Welcome to our meeting.

The date is June 23, 2026.

The time is 7 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.

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

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

Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

The City Clerk will now perform roll call.

Councilmember Sheard.

Present.

Councilmember Stelk.

Present.

Councilmember Conley.

Present.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Housey.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Council President O'Neill.

Present.

Council Member Pollock will be absent.

Councilmember Lanfair.

Respect.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

Also present are Jill Grenier, the city clerk.

Patrick Brown, the City Administrator.

Chelsea Steinkey, the finance director, Carrie Fisk, the City Attorney, and Keith Kurtz, the public works director.

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

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

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

Council member uh council members removed from our consent agenda tonight for additional consideration.

Are seven E F and N.

Do any of you want to remove other consent agenda items for additional consideration?

Hearing none, we shall continue.

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

If you did not sign up to speak on an agenda item, please come forward, state your name, and the agenda topic on which you will be speaking.

I'm going to join Mr.

Brown here.

I didn't get time here to sign up on the sheet.

Um, so thank you, Mayor.

Uh Jill add uh my comments on 9A, the name you rights for the Heartland Events Center, and then 11A, the ongoing continuation discussion of the good life tissue.

Thank you, Mayor Steele.

Hello, my name is Sochi Berhan.

I will be speaking on agenda eight A, I believe, for the rezoning of lots one, two, three, and four from McCoy Meadows subdivision.

Eight AB.

Eight B is lot.

Thank you.

No one else has asked to speak, so we shall continue.

The first item on our agenda is 6A, fiscal year 27, administration and finance budget proposal.

Mr.

Brown, good evening.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, council.

Real quick, this is starting on the budget season.

We're going to kick it off with the very easy ones.

Legislative and administrative department budgets.

So for administration, operating expenses decreased 2.3%.

It's $2,500.

Personnel is an increase of 24.9.

That is due to the split in personnel.

Actually, a lot of my wage was being paid out of finance, and so we're moving that back to administration.

Since we have Chelsea as our finance director, and so things will even upward October one.

Travel and training decreased by $2,600 on that.

Our legal department personnel expense increased 4.1%.

That intern adds around $10,000 to the budget.

So I would say with the internal just keeps people interested in in city city legal municipalities, making sure that you know that we keep attorneys available for our cities.

So it's it's a hard hard to uh hire.

Operating expenses decrease three percent.

That's four thousand two hundred dollars.

City clerk's office uh personnel increases five point seven.

That's due to step increases, and this number includes a three percent COLA.

This cola could change.

Um the colas that we have in three bargaining unit contracts, actually uh points to a certain uh CPI indicator, and we will have that indicator on July 1, that number as of last month or a couple weeks ago, that number was 4.6 percent.

So that's probably something council needs to wrestle with if the non-union keeps up with the union uh pay.

So this number could change.

Operating expenses uh decrease 23.2, $13,000.

Uh decreasing legal notices and decrease in travel and training.

Uh Sonia has earned her uh what is it?

CMC.

So her her schooling is is complete.

However, she'll still need to uh take on continuing to education.

City hall budget, personnel increases three and a half, uh four point or four thousand six hundred.

Again, this cola could change, it's and also a step increase.

We currently have a vacant position right there in our city hall.

We have uh two maintenance people and one position is vacant.

Operating expenses uh increases twelve point nine percent or thirty-two thousand.

Uh just increase in contract services.

A lot of we're gonna have to look at here in the near future replacing our HVAC here at City Hall.

So and that is it for that budget.

Any questions?

I don't see any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Brown.

Next up is 6B fiscal year 2027 human resource budget proposal.

Mr.

Schmidt.

Thank you.

Mayor Council.

So for our proposed budget, it's actually a reduction.

Uh overall budget uh reduction of 11.88 percent, approximately 112,000.

Uh personnel services down uh 11.53 percent, approximately 85,000, and operating expenses down 13.14 percent, approximately 27,000.

Uh no changes in staffing or capital requests.

Overall budget request 835,000.

Uh again, personnel down 11.5%, uh, no changes in our staffing levels.

The decrease is due to we had an employee retire.

There was a payout associated with that.

She was a top step person, and then the new person coming in would be at the introductory step, so there's some savings there.

As far as operating, uh again, down 13%.

The main change was uh some recruiting funds.

We we decrease those.

Um cost of uh recruiting, you know, some of the avenues we choose.

There's some cheaper options uh versus what we've historically done, and then also the departments pick up some of the expenses in recruiting too.

Again, no capital requests, uh nothing for projects or equipment.

We'll just keep focusing on our various areas we support, and I'll actually skip to the last one.

Uh just some things we have going on in the department.

Um we did a big HRAS payroll implement implementation uh between HR and finance.

That was a big lift.

Still working out the kinks of that, but um we're we're we're making progress.

Um changed insurance companies, so there were some compliance initiatives that went along with that that we've worked through, made some updates to civil service commission rules and regulations.

Uh right now, probably the biggest project we have is the IAFF labor negotiations.

I'll bring you a personnel rules and regulations update uh closer to budget time at the end of budget, and then going into next fiscal year.

Uh it'll be a lot of IBEW with the service clerical utilities and wastewater all coming up up that year.

Uh the intent is to try to combine those three uh contracts into one master service agreement.

Um so that'll be a fairly good sized project.

If there's any questions, there are no questions.

Thank you.

Motion is an order regarding the consent agenda with the exception of 7E F and N.

Mr.

O'Neal.

I move we approve the consent agenda uh with exceptions of items EF and N.

And Mr.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted consent agenda item 7E.

Approving interruptible service rate agreement with Fortitude Mining.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I got a couple slides I threw together just to give you some context.

So this is a picture of the facility as it stands now.

Um, it's located at the corner of Museum Drive and Swift Road.

Um the purpose of these slides is I want to differentiate between some of the data center topics you see in the news versus what we have going.

Um to use the word data center would be equivalent to saying all vehicles are the same from a semi down to a smart car.

So this is a slide that Spencer had, so I wanted to throw that up here, but a couple of quick facts.

This site uses no city water, it uses no groundwater, it discharges no wastewater, does not increase the peak energy obligations of the city, so it doesn't require new generation outbuild for this site.

Um residents or or rate payers are not paying any of the infrastructure connection costs.

That's all borne by the entity.

The noise is independently verified by a third party and contractually obligated to not increase the pre-existing noise from the post construction noise, and financial safeguards are in place, which include two times the monthly um bill for a deposit, and language in the lease agreement that basically stipulates if the entity were to skip town completely that the building would go back to the city.

Um so these are taken out of, I'll be honest, these are out of news articles online.

So don't take these for ground facts, but this is what's out there.

So a lot of the news that you see from Flatwater Press and stuff are based on these entities on the right side.

So let's compare those to Grand Island.

Our facility is gonna be 12 megawatt facility.

Comparatively, the one that you see in Lincoln when you go on I 80 is a 70 megawatt, and that's phase one.

So that has the potential for more phases.

That site is 580 acres.

Grand Island site is two thirds of an acre.

Another one over papillion, when fully built out, could be up to 320 acre or 320 megawatts.

That's an 800 acre site.

Again, ours is two thirds of an acre.

And then the last one, which has been in the news, which a state statute was actually pushed through this year to allow private entities to build generation on site for anything over a thousand megawatts, is one that has also been in the news, so I wanted to put that on there.

This one's theoretical at the time, but that's up to 3,000 megawatts down in southeast Nebraska.

So let's go down the list.

The one in Grand Island is fully interruptible.

What does that mean?

Well, that means that we can interrupt it so it doesn't push us to a new capacity requirement by the market.

And capacity is equivalent to how much generation you have to own and carry.

So we have to add no new generation.

The one in Lincoln I do not have any data on, but I can tell you Lincoln is already proposing new generation being built at the Bundy station to support load increasing in town.

The third one in Papillion, is that interruptible?

No, it's in the it's in the news.

In fact, that Facebook built 320 acres, uh, 320 megawatts of wind energy to support that facility.

And the last one is being talked about having generation on site, so that also is an interruptible.

Um site area.

So I already mentioned this, but ours is two thirds of an acre compared to a 580 acre site in Lincoln, 808 acre site in papillion.

And I will note that the papilion site is just one of many in the Omaha area.

This is one of the bigger ones I picked out.

And then the one that's talked to the mega one that's everybody's talking about, Tenasca in the news has 2600 acre options on acres in southeast Nebraska.

So just to give you context.

Let's go down water usage.

So Grand Island's water usage proposal, zero.

Um Lincoln, theirs has been in the news, so it's over 2,000 gallons a minute, which equates to 3 million gallons a day.

Um the Papillion one, that's also listed in the news articles, and that comes out to about 1.5 million gallons per day.

The one to Nask and Google hasn't been released yet, so that's unknown.

You can do your own math on scalability on that.

Um has no discharge.

It's in the news right now that Lincolns will discharge into Salt Creek via a three-mile-long wastewater line, 10 million dollar wastewater line.

Um papilion, I do not know the status of that, and obviously the other one's still theoretical.

The last item I'd like to point to is the sound, which is the noise.

Contractually, our site cannot increase the noise at any adjacent property line.

That's the agreement.

The reason we have two tonight is because the original lease agreement we put plug numbers into those noise thresholds.

We just did a third-party sound analysis of the site, which is in the council documents, and I have a couple slides here in a second, where the sound actually, the ambient pre-existing sound is actually higher due to the background sound from SWIFT than exists out there.

And this entity obviously cannot make sound quieter after construction than it already is.

So what part of this tonight is to equate that threshold to what was found in that test.

So just to give you some context, um, our test, so the column for Grand Island over here on the left is what was found during the analysis on site.

It was a 14-day sound analysis, and LEQ is basically the average reading is taking out the highs and the lows over 14 days.

Um at the north line, which I'll show you in a second, but that's the north property line, there was 57 decibels.

At the northwest reading, there was 66 decibels.

So to compare that in Lincoln, the sound threshold is 65 during the day and 55 at night.

Ours, I'm not gonna hit all these, but you can see on the right papilion, papilion 70, 55.

So basically ours are in line, if not lower in some areas, with the only slight one above Lincoln being that 66 because of ambient in the northwest.

So with that said, I'm gonna go down to the here, just give you context.

So these are where the readings were taken.

So T4 is the property line to the north, T5 is the location to the northwest, and all the others you can see around the site.

So to give you context of where those were were set, on the left is a site map.

The blue rough blue box there is where the building is located.

So you can see that even where these sound readings were taken, is still an additional 800 plus feet to the houses further to the north.

So this is the property line, not the back of the house that we're setting these at.

And so if they do not meet those, they're going to have to mitigate that or go offline.

That's contractual.

And we will take so they have within the agreement that you read through tonight, they have 60 days after the facility goes live to take another round of equivalent readings and verify that they're not bumping those up.

And so just to show you again, the top chart here was what was in the original land lease agreement.

Obviously, those are impossible to meet when you go out there due to the existing sound background from SWIFT operating.

And so what we will do is is propose to match those to what's existing out there.

And with that, um, I do have a representative from Fortitude on site who will operate the building and has the lease on the property.

And so with that, I'll take any questions.

Mr.

Brown, do you have a motion?

I move we approve 2026 TAC 156.

And Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

I think Mr.

Ozzy jumped ahead of me.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

So, Ryan, how much of a utility bill do you expect this uh operation to have in a year's time?

They anticipated bill should range in the four to four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month.

So your cost of service for this 450,000 a month is about how much?

Um that's a good question.

Um, because that's kind of a loaded question because a part of the bill is the demand charge, and so basically you're saying what's the value of the infrastructure being used, your substate, you know what I mean?

So part of what let me back into the other side.

What I'm trying to ask is we are we want them to be in Grand Island because they should be contributing to help everybody else in Grand Island.

How much are they expected to contribute above the cost that you have in engaged in in providing the service to them?

How much are they going to contribute to the electric users to help reduce our cost?

Well, they should the anticipated net income for let's just say the utility, not city hall, but the utility above the energy purchase price that costs us to purchase energy would be about a million dollars a year.

There'd be another around 250,000 to 290,000 a year in city hall revenue due to the city dividend fee and city sales tax that would come back there as well.

And then another component to that is they also pay a lease payment on the ground.

I believe it's eight around $18,000 with an escalator, and then just the value of dollar cost averaging power.

So a facility like this, which runs a consistent load around the clock.

For instance, in fiscal year 24-25, the price of power during the day on the wholesale market in Grand Island was around $25 a megawatt, and at night it was about 10.

So if you have a facility running around the clock, they help dollar cost average that, which helps everybody, because they also will pay into the power cost adjustment.

That's part of what they pay.

So we've done some numbers, I don't want to give false indications, but it should have a downward pressure on the power cost adjustment as well.

Okay, thank you, Ryan.

Yep.

Mr.

Nickerson.

Thank you, Ryan, for a very good comparison.

I've heard and seen a lot of ugly things on Facebook over the last few months, and a lot of them were geared around Grand Island, or at least generalized that they were assuming that this was the same as what some of your other items up there were.

And I expected really to see half of the chambers full tonight based on what I was reading, because it was let's go to City Hall, let's go to City Hall.

When's the next council meeting?

Well, this is an opportunity if they wanted to speak.

I'm hoping that they've been educated somewhere along the line based on very similar information what you've given us, or they just didn't care, but it was a hot button for a couple of weeks, and I was seeing a lot of ugly stuff.

What you showed us tonight really brings everything into perspective, and that's what we need to know.

That's what I need to know if it comes up again, because we're not comparing apples to apples here, and that's what's important.

And I think the next topic's going to be talking about decibels, so I can ask you that question when we get there.

But uh just appreciate you helping clarify a lot of this.

You went more in depth than what I thought you would, and I think that's exactly what we needed tonight.

And I want to add that as a municipality, we are more protected than like a Lincoln or Omaha.

To bring in a giant data center of the magnitudes I I showed you requires high voltage lines.

Our high voltage lines are 115 KV.

We would have to be much greater than that to support a load of that size.

So we're protected from that aspect.

Another aspect that prevents us from more of these coming in is the interruptible nature.

The more interruptible load you have, the more you have to interrupt that load to not push a new peak, right?

So that those two items combined limits the scope of this.

So Mr.

Brown.

Mainly the concerns that I was getting calls for was water usage and you know, discharge, which we have none.

So uh appreciate all your detail, Ryan.

Yeah, it's your comment, Doug.

Um we do there is another data center that's not ours on 60th road and capital, and that is in Southern Powers territory out there, and I believe it's about 14 megawatts.

We do they are connected to city water out there.

We were oblig obligated to serve and and so they do use a nominal amount, it's not an excessive amount, but I I want to differentiate between that facility and what we're doing here.

So Mr.

O'Neal.

Thanks for the presentation, Ryan.

I I remember we talked about a lot of this uh, I think a few months ago, too, and I've talked to you separately about this issue, and I've had a lot of people call me about it.

I've been trying to explain it as well, too.

This isn't your typical data center, it's a little bit smaller, it's not gonna have a lot of the other stuff out there, too.

Um, you know, the the data I've worked in technology for about 22 years, and the the uh growth you're seeing right now is completely unprecedented.

I've seen shortages before, but um memory prices from uh the fall have increased eight times uh to what they are today.

It is absolutely insane.

Um are you getting a lot of other requests uh coming in here for other data centers?

I I'm sure they come in, but I know a lot of cities are getting very defensive about them.

Could you maybe explain that at all?

Or they're they're where you get in trouble.

This is my this is my opinion now, where you get in trouble.

These is again water usage, that's a natural resource.

Um, if you if they're not interruptible, now you have to go build generation to support those.

And I I can tell you we've done uh a generation study in the last year, and the cost of generation has tripled in a year due to these entities buying up everything they can.

So now if your customer base is exposed to your utility having to go by large amounts of generation in it in a time where things have tripled in price, that's where your your rates get borne across all ratepayers, and you hear that disgruntlement.

So that that's the risk.

So it's the interruptible nature that protects you from that.

So basically, the market tells us we have to carry generation based on a multiplier of our peak city load.

So with this facility, what happens is when we get within their 12 megawatts of our peak city load, we take them offline, and and we can do that as many times as we need to.

And we've got and that's part of this process that we've worked with Fortitude, who's been great to work with on this.

Um we've we're ironing out those details as we speak.

It's a different type of billing we have to do, it's a different type of marketing we have to do, but MPPD has been doing it for a long time and many of the others.

So the interruptible nature is huge, the lack of water is huge, and the contractual obligation to not increase sound is huge.

Those to me check the boxes.

I appreciate the the defensiveness of that because it's if you have to have new generation, that's where the regular uh other ratepayers in town will be hurt.

And uh it's my understanding that generation costs have soared along with the memory prices as well.

So exactly.

I appreciate the defensiveness and caution there, so thank you.

Mr.

Stelk.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, thanks for the good report.

It was very informative.

Um question, your your your location of where you're putting it, it's kind of a small area.

It kind of looks like it's gonna lack uh expansion.

Or um, have you considered that?

And have you considered locating in other areas of the county like the Cornhusker Admin Nation Depot on that?

Um so the Cornusker site isn't in our territory, that would be in Southern Powers territory over there.

Power terror, as far as service, we don't serve the Cornusker site.

Um to be honest, that the size of this compared to our peak load is about as much as we want to do.

When you get much bigger than that, now we're gonna be interrupting you more frequently, right?

So that you don't set a new peak load for us.

So scalability is something I I also want to protect from, right?

So it's more I I personally feel like this is a good size, and and Ryan or with fortitude can attest.

We've had those conversations in and so how we came to two 12 megawatts is we're dedicating two figure feeders, and each feeder is capable of about five to seven, so six was a good spot.

So we're gonna dedicate two whole feeders.

Those are also the same two feeders that come off the solar farm.

So during the day, power will flow straight from the solar farm to that and not even tax the transformer to full capacity, like the load requires.

What what's gonna be your approach?

Like if the Amazon or somebody like that comes in and they want to build a big data center, you are you gonna shy away from that or so?

Number one, it would it's almost impossible for them to come to Grand Island and do that.

And the reason being Grand Island's peak all-time load is 174 megawatts.

So our transmission system isn't beefed up to add a hundred megawatts in one spot like that.

So if an entity like that wanted to locate in the area, they'd end up having to work with an MPPD because of the voltages required to serve something of that magnitude.

So yeah.

I I think that's kind of good that you're looking out for the taxpayer that we won't have a big burden expense on us with bonds and that to build one of those centers.

Yeah, this will cost our ratepayers nothing, no infrastructure costs, no subsidies, zero.

I like that approach.

Thank you.

Mr.

Neckerson.

Well, you touched on something wrong with this interruptibility, and from a business standpoint, if I'm fortitude, what's the risk that I have of being shut off in a normal given year?

Is there based on peak requirements of 174?

How often do we hit that 162, 163 to where now you're going to affect their business, and what does that do to them overall?

Well, running historical numbers, um 60 to 100 hours a year, maybe we'd have to interrupt them.

So the winter's got a different peak cap than the summer.

Um, and usually during those periods, the price of power is up too, so they also have an economic disincentive to operate during that time themselves because their business and Ryan could speak more on this than I can.

Um, dependent on the price of power, right?

So the more expensive power is on a day, the less economical it is for them to run.

So it kind of matches up.

So how not to get too far in the weeds, but how the process works is they give a price sensitive bid into the market.

Say if the pricing is within this threshold, tell us and we'll run.

If not, we don't want to run, and so that's a daily process.

If uh in our forecasting, if we deem we need them offline, we generate an email that goes to a few people on their side, and it sounds simplistic, but it works.

They've done it many different places, and that email they they take the unit off, and if they aren't off by that time, we have two reclosers that our dispatchers can operate, and with a push of the button, we can open the facility and take it offline if they don't interrupt.

And there are also penalties in that agreement for failure to interrupt that they'd have to pay that are significant, so they have incentives to follow through.

Well, I'm sure in your discussions, you talked about the probability of this happening, and it must be pretty low, or they would not have signed on because nobody wants to start a business that requires a lot of electricity only to be shut off once or twice unexpectedly every two weeks or something.

So you've talked through that.

I'm sure it just seems interesting that that 12 megawatt threshold is there, but it the question is how often do we hit that?

And sounds like it's not all that often, but there's a plan in place if we need it.

And and just out of curiosity, what's magical about 12?

Uh that's we dedicated two feeders, and each feeder is about six megawatt capacity.

So to give them two full feeders ended up with 12.

Okay.

Yep.

Very good.

Okay.

Excellent information.

And one thing I should add on the price of power is contractually, if power does go negative at times of the year because of incentives on wind that the federal government has.

It goes down as far as negative $36 a megawatt.

So contractually, if power goes negative, they they we the city recoupes the benefit of those negative prices, not fortitude.

So Fortitude can pay down the minimum is a dollar fifty, which is dollar fifty for losses in the line.

That's why that's in there.

And if power goes negative, that recoup goes back to the customer base as savings.

So motion adopted.

7F approving amendment number one to land lease agreement with Fortitude Mining.

Mr.

Schmidt's.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So this is kind of a duplicative conversation.

In September of 25 is when we passed the lease agreement for the property.

And in that lease agreement, as I showed on that last slide, we set requirements that are more restrictive than existing ambient.

So this would be an amendment to that lease agreement to change the restrictions to match the pre-existing ambient, which is the exact same language that is in that agreement that we just passed.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brown.

Move we approve 2026 TAC 156.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

Mr.

Nickerson discussion.

Yeah, my question on this basically is we've established what the ambient noise level is now.

And once they're online, then I'm assuming the technology is able to differentiate what they're generating versus the people next to them, because that's really what you're gonna be looking for here.

So this locations on the right side, Mitch in the red, those are the locations where they did the recordings the first time.

Right.

So they will go back out with the facility running and set do the same recordings a second time at the same locations and compare the pre-existing readings to the running the readings with the facility running.

And if those readings are higher with the facility running, then they have to mitigate their operation practices.

But the assumption is that they're generating that noise, and you're not making the assumption the other group might be making more noise than what they were.

So how do they how do they factor it?

If if there's if that's anticipated, you can always take the facility offline, take readings with the facility down to get a new baseline.

Um and in the contract by biannually, I think the requirement is to get new baselines.

So right now the first step would just be to see oh, because you've got to remember we're using a 14-day running average, is what we're doing.

So over 14 days, a lot of those highs and lows should average out process-wise.

Okay.

And I should I one other thing I forgot to add, but on the noise thing, we're actually more restrictive with our hours than Lincoln and Omaha.

So or Papillion.

Papillion and Lincoln classify night hours.

So the night hour threshold is lower than the day.

They classify night from 10 p.m.

to 7 a.m.

We're classifying night from 7 p.m.

to 7 a.m.

So we're actually more restrictive on what we deem night hours.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Consent agenda item 7N.

Approving change order number one for transfer station facility improvements.

Mr.

Kurtz.

Good evening.

Um as you see in your packet, uh construction on the transport station has been going.

We have ran into a couple things that we need to uh account for.

I kind of outlined them in the memo.

Um we we changed some overhead door specs, uh, we've added a north drive to the site.

We had a deduct for the scale system and roofing material changes.

Uh there was a code change recently in which uh we had to modify several items from the original bid that reflected uh the biggest part of this change.

Primarily we looked at backup power.

Um there's some piping changes.

We had to make some modifications to the existing pump and well on site, um, some electrical improvements to run that newer pump to meet the pressure requirements of the new fire code, and all of this is operated by automatic uh transfer switch.

So if we lose power, uh still have fire suppression uh capabilities.

Um so all of those changes result in a uh 200 and approximately a little under 263,000, and the new amended contract price is roughly uh 7.8 million dollars.

Thank you, Mr.

Kurtz.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

I move that we approve item 2026-165.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll second that motion.

Discussion, Mr.

Nickerson.

Thank you, Keith.

I did want to ask Jeff just an overall question.

I get him here like once or twice a year, so I have to take advantage of every opportunity I get.

Sure.

So overall, as I've driven by a few times on the way to the new trash or tree tree dump.

We talk about that too in a few seconds here.

But I see a lot of good things happening there.

I see a lot of concrete port.

I see kind of the generalized idea.

Just curious from your standpoint, someone that's out there all the time.

How are things going?

What are your feelings overall?

And just an overview of how everything's moving so far today.

Sure, yeah.

So uh contract was awarded for the transfer station upgrades last year.

They've been working uh since last fall.

Things are really progressing pretty well.

Uh we have an awful lot of our customers, especially the regular ones that come in and see what's going on, asking what's being built.

Uh very anxious for it to be done.

Uh not only for the bigger facility for unloading trash, but especially the new scale house with an inbound and outbound scale.

You can see that here in this left picture, and then the picture on the right is the actual new scale house office.

Um, these two pictures here are from the north looking south of the actual transfer station building itself where commercial haulers, garbage trucks, and then your regular uh residents will be unloading their trash.

Uh that's actually a uh from the from this vantage point, that's the the tall wall is actually where our semis will be pulling in essentially underneath the floor where everybody will be unloading.

So this this type of an operation is much more efficient, much quicker cycle times for loading our semis uh instead of picking it up essentially a loader bucket at a time, they're basically pushing everything over the floor into the pit directly into the trailer.

Um so at this point, we're hoping or they're expecting the project completion to be right after the first of the year.

I don't know if that'll happen.

Um ideally to me, if we could get in, start operating in the new facilities in February, March would probably be a good time frame.

Very good.

Is it affecting the current operation much at all?

Because all this is happening a little farther west of that, right?

You know, we've had some hiccups here and there uh was just some some small things going on.

Um, but no, for the most part with us building brand new entrance, new inbound and outbound scales, new scale house, and a new transfer station itself to the west and north of what we're where we've always been, essentially.

Uh that's been pretty much business as usual for us.

Um, you know, this spring there were you know, with everything going on, we had to have a little bit different location for the yard waste drop-off area, which was right in the heart of our operation along with the construction and everything else.

So, with that with the yard waste um disposal operation now, just three miles west of town.

It's alleviated some of the construction traffic stuff and the extra traffic stuff from customers with tree branches, limbs, grass leaves, all that kind of stuff.

So for the most part, we've gotten a lot of good feedback about this site, with like I said, which is three miles further west of town.

You know, for your average Grand Island resident, um, there's still a big learning curve.

We did a lot of social media stuff, put out press releases, letting it trying to let everybody know what was going on with the new location.

But like me and my staff have talked, you know, a lot of people don't see that stuff, and it'll probably be essentially maybe a year or two before people fully realize that they're not going to the old old spot instead of this new location.

So here you can just see some pictures out there at that new location, uh, three miles west of where we're at on Old Pot Ash.

Very good.

And we did have that uh a couple weeks ago, that uh storm event with some pretty significant winds and some tree uh branch damage, and it was honestly very nice with this new system and it being out there.

Uh they didn't need anything additional from us.

Obviously, they took in a whole bunch more traffic flow from people with their tree branches and moved on.

Yeah, it was pretty slick.

I was out there dumping stuff from that storm, and guess who pulls up next to me?

Former sheriff Jerry Watson is dumping stuff, then another police officer pulls up on the right side of me.

And so everybody's out there just having a great time getting rid of all this stuff.

But I've talked to the guys that are there on site too, and it appears they they're okay with what's going on.

They seem to think it's going well, I think for the most part.

Are you getting any kind of feedback?

The debris that we were getting out still is that an issue with them, or is that just now their problem to deal with?

Yeah, I talked to Andrew here a couple days ago, just kind of getting an update, and he is they will be putting up some better, more permanent um signage for people, which it obviously is still needed.

But he did say he did bent a little bit that they're getting some of what we used to get of blatant, obvious stuff that has no business being out there.

Uh, one customer literally drove through the gate on Saturday night to unload whatever they had.

Uh, so they had to take care of that, and then I guess they had a couple of customers literally trying to offload intact complete storage sheds.

So always gotta fight that.

Well, for anybody wondering, that truck is the landmark you're looking for on the left there.

Once you see that, you know you've arrived.

So just head north.

Kind of an interesting landmark to find.

But thank you for an update and glad on the progress that's going on.

Sure.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Public hearing eight a public hearing on acquisition of utility easement 2391 South North Road, Chief Industries Inc.

Mr.

Schmitz.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So this is to move uh an existing easement across chief property west of CNH.

Um, so what we'll do is abandon a overhead line that runs through the middle of the property, move it to the north and go underground.

So this is a 16-foot easement for that relocation.

Thank you.

Public hearing is now open.

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

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Mr.

O'Neal.

I move that we approve 2026-171.

Mr.

Landfear.

I secret.

Mr.

Nickerson, your light is on.

Do you wish to speak?

Do not any discussion from anyone else.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

8B public hearing to consider a change of zoning for lot one, two, three, and four of block one, McCoy Meadows subdivision from RD residential development zone to an amended RD residential development zone to allow for the development of either single family or duplex units.

Mr.

Nabity.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, the item before you this evening is four lots located on Ebony Lane, just north of State Street, part of the McCoy Meadows subdivision that was approved several years ago.

Everything to the east of this.

Um, well, if you go clear to the far east, it's Autumn Park Apartments.

This was originally planned to be an expansion of Autumn Park Apartments.

Um Autumn Park was done 30 years ago in 1996.

And there was the plan was that there would be two more phases of Autumn Park apartments.

I believe there's 144 units in that, so there would have been two more phases of 144 units each.

At that time, Ebony Lane was actually dedicated because it was a secondary way to get emergency vehicles in and out of the Autumn Park apartments.

There is a large storm ditch on state on the north side of um State Street, and they had to put a box culvert in.

They put the concrete pad in the street in at that point and dedicated some of the right of way to the very southwest corner of that site.

Over the years, council approved a number of amendments to that autumn park plan.

Eventually, the developers of that sold that property to Matt Thomas, who came in with McCoy Meadows and brought in a project to doplexes instead of apartments.

It was approved with 84 duplex, I believe 84 duplexes and four single family homes.

The four single family homes are on Ebony Lane.

That is the area that is being requested to be rezoned.

Did hold a public hearing on this.

We had a number of people there testifying.

And Planning Commission did recommend that council deny this application.

Those four single family units were they said that a finding that that was consistent with the neighborhood to the east to the west of this, and so they have recommended denial of this application.

In this particular case, it would be consistent with the comprehensive plan.

It would be consistent with everything except the plan that was approved, and what they're asking for is an amendment to that plan.

Thank you, Mr.

Navity.

Public hearing is now open.

Kevin Britton, would you like to speak?

My name's Kevin Britton.

I just leave live west of this.

I guess I have a problem with either single family or duplex.

That's how you zone stuff in the city of Grand Island.

You give them a choice?

That's question.

Yeah, go ahead.

Um, yes, that is how we do things in Grand Island.

Um we typically do a zoning district with a minimum lot size and a density requirement.

So in an R3 zone, minimum lot size is 6,000 square feet.

You need 3,000 square feet per dwelling unit, 3,000 square feet of property per dwelling unit.

You can build a duplex on that lot, or you can build single family.

When you get to an R4 zoning district, it is 42 units per acre.

So with a 6,000 square foot lot, you can build a six-plex, or you can build a three-plex or a four-plex or a single family home.

So, yes, that is okay.

So, right now it is considered single dwelling.

Those four lots were approved for a single dwelling on each lot.

So single.

So, but with this amendment, you're gonna give them the option.

Right.

And that's what they've asked for.

Okay.

So let me give you a little story.

15 years ago, I bought up a lot west of that.

I did ask about that empty area over there, and I was told that those four lots were buffer lots for the existing subdivision that grew.

If I would have known that this was the opportunity that was going to happen 15 years ago, I would have not spent the money to build that there.

So, in my opinion, why would we want to change what is already in the place?

And how does that protect any other developer in the city of Grand Island that across the street, somebody can just rezone whatever they want to put there?

So, like I say, 15 years ago, I was told there was going to be four single dwelling homes built there.

So I built mine across the street.

If I would have known that they were gonna put duplexes or an apartment behind me, I would have not spent the time and money to put that out there.

And I think a lot of other people in that subdivision would feel the same way.

So that's all I got to say.

Jason Clark, would you like to speak?

Mayor, Council.

Um I too own a home there in that subdivision uh along with Kevin and many of us there are the original homeowners.

Um we bought those lots roughly 15 years ago, built homes, and we still own them today.

Um my wife and I own multiple lots in that subdivision, and I I just can't understand how uh you know changing the plan for one owner uh next door um you know and how that might affect neighbors uh would be prudent.

Um you know some of the properties I own are empty lots.

Um we have you know plans of putting homes on those someday to uh concur with the uh the covenant and the plant the uh ongoing plans for that subdivision, but uh right now they're empty.

If this comes down to affordable housing, um you know I often thought maybe I should just put an R V park on those empty lots, but the reason I don't is because I respect my neighbors, you know, I respect the investment they made, and uh would just like to keep the the synergy going the way it is.

So thank you.

Ma'am, you can come up and speak if you can spell your name for me as well.

My first name is XO CHILT last name Verhan, Vies and Victor, E R J A N You Can Go Ahead, sorry.

Okay.

Uh well thank you for taking the time this evening to hear our proposal.

Um we are requesting approval to build one duplex on each lot located on Ebony Lane.

Each duplex will consist of uh two five-bedroom unit with three bedrooms on the upper level and two bedrooms on the lower level.

Every unit will include an attached two-car garage and a driveway with space for up to two additional vehicles.

We understand the importance of preserving the character and appearance of the neighborhood.

For that reason, these duplexes will be constructed using a similar architectural style, exterior materials, and overall design as the homes and duplexes that are already located nearby.

Our goal is for these homes to blend naturally into the neighborhood and complement the existing development rather than appear out of place.

Due to the continued rise in construction costs, it is currently difficult to develop single family homes at a price point that is financially feasible.

Building duplexes allows us to make efficient use of the property while still providing quality housing that fits within the character of the neighborhood.

This approach helps keep housing attainable while ensuring the project remains economically viable, viable.

I would also like to address a few concerns that um are arising regarding the proposal, which uh I know was in the last meeting parking, and as I had mentioned before, we will be providing a two-car garage and a driveway capable of accommodating two additional vehicles.

This provides ample off-street parking and should minimize any impact on neighboring properties.

Second, these duplexes will be owned, occupied, and managed by my sisters and I because we will be directly involved with the properties.

We have a strong personal interest in maintaining them, keep them keeping them attractive, and ensuring they remain a positive addition to the neighborhood.

We will not be absentee owners.

We will be present, invested, and attentive to the community.

Additionally, this proposal is not introducing a new type of development to the area.

Similar duplexes already exist nearby, and this project simply continues a housing style that has already been established within the community.

Most importantly, this project helps provide additional housing opportunities while maintaining the character of the neighborhood.

We care about this community because it is our community as well.

Our goal is to build homes that we would be proud of, proud to live in ourselves, and that will continue that will contribute positively to the neighborhood for many years to come.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and opportunity to speak this evening.

I will try to answer any questions best to my knowledge.

They may have questions after they make a motion.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

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

If not, public hearing is now closed.

First item is is there a motion to suspend the statutory rules regarding ordinance number 10,078.

Mr.

Hossee.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move to uh motion to suspend the rules.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I second that motion.

Any discussion.

Mr.

Hossee.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Now on the merits of ordinance number 10,078.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

On ordinance number 10,078.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I second Mr.

Hossey's motion.

Discussion, Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

The uh RD zone, as it's already approved, uh, allows for the single family dwellings to be built.

And there's four lots there, so I think everybody for quite a while is anticipated four single family dwellings to be built there.

That's just one of the in this RD zone, it starts back with the Autumn Park apartments.

And so it starts with commercial on the east end, and then it comes to the Autumn Park apartments, and it comes to the duplexes, and then it comes to these single these four single family homes as a buffer to where you get to these other larger lots, a residential that have to have testified in front of us tonight.

You know, and so by approving this, you're going to remove the buffer.

And I think that's not what the intent of the RD zone was ever originally.

You want to have that buffer in there.

Um they don't need council action to put in a single family home, they need council action to increase the density.

And so the request from the owner was to increase the density.

I've driven back there, and these duplexes that are existing now, there's uh and then when they're back to back, there's only 10 feet backyards.

So the when the two duplexes are back to back, there's only about 20 feet from your back door to their back door, and there's a drainage ditch that runs down the middle, so your backyard is literally about one mower, just one trail or the mower, and then the rest is all sloping down for the drainage.

So there's not much of a backyard.

These are the duplexes all seem to be fairly nice duplexes, but they're put on really small lots, and there's no there's not a lot of room.

And so the RD zone, this was the plan all along, uh, including the single families that are there.

If these duplexes that have been proposed, they're five bedrooms on each side.

So now we have on one lot ten bedrooms.

So if this is going to be used for families, then there's not enough room for kids to play.

This is just the wrong area.

This is not the right land use, and I think that's what the Regional Planning Commission agreed.

They unanimously, and I don't think I've ever shown unanimously deny a request before, but they unanimously denied, and their job is to look at the land use.

So the five-bedroom duplexes, none of the other duplexes to me look to be five-bedroom, but I didn't go and research them all.

This changes what is a single family to a 10 bedrooms in each one of those lots.

If it's for individual adults, there is not enough parking.

If you put 10 people in those 10 bedrooms and you have 10 cars, even with the driveway that the owner was talking about, there's not enough room for 10 cars unless you're parking on Ebony.

Ebony is is in the regional planning commission, and I'm the council member assigned the regional planning commission.

There was testimony in the regional planning about the traffic concerns, particularly in the morning from seven to nine, whatever that time frame was, and in the evening.

There's a lot of traffic coming out of there.

And the road that goes to Autumn Park apartments, there's a gate.

You can't get through that gate to go to the city's roundabout.

You have to all come out onto Ebony.

So everybody is forced to come out onto Ebony, and what I saw with there was just a lot of congestion for you know for those morning hours, and to put this many more residences right in the middle of Ebony was just an it just doesn't appear to be an appropriate use in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

It it actually is changing the context of the single family homes that have been there.

Um I don't think the buffer needs to be removed.

I want to support the the regional planning's uh unanimous denial, and that's what I want to bring forward, and it's just too much in this location.

Mr.

Nickerson I spent quite a bit of time driving around there this afternoon again trying to get a feel for it, and like Mr.

Hawsey, I I think I need to really uphold the decision of the planning commission on this, and Chuck's already stated the things that really support that, and that is that it was designed this way for a purpose, and it is to create that buffer, and I think we need to be consistent with that.

So I'm I support it.

I too will be denying this tonight, this request.

I talked to Mr.

Nabity about, you know, as I drove through it today, they've got town homes on that side of the street, and I asked Chad is would town homes be possible on this.

And I asked Chad, is would town homes be possible on this?

They don't, I don't know, even sure they have basements on those town homes.

What was your response to that?

They could, but you didn't think it would fit right.

They could potentially do town homes, but if you look at the town home lots to the north of this, they are much narrower than these.

And while they could build zero property line with one unit on each lot, and actually the north lot, there's an easement with a sewer line, so they can't even do that.

They could only do that on southern two lots.

Um they could that's still only one dwelling unit per lot.

Right.

So that doesn't change the density at all.

It just changes the look of how it presents itself.

But these lots are substantially wider and have more street frontage than the lots that are to the north of these.

So you would just have wider side lots or something that needs to kind of push the houses out farther to take up that space.

Exactly.

Okay.

It's an option, but it again from a cost for the two north lots.

And I when we talked earlier, I had forgotten there's a sewer line and an easement that runs right along those lot lines, so you can't build over that sewer line.

Okay.

So it may not be the ideal solution, but I'm just gonna support the fact that I think 10 units with two duplexes is is probably too much in that area, and it takes away the aesthetics and I think the original design, and there's a reason why things are zoned the way that they are initially.

That doesn't mean we can't come back and ask, but in this situation, I don't see where that's going to be a good fit for apartments.

I sure don't want to discourage you from your development because you're doing exactly what we want, and that's to get some multi-family housing here.

This just doesn't seem to be a good fit as far as I'm concerned, and I really will support the planning commission on this, but I appreciate you being here tonight to share your thoughts with us.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I live right out there.

Um, so I'm by there all the time.

Can you have a question for you?

How long have you owned this property?

Uh a little over a year now.

Was it your plan to do this from the beginning, or were you planning on the Yes?

It was our plan to do duplexes from the beginning.

We were aware when we bought it that they were zoned as single family homes, and we just hoped for the best and bought them anyways, and we're taking it day by day, and we did the rezoning fee and paid for it, and we're just hoping that the city would agree.

Yeah, I see Ebony Lane.

I see the traffic out there every day.

I'm you know, I I just looking at the satellite image again, just looking at it.

Uh I'm with these guys.

I I can't see us adding duplexes there on Ebony Lane with that.

I and I I appreciate the folks that spoke tonight for that reason.

Um I don't know what to tell you about it otherwise because I I you know I don't know what the better solution would have been, but that's a risk to do it.

And I'm with Mitch.

I I hope you continue to find development.

We need this type of development somewhere.

I just don't think that location where it funnels is a good a good spot for it.

And again, I'll I'll support the regional planning commission.

So thank you for being here though.

Please vote motion to deny adopted.

That's why I would pause because I like why do we only have eight?

Public hearing AC.

Public hearing on request from Sasha Miller for a conditional use permit located at 6610 St.

Car St.

Paul Road to maintain and occupy the existing manufactured home as a temporary residence, while a new modular home is installed and completed on a permanent foundation.

The manufactured home will be removed from the foundation and sold after the new home is completed and ready for occupancy.

Mr.

Moxie, please proceed.

Good evening.

Um before you deny is a condition of use permit application.

Um the applicant is requesting to utilize the existing house that they have while constructing a new home.

As presented, the application would expire roughly within a year.

Um the applicant would then have the opportunity to build their house.

Public hearing is now open.

Sasha Miller, did you want to speak, or just if they had questions?

Yeah, just if there's any questions.

Okay.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

A motion, council.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we approve 2026-172.

Mr.

Lanfear.

Second.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

8D public hearing on acquisition of permanent easements for State Street Deers Avenue improvements.

Mr.

Kurtz.

Yes, uh, this is for a couple more uh permanent easements that are required for the current uh state street project.

Public hearing is now open.

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

If not, public hearing is now closed.

And a motion, council.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we approve 2026-173.

Mr.

Lanfear.

I'm secret.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

A E.

Public hearing on acquisition of ingress egress easement in the west half, northeast quarter of section 5, Township 10 North, Range 9 West, Iron Drive.

Mr.

Kurtz.

Yes, uh, so uh out at the uh Platte Valley Industrial Park, uh there is uh potential development in this area just um south of Shimmer Drive.

Uh the existing street is currently in uh not quite to the end of the lots that are existing out there, and the the request has been made, which is coming up in a different item to vacate the right-away and move that temporary uh turnaround which is needed for fire code down to the south of south of the the property line so that these uh lots can be fully developed.

Uh there's also plan six stand iron drive to the end of the property as well at that time.

So this item is acquiring a uh ingress egress uh easement down here to the bottom side of this property line, such that that temporary turnaround could be moved south uh to allow for uh this development.

Public hearing is now open.

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

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Motion council, Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we approve 2026-174.

Mr.

Lanfear.

I second.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Resolution 9A approving of naming rights agreement with Heartland Events Center.

Mr.

Tarwater, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Steele.

Please tell us about this.

Um, it's always an honor to come and speak to everybody here at the council and tell you what we're doing at the event center with your event center.

And uh, I'm pretty excited tonight to talk with you about uh the partnership agreement that we verbally reached and uh hope to ratify um with uh Big Iron Event Center, changing the name from Heartland Event Center to the Big Iron Event Center, which will equate to about roughly 1.5 million dollars over the course of the next 11 years.

Um and I'm here to ask for your approval of that partnership.

Thank you.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we approve 2026-175.

We have people who want to speak on this.

Yeah, Jay, would you like to speak?

I would thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

And uh right away I knew probably regardless of what I was gonna speak, there would probably be a motion to approve.

But nonetheless, wanted to go ahead and give some input on this item because I think while I can appreciate the desire to go ahead and have more revenue for the event center, and Kyle and I've worked with Kyler on a number of different things, and and he can solicit banners and signage and sponsorships and suites and so forth.

But I think when a third party operator that's under a contract with the City Grand Island of a 50 million dollar facility really needs to be treated a little bit differently.

And I say that in that when you talk about the fact that I have been out of city government for a period of time, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I don't know if we've ever had uh the cities ever adopted a naming rights policy on public facilities.

Maybe it has.

Okay.

Without a naming rights policy, I think then this we need to rethink this because I think taxpayers can do better if you were to go ahead and solicit a request for proposals, have it open for anyone in our community to bid on, just like any other thing within the city.

I don't know the venue work solicitation efforts if it just picked up the phone and said, Hey, big iron, do you want to go ahead and sponsor this or not?

But when I look at other benefactors of prestigious firms in our community, I've got to believe that a number of people would be interested in investing $11,000 a month in exchange for recognition of having their name associated with the Heartland Event Center.

And I say that, what's the value in a name?

I mean, it's priceless, and when you look at the different things that we have in Grand Island, longstanding monumental, recognizable facilities.

The Heartland Event Center is very unique.

Not only did it go ahead and occur with two unsuccessful ballot issues, but was largely funded by contributors, and now the city owns it.

Now, where I'm going with that is what I don't know to what extent other firms in Grand Island would be more better, provide more than a company that just sold and was purchased by a big conglomerate listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

And when RB Global purchased Big Iron, they paid Big Iron $350 million, and this is $440,000 a year.

So when I go down that road, I don't know if people really wanted to go ahead and have a facility that would be leveraged to try to go ahead and promote U.S.

agriculture for a company like RB Global.

So no disrespect to Big Iron.

It has been a traditional agricultural stalwart in Nebraska, but it's not owned anymore, it's owned by another subsidiary.

So without a naming rights policy, I don't know if other firms uh had an opportunity to go ahead and even offer a bid.

And if they did, I think like if we were to go ahead and market the Heartland Public Shooting Park or an operator say, hey, we're gonna change Jackrabbit Run, we're gonna go ahead and uh change Ellie Ray, we're gonna have Ryder Park change its name, those funds would come back to taxpayers, they wouldn't go to an operator.

The memo before you says that the funding would go into an operations fund, but when you look at this agreement, it says the money each year will go to the operator.

So you're gonna have 140,000 a year going to an operator that's working on contract with our city, is already getting 500,000 in lodging.

And if you're getting $650,000 a year, I would hate to have us create a lack of incentive to have that facility successful.

But when it can go to operations or management or any number of different things, I think taxpayers ought to be made whole, and taxpayers ought to receive any money for an Amy rights of a public facility that the city owns.

So I'm not gonna quarrel with venue works efforts to raise money, but doggone it, those dollars ought to come back to taxpayers.

And however you want to invest those, but I guarantee almost guarantee you probably venue works or any other operator would be here a year from now and saying, Hey, where's the $500,000 in lodging taxes?

I guarantee it would almost guarantee you that.

So I'm going with finally in this is and no one's here from Big Iron, so the co-founder, his name is Ron Stock, he's not here.

The CEO for RJ Global, his name's Jim Kessler.

His compensation last year was 21 million dollars.

21 million.

I don't see him here.

So when you go down to this pond, I'd I would hate to have this be construed to be able to market a firm that's not here in Grand Island, where other people haven't had the opportunity to even bid on or to even know about it.

And no one's here tonight with any issues on this other than my personal feelings on this, because I go back from the development of this and have held many different events there to date.

So I would say hold off on this, rethink this, because without a naming rights policy, to what degree are we going to go ahead and consider selling anything for a name?

And I think the Heartland Event Center is not for sale.

And when I got home tonight and I happened to see a utility notice, the best name we can have on that is City Grand Island.

City Grand Island, Heartland Event Center.

Take pride in that name, take pride in that facility.

It's not for sale.

And we don't need the 140,000, in my estimation.

But that's your call.

So I just raise those concerns, knowing that once again, I appreciate the opportunity for bolstering revenue at that event center.

But I think when you name a building 20 years later, is one thing.

If it didn't have a name, sure.

Consider it.

But I think you all would go ahead and have a sound open process, a request for proposals, either accept or reject all bids, and then make a decision that you would would uh ask the mayor to sign.

But with respect to taxpayers, no, I don't think this is the right approach, and I think they better be better served so long as the money comes back to the city and taxpayers.

Thank you.

Mr.

Tarwater, do you wish to uh respond?

Um a naming rights uh is is in line with any kind of partnership or sponsorship agreement that comes into play at any event center from California to New York, it's a standard policy to try to raise those funds to basically actually it's not money that goes in the pocket of the company like ours, VenueWorks, it's an actual direct impact to taxpayer spend.

It should reduce the number of dollars that taxpayers are having to spend on the building, not just with the naming rights of the building, but also with every other sponsorship we get.

You've probably been in the building and seen the CHI health sign that's on the wall.

Those are things that help generate funds.

We haven't spent a whole lot of time on generating those sponsorship funds, but it's a core element of our business to try to bring down those taxpayer dollars going to help support the operation of the building.

Um so this is a first step, hopefully, of many more dollars coming in.

And I'll give you a quick example.

Um, in Topeka Kansas, my last building, um, it was 1.6 million dollars annually that taxpayers had to pay to the um Kansas Expo Center to uh to keep the building running every year.

After our first 18 months, we reduced that down to $600,000 per year.

So a reduction of almost a million dollars, all of that, all of which at that time was based on sponsorship dollars.

We named it the box office, the um the um I can't remember the name of it right now.

Um, but it was a jump kind of like trampoline, the trampoline park we have here in Grand Island.

Um they have the same thing there.

We named the box office the sky zone, that's it, the sky zone box office.

So what it gets them is a little advertising on the box office and some recognition when we do things, but they pay us $42,000 a year to have their name on the box office.

Um, the Heartland Event Center is grounded in Grand Island, it always has been.

Um, but there's also you know, dozens of Heartland events, Heartland-based naming within the community.

Heartland Optical, I I can't name them all, but um it's it's it's a relative generic name that we've owned for quite a while, but there's nothing truly unique about it other than it's part of our community and part of our um our standing.

But right now we have an opportunity to get um corporate dollars applied towards the Heartland Event Center that actually can help us with our overall taxpayer spend, and it's something that we is a is a core part of our program with the city and built into our contract to be able to raise sponsorship dollars to help reduce that taxpayer spend.

So um, I know that Jay has a uh he is largely responsible for having uh the Heartland Event Center here.

He has his hand in it from the beginning.

Um, I appreciate his his heart for it, and he and I have become pretty good friends, so I understand where he's coming from.

Um, but this is certainly a core element that was built into our city contract to raise these sponsorship dollars and help offset some of that taxpayer spend.

To the point that uh there should be a search to see if there are other interested parties.

Did you do that?

You can.

Here's the challenge with partnerships, sponsorships.

Um you have to find the right timing of the right corporation that wants to invest that those kind of dollars.

Sometimes it does come on the heels of something else, in this case being sold to RB Global.

Um, that's an investment opportunity.

There's a little window to where somebody says, yes, this is a good time for us to have that extra pop of PR within the community.

The timing's good for it.

To find those sort of corporations willing to spend those sort of large long-term dollars is very difficult.

Um strike while the iron is hot is something that is pretty typical in partnerships.

When you get someone excited about having their name on the building or their name on the box office, or even just a sign in the building, if you delay that for two or three months, some of that energy starts to disappear, and you can actually lose the deal.

Is pretty much talking to people and uh just dropping little hints and notes about how they'd like to promote their company and how we might partner to bring their their brand into our building.

You listen for key indicators on on what level of commitment they're looking to do.

It's very hard to find a naming right partner willing to drop a hundred grand just to have their advertised name on the building.

They get nothing special from it except for the promotional element that comes along with it.

Um so finding those clients is very difficult to do.

When you get one that's hungry and and into it, it is it is like a gold element.

Um and the first company that I actually pitched it to, um, which is a Grand Island, uh another Grand Island Corporation, um, came back and offered $50,000 for the naming rights.

So the bar was fairly low as far as what we were seeing in Grand Island at the level of commitment that they were willing to go.

Um, so I was pitching it at $200,000, hoping to get to $150.

Um, I was advised that if we got a hundred thousand dollars out of it, that's probably on par with the size of community that we are.

So $140,000 is pretty significant for a town of our size.

Mayor, uh, may I respond?

Thank you.

Thank you, Clay.

The thing is, if you don't ask, you don't know.

And I've seen the philanthropy and enthusiasm of local firms far surpass even what some of us would have guessed.

And when you're in sales, you never want to assume, you know, because it makes anyway.

I think you know what I'm gonna say.

You you never can assume.

You need to at least ask.

What's the what's the harm of asking?

Number two, criteria.

I don't know, I might say it's worth 200,000, 500,000.

I don't know.

But that's a question the state fair uh is asking them right now.

They have an analytics form that analyzes and determines the marketing of each different element that they may want to offer for sponsorship.

I don't know if there's any criteria that's been ever used to determine how this naming rights would be even speculated.

So if you want to have the analytic review of the state fair analysts do that, then at least it would give it a ballpark of what we're talking about.

So without a criteria, without a naming rights, but here's the other thing, and I don't begrudge venue works, but I just go back to statements that were made here in October a year and a half ago.

The folks that came here said that they would double or triple the revenues of the event center, and that's great.

We want success, you want an incentive to exceed, but where I'm going with it, a public facility is a little different than a banner or an arena sign.

I mean, doggone it, we're not gonna change rider park.

But if if you have someone to change the Heartland Event Center or the Heartland Public Union Park, can we do that?

Can we do Jack Rabbit Run?

Can we all the change be changed?

I I just don't think I think we need to rethink this whole thing and come up with a policy, a criteria of what it might be worth, and then ask.

The worst they can do is go ahead and come back to a deal that you've already maybe struck with somebody that just earned 350 million dollars from selling their company.

Thank you, Mayor Steele.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move we approve 2026-175.

Mr.

Sheard.

I'll second that discussion, Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is uh as I looked at this, and I'm not been I've not been fond of it, and I'll kind of go through.

I my first question is maybe to legal, but I don't think that the building naming rights is the same as the CHI banner insight.

I they're different.

You know, and I think that the we have not given away the building naming rights before, and we've had major donors.

But in our venue works contract, we have a contract with venue works to operate the facility for a particular period of time.

Did we give in that contract the authority for venue works to negotiate on behalf of the city the naming rights contract that is in front of us tonight?

Did they have the express specifically granted authority in their contract to do this?

Yes, subject to your approval that's before you today.

So when I look at, and I think Mayor Baverchak is exactly right, is we have had this conversation about naming rights quite a bit of time on the council, and we've never come up with a policy.

When the utility department was building a new water tower, we had conversations at this council agenda that do we put somebody's name on the tower?

You know, is that what we do?

And we've never come up with one.

I think Mayor Vaberchak was exactly correct about where where do we start, where do we stop, and you know, from the shooting park to Jack Rabbit Run to water tower to the water park.

Uh we don't have that naming rights policy, and I think we do need it.

Because I think there is a due diligence piece that the council needs to go through, or at least be aware of what's gone through by somebody else.

And right now I'm unaware of the process and procedure that we have gone through to get to this point.

You know, I I go back 20 years ago when this facility was built, and there was a couple of major donors, but they were more philanthropic than naming rights things, because we were trying to build this facility.

We were trying to come up with the money from the public to build this facility.

So I think from numbers that I've been able to scrounge around and look up, um we have the Bosselman Conference Center, and I think they paid 1.3 million or approximately that 20 years ago in 2006.

But again, these were philanthropic contributions to build the facility, not what we're kind of not what we're doing today, but they're still got names in them.

Uh the IHUSEN Arena, I think they came up with 1.6 million dollars 20 some years ago, and this was Virgil I Hughes's, I think it was his philanthropic desire to be a part of this.

So I think there were people that were in the community that wanted to donate to make this building happen.

Even my family has a name because we bought a seat.

I mean, this was something in the community that everybody was trying to how do we build it and where do we come up with the funds?

And so Chuck and Joyce have a seat.

We don't really have a seat, but you know, I mean, in theory, we bought a seat.

Um, but that's what was going on then.

You know, I I go back to the TD Ameritrade, and now it's now Charles Schwab.

Their 20-year contract ends in 2029.

I would really love to know what their contract is going to be.

Right now, it started 17 years ago as TD Ameritrade at 750,000 a year with a 3% escalator.

Every year it went up 3%.

I think it's over a million dollars now a year.

And that's what they're coming up with for Charles Schwab Field.

Now we just got done with the college baseball world series, and wasn't that an awesome event?

You know, and so it was a great thing for a short period of time, but other than there, what do you got?

Creighton playing?

I mean, you've got other events, but not any big events there.

So I don't know what the value is.

I just don't know enough to say yes, I agree or no, I don't, I don't know enough.

And I know that we've had this conversation about naming rights policies.

We just haven't got there yet.

And when this was first introduced, it was introduced to the council is like we we've got this naming rights thing.

And I'm like, well, what's our role?

In the first 20 years, it was Fawner Park who was the operator.

You know, and they had a 20-year to operate it.

I'm not in favor of it, not because I don't well, first of all, the 140,000 dollars a year, I don't think is sufficient.

I don't think it's a big enough number.

And then the second thing in the first year, they're pulling 50,000 of that, 40,000 to put the name on the building, and 10,000 to put the names inside the building, and like so the city gets 90,000.

We got a 200 million dollar budget going on here.

I quite frankly, it's such small potatoes.

I don't know that I would create a precedent, a precedent act today for $90,000 in the first year.

For me, it's it's it may be a good deal.

I just don't know enough about it.

I haven't been involved about it.

I think the council needs to do a little more due diligence with before you approve this thing and create a precedence that we've never had before.

I think we have to have the conversation, but tonight's not it.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Uh come up.

Uh I have some questions.

I agree with Chuck that uh the process for a naming rights.

I would think that we do need to come up with something probably standardized.

Um but I want to talk through the value.

Where you because you said you started with 200,000 a year, and you thought if you got 100, that would be good.

Where did that come from?

Inherent knowledge to a degree, some knowledge of what I know from the numbers that uh I've come from other buildings.

Um, knowing what um some of these state fair buildings, those naming rights, you know, from Aurora Co-op to JBS, some of those numbers, I know what those numbers are in the range of, and this is much higher than those.

Um, but I'll also want to point out too you know, as Chuck talked about the philanthropic um efforts of of Bosselman and and um iHusin, critical.

But if you put those numbers just into a spreadsheet of 1.5 million dollars for iHusin to help build the building, now spread out over 20 years, is half the amount of money that we're getting for this deal.

In 11 years from now, we can actually come back and sign it once inflation has happened over the course of 11 years.

This sponsorship might be 250 grand or 300 grand.

The iHues and now every year the value of the high husin investment goes down.

Same with Bosselin.

Um this is an opportunity to create revenue that actually is it is a philanthropic effort, even though it's coming through a corporation.

That's what they're doing.

They are giving back to the community, they're being a part of it, and yes, they are capitalizing on the fact that it does help with their notoriety and their their brand awareness.

But the value of this is actually stronger than the two that you mentioned just because it's a limited time frame.

And I have seen um partnership deals where they give somebody the naming rights to it in perpetuity, which is the worst deal on the planet for anybody except for that company because the value goes down every year.

This is a solid number that's much higher than what we anticipated that it could be.

Um and this is VenueWorks manages 30 to 40 buildings and all of them work to get naming rights.

This is one of the largest ones that we have.

Um the largest one that I have ever done was 200,000 for the Storm Mont Vale Event Center in Topeka.

Um and to the point of the signage, um, taking out the 50 grand.

Part of the reason we do that is the sign that we put up in Topeka, Kansas, was 180,000 for one sign on the outside of the building.

So to apply 40,000 of this first year towards that, it could end up costing them another 100 grand just to get their signs up on the building.

It's big iron's um intent to put three signs up on the south side, the south, north, and west side of the building.

So once again, the recognition is strong and adds a new element to the building.

Um back in the 80s, it was it was kind of a faux pas to have branding inside a building.

But they figured out over the course of time it actually adds to the energy and and um excitement of a building.

If it's just bland, it feels somewhat bland.

But when you start seeing some of these properly placed um partnerships, it actually adds to the overall value and appeal and feel of the building.

So uh you said you talked to somebody local and and they came in lower.

Uh what was that process like?

Did you just hand select somebody to say, hey, I'm gonna call up the buddy, call up Jack, say, hey, is Idea Bank interested?

No.

How did you do that?

Well, you know, in in sales, and and I'm in a role that typically is is occupied by someone that comes up through operations.

That's not my background.

My background is sales and marketing.

And um over the course of my career I've learned how to maximize the dollars I can get for a sale.

It's like selling a house.

If you listen for 200 and you sell it for 190, you're pretty happy with that typically.

Well, maybe not in today's market.

Um, but that's part of the the sale element too.

200 would be the if I would have gotten an offer for 200 grand, I would have I would have literally I would have been jumping and screaming and celebrating.

Um it is a little strong for the market size that we are.

Speak of the much bigger market, so to get 200,000 there out of a localized um private hospital that's the largest private hospital in the nation, it was a big victory, and it all it fit the entire environment.

This particular deal here is stronger than I I would venture to guess it's stronger than most naming rights agreements in town.

Um I don't know that for certain, but I would venture to guess it is by by a sizable margin.

Um again, that first person I went to to answer your question.

Um I went to them because I thought it was the best fit for the naming rights.

Um I don't just kind of I won't take any dollar.

I'm not looking for any dollar just to put a name on the building.

I'm looking for the right dollar.

Um I don't believe in just slapping up a sign and selling advertising because I don't think that's a good benefit to the corporation that's actually buying that sign.

I think it needs to be tied into the business somehow.

Big iron is an industrial agricultural um Nebraska-grown company.

It it fits the Heartland feel that we have at the Heartland Events Center.

But the first one I went after, and I don't want to say who it is because I don't want to cause any sort of uh embarrassment or controversy, but it was one when I looked around the city and thought this is the best opportunity that feeds into the branding and also the the cohesive interaction between the two companies and what we do and what they do, it was the most ideal candidate.

So I went to them and I actually told them exactly that.

I think you're it's a no-brainer for you to be the partner here and name the building.

They agreed.

It fit the context and their offer.

I laid out my $200,000 proposal and they came back with $50,000, which is well beyond, uh well below what it needs to be for this kind of thing.

And I told them that.

So at this point, I've been talking to several um different um sponsors trying to sell different sponsorships and different opportunities to people, just just subtly here and there.

And when this company, when Big Iron found out that um this other person turned it down, they said, we'd like to talk about it.

And I said, okay.

So I didn't go and find them and say, hey, I want you to be the naming rights because you're my friend or I like your company.

It was a discussion that came up.

We were working on some partnership arrangements, maybe something smaller, you know, something within the building.

And when they found out this other company turned it down, and I openly have told everybody that I was working with this other company to try to get them because I thought it was the best fit.

Um, as soon as they walked away from the deal, um, Big Iron jumped in and said, We'd like to talk about it.

Um they did negotiate down, um, but 150 was my target, um, so I felt pretty comfortable with 140.

Um, and um again, if we had got to 100, I still would have accepted the deal because I think it's still close to double what most naming rights agreements are in town.

So talk to us a little bit about the uh the actual agreement.

Um already been sold.

What happens if they get sold again or their name changes?

Are we are we on the hook that this could be like some of these other stadiums that do change names, like Enron Stadium or whatever that changes to something else?

What happens then?

It's uh it's always a risk.

Um, and there's there's one in Kansas City that people might know of that has had that problem that changes a lot.

And and part of the reason we had an initial agreement of 15 years is what I was working on with Big Iron originally, was so that didn't happen.

Um, and that's why there's a minimum of five years to get things started.

Um but one of the worst things you can do for a sponsorship is to change the name every couple of years.

I found with naming rights when you have a properly run building and in the right interaction and the right sort of response that the corporation gets the right sort of response from the public, they usually don't let go of it.

It's a solid name.

Um, it's a solid investment.

So RB Global may change their name, they might get sold by they probably will, but RB Global could, they could technically get bought by somebody else and change their name.

I've not seen where a transaction of the company being sold actually change the overall naming rights agreements that they have in place, unless it's a just uh a merger, could happen to could make that happen.

But typically with the merger, you'd have a shared name for a while until you transition the old name out.

So there are ways to do it to keep the value of that partnership up where it should be, and regurgitating the name every couple of years is not the way to do it.

I will say too, Big Iron did ask for three-year initial starting point with three-year renewals, and I denied it.

Um five years is that minimum.

Five years, a half a decade is a good long time to build that brand.

That also gives them time to uh you know recoup some of their investment.

It also gives them time to to see how it oper how we operate, how it fits with their business.

And uh, if we do things right, um they have an opportunity for something that they'll want to hold on to for quite some time.

And and and you're you know, you you said you've you've done this, you're using professional judgment.

Uh how long until people stop saying Heartland Event Center and start saying Big Iron.

It takes a while.

And and at first, um the first year there will be complaints.

People in the city will say it's always gonna be, it'll always be the Kansas Expo Center to me.

And that's true.

The first year it does happen.

After about a year or two, when they start seeing that these it helps us bring in better talent, it helps us bring in, it helps us helps us upgrade the facility without having to come to the council and ask for more money.

It helps with overall operation.

So once they start seeing that it's not a bad thing that we moved away from the naming of what it was, it's a good thing.

And they all they there is a little bit of a marketing element too, in that um the Heartland Event Center is pretty generic.

You can say the Heartland Event Center, and if you know it, then you know it.

If you if I'm talking to a promoter, they don't know where the Heartland Event Center is.

They know it's probably somewhere in the middle of the country.

But when you have a unique name like Big Iron, Stormont Vale, um, Stormont Vale and Teka, the tagline for them, they call it the Vale, going to a concert at the Vale.

That little informal tie-in is really valuable even beyond just the naming rights element.

They will most likely start calling it you go into Big Iron this weekend, and it it becomes tied into the event center more so than just actually the corporate name.

And that money that you're getting briefly, can you just how does that go into how are you using that money long term?

Just where's it gonna go?

How does that really help us with the budget?

It comes to our company to uh help operate our building, our city building.

And over the course of time, it is our hope that we can get ourselves down to where we're not asking the city for any kind of dollars.

This is the first large decent uh sponsorship agreement that we've worked on since being in place.

Um, when I took over the event center in Topeke, Kansas.

I hate to keep coming back to this, but it's pretty relevant to tonight's discussion.

Um, we had 76,000 dollars in um sponsorship revenue.

Two years later, we had $840,000 in sponsorship revenue.

So our 1.6 million dollar deficit that the taxpayers were paying for just to keep the lights on at the Kansas Expo Center got reduced by $900,000 in the first two years.

It's the same thing here.

This is a direct reduction in what we should have to ask for from the council long term.

And it's not just this naming rights, but I will I'll try to sell the box office naming rights, I'll sell some other advertisements.

Um, right down to even you can start selling the advertisements on um at the elevator doors.

If I talk to Otis, the elevator company, and we want to put their ad on the elevator doors every time they open it up, they see this.

Um and then you've got localized uh companies that you can actually do.

Um, you know, Bossman's already got his name on it, but uh a company like a Bossman might want that sort of exposure depending on what we do.

And and my whole theory is to tie the sponsorship into an interactive methodology of advertising and not just a sign on the wall.

Yep.

Thank you, Mr.

Nickerson.

Well, Jay, once again, you ask a lot of good questions, and I'm going to have to sort through this.

I'm gonna start again with legal to make sure I understand stood you correctly, and that is that VinueWorks does have the right to solicit name rights for the building in the contract.

Yes, it's one of their management responsibilities in the contract is to arrange and facilitate and sell all of the different sponsorships and naming rights.

Okay, and that includes the name of the building then correct, and I think they have it written so that actually the actual physical cost of the signage is all borne by the sponsor and has to be removed by the sponsor at the end to make sure there's no extra cost on the city.

All right, so that's the foundational question.

Did Vinuworks have the right to do this?

The answer is yes, they did.

Did we supply them with the information to use the policy?

No, but it's not venue works' fault.

This is this is our fault as a city.

So what we're doing is saying Vinuworks go out and do what what you need to do to reduce costs, and we're not gonna give you a policy, but tonight when we come before council, we're gonna say, wait, wait, wait, you didn't do it right.

You didn't do what you were supposed to.

The reality is you did what you were supposed to with the information you had.

So that's what we're talking about tonight.

Venueworks did exactly what they were supposed to do, and they were uh aggressive, I'm going to assume, to go out there within this.

How long has it been now that you've been managing this place?

Uh since November of 25, uh January 1st of 25.

So a year and a half.

So it's okay after a year and a half, you know, he's he's found a sponsor.

I don't think everything in Grand Island, let me let me put it this way.

I think if somebody in Grand Island had offered him what we're talking about tonight, a local business that was here Grand Island based, I'll bet you we wouldn't be even having this conversation tonight.

That's my guess.

But it's because somebody that we don't recognize locally, it's not a local bank, a local car dealership, a local something, it doesn't fit into our paradigm of what should happen.

And I think the reality is, even in my mind, I have no idea who in the world Big Iron is.

I don't know.

When you said brought it to us before, I thought, who in the world are they?

I'm in the real estate business, have been for quite a while.

I never heard of them because they've got real estate tied with them somewhere.

I I had no idea.

But not everything's going to be a local bank or a local car dealership that sponsors things in Grand Island, Nebraska.

I think we need to be aware of that.

Now to your point, not having all the details in front of me right this second.

Do we have a five-year window to sort through this initially to see how it goes?

After five years, uh, we do, they have the first right of refusal, but if for some reason the council decided they wanted to not have a naming rights in the future, I believe that's an option.

Okay.

So we have basically we've got a five-year decision tonight.

Do we go with Big Iron for five years?

During that time, we can talk about policies, we can look at what we need to do for other potential sales.

But it tonight isn't a good time.

I understand the argument of no, we didn't have a policy.

It's not VenueWork's fault.

They've done the legwork, they've done the legal work, they've got the contract written, they've got approval.

And then tonight we're saying, oh, wait, you didn't you didn't do it right.

Well, you you did it the way you were supposed to, because you didn't know any other way.

And now we've got somebody out here willing to pay good dollars for five years for a sponsorship.

Now will I be calling it big iron in a year from now?

I don't know, probably so once I see the sign, but to me it's always going to be Heartland Event Center will probably be referred to that for a long time.

But that's not my fault, and that's not Big Iron's fault.

It's the whole marketing on their side.

I think we need to approve what's been agreed to tonight, not hold venue works hostage or or act like they did something wrong because they didn't.

We need to move forward with it and and let venue works have the additional operational cost that they need.

And in five years, in that time between now and five years, the sitting councils and mayors can sort through this and see what what's best.

But tonight, VenueWorks is doing what they were asked to do.

I don't think it's fair to pull that from them tonight.

Mr.

Hossey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the first thing I wanted to uh just reiterate that this 140,000 a year does not have an escalator on it.

So 15 years later.

I heard I heard the 2.1 million dollar number on the news tonight, uh, or the you know, before I came to the meeting, that's got to be like at 15 years, but there's no escalator.

It's 15 years from now or 11 years from now, it's still 140,000 a year.

So the value of that actually is decreasing every year as well.

You know, and so I don't care for that because it's not again 11 years from now it's not creating the same impact as it is now.

The other part is is that your contract with venue works as the operators for how much how long?

Five years, I believe it's five years with five-year renewals.

So I don't I don't have any problem.

You have the right in your contract to do the naming rights, and and then they can do it to the extent of your contract.

I don't know that the city has rights to do multi-year beyond the next council and the next council and the next council.

We can on a few things.

I don't know about naming rights, but it's beyond your contract too.

And so now you're you're now we're not just giving venue works what you're authorized to do.

I think we're expanding well beyond your five-year contract, so that's what the concern is.

I a couple of things, and I the devil's always in the details here.

I want to read you a sentence out of 6.2 and 6.3 in the contract.

These are little things that I don't know enough about, but they're concerning enough when I just read it with my simple self.

6.2.

Big iron shall have the royalty-free right to produce, sell, and distribute promotional materials, retaining all proceeds and without accounting to the operator.

So they can come into the f the facility, do whatever they want to do, and they're not accountable to anybody.

This is a public building, and they can do their own promotions of whatever it is they want to promote and not accountable to us.

That that's a concern.

Now let me go to 6.3.

The operator shall not, though to you, the operator shall not place any uh other trademark, service mark, name, logo, or design on such promotional materials without prior written approval of big iron.

So now they're not only do they have rights to do something that they don't have to be accountable to anybody for, not you, not me, they're also handcuffing you that you don't they're taking away your rights to do certain things without their approval.

I'm not sure that I understand all the language, I'm not a lawyer, but when I read some of these things, they're concerning to me about what am I giving up?

What is it that I don't know?

Because I, you know, it's one of those I don't know what I don't know, and I don't know what I'm giving up.

And that's why I I just this has to be vetted better than what we have been vetted so far.

I'm gonna vote no, not because it's it's the wrong thing.

I think you did the right thing, Kyler.

This is not against you.

This is just something we have not done this before.

And I think the the process, in order for me to be comfortable and for this council to be comfortable, we have to get answers to all of these questions, and I don't think we can do it tonight.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I think Mr.

Vabichek had uh some interesting points there.

Um I've had a little time to kind of think about this as we've been talking, and I noticed uh a couple of comparisons but some uh big differences too.

So as talked about, you know, Island Oasis is a city on property, the event center is a city on property, two different things though.

Venue works runs the event center, the city runs the water park.

If if it were the city initiating this, I mean the city would typically always have to do RFB if we initiated it, correct?

Or is referring to carry if so the reality on these sort of naming rights is that you we kind of have two different paths, and the city of Grand Island has selected this sort of contract and and community agreement path.

Um we've developed naming rights proposals that would kind of go that that direction.

The reality is they've always been right between community projects and haven't really fit timing-wise.

Um I think when we drafted the first one, uh, the community foundation was fundraising to uh raise money for the all-inclusive playground that came with naming rights.

Um we've done the same thing with rider parks, actual field.

Uh the shooting park has similar rights.

Um Stalley Park has has those sort of similar things where we've kind of leveraged community support to help get these capital projects off the ground.

And so uh really the only difference between this and all of the rest of those projects is we added the extra contact provision requiring them to come here and ask your permission instead of just allowing it to happen without any sort of further decision.

It's been a hybrid of community parks and other things, though.

But most of our facilities and our capital projects recently have had naming opportunities that have gone with that uh with that just not back in front of you.

So that has happened been practiced before.

Okay.

Yeah, say the this the field on Ryder Park, um, the logos at the shoot park, uh, the Purney Park, Hornaday Pavilion at Stalley Park.

So pretty this is actually relatively consistent with all of the rest of our naming rights we've done in the last probably five years or so.

Um so you could come back in and develop a formal naming rights process that just has not been our um historical practice.

Whether we should or shouldn't, not really what's here before, but this is Yeah, and we we can't settle that today.

That's another issue.

Yeah, and in hindsight, that would probably be nice too.

Um and in respect to Kyler.

So, how long have you basically been looking for the sponsor since you've been here?

Yep, from day one.

A year and a half, and this is what we have.

So, you know, if we uh we know we have a no quantity of what we would get here.

Um if you went out again, we'd have an unknown.

I mean uh hopefully if you did that, you would get that or more.

I think we're pretty late in the game to try and go back to the board uh in regards to what Mitch said as well.

Um I I appreciate the efforts out there.

I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit better policy uh going forward, but I I'm supportive of of doing this, and I uh appreciate that it'll help take the burden off of what we're using to fund it as well.

You know, I'll say one more thing just because I want to.

As a representative of Venue Works, I represent the city.

Um what I'm doing here is trying to do the best I can to be a good steward with the building that you've charged me to run.

Um these dollars are direct off uh taxpayer offsets, and I hope that the I hope that our sponsorship dollars get to that million dollar mark, and all of a sudden the city is celebrating the fact they're not having to supplement everything that we do.

So I enjoy what I do, I enjoy what um what you guys provide and the information you provide to me, and and I am here to do whatever the city needs us to do.

So um I am a servant of the city.

Please vote motion adopted council members.

We'll now take up our ordinances 10 a consideration of vacation of public right of way in industrial foundation subdivision south of Shimmer Drive on Iron Drive.

And we do need a motion to suspend Mr.

O'Neill.

I move to suspend the rules for ordinances, and Mr.

Landvere.

I second.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Please proceed, Mr.

Kirkz.

Uh yes, as mentioned earlier tonight when we talked about the ingress egress easement.

Uh, this item is to vacate these uh side pieces of the right-of-way along Iron Drive such that this uh roadway can be fully developed.

Mr.

Brown.

Move we approve 10,079.

And Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Ordinance 10b consideration of approving correction of correcting the legal description of real estate property sold in ordinance 10,060.

Uh, first of all, do we have a motion to suspend the statutory rules?

Mr.

O'Neill.

I moved to suspend the statutory rules.

And Mr.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Please proceed, Mr.

Nabity.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, this particular piece of property you saw with um the JBA main second subdivision.

This is near Ryder Park.

This is the piece that was sold to John Bosch.

The in the process of coming up with the subdivision that put all of that into one piece.

The surveyor, the county surveyor discovered that there was an error in the original survey.

Um, really a pretty minor error, but um with that, this just corrects that and makes it right.

Thank you.

Motion on the merits council, Mr.

O'Neill.

I move that we approve uh 10,080.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Ordinance 10C consideration of amending sections of chapter 22 of the city code related relating to approving e-scooter, e-bike, and hoverboard usage on public property.

Mr.

Lanfear, proceed with your motion.

We suspend the rules concerning ordinances.

And Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Please proceed.

Thank you.

So this ordinance was asked for by a council member, kind of in conformity with what City of Hastings and some other tri-cities have been doing concerning e-bikes, e-scooters, and hoverboards being driven on the streets, ridden on the streets.

Um we are looking at this to put it in discovered in chapter 22 of city code.

There were a couple sections that we can remove from there.

There were asking for a separate traffic division for the police department.

Everything included in those is actually what Grand Island Police Department already does.

So they don't need a separate traffic division defined by city code.

If they want to have their unit within the Grand Island Police Department, great, they can do that.

It doesn't necessarily need its own section of city code.

Um so the rest of this ordinance dealing with the e-bikes and the e-scooters would prevent them from being ridden on the streets that are 25 miles an hour or greater.

Um we would be prohibiting them being ridden on first or second street from Broadwell to public safety drive.

Um parts of those streets are 25 or less, but the majority of it is over 25, so it would already be illegal.

But just for clarification, um there is a congested district that was included in the council packet on there that was adopted years ago by the city council.

Certain streets were saying they're too congested, don't be riding on them that we have in there.

They would be allowed on the hike and bike trails as allowed by section 24-3 of city code, which when you go look at that, it's only class one e-bikes that can be ridden on the hike and bike trails.

There are class two and three e-bikes in city code.

They are just a little bigger, a little faster.

Um can't ride those on the hike and bike trails.

If you're riding one of those, you still have to obey all the traffic laws.

You have to use the proper hand signals signifying your turn, have to have a light on it so they can see you at night.

And the kicker is if you're in violation of this, the police can now confiscate your e-bike scooter hoverboard, whatever it is, and then you're gonna have to go get it back from impound later on.

So this was asked for.

This is pretty much in conformity with what a lot of other cities in the tri-cities are doing.

So we're just asking that you approve this and allow the regulations on e-bikes and e-scooters and hoverboards.

Thank you, Mrs.

Nonhoff.

Joshua Genilevich, would you like to speak?

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I have owned my e-bike for over three and a half years, and I've written more than six thousand miles on it.

It is my daily transportation.

I use it to commute to work, grocery shop, and travel throughout the city.

I always try try my best to follow the law and use common sense.

I avoid multi-lane roads whenever possible and generally avoid roads above 35 miles an hour.

Slow down around pedestrians on bike trails.

I limit myself to 15 miles an hour.

And right when I go through parks to slow down even further than 10.

I have learned that speed is not everything.

I support reasonable safety regulations.

I have had close calls and understand some roads are not appropriate for bicycles or e-bikes.

But I also know that sometimes there are exceptions because of poor or incomplete infrastructure.

One route I frequently use is Blaine and Custer.

It is one of the most north-south direct routes across town.

Under this ordinance, that route would become illegal for me for electric bikes because it is posted at 30 miles an hour.

I find it somewhat contradictory because a city's bike map identifies Blaine and Custer as a bike route.

Yet this ordinance will prohibit electric bicycles, which have bicycle in the name from using that route.

I am concerned that we are restricting access before much of that bicycle network envisioned in the 2017 bike and ped master plan has been implemented.

I am also concerned about situations where this ordinance becomes impractical.

What happens if there is no sidewalk too ride on, or if the sidewalk is in poor condition, obstructed, or temporarily closed due to construction?

What happens in the winter when the sidewalks are covered in snow and may not be cleared for days if they're cleared at all.

During these times, the Burnsy snow routes, many of which are over 25 miles an hour, are the only practical routes available.

Glen Island is not alone in dealing with the growing popularity of e-bikes.

Cities like Lincoln and Omaha have many more people riding electric bicycles, yet the ordinances are not nearly as restrictive.

They recognize that e-bikes are transportation and generally treat them similarly to bicycles.

Rather than a blanket restriction based solely on speed limits, I would ask the council to consider an approach similar to Lincoln's.

Lincoln identifies specific arterial streets where bicycles are prohibited and clearly lists those streets while allowing bicycles and e-bikes to continue using the rest of the network.

I believe that approach provides clarity and improves safety and preserves mobility.

E-bikes are not toys, they are affordable transportation, but the cost of cars today, many people either cannot afford a vehicle or are unable to operate one.

And e-bikes provide the independence and access to jobs, groceries, parks, and appointments.

If the concern is that a certain road is unsafe for e-bikes, then I believe the answer is to identify those specific roads, as Lincoln has done, rather than prohibit electric bicycles from nearly every street above 25 miles per hour.

I respectfully ask the council to amend this ordinance to follow a more targeted approach similar to Lincoln's, and to ensure that Grand Island policies are consistent with the goals outlined in the 2017 bike and ped master plan.

I would simply ask this question.

If your road has no trail, no shoulder, or no sidewalk, what does the city expect someone who relies on an e-bike to do?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mr.

Brown.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Off second.

Discussion.

Mr.

Nickerson.

Stacey.

First of all, is it okay to ask which council member wanted this brought forward?

Uh believe it was Doug.

Good.

Thank you, Doug.

I appreciate that.

That's something that's been on my radar for quite some time, but it's one of those things I just have not acted on.

I'm glad that one of the council members said, yeah, let's pull the trigger on that.

The thing that comes down to on these, and Josh, I appreciate your input because that's that's important to me.

And the and the question that I had ties in with what he was asking, what's magical about 25 miles an hour?

Is there I mean why we're why we're saying that 10 miles an hour is different, that makes a difference in any particular reason.

Uh just why did 25 miles turn that to be that low?

Well, a class three e-bike maxes out at 28.

Okay.

So you want somebody driving, riding a motor riding their e-scooter, their hoverboard, or an e-bike on a 35 mile an hour streets with you know doing 20, 25, maybe 15, because class one and two e-bikes, you have to be peddling.

And so, and if it gets over a certain over 20 mile an hour, I believe the motor is supposed to kick off on those, so they can't, you know, you can only go basically go as fast as you can pedal.

Okay.

It's a safety hazard.

I mean, honestly, it boils down to safety.

Somebody getting hit by a car at 35 versus 25 with absolutely zero protection between you and the other vehicle.

10 mile an hour can make a lot of difference.

Okay.

That's fair enough.

I'm trying to think here in the city uh how many times I've even seen any of these e-bikes.

I will tell you, Doug, that I had my first near miss about two days ago with somebody riding an e-scooter.

Coming on the wrong side of the road, coming wrong way in the direction cars were blocking my view at an intersection as I'm getting ready to pull out on State Street.

They're coming right at me.

And it was they're in the wrong spot.

And you know that you start thinking about these things if if this little girl would have hit me or I would have hit her.

Those are things that you think about a long time, especially if she would have got hurt.

So I think we need a policy.

That that's no, it's a no-brainer.

We need to, and we should have probably months, if not a year or two ago.

I don't recall I a few times I've seen in the city.

I drive through this town a lot, that I've even seen any of these driving in the center lane like a vehicle.

A lot of times I see them off to the side of the road or anything like that.

So that becomes the detriment as well.

You're saying that even if they were driving 25 on a 35 off to the right where I see most of these when I see them, that that can impede traffic and become a problem as well.

How many times have you followed somebody and you stay behind it because you don't know when they're gonna swerve out in front of you until you know you can clearly pass around them, give them a wide enough berth that you can get across across that center line?

I mean, are you are you willing to take the risk of as you're driving next to them staying within your lane, not crossing that center line to pass, that they're not going to swerve out and hit you or you clip them because they start to swerve out?

It's a it's back to a safety thing.

Very much so, but I know that I pass many cyclists on the road as well.

So I mean that's just that's the driver's responsibility and and the bikers' responsibility.

I I still will pass bicyclists if I see them.

I'm going to pass them on the road and they're not going to swerve in front of me.

I don't see that an e-bike person would intentionally do that either, if they're doing their job.

But those are the details that that we probably aren't going to be able to address tonight.

After we talk about this overall, though, it comes down to the two things that really for any ordinance.

First of all, how are we going to educate the folks that the Josh is of the world that are that are now riding?

How do we educate them?

Then how are we going to enforce that?

What is that fine?

What is the penalty for that?

And we talked about potential impound.

Um just just give us an idea if you know that off the top of your head.

What how do we how do we get there?

Okay, as far as education, we have Spencer.

We have a way to get this out to the media and to issue press releases, put it on the city's website.

Hey, this is what it is is get published in the Grand Island City Code.

As far as the fines for it, that is something that this council is going to have to adopt in the city's waiver fine schedule.

I haven't found in state statute yet that there's anything equivalent to this.

Um so we can't go over what state statute has, but if they don't have anything equivalent, this is a conversation the council gets to have and decide what do you think is an appropriate fine for this?

The default fine is $25.

That is what fines that are not included on the waiver fine schedule defaults to in the court system.

So it will start as a $25 fine.

And then you also have the court costs on that, and court costs are going up to $59.

So if they get cited for this, it's gonna be a total of an $84 fine.

Okay.

I think I saw Chief Denny out in the hallway.

I'm not sure if he's if he's representing the police tonight, but it if he could come in, I'd like to just talk to him for a second about he's been in the loop on this as well, I'm assuming.

He or who is whoever's appropriate in the police department.

Yeah, no, not you.

I was I was asked to write this to match Hastings.

That is what I did.

Okay.

So the police really haven't had any input into it at all yet.

Okay.

Well, Chief Denny, we're gonna dump something on you tonight here, buddy.

Uh have you are you up to speed at all?

The answer is probably no on the ordinance concerning e-scooters, e-bikes, and hoverboards on public property.

You got it.

No, sir, I'm not.

Okay.

Well, the question is, it is going to, if we voted in tonight, it'll be a new policy, new ordinance that that will restrict them in certain places.

And so I was just asking today, you know, how do we lay educate folks?

How are we going to enforce it?

Here you go, that's you.

And then kind of understanding the fines associated with that so people know.

I'm going to assume I was going to speak on your behalf, but since you're here, usually the first thing that the police officers will do, there'll be a warning probably for the first time if people didn't understand.

Uh, is that typically the way you approach things like this that are new?

Yeah, absolutely it is.

Um so if we put a new stop sign in somewhere or traffic light, usually we'll give it a grace period and write warnings or just give verbal warnings on those kind of things until people get acclimated to the change.

And so if we saw we would do uh a media campaign, we should do a media campaign to let uh the people of Grand Island know that the change is coming where it look where it is, and that we're gonna be writing some warning tickets if we see people on the e-bikes, for example, the first 60 days or 90 days or something like that.

Okay.

And I figured that's what we would do.

I I again I see them here and there, but in the case that we're talking about tonight, we have one of our uh representatives here tonight, one of our council chamber attenders, uh, that actually rides an e-bike a lot, and so this affects him.

And so I just want to give him some piece that you know if he he's found in a spot he shouldn't initially, he's probably gonna get a warning first, and then we will have to figure out other things.

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

And then if these are impounded, would it be it's not gonna be like a car, is it?

That's gonna be so many bucks a day that you No, I don't I don't think so, because what we they're not big, so we would put them inside the building, and uh I don't know if we would assess fees similar to cars or not.

I doubt we would.

Okay.

Would there be certain circumstances where you may need to impound it, otherwise it's gonna be good of a warning and get home safely type situation?

So you may not have to impound much anything at all.

We we we normally wouldn't impound it.

We would we would just um stop them, um give them a verbal warning if they're in an area that they can't be riding it or a verb uh a written warning and then send them on their way normally, just like a traffic stop.

Sure.

Okay.

All right, well, thank you very much.

Just this is just something new tonight that's new to you as well.

So I don't know where it's going yet, but we'll find out.

Okay, thank you, Chief.

So, Stacy, another question that Josh brought up to us again.

You're you modeled this after Hastings.

Is there anything that we can learn from Lincoln that would benefit us rather than trying to restrict ourselves to what's uh in a smaller community?

Is there something we're kind of in between?

We're between the Hastings were way smaller than Lincoln, but still pretty darn big.

Is there anything that we can learn from their ordinance that would be more appropriate, maybe I didn't go look at Lincoln's because I could make what was done in Hastings, I can make that fit within the framework for the City of Grand Allen.

Because I said we've already got the congested district defined, and we we have it's 25 miles an hour.

I'm not sure what Lincoln does with theirs.

I can't speak to theirs because I wasn't asked to examine theirs.

I was asked to write an ordinance that matches what Hastings is doing because it seems to be working for Hastings.

Now, granted, Hastings did limit theirs to just their downtown area down by 2nd Street.

Thus, this I where I pulled in our congested district because that's already been defined.

Okay.

Um we have hike and bike trails that go across.

You can write them on there.

You could write a class one e-bike, you can ride a e-scooter, you can write a hoverboard on the hike and bike trails.

You can ride those on every single sidewalk within the city of Grand Island.

Okay, all we're saying is if it is more than 25 miles an hour, the speed limb is more than 25 miles an hour, you cannot write it on that street.

You can write it on the sidewalk right next to that street, but you cannot write it on that street.

Okay.

Okay, that's a good thing to know.

All right, and again, tonight if we adopt this, like any other ordinance, we can always tweak something down the road if we think we need to just massage it a little bit based on what we've seen.

Yeah, I mean, this is it's it's not set in stone that it can never be changed.

It's our city code is a living breathing document.

It gets changed almost every single council meeting.

Something in that code is being changed.

So, yes.

If there's something in here that we discover really doesn't work, or we discover there's this other problem that this highlighted that we need to fix, we can go back and fix that too.

Very good.

Okay, thank you, Station.

Mr.

Shear, thank you.

Um I know that a lot of towns of all sizes across the state are banning the the e-scooters, the little things that little kids are on.

Uh are we just uh like we're grouping e-scooters, hoverboards, and e-bikes as though they're basically all the same rules for this section, yes.

Okay, but in our city code as far as the street legal for other things, uh for like the hike and bike trail, because but that is specifically pulled out in 24-3.

You can ride them on the hike and bike trails.

You can write all of them on there, except what's governed by 24-3.

Okay.

24-3 pulls out class two and three e-bikes.

Okay.

So you write a class one e-bike, you can be on the hike and bike trail.

You can ride an e-scooter on the hike and bike trail, you can ride that hoverboard on the hike and bike trail.

We're just saying not on the roads.

So grumpy old man here.

I am so sick of the little e-scooters being on the trails when I'm out walking.

Uh kids unsupervised.

Do I sound like an old man?

Um a little bit.

Then they stepped on my lawn, right?

Like uh it's it's just to me, it's very dangerous.

I don't know that we're addressing that at all.

That is addressed in 24-3.

They have to be, they have to do it.

If you're riding one of those on the hike and bike trails, it has to be done at an appropriate speed, basically.

It's the same as most anything else, and Cigas, it is complaint driven.

So code enforcement can enforce it if there is somebody out there doing something that's causing a problem on the hike and bike trails with one of these, you know, they're spinning kitties, they're leaving tire marks, they're you know, running people off the trail or doing whatever.

You just you have to call it in because this is not somewhere where our police department is actively patrolling.

It is very much complaint driven.

We do not have cameras on the entire hike and bike trail to you know, watch what everybody's doing.

That is, we're not going to go quite that big brotherish.

So it's complaint driven.

Well, Dag on it, this is my complaint.

I'm tired of it.

You got to call it in.

Okay.

Mr.

Brown.

Yeah, thanks, Josh, for your comments, and thank you, Stacey, for all your hard work on this.

Anyway, I had quite a few comments about uh it was mainly concerning gas bikes, and they were even on the highway driving them.

Uh Josh, I know you follow the rules, but not everybody follows the rules, and that's that's the problem with anything.

Uh and I went and I I grabbed I took uh Carney's regulations.

I took uh Hastings regulations, I looked at Lincoln.

Lincoln's is really more restrictive, so I kind of took Carney and Hastings and and brought that into discussion.

Uh they were a lot more lenient, and but uh it's mainly the safety of the pedestrians, safety of the the riders of the bikes, and the safety of the passengers is driving the cars and stuff because it's it's dangerous out there.

You don't have to have a helmet, you don't have to have a license, you don't have to have insurance.

Um so I appreciate your comments, Josh.

Please vote.

Motion adopted ordinance 10 D consideration to amend 12-3 of city code to increase the number of civil service commissioners from three to five.

I move to suspend the rules for ordinances.

Brown second that motion discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted this is non-haw.

State statute allows um for a civil service commission to be either three or five members.

We the city of Grand Island currently has a three-member civil service commission.

Uh we have one member who is his term is expiring and he doesn't want to do it anymore.

Totally understand.

At this point in time, the when we went back and looked at it is how hard it is to get that quorum when you only have three members for not only their meetings, but then if you also have a civil service hearing, um, a five-member civil service commission would be much easier.

And then also, if you would ever end up with a conflict, if you've got five members on there, you have one conflicting out, you still have your quorum.

Um, with given that we have one retiring, we thought this was a good time to bring forward an ordinance changing it from three to five, and then we can fill those three positions and get that and make the basically make it just a lot easier for them to function.

Thank you, Mrs.

Nolanhoff.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I may we approve 10,082.

Mr.

Landfeer.

I second discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted agenda item 11A.

Approving resolution to make offer to sell certain real property known as Veterans Village to Woodsonia Real Estate Inc., subject to terms and conditions outlined therein.

Said property to contain a portion of the property contained primarily within the portions of section 5, Township 11, range 9, lying north of the Burlington Northern Main Line and south of Airport Road, not otherwise dedicated as public right of way.

Mrs.

Fisk.

Mayor and Council, the first resolution before you is a resolution requested by council, which functionally starts the sale process of some of the land at Veterans Village.

It's a resolution to offer the property for sale, subject to some terms and conditions as the mayor's lengthy effort to describe the property of the resolution indicates.

There's a lot of steps that would still have to happen between your offer and an actual sale, the first of which would be getting the sale boundaries surveyed, so we had an actual legal description instead of a kind of vague description, but there's an exhibit attached to this item that shows the rough uh sale area.

Um this would start that process, then create a date and time for acceptance, and then the actual sale would occur later on after a legal description could be developed subject to a typical sale ordinance in that process.

This is just the action item to let you offer it for sale and start that process.

Jay, did you want to speak now before the first vote or no need?

Okay.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move to approve resolution 2026-176.

Mr.

Stelk.

I second the motion, Mr.

Mayor.

Discussion.

Mr.

Lanfear.

I'm voting no.

Various reasons.

This is a grand plan.

But I've had doubts about it from the beginning.

I went out on social media talking face to face, telling people, I'm the representative.

How do you want me to vote?

The count goes four to one against.

I've heard all kinds of things.

Fear about property taxes going up.

People wondering if they're getting free state money, why do they need TIF?

The best one so is one that I was wondering about too.

Why are we letting them start another project when they haven't finished the first?

They haven't delivered on what they promised and the Congressok and Marketplace.

I also you should know by now I have trouble with TIFF.

But uh I also have trouble about how they put hurdle after her to during the negotiations.

I basically at this point in time have serious doubts about their ability to deliver and their promise.

So I'm voting no.

So can I speak even though it was a motion on the floor or not?

Uh where did Kerry go?

Can oh there you are.

Can they speak?

We have the motion already in order.

Can they speak now?

On this is on this resolution item.

If we have a motion, we need to deal with the motion.

Okay.

Second resolution behind this.

Yeah.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Ordinance 2026-177.

A resolution authorizing the mayor to approve a good life district agreement with Woodsonia Real Estate Inc.

and or related party Woodsonia GI GLD LLC regarding funding from the city's Good Life District Economic Development Program.

Mr.

Stelk.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I move for approval of ordinance number 2026-177.

And Mr.

Hawsey.

Resolution.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Please proceed.

Mayor and Council, the second item before you, resolution 2026-177 is a resolution authorizing council to enter into a good life district agreement with uh Woodsonia regarding funding as the agreement indicates not to oversimplify the agreement, but it's a functionally a pledged a pledge of good life district revenue up to 142 million dollars with for the development of the Veterans Village.

Would functionally go into a couple of separate buckets.

One of the buckets being a 22 million dollar uh reservation out to help go towards an aquatic center.

Um the other bucket, the the next big bucket, kind of the first bucket is one that would be to uh facilitate the development of what we'll call the critical critical project components, the base infrastructure masquerading sports complex, and then the rest of the money, um, acknowledging that it may uh not all appear in nice tidy buckets like we want it to, would then be pledged towards uh the not to call them non-critical, but the the extra portions of the project, not the sports complex and the spine infrastructure.

So in an oversimplified version, that's what this resolution does is let us enter into an agreement at your request to pledge that money towards these projects.

Would you like to speak?

Uh well thank you.

I reserved uh an opportunity to speak, but I think just in fairness, uh the developer probably ought to have that opportunity first, and I would reserve maybe uh a comment later with the mayor's discretion.

So is that appropriate, Mayor Steele?

Fine.

Mayor Council, good to see everyone tonight.

Um, yeah, I wasn't sure what the format was going to be, so I thought it might be appropriate just to provide a general update uh based on our last council meeting, and then we can talk about the two agreements or the the two items, the purchase contract and the development agreement um that are before you tonight.

But I think in you know, in some sense, we're we're glad um and thankful we got the purchase offer and the development agreement.

Um we are, I think, going to need an opportunity to review these documents.

We've got these on Friday as part of the council packet, and really haven't had a chance to go through these at all.

So we can go into that here in just a second, but I just want to bring that to the council's attention that um I do think as part of these negotiations there needs to be some level of cooperation on being able to review documents uh before they come before the council.

So um I might need some clarification from Kerry exactly what's taking place tonight because it's just it just didn't seem a little bit clear.

But in terms of updates, uh if you remember from our last council meeting, I think one of the big discussion points was the collection issue from the Department of Revenue.

Um, and so I think it's important to update the council.

We had a call with uh Brian Matthews and uh Brent uh sponger from DA Davidson, and um I that was an encouraging call.

Um Mike Rogers is here, and Mike may want to say something to this effect, but uh it does seem like even with the collection issues and not and and the state not delineating between the new and existing sales that a bond issuance can happen, and uh at least that's what we're being told.

And so they provided us some projections based on um what's being collected today, um, and those numbers would range between uh about 80 million dollars and about 73 million dollars.

So if everybody remembers, we had sort of a critical project component item.

We had about five items we were promising to the council that we needed to move forward with.

That was obviously based on getting a successful bond issuance.

Sounds like from DA Davidson, that's possible.

So I think that was very encouraging news.

So just wanted to report that to the council.

We did have that call.

Uh there needs to be some follow-up on that.

I don't know if Mike, if you want to add anything on that, but um overall it was positive.

Um, and then Lauren's here on behalf of Chief.

I think just to provide an update on how things are going with the YMCA fundraising.

So I'll turn it over to her for just a minute here for an update.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Council.

My name is Lauren Maddie.

It's spelled M A T T E Y.

And I just want to give you guys a brief update really quick on, like Drew said, Chief's partnership with the YMCA and Aqua Center on this project.

It is a little brief because obviously we'll have more things to share as you guys conclude your negotiations with Sonia.

But we also want you guys to know that we are working behind the scenes because if this is green lighted, we would want to be able to get started on it right away.

And also what would make this project successful to the YMCA.

We've also met with a couple of potential donors and entities to look at different funding mechanisms to help with the YMCA's capital campaign.

And we've been discussing with Sonia a little bit on the land acquisition.

Ultimately, what I want to tell you all also, as someone born and raised in Grand Island, this is a transformative project for our community.

And I want to thank each and every one of you for your guidance and leadership throughout this process.

I've sat through many late nights watching you all, and I just want to say, as a community member, I really appreciate it.

And I'm really proud of our community for this opportunity, and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Thanks, Lauren, for the update.

One just understanding exactly what's taking place tonight with these resolutions.

Again, we received these on Friday, so I just I need to understand exactly what's happening.

And then two, the purchase agreement that we reviewed or we saw uh in the council packet, and then the good life development agreement does not address uh the TIFF, the occupation tax, or the CID.

So to me, there's there's still critical items missing, and I sort of compare this to purchasing a car.

I mean, we want to be successful with this project, but we need all the components of the car.

We need the wheels, the steering wheel.

We need this thing to be entirely road ready, and I think this is a great step that we have this development agreement, we have this purchase agreement, but we need all pieces of this put together at the same time.

That would include zoning and plotting.

So I would say the other big thing I was hoping to walk away from tonight and have some council discussion around is schedule.

What is the schedule look like for the remaining approvals for the remaining items I just mentioned?

Those are not covered in the development agreement and the purchase contract for the land.

Um we had a good email exchange with Chad Navity.

I could talk a little bit about some dates that Chad proposed.

Um but that to me would be a big next step.

I mean, I think everybody up here, including us, gets asked every single day when is this starting?

Well, it's starting as soon as everything gets approved and done.

And so I think that's a critical critical piece we need to talk about.

Um, so I think, yeah, my first question is what exactly is happening, or so is this purchase contract in the development agreement.

Um are those final forms of these documents or those documents drafts that are then intended to be negotiated between the parties.

The the documents were intended to memorialize the things you told us on June 2.

And you call it a purchase agreement.

Actually, it's an agreement where if the council approves it, they offer to sell the real estate to you, and you'd have to accept or reject that offer.

But the purpose of these two resolutions was to memorialize what you told us were your uh you call them critical components or uh non-negotiables on June 2.

Now there can be uh additions to what we're doing here tonight, but this was just intended to bring forth what you said uh you were willing to do on June 2 and to start the process.

We have to start somewhere.

So will there be any developer input on these agreements?

Certainly will.

There they're for instance, the offer to sell the real estate.

Uh, you can certainly respond if you don't like the terms.

I mean, that's it's an offer.

If you have a counter offer, you can make it.

But that that was the idea was you told us on June 2, these were the things you were willing to do, and we tried to put them in we talked about this at the June 2 meeting to have city staff memorialize what you said so that we could get started.

And we tried to put them, and we talked about this at the June 2 meeting to have city staff memorialize what you said so that we could get started.

And I am highly desirous as of us getting started, but I don't know if it's possible to put a 30-year plan together in one fell swoop.

This is intended to be a step where we start.

The first step, it seems to me, is uh we have to have uh a discussion about whether you're agreeable to the terms of the offer to purchase the real estate.

If not, you'll have to let us know.

But that's an initial step that in all other steps will depend on.

So, you know, it's kind of important to do that right up front rather than to try to try to calendar out 10, 20 or 30 years from now before we've even established whether you're agreeable to purchase the real estate under the terms put forth in the offer.

It's an offer.

Well, I think what we tried to communicate, if it was on June 2nd, is these are all the items that we would want approved, and so purchasing the real estate is was a critical component.

Securing the good life funding was a critical component.

Understanding the bond issuances and what D.A.

Davidson can and can't market is a critical component.

Um securing the TIFF approvals is a critical component.

So in my opinion, I mean, this is no different than any other development project we get involved in.

A purchase should have conditions, and absolutely we're willing to purchase the property, but the conditions, the additional conditions that the city council would need to approve should be included, in my opinion, as contingencies to make sure, as my example I laid out, I want to make sure we've got a vehicle that has all the parts to it.

I would suggest this.

We're trying to start forward momentum.

Okay, I get I I shouldn't say we my intention tonight was to start forward momentum and say uh and and have the council take a position on the we'll sell the property on these terms.

Now, if you have other terms that you think are needed, you'll have to tell us.

But we we took this step of saying in the resolution, this is our offer.

Okay.

Not but but please understand we seem to get hung up on no forward progress.

I'd like to see us have some forward progress, and and the forward progress I thought we had on June 2 was you came to us and you said these are terms that are important to you.

And the the council and I directed city staff, well, memorialize those terms, put them in writing, and then we can start to talk about uh agreements.

Okay, yeah, but and Mayor, I totally agree with you.

I think we all want to experience progress here.

Um, and maybe we're overzealous, but we we're just of the opinion, let's handle all these at the same time, right?

I mean, as much as I want to buy the land, I want to buy the land and do a project, right?

I mean, I want this to be successful, I don't want to purchase ground from the city and then have it sit there.

And so I think for us, we want to know all the rest of these items are approved.

And I mean, we with Chad Nabney's help and Ken Seacrest, and he wasn't able to be here tonight.

Um, I don't I think there's a schedule that we can put together, and which I think would help a lot of us because I think to your point about progress, we all want to know well, what what is the next step and what are the dates?

And if the TIFF is important, when is the next CRA meeting?

And if the zoning and plotting are important, when does it go on the planning commission?

And so to me, again, uh, unless people disagree, I think that's important.

I think we should lay that out because to your point, I think that shows forward progress.

We are trying to move the ball forward, and we do appreciate the purchase contract, we do appreciate the development agreement.

We just haven't had time to really review those extensively as we got those on Friday.

You can certainly take all the time you want.

These are just this is my in my opinion, the preliminary step to get the ball rolling.

Okay.

Okay.

But after months of frustration.

I want to see the ball keep rolling.

So do I.

Well, so do I.

Because it just consumes so much staff time.

Don't disagree with you at all.

I think the other thing I want to propose tonight is more you know, you wanted to do this in a public setting, and we're totally agreeable to that.

Let's set more council meeting dates, and we'll be here to make sure that we all feel like we are making progress.

If that's the format we want to do this in, um, I think that was your instruction at the last meeting.

We're okay with that.

So um so yeah, I think those are um I appreciate the step forward.

I appreciate the purchase agreement, I appreciate appreciate the development agreement.

We haven't had a time to go through those extensively.

We will.

This isn't gonna take us very long.

We'll be back to council with our thoughts.

I personally think we should also talk about the other parts of this.

If we want to do that tonight, I think that would be great.

Uh but I'll leave that up to the council.

I think we'll have to stick with our agenda, which is the two resolutions, and then you can take them and you can review them with Mr.

Seacrest and get back to us.

Okay.

Jamie, did you want to speak?

Uh well, you we're make you're making progress.

That was good news for our chief's involvement with the aquatic center and the YMC and that's a very positive step.

I'm also reminded with a big project like this.

I just I think everyone appreciates each one of your leadership to go ahead and make sure you're with you have a sound agreement.

And I just reflect because I've attended some meetings here recently and following this issue, and I appreciate everyone didn't say regardless if it's favorable or not.

But I just look back on the on the words that come ringing to me, and I think where the mayor is saying identical to the words here.

It said the 80 percent.

This was goes back to June 2nd.

The 80 percent was just to say we agree on their general outline of what's going to be built.

All we have left to do is work through the final details.

And there were very many positive comments from very can from each council members in support of being here to resolve this.

So uh it appears uh just an action plan now is what is necessary, and if this template with a positive approval provides that step that the mayor is urging uh to do, then that's indeed uh the right thing to do.

Have an action step where there's interaction with the developer and city staff and go forward positively.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jill.

Can I ask another question?

Yes.

Okay.

So it's in terms of the way we're communicating and and I guess negotiating on these documents.

As we identify, we'll go through the agreements for your uh our discussion here.

We'll get back to the city, then does our feedback does that need to happen publicly?

Do we need to set another council meeting for us to do that?

I think it'll depend upon the nature and extent of the feedback.

I I mean, quite frankly.

If it's if it's something material, I would want it to come back to the council.

But if it's if it's something if I don't know if it's a routine clause or something, maybe not.

I think it's gonna depend on the materiality, but uh I think you can trust us to decide what we need to bring back to the council as far as what's really important to both parties.

Obviously, contract terms, uh there can be a lot of boilerplate stuff, and I don't know if Mr.

Seacrest uh recommended some additional boilerplate that we'd bring that back in front of the council only at the very end when the things are to be approved, but not necessarily for a point-by-point discussion of everything that may come up.

We'll use our discretion.

Okay, okay, Mr.

Stell.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh I move to approve the resolution.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I would second Mark's uh motion to approve.

Mr.

Nickerson discussion.

Yes.

I do have a few questions on this.

And first of all, Drew, I'm going to share a definition about a resolution because that's what this is.

And this this helps me understand exactly also resolution, what the meaning is in our body here.

It's a formal expression of opinion, will or intent voted on by lawmakers.

Unlike a bill, a standard resolution generally does not carry the force of law.

So we're talking about intent tonight, is really what we're looking at here.

It's not binding, but it's intent.

So that helps me when we're talking about resolutions versus ordinances, which are laws.

We're talking about an intent.

So but I want to talk about that intent tonight before we do vote on it.

And I am a little hesitant with you not being comfortable with it tonight because when I receive this information, I'm assuming both parties are have been informed and are aware of it and are comfortable.

And in this case, you're saying tonight you're really not comfortable with what's been presented.

Well, let me clarify.

So I didn't feel right asking him to remove himself from that.

So I mean, with the help of AI in Chad GBT, yes, we we ran the documents through those systems.

I think generally most of this is consistent, yeah.

So I I should clarify what I said in terms of are there major discrepancies.

I don't know, Mitch, if there's major discrepancies, there's probably a few things that need further discussion.

Um there's a few things that were in there that weren't in the in the MOU that we talked about on June 2nd, but I think generally they're consistent.

So but I do think there's probably more clarification and just things that need to happen with the documents.

That's fair, and I think we we need clarity.

That's very important.

This is a very large project, and we all need to be perfectly clear on what what we're agreeing to.

And I think I appreciate you helping me understand resolution and that this is the intent to the mayor's point of just forward progress.

That's very helpful.

I think we were concerned, our team was concerned that these were the final drafts of these agreements.

And so if that's not the case, then I think that alleviates some of our concerns.

Okay, very good.

So I just have a couple things, and of course, now that I want to find the items in all the words, I can't find them because that's what happens when you got a bazillion words here.

But I've remembered some things that I that I saw in there.

Hopefully, I remembered them correctly, that I'm just going to ask for clarification on from our group here.

And one of them was when it talks about bonding 142 million dollars, it says to the and I don't remember the exact word to the greatest extent possible or something, but it was basically saying that it may not be 142 million, and that's the wording.

And I just wanted clarification on that from our our group here from our administration, uh, why that's there.

There's a reason why it's there.

Uh bond council may have some input on that as well.

But just kind of curious, we've got a word there's to the greatest extent, something like to the greatest extent possible.

Thank you, Mayor.

So uh through the conversations with uh DA Davidson and Brian Matthews, our capital advisors, it came to the conclusion to do a bond, uh the first bond at the five million dollar cap.

Reason being is we don't know about the new money versus old money.

Um the new money is businesses that were recently opened or reopened as well.

We don't know if some of that money that we're already getting from these new businesses are counting towards the five million, which I think they should not.

We don't know.

We don't know how Department of Revenues tracking, and if we don't know how they're tracking money, then how are bond underwriters going to sell these bonds?

So we know the five million is gonna be there.

And so a lot of the conversation was okay.

What could we borrow off the five million dollar payment?

And so that was in between I don't know, 70, 80 million, something like that, okay.

Depending on an interest rate.

So uh I believe there was like three interest rates, one was five and a half, it was six and a half, and something I don't think you'll get five and a half.

So depending on interest rate, your your principal goes down.

You're you're not gonna get as much money, obviously.

Secondly, then the excess money then will accumulate into our good life district fund.

That money is available for expenditure.

Okay, so after in my estimation, a year, year and a half of hey, these revenues are pretty steady, they look good.

You know, what would underwriters think?

Then we'll put that out maybe to a bond, or however we want to spend it, and then have more capital for this project.

But until that time comes, we have no idea.

So if we can't borrow, we can't borrow.

So it, you know, there's it, there's just that unknown with the Department of Revenue is really holding this back.

Okay.

Understood.

So the other part of that I noticed.

Well, let me build on what you said.

If if let's just say the five million dollars equals something between 70 and 80 million.

So we let's say it falls dead center, we get 75 million.

Somehow we've arrived at 142 million dollar number.

That leaves 67 million dollar balance that we'd be looking for.

The writing in here says 142 million dollar bond, single bond.

Is that the way is that significant or does it matter?

Does the assumption is there'll be more than one bond because it says a bond?

Uh yes, there's a possibility it would be more than one bond.

Okay.

So part of the discussion was on the five million dollar bond, the first one is some sort of prevision that we could refinance it at an earlier portion and put it all together to make it even a better financing for this project.

Okay, so the 67 million dollars that doesn't come from the bond that you still needed for for somewhere of this 142 we've got here.

You're saying that could come in in cash that's coming toward, I mean it's coming forward, or combination of that and a potential other bond, or where was that other 67 million come from?

The answer to that is yes.

Okay, so it could be part cash, it could be part bond.

Because currently, I think by September, October, not sure what the account is right now, it's probably close to 11 million.

Okay, you put that towards it.

Okay, so you're at 90.

Let's say 75, now you're at 86, okay.

And then you're gonna have excess cash coming in.

So I mean, hopefully come in.

And that could be I think I think I estimated maybe 1.2 million, depending on how it's tracked.

Okay.

So you take that to the bond underwriters, and I'll say, okay, how much can we borrow off of this?

So it is it's it's it's really, really hard to do this all in one package.

Right.

Okay, and I I really thought we made some progress this week on this financing issue.

Um, because we can't fix it now.

We can't do the five million.

That could get a majority of city stuff done.

So that helps.

Then the other part here, I already gave um Patrick a heads up this afternoon when I was here for something else.

Sometimes I get sometimes things in city council packets give me heartburn.

Okay, and you guys know I get heartburn once in a while here.

The one thing that gives me heartburn on this particular item in front of us is we always have something that says city administration recommends for it, they recommend against it.

This one said city administration has no recommendation.

So I'm thinking, what in the world does that mean?

Are they for it?

Are they against it?

Are you neutral?

So I just kind of asked Patrick today.

I said, I'm gonna give you seven hours to tell me now it's been nine.

I'm gonna ten, ten hours.

I'm gonna give you that amount of time to help me understand really what does that phrase mean when we see that you have no recommendation on something that's being proposed tonight?

That's at my recommendation because I have directed city staff that with major public policy decisions, those should be left to the city council to decide.

For instance, I do not believe it's appropriate for city staff to recommend whether the council should sell 225 acres of land.

That's a major public policy decision for the elections to make.

So I guess as mayor, I prefer to see administration recommendations come forward when they pertain to the functioning and the work product of the city government.

If we need to buy a new pickup truck, I would expect the city administration to make a recommendation about what's needed.

But I've talked to city staff in the past that on major public policy decisions, it is appropriate to leave those for the electeds to decide.

And the fact that the administration did not make a recommendation is not to be interpreted as them being for or against it.

It's saying we have prepared these agreements to incorporate what Woodsonia told us on June 2, and it's for the council to decide whether to go forward with them.

So that's an internal discussion I've had with city staff about knowing when to step back when it's purely a public policy decision for the elected representatives to decide.

And and it's you know, it's it's a matter of people staying in their own lane.

That city staff does not vote on whether you should sell 225 acres of land.

So that's just a matter of my conversations over several years with city staff as to when to have an opinion and when to say this is for the electeds to uh approach with a blank blank slate and an open mind and decide for themselves.

But the city staff did do what I requested in that they incorporated Woodsonia's presentation to us on June 2 into these two agreements.

Okay.

Well, my personal opinion is I highly respect the opinions of the administration that we have here.

Uh they've been hired for a reason.

They have expertise far deeper than many of us have here.

We all come from different backgrounds.

I do have some financial background, but not as in-depth as others.

Uh so I think sometimes just knowing that the administration supports it, I can understand your position tonight.

But asking nine council members to determine 142 million dollars without some expertise opinions thrown in there, whether it doesn't mean we agree with them.

It just gives me a little more comfort level saying, yeah, city administration, they they they think this is probably a good idea.

Now it may not be, and we may disagree with that, but I feel better seeing that than just we don't we don't take a stand on it one way or another.

But we can have these kind of conversations to find out where you do stand on it, and that that is helpful for me.

So overall, those are the questions that I have on it.

Uh Drew, just the concern that I had with you not feeling comfortable with it.

I think you you feel comfortable enough, and there are other things we need to do.

Yeah, uh, we've got to address TIF, and and those are big questions down the road, but I'm okay with what we've got now, but I just had those questions and have a better understanding now what will be forwarding, and it is a resolution, which is really an intent at this point.

Mr.

Hossee.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh you know, I think the mayor has it right about wanting to start the process and to see some forward momentum.

And I think it's part of the thing is how do you eat an elephant, and it's like one bite at a time.

You just got to start somewhere.

And and I think the what we have started with tonight, these two resolutions, one is the land sale offer, and the other is the 142 million dollar pledge.

As I have been looking at this for the last two and a half years, these two items were the walls in front of us.

Every time I turn around, the land sale was a wall, the 142 million dollar pledge was a wall.

These are done tonight if we approve these.

The rest of the stuff, the TIFF, the occupation tax, the CID, the zoning and platting, those are hurdles, but they're not the wall.

You know, and so I think that what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the biggest objections that I have been seeing for two and a half years.

Let's get it past that.

Now that's not gonna be the problem.

Not on our hand on our side anyway.

We want to get this offer out there to Woodsonia.

We want to get the pledge of funds out there.

The rest of this stuff will just have to fall into place, and it does need scheduling, Drew.

I I I get that.

But these are the two walls that were in front of us forever.

And I want to get these walls taken down.

I want to get through them, and I want to start moving forward.

And as the mayor said, we're looking for forward momentum, and he was absolutely correct in saying that.

And I'm glad to second the motion.

Mr.

Stell.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I wanted to take the lead on uh approving this motion.

The people of Grand Island have talked to me many times and they said, when are you gonna get this thing going?

We we support you, we want to see it going.

They like what you guys did at the mall.

They're very happy with that.

They like what the council did on the development of the new hospital area.

They like the purchase of Camp Augustine.

There's so many good things that were going.

They want us to proceed with the aquatic center and the sports complex over and over again.

They said keep the ball moving, and that's what I want to do.

I I trust our finance department.

Um Patrick Knowles, what he's doing, um, and and I have full confidence in him and the finance staff.

I just want to get this thing going down the road so that we can get some things started in the next couple of weeks and get get some dates lined up and get the ball moving.

Mr.

O'Neill.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, out of respect to Drew, I just want to acknowledge that too.

I I understand just getting something on Friday, you know, isn't a lot of time to look through something pretty big like that, and you have every right to have your council go through it, and it's pretty tough if he's on a vacation, which I know he said he was gonna be gone earlier.

Um, and I remember when Kent was here, he talked a lot about kind of getting the 80 percent.

So I think there are I'm glad to see a lot of um progress from the beginning of the month's tour today.

There's a lot more steps we have to do, and I think as Chuck was saying, if you're gonna need an elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time.

And I think we recognize, I mean, you guys would very clear for the whole time.

I think there's a lot of the things you're wanting um uh approval on to be able to do the entire deal.

Um there's probably gonna have to be a series of votes.

I don't think it'll be done at one session necessarily, but uh I want to make sure that we keep things moving in a forward constructive direction as well.

Um so I think maybe this was uh uh uh there's probably a little bit of uh uh confusion of what this really was tonight, but I think the intent was really the the prime word to describe it.

But uh I look forward as uh one step is and with many more in front of it as well, but we just want to keep walking down them.

Thank you.

Please vote motion adopted.

We're adjourned.