That was fun.

Oh, yeah.

Welcome to our meeting.

The date is June 2, 2026.

The time is 6 p.m.

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.

Now I ask that you stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Shear.

Present.

Council Member Stelk.

Chair.

Councilman Connolly.

Present.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Hossee.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Council President O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock will be absent.

Councilmember Lanfear.

Present.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

Also present are Sonia Cisneros, the deputy city clerk.

Patrick Brown, the city administrator.

Chelsea Steinke, the finance director, Kerry Fisk, the city attorney, and Matthew Boyle, the assistant city attorney.

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.

No one else has come forward, so we shall continue.

Agenda item 5A.

Presentation by Woodsonia Real Estate, Inc.

of items identified as non-negotiable or deal breaker items to City Council as authorized by the council motion on May 12th, 2026.

Please come forward if you're presenting on this.

Good evening.

But I have Drew asked me to come and watch and see where I was seeing challenges.

And the I'm just going to speak from a public-private point of view.

And I got to work with President Nixon's chief of staff, H.R.

Halderman, who had just come out of prison for Watergate.

So I got to help him and Mr.

Murdoch in that first public-private partnership, which was a big one for the city of Lincoln.

Three years later, I had the privilege to work on another very important public-private partnership, this time in Grand Island called the ANSI Hotel and Parking Facility.

So at the beginning, now at the end, I I get to work again with the wonderful city of Grand Island.

Some of the other projects, I've gotten to work on about a hundred public-private partnerships over the 44 years.

And some of the bigger ones was the State Fair Reorganization Plan and in Nebraska Innovation Campus, which then caused the state fair to come out to your wonderful city.

So that was a big one.

We got to work on the West Haymarket, Pinnacle Bank Arena, which some of you maybe have enjoyed in Lincoln, the Annalob Valley project.

And a couple years ago, we were back out here in the Grand Island Conestoga Marketplace, a 221 million dollar redevelopment project that I think is so far going very well, that Wusonia was involved in today.

And I'd like to just take some introductory remarks tonight to tell you how we can make it work, because we think that's what everybody's striving for to go forward.

These larger scale catalytic projects have to go way beyond the traditional redevelopment projects that you deal with.

They have to deal with many more complex, and thank gosh, the state legislature's given us some recent tools to do what I call these innovative transformative type projects that have been authorized, and it embodies and emboldens the strategies of the public sector, the nonprofit, and the private sector to all work together on these bigger projects.

And that's what we have to be doing and want to focus on tonight with you to create you know the new tourism, the sports facilities, the aquatic facility, new jobs and things that are very important to you.

And you know, the prior negotiations I don't think have been successful.

That's why you've taken over this responsibility directly yourself.

And one of the things I got to observe is I call it the 80-20 rule.

When a community and the private sector and the public-private partnership agree on the big principal governing issues.

But once if you're not agreeing on those bigger principles, you can spend forever on the final 20%, which is all the important details.

And because you'll talk at that level and not be talking at the bigger picture level of where the differences might be occurring between the individual sectors along the project.

And determine if we are on the same page or not with you on that.

We have given you a detailed proposal in outline form, and that's based on these six principles, but it's at a level that you're maybe not used to talking about.

And so I want to talk about the six.

The first one is what I call you should not be overly nervous to embrace the various legislative tools of the public-private partnership, economic tools that the legislature's recently given us.

We have the community development law, which is the TIFF law and occupation law, the good life district came in two flavors over two years with different names, but it's we call it the Good Life District, and now we have the Nebraska Community Improvement Act.

Those are very important tools that we can talk about, and we our proposal is in trying to be based upon to work together to take care of what I call the important aspects.

Now, the community improvement, the TIFF law, you're familiar with that.

The Good Life District Act, Carrie and her team have done her darndest to try to educate you on a very complex piece of legislation.

But it sets up the tools of what we're trying to do, and that's really important.

Guiding principle number two that I would ask confirm that you either hopefully agree on, is that Veterans Village Track has a site, has site limitations, and that requires creative critical mass to overcome the site limitations.

And so what am I talking about?

Well, from a market transportation land use perspective, Veterans Village Project represents a very unusual, complicated and challenging redevelopment track.

And why do I think I know that is you've held title to it for quite a while during good times and bad times, and it has stayed undeveloped.

It has remained vacant and underutilized, and it demonstrates that there are difficult challenges to the site.

And so what I think I'm trying to say here is one of the principles is when we have a big piece of real estate that is very close proximity to the core of your city, and it stays undeveloped.

Well, why?

But more importantly, how do we overcome it?

And it's not by doing a pro a little project here and then a next one and the next one and the next one.

We need a big bold vision to try to put down on paper and then go implement.

That will create the critical mass to overcome the process.

One of the challenges to the site is the Burlington Santa Fe Ravina Subdivision Corridor.

I think you recently completed a study, just recently, that showed that corridor, which we have to overcome, has 42 trains a day on average.

Now, again, depends on coal demand and crops and things like that.

But the average in the report said 42 trains.

And if you assume that 42 trains take 4.5 minutes to cross at their average speed, we're talking about a blockage from the core to this wonderful site of three hours and 15 minutes.

That is one of the problems that we have to.

And so we need to make a project that is big enough, dynamic enough, that people will overcome that particular issue.

And because Broadwell Avenue North has two tracks at that location.

We sometimes have two trains that make it even longer possibly to go forward with.

Guiding principle three is this is scary to people.

You know, risks.

We're talking risks, and if we had our way, we'd try to minimize all risks.

But when it comes to public risk, it prevents the community.

If you ignore, if you're afraid of the risk, you're gonna miss the realization of significant economic, social, and public benefits that the project can derive.

And so, yes, the project scale is large, yes, it's complex, yes, it has risk, but it has risk for both sides, the public sector and the private sector.

And but yet what we need to recognize that we have the potential that the public and private benefits can far out exceed those risks.

That's what's in front of us.

Are we willing to take the risk to see the public benefits and the private benefits that will far exceed those risks?

And this is where you know a recent alma University of Nebraska at Omaha study showed that TIF on average, and I mean we're talking a thousand TIFF projects in Nebraska now, has increased on average the project area by 32 percent.

And every time those projects came in front of those councils, they had risk associated with them.

So I want to then now talk about guiding principle four.

Understanding that complex mega projects like this require a long-term public-private perspective and commitment and financing.

You just can't do it.

Yeah, let's talk for the first three years.

Then we'll come back and talk more about it down the road.

Large scale redevelopment and transformative problems are implemented over many, many years.

And that's what it takes to create the critical mass that we talked about earlier.

This is important to developers, it's important to lenders, it's important to bond buyers, investors, and as a result, it's an important thing to focus that it is a long-term commitment we're talking about.

And the short term does not work in this case.

It's when unnecessary to issue and to fund the debt.

So and the and we the different laws they even have 30 years and longer.

So the Nebraska legislature realizes if you're going to do the dynamic, you've got to make the long-term commitment.

And so does the private sector to make this go forward and be successful along the way.

The I want to talk about principle five.

Communities achieve their greatest advantage when they embrace and carefully manage public investment in private real estate as well as public.

So it's lawful.

If you find, but the laws also set up safeguards, rails along the way, so you don't go out of bounds.

Both sides don't go out of bounds and meet the state's public interest doctrine along the way.

Mike Rogers helped write seven with those important laws and recognize that the legislature says it is okay to use public dollars for private property interests along the way.

And it's been done.

Principle six.

That designation unleashed something that is one of the most powerful economic tools the city, the legislature has ever granted five communities in the state of Nebraska in the amount of resources that the Good Life District gives us along the way.

So that's why it takes double double effort tonight and down the road to get this done right so we don't lose that once in a lifetime generational opportunity to go forward together with.

And it's just a lot of money that we're talking about that can then achieve very important public purposes that will improve prosperity of our citizens here in Grand Island.

The question is, Wusonia got the application, the door's been opened.

Are we smart enough to figure out how to walk through that door and across the finish line on this most unique uh property and economic development too?

We're standing in front of you tonight to present Wusoni was updated, and Drew will mention simpler plan of how to and it's based on those six guiding principles.

And now I just would like to ask Drew to come up and talk about the outline that we have presented to you.

Thanks, Kent.

Mayor.

Oh, hi Mitch.

Um council members, good to see everybody again.

Um, it's been quite the quite the process, as we all know.

Um I don't know how many times we've been here, but it's been a lot.

And uh, but we're thankful to be back.

Um I think Kent mentioned we believe there is a path forward.

Um, you know, we were successful in the Conestoga marketplace.

We're happy with how that project has turned out.

Um we know this has had some challenges and some hurdles to get over.

Um we we heard uh staff's feedback in the May council meeting.

Um, and I think we took a lot of these things to heart and we tried to address these as best we could.

Um but I also think one of the things that I want to communicate tonight as we start our presentation is and the mayor kind of mentioned this when we talked about non-negotiables, deal breakers.

We don't want an adversarial relationship with the city.

We don't.

We want to have a successful public-private partnership.

I think tonight needs to be a discussion, it needs to be we want questions, we want feedback, we want to be able to answer.

If council members have questions, we want to be able to answer those questions.

If staff has questions, we want to be able to answer those questions.

So uh we're thankful for the opportunity to be here.

We're thankful, you know.

We have an updated MOU.

I want to spend a little bit of time just kind of going through that, but I want to spend most of our time opening this up for questions and for council members to have the opportunity to speak uh and talk a little bit about what we're gonna present tonight.

So um, so with that, we can jump into the MOU.

Hopefully, everybody received this.

Hey, Drew, before you get into that, I have a uh point of order question for the mayor here.

And this will come from Kerry because it's important.

We need to set the framework for the discussion tonight, okay?

Because from what I understand, there's only certain things that the council is able to discuss because of the agenda and the way the agenda is written.

And so I don't want you to ask questions that are out of bounds of this agenda item for tonight, and I think it's important that Carrie helps us understand what those boundaries are, because I don't want us to go willy-nilly and then say, Oh, you can't talk about that, you can't talk about that.

We just need to know so that we are all on the same page tonight because of restrictions on agendas and what the public's informed about, what discussions will take place tonight.

And I I just need us to know what that is up front.

So Kerry has done a good job of trying to educate the council on our limits, but I think we all need to know what those limits are.

Under the open meetings act, uh, the items up for discussion are limited to the items set forth in the agenda, the agenda lists presentation by Woodsonia of items identified as non-negotiable or deal breaker items.

Uh, that's based on the motion of counsel that was made to set this matter for hearing.

Mr.

Stelk's motion uh was specifically requesting that Woodsonia present those deal breakers and non-negotiables to council for consideration and review.

So those are all topics within the scope of what you can talk about today, and then of course, any items necessary to provide context to those the list without context is relatively useless to you.

Um, but as long as it is about one of those non-negotiables or deal breakers, it's probably within the scope of your agenda.

If it is not relevant to that, it's beyond the scope of what was noticed to the open meeting.

So in the end, uh Mr.

Snyder, I'll probably give you that context.

If your follow-up questions are based on whatever they present as deal breakers or non negotiables, fair game.

If your questions are, you know, about legislative action from two years ago are about you know liquor license somewhere.

Something that's not specifically on the agenda, you can't talk about those that'd be beyond the scope.

So as long as we stay on topic to what's on the items for discussion, we should be all right there.

And you'll keep us in bounds.

I'll do my best.

All right.

Very good.

Okay, thank you for the question.

Yeah, and I think I think in terms of us addressing, we were under the impression to we got feedback from staff, and we thought we did a nice job updating this MOU and bringing back these terms.

But again, I want to be clear.

We don't want to use any adversarial language.

We want this to be a successful partnership with the city.

So terms like non-negotiables, deal breakers, these are where I think what has gotten us in trouble.

This is my opinion.

I'm gonna speak publicly on this.

So I'm gonna steer away from those terms.

I'm also gonna steer away from talking about things that have happened over the last two and a half years.

Those are all in the rear view mirror.

I think what we have before us is a fantastic proposal.

We want to talk to everyone about that, and we don't want to spend you know hours talking about what's transpired over the last couple years.

So I just want to set the stage with that.

Um, and with that, we're happy to go into the the MOU.

We've got this is exhibit A.

I don't know if there's a way to switch this to the MOU.

I don't know who's driving.

I think I'll slow down the server is the features.

Does everyone have a copy of this?

They do.

Okay.

Well, if everybody has a copy, um, that's really what I think we want to talk about.

Um so if you go to section two, um, the master site plan, um, this talks about really the overall uh master site plan.

Um, really the components have not changed significantly from what we've talked about and addressed previously.

Um state of the art sports complex.

We're gonna go into more detail on the sports complex.

I'm happy to report the sports complex has doubled in size from December.

So huge win, huge bonus um in terms of just size and scale of that complex.

We'll go into the programming on that when we get to that section.

Aquatics uh facility.

Um there's a uh we want to talk a little bit about this in section eight about the YMCA's potential involvement in this aquatics facility, which I think is really exciting and has the opportunity to bring kind of a combination between the aquatics and the YMCA and their involvement in this.

So we're excited to talk about that.

We still have the Eagle Scout Lake expansion, um public fishing pier, two miles of trails and landscaping, amphitheater, the fully improved school site, single family 35 acres, the multifamily 66 acres, the mixed-use area 36 acres, um, and then obviously all the public infrastructure.

So, site planning-wise, really not a whole lot of changes here.

This is consistent with the master plan update and the plan that Confluence did.

Um, so if there's questions, happy to answer that.

But I'm gonna skip ahead.

Um, section three, I think are are is a key item for us to talk about tonight.

I think one of the things that we've heard loud and clear is because of the funding, because of what's happening with collections with DR, what can Woodsonia guarantee the city?

And so I think we want to talk a little bit about what we've kind of defined as the critical really five critical project components.

So, again, if you're looking at 3B, um, I'm gonna skip down to 3B for a minute.

One would be acquisition of the land.

There was a lot of discussion around giving the land to Woodsonia, and by giving the land to Woodsonia, the city would need clawbacks, and again, this is where things got very, very complicated in negotiations with staff.

And I think one of the resounding things I want to make sure that everybody's aware of tonight, we worked hard to try to simplify this as much as we can.

We wanted to try to simplify this uh structure.

And so we thought by acquiring the land, um, that would remove the idea or the concept that there needed to be all these complex clawbacks in the agreement.

So we are suggesting we acquire the land for three million dollars.

Um the next uh critical component would be the phase one site work.

That would be the mass grading, that would be the expansion of Eagle Scout Lake, um, otherwise, just site cleanup, the public roads, the utilities, um, but then also include the amphitheater, the public fishing pier, and the pedestrian bridge.

So I think again to reiterate what we talked about, we need this to function and operate like a true neighborhood.

We are gonna spend hundreds of millions of dollars out here.

We need to create a development where people are gonna want to come live, spend time, um, and not just come on the weekends to a sports complex.

So by saying that, we want to amenatize and really beautify Eagle Scout Lake, expand it, create the walking trails, and just create pedestrian spaces where people want to be.

Um so phase one infrastructure is the second part of this critical project components.

The third part is the sports complex.

We've talked about the sports complex at length.

Um I think, and this is what's on the screen, we'll run through this when we get to that section, but sports complex has doubled in size from what was contemplated in December.

Um lots of lots of benefits there.

Pickleball's been added, um, indoor turf has been added.

Um a large outdoor turf component, which was previously included, but so we want to run everybody through, but the sports complex is obviously a key key part of what's happening with this project.

Um the aquatics uh facility, um, that's the fourth uh critical component.

We're gonna talk about that here uh in a future section, and then the conveyance of the fully improved school ground.

So again, I want to reiterate these when council asks us tonight.

Well, what are we what can we be assured of that what Sonya is going to do with this project?

These are the five things that we want to tell council tonight.

These will happen.

These will happen.

Now we need to go do a bond issuance.

We need to go issue these phase one A bonds.

So there's funding for a lot of these components.

Um so there's some things to talk about, but these are the items that are critical that we are that we are standing before you telling you these will happen.

Um the really and so what we're saying here is that those five things need to happen in order for us to um use any good life funding on any private improvements.

So that would really be kind of the catch-all there is that no good life funding would be used for private improvements until those critical critical project components are done, those five up those five items.

So other parts in section three.

Um I talked a little bit about the private improvements, and then we all know about the uh good life funding that the 20% limitation on good life funding for um non-revenue generating items.

So we would adhere to that.

Um, section four, zoning and platting.

We've actually submitted Olsen Engineering has been fantastic.

We've actually submitted a preliminary plat to the city, and I think that's just on hold, waiting, you know, further direction from council.

So the platting and zoning is ready to move forward.

So we're in a great, we're in a good good place on that.

Section five, land transfer.

Um, if you can if you can move forward to that section, there's really uh I think four items to talk about here.

One is the acquisition of the land.

So we would be acquiring 191 acres, technically 191.53 acres for three million dollars from the city.

So that would be step one.

Step two is, and we talked about this previously, creating either land leases or a license agreement, and essentially a license agreement gives us the ability to put improvements into city-owned property.

Whatever is simpler from the city or from a legal perspective, we're okay doing either or uh, but what we're proposing.

So if you look at 5B, is that there would still be uh land lease or license areas, which would include Eagle Scout Lake, Eagle Scout Lake expansion, and then the aquatics soccer field area.

So you can kind of see those in green on section 5A of the MOU.

Then obviously we have the school lot conveyance.

Um so upon completion of the phase one site work, um we would be conveying this lot to the school district.

Oh, sorry, wrong.

True.

I think if you hit the arrows, this whole package should be on this screen.

Oh, really?

If you hit the arrows on the on the keyboard, yeah.

I think it's just the exhibit A.

Is there?

Can we give them the framework and someone with that one?

Yep.

We can email it to somebody.

Here it is.

Maybe let's try this.

I have hard copies too.

I don't know if it's for.

Yeah, that's true.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah, that's great.

It's still loading.

I think you're about right there.

Thanks, Pat.

Yeah, thank you.

I can't get it any bigger though.

If you close up this X, does that make it bigger?

Which one?

Right here.

Try clicking this real quick.

Click on these to zoom in things.

There you go.

Yeah, that works.

Thank you.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's helpful.

Thanks, Pat.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks, Pat.

That was helpful.

Okay.

So let me we'll jump back here.

Um just so everybody in the audience can see.

Um I think I might be able to zoom go one more click here, maybe.

So it's as big as possible.

Okay.

So these would be in terms of the land.

Um this is section five on the MOU.

You've got uh five A, which addresses everything in this kind of pink salmon color.

This would be everything that would be acquired.

Um so this would what would be the area, excuse me, we would be acquiring uh for three million dollars.

That's a hundred and ninety-one acres.

Um you can kind of see the carved out areas here uh for Eagle Scout Lake, the lake expansion, and then the aquatics and the soccer field area.

I will tell you we contemplated this.

We did include obviously the sports complex area and then obviously the school lot.

So we would be paying the city for those areas, but then re uh the sports complex, not necessarily, but the school lot we would be dedicating that back for one dollar.

So land lease license agreement areas.

Um I just mentioned these, these would be the areas um that the city would retain.

Um so Eagle Scout Lake area, the lake expansion area, and then the uh the YMCA aquatics soccer field area.

So you can see these in green.

Upon completion of phase one site work, this would be the area that would be reconveyed to the school district for a dollar for a future elementary school.

This would be the YMCA aquatics lot.

Um so what we had proposed here was that the um the YMCA would be acquiring or conveyed the area here in brown, but then the city would retain ownership of everything in kind of this gray area, and really for the purposes of the soccer fields, and then the parking.

But I also want to mention the phase one site work would include all of the parking for this facility.

Um so that way there's there's necessary parking here for the soccer community as they continue to use those fields in the future.

So um just want to mention that.

Um section six.

This talks about the uh bond proceeds, the cash on hand.

Um these were some numbers from DA Davidson uh several months ago.

Uh but if you remember, there's really two buckets of funds.

There's the uh good life funds that are subject to the five million dollar cap for the legislature.

And those our understanding is those are being collected at the state level.

So that's not where the collections issue is.

So I want to clarify that.

So we would ask that those be pledged to a bond funding, public bond issuance.

So there'd be $82 million of available good life funding there.

Let me ask Patrick to clarify and to either support or refute that comment.

You said that you think it's the only new collections that we're having trouble with at the state level.

I thought it was even the initial ones.

Is that correct?

Or is it just the new ones?

So we're we're still having issues with the current collections.

So it's still down to people making sure they check mark a box.

So there's no check at the state revenue to make sure if it's in or out of the district or not.

So yeah, and I just want clarification.

So we're we're having trouble with even the initial group that was being taxed of getting those collected at the state level.

And then we're then we've got the other source that you're talking about as well.

So yeah, we're still having trouble with that very first phase.

Just so you're aware of that too.

Pat, who is uh is the city initiating contact with any of these retailers?

Do you know?

With the retailers, oh yeah.

So we've sent out uh mass emails, I think twice now.

Okay, and then people will call in and we'll give them we shouldn't, but we give them advice on how to fill out their tax form to check that box.

Um but yeah, we've been working with that.

Yeah, we talked about that a little bit at the last council meeting.

So this collections issue, it does need to get itself resolved.

Um so um, but phase one a um issuance between the bond issuance and then the cash on hand, uh, 82 million dollars.

That was an estimate that's fairly close to uh what DA Davidson had provided us, um, and then that allocation of funding uh 22 million dollars would get allocated to the YMCA Aquatics facility, uh, and then the remaining 60 million dollars would be allocated to phase one site work and then construction of the sports complex um and other private improvements.

So that would be that would be how we would break down that funding.

Um happy to talk through any more details on this, but um at a high level, um that was what we estimated timing.

You know, this is probably a discussion for uh the city and DA Davidson based on how this how these collections go right now.

In a perfect world, we can move this along, we can move these negotiations along, we can get into definitive documents.

We would love to see an issuance done in September, September 1st of this year.

Work could still happen, we could still commence site uh mass grading out here.

Um so, but again, this probably is where the underwriter needs to get involved in this discussion and really help us determine is this September 1st a reasonable date.

So section seven uh is the phase one site work.

So you've heard us reference that a couple of times.

We said that was a critical project one of the five critical project components that we are um basically telling the city that we will guarantee is done, and that is oversee the design construction and completion of the following work.

So mass site grading, we've talked about that, Eagle Scout Lake expansion, um, obviously the cleanup, uh probably dredging, things of that nature, and Eagle Scout Lake.

You've got all the public infrastructure, roads, utilities, um per the site plan that we've gone through.

You've got the two miles of walking trail that will connect to the city's existing infrastructure, the amphitheater, public fishing pier, pedestrian bridge, and then I just want to make note of G, so the site work specific to the YMCA Aquatics Center, relocated soccer fields, and amphitheater parking fields.

So we want to make sure that parking is in so that if the YMCA Aquatics facility is delayed, we're not on the same construction timetable as the soccer fields, that there's still sufficient parking for the soccer.

So want to make sure that's referenced.

Um then the existing soccer field phasing.

Um, you can see that will be phased to hopefully do minimal disruption.

Um, but we mentioned from May 1st to October 1st.

You can see that in the notes.

So that's mentioned in this timing section.

Phase one, here's the some visuals you can see.

Do you want to mention this, Ms.

James?

Yeah, the only reason why these are color coded.

And we have a more detailed phasing plan here, but a big point of discussion through the spring was the soccer folks.

And we do want to ensure that those fields are usable through the soccer season.

So what you're seeing here, phase 1A would be you know, the initial utilities that go in.

The only difference here between the blue and the red is that work might get completed over the winter season just to make sure those soccer folks have access.

I think there's one more soccer soccer.

And then the area in green is the relocated soccer field.

So zooming in, how that actually works and in practicality and Olson helped put this together, would be leaving the existing soccer fields, you know, intact through the grading season, getting this area below, put in all the sod laid, uh the parking field placed in, and then once that's done, then we would tear this up, put in the new road and infrastructure.

But our phasing plan, we at least think today would allow for the soccer fields to stay open through the season, us complete this work here on the south, and then once that's done, then we rip up and demolish the area on the north.

I think that might be it on the we can keep going.

Okay, section eight.

Um, so we're we're excited about this.

I want to mention a few things, and then I want to invite a couple other people up here to speak.

But as we know, the aquatics has been a key component for everybody at the city level.

Um there's been a lot of discussion about the YMCA and the YMCA's needs, and is there an ability to put a combination together between the YMCA and the aquatics facility?

And so really through the course of discussions with uh Pat O'Neill on the YMCA side and the chief industries folks, um we kind of thought there was a there's a really unique opportunity here to put these two together, but that probably needs some time for discussion and additional outside fundraising uh and things of that nature, and so um what we're proposing here is an allocation, if you remember, of the phase 1A bond proceeds of 22 million dollars plus the phase one site work, the parking goes in, um, and obviously the city retains the lot.

So at a minimum, we are we are saying that at a minimum there will be an aquatics facility built here that essentially I think matches the December design that Ryan, you were a part of.

So at a minimum, we're saying that works get that work gets completed, but we see an opportunity to allow the YMCA and Chief to work together.

Well, and we specified we said, hey, over the course of 12 months, we're gonna be doing site work anyway.

Let's let these guys work together to potentially design a combo, a kind of a combination facility, and what that would look like, the YMCA would ultimately own that to build a larger, better facility for the community.

And so I guess our ask of the council is would the council consider if the council knew at a minimum we're gonna get these items.

We know we're gonna get these items.

Ultimately, we thought we'd get some questions.

Well, what happens if these discussions fail?

Or what happens if things break down?

Totally understandable.

There's still a parking lot, 22 million dollars, and land that's essentially paid for.

Um, so that aquatics facility will get built with these minimum items, but why give up on the opportunity to put these two together and build a much bigger facility?

And why not spend 12 months allowing these folks to go through those discussions?

There's lots of fun, there's lots of fundraising that we aren't even knowledgeable about on the YMCA side that we think these guys should be given the opportunity to go have those discussions.

So with that, I don't know if Pat, you want to step up and then maybe DJ.

Um who wants to start?

But DJ, if you want to start, yeah, sure.

Kind of speak a little bit about this.

Yeah, good evening, uh DJ I husband good evening, Mr.

Mary and Council members.

It's been a while since I've stood up here.

Uh you've said pretty much everything.

I I will say, you know, you might ask yourself, why would Chief be involved?

And I think as a community member, what we realized is that we have to have this aquatic piece.

And I think Chad Knight said this really well in a recent article.

He said that the uh pool is basically on a band-aid.

And I swam in that pool when I was about five years old.

So I know it's probably on a band-aid.

And as a community, this is a really important piece for our community.

And you have to envision if this isn't here, how are we gonna handle that?

The thing that I love about this is that the why would manage it and operate it.

And so, as a as a member of the community, we really believe that we can jump in on this and make it cost effective, make it a great, great program for the Y.

And then more importantly, and and Mitch touched on this briefly.

Um, I'm sorry, Drew touched on this briefly, is that we will be the connection on the campaign side.

We've been talking to some foundations, we feel very confident.

Now I'm not gonna stand up here and say we can raise all the money today, but we we have a great deal of confidence that we can get them across the finish line.

And so I think the original building was built in 1978, so it's time, and I think this uh this piece is very exciting piece.

Anything else?

You wanna talk?

Good.

Pat O'Neill.

Uh the original proposal for the Good Life District included a new YMCA in it.

Um due to significant cuts by the legislature that has had to be reduced a little bit.

Um, Mitch and Drew uh approached us here a little bit ago about partnering with the YMCA to uh to work on this.

We thought it was a great idea.

Uh as discussed, the existing facility was built in 1978.

Um in 1980, Chief built a facility in McCook, which is currently undergoing a I believe it's a 15 million dollar renovation, which included removing the old pool built by the same pool contractor and placing putting in a new pool.

Uh it's a little funny, not terribly funny, but uh as as the YMCA in Grand Island has pool problems.

The last week of operation of the McCook pool had to be canceled.

So Boiler went out a week before we were supposed to start tearing the pool out.

Pools are very expensive, indoor pools are very difficult to retrofit.

Um, a new pool is by far the best solution, and this is a uh program that actually gets us very close to the finish line, and our ability to partner with uh Chief Construction, Chief Development to get us that much closer to the finish line.

I thought was a uh a big win both for the city and and for the YMCA.

Thank you.

Thanks, Pat.

Thanks, DJ.

Um, so really I think that's our ask of council tonight.

We we know there's gonna be questions around that, but we think that's a worthwhile endeavor.

We think it's there could be uh a fantastic outcome.

More time needs to be spent on the capital campaign fundraising side, but why not give these two the opportunity to work together to create something really special for the community?

So that would be our ask and and backstopping that with a minimum to the city of these are these are you're for sure gonna get an aquatics facility, but again, uh not to be a broken record, but if we can do something bigger scale and put the YMCA and the aquatics together, uh let's give them the opportunity to do that.

So um so that's really uh kind of the the messaging around section eight in the MOU.

Um, if you jump to section nine, that talks about the uh sports complex.

And again, I think similar to the aquatics YMCA discussion, I think what's exciting here in December, we had a 90,000 square foot sports complex, and we heard a lot of we heard a lot of feedback, a lot of comments around why is this a smaller complex.

Um we are building a very similar complex to what's described here in Joppa, Missouri.

It has been three years in the making, uh, is very well thought out.

It's a cost effective design.

Um, and so what we're proposing today is 165,000 feet with an 18,000 foot mezzanine, it's almost double the size of what you saw in December.

Um, I'm happy to go through.

I'm nervous I'm gonna lose where we're at on our PDF, otherwise, I'd go back to the visuals to show you guys.

Maybe we do that at the end.

Um, but you mean this is the programming.

You're seeing it right here.

16 volleyball courts, eight basketball courts, concessions, meeting rooms, seating.

Obviously, you've got the restroom facilities.

The addition here, the big additions is eight pickleball courts, 25,000 square feet of indoor turf.

And then there's also key outdoor components.

You got the artificial multi-sport turf, which would include full-size baseball, softball, soccer, football, lacrosse, uh, and training facilities.

Um, this also includes this isn't on the sheet batting cages for baseball.

Um really there's a baseball component, and then the mezzanine itself.

Yeah, I don't know if we can.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, can we go back to the that would be great?

There we go.

This is probably good.

So on the left hand side here, everybody, you can see these are the convertible volleyball to basketball courts.

Um, the nice thing with this new design, you've got 15 to 20,000 feet of sort of central meeting area.

If you've been to any of these facilities, you got lots of teams, lots of people coming into the entrance of these things.

So creating space in this in this Joplin project, we had a fantastic sort of fireplace, very nice uh entry feeling when you came into the complex.

Um, and then obviously you've got the concession area on the right hand side, kind of in the green, or it's leveled E.

This is the artificial turf area.

Um, and so you've got a really nice artificial turf area, uh, and then you've got the eight pickleball courts here in uh C labeled.

So you can see a little bit of the rendering, beautiful, beautiful complex.

Um state of the art, and uh we're very excited about this.

One of the other challenges or complexities uh previously was accessing the funding and then having this be publicly owned.

And I won't go into all the challenges that we had as we work through that.

So, what we're proposing this evening is this is a privately owned facility, and so that allows and Kent can speak to some of the technicalities on this by allowing this as private ownership, those bond proceeds can be issued, those dollars can be used to construct this facility, and so that would be a huge benefit and remove a lot of the complexity that we had over the previous couple of years on as far as the ownership of the facility.

So that's true for both the the YMCA ownership of the aquatic center and the private ownership of the sports complex.

That's kind of our thought process on both those.

So, yeah, as far in terms of renderings, you can see a little bit.

This is an outdoor rendering here.

This is the interior floor plan.

Um this is really nice.

There's an amenity diagram here.

Um, so if anybody has questions, feel free to go to this section on the presentation.

I think this is exhibit A on the MOU.

So just some interior shots here of the facility itself.

There's the kind of the interior fireplace area I was talking to you about, and then the volleyball basketball area.

Another exterior shot, kind of a close-up here.

So let me jump back to the uh page 15.

Okay.

Um, section 10 talks about the this is the new sales.

So we talked about the two buckets of money.

You have the existing sales, it's subject to the five million dollar cap.

The phase one B.

Again, these are based on uh DA Davidson's projections.

Um again, this is the same probably issue that Pat mentioned.

There's a collections issue here that needs to get itself resolved and worked out, and we acknowledge that.

But what we're saying is there should theoretically be a second bond issuance.

Um, our hope would that it could it could yield somewhere close to what DA had had mentioned to us.

We understand that the collections issue needs to get resolved.

Uh, but our hope would be you know, summer to third quarter of 2027.

There can be another bond issuance that would unlock additional money.

Those monies would be used more towards the private improvements, mixed use, the housing, soft costs, but also recognizing the 20% uh good life sponsor uh funding threshold uh the legislature put in place.

Um so that talks about kind of the second issuance.

Section 11 is uh the promissory note.

So, really the simplest way to describe this is we are asking for 120 million dollars out of good life funding.

Understanding this is a 30-year term.

Things are going to change over the course of this program over the next 30 years.

Today, there's the phase 1A.

We're saying there's 82 million dollars in that.

Um, there's phase one B, the new sales.

The new sales number will for sure change over the course of time.

Um, how exactly we we see that changing, you know, nobody knows.

We don't have a crystal ball.

Um, but essentially what this is is this is a promissory note through good life funding for 120 million dollars.

82 million of it, we recognize that gets used up immediately.

Um, the remaining phase one B, whatever that is.

Let's let's say that's 18 million dollars, that'd be 100 million dollars.

So there'd be 20 million dollars of funding left to access if the revenues are there.

If the revenues are never there, we understand those funds never get paid back.

But we are asking the city to consider 120 million dollars, knowing that today the revenues aren't there in the future, 10 years from now, as the district continues to turn over, new retailers come in the district, those sales we believe will be there.

We do believe those will be there.

So the the existing bonds may get refinanced.

Um, so there's a multitude of things that could happen that could change over time that would be able to unlock that level of funding.

Um, as Kent mentioned, we need to take a piece of property that's on the north end of town and spend a lot of private dollars to activate this piece to bring people up here.

We need all the funding we can get to activate this thing to get it as you know attractive as possible for people to want to live up here and come up to this part of Grand Island.

I just want to reiterate so there's no confusion though.

This is this is only an obligation in the event the revenues are there.

So I want to make sure that all the council understands that tax increment financing.

I think everybody's aware we'd asked for TIFF.

Um we are uh under the same pretense.

Um section 12 addresses that with the sports complex being privately owned, that does increase uh the property tax uh increment, and so the TIFF indebtedness increased slightly to 62 million dollars.

Uh the state legislature uh provided us a new tool uh this past legislative session.

Um we've gone through this with Kent.

Um it's called a CID community improvement district.

It essentially functions like an SID, if you will.

Um, and so what we're proposing is essentially an additional levy on the property taxes uh for this area, which would then help us provide additional funding uh to offset those dollars are intended to offset public infrastructure costs.

This would allow us to have more dollars for the infrastructure, so additional dollars can be spent on the sports complex.

Um, so this is a this is a new concept.

Um I don't think we talked about this at the last council meeting.

So we want to make everyone aware of this.

Um we've also got the EEA or the occupation tax.

This would be a 200 basis point uh or essentially a 2% occupation tax that would be levied on all sales that happen within the boundaries of the veterans village area.

This is only specific to the veterans village area.

Uh, those dollars would be used for future maintenance and reserve expenses related to the sports complex.

So, with that, really, we're down to the last section.

I think this section talks about some of the legalities, and I don't know if Kent wants to hit on any of the conditions.

I think what I want to reiterate to council uh and to everybody here tonight is really these five components.

Um, and I think this is what a lot of the questions we get of what can the city be assured that we're going to get.

And it's these five, it's these five components.

It's three million dollars for the land.

The land will be sold, it's 191 acres.

We are uh we are comfortable paying three million dollars for the land.

The phase one site work, we went into detail on that on the grading, the utilities, the roads, um, really beautifying Eagle Scout Lake, the expansion.

Um, so the phase one site work.

Uh, number three, the YMCA Aquatics Facility.

We talked about that.

Um, that is a component that we will guarantee at a minimum that those certain items will happen.

Our hope and goal is by partnering the YMCA with Chief, that they'll be able to go out and secure a larger facility to benefit the community.

Um, we've got the fully improved school ground that'll be given to the school district for a dollar, and then the sports complex that we talked about.

Um, so with that, happy to read through the rest of these, but um, a lot of these are kind of more legal legal concepts.

Uh, if somebody wants to talk about them, we certainly can.

But um, with that, that's really summary of the MOU.

Um, and I think from here we'd like to open it up for questions.

We do have um Mr.

Hawsey.

We we have some other speakers if Martin Ray in the city council.

I just have our youth is supposed to be our concern, and right now, like the swim team is our high school, and right now they they have to have our meets in our little NCA pool.

It's kind of embarrassing that they have to come to this little pool to do the meets.

There's not very many people can come watch them.

Uh and when they go to other places, you know, they have these great magnificent pools that they get to watch.

And we don't have the sports complex that some of these other cities have these huge complexes.

And here we are one of the biggest cities in Nebraska.

I think it's pretty pathetic that we can't do something about that.

And we should take pride in our city.

I've lived in this city for a very, very long time, uh, except for the seven years I went to the military.

But when I came back, I've raised my son here, and there's just we don't have very many stuff that our youth can do.

And so a lot of them get in trouble.

We need to honor our youth, and we need to support our youth.

So we need to go ahead with this somehow get this program done so our children can be proud of this city, like I've been proud of this city.

When I got out of service, I could have gone anywhere in the world, and I was thinking about it, but I came back to this city because I love this city.

So I think you as council members should step up and get this done so all of us can be proud of this city.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you, Gary.

Jerry Ginolevich, 2315 West Division Street.

I'm here tonight.

I am a member of the YMCA board.

And I'm not going to dress the big picture.

You have excellent city staff, you have excellent bond counsel here to advise you on the aspects of the plan that's been presented.

But on behalf of the YMCA, we are extremely excited at the prospect of partnering with the city to develop a new swimming pool in the good life district.

Uh we have a feasibility study that's currently underway.

Uh, but with if DJ I.

I am if he's confident, I'm confident it can be done.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Umlike the last time I was here, I did not jog through the sprinklers, so I appreciate that, but nonetheless, uh appreciate remarking to leadership tonight of uh really a monumental comprehensive proposal that's before you.

I don't really relish your leadership decision, but I guarantee you we're gonna appreciate a very positive outcome of this.

And uh it reminds me of a number of things when I sit here in this chambers.

And I once asked former mayor Kenya said, hey, do you go to many meetings?

He says he goes to as many positive meetings as he can.

And I view this as a positive meeting.

And I think if he was still on this earth, he'd be right here in the front row, too.

Because I think as a mayor or former mayor, if you care about Grand Island, it doesn't make a difference if you're in office or not, but as a private citizen, you have a background and you like to maybe share an insider too.

So with that, um looking at at the proposal as in its entirety, it is comprehensive, it is visionary, it's enormous.

And you get down to thinking, how can anyone make a decision on this one proposal that is layered with so many different policymaking decisions that yet are relevant to this?

So I can appreciate a couple number of things.

First, the mayor's uh initiative to try to have discussions occur publicly with negotiations.

I don't really know if that can be successful.

Uh the framers of the Declaration of Independence, it took three weeks, five members, and they do it up.

He brought it to her to a Continental Congress.

And the reason I bring that up, I know the mayor is a student of history.

But until there's something ironclad before you, it's very difficult to approve that.

So going forward in terms of negotiations, and I look at all the different things of this, and if I'm like Ben Franklin, I think of all the different reasons why this is good, all the pros, all the cons.

Undoubtedly the pros outweigh the cons enormously.

But when you get down in my estimation, looking at all of these things, I think voters, when they approved, it's my impression, voters approved the good life on the basis of using redevelopment dollars that these gentlemans have spurred, that as we've seen occur in the Constoga Mall area to provide new incremental revenue that the state has been gracious enough to give back to its legislation to reinvest here.

I mean, what a deal.

And then I think about the fact that our ancestors 140 years ago entrusted 25,000 worth of land at that time to have a veterans home.

The land now comes back to us.

We didn't pay, the citizens of Grand Island didn't pay for that ground, we now have it.

So on the one standpoint, is it what's that land worth?

And I know I think the city a few years ago had to praise and maybe it was 15 or thousand dollars an acre or so as ag land within proximity of urban development, which is unlike maybe dry land uh agland that's 4500 or irrigated that might be nine to ten.

But where I'm coming from is if that land's not being used and we don't have any development plans, then why aren't we moving forward or something that voters have approved in the Good Life District that the city has the uh the wherewithal to use money that's returned to us from the state of Nebraska?

So we use the land, let's redevelop it, and if it wasn't for the best interest of the people of Grand Island, we you wouldn't even consider it.

But I think the merits of what the expectation of people primarily, and I'm kind of talking out of both sides of my mouth.

I don't think we need any more attorneys.

I don't know if Drew and his team has been the best communicators.

I don't know if city administration has openly been open arms on this.

I don't know.

But what I do think is the people are expecting a number of things.

First, the sports complex.

I've learned a lot, and I can appreciate Mr.

Snyder's reconsideration of the smaller facility in December.

And there were comments made a few weeks ago.

What's happened since December?

Why is it a whole different deal?

Well, if I'm a private developer and trying to make a sports complex work, it's got to be the very best, shiniest, most lucrative facility to go ahead and be able to turn a profit and recruit people.

And if we don't recruit people in the good life district and can be able to document visitors, it won't, we can't go ahead and justify the good life district.

So I get it.

If it's privately owned, and then I get down, why would the city want to have a sports complex?

Do you want to be on the tab for future improvements?

Do you want to be on tap for additional staff?

Potential costs, you want to take more time and do it.

I mean, those are all the cons where I say what's proposed makes sense.

A private developed lucrative sports complex that will be better than a facility built 40 miles away a couple years ago, which uniquely was on ground owned by Paul Eunice by all his hotels in the city of Carnegie goes ahead and use the revenue, strikes up a lease, it's an easy no-brainer deal.

But I tell you, hats off to Carney.

The visitors, the use of that facility is enormous, and I think if this comes to fruition, uh we'll be able to rival metro complexes in Oma Lincoln and regional events unlike no other.

And where I'm going with this, folks, secondly, is the aquatic center.

If someone walked up and said, I'll go ahead and invest 22 million dollars to go ahead and build an aquatic center, and we'll match it up with a private organization that's shown that they can go ahead and manage an aquatic center, a 50-year-old aquatic center that needs uh redeveloping, and then we'll earmark maybe some ground that the city has if the city is so inclined to designate for a new YMCA.

Wouldn't that be a win?

So I think those two things, and where I'm going with this a little bit contrary, maybe from what I could maybe ask Drew or Mr.

Snyder here, is the entirety of this agreement.

Okay, what's doable that you will all approve at some future meeting?

Sports complex, aquatics, site development, and then all the other enormities of the 192 acres, have a development plan because I don't know how you're all gonna go ahead and negotiate this publicly unless you have this MOU and this memorandum of understanding discussed somehow internally, right?

Now, in clarity, I don't well, the newspaper article today says 192 acres.

Chuck, you do the math, three million dollars, 192 acres.

How much is the paper article says 16 an hour?

Yeah.

Uh they're not paying $16 an acre.

It's $16,000 an acre.

And then you look at the fact, well, heck, I'd be interested in that.

I'll buy an acre.

Well, I'm not gonna buy an acre.

There's no streets and sewer, I'm not gonna build that.

Any developers not stepping up.

So I think it's a fair deal.

And and then, in deference to the perspective of taxpayers that you folks protect.

Um, if it was me, I might well yeah, if it was me, I'd probably be, I might go ahead and give away the ground if I thought it would be such a huge draw and investment for the people of Grand Island.

But to the mayor's credit and to all of you, to getting three million dollars, that's great.

You can keep it, you can reinvest it, but nonetheless, developers stepping up and paying for land that we inherited and received back because of the veterans home.

So I'm not gonna go through all the different pros and cons, uh, but there's definitely a more pros to do this, and if you can't arrive at the entire memorandum of understanding based on all the complexities, I would just ask then let's make a decision.

Let's let's go ahead and tackle what we can tackle, move forward, and then make a positive decision that people will respect and also respect the leadership because I think this will be a leadership threshold that will go ahead and serve yours time here very well in the city of Grand Island.

Thank you.

Appreciate the sprinklers being off tonight, and I didn't run through those, but once again, thank you for the opportunity to teach one of you.

Jay, we do have that on film, by the way.

I'm sorry, what we have that on film, by the way.

Very good.

Did you want to speak?

I no, thank you.

Thank you, but decline at this time.

That's everybody who signed up to speak.

Mr.

Hossey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, first of all, I'm I'm glad that we're having this discussion.

It's a community discussion.

It's been going on a long time, but as a member of the council, I I hear pieces from the community, I hear pieces for the administration, and so and they didn't always align.

And so I'm grateful that we could actually get in a discussion that everybody's what they're willing to do and what we can do aligns.

And so I'm grateful to be here.

Like Mayor Baverchak had said, this is this is hard to make these kinds of 30-year commitments in a discussion with 10 council members, you know, in a public setting like this.

I think we thought a committee might actually be better as far as getting us to the finish line quicker.

But whatever takes us to the finish line is what we need to do.

Whatever method that is, and I'm okay with any of them.

I went through the MOU, and there were definitely flags.

But what I wanted to start with is this whole thing started with public purpose, you know, of a transformational project.

And that's what this whole thing, and I think Mr.

Calkworth said this is an opportunity of a lifetime.

You know, and it is.

I think my only issue really is about the management part of it.

Um that's a very minor issue, and I don't want to none of these are going to be showstoppers for me, but they're definitely flags in my head about things I want to make sure we do right.

So when I looked at the numbers, when we first started off, the revenue from the good life district funding was providing about seven, maybe eight million dollars a year in funding.

And so after the a year or so, this the legislator in the next session said, Well, you're gonna cap that at five.

This is just on the existing businesses.

So, and this is a 30-year program, so five million a year, and let's we'll go with the first year we probably collected more than five, or could have five million times 30 years is 150 million.

Nice round numbers.

The bond issue number one, what they have asked for in here is 75 million.

Well, if I can come up with normally 150 million over the course of 30 years, and all I need to do is get current day bond proceeds at 75.

Probably should be able to work.

I'm just rough math in my head, it just it makes sense.

Even at today's interest rate, it's it's doable.

It's certainly not outright, it's uh it's not outrageous, it's certainly not over my skis on anything.

It's absolutely something that we can do.

So we take that 75 million and then we add 7 million in cash to get us to an 82 million dollar pot.

I think the last time Pat talked, we probably had 10 million in cash, so I don't think finding the seven million in cash is outstanding either.

I think that's we're already there.

You know, so we're not we've already achieved, I think the bond issue, which none of us here are gonna determine it, the market determines what the bond issue is really gonna be.

You know, and I think as Drew had said, is we're making a commitment of the good life district revenues.

We're not making a general obligation commitment of the city of Grand Island, even in the promissory note, we're just saying we're committing the revenues that are in the good life district for the good life district purposes that we have outlined in all of this stuff.

So I don't think anything is off key at all.

So out of that 82 million, we're gonna spend 60 million on a sports complex.

Well, I like the sports complex.

I think everybody's been flexible.

We've added pickleball courts inside.

I think they've been responsive.

I think they've from when we went to the voters in August of a couple of years ago by now.

Um, this is every bit of what we talked to the voters about, and the voters were probably in the 80 percent plus approval rating.

So I think we're trying to deliver exactly what we put in front of the voters and the voters approved.

And so I think that we have in front of us tonight exactly what was promised to the people when we went out there and said, I want to build this.

So I think I think we're there.

So then when you spend 60 million on a sports complex, that leaves you 22 million.

You could probably take the three million from the land sale and reinvest it back into the project and give you 25 million.

You could.

I mean, I that's a council decision for a later day.

Um then we go to bond two.

So we've heard all this, I don't even know we're getting five million.

You know, we have revenue things with the Department of Revenue.

You know, they took it back, put it on the sales tax, made some little box on a piece of paper, and I we could only do so much, but at the end of time, they're gonna figure it out.

Somebody is gonna make people who owe the taxes pay the taxes.

I've never been aware in my lifetime that you could actually get out of paying taxes.

So I think somebody's gonna figure it out, and it's not gonna be me, you know, but somebody's gonna figure that out.

So I think that bond issue number two is needed, and it's needed because what you're then gonna capture is not the five million and that were capped in the by the second legislature, it's for the new buildings that go into the good life district, number one being target.

So Target comes in, targets a new business.

I know that they're doing a good deal of business.

We're very grateful for Target, but there's money there, and plus you've seen Jersey Mike's, you've seen the beauty first, you're seeing Chick filette, you're you're seeing other businesses start to pop up.

That's where the second bond issue comes from.

Now I don't know on the timing.

I I think in here you said June 1 of 27.

It may take more than a year, because that's like a year from now.

It may take more than a year for the state of Nebraska Department of Revenue to figure out the little box issue.

So I I mean, if you want to make it legitimate, I was personally I think it's gonna take two to three years.

But either way, we need to have a second bond issue.

Timing I'm not comfortable with because I don't know the government works in that we don't spin on a dime anymore.

And that the net proceeds were 27,651 dollars and 240.

No, 651,246.

Now that wasn't a nice round number, but somehow you guys came up with that number, and and I'm just like, well, somebody actually must have looked at that.

But it doesn't appear to me when I look at the bond number two of 27 million, and we did 75 on the first round, the net proceeds.

It shouldn't be too terribly difficult because things are growing.

Things in the Conestoga marketplace are working quite well.

I see businesses coming in.

I see another bank being built there.

You know, I I think you see the development, and that's what you have in Grand Island.

We have I'll call it a decade of leadership where you're seeing momentum all around Grand Island.

You're seeing things develop down south, down by the new hospital.

You're you're seeing things in the Conestoga marketplace.

You're seeing things in Grand Island that quite frankly are very attractive to people that are coming here, and that is exactly what we're trying to achieve.

The things that we took to the voters in August.

So I think everything here is doable.

Then I get down to the TIFF.

Well, the TIFF is really, it's not on the public, you can't TIF a public thing, so it's not on the Aquatics Center, and it's not on the sports complex.

So it's really on the residential, the other parts that are out there, and we have been doing that for a long time, ever since the YANSE came here, and project number one, TIFF was the Arter Project, the ANSI Hotel.

And so I'm not even gonna weigh in on 62 million in the TIFF because I don't that's on the future development and not on the municipal part.

So I'm okay with the TIF.

I'm okay with the promissory note, because it's not a general obligation of the city.

This is just dedicating the revenue, and we do this all the time with revenue bonds.

When Mr.

Rogers issues revenue bonds, whether they be for the electric department or the water department or the wastewater treatment department, that's exactly we do the same thing.

These are revenue bonds dedicated to that revenue source is committed to pay these bonds.

So I I don't think the 27 million is is over anybody's keys either.

It's also very reasonable and doable.

I did want to make sure, and I was assured tonight that that we're not looking for a general obligation of the city.

So all of this thing seems to be very doable and I think ready to be close to being launched.

Well, the thing that reminds me the most is of our own recreational facility management.

I think we need, and we can use other management to operate this thing, because we're already in the golf course.

We we hire landscapes unlimited to run our golf course.

We hire venue works to run the Heartland Event Center.

We hire Hornaday to run the Heartland shooting park.

So we're already hiring people to come in and run most of our recreation facilities now.

So having the Y or somebody else do the aquatic center, have somebody at Woodsonia or whoever hire a third-party manager for the sports complex.

I'm okay with that.

Because we're already dealing it out anyway with other members of the community, other members of the state to help manage all of our facilities.

But the idea is all of this is to accommodate the public interest for the swimming pool, you know, so that we have 10 lanes of 25-meter competitive swimming in a brand new pool.

We have a diving pool.

This is gonna meet so many new boxes of things that are great for Grand Island.

The flags that I have here are none of them are a showstopper.

And I I want to continue to support this thing, even if it's in this type of public format.

I review all this stuff, and to the extent that I can, I want to support it because this is a great thing for the community, this is a great thing for the public, and this is something we need to get done.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

First of all, thanks, guys.

This is to me, this is the best conversation starter we've had, and I'm ready to ignore the last couple years and get going because this is this is the right starting point.

Uh I'm with Chuck.

Um I think it's gonna be uh well, maybe I'm more optimistic that we can do this uh in this environment.

Uh because I think that's what people ask for, so let's let's do it.

Uh I'm just gonna start asking questions so you guys can stand up because you're gonna be uh there for a second here.

Um first of all, you guys are bringing three million dollars up front to buy the land.

Uh so many times I think I get I get told, and I'm sure you guys do too, that we just give away money like the government's got uh a fat pig with a lot of nipples that give away money, money, money.

And everybody wants to suck on that teeth.

But guess what?

We don't you guys are bringing actual money for this, and I appreciate that.

That means uh that means we're on you have skin in the game.

You were gonna have skin in the game, but you're bringing it at the beginning, and I appreciate that.

So I want to pick up on something Chuck was talking about math here.

I'm I'm curious about the promissory note, some questions there.

Um so I'm scrolling to that point.

Um Chuck got us to the 82 million dollars in phase one plus our cash on hand, and then phase two is 28 million, or roughly 28 million, I believe, 27.6 million.

So let's round that up to 28 million.

That uh that comes to 120, 130 million, right?

At that point, 1010 million, sorry.

What where do you get 32 million left over of when you say a difference between 120 million and then those things?

I've got 10 million difference.

So the simple, hopefully this makes sense, but the math for it and the language here is important.

So 120 million is just the starting point, right?

That's the that's the that's the block that we have to work from.

The first reduction of that is the phase one A net to project bond proceeds available to the developer.

So the first 22 million dollars of the phase 1A, it's going to the YMCA, the city, you know, that's in that bucket.

So the 22 million for the Y and the 10 million difference is the 32 million.

We're at 60 million, right?

Minus the 27 million six hundred and fifty-one two forty-six gets us then to the 32,348.

Gotcha.

So it's the 120 million is that's to us.

That's for getting the twenty that's on top of the 22 million.

Correct.

Okay, that's where I was.

Because before our proposal, if you look at this in December was 100, we're not supposed to talk about December.

It's a bad word, but was 140.

And we pulled out the 22 million that instead's going to the city or YMCA, whatever we want to say.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Well, that helps me with the math there.

Um do you have a minimum viable financing number?

Is that what this number is?

Is this like this is your number you have to have to make this work?

I think I think I would say phase one A needs to be pretty pretty darn close.

Okay.

Because we're saying the critical project components here, I listed off those five items.

Those five items don't happen if we're not in the ballpark of 82 million dollars.

Now the nice thing is the city's already at 10 million.

Seven, we're going with your numbers.

Maybe 12 million.

So I mean, even if the bond numbers come down, if the bond market changes, I can tell you I'm doing another big bond issuance right now, the bond market's actually getting better.

So for what that's worth, but I would say the phase one A, yeah, that needs to be pretty darn close.

Phase one B, I think is where Chuck's right.

This thing is a moving target.

It's a matter of getting a box checked.

How the heck can we go out and get the box checked as fast as we can?

And what other new retailers?

Don't forget this thing's 875 acres.

I mean, what other new retailers come in that 875 acres over the next 30 years?

There's gonna be new retailers.

Conestoga is where it's at today because that's a recent redevelopment, but you're telling me there's not gonna be other properties within this 875 acres that aren't gonna get redeveloped.

You're crazy.

I mean, there's things that are going to happen, and there's things that should happen, hopefully off the premises of this project, right?

We're bringing more people into the market.

So um, so no, I think Jack, to answer your question, we think we think it's gotta be close.

We put June of next year, that's a target.

If we're not ready because the collections aren't there and nobody's checking the box, we shouldn't be going out for a bond issuance.

I mean, we don't have a historical revenue stream to do a bond issuance on.

So we probably should just wait.

But will we get there?

I think we will.

But if that means we just need to be a little bit more patient, that's what we'll do.

So if we're at 120, that's because to you guys, that's because there's a promissory note of 32, right?

And let's say that's no problem we get there.

Of that 120, am I correct?

That only 24,000 can be or 24 million can be non-revenue.

20 percent of 120.

Yeah, that'd be the right way.

Roughly 204 million.

You've got 64 million for the uh the sports complex.

Is that 60 million?

That's more than the sports complex, right?

So the way that we've that's a great question, Jack.

And Chuck, you touched on that too.

This was the other piece that we wanted to try to just simplify.

We've got an idea what the sports complex is gonna cost.

We have an idea what the infrastructure is gonna cost.

We don't know though.

We don't know.

So bucket one is the $60 million in phase 1A bond proceeds.

The new tool that's really allowing us, we touched on this to build the larger sports complex, is the CID.

That was kind of a gift that just popped in in this latest legislative session.

That's we don't know what that's gonna generate, but it's probably somewhere between 10 and 15 million dollars.

We want to use that bucket of money, Jack, to go towards infrastructure, which is what you can use CID funds for, which is then gonna free up more bonds available to the sports complex.

Sports complex could be 50 million, 55 million, 45 million, somewhere in that range.

We don't know.

It's not gonna be less than 50.

Right.

We're doing the exact almost the exact same one.

So of that 120 million, if you're putting, let's say 60 this way of this money, that's half of it, and 24,000, let's say you max out that 24,000 on the non-revenue, there's still 36,000 or 36 million.

Y'all know I mean millions.

36 million left.

What does that go to?

That would go to the private improvements.

That would go to the hotel, that would go to the restaurants, that would go to any revenue generating asset in the veterans village area is what that would go towards.

And is that phase that's one B because that number, that 32 million dollar number, Jack is pretty close to that one B number.

And if you look at the uses on one B, they're predominantly private.

And that all happens after the sports complex and all of the infrastructure.

After the critical project uh components.

Okay.

Question I have about the promissory note at 32 million dollars.

And maybe it was just the wording in here, and I am as you know, not a lawyer.

The way you phrase it in here is that it's a term through 2054.

And you also mentioned that you guys, or whoever takes over for you through 2054.

So let's say we're not gonna get the hundred and fifty million right up front or the hundred, and it's gonna take some time.

Does this mean that until 2054 until we hit that threshold, we're paying you or your heirs or whoever buys you out?

The the note stays outstanding.

The revenue is going to get committed, portions of this revenue is gonna get committed to these bonds.

So then if there's surplus or excess, that could go towards the remaining note, if that makes sense.

So, or you know, I use as an example at the last council meeting.

Costco shows up in the 875 acres, and there's 15 million left remaining on this note, then that could be used a new bond issuance could happen, and that could pay off that remaining note.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

It should say, Jack, it should say like it does up in the section above, it should say maximum term.

That's the maximum time that that would be outstanding because that's when the district expires, that's when the revenues go away.

Right.

It could be paid off earlier, but this is the maximum amount of time that it would be outstanding.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, I mean, to Mitch's point, if if I use Costco's example, they show up and they do 150 million dollars in sales, the term of this probably gets cut in half, right?

Term of this probably gets cut into yeah, it gets cut gets cut significantly.

Well, why don't you fellas put in a Costco?

Well, we gotta get this approved first, so all right.

Let's work on this one.

Uh can we talk timeline a little bit?

Uh can you walk through because this is a question I keep getting asked, and I'm guessing these folks up here do too.

When are we gonna see this stuff?

So we I know you say in here that we can start boom, right, with the dirt work, the site work.

Best case scenario to you guys.

Uh we get a chance to vote on this, and lawyers do the lawyer things, we get a contract, we vote on it, and we pass this.

I don't know, probably first of July is probably the first meeting in July is the absolute soonest.

Yeah, right.

Roses and rainbows, here we go.

When do you guys start?

I this was one of the big pieces that we really tried to simplify because this was the point as Pat and Carrie know that we talked a lot about this spring, was all the different scenarios of what happens if we don't do a bond issuance, or we do a bond issuance and the market tanks and we get 20 million in bonds.

That would be a problem.

So I think the simplest solution there, Jack, is to tie it to the phase 1A bond issuance, because we know we need the money.

All the critical things that we're doing with that, we know we need the money.

If there's not a bond issuance, if it's half, that is a huge problem.

So what we're proposing is that we will commence site work within 30 days of the phase 1A bond issuance, which we're anticipating we put a hard date of September 1st, 2026.

We think we need to agree on a date so that we can know when we're gonna start.

We're gonna base everything around this now.

Our private financing, all of that gets tied to this bond issuance, but that's the that's the trigger that we think we need to anchor to.

Okay.

How long does the site work, the dirt work, getting the lake dredged, getting all that stuff?

How long is that gonna take?

12 to 18 months.

Okay, so now we're looking.

Let's say we're done with all of that, everything goes into place.

Dirt work is done.

This is 26 June of 28, two years from today.

All right.

At which point the Y pool will be 50 years old from 1978.

Uh so clock is ticking on that project as well.

Roads and infrastructure, is that part of that same plan?

Okay, so that's all done by June of 2028.

When do you start the sports complex?

It would be, yeah, go ahead.

I would say depends on when we can start site work, but I don't think that the entire site work package needs to be done.

Okay.

So I do think you could start footings and foundations and things like that.

Um, so our hope would be to start in 27 and maybe hit a 28 opening.

Okay.

That would be great.

So shortly after the infrastructure, all the site works all done.

We're able to pull a building permit if the bonds are issued, we'll go.

Yeah.

This similar complex look to this.

Um we're signing a construction contract.

That's a 14-month construction cost.

Okay.

So now will ours say Joplin on the front like these drawings, or will they say Grand Island?

It will say Grand Island.

Okay, good.

Yeah.

Uh on that site plan, uh, the aquatic or the timeline, the aquatic center, YMCA, uh, and maybe this is a question for the optimistic DJ IHUSEN or Pat O'Neill or somebody from the Y, but the construction of that, let's say the funding comes together.

Timeline from for a facility like that.

I think DJ has hard committed dates that he's ready to share with you guys.

Hard committed dates.

I'm trying to understand why you said optimistic still.

Now you're uh you're asking for what though, Jack.

But how long would a facility like you're dreaming up right now?

It's still pretty early to say because it hasn't been finalized on design.

Um, I'd say based on the square footage, we're talking 15 months time frame.

But that's that's very high, it's very high level.

Right, and that's I mean, we're a year away from having even the discussion of do we have the funding?

Right, like that's a timeline of let's get the funding together over the course of the next year.

Yeah, and the optimistic part was just that you know, we're gonna go ahead and start designing, or we would go ahead and start designing while we'd be trying to raise money.

So we'd be taking on some risk there.

Yeah.

Uh so let's say 2029 that we'd have an aquatic center.

Yeah.

Uh you mentioned in here, and I appreciate it, and I imagine if the soccer folks were here, they'd appreciate it too that you're not gonna disrupt any soccer seasons.

Um what is the idea of dirt work happening through now June of 2028?

So you probably wouldn't would that include doing the new soccer fields while we still have the current soccer fields, and then rip up the current soccer fields and put in, and when you say parking field, is that mean parking lot, like a paved parking lot?

Yeah.

Okay.

So what we're proposing, Jack, is this area, the darker green down here needs to be done.

Fields are ready to play soccer on it before this is ripped up in the regular season.

Okay.

So if this is going to be gone between May 1st and October 1st, this needs to be open and operating.

So the way that we think we're gonna do that would be there's temporary parking over here.

This would not be you know paved or anything.

This is just a temporary parking until this parking field's done.

When we say parking field, parking lot, parking, whatever you want to call it.

We're talking about a concrete parking lot.

That would be this area here, which are these 618 stalls all around the future, YMCA Aquatic Center.

So that's all got to be in and done before we can rip up these fields in the season.

Okay.

And that temporary parking area, I drove by there today.

That's uh that would be all fixed up when you do the grading.

Crush rock on it, something to allow obviously people to actually use it.

All right, all right.

Uh you mentioned that we're gonna have uh that extra 32 million dollars when it comes when it comes in will be for other revenue generating projects like commercial development things.

What's a timeline then?

You're probably not gonna start that until 2029?

Well, we would start it as soon as the bonds are issued, but we also want to give the city assurance that we're gonna deliver the critical items.

So there's kind of two linchpins there.

One, we got to deliver you know the critical elements we told you, and then the second would be the bond issuance, so we know we have funding for those.

Okay.

And is that still the concept of a hotel or restaurant?

Yes.

Yeah.

What about like other little businesses up along?

There originally there was an idea of a mini downtown up there.

How much of that do you see coming from that 32 million?

I don't know how much a hotel cost.

I think a lot of it depends on what actually gets what's actually bondable in the revenue situation.

I mean, that was our biggest challenge this spring.

Is again we had 300 situations of okay, if the bond proceeds are 28 million, we'll do this, 26 million, we'll do this.

I mean, it's it was impossible, right, for any of us to predict.

So instead, we're just saying the phase one B bond proceeds are gonna be backed by the new revenues, whatever that amount is, they are, but we're gonna do private improvements with them, and we'll guarantee we won't go above 20%, which is what the legislation requires for non revenue producing elements.

And the way Jack were interpreting that is not hey, 20% of 120 million at any time can be spent.

Those are on the actual dollars that have been spent.

Does that make sense?

Sure, yeah, yeah.

I'm just thinking of the bigger picture of what you're applying for 120 million plus the 22.

Exactly.

Plus the 22 is actually 142 million, then right?

Uh no, because the 120 is minus the phase.

Oh, yeah, we moved the carry.

Yeah, that's right.

I think I do think it's important though, before you know, as we look to start some of the commercial and the mixed use to get we need residents up there.

We need people, we need bodies, we need you know, anybody in the development world will tell you.

Rooftops first, commercial falls, typically.

So I think we do need to activate this as a neighborhood that would support small businesses and and folks like that would that would go into a mixed use business.

Well, I bet you could buy uh you could probably sell off the corner lot to a uh a sea store and gas station.

Uh probably today, they'd probably take that.

Hopefully, I mean that we yeah, we'd like to see some development.

I'm optimistic on that one.

You can crack me down, DJ, then I'm optimistic.

Uh the 10 acres, 10.9 acres to GIPS for a school.

So there was one part in your plan that said a dollar and one part that was a uh a donation, a charitable donation.

So I did a little research, and wouldn't you know there's a difference between a dollar and a charitable donation?

Uh if I know that the dollar doesn't mean anything to you, but if it's a charitable donation through, say the GIPS foundation, uh do you know who when that would happen?

Like what point in the process would that occur?

When the phase one infrastructures do so at that time in your map up there, you've got the main road and you've got a side road, it looks like we pull that out, Jack.

As soon as everything around it, these roads here, okay.

So it's completely circled in in rows.

Okay.

Yeah, well, then we'll convey it.

So have you had conversations with them yet about that takeover process and when that would occur?

Because I'm guessing they're you we're talking about building the houses, they're not gonna need a school up there for 10 years.

Right.

Right.

Right.

We've talked to them about the concept of yes, them wanting a lot.

Of course, they're willing to take it for a dollar.

But in terms of like the mechanics of, hey, we're gonna hand it to you at this point, no.

And who's gonna take care of it for the 10 years while we don't have a school?

Yeah, I just want to make sure those things, if we're negotiating this, I want to make sure those things are taught are thought through.

I don't want to put them on the hook for an ISOR that they don't have the money or time or resources to take care of.

Uh and at $15,500 an acre, 10 almost 11 acres, your 150,000 donation, uh, right, is what that is.

But we don't want that to be a hindrance on anybody.

But I do appreciate, and it must stay in some way.

I just want to make sure we iron out that timeline of when that's gonna happen.

All right, um talking about the items.

He lost track of the numbers 13 and 14 of the occupation tax area, if you want to scroll to that.

The community improvement district in the sports complex maintenance occupation tax.

I just want to be clear, that is only on what area is that area taxed.

Probably should add an exhibit for that.

But the the CID, let me pull up this.

Well, it's basically all the privately owned improvements.

With the exception of the sports complex.

We're not gonna add an additional tax on that.

We just can't support it.

But all other private improvements would be subject to that one and a half percent.

Then the the EEA boundaries would just be the veterans village land.

Right.

Basically the area in pink for both of those, minus the sports complex for the CID.

Okay.

On the I want to get the words right, the occupation tax on all sales occurring within the boundaries.

So how does that work in a primarily residential area?

Well, it would be I mean, most obviously the revenue is gonna come from any retail generating businesses.

So again, it's only as good as the amount of retail that's there, right?

Is there any that comes from residential on that?

Because it's non-revenue producing.

So it's not like the cost of construction or any of the materials that go into it.

It's not going to cost construction costs to go higher with that.

You're not paying any EEA on construction, are you?

You can.

The question is, do you want to?

You can set up the occupation tax to quack to quack quite a bit like a sales tax.

So if you want to do it on materials, you could also do that.

Um then you you're saying you do not want the occupation tax on the sports company.

Right, right.

Okay.

No, the occupation tax is the CID.

Yeah.

The occupation tax is different than the CID.

The CID is a property tax.

Right.

The occupation tax, I assume we're selling doing it more like a sales tax.

Right.

Yeah.

I think to your point though, Jack, I think that's where we're incentivized to get sales tax generating users up here, because we're going to directly benefit from those sales tax revenues.

Yeah, this occupation tax.

But the I guess on the sports complex number 14, the sports complex maintenance occupation tax, just so I'm clear, because Mr.

Secret said that does not and you're not going to have that include any cost on the residential construction or anything on that side.

Yeah, I think it'll be set up to exclude that.

Okay.

All right.

So that kind of carves out a much smaller footprint for that, which visually means something to people when you're saying we're adding taxes.

Yeah.

It's a small area.

And the people have some inputs.

Yeah, like Kent said, uh it would not have to include the delivery of items.

It could include delivery of items, but you could write it in such a way that it excludes those.

Um current occupation taxes would include those things if it's because the taxes are paid at the site of delivery.

Are you talking like an Amazon package or something?

Amazon package or think of that.

Or if you order all of your lumber from the lumber yard, you and they deliver it.

In the construction process.

So it could be done either way, but you could exclude those sales within the I like their idea of excluding that.

I wouldn't want to uh further make it more expensive when one of you guys' goals was to make it less expensive uh to be up there for construction.

But on the now, let's talk about the CID.

So uh Mr.

Hilk, uh Mr.

Seacrest just said that that is kind of like a property tax.

It is.

So that goes to everybody up there, even the housing, the the folks that are gonna live up there.

Yes.

In a hundred and fifty-point basis tax label, what is a hundred?

What does that mean?

Dollar fifty?

Yeah.

So on a on a hundred thousand dollar home, that would be an extra 150 dollars a year.

Okay.

That's what my HOA is, so roughly.

So the occupation tax and EEA tax, I believe, would be on your utility bill for anybody living up there.

Because we pay as a resident, you pay state and city tax on your utilities.

It's a retail sale.

On that sport, on that number 14, the sports complex, or just the CID.

So for the occupation tax.

Well, the CID is on all residential.

The occupation tax and the EEA would be on residential utilities.

Okay.

So you guys think through that's why I'm wondering if for that purpose, if you would just outline exactly what we'll actually be paying instead of doing the whole thing and saying, but not these.

Yeah.

I think we can clarify on the occupation tax, it's for sales-based, you know, sales transactions within the district.

But what he's saying is that electricity compensation.

I actually I didn't know that bat.

Like I don't think we're getting that on Conestoga.

So that was, yeah.

I did not know that.

Uh I'm sure uh as business owners, you owning the and operating the sports complex, uh, you're not doing it to lose money.

If right, like it's it's gonna be a revenue generator for you in some capacity, even if it's break-even at best, right?

Uh one of the things that people are excited about with the sports complex is they see this beautiful facility, and rightfully or wrongfully rightly or wrongfully, they look at it and say, Oh, that's another field house.

We can have our practices there, we can do our games on the weekend there, we can have our rec league there, I can play pickleball there.

Uh beautiful uh batting cages, baseball teams are gonna love that.

We can go up and use it.

What I don't need exact numbers, but what is your philosophy on how people in the community are gonna be able to utilize this awesome facility?

How much is it?

Is it is there gonna be some payment they have to make, or is any of this gonna be open to the public?

Well, I would say we that's probably something, Jack, that needs to get worked through is the programming of the facility.

I think right now we wanted to show here's what here's what we want to have built.

But as far as the technicalities, I know the other facility we're doing the plan is that it's used 36 weekends a year, and so then you have other available weekends, you have time during the week.

So, I mean, we want the facility utilized, but we also it's a balancing act of you can't give away everything for free.

So, how do we how do we manage that?

I think that's something we'll have to work through in detail.

I don't think we have an answer for you today.

But you're not thinking this is open field house open to the public during the week and those other even if you had 52 weekends a year of turn.

There could be programming times that it's available.

Yeah, I think that's where we'll depend on our third party manager, the same as the city would, right?

Same as Carney, right?

Like if you go there, you're paying a fee to use it, even if it's a public facility.

But I think that's where we'll defer to our third party manager on it.

I know we're not going backwards, but a long time ago, we floated an idea, and I don't even know if I made it to you guys or it came from you guys, but there was an idea of a committee that oversaw this, like a uh public-private board of sorts that helped the management decisions that might have you guys and some representatives from your teams, uh, some people from the community who might be involved with the youth sports, and maybe like many of us are on committees, a couple of us from the council.

Is that still doable if you guys own it?

Of an oversight committee of some sort, or I think I think one of the things that we walked away with, and we try or we're trying to convey tonight is how do we make things as simple as possible?

I think one of the stumbling blocks we've run into is things becoming so complex and so many different people weighing in on different decisions, and so um I would probably say no, that we would um want to go out if it's privately owned, we'd want to go out source what we think is going to be the best third party manager.

Yes, we're gonna want to try to operate the project profitably, um, but also provide benefit to the community.

So I think it's gonna be that balancing act.

Um, but also I think simplifying the process and not creating more committees and just more processes.

Um, I think we're gonna try to stay away from that as much as we can.

If it becomes a sticking point, might I suggest thinking about that committee aspect uh as an alternative to not being an owner for either side.

So if we give up ownership in this yet still fund quite a few of the dollars, uh just understand that we have an obligation to represent the community and say we want to make sure that we all want it to be successful, but we want to make sure that we're gonna give you the money, we have some accountability on it.

Um just like you would you had said to us long ago, if you guys are gonna own it, we at least want to be at the table.

Um so you know where we're coming from on that.

We all want it to be successful, but just not tonight, don't make a decision, but let that stew a little bit.

Just some some sort of a way that we can have some accountability on our end.

I I think what I would, and we can we can explore this and be prepared at the next meeting.

I think what we I would rather do is say instead of forming a committee, how do we approach council and say, here's programming time for public?

And so that way, if you guys get a member or a question from the public of well, what did we get for our investment?

Well, we have programming time built into the facility.

I mean, again, it's built for tourism, it's built for visitation.

If it ends up being 36 weekends a year, okay, those are off the table, but there are gonna be other blocks of time that are available, so we just need to work through that.

And let me put it put it this way.

Uh you guys in five years might say, Boy, this was a great project, but let's get the heck out of Dodge.

And you sell that off.

At that point, everything you promised us in one of these meetings that's not on paper, or that we don't have accountability to goes out of Dodge with you.

And I just want to make sure that for the long run, we're protecting the community's aspect of this.

You guys are swell fellas, and you want to do good for Grand Island, the people who buy you out or you sell to, I don't know those guys.

So that's that's one of the thoughts that have come to me from the community that I'll pass on.

Um, believe it or not, uh, for you guys.

I think I'm done for now.

You got any questions of me?

This is negotiation.

Mr.

Nickerson.

That was an exhaustive list of questions.

I got four more pages.

I am impressed.

I am impressed.

Mine's gonna be much more simple.

First of all, I want to thank you for writing what I consider a pretty understandable MOU.

And for a guy like me, it has to be written pretty simple.

So thank you for going through that.

For the most part, it makes good sense.

I think there's good logic in it, and I I like the way it flowed in the different segments that you have.

So thank you for that because that helps me.

But with that knowledge that we have now and what we've been presented, there will be some things that I need from the experts because I'm not an expert in bonds, and I'm not an expert in those things.

So I'm gonna count on the people that know that inside and out.

For me to be able to have a good confidence in all of this, I need to know what their feedback is, and that doesn't have to be tonight, because I don't know that they will have those answers tonight.

But within the very near future, I need to know what they think and to make sure that everything stacks up in the logically from what they see.

I also need to know our administration's input, because this is all new to all of us.

This new presentation is all new, and some of it's different than before, some of it's kind of the same.

But I want to know what the input from our admission administration is anything that they see that we need to be aware of, or be concerned about or ask questions about.

I want that before I can make a good decision.

I was surprised to see the proposal with the why.

My question was what's the why's commitment to this?

I'm kind of getting the feeling there may be some commitment from the why to be part of that aquatics group, and I think that's not a bad thing at all.

I don't disagree with that.

The part of ownership may give some people heartburn.

We need to work through that.

I'm kind of like Dave Averich, I'm wondering why do we want that?

Why would City want those headaches?

And when we were talking about management, the city should manage it.

I thought, why do you want to do that?

Why would we want to do that?

But there may be some people that really feel strongly about that ownership component, and I want to hear those discussions as well.

But I understand where you're coming from on that.

And as a city, as long as we know it's managed well, I don't know why I would care as long as it's being successful.

So the the next thing that I had that I just wonder about, it was one of the things that Jack was talking about, and I just got it circled here.

What happens if things don't get done?

Okay, so we've got to be able to address that.

And I don't know where those things are addressed.

Uh the MOA is the framework of what you say you will deliver, and it's kind of the financial blueprint.

Where do we address some of those other details?

Is that a fine detailed contract?

I'm gonna ask, I guess, our city attorney.

Where do we get an MOU isn't all encompassing document that we work from?

Is it's just kind of a framework, and then we've got to still do some more detail work in there?

I would say we would ask, Ken will have some thoughts here.

I think the most efficient way to do this is to get a general understanding on an MOU.

I know we did that before.

Um, but let's come to a consensus on the MOU structure.

Then let's turn it over to the attorneys and let's give them I don't know, 30 days, two weeks.

I don't know what Kent and whoever else is gonna be involved in this, but let's give them a certain time.

And then if we need to schedule another meeting, if we're gonna do this in a public forum and there's sticking points, because that's what happened.

We had an MOU in December, we hit sticking points, and then we just hit an impasse.

So if we hit that as we get into a contract, I guess we schedule another public meeting, and we come here and we talk about whatever the four or five sticking points are and get consensus, try to get consensus again and then continue to move forward.

Yeah, and let me before Kent speaks.

I want to ask Carrie this as well because she was part of the negotiating group, I think.

But when we get into that, we're getting into the nitty-gritty now, the fine print and all of that.

And we start getting into those impasses.

This is a question I ask in December.

What happens if negotiations fail?

And I was told it'll come before council.

Okay, this is the second time we've been before council now.

When we start that process again, and it's very important based on this framework of the MOU, and any things that we may need to tweak.

What happens if there's another impasse?

Do we now bring it public to discuss it because of this new system that we have, or the public doesn't like us meeting in private because they think we're doing some kind of sinister things back there, but we're talking about these kind of things, except privately.

What what do you what happens with that you think?

I don't I hope we don't get there again, but there might be a few things, but does it become now a public discussion again?

I I think kind of like they can pointed out earlier, the devil's in the details, and so if if we get to the place where you're able to define what that 80 percent is, what those um kind of firm promises, the the will benchmarks for each side um the details change a bit.

I'll say that that this MOU has less answers than an MOU we got in May May of 2024.

So it's hard to say what what we would do.

It would depend on where the impasses were, where the issues were.

Um I have some apprehension about going back on just a skeleton.

It it does feel a bit like we were walking back in time two years.

Um but if we hit that sort of impasse in those details, we would just keep negotiating into oblivion um depending on where those details are.

If those details are, you know, a date, might be easier to bring it back to council.

Right now, there are there are no real details in this, so I I fear that the realistic answer is we'd be just back here again over and over and over again.

Um rehashing everything, unless we get a little bit more meat to what the actual lines are, the minimums, the maximums.

Um a lot of this MOU, kind of even as we've been here today, has shifted things that say shall are now flexible dates that are written as firm dates are now we can look at it again later.

So we already are losing details even in the last two hours.

So I can't give you any kind of promises as to what that negotiation would look like other than to say that the details tend to vaporize the closer we get to putting them on paper, and so I don't have much hope that we could go spend two weeks lawyers hashing it out unless we get some more definitive concrete facts today.

Um today?

At any point in time, to be frank.

Um so if as you had a chance, because one of my questions was what's our administration's concerns, what's the input?

So that input now comes from discussion that you all will have internally, and then that information needs to come back to us, correct?

As a council.

Yeah, and it would frankly really depend on where the where those issues are.

I mean, give us one.

Um the CID that's proposed would be six and a half times the property tax levy that the city currently poses for all city services.

Citizens paid 24 cent levy here.

This would be a dollar fifty levy.

So, and you can't use property taxes to fund uh certain portions of the good life district program can't be revenue.

So even if we could separate it, this land would have six and a half times an additional tax levy, likely makes these lots unsellable, the development undoable.

That's a pretty big policy level decision that that one little tiny detail may unravel everything.

Um so it's hard to go back and negotiate without knowing how firm that is, how firm is that CID?

How firm is that CIA?

It's firm.

That's this is why I think to avoid all the finger pointing and the two and a half years of just going into oblivion.

We work in our best faith.

If we hit snags, Kerry and staff say we don't know about the CID, let's come back.

Let's uh let's schedule another public meeting.

Let's talk about it.

Well, the reality to that is, and I as you were talking with Jack about that, and you said it's just 150 bucks for every hundred thousand dollars.

Those homes out there are going to be probably four hundred thousand dollar homes.

So you just added six hundred dollars a year on top of their current property taxes, so you have to pay a premium to live out there.

So I mean, these are all questions that are valid questions, and I you're adding six hundred dollars to every property, and it's not an hoa.

That's just an additional premium price to live there.

And and for those those things need to be thought through.

And I know you need the revenue for uh certain things, but it sounds like there's certain things you may or may not be able to use that revenue for.

Uh so those things sounds like a legitimate concern.

I don't want to get into the weeds on that tonight, but it's it's one that that sounds like we need to talk about.

I'm interested in Kent's view of that as well, as far as we go back in the negotiating process and we start hitting an impasse.

Well, this is where a hundred other public private projects have been successful in my mind.

Those in the past, we had in the MOU what I call the weeds.

What I've learned is if we can get on the six principles and the three imperatives in the outline, you're at the 80% mark.

And I will guarantee you that staff and ourselves or whoever we you have involved, we'll get that last 20%.

It's when I have seen projects that have not agreed to the big principles.

Then they go into the weeds, and somebody says I want to go right, and the other side guy goes says I want to go left.

And you're arguing down here, but the real issue was up here, and you never got to it.

And the reason I want to go right over here is on a fundamental issue.

I have a different thought than you who wants to go left on that big issue.

But they never understand their talking across from each other.

And that's why we have reframed this to be at this bigger macro level.

And if you feel we have hit the mark, and you can say we now trust you guys can go in and get the final 20%.

20 last 20 percent, we'll have challenges.

Yeah.

But I will guarantee you, if we're agreeing on the 80 percent framework, all my other public projects have crossed the finish line when we know we hit to the 80 percent.

Because we're not talking left or right.

We're talking refinement of where we've come to a consensus already.

Okay, and that that sounds fair.

We just there's certain things, the rules of governments that are different than private business, and we you have to be knowledgeable of those as well.

And these are why we have our experts here to make sure that we're following the law.

And I don't know what all those are.

That's why we have them.

So that's why I need their expertise from them.

I need the bond expertise.

And of course, the wise commitment sounds like a Sarah.

I do have a question that I don't I probably better not open this box of worms, but I'm going to.

I'm gonna just send the, I'm just gonna send it out there.

I don't need an answer.

I'm just wondering what does the why give that the sports complex doesn't?

I'm just I'm just throwing out there, I'm sure they got a thousand things they can tell me, but with a big sports complex, I'm not sure what the Y offers in addition to that.

But I'm I mean, it's not wouldn't be my project.

I'm just just curious.

Uh the one thing that I do really strongly believe in that phase one has to start as soon as possible.

And that once we see dirt work going out there, I think everybody breathes a sigh of relief and says, okay, we've started something, but we got to get to a point where we feel comfortable about pulling the trigger on that.

The one thing I have question on your sheet, and I don't know what page it is for sure, but on your master site plan, it's got a nice picture of the overall layout of the entire project.

Looks like every lot has a house on it, and everything looks beautiful.

But when we scroll down to the next picture where you've got everything color-coded, I don't see everything filled in with color-coded objects for the houses and all that.

Does that mean your plan right now does not include those other areas being filled in?

Is that basically where we're at because of funding or just because of where we're at right now?

It's just objects.

Yeah, I think that's all.

Look at the legend.

Isn't there a legend on there?

Yeah.

Yeah, but I just didn't see all the little brown icons or anything, but all of that is basically all that is still fully developed in your mind as well.

Yeah.

I mean, if you if you go to the infrastructure map, Mitch.

Everything around the red is going to be fully build-ready, right?

Utilities in, so all this multifamily could go, all this commercial here could go, all this commercial here would go once the funding and the users are in place.

But everything to the west of that is not necessarily this area here will be future.

We'll put those roads in once we're ready to go start construction.

This is about camera off the top of my head.

I think it's about 75 homes that this would activate.

We're not going to build all those in year one, right?

So we'll go put these streets in once we're ready to go build, you know, the street of homes.

So that's how we would phase out the single.

So you still are anticipating filling that entire west side with residential overtime.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Just I just thought maybe based on the funding picture and what could be spent on non-revenue producing, that's really all you felt you could build as far as homes go.

No, no.

Okay.

Well, that was the one thing that I was just curious about there.

I do appreciate again the simplicity to it overall.

And there are some things that we really have to work through.

But our goal, all of our goal will be not to be here again in six months having these discussions because certainly we can fast track this now to where we can know where those weeds are that we need to get into, because there are some weeds we're gonna have to get into.

But we get in them, we get them sorted through, and we go from there, and then see how we can get phase one started.

I think that's important.

But again, I still need information from our bond experts.

Need to know what our administration thinks for me to be able to make a good decision on this.

But I think overall, it makes good sense to me.

So again, thank you for your work on that.

Mr.

O'Neill.

Thank you.

Well, tonight's been a pretty constructive conversation.

Um, you know, we've been rolling down the runway here for about two years already, and it's already the longest runway I think I've ever seen.

But we're running out of runway, and we've got to lift off here pretty soon, too.

Um I want to make tonight as constructive as possible and milk as much as I can get out of this too.

Um there's uh a couple of questions I have here.

Um, it's interesting the YMCA um uh being a partner here, and I think there might be multiple paths of that partnership.

Um a couple of things kind of came out to me.

I just want to make sure we don't come back here with problems later, so I'm gonna discuss a little bit of this.

Um there's a a lot of talk earlier about the the land conveyance and some of that.

Um I think in your proposal you talked about the uh it would be the city uh gift or selling the uh the land to the YMC for a dollar, correct?

Um and then the 22 million um to the YMCA, would that uh plan be for the city to do that directly, or how exactly would that mechanism?

Yeah, so the phase one bonds would get issued that would be held in some kind of separate account and then go to the YMCA once they've got design done, funding secured, and they could draw on that as they complete construction.

And I I just want to ask our our councilhood too, but is there a concern of selling the land to the YMCA for the the dollar, or how could that technically work?

City cannot uh gift or functionally gift uh taxpayer dollars to nonprofit organizations.

Um we could the school land, for example, a little more doable government to government, but to pledge private 22 million bucks in private bonds to um or public bonds to a nonprofit would be substantially more difficult.

Um pledging private bonds a little easier.

There, I mean, there are there are ways to do it.

Um probably not through government money unless it goes through this public-private partnership a little bit differently.

Uh Mr.

You she is correct in that you just can't say here why it's free.

What you're doing is you're saying here why here's the land, but you have a program statement that you that you need to fulfill by providing swimming lessons or swimming programs or events, and you are getting a contract back from them, so there's consideration that they then will operate and provide those wonderful swimming program services for you, and that's how you get over that it's not a gift, it is a contract.

And there's consideration on both sides, and that's how we've done it in other of the projects I've been involved in.

So you spell out why we're expecting and that you will fulfill these type of program services for X number of years.

Uh thank you.

I just want to address that a little bit, and I think there might be a we need to look through a little more the the Y uh partnerships a little bit more newer wrinkle in here as well.

So I just want to talk about that a little bit too.

Um overall, um, and thanks for explaining the CID.

I think you answered most of my questions on that as well.

Um, overall, I'm I'm looking at outcomes on this, and the outcome we need is we need an athletic complex and we need that aquatic center.

Um we saw some really beautiful drawings tonight.

I mean, the athletic complex is way more than what it I saw back uh several months ago.

Um I'm not interested in and just writing a blank check, but I'm interested in Green Island a real outcome.

Um the public needs some protection in this, but uh the city also needs to be honest about what it can afford to own, operate, and maintain long term.

Uh you know, we're also working on something with the Heartland Event Center where we have about 10 million dollars of maintenance we're doing in that right now.

Uh these buildings are very expensive to maintain and operate, and I think as Chuck mentioned earlier, we have some other recreational things that we've outsourced to other entities as well.

Um as far as the protection, this is probably a question for uh Mitch and Drew here too.

Um, I I don't think you'd ever do this, but this is kind of a trust but verify kind of thing.

So this is a beautiful athletic complex.

Um, you know, what what protections would there be if you guys own this?

Uh a few years from now, you don't get an idea to uh sell it or start the uh Drew and Mitch uh mattress superstore.

It depends on the mattress market.

Yeah, I'm happy to take it.

I mean, I think we're we're looking at this as I mean, guys.

This is a the district is a 30-year term.

I mean, I know there's a lot of conversation about well, these guys gonna blow out of here.

I mean, we've already invested 150 million dollars in your community with the mall, and um the sports complex will be another large investment.

Uh but I think it goes unnoticed or untalked about.

I don't know what the private improvement amount area here is, but it's 350 million dollars.

We're not going anywhere.

I mean, our intent is we're setting up camp here.

This needs to be as successful as possible, and so we can talk about a lot of different scenarios about us building this and selling it and flipping out of it and you know, disappearing for off the face of the planet, but that's that's not who we are as an organization, and we're here to complete this project.

We've been before you for two and a half years.

I think you understand how persistent we are.

We are not going anywhere.

So um, I don't know if that I don't know what what we're talking about, if we're trying to address language or you know, but I mean that's just not who we are as an organization.

We want to see this project through, we want it to be successful, and so we're gonna own the sports complex, we're gonna run it to the best of our ability, and that's what we're gonna do.

You you're taking all the maintenance operations, et cetera, and obviously being your vested interest at that point to make it as successful as possible, too.

Yeah, and I I kind of like what you said about the possibility of having public scheduling as well.

Um that's interesting.

Um, you know, overall, I think this project's reached the point where we have to be honest about a lot of the choices we have in front of us.

Um I don't know if there's really a perfect structure that's gonna exist for every single entity in this.

Um, and there may not be an outcome where everyone gets exactly everything they want.

Um the question for me is this um does the final agreement protect the public, limit long-term taxpayer exposure, uh, create real community assets, and move Grand Island forward.

If the answer is yes, I'm willing to keep an open mind.

If the answer is no, then we need to keep working.

Um, I don't want to lose the athletic complex and the aquatic center, the broader good life opportunity because we're unwilling to look through some uh trade-offs.

Um overall, I I think you've answered a lot of my questions.

Um I'm not sure.

I'm sure we'll have to have other meetings uh in a path forward here, but I try to lay out as as much as I could here tonight too, and I'll I'll give others a chance to speak here as well.

Mr.

Sheard.

Uh I didn't see anybody else's name popping up yet.

So I'm only asking to talk here.

I have, like I said, I have pages of questions to ask, but they're not necessarily specific to what we're talking about tonight.

It's more about the future of how we more that logistics of the YWCA.

I have a lot of questions there about can they be an applicant for good life money if they were a landowner as a nonprofit?

There's just I have a lot of those questions.

What is our next step?

Is my real question?

What do we do with the information we've shared tonight?

If this is a public negotiation, what is our what's are we are do we get anywhere to know?

With Mr.

Seacrest and Woodsonia to flesh out the final details.

Are we gonna start immediately?

Are we at that 80% mark?

Like I know we're not to give a consensus.

I can only speak for myself.

I am and I want city staff to immediately start the negotiation process.

Mr.

Brown.

So a couple questions, and I I did not mean to interrupt, but so on math questions.

So on this MOU, we have 75 million, we have 27 million and 32 million.

That adds to 135 million instead of 120.

Is the 15 million extra?

Is that the cash or what would that be?

Can you say that one more time?

You take the 75 million plus the 27 million six plus the 32.3 million.

It's 60 million, not 70 million.

Because 22 of it's going to the YMCA.

You got the remember you got the 75 plus the seven in cash.

Those are the questions I asked too.

The 135 minus the that still doesn't make sense, but okay.

It's that's the kind of stuff I want to make sure that we're all clear on the case.

And that's that's the that's why I bring that up because that's not clear.

Yeah, ask your question so we can make sure you're saying 120 million promissory note, right?

Right.

Well, no, 100, yeah, 120 million is the total funding.

Right.

So then phase one is 75 million.

Right?

Phase 1A is 75 plus 7 in cash, 82.

Here's the here's here's the difference.

I know exactly I think I know what you're asking, Pat.

Is the 120 million man?

This is scary.

Okay.

120 million.

So the hundred the 120 million, the number you're subtracting from that, Pat is the phase 1A net to project bond proceeds available to developer.

Okay.

So if we do that's the 82.

That's 82 minus what's going to the YMCA, because that's not going to the developer.

So that'd be 60 million dollars.

So 60 million, so minus 60 million.

We assume that's the amount that we get as part of phase one A.

So there's 60 million left.

So if the phase one B bond issuance, which we don't know what this is gonna be, but if that ends up being let's just assume it's the number in the let's assume it's the number that's in the MOU.

So let's assume that it's 27 million, okay.

27 million, 651,000, 246, would equal a promissory note of 32 million 348, 754, which is what this would be.

So if we not pat if we knock it out of the park, and let's just say the bond market's great, and we do a 90 million dollar bond issuance, and 22 million still goes to the YMCA, and we keep you know 78 million dollars of that, then that reduces the amount of the promissory note.

If if we don't have a good bond issuance, and there's a you know, instead of there being 75 million, it's a it's a 50 million dollar bond issuance, which is a problem, then this number is gonna increase, but it's the net bond proceeds available to developer because of the phase one a bond issuance, 22 million dollars allowed is going to the YMCA.

Could you could you keep the 22 million dollars and donate it to the Y instead of having us try to give it away?

Well, the only reason we wanted it to stay with the city is that in the event now this probably won't happen, but in the event the programming or the fundraising is unsuccessful, we wanted the city to have assurance that the 22 was was still there.

On the for this for the uh aquatic centers, yeah.

I mean that's the the piece that we haven't talked much about this H section under the YMCA, which is in the event the design hasn't been finalized and funding secured within 12 months, then the city at the city's election would then have the right to move forward with an RFP for an aquatic center that it would own, maintain, design, and utilize the 22 million dollars at the city's discretion.

Because the real look at the math is it's 142 million dollars.

Yeah, yeah, right.

That's where yeah.

And that's where it's I can see fat, I can see how Pat's is kind of confusing.

So nothing in here says 142 million.

Yeah, there's nothing in here says 142 million dollars.

Yeah, right.

We just wanted the amount that's coming to us, we wanted to be clear, and since that amount wasn't, but we can build it in here however we want.

So I guess Pat, one of my questions for you or Carrie then is does the why need to apply to for good life money if that was the intention to use 22 million dollars of good life money for them if they own the land.

I I to me the question is should is the request for 142 or for 120?

Well, we don't have the twenty-two without it.

Yeah, it's 140 million.

This this is just the promissory note, not the total amount of good life funding.

We're getting things mixed up.

I mean, if we're talking what's the total good life request, then yes, it would be 142 million.

This is just for the developer permissory no calculation games.

Right, but we're looking that's your side of things, but we got to look at the 100 the all the money, because we can't go telling the community we have an aquatic center in the works and a Y in the works uh at the 120.

I think we should clarify that good life, the request of good life funding would be 142.

Okay.

I think that yeah.

So and I love that the first chunk of it goes to back to the to the why.

I love that in theory.

Uh I don't think anybody here doesn't that spoke doesn't like that.

But I don't know how we get there.

Because if we can't give them the money that we collected, because we're going to bond for it, right?

Right.

So we're going to bond for it, but we don't have a a legal way to use that money yet.

And we this is this is the 20 percent, I think Kent's talking about.

We get we we need to find a way to get the money to and and there is finding a way for a little bit of money, but 22 million dollars and one of the key ponents of the project is something I I would like to have a little bit more concrete understanding of.

I I think a bigger question is uh the city would be issuing the bonds.

I think the city we are okay if there's another issuer, but I thought Kent you were advising the city had to be the issuer.

Under good life, yeah, the money goes through the city.

So and that's uh problematic, because we've talked about this for a year and a half, is that money gone to private developer owned and operated.

That's one of those fundamental principles I was talking about.

The legislature, the four major acts that we're dealing with, has the ability for that money to go to the private sector so long as there's a public purpose and there will be guardrails on it.

And so that's where it's you just you don't have to trust these guys totally.

The guardrails, the laws, the state law says you can do this, but you have these certain guardrails.

We have certain minimums we have to show the good old Nebraska Department of Revenue.

I mean, there's just several safeguards in the statutes already, and in your ordinance that we're supposed to meet.

So we haven't talked about the guardrails, and that's part of the 20 percent to be sure they're in there, because we don't want to run a file, we don't want to run a foul with our states friends uh at all on this stuff.

And I I just want to make a point, the mayor made a really appreciative comment of asking us to get to work.

And I'm all for getting to work, but I do think that's the fundamental question today.

He said, I I'm okay with the 80 percent.

That doesn't mean he's signing off on 100 percent when he says that.

That 20 percent is still a very important detail.

But if we don't have that 80 percent commitment from you tonight or soon, I'm gonna advise these guys, don't hire me to work on this project any longer because we're going to go back to the old framework where we got into the weeds and we never got consensus on the fundamentals.

And if you think we've been fair tonight on the fundamentals, then that's worth negotiating because if one of us, be it me or Kerry or Mike Rogers, whoever, if we start to get out of bounds, they're gonna say you're forgetting the fundamental.

And they'll be right, or I'll be right.

So I have a question for you, Kent.

I'm gonna just jump in because we're on the topic.

You made the statement that the legislature allows you to use this money with the guardrails, and then another group, the city says that we don't agree with that.

Who makes that final determination when you have two parties saying I'm right, no, I'm right.

Who makes that decision so we can move forward?

You have another key player on your administrative team, and I hope he you use them.

Mike Rogers uh not only is he a bright guy, but he wrote several of these acts or had major penmanship on them.

And he I think he can stand up here tonight and say Kent was wrong on what he said, but I don't think he's gonna say Kent was wrong.

Can you can invest in private real estate, because there still can be a public purpose, and that's what the documents will prove and shore up and protect you and protect us.

Because if we get challenged, we're both in a pickle.

We gotta win.

Yes.

And that's where you know that's what Mike has done repeatedly in his career.

Well, we need we need it crystal clear.

I mean, it you can't have ambiguity in it, and so that's why I'm just needing to know who would make that final determination, because once that's made, then we know what we can do for sure, and that's that's where we get into the weeds sometimes and we don't get an answer.

That's where Mike's so critical in my mind because not only does he understand this public private these new state economic development tools, but he's also bond counsel, and he knows what underwriters and the city and the and the people that are gonna pay these bonds have to stay on the clear side and be so sure they're lawful.

So uh I guess back to the question I had don't want to bring up bad memories, but where are we different from December?

Because we had the big 80 percent we voted that night, and we talked a lot.

And Mike Rogers went into those negotiations.

Where are we different?

I know it's a better plan, but the process is the same.

Well, in December, the sports complex would be owned by the city.

This is private ownership of the sports complex now.

I I think there's several important differences.

So that is that a big enough difference simplifies a lot of issues, okay.

Same with the the buying of the land, the buying of the land, which eliminates the clawbacks, simplifies a huge, huge piece.

We didn't talk about that.

That's how I feel.

Does that I mean is that I think that's a piece that we should get crystal clear on tonight because it's gonna get talked about, and I think that falls in the 80 percent.

Yeah, to me, you're paying at least market value for the land, all of it.

Other than the school land, it's yours at that point, right?

And you still have to bring you know, building permits still get passed.

There's all those checks and balances of any land that still ultimately we have some say in.

But I I don't know what clawbacks we would have a legal right to if you paid for it.

Yeah, I could be these guys could disagree with me, or Kerry can turn a light on and disagree with me.

Go ahead, Gary.

I think he wants you to respond.

Yeah, but that was on it.

I don't know the legal clawbacks restrictions would be a huge range of council policy decisions.

You could do something as simple as you could have none, you could have no manufacturing industrial, you could get all the way in the weeds like an HOA does.

Um that would really be a a policy call.

Um anything that you add that restricts the property drops its fair market value.

Unrestricted property is just worth more than restricted property, so the uh legal requirements would be much more functional uh requirements that would change that market value.

Um but as far as work concerned, we sell the land at value.

I don't see a need for callbacks.

I would love everybody else to weigh in a little bit.

I know we can't.

I don't know if we I don't know if we can get that granular with our agenda topic, but we will take that up.

Well, it's one of the non-negotiables.

I didn't hear them say it was a non-negotiable.

I think I think Mayor, I think one of the things we tried to do is we we made a list of what were the snags that we ran into from December until May, right?

And it was, you know, we heard loud and clear, you're not paying anything for the land.

We need clawbacks, and that just became so complicated.

So our hope was that by paying for the land, that would remove the concept of clawbacks, but we also introduced these five critical project components.

These five components need to happen, right?

Sports complex, aquatics, paying for the land, phase one infrastructure.

So we wanted to give council assurance in the city.

It's not as if there's just you give us a bunch of money or we pay for the land and nothing happens, right?

You still have to complete these five critical items.

So, but I I I kind of agree with Jack here, like as much as I want to send, and we can advise the council.

I mean, from our perspective, Carrie can weigh in.

These were the items that we just ran into a total roadblock on.

So let's talk about them.

Or can we ask Mike Rogers to come up?

Mike, what's your opinion here?

I mean, we're here, we're in a public meeting, let's talk about it.

Everybody wants to move this thing forward.

We don't have a lot of open Tuesdays.

No coming up.

Let's if Mike's here and council's okay with it, let's hear from him.

I mean, let's get his opinion on some of these things that we've ran into issues with with um you know staff and things like that.

So, but yeah, I think on the clawbacks that would be our ass.

Is if we're paying for the land, would the council consider removing those, but still adhering to those five critical things?

Same with the minimum investment spend that kind of goes with the clawbacks, but there were requirements of spend XYZ dollars by XYZ date.

And I just that's the same thing as where we went back and forth of well, what if bond proceeds aren't this?

How do we agree to that?

Well, we would like to do away with that concept.

And you still have zoning power.

We're gonna be we showed you our zoning plan.

And if you're worried that we're gonna put a rendering plan or do a date and switch on you, well, we can't under residential zone.

We'd have to come back to you.

So these safeguards, many of them are are in the law built in.

And we would be articulating those to you.

And you asked my opinion, what's different than December?

I think there's a 50% difference in what these guys are proposing.

They have simplified it and made it clearer, and that's worth a lot to me to say hopefully the night you're at the 80% level.

But I think we gotta uh I don't want to not hear from you because I'm afraid we're gonna go back and not have your staff or our team will still not have enough clarity that what we have articulated as fair and reasonable.

I uh I believe in this plan, I think there are some weed things that I don't want to get in the middle of, but the big boxes and that question there, in my opinion, you pay three million dollars for the land.

If that's above value, the land is yours if we vote on and agree to it.

I don't need clawbacks.

And I might get crucified for that because you guys could be terrible.

But it's unlike it's no different than any other time somebody sells land at value.

Only we still have the right to rezone it or not zone it.

We still have some controls.

We still have some controls in place.

So that's all going to be done in conjunction with the acquisition.

I mean, yeah.

So I still uh Carrie, I'd still like to hear from you what more detail about some of these things that you're worried about.

Um, I I think what I raised by light on earlier that might be helpful at least to sum in this all is as Mr.

Secret talked about I want to make it clear the Good Life District Act does allow for the payment of private real estate expenses.

So that is not necessarily an issue.

The the list of what is now isn't eligible is is pretty clean in city code.

It and it counts everything from engineering to landscaping of public or private property.

So the ability to pledge this money to any eligible expense is there, eligible expenses includes both public and private uh development, subject to that 20% non-revenue producing cap.

But it is within your ability, assuming you want to give up that level of policy control to pledge the 100, 20, 100, whatever million dollars to Adsonia paying financing costs or their debt servicing costs also acceptable.

So if policy-wise, you guys want to once you define what you're willing to give up control on, what you want to control, what they once they really define for us what they need fixed, what they need control on, what they're willing to give up, we can make progress right now.

That when everything keeps going back on the non-negotiable are the negotiable list, it's just hard to know where we're going, what progress we're making.

But if we shift kind of to this new um simplified version from December, um, where really the ask is that we promise that we will commit the first 120-ish million dollars of good life district money to their project, the 22 million for the Y kind of on the on the aside, and the sale of the land.

If that if council makes policy calls that you're okay with something that broad, um, which is within your right to do that, hits the eligibility, that's a relatively simple agreement to get to.

That's us doing a contract to say we pledge the first so much collections a year up to 120 million bucks, go forth and do your developer thing.

If they want to pay for it with the cash as it comes in, great, they want to go get a private bond and make the debt payments on it, that would be eligible under the act.

Um, you lose control, you lose the ability to do things like define public hours for uh sports complex if it's 100% private, but those are options.

Those if we know what we're negotiating towards is truly a hundred you know, 95% private development just backed by government revenue, that's pretty easy and we can move forward relatively fast.

If what we want is a true, I'll call it public private partnership where it's 50-50, everybody's got 50 percent of the control, 50 percent of the skin in the game, we have to know a whole lot more details to be able to define what it is you want to control and not control.

So knowing what Woodsonia has as our non-negotiables is really helpful to define what you guys need to make next as policy decisions.

If private ownership, for example, is a non-negotiable, um, then you guys, the next ask for you is to make that policy call.

Are you okay with private ownership?

If you're yes, we're off on this path.

If you're no, we're on a different path.

So knowing just what those asks are is what we really need to be able to make meaningful progress in the in the negotiation.

So some of these answers are very helpful, knowing that the 82 million dollars in money available in kind of a first bucket is important, helps us know.

Well, hey, if we can't make that fact a reality, the rest of it doesn't matter.

Um the private ownership of the sports complex.

So I it it I don't know if there's other things on that list.

If you can kind of for the what Sonya guys, if you can help tell us what is on the list of what you need what you need out of this, so that way we can define for council what policy calls they need to make.

Um they can negotiate the law into the 20 percent.

While you're thinking of that, because I she said some two things that I want to ask.

We've talked before that as Chuck said, five million dollars, 30 years, 150 million dollars, but 150 million dollars doesn't equal 150 million dollars, right?

In in actual like spending.

Like we can't say, well, this is 150 million dollar project, let's bond for 150 million and we're good.

Right.

We we can do it backwards.

We can pledge the revenue as it comes in.

So we can say we'll take you know, as the money comes in, gives flexibility for those sort of collections issues.

So maybe this year it's seven million, next year it's nine million, the year after it's eight, whatever it is.

You can pledge up to total amount, up to so much, and let the market ride the waves.

You would I mean if the goal is to get this into the hand of developers and city out of the development business, um defining how much we're willing to give up, and then but I guess are there costs associated with bonding?

Yeah, financing costs are an eligible expense under so some of that's got to come out of that money, is what I'm saying.

Sure, sure, yeah.

So 150 million.

If the revenue is a gross number, the net to project will always be.

Right.

That's something that we don't see in all of this stuff.

So just knowing what the potential is would be helpful for the negotiation negotiation, like a real number?

Yeah, no, knowing where the bottom number is, so that if you know the bottom number and the max, like if the total if the total need for this private development happen is 120 million dollars in cash that exits us and goes to them, versus if it's a hundred really 150 to cover financing costs, what our maximum and minimum numbers are pretty important for us to know.

And then you know, I I said clawbacks, we don't need them, blah, blah, blah.

But let's say let's say we do need a clawback.

Could we have a situation where if you're gonna sell it to anybody, you have to sell it to us first?

Yes, that'd be more of a a reversion interest or a uh restriction and covenant on the land than a clawback.

Like a first rider refusal on something.

Again, that goes back, Jack.

We want it simple and no, we don't want to come to you guys every time we want to go sell a piece of property in this.

I guess I guess um give this is a uh maybe a point we can talk about.

Mitch and I were just kind of talking about it.

What items in this MOU are non-starters for the council, or do they want more discussion on?

And I I think it's important to note that what's a jet what's open meetings act-wise, what's noticed to the public is your list of those non-starters.

Um council would have to come back later with their list.

That's not so if we want to flip that that's I thought this was an open.

I mean, mayor, you said this is an open discussion that we're gonna openly talk about these items.

So to me Well, I say lots of things, and sometimes the city legal department overrules me.

So the reality is we're limited by the motion that was made this schedule this meeting, and the motion that was made and then unanimously voted on by council was framed in discussing those.

So I didn't decide either.

Um I think what Mr.

Sheard wants to know is if you tonight know of any things that would be absolute deal breakers for you, and if you could say them now.

Yeah, I think I think we publicly owning the sports complex becomes so complicated, it's what killed the negotiations or hurt the negotiations with staff from December.

So privately owning the sports complex, Kent talked about this, and being able to use good life dollars towards that is a much cleaner, simpler path.

That's why we want to do that.

Okay, so let's talk about that for a second.

You have the money to build it planned out here, and you're using the 13 and 14.

I'm gonna call them 1314 because I can't remember the names of them.

The tax, the occupation tax and the C I D and the C I D are to operate and maintain CID will be uh second, another source of funding for infrastructure, okay, so that more good life dollars can be allocated to the sports complex.

No CID dollars will go to the sports complex.

No, statutorily we can't, yeah.

Right, because it's a you have to use it for public infrastructure.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But we will draw on to make because this was the other sticking point.

We will draw on the 60 million dollars in phase 1A bond proceeds as we are completing the work.

So, as a private owners of it though, how are you gonna pay for maintaining and operating?

Well, through the cash flows of the business, and then we also want the EEA to supplement future reserve costs, okay.

Anybody thoughts on worries, fears?

I don't I are we in the weeds, I don't know.

I I think this is number one.

We we want to go from public ownership to private ownership in the sports complex.

Greatly, greatly greatly simplifies the whole process, and probably follows the intent of the good life program to allow state dollars to be used for private investment, yeah.

Just out of experience of public-private partnerships, I don't think it's the wisest move to talk to us about our deal breakers.

That's not how you create partnership and trust.

We might have put something on this list that after we get to talk to Mike and Kerry and the rest of your team, we might say, you know, we should change that.

That's not you know, at best model.

And so I I just want you to have to take a look at our team and say, do you think we're uh unreasonable people?

If you do, then you shouldn't be talking about us.

If you think we're reasonable, don't ask us for our bottom line at this stage because we're not sure what you want to come back with.

And what we might think is a bottom line could be slightly bottom line minus one, and we still might say we could still do the deal, even though we changed it.

I just that's not healthy negotiations in my mind to ask us to list.

I think our MOU is trying to tell you this is a this is what we want and expect.

And if you can't at least agree to the big guiding principles and the three imperatives and the details that we have provided you, then we haven't got the 80%, and we shouldn't be trying to get into the weeds because we won't get there then.

So I think we're back to I think what the mayor was suggesting, and maybe he wasn't suggesting this, I was just interpreting them.

Can you live with the 80%?

Knowing that when you say you can you're agreeing to 80%, you're not agreeing to 100 tonight.

And I I and I would add this to what Kent said, and does it make sense tonight?

I mean, if the group says, okay, we're good with the MOU, we're good with the 80%, let's proceed forward.

We're gonna run into items.

I think Kent said it well.

We're gonna talk to Mike, Mike's gonna raise up an issue, we're gonna talk to DA Davidson.

DA Davison's gonna raise up an issue, we're gonna talk to DOR, they're gonna I mean, that's just how these deals go.

And so it's almost as if we need to set another council meeting in 30 days to say, okay, where are we at progress-wise?

Because I think that's what ever the overarching theme I hear from everybody is are we making progress?

We want to see progress.

How do we make progress?

Well, it's working through all these details.

But Kent's 100% right.

It starts at the 80% level.

Are we aligned?

And this MOU, this is not a binding, this is not a document that's gonna contain every single little detail, but it is gonna contain the overarching theme of the all the other details come from.

Right.

Correct.

So to me, it's almost worthwhile of let's look at the calendar, let's set another meeting.

I mean, this is such a unique stuff.

I've never done this before.

I've never negotiated with 10 council members.

So this is a first.

So, but it's okay.

We said we would do it.

This is what the mayor, you know, kind of instructed.

We're Chuck, I'm with you.

This is what if this is a form we're gonna do it, then let's do it.

Let's set it up, let's figure out how to work through it, and let's try to make you know the best that we can of the situation.

So that's what we would be committed to.

So I think tonight, and we'll stay as long as we need to stay.

We can go back through any of these sections if you want.

I mean, there's 15 sections in this.

We try we try to address these as best we can.

But if there needs to be more explanation around the CID, or the CID needs to be, hey, we want more explanation on this at the next council meeting.

Okay, that's fair.

We can we can live with that.

I think that's the direction we need.

I've gotten a lot of information from you tonight.

Like I'm feeling 80% of the way towards the 80%, but I need to comprehend some of this.

You know what I mean?

Like I I want to make sure that as I talk to people smarter than me that I like to talk to.

Am I right or wrong about this?

Tell me more about this from your perspective, not the guys that are trying to get the money, right?

Like you understand that.

You're welcome to talk to your team.

We're just saying we shouldn't go into heavy negotiations until you feel you're there.

Because we're telling you we're there.

And if we're not there with you, then we're gonna it'll fail.

So I don't have major problems with any of this.

Like I said, I I'm ready to I would love to have a couple weeks to think about it and come back and talk to say, then go negotiate to your point.

Um, but heck, I'm the only one that's been talking for most of tonight, so I don't know if we've got a good understanding of what everybody else wants, Mr.

O'Neal.

Thank you.

Um so I recognize we're we're trying to get on the path of least resistance here.

Um, and I appreciate you guys um looking a lot here, you know, buying the land.

I think that probably makes a huge difference in there as well.

Um I just want to talk a little bit more about the private ownership of the building.

You know, I think earlier on we probably all thought they'd be publicly owned, and I can understand why some people may have some concerns on that.

And I've tried to think about this a lot.

I've been weighing through this packet quite a bit, but you know, if you so if you guys own it, you're gonna be paying insurance, you're gonna be paying utilities, operating costs, maintenance, staffing.

Yeah, property tax, thank you as well.

And um the mayor of Pat might correct me on this, but uh that land I think has been off the tax rolls for well over a hundred years, correct?

Big your pardon.

Uh the the uh well um the the land out there has been out the tax rolls for over a hundred years, correct?

Can't answer I I can't answer that.

I know it's been a long time, but yeah, correct, yeah.

And then I know it's kind of recently get back.

Yeah, and I think it would be good to get some of that developed and get it eventually back on the tax rules as well, would be huge.

Um, one other question too on the on the YMCA.

This is just kind of a thought here, too.

Um, on that section, I don't know if you can go to that real quick again on there.

Um, I know it was talking about the 12 month period on there to uh for them to kind of raise some capital.

Um I don't know, did it have much of a I don't recall it having an exact kind of guideline of I think DJ might have mentioned earlier how much he thought they might have needed for the building.

Um that was probably part of it depends on what the final design ends up being with the YMCA.

I I'm sure you're probably north of you know 10-15 million for something like that.

But yeah, well, well north of that, yeah.

I know there's another 22 million to help with the uh the aquatic center too, but um because I know it had a a timeline in there to raise that money, and I just want to make sure we don't get a debate of you know where that is, but uh um might be good just to kind of define that a little bit more thoroughly in there, too.

Well, or try and kind of ballpark a little bit more of where the fundraising should be in the 12 months.

I know you're not gonna have an exact number because you're it's gonna take a while to design it as well, too.

But it just seemed to look maybe a little bit vague in there, but I DJ can speak to it, but I think the expectation, Ryan, is within 12 months, fully designed facility, fully locked in construction contract for that amount and fully locked in funding for that amount.

If that's not done, then it turns over.

DJ can speak to that.

You said what I would have said, so and it sounds like there's uh some uh good teamwork there to try and help raise that money to make that project a success to find some other private capital come in there.

So I think that'd be very interesting to see how that can work out.

And um, I I want to give others a chance to speak too.

I think there's a lot of thoughts out there, and it's kind of good to hear from anyone else that wants to comment on on their thoughts of public versus private ownership as well, too.

Thank you, Mr.

Nickerson.

Nickerson, I've already stated that I think I'm okay with the private ownership, and I think being open to the public at certain times will be important because they're not going to utilize that facility all the time.

Just like the field house, we know during the day we spend money on a membership, and through the daytime, those courts are open most of the time.

We play pickleball on basketball courts.

I see the same thing here because that complex will not be utilized a lot during the day through the week, and you'll have hundreds of people that will want to go and spend some money there for recreation.

But then we still got the why here.

So there's that that thing hanging out there.

So what's that competition like I'm I'm good with probably if you're asking, are we good with 80 percent based on what we've heard tonight?

I'd say yes.

And what I need to realize tonight, we are just really, and uh we do have an obligation to do that, where we're we're talking about state taxes.

These aren't city taxes.

We're talking about state funds that are being used.

And we we still want to be good stewards of that, but this is state money, it's not even Grand Island money.

Uh so we gotta understand that that's that's what we're planning for.

The generosity and the foresight of a state to try to see these kind of things happen.

So I don't want to get bogged down like it's our general fund dollars because it isn't.

And I think we've got a good use of those funds.

The CID, probably not a good idea for me to get hung up on that because I'm not gonna be paying that.

It's gonna be whoever chooses to live out there.

Will it impact whoever lives out there?

It might impact the sale of those homes.

But that will be the challenge for you.

You get to figure out how to market those homes.

Plus making sure that you are not overbuilding and having homes sit for a year or two, which we have right now, homes sitting on the market, brand new homes that have been on the market over 500 days.

It's a reality, and they're under 300,000.

So that's part of the fund going forward for whoever puts up homes.

But one thing that I do want to put to bed tonight, if possible, and Kerry, you're gonna have to tell me if this is within the boundaries.

Can we have bond council come and settle a question that it sounded like two people agreed on tonight, but I don't know that I heard that.

And can we have bond council come and explain to us the question that was asked?

Can you remind me which question it is that we agreed on that maybe?

Money that's used for private, these tax dollars that are used for private development.

Yeah, that that's in your city code and in state statute that uh costs for both public and or private real estate are eligible.

So that that's that is everywhere in the law.

Can I have him come up?

Is it okay since he's here?

I just I want to hear from the expert.

The guy that deals with this every day.

Can you even if you got a rehash all this stuff, help us understand from your point of view what we can do and can't do?

Question was whether the good life district program dollars can be used to pay for private developer-owned things like the sports complex, yes.

Or uh an aquatic center owned by the YMCA, yes.

And then the logistics of getting that done, whether the YMCA needs to be an applicant, that's a good question.

I hadn't thought about that before tonight before you raised that question.

Um but it that seems like the kind of logistics that we could work through and figure out the pathway forward.

I think that the sticky issue has been and uh was talked about tonight earlier, uh, regarding use of public assets is giving away property or uh selling it for a dollar.

That that was an issue that we talked about with respect to the to the big site, and is um you know an issue that we talked about earlier that uh Mr.

Seacrest addressed regarding the sale of the YMCA land for a dollar and other consideration, whatever those those things are that would be detailed out in an agreement.

That's that's that's the one issue that is has been uh a problem that was resolved in large part through agreeing to to buy the real estate for whatever the fair market value is.

Uh but all we're working in uh under a constitutional exception here that uh from that general rule of you can't just have public dollars go to pay for things that are privately owned through this good life district economic development program that the voters approved.

The Constitution provides that if the voters approve an economic development program like that, those dollars can be spent on all kinds of different things, including privately owned assets.

And that's where all of these dollars will flow through from the state is through the city's economic development program to either pay directly for costs, like the cash on hand that could be spent for uh some of the some of the uh project components that that are being discussed, or um to pay debt service on bonds that are issued um, you know, uh oh in the next however many uh months or years.

And those uh those revenues are free from the the constitutional restrictions that we normally worry about and that uh the city attorney's office has worried about with respect to giving away city-owned land.

Um that's we have two different transactions here, sort of.

One is the city land that's been owned by the city for a long time being sold to a developer for a project, and then separately using the good life district program to fund a lot of the project development.

Um and and that's uh you each of these good life districts are different from the other because there are unique big issues that come into play with each of them, and that seems to be um one of the things that and we've talked we talk a lot about both of those things through meetings like this sale of the city's real estate and what what that looks like and the implications of uh selling that to a developer and how is it going to be developed and used over time, and then the Good Life District Economic Development Program and how funding is dispersed and for what costs and what uh what should that look like is is a is a different issue and um those can sometimes uh the interplay between them can become challenging at times.

But I think I think we're all on the same page regarding um what the good life district program can be used for, it's the eligible costs that are in that's in the city code uh and in the statutes.

Uh I think Kent uh uh agrees with that and carry as well.

It's the it's the real estate that and how can that be sold and what's the consideration that that has been an issue and and uh we'll have to work through that on the on the YMCA property.

Okay.

So in essence, and uh more than likely you you're not gonna sell it for a dollar because it has to have some reasonable value, but is there a a history to where it has to be an appraised value, or can it just be a reasonable value, or is there any stipulations on I could understand the dollar thing.

Uh you don't necessarily want to do that, but does it have to be a market value?

Does it have to be appraised, or can you just say we'll sell it to you for $5,000 an acre or $3,000 an acre, which is better than one dollar?

I mean, is there are you have any experience with whether that's acceptable or not?

Or uh in my role as bond counsel, I deal mostly with how bond proceeds can be spent and I deal with a lot of the uh federal tax rules uh regarding tax exempt interest.

Um I don't uh grapple with that specific question very often really or ever.

Um that's more of a city attorney question that uh you'd be well advised uh to listen to to carry on.

So the reality is that if we treat them as two separate things, the land sale is over here and it's got its own set of rules and the good life district is over here and has its own set of rules, we'll be fine.

Commingling them is where a lot of the disasters happen when we're trying to apply good life district rules to a property sale.

If we separate the sale out, fundamentally speak, if if assuming and and and uh the Woodsonian team can correct me if I'm wrong, but assuming us selling them the land is a non-negotiable that we have to clear before we get to the rest of this.

Um they need ownership of the land to have private development.

We would do that land sale separately, just like you sell land I mean you guys you guys buy and sell land nearly every council meeting in some variety and easement to write away.

You do that all the time.

You know those rules.

Um if we separate that out, you make the call, do you want to sell the land?

Uh we get to that fair market best interest criteria on the clawbacks, so we you callbacks restrictions, covenant.

So fundamentally we come back to you with a a land sale proposal that we ideally negotiate that says we'll sell you this chunk of land for this much money with these restrictions, you know, no manufacturing or industrial uses.

If you haven't built a sports complex in so many years, we get it back.

It could be really fundamental and basic or complicated your policy call.

Then we move on to the good life district funding for the project once there's actually a project that they own that can be privately owned.

So totally separate deals and sets of rules.

Um if we separate them out like that and you guys are willing to make those policy concessions, relatively easy.

Those are policy.

The land sale stuff is all policy calls.

Do you want to sell it?

If so, under what terms, as long as we're clearing that market value best interest appraisals are legal safe harbors, they are great protective things.

Can we get, you know, when we start talking about the value of concessions, can we the swapping of services, for example, with the why, can we can we live in the margins a little bit?

Yeah, that would be a separate sort of risk assessment outside of this.

But I think if you guys understand that we have to separate these two into two different issues, we can move forward relatively easily on negotiating the land sale.

That's um I mean not to say it's the policy calls are hard for you politically, legally speaking, that's an ordinance and relatively relatively simple.

Um if you guys are okay with it.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Anybody else have a question for our bond counselor while he's up here?

I see you can't.

Did you have something to add?

No, you asked the question.

Is do I have to have an appraisal?

No, you do not.

We have different laws under the community development law.

You can convey land below fair market value.

The statute says you have to convey land at fair value.

And what the difference is what are the strings that come along.

And it's really hard for an appraiser to say what's the fair market value when all of a sudden your agreement's gonna say, oh, by the way, you gotta develop a sports complex for us.

You know, as long as you decide that the there is fair consideration, not fair value, but with all the restrictions, all the safeguards, etc., you can set those values, what you think is fair value to the why, to the school, uh, or us, or to ourselves, the land.

So I I just wanted you to know there's not that's the beauty of these economic developments.

They allow you to do things that if you were doing it under the old traditional way, where you have an extra piece of land, the city's process would probably say, yeah, you better get an appraisal because you're just doing a sale.

This is so much more than a sale because of all the other 15 elements we've pointed out to you tonight.

All right, well, very good.

And so I you know, I here I've been thinking a little bit longer with my public-private hat on.

I think what we're asking you tonight is do you feel we're at the 80 percent level?

You're still allowing your staff to comment later.

They might find something that's really bad, in which case, you know, you're gonna say, well, I I said that assuming there wasn't a fatal flaw.

And then the other thing I think is because I'm not gonna advise my client to turn me loose with anybody if we're not at that junction, in my opinion.

And similarly, I would ask that besides your normal city attorney, that Mike Rogers stay involved because a lot of this deals with public financing and bonds.

And you're lucky you got the best guy in the state that knows that stuff and will keep you out of trouble and keep us out of trouble, because if anybody challenges those bonds, you're not in the penalty box.

We're probably more in the penalty box because we're the ones that are taking them on.

But yeah, you want to be safe too.

So it's in both of our interests to be sure we give use the brightest mine in in the state on public financing, in my opinion.

So that'd be my suggestion.

Can you say 80 percent?

Still means your staff can point out fatal flaws which would taint your 80 percent decision.

But at least we know we're not gonna argue something in the weeds when she's thinking you really want right, and I'm thinking they said right left.

Well, just never agree on the weeds.

And that's why our framework we dummy, not dummy to down, we simplified it.

And if you generally think that's a good framework, turn us loose.

If you don't, tell us what's wrong.

Okay.

And I'm there, and thank you, Mr.

Rogers, for your expertise.

So we appreciate that too.

Mr.

Brown.

Yeah, I've kind of sat here and listened all night long.

And I had you know, I read through this this weekend and read it and read it, and I had a lot of questions.

And I, you know, pretty well cleared up all my questions, everything that everybody asked, and I kind of sat back quietly and listened.

And I agree with the mayor that we need to get go in to immediate negotiations.

Uh I'm still I'm at the 80 percent level.

So I think we can do this thing.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Grand Island, and we'll never get another chance like this.

So we need to work on this and get it done.

Mr.

Still.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I too have been listening and uh to everything that's been said, and I support this project.

Before the meeting, I was probably at 50 percent, but I think I've hit that 80 percent level with both sides coming together.

I have a couple questions.

Is there a contract with the Y with us?

Or if there is not, will there be one and will we be able to see it?

Um I mean, yes, I would assume there will be some kind of contractual obligation.

How that works itself out, I don't think we know yet.

I think I think part of what was presented tonight, Mark, was was that was the idea of does council want to give this idea a 12-month runway, right?

To go into programming, to go into design and costs and those type of things, with you know DJ and his team kind of leading the efforts on that.

So I think that was really the the idea is does the city want to allow this 12-month runway?

Um, how they work though those things out contractually, I think that'll have to get specified in the future.

I don't think anybody knows right now.

And I don't want to get into the weeds.

I I just have a curiosity or an interest to see if there is a contract, and I'd like to have privy to review it or look at it.

Uh my second question could you give us a timeline on when you think that whole complex up there will be done?

Are you looking at five or six years or ten years or when you say whole complex, what can you be more specific?

The good life project at the soldiers home of the sports complex, and uh yeah, I think the critical components, phase one site work, aquatics, sports complex, um we have the land acquisition, Eagle Scout Lake, Eagle Scout Lake.

That's that's gonna be 36 to uh 48 months.

I mean, those are gonna move quickly.

Now, obviously, we've we gotta get the bonds, we gotta get the public finance piece rolling.

So that's that's the other thing we really need to get the wheels in motion on that.

But those will be done immediately after that.

We talked a lot about these phase one B and this checking the box and the collection issue.

Those are going to be some things that are just kind of outside of everybody's control.

And I think we're gonna do what we can to try to help those collections with the state, but until some of that stuff gets short up, it's kind of hard to say specifically because that's gonna unlock a lot of additional funding.

So, but I think those critical components, yeah, within 48 months.

There's a lot of things out there that are out of your control, like the tack is tax issues and right, all the uh getting the permits and that big cable that's going through the lake, and yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Yep.

Thank you.

Mrs.

Fisk.

It's been make sure I clarify kind of on our on our list of the big things, the 80 percent things.

Am I correct that the you guys doing the aquatic center, not something you're interested in, want to pass it off to somebody else.

Y cities, I mean, just not you, right?

Would that be a fair we we would like to pass it off to the why with Chief being involved on the fundraising?

As far as going forward negotiating with you guys, if I've been to reduce that to a non-negotiable, it's just not it for we want to the aquatic center.

We want to allocate the 22 million out of this bond issuance.

I just want to make sure I have the the list of things right.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I'll I'll be pretty brief here.

Um, you know as I said earlier, you know, we're running out of runway here, and if we get caught in the weeds again on this, you know, there's a possibility this thing might not lift off and everyone gets nothing.

And and that's not an acceptable outcome in this.

Um this is gonna be a big development, it's gonna take a long time uh to build everything out there, and I I'm sure there will be problems and questions come up that we're not even thinking about now.

And and when those come up, we just need to make sure we're handling them in a in a productive and constructive way.

Um I'm I'm committed to that.

Um I I support the the mayor's thoughts as well of trying to move this forward too.

And I think we have agreements on a lot of this, but we need to find a way to move quickly on this and get it in the path of least resistance to get this outcome of getting these facilities in here.

So thank you.

Well, I must say this is the most complete and well thought out proposal that I have seen.

I am particularly pleased to see that Woodsonia is partnering with the YMCA and chief industries in order to complete this project.

That gives me great confidence.

Over the past many months, we had negotiations that attempted to make this a blending of private and public, but those negotiations frustrated everyone because the rules governing the city are vastly different from the rules governing a private developer.

And as Mr.

Seacrest said, we ended up wandering in the weeds and encountering total roadblocks that left everybody disheartened and frustrated.

The sports complex was always intended by the legislature to be a revenue generating attraction.

This is the legislature's money.

And as soon as the sports complex was mentioned, then people said, well, that'll be kind of like a field house too, won't it?

No.

The intent given to us by the legislature was that the sports complex be a revenue generating attraction.

Now, if under private ownership, the private owner, in this case, which Woodsonia can make room for public use, that's fine.

But it's not for us to say we'll decide what the use of the sports complex will be.

The legislature has already decided that that is the transformational project.

Coming from the private sector myself, I have confidence that a private entity like Woodsonia can operate a revenue generating business, in this case, the sports complex, more efficiently than a municipal government.

Quite frankly, the city's not all that great at development projects.

I have confidence the private sector can do it better.

I have not lost sight of the fact that the money being used to develop the transformational project is coming from the state, and the state intends that its money will be used to grow revenue and tourism in Grand Island.

As stewards who get to handle the state's money, we are expected to fulfill the state's vision.

Woodsonia is well suited to accomplish the state's goal if it privately builds and owns the transformational project.

If we try to blend the desires of the city with what the state wants to accomplish, we'll end up back again wandering in the weeds and encountering roadblocks and really not getting anywhere.

And I agree with the statement.

If we get bogged down with thousands of details that frustrate what the state intended us to do, we won't accomplish what we need to do.

Now having Woodsonia privately own and develop develop the transformational project accomplishes another goal that I want to see, which is to complete the necessary agreements before the end of this month.

Now again, if we're going to complicate this by losing sight of what the State wants us to do, that may not happen.

For instance, Woodsonia is offered to pay a fair price for the land.

That's easy.

We can we can do a purchase agreement which completes the sale of the land in short order.

Now we have to move the fiber optic cable on that property, but we can do a purchase agreement that we would close with Woodsonia after the fiber optic cable is moved.

The City Council cannot vote tonight, but I want to present them with a final agreement where Woodsonia agrees to develop this project that we have discussed tonight.

And again, as I said, I want those agreements finalized by the end of this month.

I want to move fast for two reasons.

Three reasons actually.

Number one, we've wasted an awful lot of time wandering around in the weeds and running into roadblocks.

Second, I do not want the Nebraska legislature fiddling around with the good life district statutes during the next legislative session.

I don't want them even starting to think about fiddling around with the good life district statutes because we aren't moving fast enough.

Third, I do not want the governor's administration administration scraping back unused money that it pledged under the good life statutes in order to pay for budget shortfalls at the state level.

And that does happen if you pay attention to what state government does.

So time is of the essence.

That is why I want the agreements finalized for presentation to this council by the end of this month.

Completing the necessary agreements before the end of this month and getting them to council for its approval will secure our absolute right to proceed with the transformational projects, and then we won't have to worry about the Nebraska legislature fiddling around and changing the terms of the statute, or about the state attempting to scrape back money that we have not committed to be used for our good life district project.

I am so pleased that Woodsonia and Mr.

Seacrest brought forth a proposal that freed us from total deadlock, which is where we were.

Mr.

Sheard.

Well said.

My question for you on that is by the end of the month, do you want us to be able to vote on an MOU or their application?

I think if we keep this as a transformational project that is privately owned, the contract agreements will be quite simple.

And maybe I'm giving Mrs.

Fisk Heartburn, but I do believe if we just keep this privately owned as a private developer project, it will it will simplify the agreement so much.

And you can weigh in, Mrs.

Fisk if you want, but I don't think it will be near as complex as what we've been dealing with.

Not to, as my kids would say jinx things, but I would agree.

I I think the the Woodsonia team can tell you a lot of the superweeds about how to manage, you know, who gets to hire a sports complex manager, how many lanes of the swimming pool gonna have was where a lot of the time got spent.

If we're really just fundamentally talking about a land ordinance, land cell ordinance and a pledge of up to so much money and revenue to build these items, whole lot easier to do than if we're trying to negotiate um joint public private ownership of uh of a building and who pays what operational costs went.

So assuming this is the list of the the big huge things, pri purely private ownership, a lot easier to negotiate than uh messy hybrid.

Um I I think we could definitely get the land uh sales stuff back to you uh publication wise, we can't do it before the last meeting in in June, but we could definitely have that back there.

And I think if we keep it simple and everybody keeps the expectations very simple, and um we can have an agreement that is simple back to you by the end of June.

Whether you make the policy calls or not, you are whether you guys come back in later and complicate it is totally uh a different a different issue there.

But this basic skeleton of pledging that much revenue, yeah.

We can I mean keep it simple, stupid to quote my uh eighth grade uh English teacher.

Um first of all, thank you all for your good constructive comments.

I I can tell uh attitudes and spirits have changed on both sides.

Just as being in two meetings, uh it's been very fun to watch that process.

I do want to point out that successful as I one of the principles I mentioned at the very beginning is these have to be long-term agreements.

And so as a result, I believe all the components need to be outlined in the agreement.

I don't think you want to do one agreement and then three months later see.

No, it's a package for your protection as well as ours that you can say to the public, yes, here it is.

And we can say to our lenders and our investors, yes, here it is, but it won't be perfect because the world's gonna change on us.

And so part of the spirit here is to build trust to know that if there's something on your side five years from now, we're gonna be reasonable and vice versa along the way.

So uh I was planning to be on vacation for two weeks.

Uh so I would like to add at least two weeks to your uh schedule there.

But I I I appreciate the spirit and I think we can keep it simpler and get a lot, a lot, a lot done to the year goal.

But I do preach one agreement.

Thank you, everyone, for participating in our meeting.

We are adjourned.