fund, the people that worked there besides Don, they were city employees.

They had city benefits, city insurance, payroll tax, all of that.

Um so now Jackrabbit Run is paying for all of the expenses out of operational dollars, everybody's wages, insurance benefits, payroll taxes, and processing utilities, chemicals, parts, equipment repairs, land and lease payments.

Everybody's wages, insurance benefits, payroll taxes, and processing utilities, chemicals, parts, equipment repairs, land and lease payments.

We now have a point of sale in all areas.

We have a website, we have a phone app, we have marketing, which includes emails and social media presence, 24 hour access to make online tea times, GPS systems on the carts, a loyalty program, credit books program, takes care of human resources, accounting, expert support in all areas of the business, including agronomy, food beverage, reduced pricing for chemicals, equipment.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

We've also put in over $60,000 in equipment and other repairs and things that were not able to be paid for out of capital dollars, but we paid for them out of operating.

So I guess I just like you said, the only time we get to talk about this, right, is is during this and especially this past year with the RFP.

So our EBITA, we've improved.

Yes, we've been negative some years on EBITDA, but we've made drastic improvements over the last five years.

I just want to draw your attention to the right side of the screen.

Yes, we've taken significant pass increases.

But one of the reasons that we had to do that is because there were not pass or green fee increases in a good section of years before landscapes took over.

So there were a lot of things that if the pass if increases could have been made in small increments year to year, we wouldn't be forced to probably be taking as many large increases as we are now.

And then you throw in the added costs on top of that of like we talked about minimum wage and increased prices of everything.

So we've increased our golf passes by 58 from first year to five year cart passes, increased 35 range passes by 26.

Here's the kicker though.

We've increased our public play rounds.

So these are your people that are coming in and paying full green fees by 5,648.

So our public play has gone from 60 percent to 60, basically 69 percent, and it's almost 15 percent of our total play.

And we've increased the rounds by 5,278 rounds.

So again, I completely hear what you're saying.

I welcome questions.

I think it's your job to ask questions, anybody as city council member, but I just want to make sure that we have the full picture of what landscapes has actually accomplished since we've been there.

Are we perfect?

No.

But I would put our business numbers for the last five years, the increases, the in the increases we've seen in revenues, passes, memberships, and all of that.

I think that we're doing great things at Jackrabbit Run, which then is again as a positive reflection on the city of Grand Island.

Did I answer with their your youth?

Um, I guess I just uh I wouldn't sure how many that was.

How many six to nine-year-olds?

I've talking about it.

I don't know that we've ever charged a six to nine-year-old, honestly.

We're generally, oh, are they going golfing with you here?

Do they have clubs here?

I've got three sets of kids.

Will that change though?

Will that if I see if Chuck sees oh well it's gonna be 15 bucks for me to go?

Is that you think that'll decrease that number of young golfers coming with their grandparents?

I don't think so because I think they're still gonna come.

I think that maybe they're not gonna say they're gonna golf, but we generally ask, oh, are you are you golfing with grandpa today?

And you know, do you have clubs?

And we generally will give them a bucket, let them go hit some range balls, and you know, that's the other thing that in supporting youth golf here in the city of Grand Island, you know, we're the home to Northwest High Schools.

Um both of their golf teams.

We host three Nebraska junior tournaments every year.

We host multiple high school tournaments.

Um, I mean, Diane Rosé is in the audience.

We we regularly host conference districts, and we even hosted Class D boys state in 25 and Willligan in 27.

So we are I would say we are probably one of the biggest advocates of promoting youth golf in this in this area, and I don't know.

Okay, Mr.

Nickerson.

Sadan, I always appreciate your expertise and passion for golfing in that course.

Uh you have done a great job of justifying why it's important to me.

I don't, I don't I don't know why we would sit here and want to be berate the golf course for wanting to raise rates when we know everything else in the city is going up.

Everything.

I was a little surprised by the amount it was going up, but you've answered my questions when you were talking about we're in a competitive field.

We're pretty close.

I didn't, I don't know what the others are charging, but part of your job will always be what's going on out there with our competition.

You don't want to be the highest, you don't want to necessarily be the lowest, but we're maybe at parity.

And I think when you speak of people who are increasing rounds to go to JackRabbit, the course is speaking for itself.

People are wanting to golf there because of the quality of it.

And I know I've told you and others I used to golf years ago.

If I swung a club now, I'd hurt myself.

But last time I was there, that was a beautiful course.

And I mean, since I've quit golfing, I was out there, it was just gorgeous.

It is gorgeous.

And a lot of hard work has gone into that.

I hate for you to feel guilty standing before council tonight asking for rate increases.

I just that makes me feel bad that we have to come and try to explain every detail because we know what we know, and we know that this is part of the business.

Every year I feel like you all feel you're a little under pressure when you come.

If we didn't hit good numbers, you're under pressure because you got to report the bad news.

Well, sometimes it it just is what it is.

You're very limited on how you can raise revenue.

That's the whole problem.

You got rounds, you have concessions, you have merchandise.

I'm not even sure what the other one would be, but that's where you can make your money.

That's where you have to make that bottom line just as close to even as possible.

And I think again, you've done a good job of explaining why you need that tonight.

I have no problem with it, especially if we're relatively close to the competition, and the quality of the course will speak for itself.

People will play where they want to play on courses that are nice and wide, and that they can hit it out of bounds and hit it like I do everywhere, but down the center of the fairway, and they still got a chance to get on the green.

I just think that it's um a good testament to what you all have done there.

And again, congratulations on the renewal because that's a big thing.

I know that was uh probably a little nerve-wracking, but we're glad to see that that all came together.

But I hate for you to stand here today and feel like you've feel guilty for asking for rate increases because we just know it's just something that has to be done.

So thank you for all the good work that you do.

Mr.

Oh, sorry.

I was just saying, and the increases that we have proposed were based on research of Indian heads rates, Centura Hills's rates.

We are right at where their rates are generally for rounds, like public, the public golf uh with Indian Head with Caro.

Um, some of the rates we are right at where they are, and some of them we are significantly less.

Um, past prices, there are some that we are pretty close on with Indian Head.

Um, Caro's business model is that their price, their past prices, they are they are cheaper than our past prices.

But I can't, I'm not able to do that, and able to even come close to breaking even.

It's just a different business model where they have um multiple shotgun leagues and they hold more tournaments than we have.

So again, not saying one's right or one's wrong, um, just a different business model.

But um, I would say that we're very close, especially when you look at rates, you also need to make sure that you're calculating in our rates that I put on our website, say include sales tax, and that the other two properties generally they're charging sales tax on top of that, and I know one of them for sure is also charging a convenience fee on any card transactions, which that adds up to a lot of dollars.

We don't do that, but when you add it all up to try to compare apples to apples, we are where our competition is at, or extremely close.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

No, I think you do a wonderful job out there.

The course looks great, but I do want to clarify one thing that you because I've heard it twice now before.

Um this golf course was created in the late 70s, mid to late 70s.

And for the first 25, 30 years, it was an enterprise fund.

It had a contract golf pro who was responsible for the clubhouse and anybody employed there, and the maintenance people from Doug Sweeney and before his predecessor, they were all city employees, but still on the in the golf fund and all paid for from the golf operations.

That has always been the case that they were paid for from the golf operations.

About 10 years before you went to landscapes management, uh, we brought it into the general fund because it would have a decade of we couldn't quite make it break even.

And so we brought it into the general fund because we didn't want to have an annual how much money do you need contest.

So we just got rid of that.

It didn't change anything.

In the parks division, they had a golf division, and both the city employee maintenance people and the golf pros were all into the same division, all accounted for, paid for from the golf operating revenues.

So there's never been another fund that funded it before.

And when you said the maintenance people weren't, they were city employees, which they are, or they were, uh, and they were they weren't funded differently.

They were still paid for from the golf revenues.

You know, and so whether it was on an enterprise fund or whether it was part of the general fund, they were still paid for from the golf revenues.

And they and it's never in our effort to break even has included both the contract and the employee part, both the maintenance and the operation of the clubhouse.

So they for 40 years plus, they've always been trying to be maintained together to look at one operation and not separate.

So I I mean, I guess I would just love to see that data.

I'm we've had discussions, I've had discussions before, and that um trying to get some data, some previous data like golf course expenses and that prior to landscapes taking over, because again, it would help us to be able to again give you a more accurate representation of what we've done since we've been here, but I haven't been able to acquire that as of yet.

So, you know, I don't know if that's how I would get that.

I think our city budgets are down in the library.

They should be down there all the way from the 70s up to now.

Just go look it up in the library.

They should all be down there, but I'm sure the staff can provide the same information if you work through Todd.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Resolution 9B accepting supplemental good life district application materials from Woodsonia Highway 281 LLC.

Mr.

Nabity.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, before you this evening, you have two action items.

Um the first one is a resolution to adopt the information that Woodsonia sent last week into their application and make that a formal part of their application.

Um with that, I know you're gonna have want to have more discussion on the whole thing.

The November 12th, we had a study session.

We sat in here for three and a half hours and had a lot of good discussion and direction from council, and it was very clear that things that were important were to make sure that the aquatic center would be what you were thinking it would be, and that there would be funding for the aquatic center, and that the priority projects would be things like the aquatic center, the dirt work, the extension of utilities, the sports complex, all of those parts that were part and parcel with the good life district application.

So Woodsonia was given the challenge by you mayor to bring back their best offer with this, and I think they've done that.

Um we've met several times since then with our representatives from DA Davidson and Janny and Gilmore and Bell and with Woodsonia and looked at different ways of potentially financing this.

If you go back to a month ago, we were looking at potentially a single bond issue.

Now we're looking at two bond issues.

Um, what that does is the single bond issue would be based on the five million dollars that we know will be raised every year from the good life district funds.

The second bond issue would be based on increased valuation or increased sales in that area.

It would be based on refinancing the Conestoga debt, TIFF and EEA.

So it brings in it's a much more complex document.

That would be a second issue that we're anticipating would likely occur sometime in 2027.

And what that would do is it gives it a couple of things.

It gives better history on what the increased value of those new sales from Target from Chick-fil-A from the BB Theaters, the new taxes that are collected there.

We get a better track record that the bond, the bond people say, you know what, if we got a better track record, we can make a better decision on what the value of those bonds are.

We're not guessing nearly as much.

If we diversify the sources of repayment by including refinancing the debt on Conestoga Marketplace, so that there's property taxes involved with the TIFF, there's EEA, and there's more history on what that EEA is producing.

That also will help refinance that debt and diversify the ability to pay that off.

So what we ended up with, in short, is that with through this, we really come up with enough money to do the project that Woodsonia had proposed, which was consistent with the plan presented by Confluence in February of last year.

So it's essentially that same plan that the group that got together did and put that together and said, This is where we're at.

That plan, you'll remember, was based on the veterans legacy plan that was done in 2018.

Is it exactly the same?

No.

But that first plan was really a high-level concept.

And as you start getting into the nitty-gritty of all of these things, you make changes.

Well, that would work better if we did it this way.

What Woodsonia has brought forward is a plan that looks feasible.

It's different than what they were talking about a year ago.

They were talking about developing the entire housing there over the course of 10 years originally.

Now they're talking 20 years.

20 years, Grand Island can absorb the housing in 20 years.

So there's some things there that have changed from what we saw originally, and I think we're a whole lot closer to where we need to be.

I know Mitch and Drew are here.

They want to present what the addition to the application.

I'm here, can certainly answer questions.

We have representatives here.

Mike Rogers is here, and we've got representatives from Janny and D.A Davidson.

So there are a number of people here that can answer questions as we move forward on both this item and the next item.

The key thing with this resolution is that this incorporates it into the application, which then the second application or second resolution would be authorizing staff to negotiate based on the things that are in this.

Thank you, Mr.

Navity.

Pat O'Neal, would you like to speak?

Um, I apologize, I can't read this name, but Chad Knight.

Hello, council.

I'm Nuna Nebraska.

I'm from Kansas.

Just started as a YMCA CEO, so I'm here to introduce myself.

So just started last week, it got a little cold going on.

It must be the move up from Kansas and Nebraska, but I'm just here to tell you the opportunity we like to have from the YMCA standpoint.

I've been in the YMCA 30 years.

I love the fundraise.

I think that's what the board hired me to come do is fundraise and help build a new YMCA, and that's that's a goal.

I built many new YMCAs, I've built additions to Y's, I built a new branch in Dodge City.

I just want the opportunity to be a partner, and we well said opportunity.

I think we'd be a good partner for you guys.

You know, the Y can come in and do the fundraising, that's what we do.

So uh just want to be able to say that we're here, we're gonna make a difference, and we'd like to be a partner, and just so you know, not to put an edge on you, but our pool heater went down today.

So Pat told me they read water hoses with hot water.

I said, What?

I was thinking getting those hot water tanks of farmers putting the water tanks and putting the pool.

Maybe that'll heat the water up, but but our pool heater did go down, so we gotta get that replaced.

But the pool is a vital part to the YMCA, and it's a vital part to the community, you know.

So uh I'm a lifelong swimmer, learn how to swim at the YMCA, and I want other kids to have that opportunity, and this will be a great opportunity with a good life district.

So appreciate you guys and come see me at the Y.

Thank you.

And welcome to Grand Island.

Karen Johnson.

Good evening.

Um, first of all, I'd like to thank uh Councilman Shearard for all your help.

He picked up the phone on a Saturday morning and talked to me for about 45 minutes, talked to me down the ledge a little bit.

Um my name's Karen Johnson, I've lived in Grand Island all my life, and I'm president of the pickleball club here in Grand Island.

All my friends are here.

And we were very concerned and alarmed about the November 12th meeting with Woodsonia about the lack of pickleball courts going to be possibly available.

Um we feel like there was a bit of a bait and switch on their website.

They had pickleball courts to dedicated pickleball courts, and a dedicated pickleball court is a court that is only designed for pickleball.

We have none in Grand Island.

We have uh two outdoor dedicated courts, no indoor.

So we're here to advocate for those dedicated pickleball courts contained within the plans for the good life district sports complex.

As I said, there are no dedicated courts.

The field house, which is open October 1st through April 30th, is available for basketball, volleyball, and pickleball from 10 a.m.

to 3 p.m., first come, first served.

There are three courts available.

Many times people are waiting, 10, 12 people waiting to play.

The Grand Island Tennis Center provides temporary courts on three mornings a week for private groups with four courts available.

There are no available time slots for open play in the evenings or weekend, weekends anywhere indoors.

From what we have heard in the media about the proposed plans, uh pickleball is an afterthought, and we really thought that we're not any better off than we are right now.

Pickleball continues to be the fastest growing sport in America, with participation increasing 85.7% this past year.

When I first started playing in 2018, the average player was 67, which kind of turned me off from a little bit, but and now the average age in 2025 is 34.

So it's going nowhere but down.

Uh we have many Grand Island players, myself included.

I traveled to Carney to play at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds, which hold 10 to 13 dedicated courts.

They hold tournaments, mini tournaments, and leagues almost weekly.

Players can drop in and find the game at almost any time of the day.

And we are asking for the same progressive thinking that Carney has displayed both in working with the pickleball community at the fairgrounds and their new sports complex.

I don't know if you've been there, but it is incredible.

And if when Sony does anything close to that, I will be thrilled.

They have three dedicated courts, and when I was playing there two weeks ago, Scott Hayden, who is employed at Carney Recreation, was also playing, and he said they regretted installing only three courts.

Um he said it was booked to capacity almost on a daily basis, especially weekends and evenings, and we have no weekends and evenings available to us.

The town of Columbus has eight indoor pickleball courts and their new facility.

Why is that not a possibility for Grand Island?

We should be the leader in central Nebraska, not the follower.

Dedicated courts would not only be used in the winter but summer as well.

You won't see people playing in the heat of the day in Nebraska or when it's raining.

Popular times in July and August are 6 to 10 a.m.

and 7 to 11 at night due to heat.

In the evenings, the courts are packed with teenagers, which is great to see.

It's hard to get a court, but it's fun to see because they're all out there playing.

I'm not saying they know how to play, but they're out there playing.

Indoor courts would be another great activity for the for young kids too.

It was mentioned in a media article that the sports complex could have up to 32 non-dedicated courts.

So that means we're we are sharing lines with basketball, volleyball, and pickleball.

I taught Mr.

McNickerson how to play at the field house, and he had on each different court, there are different lines.

And that's really hard to explain to some beginners.

Okay, that line is good for that one, but not for this court.

You know, it's just such a growing sport, we cannot be so short-sighted.

Um 32 non-dedicated courts is an incredible amount amount of space when one court measures 20 by 44 without any safety space around it.

That is roughly three to four football fields.

Who lays the flooring and where are all the nets kept?

Where are 32 nets kept?

Logistically, that could be a nightmare for whoever's running the complex.

Would it not make more sense to have a fourth of that space for 8 to 12 courts?

Tournaments could be held by the complex or any other entity that would like to rent it.

In the Woodsonia packet from November 12th, they state they would like to host 28 basketball and or volleyball tournaments.

If you look at the seven months that pickleball has to be played indoors, those 28 weekends are taken up by those tournaments.

There'd be no available availability for weekend pickle play, uh pickball play on these multi-use courts, much less a pickleball tournament.

I have been contacted by John Campbell of World of Pickleball, and they would like to have a state qualifier in Grand Island because of its central location.

This would draw not just players from Nebraska.

I go to many qualifiers.

I've gone to 12 different states to play.

And so we would draw from other states as well.

But due to the lack of indoor facilities, I believe it's going to reach out to Carney or Lincoln instead.

What other things are we missing that we don't know about because of our lack of facilities?

No one from Woodsonia has reached out to the pickleball community here in Grand Island to find out to find out the needs and desires or wants of the players.

Shouldn't this be a priority when the Grand Island Parks and Recreation Master Plan identified the need for a year-round facility, including a pool, which I'm so glad we have a new YMCA director.

It's awesome.

And court sports like pickleball.

From the master plan, and I quote, the establishment of a good life district presents an ideal opportunity to meet these needs, unquote.

Unfortunately, we don't see these being met.

Thanks for your time and your consideration.

If you have any questions, maybe we can answer them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Roger Bowlington, would you like to speak?

Okay.

Jay.

Well, I'm I'm just reflecting.

Um I support the application and the modification.

I think it's a good sign.

I think it also shows where the city stakeholders have uh worked well in hand in hand with Woodsonia.

And it's a far cry from the public uh session that occurred in August, where like I think it was two people were here, and there was hardly any reference to aquatics at all.

And then here what a few week weeks ago, I heard countless references to the need for meeting a greater need for aquatics.

And the number of council members I know each expressed the uh vision that if there wasn't maybe a broader application, it it might not be supported.

Um so I think the modification on the application well serves everyone, and it does provide an opportunity to go ahead and have that site be something that maybe we didn't ever dream ever.

Even the the pioneers that went ahead and gave their ground initially to the veterans' home, I think would be proud to see its multi-use today.

And while some of us were really, and many of us still are lamenting the fact that the veterans home moved.

Gosh, look at what this facility is gonna be bringing about.

So I commend the application, Mr.

Snyder and his team, and uh and you all for your leadership because I think it shows where indeed this modification uh well serves the best needs of the good life circuit going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Steele.

Scott Ree.

I'm Scott Reef.

I live at 3481 West Shimmer Drive in Grand Island, Nebraska.

So thank you for letting me talk tonight.

Um first off, I want to thank Woodsonia for the Conestoga project.

Uh it has been a great addition to our community and will continue to serve Grand Island well.

I also want to be clear, speaking against a project is the last thing I want to do.

As a developer who has asked for TIFF in the past and will again ask for it in the future, I understand the importance of this tool and also and normally I would be standing here in support.

And I do support this project of the sports complex.

I want to be clear with that.

What I'm struggling with is the housing aspect of it that's tied in with the project.

Um but in this case, I do believe the the project does create this significant unfair advantage compared to other developers in Grand Island who do not own property in the Good Life District.

Based on the numbers, um, Woodsonia would receive 23% of the project funded through the good life district.

Now potentially a potential um 10% through TIFF.

So that means 33% of the entire project is funded by public incentive programs, on top of that, potentially acquiring the land for one dollar.

Um I guess myself, I would definitely take this deal uh all day long.

Um, also if you're a business owner in the community and someone told you that you could have one-third of your cost up front covered with these funds, and plus you could get your land for a dollar.

Um, no one's gonna not do that deal.

Um I definitely would do that deal.

But this is not only gonna affect, this is gonna affect a lot of things.

It's gonna affect appraisals, it's gonna affect land values.

You start flooding markets, it's gonna there's gonna be a ripple effect to this.

I'm also concerned about the just a sheer numbers.

Um at 1,500 apartments.

This single development will bring more than Talon, which was built in 2016.

There's 208 units, um, legacy 34 with uh 303 units, Sterling apartments with 222 units, Oak Point with 154 units.

Just those four properties, so that's the last 10 years, I think.

Um that is about 887 units.

Um, so we talked about potentially over the next 20 years, 1,500 units, but these are multiple developers that did that in 10 years, and I'm just afraid the demand's not there.

Introducing that many units is not just aggressive, it is definitely risky.

Right now, vacancies in the in the apartment market in Grand Island are not are at the highest we've seen in decades.

Many property owners are reporting more empty units more than any point in the last 20 years.

Our company alone has 150 units open.

I reached out to other um owners, uh Jeremy and Jordan Everson, they have 49 units open.

I reached out to another property owner in town, they had 17 units open.

And the typically, like the one I talked to seven, like we're always full.

Like we're starting to see signs of a softening market.

Um, you will drive around, you see more rental signs, you receive deals now that you may get a month free.

You may get other deals when you when you when you lease a property now.

If we flood a market with this much new supply, and other developers continue to move forward with their plan project, we're risking those vacancies to be much worse.

This is how communities end up in situations.

For example, recently, Lexington, Nebraska.

One major employer leaves, and the market is oversupplied, and suddenly house values drop, property owners are now over-leveraged, and communities struggle to recover.

It is all about balance.

This is also a critical long-term concern.

One developer is essentially funded to satisfy 20 years of housing demand in one single project.

What happens to local developers who have been steadily growing Grand Island for decades?

Do they stay?

Do they continue to invest in this market with uh no longer fair advantage?

Or do they take their capital experiences and jobs to other communities that provide an equal opportunity for success?

As an example, last year I stood in front of you talking about adding three more 22 units out at um talent apartments.

If you notice, I have not moved forward with that project because the market is not calling for them.

Every time I've ever presented in front of you, a month later or less, I am moving dirt.

Like that's been the precedent.

Um, but I'm gonna hold off until the demand calls for it.

In the end, I fully agree that Grand Island needs a sports complex.

What we do not need right now is more housing tied to it.

The priority should be job creation, sales tax growth, and not increasing the apartment inventory where the apartment market is starting to soften already.

Our current local developers are meeting the housing demand of the community.

And if Wisonia holds wants to build housing, they absolutely can do that, but with the same playing ground with TIFF the way otherone else has done it, but combining good life district funding, TIFF, and free land, that may go too far.

Also approving TIFF for this development in a single all or none decision rather than phasing out the approach that has been established by myself in Grand Island removes many full uh meaningful oversight and accountability.

It limits the city's ability to protect taxpayers, ensure performance milestones are met and make adjustments over the next 20 years as condition and community needs change.

And then at the end of the day, Grand Island is on the books for the good life district bond.

It will bring great things, but approving additional TIFF on top of the good life award is not what's best for our community.

Thank you for your time.

If you have any questions, I'm here.

Thank you.

Gerald Pulse.

Thank you, Mayor Council.

I was afraid I was gonna be the only one speaking against the proposal, but thank you, Scott.

Uh he made the same things I just looked up about this Woodsonia project, is how many acres?

How much what is the percentage of this of the town that they will own for free, virtually free?

And that is, and again, you went through great lengths on the details of the golf course fees, and oh a year ago it was uh I don't know, 40, it was a long time spent uh questioning the new animal control regulations, and then five minutes spent on uh I think it was Mr.

Perkins, I probably shouldn't use names on his uh extremely blighted request for properties, and there were no details, it would just oh we all just know that.

So that is the thing.

If you're gonna do tax increment financing, we need feasibility studies.

How many of the students, how many kids are gonna be in that housing project that are gonna be going to Grand Island public schools?

And if you don't have that number, you're skipping a detail.

And how much is that money gonna cost?

Or how much are the students gonna cost?

You have road maintenance.

So what are how many, what's the anticipated snow removal project?

What's the anticipated maintenance for roads in these how many miles, how many hours of operation?

We don't have those details.

You just throw it out.

Oh, it's great for Grand Island, and it's come on.

It's we don't even have a school board that comes in and says, I'm concerned about the number of students that we're gonna be sending to these high schools that we're not getting money for from the city.

Now we got a state, this 400 million dollars, got to find a 400 million dollar uh shortfall.

Cover that now.

If they decide to raise to hold back on their state funding, then who's gonna who's gonna foot that bill for the schools?

It's not gonna be in the TIFF projects, is it?

We have we also have then we have the big expense.

We got I don't know how much nature you can have in a park when you spend 45 million dollars to develop it, you know.

That's but you got the 45 million earmark for this for the state park.

You've got and that's that uh island oasis is not gonna come in at 12 million dollars.

You have the record of this city for amending contracts for at least probably 10 percent higher than it was originally bid at is probably in the 90s 90-something percentile.

We have what uh Mr.

Reef was talking about was something that I came up with too.

I'm skipping around on scatter brain.

But that was a thought I had also.

You've given this Woodsonia project, this top billing, gold notch standards.

How many contractors are we gonna lose?

How many will will go under because Woodsonia is now going to control this huge percentage of land and property?

And they got this tremendous advantage.

The city citizens are gonna be paying for this whole project pretty much, and it's not gonna keep you're not you can lower the levy as far as you want to, and it's we're gonna be in it paid in higher taxes.

There's no doubt about it.

And I just I'll conclude.

I rambled too long already.

But you've got oh, and I've got a fee schedule for Metal Art if you want to look at that.

Carney has metal art golf course.

It's ranked, it's got a national ranking.

They're and their fees are lower than what we what Grand Island has, but that's that's really not the point.

All I'm saying is they've got a great golf course.

We have uh probably nicer than JackRabbit.

Hastings, Hastings has Lochland golf course, and we've got Jack Rabbit, Indian Head.

Uh Carney Carney has a four-year university.

Grand Island has college park, one building.

Has a community college campus.

Have you seen that?

Have you seen their college their central community college campus?

It looks like a college.

You know, we've got a couple buildings there south on the on the road.

Hastings has a community college with a campus, a real campus, a sprawling campus.

They also have a four-year college.

What does Grand Island have?

They've lost, I don't think they have anything really going for them.

Carney has a they've got their Yanni Park.

Have you seen that?

And there's a kayak, there's a kayak uh river there you can float in the when the weather's much nicer.

Carney has or Hastings has a symphony orchestra.

Carney probably or Carney probably does too through the college.

You know what is we've got 20 roundabouts or so.

We've got about 20 roundabouts, though.

I guess we got that.

And uh North Road has become the poor man's Lombard Street.

All the curves in there.

There's five of them, I believe.

Yeah, well, they'll get to 20 here soon.

Uh so dang it.

Now I lost my um.

Oh, okay, and one last thing this uh being the aquatic center seems to be the premier item tonight.

It's we know we're gonna need a new high school, and this the rumblings have started already, finally.

The senior high is busting at the seams, walnut is busting at the seams pretty much.

We're gonna need a new high school.

I think it's time.

If you're gonna build a new high school, is to put in a uh competition pool at the high school and and put it with the high school in a west of town, wherever along the new highway would be a guess.

And because this aquatic center here is not far from the railroad tracks, the Burnington tracks.

I live too close to the tracks, and I know the ground shakes when the trains go by.

And I get I'm if you recall, oh, 15, 20 years ago, we had a county commissioner who sued the city or the I don't know.

He sued the city, I believe, because the walls in his house were cracking, he said, from the trains uh uh I don't know if it was from emptying their coal or but with the train shaking and his house was probably he was probably a mile from the from the power plant, but he sued and he won.

I think he won like three quarters of a million dollars.

So that would be a consideration too for this aquatic center, which is right there right off of the railroad tracks.

So I you know you I know that six hundred million dollar project is uh a lot of big numbers out there, and everybody wants to maybe be a part of this wonderful success story, but it's probably not going to be one.

It's it's extending you're saying extending it out too long, you're giving unfair advantage to one single company.

And I and I really wish you would get back at least to the 2018 plan.

That was done with citizen input.

Citizens had a chance to say, well, this would be nice, this would be nice, that would be nice.

And there wasn't there was a very nice plan at that time.

This one shows so little uh real tea uh retail space.

How are they gonna raise any uh property taxes from that one?

And it's it's just it's about as well thought out as my little speech here tonight.

I'll tell you that right now.

So boy, I just wish you would think about this, putting that aquatic center out there by the railroad tracks.

I think you should just make it a separate separate entity at a high school.

You can have use that room to build your pickleball courts or something, I don't know, but I think you're concentrating too much stuff in a single area, either with financing Woodsonia or with all this sports venues that you're trying to put in there, and you know, I'm not I'm looking at the cost of it's what it's gonna cost me over the years in property taxes or increased sales tax or whatever other tax you come up with.

So I would I would suggest you you need to reconsider this whole operation.

Thank you very much.

Uh Mitch and Drew, did you want to speak now?

Or okay, you can come on up.

I thought we didn't chad.

Uh oh.

What do I need to do?

Click it again.

Okay.

Okay.

Can everybody see that?

I can zoom in here a little bit.

Okay, great.

Well, mayor, council, it's uh it's good to be here again.

Nice to see everyone.

Uh I think it was about a month ago we had our study session, which I thought was a was a really nice opportunity to be able to talk publicly about this project.

There's been uh a lot of effort put into this, a lot of effort.

This has been going on for over two years.

Um so I think before we get started, I just want to thank again the city staff, all the consultants.

There are so many people that have put so much time and energy into this project.

So just want to start off, you know, our presentation by thanking everyone that's put in the time and the effort uh to get us to this point.

So yeah, based on the study session, uh we went back, we've heard from council.

Um I don't know if we accepted everything, but we tried to incorporate as much as we can.

Um, and then we came back and we want to tonight run through what we're calling proposed terms.

So uh per the mayor's direction, um, you know, these are sort of best and final terms and what we'd like to present to council.

Um like I said, this has been going on for a long time.

So this is really a pretty simple document, and so I think we just want to run everybody through this uh as I'm sure there's gonna be questions and discussions, so we can open that up at the end, but uh maybe let's let let's let's try to get through the document and then uh we can open it up for questions.

So, first part, uh I really won't take everybody back through this.

The the phases and the components of the project, as Chad Navity mentioned, really have stayed the same.

Uh we did incorporate the aquatic center, so I think we want to spend a little bit of time talking about that.

Um, Ryan O'Neal, I we definitely want to thank Ryan has spent countless hours working with Mitch, our consultants on this aquatic center.

So honestly, thank you, Ryan, for the amount of time and effort you've put into this.

So I think we'll if anybody has questions on the rest of the development as a whole, we can talk about those.

Everything's generally the same as what we talked about at the study session, with the exception of the aquatic center.

So I don't know if Mitch or Ryan, if you guys want to spend just a little bit of time talking about how we where we were at at the study session and where we're at today on the aquatic center.

Yeah.

Ryan, if you want, I can kind of run through it.

If that's okay.

Okay.

So we do have the folks from Brandsteader here as well as Health Fitness.

So I do think we've got, I think there's 15 consultants in the room tonight, so we should have a lot of experts here.

Um but as mentioned, Ryan, thank you.

You've been on countless calls and were really helpful and kind of dialing in.

Um same to you, Jack, on what the what the aquatic center would ultimately entail.

So where we're at tonight, I won't spend a ton of time talking about where we were at before, because I I don't think that was we really need to talk about that, right?

Uh but where we're at tonight is ultimately an approximately 30,000 square foot indoor facility.

And that indoor facility has 10 lanes, which are a 25-yard competitive pool, a diving well to accommodate two diving boards, uh, concessions, meetings, entry, bathroom, locker room facilities, seating capacity for a minimum of 400 attendees, uh, a warm water therapy pool area with a zero entry.

We spent a lot of time on that, uh, a jacuzzi, which I know everybody's excited about, uh, and then a party room and all the mechanical equipment.

So if it's okay, and if there's any technical questions, we can we can call Charlie, Rob, uh, Arch, any of the folks uh back there to speak to these.

But ultimately we want to run you guys through the the design and kind of the visual aspirations for what we would intend to deliver to the city.

So this is the Grand Island auditorium.

I'd never heard that word until a couple weeks ago.

But this is our interior schematic layout.

So the way that this would be positioned is the entrance is on the north.

Uh the areas that are in kind of this lighter blue teal color would be the wet areas.

So the green would be the entrance, you have a vestibule, some seating, uh, concessions, cafe, full restaurant, uh or full kitchen, and then you have a handful of kind of the administrative spaces uh in this.

On the right side, which we'll have some visuals to show you folks, uh, you'd have the competitive pool area.

So if you're looking at this, this is actually set up so that the lanes can go either north and south or east and west.

When you're doing your competition pools, obviously the folks would sit on the north end and be able to view it kind of in a standard way, and then the diving boards would be positioned on the south end of the site.

But again, this is 10 lanes, which I think was one of the key pieces that we wanted to wanted to deliver on.

On the very south end of the facility, we would have a warm water pool area.

This would be in its own dedicated facility.

Obviously, it's temperature controlled.

We want to keep that in a dedicated space, and that's also where we would have the jacuzzi.

Beside that, we'd have a multi-purpose room.

Arch, even super helpful on kind of the programming here.

So we could speak more to you know what that would actually entail, why we think that's important to have, but that would serve birthday parties, events, things like that.

We've got a large mechanical room as well on kind of the south, southwest corner, and then obviously men's and women's locker rooms in the central central area.

And then these are the schematic designs that coincide with the layout that we just talked about with you guys.

So this would be the view looking at the entrance.

Obviously, on the on the left side, this is where the seating would be, kind of behind that wall.

This would be the view sitting in the seating.

Again, you can kind of see a little more clearly here how these lanes would work east to west or north to south as well.

And then the diving boards would be positioned.

I think these look great.

I I really do think the brand setter folks hit a home run on what this what this design entails.

Uh, and then looking across the pool, you'd have that glass wall that sees into the warm water therapy area.

This would be a view from the from the lobby.

I think that's it.

So we can get into as many details as we want for the aquatic center, Ryan.

I'm sure you're gonna have some some thoughts to share on it.

But as Drew mentioned, um and Chad, you actually did a great um I don't know where Chad is, but great overview uh on kind of the revised structure that we came up with.

So the the big key changes were obviously the aquatic center and then the financing structure.

I think were kind of the two key components.

So zoom back up.

Yeah, if it's okay, we'll scroll up there.

Yeah, so if you guys have this in front of you, um so again, section one is really just another outline of all the components of the development.

Again, we wanted to touch on the aquatics.

There was that was a lot of the conversation at the study session, so thought that was important.

But let's let's go through section two here, project financing.

Um, so really this is going to be broken into three buckets, and Chad alluded to that a little bit.

Um, priority number one will be essentially all of what I'm gonna call sort of the public.

Um, and there was some discussion about that.

Um, the Janny and DA Davidson folks were extremely helpful in really providing us some bond runs, and obviously there could be some risk subject to the market, the bond market, those are just things outside of all of our control.

But um, the initial issuance would be the plan would be to do a bond issuance in 2026.

Um the DA and Janny team thinks that would net uh between cash and hand today, bond proceeds, uh interest income, things of that nature, about 77.5 million dollars.

So if you look at uh Roman numeral three, you can see there would be a priority that those dollars get spent on what I'm gonna call the public piece of this, um, which I know was brought up uh at the study session, which is well, what happens if this other stuff gets built and we don't get as a city, we don't get the public piece of this stuff.

So I think this protects the city.

Uh we put a lot of thought into this.

Um, and so the public infrastructure would obviously all go in Eagle Scout Lake expansion.

There's some soft costs that would need to get funded with that, but then um, this would be a turnkey construction of the sports complex and a turnkey construction of the aquatic center.

Um so um, so then number five down below really is just sort of a uh what I'll call sort of a safety mechanism that we will design and price those facilities before any more of those proceeds are utilized.

So essentially the city is assured, the developer, and there'll be plenty of attorneys and plenty of oversight with the use of these dollars, but that none of the rest of the dollars will be utilized until those facilities are designed, and we've got a reputable contractor signed up under contract to build those with a gross maximum price.

And then whatever funding is left, and again, we all just need to know going into this, these are projections from DA Davidson and Janny.

Again, bond market could get better, bond market could get worse.

We don't know.

But this is a snapshot in time as of today, based on the revenues and the assumptions that we gave them.

So you can see a priority of how we're we're calling that the phase 1A proceeds that's 77.5 million.

And then if you jump down to B, this would be phase one B.

So these would be, and and Chad did a nice job trying to describe these.

So this is a little bit complicated.

So the initial phase 1A, those are the existing revenues today that are subject to the $5 million cap from the state based on the last legislative session.

The 20%, so then we would talk, then we would contemplate doing a bond issuance in 2027.

This would be basically all the new sales that have happened and how the state and the department of revenue are identifying the new sales.

So again, these are based on some of our assumptions.

I think most of the new sales are basically coming from Conestoga.

Those are generally where all your new sales are going to be.

If you look at just the boundaries of the district, so those folks took the assumptions, thought that the issuance would net about 27.6 million dollars, and so then here you can see the priority payment under three here, um, would be any cost overruns, and then dollars would start getting spent towards the mixed use housing, any soft costs, and then again there was discussion about the statutory 20% uh allocation towards non-revenue producing costs.

So we would continually measure that to make sure statutorily we were staying in compliance with those state statutes.

The third and and really what I'll call final bucket is the developer promissory note, and that's C, and that is essentially going to be the difference between it's 140 million dollars minus whatever the bond proceeds actually end up being for phase one A and one B.

Again, you can see the projections that DA and Janny produced up here.

Um if those numbers come in exactly, there would be uh a developer promissory note, so that would be at the developer's risk or our risk of about 34.7 million, call it 35 million dollars, and that would get repaid through two forms.

Um the excess revenues that come off the phase one B bonds, and again, I think Janny and DA are here if you guys have questions on this, uh, or if either one of those bond issuances, those will get refinanced at some point over the life of this thing.

Um, I think there's what 20 28, 29 years left.

So there's a long life cycle on this.

This bond market's gonna go up and down.

Um and so, but the theory is, and we talked at length with city staff about this.

The whole intent of doing this project is to bring more people to Grand Island, and bringing more people to Grand Island should rise the tide in all boats and all the sales within your whole market, hopefully are increasing, and that's the intent of this entire project.

And so that would be our thought is that if done correctly, built out correctly, that all those sales will rise.

Um, and so there should hopefully be a benefit.

But so then you can see that last bucket or that third bucket um will really be allocated towards whatever remaining portions are left within the development to get funded.

Um, and then the TIFF the TIFF piece is still in there.

Uh that's that's number or letter D there you can see.

Um there was a lot of talk about establishing a city reserve uh maintenance account for some of these public facilities.

Um there's still a lot of dialogue that these will operate profitably, but our proposal is the same that uh we establish an EEA district over the boundaries of just the veterans village, not the entire good life district in and of itself, just the veterans village area.

So obviously there's no new sales there today.

Um if we put a projection together, uh if you scroll down to I think it's exhibit D.

I can pop down here.

Yeah, there you go.

So I don't know if everybody can see this, but this is a projection of a sales growth.

Uh and I believe this is over a 20.

Was it a 30 year period?

No.

Yeah, we did it, we did a 30 year period, but obviously there's gonna be three years where this is under construction, right?

And not generating sales.

So this would generate um, assuming the assumptions would be accurate, which again, these are pretty low sales projections.

Um it would generate a little under 10 million dollars over the term of the uh the district.

So um so that was number three.

Number four is land conveyance.

We talked about that extensively at the study session.

Um our request would be for a single land conveyance.

I think that's the cleanest and simplest way to do this.

Um we did gather feedback.

Staff has brought this up multiple times.

Um, and then we put a list of three clawbacks uh that you can see listed here under section five.

Um so I think again, another protection mechanism for the city, if we don't perform, we're losing out.

We're reconveying this land back to the city, we're losing out on any incentives.

So the onus is really on us to go out and make sure this project is successful and perform.

So you can see there's three clawbacks that were identified in this proposed term sheet.

And then lastly, was next stage documents.

I still think our opinion is um this has been going on for over two years.

Um I think there's probably a little deal fatigue on everyone's part, and so we would really like uh obviously council support.

We want to answer any questions, council support, and then we would like to move to definitive documents.

I mean, we're ready to get this project started.

We've been talking about it for a long time.

Um we we understand there's feedback.

Um, I think as Chad mentioned, there's been questions about all different components of it, housing, etc.

I think we've been really thoughtful on phasing these things in over a longer period of time to ensure we're not flooding the market um and things of that nature.

So um with it with that, we can open it up to questions.

Um but those are the those are the terms, and again, we're happy to answer any questions.

Council members, a motion is an order.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we accept uh 2025-420.

Mr.

Hawsey.

I'll second that motion.

Discussion.

Mr.

O'Neal.

Uh several things here.

First, I just want to talk about the aquatics a little bit.

Um, spent a lot of time on that.

Um worked with the guys at Brandstore Carroll a lot on the design.

Um, I talked to Pat O'Neil a lot as well, which is for clarification.

Pet and I are not related, although we have a relative with the same name, but we're different clans.

Um the the aquatics in Grand Island right now are really rough.

Um Pat and I have both been involved with that pool a lot uh through our kids and doing competitive meets and other things and involvement at the Y.

Um and he he said that pool is long past its already uh expected lifetime.

And if we don't do something on a pool soon, we're just not gonna have indoor pool period, and that'll be nothing.

Um this is a pretty big win on the aquatics for Grand Island.

This is about 10 million more in this project than we were gonna get back a month ago.

So I'm gonna highlight that's a very big win.

Um we worked really hard, and I pushed as hard as I could to get as much as we can, and we really think that this new aquatics is gonna offer a lot more and it'll last us well into the future.

There's a lot of very good things there for the community.

Um I'd like to thank uh Pat O'Neill for his help as well.

Um and Mitch and Drew, uh I'm gonna introduce um an amendment on the next resolution, which will probably make sense to all of you in this room later.

Uh but before I get to that, I just want to ask you guys a few questions over some there's some things that I um I had some concern on in the the current um amendment here or the update that you guys have.

Um as far as future facilities and some of the undeveloped land, um would you guys agree that in the long term, if a fully funded external partner, such as a YMCA nonprofit or other group wanted to construct a new facility or field house on undeveloped land within the athletic portion of the plan, the city could have the ability to evaluate and approve that on its own?

Yeah, that's that's a great question, Ryan.

And I know that's been discussed too.

Um I I did bring we should I didn't think to include it as a as an exhibit, uh, but an updated exhibit from Olson that shows the buildable footprint around the aquatic center.

Um that is gonna be pad ready.

So that that was part of our application, but we did set aside a sizable, yeah.

Is it okay if we can hand these out?

I'm gonna do it anyway.

But I'll wait until everybody has it, that way we know what we're looking at.

Okay.

So there you go.

So what you're what you're looking at, um I don't know if you want to hold that up.

Sorry, we didn't bring big prints, but what you're looking at is a zoomed-in uh view.

And this can get lost when you're looking at the larger site plan that we submitted.

Um, but what you're looking at is a zoomed-in view of the area that we have slated for the aquatic center.

Okay.

And the which would be in purple, right?

Which would be in purple.

Yeah, it's so that that area we had set aside on the master plan as expansion for either a field house, a YMCA, another public facility.

So what you're looking at in purple is the actual dimensions of the aquatic center that we have designed today.

It's 32,000 feet.

That is not an insignificant facility.

But what's also not insignificant is the area that's hatched adjacent to it, which is 190,000 square feet.

Uh why this gentleman actually probably knows this a lot more, but I think an average, an average YMCA is how big is an average YMCA, just by example.

But that's with an aquatic center, right?

Yeah.

So take that out of it.

We're talking about a 40,000 square foot facility.

That that would be six YMCAs that could fit in that area.

Or two additional sports complexes that could fit in that area.

So I think we did a poor job of kind of explaining how big of a footprint that is and what you can fit there.

Um, but yes, I mean, Ryan, that's kind of a long-winded way.

And then the other piece, just to make this clear, we did add a legend on the far right, Olson was helpful in this to show the comparison of the existing soccer fields that are there today, and then the number of soccer fields that they're getting in the relocated area.

So it's a there's 13 fields today, there's 24 fields in this area once the plan is done.

Um, and then there's been some discussions too on parking.

You can see on the top of the plan, if if there was an ever instance, we needed more parking, which I don't believe we do, there'd be another 340 stalls that could be installed there.

So going back to what I was talking about, just to get your um answer on this, but um especially in that area over there, the undeveloped area, would you you guys wouldn't have a concern of the city evaluate and improving another entity like a Y or any other external party to build something there if the city No, that'll be ground retained by the city long term and it would be at the city's discretion to do what they want to there.

Um and then I just want to talk a little more too about um can we agree that external organizations or donors may contribute uh funding towards athletic facilities either for current project or for possible future enhancements, and can we confirm that future additions still would not necessarily obligate Wood Sony themselves to build it and we could follow a structured process plan?

Yeah, I think I think kind of what you're asking, Ryan, is if you know a private entity or a group wanted to donate, right, to to fund some some piece of this project, would we accept that?

Yes.

And kind of the big challenge has been finding finding all the funding that we need.

Uh but our answer would be would be yes.

And one other thing I think several had concern with as far as regarding uh the RFP for the athletic complex operator, uh can we agree that the final selection could rest with the city alone since the facility will be city owned?

That that we would really push back on.

Um Ryan, and to kind of speak to why um when we look at the original intent of this facility, we did not intend for it to be city-owned.

We didn't.

Um, but I think that was a that was a point that was important to the city.

Um and it was ultimately something that we were you know open to exploring.

At the same end, you know, we we got to remember that the only reason we're here today is because of the state, right?

This is the state's dollars that they're giving up, and they're giving it up for new tourism, new sales tax dollars to the state.

And the main impetus of that, Ryan, is a tournament driven athletic complex, right?

That's all we've used three separate sports consultants to design.

That's the facility that we have today.

So I think Ryan, we want assurance that this facility is going to be designed and operated long term to fulfill the obligations that we've made to the state.

That's a key piece for us.

Um aside for that, too, we're gonna have a significant personal investment in this area.

I mean, we'll have a larger investment personally here than the city will.

We we want to ensure that this is operated, uh, what it the way that it was intended to.

Um more thing too.

I think the other thing is I mean, the part that's probably given us the piece why we're so adamant about the housing and all this other stuff we've talked about is this is on the edge of the community.

We talked about the importance of getting rooftops up there and getting housing, and we're proposing to build a hotel and a restaurant.

We need and so having a tournament driven sports complex hopefully assures that we get some traffic, obviously, to those facilities to a hotel and a restaurant up there.

So um, so making sure, so again, we don't have any distrust with the city, but if the city elects to hire somebody and we feel like, gosh, this is really not being managed to drive tourism and drive tournament traffic that will book hotel rooms and fill restaurant seats.

That's why we would like a voice at that table to say, hey guys, we can we, you know, and we'll probably lean on our consultants that will come in and and provide some insight and some advice.

So I I think everyone in this room, if this is built, would want it to be very well run.

You know, my standpoint is still very firm, and I'd like the city to be the prover.

Um I think everyone we're well motivated to want it to run well too, and others will probably have other comments on that as well.

But that that's my two cents.

And uh I'll I'll yield my time to the next speaker here.

I have a quick question.

Is this what you handed out in your materials?

No, okay.

Are you okay if we um incorporate it into the added materials?

Yeah, okay.

Mr.

Nickerson.

Well, it's good to see both of you again tonight.

It's been quite a few weeks of hard work, I can see.

Again, appreciate all the work that you're doing here.

What I need to understand, what are we really voting on in this particular section?

Because there's been a lot of stuff talked about here that kind of I think overlaps in the two.

And I need to understand what is germaine to be discussing in this particular motion versus the coming motion.

So I just I need some clarity on that because there's a lot of stuff been talked about.

The actual motion in front of you is whether to incorporate these amended materials into the application so that way when you make the final, you know, your next decisions on the application, you know whether these materials are part of that or not.

Right.

I just want to be clear because really what we're talking about is the addition of the aquatics information and what else.

I think there's a greater detail on the project funding.

Okay, and the funding.

So those are the two things that we really need to be talking about.

What I what I don't want to do is have our pickleball people having to sit here for another hour, because I I think when we get to the part when we're talking about the complex itself and all the things that we hope that can happen.

I don't know that's gonna be ironed out tonight.

That's not really, I don't think where we're gonna be ironed out the details, are we on that?

Yeah, we are.

So we will be ironing out the details on that.

Well, I think the component the components within the facility, but I think to Mitch's point, there will be city retained ground that you can do as many, but as far as the funding that's allocated today for this project, this is how we would propose to use that funding and for the phases.

But the city to the exhibit you just received, there's gonna be an aquatic center that's built that's part of this initial funding, but there's also a hundred and ninety thousand square feet for expansion for a YMCA for an enclosed pickleball facility.

So if these folks want to go out and get other public monies or private donations or things of that nature, there's gonna be plenty of other things to look at in other parts of this project.

Okay, I think that's important to know, and I thank you for clarifying that because as designed, pickleball really isn't part of the original design right now for the sports complex.

So we we know that.

We we've talked about that, and I need our pickleball people to know that because we probably will not be fine-tuning or changing that particular building in our discussion tonight.

But I understand where you're coming from, and Karen, all the good things I know about pickleball are from you, all the bad things are my own fault.

And Karen, all the good things I know about pickleball are from you, all the bad things are my own fault.

So it she's done a great job in this community in the dedication.

We have a we have a pickleball community that's going to be really helping drive this.

And I don't know that we need to forgive me for saying this, muddy up this whole thing for pickleball right now when we have other options we might be able to look at.

Don't want to redesign this whole thing just for another six courts.

But we can address that.

It's something that we know is near and dear to us.

I think Karen said in an article we have 220 pickleball members on the pickleball club.

If I get a pickleball pickle up app request, which means somebody's calling for a game, there's over 400 people on that list.

So we have a lot of people that like to play pickleball in this town.

And I think those needs are heard.

They're not part of this discussion tonight when we're talking about what we're going to vote on because these guys have put a lot of effort into what they're going to present to us for the sports complex.

Pickleball is alive and well, and I think as a city, we will continue to move that forward.

So I just don't want you all to have to sit here all night, knowing that that's probably not going to be part of the discussion.

And yet you've been heard loud and clear, as far as I'm concerned, and I think the rest of the members as well.

Okay.

So I just so I just want to let you know that.

So in my opinion, you can leave if you want to.

If you want to stay and listen to all the rest of this discussion, that's okay.

But we definitely know that pickleball is on the radar, and we want to we want to do something about that.

I don't know when.

So tonight we just were talking about the addition of aquatic center, which you've done a heck of a job making a lot better than it was last time.

The other thing I really like about it, I also had never heard of the word nadatorium before.

I had to look it up because I wondered what in the world was that.

So you're right, it's an aquatic center.

It's it's well thought out.

I like the way you can use use the pool two different directions.

And when I first looked at that, I thought, is that the way it's made?

And you explain that tonight.

That is true.

I can almost smell the chlorinated water and feel the heat, the humidity, just looking at those pictures.

I can I can feel it.

So it's good, it's great, and it's what the community needs.

What I also like is that the folks that helped design this heard, at least my request, not to try to turn this into a fitness center where we've got all the other, you know, treadmills and all the other pumping iron and all, because we got those things.

Those things, we got people that are trying to make a living selling memberships for that.

We don't need this aquatic center to be another fitness center, in my opinion.

So I think that was heard, at least it appears that it was.

What I don't know for sure if this is the time to talk about our next one, but the clawbacks part.

Is that something that we is this would be an appropriate time to talk about the clawbacks?

Because I've asked our city attorney via handwritten note if we can just talk about those.

I I think we need to discuss those and understand what those clawbacks are in more detail than just black and white up here that we didn't really get to see.

So the yeah, so Mitch, um, to expand on your comment.

Uh if you go to section five in the proposed terms.

No, what I what I would almost like to do is would it be okay if Carrie explains those to us, because I just would like to hear a different perspective of it in her way.

Not that you're gonna say it wrong, but I just want to hear it through the interpretation.

The proposed clawbacks in this amended, these proposed terms were wholly with Sonya developed, those have not been negotiated back and forth with the city.

These are their proposals for what they have not to what they think the clawbacks should be in their proposed terms.

So it's not so this is their uh at least my understanding is this is how they're open, those are their proposals.

Um I would tell you we're not ready to bind in any capacity under these particular terms.

There would need to be more work done.

Um but this is their their pitch.

Um, go ahead and pitch.

Go ahead and run through it here.

Well, um, so the first clawback is subject to the minimum bond proceeds of the 77.5 and the 27.6.

Obviously, if those come in less, then there needs to be a discussion, right?

Because we have less funding available to us.

Okay.

Um, so um so if Sonia would fail to deliver the phase one infrastructure, the sports complex, the Eagle Scout Lake expansion, the amphitheater, 250 multifamily units and 20 single family units, a hotel, a restaurant, and one additional commercial mixed use user within 60 months of the closing.

Um, then we will convey any areas of the sale area or the land which have not commenced construction back to the city for one dollar.

So essentially we're gonna convey this land back.

So that's effectively what would be uh included in the 1A and 1B areas that we had proposed.

So in five years, your commitment would be to have all of that sports stuff done, the amphitheater, we want 250 rental units and 20 family single units in a five-year period, correct?

Which is going to be really you're going to be doing that probably in a two-year period because it's gonna take so much time to get this thing ready to even start building.

Right.

So you you think you can I mean that's a commitment that you're making on paper, at least for now, to knock all that out in roughly two years, two and a half years.

Yeah, that would be that would be our proposal.

Obviously, you know, we'll have infrastructure.

Um, so that's going to be subject to keeping everything moving along through the process.

Um, but that would be yeah, our first clawback.

Um, the second clawback, uh, if you read uh letter B would be again based on a minimum bond proceeds of 77.5 and the 27.6.

Um, we would agree to complete one additional commercial mixed user beyond what was talked about in 5A and an additional multifamily and single family uh 250 multifamily units, 20 single family units uh by 2035.

So if those don't get completed, if we get past phase 5A, then obviously we would flip to phase 5B.

Um so if those items aren't completed, um we would forfeit the remaining good life funding allocated for phase two and three and convey back any undeveloped land back to the city or unact or unactivated TIFF areas.

Okay, so essentially anything that is benefiting us in the project, we would just convey back or terminate.

So, what I'm hearing is something that's a very, very aggressive commitment.

I mean, to me, from what you're saying, just in the housing alone, after we've already heard tonight that as of today, and I will I will support what I heard tonight that our vacancy rate is up, and that's it's starting to creep up.

And I think last time you're here, I told you about the what's going on in Colorado Springs.

So we're we're starting to see that.

We're starting to see the market shift.

And at the time that we're starting to see the market shift, barring other changes that will be coming.

Um that's a pretty hefty agreement to put out there to build units that you're not even sure there's a market for.

What do you do with that?

I mean, that to me uh it's just kind of bizarre that you would be that aggressive to build that much.

Our needs on our last housing assessment, our last housing study was that we need roughly 300 units a year.

We are already hitting that pretty much now.

Uh you're you're hitting it pretty hard there in those in that time period.

And I, from the risk, are you willing?

You think that's a risk you're willing to take at this point.

Uh, and this is just for you guys to really think about what you're building in a community that's already got developers with things going, and my little checklist in my drawer here.

I've got another counting your other commitment to Conestoga marketplace.

Right.

Yep.

We've got you're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of housing units in a relatively short period of time.

Well, it's by 2020.

I think you got to look at it in the context, Mitch, of the time period that these phases are happening over.

So these clawbacks cumulatively would span 10 years, right?

That's 50 multifamily units a year based on these clawbacks.

That's four single-family homes a year.

And I think I I agree with you, Mitch, because you brought this up last time, and this is something we discussed pretty extensively with Chad, is we do want to put guardrails in there, right?

So you know we're not gonna go do 1,500 multifamily units or 291 single family units in one year.

That's what bullet point C exactly addresses.

We won't do more than 100 units in any given year.

We don't do more than 20 single family units, right?

So I do think that we are providing that guardrail.

The other piece so much that I do think that we're kind of missing, but this was a key, key, key piece of our good life application with the state is that this is workforce housing.

Okay.

We're not competing with the luxury, right?

Homes that are going on lake lots that you see in some other areas of Grand Island.

This is workforce housing.

Mike Rogers, who's here knows that a big piece of our TIFF is being allocated to workforce housing, which has specific requirements of what that can be.

So I think there's a key piece, and in the study that Grand Island completed in 2023, which everybody on this council, with the exception of Doug, was a participant on.

There's estimated 700 to 1100 workforce housing units that there's demand for in Grand Island that isn't being met.

Why that isn't met, Mitch, is because you can't build them cost effectively and hit the rent targets and the sale targets that these folks need.

That's exactly what we want to do as part of this project.

We're not building luxury estates out here, right?

So I think the challenge is you're right.

I mean, it is slowing down, vacancy is going up, but is there still demand for affordable workforce housing units?

Yes.

The challenge is how do you build them, right?

How do you actually deliver those homes that are 275,000 a year that folks can actually afford, right?

And that's a key piece of what we want to do.

Well, and that's gonna be probably a thousand square foot home.

That's probably what it's gonna be.

And that's not a bad thing because that's what we're seeing built right now, a lot of thousand eleven hundred square foot homes going for two seventy-five to three hundred thousand.

Housing costs for construction are not gonna go down.

Housing values barring a Lexington situation like we saw there, are not gonna go down.

So we're gonna see those prices continue to rise.

It's just as I see these clawbacks, and it's your your clawbacks.

It's one thing to commit yourself to a to a construction dedicated to meeting your clawbacks, but my question is what you can go build the houses.

We did our job, but now they're sitting vacant.

Now that's on you.

You guys are trying to figure out what do we do.

Uh it's it's just one of those things that I hope that you've thought through well.

Uh because it's to me, I think it's a big it's a big haul, but again, it's your commitment, and hopefully, you know, that type of thing works out because that's a lot.

But I think part I think part of it is uh Mitch, you're saying, hey, this is a lot up front, guys, but we need to create a development in a neighborhood where people want to live.

Understood.

Right?

Like if you drive up and look at that piece of property today, I probably wouldn't select it and say this is exactly where I want to build a master plan development in Grand Island.

That's why I think we have to look at it and say, we've got to do the lake expansion.

We've got to bring in the aquatics facility, bring in the sports comp.

I mean, bring in other components to the restaurant, the hotel, so it doesn't feel like you're on the very edge of Grand Island and nobody wants to live up there.

So well, it's I think it's very aggressive, especially with the other competition that's that's here in town for building and and also your commitment to marketplace uh for your 200, 300 plus that you've got there.

That's another that's 300 housing units that somebody will be living in that's not going to live out where you're wanting to build.

So it's just it's interesting when I'm looking at the clawbacks, and of course that burden falls on you.

Um so I I get it, but I just I just wanted to know if we you know what we thought about it tonight, what you thought about it.

Looks like our city attorney has some thoughts on it as well, maybe.

I think I note that the difference between these being proposed terms to start a conversation and the actual clawbacks is very important for council to consider.

Uh, for example, the proposed clawbacks don't address the aquatic center at all.

Um, they don't trigger as long as construction has commenced, but don't define what that means and would never trigger if the bonds were short even a dollar.

So these would require fine-tuning to make sure the city's best interest is actually protected.

Um they they're great starting points for the spirit of those clawbacks, but they are they would not be actual clawbacks that we could recommend.

Okay, that's fair.

But we're it's we're the discussion phase.

That's what we're wanting to do tonight overall general discussion, general discussion.

Okay.

So what we're gonna talk about tonight again, what we're voting on right now is the addition of the aquatic, some of the things that you've proposed here as well, the clawbacks that we've got.

Uh the only thing I'm gonna ask you here, which might go into the next discussion, would be when you, as a developer, do you use local builders to build what's being built, or do you have a group of people that work exclusively with you when you're doing stuff like this?

I would tell you talk to Roger Bowlington on who we use for Conestoga and the local subs that we utilized.

I mean, that's that's that's probably a better source than than us standing up here saying we're gonna use local subs, right?

We just completed a very large project and utilized local subs, local contractors on that project.

Um so yes, that that would be the intent, Mitch, but um fortunately we do have our our general contractor here tonight who I believe also utilized local subs um on that project.

Okay.

I think I think to clarify we would use we would use a local contractor or subs unless we didn't feel like they could handle the scope of a certain part of the project.

And I have no reason to believe that chief wouldn't be able to do that, but so good.

Well, I understand what I'm voting on at this point anyway, and I'm sure the next one will bring more discussion.

I uh was looking at your proposed terms, and I found 5C confusing to me, and I thought I'd just ask you to clarify.

What you're saying is that in no event will Woodsonia deliver more than 100 multifamily units and 20 single family homes on a cumulative annual basis, meaning that's the most you'll build in any given year.

Because the next sentence I thought was a little confusing, so I just wanted to clarify that it's 100 multifamily and 20 single family in any given year.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Not the what it says.

Oh, I see.

I think say multifamily.

Sorry, I think that's a that's not typed correctly.

It was Carrie's job to spell check this.

Please vote.

Motion adopted 9C.

Authorize staff to move forward with negotiating a development contract subject to the amended good life district application submitted by Woodsonia Highway 281 LLC.

Mr.

Nabity.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Well, now you have the complete application before you because you have just amended it with the previous items.

This would be to authorize city staff to based on the terms here, Mitch, you mentioned the clawbacks.

Um this provides a framework for city staff to move forward with a development agreement.

Um we had several people testify about TIFF.

This does not approve TIFF.

This is still subject to all of the approvals that would be necessary for TIFF.

All of the approvals that may be necessary for an EEA if council wants to move that direction.

So all of those things are still going to come forward.

Pat Brown and I have talked about this numerous times, and we're anticipating that over the course of the next two years, every four to six weeks, you're gonna see something on this project.

Because there are a lot of decisions that will have to be made moving forward, but this gives us clear direction for of what we are supposed to negotiate and what we're supposed to bring back to you, and does it in a very public manner that is appropriate for this body and for this kind of decision.

So with that, what we're asking for is you have their proposed term sheet.

We know it's not exactly what we want.

It probably isn't exactly what they want, but it will give us the ability to bring a contract forward that would then start that process for issuing bonds that would start the clock ticking on those and all of the things that would happen in the future with that.

The other thing that it does, and probably one of the most important things that it does, is it sends a clear positive message to our legislature and governor that this project is moving forward, and that we have a good plan on how we're going to move it forward as they go into session in January.

So this sets this, if approved, will set forth the broad outline of how city staff can then go back and fill in the details.

Exactly.

And to Ms.

Fisk's Fisk's concerns, the clawbacks won't look exactly like this.

We need to we need to let the attorneys wordsmith this and make sure that it's something that's defensible and enforceable, but it gives us some broad parameters to operate within.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Brown.

Mr.

Stell.

I second the motion, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Haas, oh, we have speakers again, so are any of you that signed up before do you want to speak again?

You guys marked both of them.

Okay.

Pat O'Neill, if you want to come on up.

Thank you guys.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak.

I want to thank Woodsonia for bringing this forward and for mayor and council and city administration that's worked very hard on this.

The original agreement had a full YMCA in it.

This one has a pool, and part of the reason is in the last two legislative sessions, the legislature has taken an axe to this program twice.

So I'm very happy we've got a very top rate pool.

I'm very glad.

Thanks both Mitch and Ryan and the 9,000 hours of phone calls and everything else we've done.

But my point to that is uh you delay it again and go through another legislative session, you don't know what you're getting.

Uh I would just like to point out there's little expediency to this, and from an aquatic standpoint, that that facility has about 95% of what we were looking for.

It is fantastic, it looks gorgeous.

Uh should be able to fit the needs of the community for 20, 30 years to come.

There was a commenter earlier who had mentioned that he was concerned about the railroad tracks next to the pool.

I would tell you that's not a concern of mine.

Um we've had a pool next to a railroad tracks for 50 years, it's been fine.

Um I I did not look at a lot of the financing aspects of this, but the one thing I would say is you have a developer right now who has a track record at Conestoga Marketplace where they came in, they said we're going to do this, and they did it.

Uh to Mitch's question about well, they you know, will they use local contractors?

I don't know if they used all of them, but uh I I know that I recognize a lot of the faces on that job site.

And as far as developers go, they're really pretty nice guys.

That's nice.

You're welcome.

But I'm I I do want to say this if you if you went back four years in the past and two people came into this room and said they were going to redevelop your mall, build a movie theater with a bowling alley and an arcade attached, sell a bunch of lots, you know, and not selling cheap lots, but sell them to banks and Chick-fil-A, and they were going to get you a target, and they were going to build you a pool and a sports complex and expand your lake and build trails.

None of us would have believed them.

And here we are, 30% of the way into that progress.

And I I think the results are remarkable, not just from my own self-serving interest as someone involved in aquatics or as a contractor, but you look at uh the problems that they have addressed for the city of Grand Island, and if they get this thing off the ground and rolling, and Mish said it well, this is a very aggressive schedule they set for themselves, and uh, you know, I'm full favor in support of it.

Thank you guys.

Roger Bullington.

Thank you, counsel.

Um I just kind of want to echo a little bit what um Mr.

Pat O'Neill said.

I'm gonna tell you a little bit about what our experience was as at Chief Construction working with with Sonia on the Conestoga marketplace.

Um they've been very, very good to work with.

Has everything been smooth and that sort of no when you repurpose them all and go through the multiple phases that that had to do, relocating tenants, dealing with tenants that weren't committed to Grand Island and was still just trying to do a money grab from the developers, and we know which two of those are, you know, that they got paid out on and then didn't uh redo a uh a site here in Grand Island.

Um that it's very hard to be a developer, and there's a lot of problems.

But what we did at Conestoga Mall literally will be a case study for national magazines to do.

And a lot of it had to do with what you guys did with the leadership with terminating the the lease.

We had a zombie mall on our hands.

It was a zombie mall.

Now it's look at it out there.

It's absolutely wonderful.

The thing with the city and what Sony and us as contractors and subcontractors, of which most all the subcontractors were all were all local.

We were able to develop uh to deliver the pad site for target six months early.

So what did that mean?

That meant that we'd have six months early of a two percent city sales tax of probably fifty to eighty million dollars worth of uh that that that store was gonna is gonna take in.

So the excess um uh city sales tax just for those six months, if it could have been anywhere from a half a million to seven hundred thousand dollars just by getting them.

And that has to be it's because of the city working together, the building department, the contractors, subcontractors, and the developers.

With the way this is going forward on the Good Life District and essentially doing a master developer.

Everybody says, well, you should have chopped it up and and that stuff.

I've done a lot of developments.

We've developed in seven different communities.

This is the proper way to do it.

If you have too many of them up uh too many cooks in the kitchen, things don't work out right.

And so in looking at this business strategy and this business model and moving forward in it with uh in this manner is the correct way, in my opinion and experience.

To do a successful development like this, and this big of a development, you need all three components.

You need retail, you need entertainment, and you need housing.

And so, and all of them kind of have to work together.

You can't be really successful in doing one part of it without the other.

Look at Out of Prairie Commons right now.

You know, um we we got the healthcare component with the help of of Prairie District, we got the housing component.

But you know, it's hard to get.

We're a food desert out there, and we're struggling um getting bars and restaurants out there.

Some of it's probably due to the huge success of Conestoga Marketplace, and and and they would prefer to be there, and that's fine.

We're gonna overcome that.

Um, but it all comes down to everybody working together and improving, proving the community, and so we'll work towards in improving each section of it, these developments as the developer.

Um as Pat O'Neill and Chad had mentioned, time is uh of the essence.

I hate I hate to say that, but it really is.

I'll give you an example, and it's through no fault of our own of anybody's, because the who knew that the state legislature would have changed this and cappened, you know, what was eight million dollars down to five million dollars.

That three million dollars over 30 years, if you do it a net present value at 5%, the net present value of what they did to this community was take 46 million dollars of net present value from this community.

I don't think any of us want to risk what they're gonna do potentially to this program.

And so I'm really recommending that we approve this, move it forward, have the lawyers kick shins later fine-tune it.

Now, one thing about a good life district with this, you know, with their phase one and phase two um funding, uh it's 105 million dollars, you know.

If we can't get all the infrastructure built and the uh aquatic center and the sports complex, and um, you know, hit all the major parts and and get that approved, then shame on us as a community, you know, as business leaders, as supporters for you guys to support this.

Yeah, you know, we need a white new YMCA.

That that should be the first thing this community does after the good life district gets approved approved and this aquatic center gets out there, we ought to support the new uh CEO out there and get a fundraising for the YMCA.

The sports complex, you know, Mitch and Drew don't want to hear this, but the sports complex that we're building at a city that's twice the size as Carney, our sports complex is half the size that we're they're proposing here.

Now they've got consultants and everything say that you know that we're gonna get it done.

But really, for me, for a pride purpose, and what I'd like to do right after we get this all all approved, then we look at building a field house out there, you know, to complement the sports complex.

We can do that through other community fundraising or some other programs.

Um delays in this type of funding mechanism, which was a huge godsend, delays killed development and they kill projects.

So I encourage you to do that.

But um, I also want to thank the the mayor and the city council for you guys' role and the hard decisions that you made in the uh Conestogan marketplace.

This is another project that we can all rally around and make it a successful community project.

And I would love to have your support.

Thank you.

Would you like to speak again?

Thank you, Jill.

Um well, maybe just a step back and look.

I guess I would ask each one of you, would we want to go ahead and look back five years ago and have the Conestoga Mall as it is then today?

Would we want to go ahead and envision the veteran's home as it was five years ago 30 years from now?

And and no.

Um indeed, this is a giant opportunity that also does so much more than recreation and giving youth an opportunity to enjoy themselves and any number of different things and future potential housing.

But you got to remember people need jobs.

The materials that would be purchased, the sales tax that will be provided from that, all the jobs, the tradesmen's the future uh opportunities to attract visitors.

I mean, you just go on and on.

The the concept of this is something that anyone probably could have done, but no one did except for the initiative and now the risk potentially by Wissonia.

So secondly, uh when I look at the application in the city in the packet, I am just completely impressed.

Uh the complexity and all the different things that are in that agreement right now, uh just show that indeed we have the expertise on city staff to go ahead and negotiate in good faith, I think, going forward, and that's what this vote means, I think, before you today.

And and with that, once again, you know, if you don't know where you're gonna go, any road will take you there.

Well, we know the road we want to take.

You want a successful destination based on this redevelopment opportunity that we're one of five communities in the state of Nebraska that have even the opportunity to envision.

So I would hope that once again, with your leadership, uh, just commend you, the city staff, the initiative with Sonia.

But this is a giant step that we'll go ahead and uh we'll look back upon.

And and in closing, someone once said uh the true meaning of life is is planting the tree that you don't get the opportunity to sit under it, and maybe all of us are gonna be in that same situation.

But this is the type of vision that will go ahead and be something that we'll all be proud of for each of our grandkids and future opportunities to draw more people and have a better paying job and enjoy life here.

Thank you, Mayor Steele, and once again, thank you for each one of your leadership and and city staff very much.

Scott Reef, did you want to speak again?

Okay, Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

You know, I I go back, uh I used to look at the Conestoga Mall before they did the development, and we had 60 million in net taxable sales, and it wasn't very much longer after that.

I looked down there, there's like 10 million in net taxable sales.

So you saw the ghost town that it was becoming, you know, and then the drop of of net taxable sales, and now you see it coming back.

Now you see what Sonia has done to the Conestoga marketplace.

It is something that you will be proud of, and Grand Island is proud of it, and it'll help our retail sales for sure.

Um the delay part is really concerning to me because this whole start this started off like back with voter referendum back in August.

And it was overwhelming that we need to move forward with this.

But part of our delay problem is I call it paralysis by analysis.

We have been analyzing this thing so much that I don't think the minimum wage laws applies to the council anymore.

I know that a lot of us on the council have spent more hours in the last two years studying this more than we probably studied any other topic in this thing.

So we have been analyzing the stuffings out of it, and I think we have a wonderful product.

I think it is that this achieves the spirit of everything that we're trying to get done.

Now I'm sure there's still details out there, but what I tell you with contracts that we issue for one percent of this amount, we're putting in change orders, you know.

Change orders a natural thing in city government, and particularly with contracts.

This is a 30-year project.

It isn't gonna be perfect right from the get-go.

We're gonna figure it out, and and I think everybody has the right intentions here.

Um the housing, I'm glad the housing was spread out over 20 years because I think the community is growing.

We are at a we have wonderful things going on here.

We have a lot of momentum, and even though there might be housing vacancy today, I I I have no crystal ball what it's gonna do over the next 20 years.

But for what I'm seeing and what I'm seeing the growth in Grand Island, it will absorb all that.

It'll absorb what we have vacant now.

It'll absorb what we're going to be putting into the market.

But the 20 years gives the community time to grow into it.

You know, and so I'm very comfortable with that.

I I'm grateful for the aquatic solution.

I think for you know our their whole last meeting was you know like consumed with aquatics conversation.

And I'm like, we're we're talking about two percent of the project, you know.

And so, but we got a solution, but that's what we needed to do.

We needed to work through that piece, but the solute the conversation to the solution happened really quick this time, and so the there's no more delays.

So I I'm uh I'm grateful that we're here at this point, and I'm glad to uh support this.

Uh I am just thankful that Watsonia had the vision to start this whole process.

This opportunity of the good life district as supported by our citizens, it's an opportunity of a lifetime for Grand Island, and I think it mixes quite well with all of the other great things that we are doing here.

We we saw the thing about you know uh just what we're this community is doing.

I'm just thinking this is just one more step in the momentum we have of how the wonderful community we're building and continue to build.

So thank you.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I have quite a bit I I want to say, but I want to get through one thing first before I do that, so I'll probably speak again a little bit later.

Um, although I may be often confused for when I'm not a lawyer, uh so bear with me here.

Um I I move that resolution 25-421 be amended to add the following paragraph.

Be it further resolved that city staff should incorporate the feedback commitments and concessions discussed at City Council on December 9th, 2025, into their negotiation authorities into a development contract and other legal documents and must take all efforts to negotiate terms and agreements that protect the city's best interest and are consistent with the goals contained in the city's good life district economic development program as outlined in Grand Island City Code Chapter 38, Article 2.

I have a second second check.

I'll second the amendment.

Uh uh okay, I can still discuss.

Okay, I didn't know if we had to vote on that or not first.

Okay.

Talk about the amendment.

You have to talk about the amendment first.

Uh of why we're amending okay, I'm sorry.

Yeah, just go.

Okay, yeah.

So the reason why we're wanting to do this is we've talked a lot tonight, and you kind of heard me talking to Mitch and Drew a little bit earlier about some of the things we're talking about with you know, allowing us to be able to.

I know the partner here at the Y one to build a building.

We don't want to have Trimplai hoops to do that, or going over about the RFP uh to manage the um uh athletic complex or talk about you know their funding contributions if we ever make any other facility improvements or if someone wants to donate money to another building out here.

Um we just want to get that feedback in here, and you guys may have other feedback that you want to talk about in the meeting as well that could still be considered in this, but this is a chance for us to include more in there when we negotiate a future um uh development contract that we'd still have to do to finish building anything here as well.

That's really the 10 in this is we're just trying to include as much input as we can to negotiate some of these other details.

We didn't really have a chance to negotiate much more of what they uh sent over in their their update.

There's just a few tweaks that I I wanted to go through and make that clear tonight, and we got a little bit of input from Mitch and Drew on that as well.

That's my intent.

Brown Well, I think this is a golden opportunity for Grand Island, and you know it's never gonna come around again.

And I agree wholeheartedly with uh Ryan's amendment here, and um 100 percent for it, Mr.

Shear.

Thank you.

Uh on the amendment.

Ryan, are you am I like ask him a question?

Or who go ahead?

Okay, and maybe Mrs.

Fisk can maybe I can ask you the question.

So an amendment is debatable, so you can debate amongst yourself.

Okay.

So uh are you is this amendment's purpose that what we see right now, we're going to actually have opportunities to continue a conversation about with the details.

And uh Karen uh might help clarify this a little bit too.

But if there's details that we discussed tonight with Woodsoni, especially the things that they have agreed upon, there should be things that we should be able to change in a development contract.

Okay, like I pointed out in the proposal that there was a a confusing sentence, and they corrected it from the podium.

That correction made in in the open meeting can be included uh in the contract negotiations, even though it's not a written down they've that's things like that.

But if it's a thing like the pickleball folks that wanted to see pickleball put into their facility, is that is a thing that we can still talk about, or is that not a continuing negotiation?

And maybe that's a question for you guys too.

If we if we if we pass this resolution and say we're gonna continue to negotiate and we're going to then pass the rest of this.

How much are you guys going to be willing to change on any of this, such as the pickleball, such as some of the concerns about housing, some of those things?

How much of that are you?

Yeah.

I think on the pickleball, I think we feel very confident.

Uh we hired a great consultant that's gonna drive tourism to the sports complex, and right now we don't have pickleball in there.

Um we're gonna leave to Mitch's exhibit that was handed out.

There's gonna be space available.

So if there's other folks uh that want to bring forward and say, hey, we have a the pickleball club here has raised ten million dollars and we want to do uh enclosed pickleball facility, there will be ground set aside that will be city retained.

So let's say it's 10 million dollars.

And I'm gonna bust your balls here a little bit, and I apologize, but we've got people saying we don't need all this housing, but we're gonna give 10 million dollars towards housing.

But we got people to say we do want some other things here, including operational money and things like that.

But we're we're not including that when we have this grand opportunity where we actually have that money.

Instead, we're gonna say, go out and raise more.

I agree that it would be a it's a I your changes so far.

I love them, actually.

I think there's more that could happen, but this is fantastic.

I love this 190 square foot, 190,000 square foot area and the parking.

This is great.

I question the math on some of the soccer fields.

You made them smaller and there was more of them.

I don't know what that means.

Um what I'm wondering is how do we get to that beautiful potential thing that Roger talked about?

Where's that money come from?

I think I think some of these things, I think one of the challenges with these good life districts is we can't, from the developer side, we can't grant what everybody wants.

At some point you do have to say no.

And so I think we've worked really hard, we've spent over two years on this, received lots and lots of feedback, went through the whole confluence plan, went through all that whole process.

So I think from our perspective, Jack, at some point we have to just say no.

We we need to move forward with the terms that we've drafted and proposed.

Um I think to Chuck's point, is this thing gonna be perfect?

And does that mean in three years from now or six years from now, we need to come back to council and say, hey, this isn't working like we thought, we gotta change this.

I mean, that's just part of being in development.

And so there's got to be fluid, but I think for us, based on just all the time that we spent and the process we've gone through, we don't want to continue to make changes and delay the process.

So the answer to actually going to negotiate any of these things beyond some of the little typos is no.

Right.

We would like to move forward with these terms as drafted.

There's clarifications, Jack, like what Ryan asked of can we set aside, are we sure there's a set aside yes?

Like we do want to clarify that, and we're okay with that.

I think that's kind of the intent of this resolution.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan.

But in terms of in particular, a lot of the ones that I discussed uh tonight were about um allowing other part external partners to be able to come in.

Yeah.

Um specifically like a wire, other group like that.

I want to make sure we're not painting ourselves in a corner.

Um and also about the RFP approval for the uh complex operators, another thing I talked about as well.

Of I think we would like to have the sole authority of that.

Um that's something you guys will negotiate with.

I think we would we would we would be open to discussing it, but I think as we're thinking about it, we're doing another very similar project to this.

And I think there just has to be mechanisms where if we don't feel like this the facility is being managed correctly, that we get an opportunity to come talk to the city about that.

And um because we do we have a we're gonna have a huge investment out here, and so yes, it is gonna be city owned, but we we're invested with the city.

We want this to be as successful as possible, and so and a lot of this is gonna come down to the operator.

I mean, at the end of the day, we can design the most amazing facility in the world, but if it's not operated correctly, that's gonna be our our biggest challenge.

So to answer your question, Jack, I would say that's not a hard no, but I think it's a let's let's further discuss this.

Um doesn't we don't necessarily have to iron out these exact details at this point?

I would say this, Ryan.

For purposes of that point, right?

What I would probably propose with and Carrie, I'll get your thoughts on this too, is we don't want to agree to that outright tonight.

Ryan, but we also don't want to say no, we're not gonna do that.

So what I think we would propose on that point in particular is give us an opportunity over the next 30 days as we get to the contract to talk with staff of what guardrails you know, can we put in that we're comfortable with to this redevelopment contract so we know there is some level of assurance that this is going to be managed.

And what we're saying is this will um put this uh um the city staff will continue to be talking to you guys between now and a development contract.

Yeah, and that's what we're saying is the staff can incorporate this feedback into that discussion with you guys prior.

Yeah, and and honestly, we probably want to get our consultant involved to say, you know, Norm, what do we need to be looking for from both the city's perspective and the developer?

I mean their organization doesn't operate facilities, so they're a complete neutral third party, and I think they would have some great recommendations that we should consider.

So another item in there uh with the land conveyance that we're gonna you're gonna get all of the land minus the things that are gonna be city owned that you mentioned, the sports area.

Uh I didn't see anything mentioned in there about the land that was dedicated to a potential elementary school.

So is that land that we would also hold back that you're not gonna get right away, or is there gonna be uh what's the plan for that?

I didn't see anything in the plan about that.

That's that's in our and you gotta remember this is just supplementing our application, right?

So it's only changing points that are being modified.

The conveyance to Gretna or credit Grand Island Public Schools is still addressed in our contract or our our application, so we will dedicate that to Grand Island Public Schools for one dollar.

It's the area shown here on the plan.

Otherwise, Jack, the the ground lease area that we would lease and then convey back to the city, and then the land acquisition area is is shown here, but that would subsequently be dedicated to Grand Island Public Schools.

Um that is all the comments I have on the amendment.

Mr.

Nickerson.

My question is for Carrie.

When I look at this before us, it says authorize staff to move forward with negotiating a development contract subject to the amended good life district application submitted by Woodsonia.

Highway 281 LLC.

Do we need an amendment in order to address the stuff tonight or is it inferred in that statement?

The amended application right now includes the application materials they've submitted and this new amendment, it does not incorporate these what I'll call concessions discussions tonight.

This would let us kind of incorporate those uh those discussions within our authority, otherwise we're tied to the written docs for our authority.

So it would it kind of be the soft edges we need to not be too tight, but also not be coming back to you for the next six months kind of negotiating towards perfect instead of good.

So it's it's a good thing then you're saying it's okay to do it.

Okay to say okay.

You can say it's okay to do it, okay?

I mean it's not gonna hurt anything, right?

And I would just say when I uh Brian seems to be really stuck on this ownership of the of the uh complex.

I I don't think I would fall on my sword on that because I understand this is your baby, and there is no reason why you don't want that to be successful because the whole entire good life district is based on bringing in additional people into this state.

Why would why would I as a city want to take on that burden when it's your burden because that's that's what you committed to, and so yeah, we want to help you get there, we all want to be successful, but this is your baby, and I think you want to see it grow up and be just as healthy and athletic as it can be.

So I don't I don't see myself wanting to get in the middle of that mess because this is the foundation of the whole good life district, right?

So that's I don't understand why we'd want to fall on our sword on that, but I don't know all the arguments on that.

As far as the amendment, I just needed some advice from our attorney to make sure it's not making things any more complex, because then my next statement on the next motion on the real motion, then I'll have a question pertaining to that, but this is just for the amendment.

So I I will support it based on advisement from our council here.

Okay, so this is voting on the amendment.

Motion adopted Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Uh back to the now amended original motion.

Uh my questions, I guess I I want to talk about housing, because I think the sports complex.

I think the aquatic centers fantastic.

Uh I appreciate everybody's work on getting there.

You guys listened to that from last time, clearly.

So good job.

The housing I still have some issues with.

So on the clawbacks.

My question, I guess the first one for you guys, come on back up.

You can stand a little longer.

What are you gonna do with all of the land right away that you aren't building on?

Because you're buying the land for a dollar.

Are you going what's your plan with it until it's developed?

I think it would just be developed as market demand unfolds, Jack.

I mean, we'd leave it in like a preliminary plated state, just like any other master plan development project that we've done.

We'd there'd be components of it that we just sit idle for a period of time and then be developed over time.

Will you put a lien against it in any way?

Uh just yeah, it depends on.

I mean, once we have a structure, then I think we can start really talking seriously to lenders about how this gets financed and the best way to structure it.

Um but it yeah, it could potentially have some sort of mortgage or lean on it.

Yeah.

So once that happens and we get into a clawback, let's say something happens and uh you guys can't proceed.

How do we get it back if there's a lien on it?

We did file a lien, Jack.

It would be subordinate to this redevelopment contract, which would be recorded against the property.

So that lender would be subject to these clawbacks.

So we still get it back for the dollar.

Correct.

We don't owe anything.

It's no different than like a tax lien.

You know, like a tax lien would take priority over like a mortgage lien.

Yeah.

So you mentioned earlier you're gonna be trying to make some houses at 275,000 dollars.

That number came up.

Is that about what you want to do?

Yeah, it'll be a mix of I mean duplexes, four plexus, single family.

Yep.

So those Mitch said in jest that's a hundred, or that's a thousand square feet, but really what is it?

I think we submitted some plans as part of our application.

I don't those probably aren't available tonight, but general footprints.

So I I think that'd be anywhere between twelve hundred to eighteen hundred.

Eighteen hundred square feet.

Or two hundred and seventy-five thousand.

Depending on the exact price is gonna go up and down depending on square footage, yeah.

What would it if Scott builds a house like that, what's he gonna charge?

I have to ask Scott.

Yeah, I have I don't know.

Is to his comment that you're getting quite a bit of incentive here for housing.

You acknowledge that that is a pretty big advantage over someone just using TIFF.

Yes, no, Jack.

I mean, you gotta look at we have a lot more infrastructure here that we're funding than any other typical project.

I mean, Eagle Scout Lake is not a small feat.

But I would say, I mean, look at look at Sterovska's deal by example, right?

That's going on off 13th Street.

Look at the price points there, right?

I think probably build a little bit smaller homes, but their average price point is what, 400, I would say on those.

That's not workforce housing, right?

So I think our goal is to be able to cater to that, and that's gonna require a subsidy.

But is it gonna be a comparable house?

Yeah, I I would think that we're building a comparable quality house that ultimately needs to sell, right?

Comparable size.

Yeah, I think we we gave the sizes.

So you're gonna sell a $275,000 house that somebody else is selling for 400.

Well, I have no idea.

We don't know what the market take.

I mean, the the market, the market could be slow today, interest rates could drop, the feds talking about dropping interest rates, which will completely change the dynamics of the affordability of housing.

That's exactly what Chuck's talking about.

I mean, to say we're gonna take a snapshot in time, and this is what it's gonna be for the next 28 or 30 years, it's impossible.

I mean, so I can tell you this.

Our proposal, and we talked about this extensively at the study session.

We need housing up here, we need housing up here, we need density up here, we need to establish a neighborhood.

That takes risks, those are aggressive clawbacks, so we need to get people living up here, and so does that compete with the local market?

It will, but this is also a slow burn.

I mean, we're not talking about dropping a thousand units on the ground in four years.

That's flooding the market.

This is I mean, we talked extensively with Chad Navity about this.

This is slowly phasing in the housing, and so um, I mean, we could sit here and argue about this all day long, but I think at the end of the day, our whole point is we need to get residents up here living.

And if that means it has to get subsidized in the in the get-go in the early stages, then that may be what's has to happen.

Is that the plan long term?

Absolutely not.

So that's not what our plan would be.

So I think we but we need to establish a neighborhood and we need to get some density.

We can't afford for this to take 30 years.

We need this thing to move along.

I mean, Prairie Commons asked Roger, I don't know how long that's been going on, but it's probably been 15 20 years.

I mean, this stuff just takes time.

So we need to we want to supercharge this development and get things moving quickly.

So one of the things in this plan, and maybe this is a question for you guys, maybe it's for Carrie, maybe it's for Pat, maybe it's for Chad.

So we aren't approving TIFF tonight.

We aren't approving anything other than this, and we can't as a council approve or a promise that another council is going to approve those things.

You understand that.

I think I think we want the council to know that's part of the capital stack.

So if you ultimately decide to decline that 60 days from now, then the project from our perspective wouldn't move forward.

So we just want to be crystal clear.

We want to be very transparent.

So we are approving TIFF tonight in a roundabout way, yes.

But we're not voting on that tonight.

Correct.

Right.

It's kind of confusing.

It it's okay.

The next question.

I think I'm crossing them out here.

We've gone through a lot.

So I appreciate you guys standing up here and taking the beating again.

Um question, I guess, is for administration.

I'm not saying I'm saying no.

If we said no, what happens?

I think it's important for us to know what happens if we were to say no.

Well, there's several options that could come back and with a new proposal, I would imagine, and Carrie can correct me if I'm wrong here.

We can also put out an RFQ for a project developer.

Um city could start the infrastructure.

Umother possibility.

So if the city did the infrastructure and it would just be on the I guess the east side, not the housing side, then you know, city could put out an RFP for sports complex.

RFP for aquatic center, so on so forth.

So definitely the city would definitely would not be in to the housing development.

And obviously that would slow us down considerably.

Just a little bit.

Uh I still think you guys are our best shot.

I've said that all along.

Uh but I think some of the things we've heard both sides, it this is maybe the toughest vote I've been a part of in my three years on council.

This is a little bit harder than chickens, guys.

I mean, this is this is such a drastic decision.

Um, but I I do appreciate you guys uh going through it all.

But I I do appreciate you guys uh going through it all.

That does mean something, and I'm gonna shut up for a little Mr.

Nickerson.

I think the plan that we have before us is a good plan, and as you said, it's not not everything's perfect, but in order for it to fit, all these components need to be there, and I understand that.

And as a realtor, I have a little feel on what's going on in the market.

I'm not in depth involved anymore like I used to be, but I I look at homes every day to see what's available.

I counsel people if they want it, I help people, I help FISBOs, I help what whatever is needed.

But I'm not out there beating the pavement looking for business right now.

But I do have a very strong interest in the housing market, what's going on.

I agree that you need what you need to make this project successful with with the housing, and it's important.

And I'm not gonna get hung up on all the subsidies or whatever how we want to look at that, because Grand Island's success over the last many many years has been through TIFF and primarily through TIFF on a lot of our big developments.

And yours goes maybe a little bit beyond that, but you're also building something much larger, much grander than some of the other things.

Now, as a developer, if I were a developer, I'd be fussing a little bit too tonight.

I probably would, because yeah, it doesn't look like it's fair.

But we've been fair with our developers as well over the last many, many years on the projects that they've done and been very successful at with the tools they requested.

And we will probably continue to do that.

We just need to make sure that we are not flooding the market.

I appreciate you metering in the housing units, because even at 120 a year, that still meets more than a third more than likely of what we need, but it's also the mix, and you have to be able to rent them and you have to be able to sell them.

So from a developer standpoint that might be fussing about this, you got a lot of risk.

There's a lot of risk involved in this.

And the developers here know that because they've been involved in risk as well.

But I will tell you that there are new homes on the market right now that have been sitting there for 10 months, some of them are in a copper creek.

Ten months, brand new construction.

We have other brand new constructed homes that have been on the market two and three years, never had a one person move into them yet.

So there is a risk involved.

You will be taking on that risk just like these other developers did as they built these homes, and they've been sitting on them for 10 months right now, and some of them are less than 300,000.

You've made a commitment.

And I would also say to developers that are concerned, there was an opportunity for applications for good life districts, but I think Woodsonia is probably the only one that came forward.

Is that correct, Patrick?

That's the only one we've got.

So we didn't have anybody else knocking on the door.

So we've got a group here that's proven their success with Conestoga Marketplace and shown as others have said tonight, you say what you're gonna do and you're gonna do what you say.

I believe that.

This is a tall order.

It's a tall order, and I think it's something that we need to support tonight.

Jack was asking the question well, what happens if we say no?

You know, and and Patrick gave the options, what things we can do.

But the other thing that we've already talked about tonight, we start another legislative session, and who knows what that does.

So we have a good product, I think.

Is it the absolute best?

Probably not, but it's gonna be tweaked as we go.

Which brings me to my question for maybe Chad or whoever else, because it says this allows us to move forward with negotiating a development contract.

And I think Chad made the inference about uh we would could discuss things that are in the contract.

But what if there's a dispute or still a major disagreement in the negotiating process?

Do you foresee that?

And if that does happen, what happens?

I think what happens is we bring the contract to council and you make the decision at that point.

But we negotiate in good faith based on the discussions tonight and based on what is in the application, but ultimately approval of that contract will be between you and Woodsonia if you authorize this.

Staff.

We may have opinions, but we don't get to make a decision, and we're not signing it.

So what you would be doing is authorizing the mayor to sign that contract on behalf of the city based on the terms that are in that contract.

And we will have a redevelopment contract that will go to the CRA for all of the TIFF portions of it, so that instead of like we did with Conestoga Marketplace, where we had a three-way contract with the city, the CRA, and Woodsonia, we will have two contracts, one between the city and Woodsonia and one between the CRA and Woodsonia, so that if there are amendments that need to be made to those contracts when there are amendments that need to be made to those contracts, let me correct that.

Um it only has to go to a single entity that is has dealt with that contract before, unlike back in September when council had to sign off on amending the contract for Woodsonia for Conestoga Marketplace, even though it was really the redevelopment contract in TIF.

So that would be hopefully that answered your question, Mitch.

Okay.

Because there may be some negotiating that still needs to take place, it sounds like I mean some fine-tuning and some I definitely think there will.

Yeah.

Very good.

All right.

I just want to touch base here on the vacancy issue, which is unusual over the last maybe year or so, maybe to see that vacancy rate go up.

But I'm also gonna put the blame, and I don't want to call it blame, a little bit on some developers who've decided to go into other communities and build nice housing units.

Which allowed people that were living in Grand Island to move back to the community in which they're working, which left vacancies in Grand Island.

I'm not gonna mention any names.

I'm just gonna say that when you start building in other communities and you have people living in Grand Island going to those communities.

So part of that's our own fault.

I don't know how many, but we've got what?

Yeah, one other thing there.

I just wanted to for the to put on the record.

Um, as of October 31st, we have issued 122 uh permits for 122 units in 2025.

So the housing study said we need almost 300 a year.

Last year was one of our best years, and we were at 226.

We don't I don't know that we've ever hit 300 in any given year in my time here, even though that would be our ideal number.

We've gotten close to that, but we haven't actually done that.

Um so those numbers are this year, we're probably running a hundred and fifty units short of what would be projected.

Yeah, we still have a pretty healthy vacancy rate right now in certain housing units.

We do, and there have been things in the economy that have changed and uncertainties with the situation across the entire United States that I think have impacted some of those things.

Yeah, and I guess we've also we've talked about what's been approved on TIFF already.

We have hundreds of housing units just waiting for that magic number, either interest rate-wise, or to Mr.

Reef's point when he sees the need to pull the trigger on that.

You know, last time he was up here, he saw a need for that, but obviously things have changed, and some of that sometimes is of our own making, I think.

Anyway, I do support the project.

It's uh it is a good one.

And I I think we would be foolish not to move forward with it tonight just for all the reasons we've talked about, delay can kill projects, and we have an awful lot going on here, and we still have some room for some negotiating of some things, and we want to surely take advantage of that.

Mr.

O'Neill, um I just want to comment on on a few other more things here tonight.

Uh first, I'd like to thank all you guys for being here.

I mean, you've been hanging in a long time tonight, and I know a lot of you traveled from a long ways.

Not everyone made it this far in the meeting.

Um really like to thank you, Scott Reef as well.

I think you're a model citizen, you've done a lot of great things as community too.

And um I just want you to know some of the decisions we make sometimes in this, you know, there might always be someone, not 100% of everyone's gonna like every part of everything that we do, and just know a lot of what we're doing sometimes is very tough.

And I just want to explain the logic that I use here.

I have to stay rational when I do these things, and I'm trying to think of what decisions are gonna benefit more people.

And believe me, I've spent so much time doing analysis on this.

I've been back and forth on the phone on my computer.

Um, and you know, we we hear from a lot of people.

I know everyone wants a lot of things, and um, I just trying to make you know we can't get lost in a cycle of trying to accommodate all the ideas and details, and um, but I'm trying really hard to make this the best that we can.

And uh it's very challenging, and sometimes I look up and said, I know you're testing me a big guy, you know, it's been it's been tough out there sometimes, but we're working hard.

Um tonight, you know, we really have a couple of choices.

I'm gonna expand a little bit on what Pat was saying as well.

Um, when Mitch asked, or I can't remember Mitch or Jack asked him what would happen if we we didn't do this.

Obviously, it's gonna take more time.

I'd probably say years of more time.

And the other thing I want to expand about too is if we don't have, you know, this is a package deal.

If we just built those facilities, you don't have to retail, it's gonna cost the city more to pay those operating the maintenance costs of these facilities.

Um I have to really kind of break this down and look at the math, and I think there's only one option the math really clearly supports, and when the numbers point to the strongest opportunity, the rational choice is to move forward and that way for the for the perfect option that may never come and risks losing everything.

And um, if we get tied down to too many details, that's how we can progress can stall and uh opportunities disappear.

If we approve it now, we unlock the good life program dollars, and that means a large share of sales tax, money that would normally go and stay in Lincoln comes here instead to help us build the new aquatic center, the athletic complex, and a lot of other enhancements to other athletics here.

This money would not normally be ours if it was not for this good life project.

The commercial pieces the developer builds alongside them, like the hotel, the restaurant, and the event space, then help cover the ongoing operating costs with the taxes they generate.

The housing is intended to help support some of that retail, but also to help attract potentially even more retail, to miss more revenue to try and help cover more of the operational maintenance cost.

That's the logic being applied here.

Uh, that takes pressure off the city and taxpayers for future operating costs.

And since the developer can move quickly, we could realistically see these facilities open maybe in 2027.

Um these guys are ready to move fast.

Um, you know, if you didn't go that route, um it's gonna create a lot more challenge.

Um a lot of other people are not going to be incentivized to want to put a restaurant or hotel out there.

Why is that?

And I'm gonna tell you right now, if anyone has experience running a restaurant on the lake outside of town, it's me, and it's very difficult to do.

If you're gonna invest the money without incentives, you're gonna want to be on 281 in the heart of Grand Island.

You're not gonna want to take a risk out on there on that side of town.

And I can tell you after having attended a lot of these uh tournaments at atletic complexes of one of our kids years ago, you can only eat so many hot dogs and uh popcorn for you want to go have a real meal at a restaurant across the street.

I think those would get used a lot, and that's supporting infrastructure.

This all ties together.

Um so there's a reason why Woodsonia's asking some support to build those commercial buildings.

Um they're putting some of their capital at risk as well, and they're very incentivized to make sure that those things operate successfully, which is in our benefit if we're gonna get EAA and other sales tax out of that to help us pay these bills.

That's a major benefit.

Um the worst case scenario is if we don't do anything and this gets bogged down and keeps getting delayed, eventually the state's gonna say, you know, you're not getting anything done with that, we want that money back, and then we lose everything, and no one gets anything.

That would be up to about a hundred million dollars of lost opportunity.

I can't imagine having to go through that.

Um when you lay it out this way, there's really only one rational choice for Gallon's future, and that's to stop delaying and approve this resolution so we can get things moving soon.

And the public has been asking us to get this done, and we need to follow through on that.

Mr.

Conley.

Yes, uh, Mitch Drew.

I gotta say, Conestoga marketplace looks great out there.

Um I'm gonna support this tonight.

One thing I would ask is you just continue to work with city staff, do your best, negotiate.

Um personally, I'm a little disappointed.

I still haven't found in this yet my top golf.

So we talked about that.

It's been a couple years, but maybe maybe we can work on that couple years.

You know, I like to think that we are really good, but I don't discount the fact that maybe we're just lucky.

We were exceedingly lucky when Woodsonia arrived and said, We will take care of your zombie mall.

Nobody else stepped forward.

And during my years as mayor before Wood Sony arrived, I got an earful from the people of Grand Island about what are you going to do with them all?

We lucked out.

But we were smart enough to see the opportunity.

But we still lucked out.

And I agree with Roger Bowlington.

What has happened with the Conestoga Mall is unusual and precedential considering what happens with most zombie malls.

And then our great luck continued.

The Nebraska legislature decided to cut its sales tax in half so that the city could use that 50% that it gave up to create a good life district.

We lucked out.

We didn't have much to do with that.

It was a great fortuity for us.

Stepped forward, saw the opportunity that meant for Grand Island, and Woodsonia did all of the legwork to file the application with the state of Nebraska, Department of Economic Development, and prove to the Department of Economic Development that we could have a transformational project right here in Grand Island.

We lucked out again.

But I always remind them all the parts fit together, and you have to look at what the whole project is intended to do.

It is intended to be a development that is a neighborhood that is a community that when it is fleshed out has recreational opportunities, has commercial opportunities, and residential opportunities.

So it doesn't work to start pulling legs out of the stool that all of those parts represent because then the whole thing will just come crashing down.

But I'm very pleased.

It has been a two-year slog for them.

I sometimes wondered why they didn't throw up their hands and say, phooey, who needs this?

But they didn't, and I'm very appreciative of that.

I'm appreciative of them finding ways to help Grand Island.

Thank you, sirs.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

The last thing on our agenda is ordinance one ten thousand fifty-four consideration of renaming U.S.

Highway 30.

Is there a motion to suspend the statutory rules regarding ordinances?

Mr.

Lanfear.

I move we suspend the statutory rules concerning ordinances.

Mr.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Mr.

Navity, please present.

Thank you.

The ordinance before you this evening is renaming Highway 30 from where it ended at old Highway 30 to monitor road.

We're just extending the old Highway 30 moniker on that and changing those addresses to old Highway 30.

The new Highway 30 is in essentially the same alignment to the north.

So this is very similar to what was done when old Highway 30 was created.

We're just adding on to old Highway 30.

It will change their addresses.

We are proposing to make this effective January 1 so that there's a nice firm date when that cutover begins.

If you approve this this evening, we will notify the residents and we will notify the post office of those changes.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

I move that we approve ordinance 10,054.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

We have completed our agenda.

Have a nice evening, everybody.