And our first item of business is a proclamation.

Which so I'm going to come go to the podium and read the proclamation, and Mr.

Davis is going to join me.

And anyone else who wants to.

Say it again.

So it's great to be able to lift up and honor various parts of our community.

And particularly those parts of our community that maybe are under unusual strain in these times.

But I'm excited to be able to uh make a proclamation about Hispanic Heritage Month.

So, whereas Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States is a month-long period that honors the rich tradition, history, and contributions of Hispanics and Latinos in the United States, including in the arts, sciences, education, business, government, and civil rights.

Whereas growing up is as proud to uplift the national recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month to highlight the contributions and accomplishments of the National Hispanic and Latino community.

And whereas the theme for this year's celebration, Collective Heritage, Honoring the Past and Inspiring the Future, celebrates the diverse cultural heritage of the Hispanic and Latino community and recognizes the significance of their influence in the United States.

And whereas Hispanics and Latinos have played a vital role in shaping our history and identity, both nationally and locally, from early settlers to the many who work tirelessly today for our bright burdy future.

And whereas Hispanic Heritage Month offers an opportunity to honor and celebrate the cultural traditions, achievements, and lasting impact.

Therefore, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, and our city affirms its commitment to ensure that all of our communities are welcome to live authentically, seek opportunities, be safe in the city that in which they live and remain valued remain valued and respected.

Now, therefore, I, David Le Grand, mayor of the city of Grand Rapids, do proclaim September 15 to October 15, 2025 as Hispanic Heritage Month, and invite all residents, businesses, organizations, and institutions to join in celebrating through events, education, and recognition.

Well, thank you, Mayor LeGrand, and good morning to the city commission and city manager.

We appreciate you officially recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month in Grand Rapids.

We know that this year's theme Collective Heritage, honoring the past, inspiring the future reflects both the history and the future of Hispanic and Latino communities.

It encourages us to recognize past contributions while also supporting crop progress and the opportunity to move forward.

We want to take some time to uh recognize some of our partners that are here today, specifically the Michigan Local Government Latino Network, which is one of our ERGs here at the city.

Um they're a key partner in this year's celebration.

MLGLN works to support Latino professionals in government by promoting leadership, professional development, and cultural awareness.

Everyone is invited to attend the MLGLN event on the plaza level.

Uh it'll be after this morning's Cal.

It will be a chance to network, connect with others, and recognize Hispanic Heritage Month together.

We also appreciate other partners that are present, including King County.

Thank you for your recent partnership with the local MLGLN chapter.

This collaboration supports a growing regional network, and also our community partners, which include the state of Michigan, the Chamber of Commerce, and other community organizations for your involvement.

Your participation shows strong shared support for this celebration.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for uh Mayor Le Grand for uh this proclamation.

This is a reminder that the fabric in Grand Rapids is enriched by different communities that call this place home.

And to be able to see in today's uh um time uh this culture being celebrated doesn't mean that that in any other way it invalidates others.

It just means that we have a moment to celebrate the impact, cultural, economic impact that our Latino and Hispanic brothers and sisters have in our region here.

And uh so we'd like to thank you for this opportunity.

And the best way that we can celebrate is by making sure that we are uh supporting our neighbors, making sure that those businesses that that our job creators in our community have an opportunity to go and shop there.

Not only this month, this is a good reminder, but do it the other 11 months as well, not just these 30 days.

So thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you.

All right, should we do a picture?

All right, thank you.

Right now, good to see you.

Hello, how are you on AWTV?

Well it's a little while.

All your beautiful faces.

All the way, keep going in front of the gentleman.

Are we all in the back of the job?

Mayor Wad, the chamber's clearing.

I um want to thank you for the proclamation.

And while um Omar spoke on behalf of the chamber, our uh president of our employee resource group, uh Isamar, uh Alvaredo um was here and want to thank her for her leadership as well.

Indeed.

Um this brings us to our next item of business, which is a resolution authorizing water testing agreement with Caledon Caledonia Charter Township.

So moved for it.

Uh we have our water services up to discuss this.

Good morning, Commission.

Um, what you have in front of you today is uh an agreement that allows us to serve temporarily Caledonia Township uh as we continue to build the pump station that will be in service early next year to serve them with City of Grand Rapids water.

Um that project's been under construction now for a little over a year.

Um part of the process that we have to go through is to test the water.

Uh Eagle requires this whenever it's a change in water source, that we have to go through and test that water appropriately to make sure that there's no adverse impacts on the piping systems within the properties and so forth like that.

So there being a groundwater system and uh Grand Rapids being a surface water system, um, Eagle is going to require this to be testing.

Uh we've worked with their consultants and the township to uh uh create a small um closed system uh that will serve uh multiple apartment complexes and will be done over a period of time.

The directions on this are coming from Eagle in terms of what needs to be done.

Um we have worked it out with the uh Caledonia community uh uh township, excuse me, that uh they'll be charged for this water.

Uh they'll be charged at the the whole or the retail rate for Cascade Township, which is essentially right across the street.

So uh this temporary period will be at that rate, and then once they officially connect and are on service and we have that contract in place, uh they'll have their own rate established in the 2025 rate study.

Okay.

So since this is an eagle initiated uh issue, I think I I can make fun of it because I'm not making fun of your your your work here.

Um but you know, we've got 200,000 people, give or take, drinking our water, uh, which would seem to me to be a pretty good uh base.

About 310,000.

Okay.

That fairly fairly decent data sense uh sample of like people drinking our water safely.

Um and of course, we got an entire system that studies the I mean it just seems a little silly to me.

Like if we're putting wells in and we wanted to test the water, great, but like we know it's in Grand Rapids water, unless something is I'm really really missing something.

What can happen is they are a groundwater system that has a hardness component to it that can scale on the inside of the pipes.

When you switch to a different water source that does not have the same hard hardness or chemical characteristics, that hardness and scale can come through come loose and create a cloudy situation or some particulate can come off in that situation.

That's what's being tested for to make sure that there are no issues going forward.

Okay.

Thanks.

Um any further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

And that brings us to a couple briefings.

Uh, Mr.

Matthews.

Um we have one more item, Mayor.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Um, pardon me.

Uh uh next is a resolution uh for services agreement with Uptown Grand Rapids on behalf of the Uptown Business Umrovement District.

Some support.

Ms.

Renero.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good morning.

Uh yes, this is um this is uh every three-year look uh at the agreement between the um city and the Uptown Grand Rapids Inc.

organization that was established to help operate uh the district between the bid and the the CIA in Uptown.

Um this initial agreement was put together in 19 and it was uh to again establish a framework for operations within the uptown district on behalf of the bid and SID.

The agreement was for three years and then expired and was renewed in 22, and again is expiring at the end of this month, uh September.

Uh so this is a renewal of the agreement.

Uh if you're at if you're wondering about the corridor improvement authority, the corridor improvement authority is a separate legal entity where the bid is not, and so that's what's necessitating the agreement between the city and uh Uptown Grand Rapids Inc.

Uh the one thing that I wanted to just call attention to that was changed since the last agreement was on um it's on page 16 of the service agreement, and I'll just read it quickly just to make sure we're all on the same page.

Uh in no event shall the city be obligated to pay invoices pursuant to this agreement for any amounts which exceed the actual revenue available to the uptown bid in any given fiscal year.

Seems pretty straightforward, but we added it just for clarity.

Great.

Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

All posed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

That brings us to our briefing on the Butterworth Solar Project.

Uh Mr.

Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor.

Commission.

Um, so we're here today uh realizing that while we've been working on this project for the better part of a decade um with new commissioners coming on board.

We want to give you a little bit of background and briefing on where we are in terms of the potential for the site.

Uh and uh just get your concurrence because we are at a point now, I'm happy to say, where we're ready to put out an RFP to be able to start a project, hopefully, on the site.

I think I just covered this slide.

Okay, so history on the site.

Uh so this site was closed for use as a landfill in the 1970s.

Um there was there was quite a bit of industrial use for dumping on the site, which led it to be named a supervont superfund site in the 1980s.

That required remediation um by the city as a party as well as the other parties that were deemed to be contributors to the contamination on the site.

And uh we achieved that remediation status in 2000 or 2000.

So it sat for um little more than a decade while we considered okay.

Well, now what we do, what do we do with this property?

Um and we reached out to the EPA, they did an assessment of this site, and in 2013, they provided us with several options.

Um one of those was utilization for something like solar, uh, the other was parks use, um, and the third was parking.

Um the choice was made in 2015.

We wanted to move forward with solar on the site, uh, send that power across the river uh to the wastewater treatment plant to offset their utilization of power.

Um the vendor that was selected for that uh shortly after became insolvent, and that project uh didn't move forward.

So after that, we had negotiations with consumers over the course of a number of years to figure out if there was a way within the current regulatory structure for us to be able to do something on the site in partnership with the utility.

Unfortunately, the current structure for community solar on the site made that prohibitive.

Effectively, we were going to be assuming the majority of the cost for development of the site, and the site would ultimately become the property of consumers energy and feed the grid and not it would may virtually feed our facilities, but it wouldn't feed our facilities directly.

So we wouldn't be fully capitalizing on the utilization of the primary circuit.

More recently when we ceased those discussions, I mean, we've maintained the relationship with consumers, but we just agreed that there wasn't a financially responsible way for us to do it under the parameters that they laid out.

We put out an RFQ for private developers who had experience on this kind of a site to provide their experience so that we could pre-qualify vendors for a future RFP.

That was done in 23 and 24.

Subsequently, or not actually concurrently to that, we had recognized that we had about $3 million of expenses that had been factored into the project cost that we felt like we could go to the state and we might be able to get funding for it separately.

And that was the extension of the primary circuit to the Butterworth site so that we had adjacency.

We were successful in that.

I'm happy to say that we actually have an agreement with the state.

So we're starting that project.

What that does is it buys down the total cost of the project, which means ultimately it'll buy down our cost for energy that comes off of the site.

The other thing that we did uh while we were working on that agreement, we uh worked with engineering.

We have 30% engineering designs on the site and a draft RFP that's ready to go today.

So looking at the site, for those that might be unfamiliar, this is right along the Grand River.

You'll see on the western portion of the city.

The Grand River runs along that south side.

Uh John Ball neighborhood is immediately uh to the north, and that's one of our neighborhoods of focus.

Across the river, you've got the Black Hills neighborhood.

This is a look at it.

If you haven't had the opportunity to visit, we're happy to arrange one.

So a little bit more about the site.

It's about 180 acres of that.

The city owns about 140.

Um, you'll see that hatched area in the center.

Um, that is a privately owned site.

There's a radio station that operates off of that site currently.

It does not have the same remediations as the rest of the site does.

Um it has uh, I believe an eight-inch dirt cap as opposed to the 12-inch clay cap that we have over the rest of the site.

Uh there's a trail that circles the perimeter of the site currently.

Um, and if you look just to the right of that hatched area, there's a road that comes through that leads out to a uh boat launch that currently provides emergency access to the river.

I know that some of the plans that we have for the Grand River contemplate expansion of that, adding parking so that it can be a publicly utilized space as well.

And as I mentioned before, park use, parking, solar development are all things that we have looked at as opportunities on the site.

So speaking to that, uh if you see the orange area here, that's the area approximately that's being considered for solar.

That gives you a sense of scale.

Um six to ten acres will produce us up to two megawatts of power.

That provides all the power that we need for about a hundred facilities that are connected to the primary circuit during the day, as well as uh little more than 200 street lights that operate in the city on the primary circuit as well.

Um without storage, uh this does not cover the uh streetlight system, um, which of course runs overnight.

And we've got about 13,000 streetlights on the system as well.

And that remains an opportunity for the future.

It's worth noting that uh I've we've been in discussions with the uh convention arena authority uh about the site and the potential to utilize some portion of that site for off-site parking for service industry workers.

We know that that has been a particular issue for those working in the service industry is affordability of parking, working downtown and being able to get to their places of work safely.

Um they've been doing some testing.

Uh they've put out a test strip over the last the past winter to see how uh certain materials would perform on the site.

Those were positive.

They're planning to do another round of testing this winter with the hope that if all of that's successful, we might be able to bring back an agreement in the spring prior to the opening of the amphitheater to have some managed parking on the site specifically for that use.

They've also been talking with uh John Balzoo about the potential of parking employees on that site as well.

So there's a lot of opportunity, but again, you know, it's it's a slightly larger footprint, it's probably 10 to 15 acres, but it still doesn't consume even a majority of the site.

The green area there is an area that, if you look at the parks master plan has been contemplated for enhanced parks utilization, and that still leaves the southwestern portion there available for anything in the future that we might want to do.

Clearly, any of those projects would come back to you for discussion and decision if they ended up coming to uh fruition.

So, a couple other items of note.

There's a group called uh Butterworth Site Group, um, and that includes uh several private companies as well as as the city.

Um we are designated by the EPA as the responsible party for the consent decree to make sure that the site continues to be maintained.

Um utilization would go both through the Butterworth Site Group and the EPA for ultimate approval.

We're confident that this shouldn't hit many roadblocks given that the EPA is the one that recommended the solutions to us.

Uh, but of course, that also would be something we'd have to determine as we move through the process.

Um because of the CAP and the condition of the site, solar panels would have to be ballasted.

That means they'd be planted in giant concrete blocks effectively.

Um that's more expensive, requires a little bit more engineering as opposed to just putting posts in the ground.

So, and that's just one of the uh potential issues we want to be mindful of is that there's certain risks that are present on a site that wouldn't exist in other places.

It's part of the reason that we went through the pre-qualification process, is we wanted to get pre-qualified vendors who had demonstrated experience on more challenging sites.

So I mentioned we finalized the agreement with the state of Michigan.

Um we didn't wait.

When we knew that we had the allocation, we moved forward where we could.

As you know, with a lot of our utility and streets programs, if we have the opportunity to put things in the ground, we try to do that concurrently.

So there's been several segments that we've already installed in conjunction with work that's happened over the last year.

Um the electrolyting and conduit uh team is already progressing.

They they already had the cable on order, they were just waiting for the funding to be able to advance the project.

So a reminder on our greenhouse gas goals uh 85% uh reduction by 2030, 100% by 2040.

And our goal has always been 100% of our electricity uh for city buildings, utilities, and fleet is supplied by renewables by FY25.

We did achieve the city buildings piece of that last year through the purchase of renewable energy credits.

But uh internally, our goal has always been if we're going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we want to reduce them as close to home as possible.

Um this is one of the things that allows us to get closer to that goal in particular.

So the estimated reduction on the site is 2,000 tons of greenhouse gas annually.

Um and it accounts for about 7% of the city's total energy use will go from a direct local source onto the primary circuit.

So some considerations here that we wanted to make sure that you're aware of and had the opportunity to discuss if you wanted.

Um this project is included in this in the strategic plan and in our uh strategic priorities for the commission.

Um it was not in the commission's top 20 priorities for the CAP.

Uh, but it was, and I'm making an assumption here, maybe part of the reason that it wasn't in the top 20, is because we mentioned we've got 36 things that we're already working on.

Um so it was noted when we communicated with you all that this was one of the actions in progress that we already had going.

Um that addresses both uh strategy for action one for buildings and industry, which you see here, as well as our energy systems uh strategy for action six.

So our assumption is that this is going to be a power purchase agreement model.

Um effectively, there's two different models that we typically see.

One is a PPA, um, the other is a design build transfer where uh developer will build it, and then they give it to us to operate.

Um we pre-qualified vendors, we actually had a workshop with all of those pre-qualified vendors to talk through the things that maybe we didn't know, acknowledging that they've built a lot more solar arrays than we have.

Um we wanted to leverage that expertise.

And uh they provided a lot of good feedback.

Um it was uh really encouraging to be able to have 10 people that were all competing for a potential contract, uh being as as open and collaborative as they were.

We were clear with everybody in the room that if there were any potential partnerships to be had between those developers, that's something that we would encourage if it results in a better project.

Um but the PPA typically well, not typically, what the city does is we agree to purchase the power at a particular price over the expected life of the solar array.

The developer builds it, the developer maintains that infrastructure, we maintain ownership of the land.

Um the city doesn't have any upfront costs in that process.

They recruit, they recoup their investment over time through the power purchase agreement.

Um the developer typically receives the tax credits.

That's something that I'm gonna note in the next slide.

Um we know that those tax credits for solar are uh in a difficult spot right now.

It's part of the reason that we're talking about this right now.

Um those PPA rates typically have ranged from about five cents to 15 cents per kilowatt hour.

Um they have started to rise because of the passage of this year's budget bill.

Um our current rate with consumers on the primary circuit, which ties back to an agreement in 1975, uh is about 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

This is the preferred model for most of the private developers.

So timing.

We've streamlined as much as we can, as I've mentioned in terms of taking advantage of opportunities on the primary circuit, um, pre-qualifying our vendors so we know exactly who these are going to.

They're already familiar with the site, they've already put it put together their own schematic designs.

Um but the solar tax credits are phasing out at the end of 2026 due to the budget bill.

Um interestingly, projects that are started by July 4th of 26 will have four years under current guidance to be able to be completed.

If they're started after July 4th, they have to be completed before the end of 2027.

So clearly, we would like to take advantage of the four-year window and not the 18-month window if we can.

Uh if we release this uh here in September, as I mentioned, we've got it ready to go.

It would put us on track for construction right around mid-June.

So we'd meet that July 4th deadline, and we'd have some time to make sure that the developer has time to get everything right.

Um when I say completed, completed means it's transferring energy to the city.

Um it's worth noting as well, if we get the proposals back and the proposed PPA rates are not acceptable to us, it's an RFP, we can make the choice that maybe it's not the time to move forward.

So just in summary, as I mentioned, this has been an employee uh uh in process under the current vision for about three years.

Uh overall, it dates back uh 17 years we've been working on trying to get something done on this site.

Uh that approach has been informed by discussions with the private solar developers, also with consumers.

Uh when we stopped our conversation with consumers, we didn't stop talking to consumers about the process.

In fact, consumers was a bidder on the project.

Um just as much a participant in those focus groups as anybody else.

And they acknowledge that they're gonna have a role to play in this regardless of who ends up building the solar array.

Um worth noting that consumers generally doesn't build their own solar arrays.

They work with private developers to do that, and then they plug them into the system.

Um those RFP responses will provide us with detail on what the potential cost impacts uh or net savings might be, and we'll factor that into our calculations in terms of our decisions to move forward.

So we just wanted to make sure that you all understood where we are, what it is that we're proposing to do, and that you were supportive of moving forward with the RFP.

Thanks.

Um so that's really exciting.

Um I'm sure someone's gonna have questions.

So Commissioner Robbins.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Um appreciate this presentation.

It's always good to get an update on this project.

I guess you mentioned so the RFQ piece was to kind of assess whether um different vendors had sort of the knowledge and saviness to take on a project of this complexity.

Do we expect if we move forward with the RPs that we're gonna get any additional ones from you know maybe larger vendors that already have that expertise and don't need to be vetted?

Well, uh the the way that we framed the RFQ was it was a pre-qualification process to receive the RFP.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks.

Uh Commissioner uh so so uh if I could mayor discall.

So to uh commissioner's point.

So if consumers are DTE did not participate in the uh RFQ, they will not be allowed to participate in the RFP process.

Correct.

Consumers did participate in the RFP.

So they are one of the top, one of the 10 that we're pre-selected.

DTE was thank you.

Commissioner Balchak.

Thank you, Mr.

Matthews.

Um I I definitely agree that this is a very exciting project.

It's it's been talked about a lot in the community on the west side, especially.

Um I have lots of people asking me questions, so I just want to be sure that I'm understanding this correctly.

That the 10 city buildings on the primary circuit.

There's about a hundred.

A hundred.

Okay.

Thank you.

I knew I heard some of the things.

100 facilities.

Okay.

Not all of those are okay.

Would be served by this orange area of six acres.

Six to ten years.

Six to ten.

Yeah.

And you said two megawatts?

Yes.

Um there's a lot of room here for other things we'll dream about in the future.

But there is it there is in the public eye, co confusion over where that the zoo interests and the city's interest, and now the maybe the C A CAA and you know what can we be confidently telling people is my question.

And um I guess I'll I'll start there and I had another thought, but go ahead.

Well, I mean, if you go back to the map of the three areas, I mean you can confidently tell people that all three of those are in some form of discussion.

Um probably in order.

Uh the ones on the right hand side of the map are much farther along in discussion than the park's utilization is.

Would there be opportunity in the parking area to consider the you know, additional solar that goes on roof structures or I know that's a dreams discussion.

We uh so that was one of the things that we talked with the developers about when we did the workshop.

And the challenge there, while I that that's been my goal uh from the start.

The challenge there is cost.

Uh because there's about a 50% markup when you've got to elevate those panels, additional ballasting, and you lose a lot of your parking because of the size of the ballasting that's required in between spaces.

Um they they'd be happy to do it.

Um it just didn't make fiscal sense for us to throw that into the mix at this point.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Um so when the developer should a developer got work with us under the power purchase agreement, they would be in charge of the facility and maintaining it and what happens at the end of its useful life.

They're in charge of that too, and we're just purchasing the power directly for our circuit?

That so uh it's an interesting question because there's not a lot of people that have gotten to the end of the life of their systems.

Um but that's something that would be incorporated into the contract.

Whether, you know, if if the system is continuing to perform at a certain efficiency, then we'd probably want to continue.

Um and we'd probably have an efficiency marker in there that said it's time to dish decommission, and decommissioning is the responsibility of the developer.

So we're just literally purchasing the power directly from the developer, not through consumers or some other thing.

It's it's potentially effectively plugged directly into the primary circuit.

Okay.

Correct.

Thank you.

And not to be too geeky about this, but um, you know, if we discovered nuclear fusion or got viable nuclear fusion in five years and solar was obsolete, we're not talking about you know, a gold mine here.

We're talking about a bunch of things that look kind of like windows, which we can unbolt from an infrastructure and take down, and hard to imagine at an environmental risk or a huge logistical risk to disassembling a solar farm.

So uh, and and you know, we all you and I certainly, and probably many people up here know the the expected yield curve on solar panels.

You're still getting about 80 percent of your power after about 20 years typically.

Um so we're probably talking about a system that's gonna last realistically past the 20 or 30 years perfectly predictably.

Um and then at some point you could, you know, if the technology were to stay the same for the next 30 years, we could presumably go out and put on new solar panels to uh the the architecture that's already there.

But talking about this kind of technology 30 years in the future is a little silly.

Yeah, um, but yes, this is a good durable generational uh system we're talking about setting up here.

Correct.

Uh any other questions.

Um Commissioner Ysau.

Thank you.

Um not not so much a question but a statement because I think there was something in here that you stated that I think is also just a question, you know, obviously I think we'll answer depending on where people stand.

Um, but yes, your your assumption about for me at least that even though this project wasn't in the cap, it was something that I anticipated for all those reasons that you stated the strategic plan.

It's something that we've been working on in the past.

We had you know separate subgroups that worked on this before we got to this point.

Um, you know, I think it is uh I appreciate you laying out sort of the details that you that we have to take in consideration because I think we have put a lot of time and energy into this, but we also may be at a crossroads in the future, you know, depending on kind of what what comes out with with this next step.

Um I'm supportive of moving forward, knowing that you know, I don't know how long it's been since the the last communication.

You said you've you've had this discussion with those developers that were pre-qualified, but a lot of things can change, and so I just I guess I want to say we've invested a lot.

I would like to see this if something happens during that time period.

I I think we just have to come to that juncture, and I understand that that might be the case.

Um I would also say um, you know, the the last piece on this is um I agree that there has been a lot of communication and discussion on this.

Um, but we just may be at this critical point.

So I I'm kind of saying it multiple times, mostly to remind myself this was something that was very key.

This was happening, we're gonna move forward.

There was a lot of state and federal support, and now we're at this different juncture.

So thank you for putting this together and highlighting you know the different different decision points.

Thank you.

Commissioner Purdue.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for the presentation and update.

Um, I'm also supportive of moving forward and putting out the RFP at this point and see what comes back.

Quick question on slide eight, or really any slide that has the map on it.

Um can you talk about uh because I noticed the the solar array is kind of mocked up to be closer to the Grand River, and so just wonder if that's a missed operation.

I won't I just wonder how that that design choice um was made, particularly considering all the work we're doing on activating the river banks.

Well, uh so when we put out the RFQ, um we didn't put any parameters on where placement might be.

We didn't put any parameters on how much they might propose.

Um what came back uh was largely proposals on the southwestern portion and the southeastern portion, and when we asked them about that, they indicated it had to do with the slopes and where the uh where the panels would be facing.

Um so if you see in each one of those areas, it's topographic map.

There's a high point in the center of each of those areas, and then it slopes down on all sides.

You get the most efficiency from your systems in south-facing installations.

So being on the river side of that slope is what gives them that south facing slant, which is why we saw most of the proposals taking most advantage of those two spots.

There's also if you look um right around that pond on the west side.

I'm I'm pointing at something that you all can't see my finger pointing at.

Sorry.

Um if you look, if you look at the darker green area in the center, that left-hand side, that's all forested area, which means there would be shading for a period of time over the panels if they were put in the northwestern portion.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um talk a little bit more about um or maybe they include in the RFQ responses, um, how that might uh contribute or hinder future development.

Is this a potential site to activate along the river, particularly if we're looking at um activating kind of that top northeast corner or northwest corner with the parks.

Um just kind of thinking ahead of how this all might come together and and what are kind of some of those um to your point around kind of just thinking a few decades ahead and knowing all the effort we're putting on activating the river front, just wondering how all of that is taken into account.

Understo understand the the design choice around south facing and wondering if you and the team have um agree that that's the best choice, that that's the position best position, or if that if you think that um that should be taken a look at again given is proximity to the riverfront.

Um I I did ask the question relative uh to the site that they brought forward, and this is something that came from engineering and with the engineering consultant.

And uh they responded that this is really the from an efficiency standpoint, if you're going to spend the money to build solar, you want to make sure that the solar is performing the way that you want it to, that this was the preferred site.

I they they weren't asked to say is it a preferred site relative to a parts utilization?

Um because they weren't really they they they weren't asked to master plan the site, they were asked to design a solar array that was going to meet our needs.

Right.

So my question was after seeing that, did you and your team, do you all agree that this is the best placement moving forward, or do you think there's additional thinking that needs to take place around the the proposed placement?

I think that the place, I mean, uh personally, I mean, this is this is our best recommendation given all of the other proposed utilizations.

Um this is the best sighting given everything that you see here.

Oop that you see here on or don't see all.

Thank you.

Um Mayor, uh just to follow up on uh Commissioner Purdue's point.

I think it it's uh it's a good question, and we need to make sure that we are addressing um those who are river advocates, because we had this discussion around the project off Market Street with the affordable housing units and the parking that was going to be river adjacent and the concerns around design that ultimately held the project up at the planning commission uh because those thought that the parking was going to be uh not in context uh not not consistent with some of the um aspirational plans of design around river activation.

So the uh I think it was DGRI in Grand River Inc.

that raised those concerns.

So uh relative to Butterworth, I know that uh the trail plan has long been discussed uh with them and the use of solar at Butterworth.

I'm not aware, are they specifically aware of the proposed um layout of where solar might be and have they been part of any discussions around the use of the site?

We we have not briefed them.

So it and and look, just to just to clarify this a little bit, and thank you for pulling up the scale there.

I mean, this is uh approximately 500 feet away from the river, and it's on the other side of an established trail.

Well, there's a lot of river.

I mean, I don't see that this con conflicts with rick river activation at all unless you wanted like uh envision cutting canals into that space off of the river or something.

I mean, short of that, there's a lot of green space along the river on the south side of that trail, and that's true, you know, as we go uh west also.

I mean, that trail's there's a couple hundred feet always at least between that trail and the river, correct?

Well, yeah, I the the proposed site would not impede the trail.

One of the things that we have talked about is taking advantage of the installation to do some interpretive use as well, which may actually be contributory to folks that are utilizing the trail system.

So uh if I could ask a couple quick questions.

Um is you talked about the timing and the necess, you know, necessity of getting uh the project the the flag planted um immediately, if not sooner.

Um either if if you have an answer to this, great, but I would hope that you would at least consider um whether there's any language for submission that would allow us scope creep to put it uh bluntly.

In other words, um, you know, if you if you formulated something as having a phase one and a possible phase two, um if the whole thing then gets blanketed as giving us four years to think about whether we could do a phase two and an op in in a as an option.

I don't know if I don't know if that's legally precluded, and I don't know if you've asked our legal team to look into that, but um you know, 10 acres is nice, but if we could if we could have a if we could uh you know get ourselves an option on a second uh a second site with a four-year with with the four-year breathing room, like if starting on the orange allowed us to think about another 10 acres, um that certainly be something I I would like to make sure we were underground.

It's uh it's certainly something that that we can broach.

Um keeping in mind that uh when we talk about the project starting by next July 4th, that means turning dirt on the project.

Understood.

So but again, a phased approach might get you legally uh to a better position.

I'm just I'm just suggesting it.

The other question I had was um uh is this limited by um problems with uh surplus capac surplus production?

In other words, if it's a really really sunny day and we had uh 20 acres of solar instead of uh ten real-time terms, does that exceed our ability to use it as a city?

Because then you're talking about selling you know getting consumers involved so that it can get to residential uh applications.

In other words, is this about our capacity for peak use for our uses?

Yeah.

So with our current and projected uses, two megawatts is about our daytime utilization.

That goes up to between three and three and a half overnight with the uh signal with the street lighting system.

Um but uh yeah, that's that's something that we've got pretty well documented, fits within our range.

They're still gonna have to be an interconnect with consumers just for safety purposes.

Right.

Um and that's something that they have already been thinking about.

Uh but clearly, I mean, we don't want to produce excess energy that basically we're paying for and giving back to the utility.

Right.

So this is sort of the limits of our low-hanging fruit, then.

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Uh any other questions?

Otherwise, thank you very much.

Sure.

Exciting, as I said.

Uh and I think let's put it this way.

Is anybody got any screaming opposition to proceeding on this?

I guess we didn't do a formal poll.

I think it sounded to me, look to me like from all the nods and smiles that everyone's supportive of proceeding.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh that moves us along to our annual performance report.

Um, and looks like Mr.

Canfield's gonna be walking us through this, probably with lots of interjections from our city manager.

Well, Mr.

Canfield, first of all, I want to thank Ms.

Canfield for his leadership in helping our entire organization give a stewardship of uh performance, and there'll be uh several presenters accompanying Ms.

Canfield, Ms.

Behrens, and Mr.

Matthews, and myself.

And so uh I'll we will uh intermittently uh be engaging in a presentation.

But this does give the public and the commission a overview of what's been done in fiscal year twenty-five.

And uh we do this every year as part of our annual reporting.

So with that, uh I'll turn it over to Mr.

Camp.

City manager.

And if we were using a relay model, I think you're the strongest runner then, right?

He's the he's the is the strongest, the last I was an A.

Okay, I'm not a runner.

What do I know?

I was that's the last person.

That's right.

Okay.

Um we have questions, comments.

So thank you, uh, Commissioner for doing that.

So we'll we'll uh we'll play this like a football game, we'll do a half uh time, and then uh in the second point of questioning at the end.

That allows us to get through as you can see there's quite a quite a bit of material.

So probably after the health environment section, if we can make it and no one's falling asleep, uh we'll we'll pause uh through that, but we'll try to go expediently through the slides.

All right, all right.

Two sports metaphors and one conversation.

We have nearly 90 slides, but we're well practiced, so I think the team's ready to go.

Um I just want to briefly um uh playing off of what uh city manager said, describe what our objectives are today.

So this is an annual report.

We also do a mid-year report, so you may recall hearing our uh mid uh midpoint uh report in February.

But um we are uh aligned with our city value of accountability.

We are here to review our performance in FY25, which ended June 30th.

And something that's not a city value, but maybe it should be close to one is celebration.

So we're also here to celebrate that we've gotten a lot done.

I mean, there's a lot that we are striving to continue to do, to do better, to complete, but it's important to acknowledge the work that roughly 2700 full and part-time city employees do to get all this um accomplished every fiscal year.

And then um we uh we start to um prepare for our next fiscal year, actually coming right up.

So uh we're always planning, we're always budgeting.

Um here you can see the schedule.

So um we did have a uh annual staff leadership retreat that helps us to prepare for this and some of our upcoming meetings with you.

But today we are of course at the bold uh FY25 annual performance presentation, and then we continue on through um more workshops, um performance updates, planning and budgeting for the next fiscal year 27.

And then we continue on through more workshops, performance updates, planning, and budgeting for the next fiscal year 27.

We're currently in uh 26, and we'll provide that update in a year.

Uh quick reminder of our um longstanding mission, vision, and values.

So we have our six values of accountability, collaboration, customer service, equity, innovation, sustainability.

You'll see those woven in throughout the presentation.

And um our uh vision, mission, and priorities.

The the uh presentation is organized around our priorities.

Our mission, of course, is to elevate quality of life through excellent city services.

Um every year uh staff prepare and uh then share with you at the fall workshop, a focus areas document, which really is about alignment of our efforts with our strategic plan, with your expectations and priorities, and then we have uh a um consensus uh organizational focus areas document.

So this one was actually uh prepared in September, October of 2023.

So, as you know, there's a long lead time for planning, budgeting, execution, and uh what we will be doing for the next version of this will be for 27, and we will be working with you on that in November.

Um very important, and I don't want to just gloss over this.

Sometimes it's easy to say, oh, we accomplished some things and we got some recognition.

Um, but I want to spend a few moments on uh the significance of this.

And uh when you think about the past year or the July to June period, um we earned and were recognized with a pretty significant uh set of accolades.

And so um this isn't just feel good stuff.

Uh people who might be thinking about relocating a business, moving somewhere, going to school somewhere, taking a vacation somewhere, are gonna look uh online, and they might very well find one of these these recognitions.

So we've highlighted a number of times the LinkedIn Cities on the Rise recognition.

So highlights how our economy is growing and attracting talent.

Um we have top 20 rankings for things like um best cities for women in the workplace, best run cities, um, best places to live in terms of quality of life, um, and then we receive recognitions continuing like Beer City USA highlighting some of our key industries, uh reasons to visit, um, and uh things that align with um tourism and city promotion.

So um these recognitions really are the product of collaborative work by city staff, city leadership, with you as our elected officials, working to make the city stronger, more welcoming, and more resilient, and um reinforce that Grand Rapids is a place that people want to live, work, play, and build a future.

Um we've also talked to you about uh how we're doing relative to um community sentiment and uh some other cities.

I don't have the um other city comparisons here today.

You've seen those before, and the full survey results are linked at the bottom of the slide.

But um here's some highlights.

It's worth remembering that nearly 90 percent of respondents to this survey ranked Grand Rapids as a great place to live.

80 percent as having an overall quality of life, uh high overall quality of life.

Um three-quarters see Grand Rapids as a great place to work, and 80 percent like their neighborhoods.

So, even though we're always striving to improve, we want to recognize things are going reasonably well, and so let's build off of a solid foundation rather than thinking like ah the foundation's crumbling.

Um I think you'll see a lot of evidence of uh those things in the in the report today, along with some things that we know we need to keep working on.

City manager, you want to sure just uh just a couple of things um in boiling down the report.

I mean, there's a lot to see there, but I think um one of the things that we we can't be with a city without having um a good workforce, and I want to thank again our labor unions as well as city commission for getting us through what a lot of organizations are struggling with uh in terms of recruiting and retaining the workforce with good salary and benefits, and so that that's an indicate that's a good healthy indication for our workforce.

The resiliency of our economy coming out of the pandemic, we just hosted uh the Michigan Municipal League here, and everyone to a person was amazed with how vibrant our city is and how active our city is, especially doing the midst of our prize and tech week.

Uh we've had several conversations about make sure that our inclusion efforts are intentional, probably the most that we've had in quite some time, and uh we've just recently showed all the the progress, and while we've still made some, we know we have a lot more to go to make sure that everyone gets uh a part in the prosperity of our city.

Uh the um the number of homicides that we've had, the violent crimes.

You will hear more about that in public safety is in that section as well as this afternoon is uh the lowest that it's been in years.

And so we are doing a lot of things right, but we as uh Mr.

Canfield said we are committed to continue to prove next slide, and we'll be um updating our strategic plan and having that discussion uh with you in November.

When we do the City Commission workshop and retreat, we have uh Mr.

Funkhauser who will be coming uh with us uh to us, both the city and the county to really talk about good governance and the importance of uh strategic planning.

All right.

Uh a couple more slides for me.

So um we are, as city manager mentioned, uh committed to keeping the strategic plan um relevant, actionable, and aligned with current priorities.

So um we have already started, actually have spent a couple months doing preliminary work, updating objectives, strategies, and metrics.

Um there have been various staff groups contributing to that.

Um we're building on progress since the current plan was adopted.

You've asked some questions in the past about where are we going to see the new community master plan, where are we gonna see other di guiding documents reflected in the the strategic plan?

So we're we are um incorporating those, doing other refinements.

It's not a full rewrite, so it'll be recognizable, but it'll be refreshed.

Here's the timeline.

I mentioned we've had teams working on the update.

Uh we are um planning for an a version, an update that is approvable by the city manager by the end of October.

Um, and then uh presenting the uh refreshed updated plan to you at the workshop.

And um before uh turning the the podium over to Mr.

Matthews, I do want to note there have been dozens of people involved in preparing this set of slides.

Performance management is continuous work, but I do want to recognize Eric Shannon, who is our organizational performance uh management and reporting specialist, and he leads a group that includes people from every department that are technical, they're subject matter experts because it takes a lot of work to put together all the metrics that you see uh that are measuring our our performance throughout the year.

So thanks to all of them.

And with that, I'll turn the podium over to assistant city manager Matthews.

Thank you, Lou.

So we'll start with governmental excellence.

Um this is a reflection on some of the priorities that we had for FY25, um, specific to uh the strategic plan.

Um in regards to equity, fiscal sustainability, the investments that we wanted to make sure that we were making and supporting employees, particularly around um improving our pipelines to work, uh expanding wellness, and of course addressing compensation classification.

Um we have priorities around our facilities and workspaces as well as the supportive technology, uh strategic planning, which is what we're talking about today, innovation, um, and then our financial policies to make sure that we are around sound from a fiscally standpoint.

So here's some of the highlights, and I categorize these out uh to be able to um help you all work through them.

Um from an equitable workplace workplace, a couple of the things we were able to do over FY25, uh beginning training uh for our staff on our racial equity toolkit, continuing our program with the neighborhood match fund projects, uh designing.

So it's notable here.

We designed in-house our equity champions program.

That was a program that we were doing with an external consultant for a number of years.

We've been able to bring that in-house and really focus it on uh city interests and issues, and we've seen good results from that.

That's going to launch in September, actually, this month.

And then you've noticed here at City Hall, a number of improvements that we've been able to make and/or initiate this year in terms of ADA improvements to City Hall.

As far as developing the workforce, recruiting is the city manager mentioned, continues to be a priority.

In FY25, that included key executives and economic development, sustainability, and emergency management.

Continuing our training for employees on priority areas.

And really focusing on what trainings do we need to have that are really truly required of the workforce.

And we've continued to build upon that over time as we really focus on our values and focus on how do we build our workforce around those values.

That also relates to the leadership competencies.

We've spent about a year working with a team of executives and top management officials to revise our leadership competencies as an organization.

That's something that we had artifacts that really dated back to 2010, 2012, maybe.

From a fiscal responsibility standpoint, you all are aware of the work that we've done in terms of bringing on board a new ERP.

But there are also some other things that we've been able to do in FY25 that are important.

One that's personal interest to me is the appraisal and insurance program for our city-owned art.

Up until FY25, the art that you see in and around our buildings had not been separately insured.

We also didn't have updated values on what the artwork was worth.

So it felt like that was really important for us as stewards of that work.

Continuing to look at ways that we can incorporate facility study recommendations into our budget and planning.

When, if you have the opportunity to visit Scribner, we do have employees that are moving in.

Facilities took advantage of the opportunity with a new building to apply some of the new workplace standards in that building in terms of size configuration of workspaces, shared spaces, collaboration and co-working spaces, things like that.

So it's worth a look to see kind of where we'd like to take the remainder of our facilities.

I was unable as much as I wanted to to put completed collective bargaining on here because it wasn't part of fiscal year 25.

And then one of the other things, and it's hard to believe that this was FY25.

We had a critical moment where we uh had the potential to lose our revenue streams for the biodigesters.

That was actually December-January in FY25.

Um the team was successful in securing a broker and a partner to be able to market and sell that RNG, and um they're actually moving towards some longer-term contracts at this point that put us on a stable footing where we're gonna have uh predictable and reliable revenue coming through that process.

They're also do want to note they're working on some potential to be able to uh fairly significantly increase the production of gas off of the site, but that'll be for another discussion later.

Legislative affairs, uh, you're actually getting two slides on this because there's a lot going on.

Um of our achievements for FY25, um, continuing our advocacy on city priorities.

Um this 11.2 million dollar figure is not the total figure.

Um that's how much we were able to get in direct appropriations by working directly with our state and federal legislators.

That includes the $3 million that I talked about earlier when we talked about Butterworth.

If you look at the total, um, it's about $69.5 million in state or in state and federal funds that we received in FY25.

And uh shout out to Mr.

Canfield, his team for successfully challenging the 2020 census count based on the provable statistics that we had, both in terms of payroll and added units in the city of Grand Rapids to get our count to a more appropriate level than what we originally got.

So noting some of these things that I talked about in the previous slide, three million three million dollars for infrastructure improvements, five million dollars for Roosevelt Park and Plaza Roosevelt, $2 million for the city's election center to support the clerk's office move to Scribner, $250,000 to support our mental health crisis co-response, almost a million dollars in community project funding for the stormwater project that's going to be going on down at Butterworth.

Some of the continuing project topics that we'll be talking about.

Then the last one is the river restoration, which you all know we're going to continue to work on ways that we can buy down the funding on that.

Some of the other continuing topics that we've got.

Oh, this is a repeat slide.

So if you look at our measures here, you'll see uh the measures that are in blue are um that uh we've measured and reported.

Uh the ones in green are where we're performing at or above our targets.

Uh there's a couple of here, a couple here that um we're measuring, but we did not have the data in time uh for today.

So if you all want to take a look at this um, ask any question questions that you have, but you can see right now the good news is we don't have any red for FY25, uh, but we still have some measures to get and and we recognize that there's always going to be areas where we can uh continue to focus and improve.

So at this time I will hand it over to Ms.

Barens to talk about economic prosperity and affordability.

Thank you, sir.

So uh just echoing the theme of appreciation.

I am obviously up here uh talking about and trying to summarize to the best of my ability the the work of many many people in this organization uh and and efforts that they focus on every day.

Um I also want to give a shout out to Mr.

Tim Berkman, whose uh last commission meeting is today.

And so if you would do me a solid and think of some really complicated questions to ask him when it gets to that point in time, that would be awesome.

Uh anyway, no, uh in all seriousness, a lot of what we see today is um you know the passion of many of our city employees, and we uh appreciate that.

So economic prosperity and affordability as a strategic plan objective uh focuses on many things.

So a multi-year effort on the community master plan.

Uh, and so we continue that work and and uh made some significant milestones in fiscal year 25 to actually adopt the uh updated policies and continue to implement that.

Uh we also look at ways to support uh business and resident opportunity, so business growth, entrepreneurship always a big focus of our programs uh to give our employees uh to give our employees to give our residents the ability to become employees.

It great great uh uh businesses here in Grand Rapids.

Always continuing to support entrepreneurship, housing and housing stability has been a focus, uh big focus of the organization and the community for several years now, and we continue to really promote our brand of uh a destination city and obviously uh see a lot of benefits to continuing to focus on that placemaking and uh visitor type of experience.

Uh, to get into some of the more significant accomplishments for fiscal year 2025, uh again, sorting these uh efforts into some of the big bucket areas of housing and housing stability.

Uh we approved the community master plan that will set the stage for reimagining some of the density and other uh zoning requirements and zoning um tools that will allow us to add different housing types uh and different housing densities to continue to meet that need.

Uh, there were some zoning amendments that were adopted uh even as that work was going on, continuing to look again for those opportunities to create uh streamlined uh opportunities for housing to be added to our portfolio.

We had some additional work done in pilot programming, so payment in lieu of taxes was expanded to allow for workforce housing to take advantage of pilot, and that is currently open for application.

So looking forward to seeing how that accomplishes some of the objectives that we set out to accomplish.

And again, in just recent months, uh but before the end of fiscal year 25, the commission approved the distribution of funds through our community development neighborhood investment plan process for federal fiscal year 26.

And that included the Affordable Housing Fund Board allocating money through that process as well.

So we see some layering at least from the standpoint of efficiency for applicants to access several different pots of money and the ability of our staff to then exercise their expertise and braid those funds together in the best way to try to again maximize uh housing and housing unit creation at affordable levels.

So uh now here's uh some data points for the outcomes that we're seeing through those investments, in particular the funds that channel through the community development uh process.

So those are uh home, CDBG, home ARP, and some uh some ARPA funds we are continuing to see materializing, although obviously that source of dollar as a as a new investment has uh ceased.

We're seeing the projects that benefited from that come online.

So, just again a note about fiscal years here.

The city has a fiscal year that runs from July 1 to June 30th in any given year.

The feds have conveniently a different fiscal year, and we call our fiscal years by different names all the time.

So, what you're seeing on this slide is actually the outcome uh of uh what we saw in our fiscal year that would have been the federal fiscal year uh prior to that.

So the funds that I talked about here were just the federal uh federal fiscal year 26 and were approved by the commission, and then this was the prior year's commission awards and actually seeing some of the results materialize here.

And then again, I don't expect you to be able to absorb all of the detail on this slide, but uh back at a prior commission workshop, we received some feedback that it's kind of hard to keep track of the investments and and know when they're materializing and where they are and remember those projects.

Uh so we are continuing to uh find ways to make that easier for now.

We have this table, but as we look at our website and and some updated tools to use on the website, we hope to make things even more interactive in the future.

And so these are a number of projects that are in process that we that are, as you see, the beneficiary of some of those braided funding sources, uh, including local and li tech sources and other forms of support.

So complicated work to uh bring these projects online, uh, but certainly efforts uh of many represented there.

Uh I wanted to do a little bit of a deep dive on the emerging developer focus that we really had across many of our departments in fiscal year 25.

We've talked about this before, but really the focus here ticks several boxes.

So, from an affordable housing standpoint, a lot of the projects that we see and that were featured on the prior slides are big projects.

They require developers who are uh well-versed in federal and state requirements that have access to capital that understand who syndicates LITEC projects and and uh and and they are at scale, and that does respond to the need in Grand Rapids, it tends to skew towards the rental uh market.

And so there has always been a priority and uh note that we also need to focus on affordable homeownership options.

Uh, and we've done many things uh across our departments to help with that objective as well.

So, and we talked about some of those, but some would be zoning changes to allow for different housing types.

So duplexes and quadplexes and some of the work that's been done over the last couple of years to diversify the size and the type of housing that can be built will encourage infill housing.

We've worked on pre-reviewed plan sets for a number of different housing types, uh, and those were unveiled in fiscal year 2025.

And again, that's an effort to keep costs down.

And then we had specific programs around emerging developers in particular to try to grow the developer community.

So in fill housing, these kind of one-off projects are generally hard to for a big developer to focus on.

And so if as we diversify housing type and have infill development opportunities for ownership, home ownership opportunities, we also need to change the developers that can do the work and have more on that side of the pipeline as well.

So this emerging developer focus checks a lot of boxes.

So these are very important, sort of first-in type of financial support for emerging developers to start to do site selection, due diligence, those kinds of things to support their projects.

So just wanted to do a little bit of a deeper dive and the why that we've had that focus for a while.

Moving on to the next area here, we have just sort of our economic development tools.

So the bread and butter things that you tend to think about with economic development.

We support different industry sectors, so you see some highlights there of work that we have done to really focus on retail retention and attraction and smart zone, which is entrepreneurship jobs at a certain dollar per hour, can be tech focused, but uh can cover a number of industry sectors.

We also obviously support our corridor improvement authorities, uh, and so they are able to dial in with an increment of taxes that come into those authorities within their geographies.

They are able to support businesses in a number of ways that tend to be about the look and feel of the corridor and continually investing in uh the small businesses that are there on those corridors.

Uh we do quite a bit with our incentive uh opportunities to attract redevelopment and development.

So you see some uh very uh big numbers in terms of private investment that came into the community as a result of those incentive programs and starting to see the benefit of the housing tax incentive uh changes that were made at the state level with the number of housing units there that we were able to incentivize in fiscal year 25.

You uh the commission received uh briefing from our Office of Equity and Engagement about some changes to our policies around micro-local business and city uh approach to spending in the micro local business arena and some policy work that we hope will help us to continue to push forward on the city's objectives there.

Uh so we continue to uh look for ways to improve and increase uh our spend and also the incentives that we create for the developers who receive uh city support to also uh think about that through their inclusion plans.

Placemaking, obviously a big part of our economic uh and prosperity and affordability uh objectives.

So wanted to hit a few highlights there.

We intend we continue to hit it out of the park with respect to special events, attendance, and a suite of opportunities from arts, culture, um, entertainment.

So, really a really rich uh fabric of opportunities for for both visitors and residents uh to engage on that level in fiscal year 25.

You know, parks really contribute to the livability and uh quality of place in a community, and we continue to really invest in our park system.

Uh so six new park projects were completed in fiscal year 25.

Obviously, we're in the midst of a major renovation at MLK Park Lodge, and uh really looking forward to seeing that uh as an accomplishment in fiscal year 26, but uh doing a lot of work in that in fiscal year 25.

Uh we continue to push forward on the third ward art and culture tour with the fiscal year 25 investment in that with the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives, and looking forward to to that drawing visitors and enhancing the uh understanding and education around the history of our community.

Uh we continue to see a lot of work along the Grand River.

Obviously, that's been the focus of many many years of effort and and transformation of that river and the role it plays in the city of Grand Rapids.

But we've seen some milestones hit in fiscal year 25, including opening Lion Square, which is really uh an attractive and great place and very active right now during Art Prize.

If you have a chance to stroll along there, it's it's really nice to see people using that area.

Uh, construction continues along a number of other transformational projects along the river, of course.

You're seeing the amphitheater and in all its glory really coming uh to life on the river bank.

Uh Grand Rapids Public Museum is really reimagining how people can access the river and uh be able to have some real life programming around the river and its economic and ecological significance and cultural significance for the community.

Uh and so more happening there.

We finally did receive our eagle permit for the lower reach uh restoration, so we're really excited about that milestone as well.

And then I just again wanted to do a little bit of a shout out.

You've heard a little bit about Scribner.

I thought this was a great shot of uh our new home on the river further away from downtown, allowing for all of those transformational projects along uh the river that we just spoke about, but really creating a great opportunity for us to modernize uh both the facilities that our staff use but also uh the ability to kind of be future focused in terms of how we deliver uh public services along for this community.

Uh couple statistics to share out here uh with respect to how we actually performed.

It's always good to talk about the numbers and what we're hitting and what we're not hitting.

So I do want to just flag a couple of the um figures that you see in front of you uh and and highlight what we understand about those things.

So first I want to look at the second line down.

That is our statistics around uh inclusion plan commitments, so it's sort of how much money do we uh track being spent through those inclusion plans.

So those are the economic development uh inclusion plans with MLBEs.

So you'll see that for calendar year 2024 is a very, very high number.

Uh so 77 million dollars is multiple times more than we've seen in any other year.

That is a result of the transformational projects that were approved in fiscal year 25.

So we have both the grand action transformational project plan that covered the amphitheater and the soccer stadium, and the private uh three towers development that were approved.

So the dollar amounts that those projects are committing to spend with MLBEs is very high.

Uh the you'll see though the figure, the st the uh percentage of spend is still not meeting our target of 15 percent.

Uh so that's still in the red.

So we again, as I mentioned, did a little bit of a deeper dive in a prior briefing about you know what can we understand about MLBE spend and where we can continue to support or remove barriers.

So making some policy changes to try to address that.

But I did want to flag what was happening there.

Um you'll see then down kind of in the middle of the page, there's the next red figure of uh describing a loss in the number of employees based on W-2s.

That's a macroeconomic sort of thing that's happening.

I uh would be way over my skis if I were trying to explain why we are seeing that.

Uh, but just wanted to flag we do monitor that because it has an implication for you know our budget and our forecasting and how we think about those things as we put together our budgets moving forward.

Uh, and then finally, a couple other reds there, just to talk about a little bit are coming out of our permitting process and review timelines.

Uh so again, we continually monitor this.

We report out on this information at the economic development project team uh on a on a monthly basis.

But a couple things driving there, you'll see there's the number of days uh for board and commission approval when something needs to go through our planning commission.

There was really kind of a glut of applications, which is a good thing.

Uh, but that board meets and has a finite agenda and a finite uh amount of time on their agenda, and so we did see a little bit of delay related to just getting things queued up for that.

We are starting to see that number of applications normalized, and so would expect that that number of days to come down.

Uh, with respect to projects that don't need to go through the planning commission, you also see that we're above our target there by about a week in terms of how quickly we process those things through.

Uh and there are a couple different reasons for that.

We've talked to this body before about just some of the challenges uh that impact us, but will impact the many, many other sectors in terms of uh skilled trades and the competition now for people who are able to do not only our plan and inspection review, but also able to work in the skilled trades in the private sector.

So we are all trying to find ways to work together to continue to expand that labor pool or sustain that labor pool.

But that is something that we're very sensitive to and have worked with our HR department to try to make ourselves an employer of choice in that in that area with uh a lot of competition.

Uh we also have seen a slight increase in just the number of review cycles that some of these really complicated projects require uh to get through now, and that just adds days.

We are uh working with our applicants to make sure that we can have the most complete and highest quality set of plans to look at and review.

So trying to get a little bit ahead of that and hope to uh be able to help people get through the process with a reduced number of review cycles.

So lots of different ways we try to support the community in that.

So with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Mr.

Matthews.

Tagging.

All right.

Okay, we're going to talk about engaged and connected community.

Again, uh some of the core objectives there.

Uh continuing to invest in our communication systems, um, making sure that residents have voice and that we're focusing on community engagement, uh, and making sure generally that we're responsive as an organization to the community.

If you look at some of the achievements, uh this is an area that I'm I'm particularly proud of when we talk about engaged and connected because it is uh professionally where I spent a fair amount of my time prior to coming to the to the city of Grand Rapids.

And um I'm I'm particularly proud of what we've been able to achieve really in five years' time to build a communications and engagement program from from scratch, and we're can continuing to build and add on to that success.

So when we look at uh some of the core areas, when we look at transparency and access, um, some of the things we've been able to do, develop a public access portal for si for city records.

Um that's uh something that I asked the IT department to take a look at.

Uh we have a system that captures many, if not most of the documents that are created by us as an organization, um, but we didn't have a system to make them publicly accessible and searchable.

Uh that has value both for the public and it has value for us as an organization to be able to access those things.

And that was really a pilot so that we could look at other areas where we might be able to employ that technology.

We expanded our live stream access.

We added three new boards and commissions in FY25, and I'm going to skip down because it's related.

We also launched an and enhanced our commission meeting video system so that it's now indexed and transcribed so that if you go to a meeting after the meeting is held, you can go straight to the agenda item that you have an interest in, and it'll take you straight to that video.

Um you also have access to a strength transcript where you can click on the transcript and it will take you to that word in the video.

Um all of that is to really enhance our openness and accessibility to the public to be able to get to the things that they have a particular interest in as quickly and efficiently as we can.

We also launched the Commission Connected newsletter that focuses on these proceedings, provides a wrap-up for people that may not uh want to watch the whole meeting, or they may again they might have something they're particularly interested in, and they can get an update on that.

Um we also in FY25, we had competed a contract for the management of our public access stations.

And the intent was specifically to increase uh some of the performance metrics around accessibility to the full community and the performance of the organization around those things.

Uh, if if you haven't had a chance to tour the facility and hear about some of the things that they're doing, I'd encourage it.

They're doing a lot from an educational partnership standpoint, increasing access uh for residents that might not otherwise have access to that kind of technology to be able to build their skills and hopefully be able to build those into job opportunities or business opportunities in the future.

Enhancing communications, uh we transitioned we are GR publication to the communications department.

Um that was something the the previously largely sat in the hands of the uh school district.

Um so that's one that we have uh we have assumed as part of that partnership, which we actually talked about during fiscal this morning.

Um we began implementation of a new branding policy for the city that's really to provide guidance and consistency.

One of the things as any organization, really, if you're public or you're private, folks should be able to see your visual identity and be able to identify who you're with.

Uh and that can have a tendency to get fragmented over time as departments, programs, activities start to build their own identity.

So uh that's something that we started to implement this this year.

Uh actually the previous year you might have seen some of it start to appear on business cards and things like that.

Um we assisted the assessor's office on a public education act campaign, I'm sorry, uh, in terms of the assessment process itself, uh, updated the neighborhood living guide, and uh launched an enhanced communications pilot with with CFERT to help support the commission with some of their needs.

In terms of the assessment process itself, updated the neighborhood living guide, and uh launched an enhanced communications pilot with with CFERT to help support the commission with some of their needs.

When we talk about engagement planning and execution, uh FY25 is when we formally transition community engagement over to the communications department for closer collaboration and coordination.

Started the implementation of our community engagement framework.

We um will be launching in this fiscal year a training around that.

We actually started that at our top management meeting here over last month.

We finalized the build out of our digital engagement platform, Engage GR so that there's a single place where people can go to see what's happening in terms of community engagement, where they can engage and how, and if they don't have the time to show up, that they've got digital opportunities to be able to offer their feedback.

We continued uh to work with multiple departments on how we can enhance uh the communications and engagement around major infrastructure projects.

We're gonna take what we learned through this construction season and apply that next year and continue to bolt on new activities that we think will be helpful.

Engage about 325 participants through uh development with us in the planning department.

Of course, hosting the neighborhood summit, which is always a big success from an engagement standpoint.

Um commission night out events, again, that has become kind of a standard for us.

We've tried to be more intentional in our engagement at CNO to make it topical and timely and actually collect feedback that we can pull back into a broader engagement program uh to be able to help inform the decisions that we make as staff and the recommendations that we make to you all as the commission.

And then, you know, one of our focuses was how do we continue to build relationships with the neighborhood associations.

We continue uh to participate in the monthly collaborative meetings, but I do think it's worth noting that planning in particular is is tried to be much more intentional in that engagement.

They're going beyond the NAC meetings to make sure that they have somebody that's attending uh the association meetings themselves and being accessible there to be able to not to note the issues, concerns, and questions that our neighborhoods have, but also to be able to hopefully answer those questions.

Then last one here on equitable access.

Uh, we're continuing to support the uh West Michigan Welcome Plan for our immigrant and refugee communities.

And uh while we note uh implementation of the fire and police language incentive programs, that's something through our relationships with the unions.

We continue to try to center and encourage opportunities where we can um incentivize the utilization or bringing those skills to the table and being able to use them in the workplace.

So if you look at our measures here, we have a number um that uh that we're still working um to measure.

But overall, you know, one thing that I would probably want to note because I know that it's an ongoing point of conversation uh and can be an ongoing point of of frustration, not just for you all, but certainly for us.

Um if you look at uh what is it, the third line down, FY21 end.

We had about 1800 freedom of information requests.

Um at the end of FY25, you'll see we had exactly actually more than double that.

Um so we are exploring where our opportunities are to be able to stay efficient when it comes to being responsive.

We take that responsibility.

I know that all the partners do, law, police department in particular, take it uh take it seriously to try to get that information back out to the public as efficiently as possible.

But that is a number that's certainly worth noting.

So we'll have time, coach.

Yeah, let's go ahead and pause and take questions.

Maybe I would suggest we do it one section at a time if we go back to governmental excellence and see if there's any questions uh in that section by the commission.

Then we'll go to the next section.

Yep.

Okay.

So uh commissioners, uh section by section.

Uh so governmental excellence.

Any comments, questions, concerns?

Uh Commissioner Robinson.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Um, just one super quick question.

I know we discussed this at fiscal committee as well, but with the um the goal live of the new ERP system.

I know um originally prior to that implementation, we kind of talked about doing like a follow-up at some point to just go over some of like the efficiencies that we've seen, um, whether that's you know, time, um, you know, personnel resources, financial aid, things like that.

Um so I know uh Miss Claire maybe um has it on her radar already, but thought that that would be uh helpful at some point to to see.

Uh newly not I don't I don't see her here, but we'll make sure we come back and give a public update either at fiscal or cow on some of the things that we're seeing in uh efficiencies with implementation.

Okay.

Uh anyone else, otherwise economic prosperity and for oh, sorry, Commissioner Beltrick.

Um I know I have a couple notes here.

Um I would like to hear a little more about the in first in house equity champions cohort.

And that's going to be starting right about now, and also um maybe a little more on um the 61st district court situation.

Okay.

I'm gonna invite Mr.

Davis up to talk about the uh equity champions.

He's been leading that effort.

And I'll find somebody that can talk about the courts.

I'm sorry, what do you want to know about the courts communication?

Um, I guess what were the improvements in the statewide legislation that made a difference?

That noted things that we're continuing to do.

Continuing to focus.

Okay.

All right, good morning.

So uh we are excited about our in-house equity cohort.

Essentially, what we've done is in past years we've worked with uh consultants to build out our equity learning uh throughout the city, and they've done a great job of helping us to prepare framework and understanding uh some of the best practices in doing it.

But after working with consultants for several years, we recognize there was a need to tailor our equity trainings uh and our cohort to the needs of staff here at the City of Grand Rapids.

So uh Sierra Hatfield really led this work uh and spent a lot of time in a design phase uh working through the best practices, looking at other trainings across the country, and now she's brought uh Lily uh canal on with her as well, and they're leading that work.

So we're excited about uh launching that here, and uh several staff members have signed up, and we look forward to giving you a report on what that looks like later.

Uh Commissioner Sazi.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um I know sometimes it's like you've told us this, and then we've talked about it, and you told us this, and so a lot of good work happening.

Um I'm glad to see the pieces about uh the equity um champions and some of that internal work because I think that was always just like sustainability.

The goal is you know, you have the department, but this really needs to be embedded across every department in the city, and it's not just kind of who's in that department and who's doing that work, but what is happening across.

And so I feel especially right now, we need to even lean more into that.

So thanks for that update, uh, Mr.

Davis.

My question was really around um uh the the AI powered technology.

So we were just at the Michigan Municipal League conference, many of us, like actually all of us, at different points, and it was a really good conference, and there was there was sessions around you know, technology and AI.

Um, Mr.

Canfield and um Ms.

Dor just recently showed us some of the improvements to 311 and just kind of again some of that um testing patterns, different pieces like that.

So I say all that to say I know of other communities that have AI legislative committees as well.

Um and so just wondering how that how are we how are we, you know, we're exploring it, but how are we also ensuring sort of the guardrails around AI because I think there's energy use, there's you know, questions about how AI is used, but we also know what's happening to us.

So, you know, I'm I think this is the question we're we all have our phones up here and it's you know it recognizes our faces.

I I don't know that much about it.

I want to know more, and I also think um this is something that I hear a little bit, not not a ton, but more regularly from my constituents about how AI is in our city services and how are we sort of like measuring and monitoring that.

Um so I just wanted to put that question out there.

I don't have any expectations, but I think Mayor, you and I a couple maybe last month talked a little bit about this.

So um just wanted to share some thoughts about that and see what your comments were.

Thanks.

Sure.

Um I uh I'm um proud to say that the Mr.

Start, our IT director, has kind of become uh uh uh a regular on the circuit speaking about some of the things that you just brought up.

I can tell you that for us uh as a public organization, uh we are always going to be um intentional and thoughtful about the way that we bring forward new technology, expect especially new technology as you recognize brings with it some uncertainty and inherent risk.

Uh so we actually we actually we turned on the AI uh co-pilot for staff, I want to say about a month ago.

Um, but just as an example of how we approach that, uh we learning from other organizations that have kind of jumped out front.

Um there have been some pretty spectacular failures in the AI space when things were launched and people weren't brought along to learn exactly what they are and how to use them.

Um so the IT department was very deliberate about sending out emails to the staff on a weekly basis saying, hey, this is something you could do with it, and here's some prompts you can try so that you can get comfortable with it.

Then we did the same thing at our top management retreat.

We went through a guided um activity utilizing Microsoft Copilot, um, so that folks so to demystify it and start to uh encourage employees to kind of use their imagination on the areas where it can be most helpful and in the lowest risk environment.

Um we were waiting for the Microsoft Cloud because the Microsoft Cloud is sequestered from the wild.

Um and uh all of our all of our uh inquiries are actually encrypted and sequestered from being collected by the broader IA monster.

Um so that's one piece of it at the same time.

I actually I'm gonna be chatting with Doug tomorrow.

Um we're putting together a staff team that is going to kind of run parallel to our IT steering committee, but specifically focused on I on AI, uh vetting opportunities, receiving opportunities that are brought forward from departments to determine where the opportunities might be most beneficial for the organization from an efficiency standpoint, from a risk uh standpoint.

Um because you have a lot of our current vendors that are tying back into AI models.

Um and then you have a lot of vendors that are just tying back into their old algorithm algorithmic models and calling them AI.

Um there's really there's not a substantive difference between the two, but right now people want to purchase AI, so they're gonna call everything AI the same way 15-20 years ago, people wanted to purchase Smart Cities, so people started calling their thing Smart Cities.

Um we want a team inside the organization that's helping vet through that and make sure that we're being thoughtful about how we go about employing it in the organization.

Mayor, if I could just quickly add, we also wanted to uh show the commission and public some practical applications that we're already using.

You mentioned the 311, but there were a lot of department uh examples of that, and uh I think that would be worth uh briefing moving forward.

But one of the things we I at least I I want to do instead of just using it for AI sake is really make sure there's a presenting problem that we're trying to solve.

And I think the FOIA issue is one that I'm very curious about how we can uh utilize technology more to address uh our FOIA uh requests.

Yeah, I I think I mean I'll just say I think uh this is something I've been concerned about, and I think that there are two substantial opportunities.

Um I mean, the one of the real advantages of AI, as long as you understand it's uh it's a it's an assistant, not an executive, um, is being able to draft do faster modeling.

Um and so, for example, things like you know, how would we do infrastructure modeling uh with different financial constraints, that's something you can get drafts of shockingly easily.

Um so when we're thinking about things like our master plan and you know, road uh uh planning, those are things where you can get, you know, where you said, you know, if I had 10 million dollars and I wanted to do X, uh, where would you prioritize in the city, you can get a draft virtually instantaneously that you can then edit.

So I think some of our planning functions we really need to start thinking about using it as a first draft modeling tool.

Uh it's also true that you know out in the private sector uh coders are simply saying this is just exponentially faster.

Um and so to the extent that there are coding-like functions we do in the city, and again, I'm thinking engineering, um, those are those are places I think where um there's a huge opportunity for us here to get to get nimbler.

Yep, to get faster.

Yep, and there's also an opportunity I would say for us to um work with potential vendors so that they can refine their products to be more appropriate to the public space.

Uh in fact, that's something that you mentioned engineering.

Um I introduced uh our city engineer to a company that was doing work in this space specifically for the intent that, hey, take a look at this.

Does this feel like something that might be helpful even if it's not in its current form?

And is there a way that we might be able to partner up to get something that works for our uses?

You know, because it's nascent technology, we have an opportunity to help influence it for the public sector, and I don't want us to lose that opportunity either.

Yeah.

And thanks for the work you're doing on this.

And I know that I mean you just summarized for us things that you've told us all internally, but um this is a public meeting, so I'm thank you for bringing it up, Commissioner Sasi.

Uh Commissioner Kilgar.

Yes.

Uh to uh go back to one of um Commissioner Sassi's comments that has been a concern throughout this whole AI conversation.

Uh I've noted this since January of this is great, it does all these great things, wonderful, but it also has significant impacts on some of the most vulnerable within our nation of where they are powering data centers that could go all day.

So uh now that we've incorporated this into our functions, I still am would like to request an environmental impact report if who at whatever vendor we're using has one.

So both the public and this commission can be aware of how much faster and how much more awesome we're doing everything, and what is the implication for the planet uh and the most vulnerable.

So I'd like to request that since we're already using it and hope to see it soon.

I I can appreciate that as you can imagine.

I've got kind of torn uh allegiances to this being, you know, overseeing sustainability and overseeing IT.

Yes.

Um thing I can't tell you is that you know, where I've had the opportunity, I I have tried to advance a conversation about this on a statewide level as a member of the uh Michigan Infrastructure Council.

Um it's something that I have put on the table for the Sustainability Committee to talk about uh on a statewide basis if the state is entertaining this kind of sighting within the state of Michigan, because we have a lot, we have the bit most attractive feature.

Actually, two of them, which is it doesn't get super hot all year, and we got a lot of water.

Um to I'm encouraging them to identify what our priority should be from a sustainability standpoint and then take a position on that and make sure that the legislature knows that.

Um, in the grand scheme of things, recognizing that we have situations like Memphis that are not acceptable and that those inquiries are just as likely going to Memphis as they are somewhere else.

It is a national, if not a global issue, and we do need to understand what the impacts are of every inquiry that we put in there, how it impacts our software systems so that we have some knowledge.

I can also say that Microsoft right now recognizing the environmental impact is making massive investments in renewable credits wherever they can find them.

I just had a group at the BioChar conference over in Minneapolis, and Microsoft had their own session about how they are trying to make investments to offset that impact.

That's wonderful.

Thank you for that.

And there's no uh central location for report for these as of now.

Yeah, but Commissioner, what I think um we would like to do with our AI council that we're creating is to ensure the sustainability office is on that council and helps us with that accountability for awareness and reporting.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for the update.

Okay.

If we can move on um in interest of time to economic prosperity and affordability, um any input from commissioners?

Uh Commissioner Kilgar.

And I would ask in the essence of time, just looking if the staff can be very direct in in responding to questions.

Sure.

I'll jump to um uh it's uh slide number 23 here.

Uh I would like to highlight under the strategic plan objective in line with our housing stability and strategic plan objective of supporting our most vulnerable.

Um, I'd just like to highlight some things uh engage the interest of my colleague in some uh policy and ordinance considerations that could help highlight our work on affordable housing.

So for example, slides 26 through 27 include all of these wonderful light tech investments.

This is internal.

Uh uh I'd noted uh Ms.

Mearns, you highlighted that it was hard to keep up with.

And yes, for the commission, but also for the public, I think that'd be wonderful.

So to echo uh, I think internally, if we have a policy change of having an inventory, uh an affordable housing inventory of all of the um properties and initiatives that we've uh tax initiatives that we um have given folks for um housing that be great, one central area uh location on a public website of ours so that the public can know.

Um and also we talked about that today at the start, uh celebrating, right?

That we are doing our job as uh uh the body and as the city to work on affordable housing.

Um and that inventory is a part of sort of a few renters' rights uh ordinances and updates that I think would be wonderful for the city, and I would love to hear feedback from my colleagues on that.

Um we the last time we had a direct community engagement on renters' rights uh was the housing now in 2018.

So this would be continuation to uh a lot of community engagement that we had in 2018 to further protect some of our most vulnerable, which is a uh uh strategic um plan objective.

So simple things like resources on unjust evictions uh and also disclosure of all fees that uh landlords may give.

And I I intend to speak more to this on our November 13th uh work uh session, uh, and I'm hopeful that my colleagues will support us updating some of our renters' rights and including this inventory so we can uh further uh help our most vulnerable with housing.

Uh Commissioner Purdue.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for um raising us and continue to have uh the additional conversations about how to protect everyone in our in our city, particularly uh giving uh many of our challenges.

Um I would like to uh focus my questions on kind of slide 29 um through the KPI slide.

Um so for on slide 29, the development incentive results.

Uh just want to confirm that that just means anyone who receives any of our incentives, Brownfield, Oprah, transformational, etc.

etc.

Is that every s and anyone who's received a an incentive from the city of Grand Rapids?

I'm gonna have to phone a friend to see if this is just housing TIFF or Sarah here.

I'll have to get back to you on that.

Okay.

Make sure that it is complete, but we can provide that if this is just housing TIFF, we can provide the full.

Okay, that would be great.

And then similar line of questioning with slide 32 in I can't see it on the the sheet.

I don't know if it's on the screen this is the KPI table, but the thank you, EPA 4.1, uh the number of new dwelling units permitted, and number of new affordable housing.

Um is that are those uh KPI specific to whom?

Just the entire city, any new dwelling units, is this so the new dwelling unit would be that's tracked through our um planning department, so that'd be anything that needs a permit, which was every new dwelling unit.

The affordability is a little bit tougher to track, so um that may not include everything if it doesn't require some city incentive or uh support that we're tracking through one of our other departments.

Could you just confirm the definition of how you all got to that number uh when you uh clarify around the housing TIF or the the incentive question?

Yep.

Okay.

And then lastly, um same slide, EPA 2.1.

Um so we have our inclusion plan commitments here listed, um, which is really great to have a sense of and to see the the drastic increase in commitments of doing business with um inclusive and minority-owned and women-owned and micro-local businesses um here in the city, jumping from 22.5 million to 77 million.

We know that those commitments are considered aspirational, and there's not a legal or legal accountability measure or structure, right?

They're not legally bound to uh follow through with those commitments.

So, what sort of oversight and reporting is is happening related to the inclusion plan commitments.

So, for example, in fiscal year 2023, and there was nearly 30 million dollars worth of inclusion plan commitments.

How much of that has happened?

Uh we can go back, we do report about that annually.

So we do report the actuals versus what was put in the plan.

So while we may not be able to withdraw the city support for someone who doesn't meet what they've what they we do make that transparent and we do report out on it and have quite a high percentage of actual fulfillment, but I can get that information for you specifically by year because we do report it out each year.

I think that would be really important, and even having a sense of it, maybe even on a um twice-a-year basis, uh, because we we uh see so many of those come in front of us, and it usually is an attractive part of a project.

Um and so being able to speak to how much of those commitments actually are being followed through upon without that kind of legal formal accountability structure, I think is a really important area of interest and insight for all of us.

So those are the end of my questions, just really kind of those points of clarity around economic prosperity and affordability.

Thank you.

Commissioner Knight.

Thank you.

Um and Commissioner Purdue, I believe a couple of weeks, uh a couple of commission meetings ago, that um uh OPA and uh Alvin Hills, they did do a uh a presentation on the MLBE program, and part of that conversation was um that they're increasing am I getting this right, Mr.

Davis, because you were there increasing the amount of incentives depending on what the businesses were doing with the MLBE program so that they would be more likely to work with diverse companies as opposed to not, and and some of that was because of these larger projects, the amount of money that they were gonna get uh through the incentive or the credits that were they were gonna get were not worth them necessarily doing the work.

And so to add to what you're saying is a question that I've always said, then how do we get them to the table?

Now I know raising the amount of um uh credits that or discounts that they get, but what else can we do?

Because if if you know getting that little bit of uh credit is is not worth them doing the work, then what are we saying to our community?

And in you know what I mean, and holding people accountable to that.

So I appreciate you bringing that up.

Yeah, we can certainly do uh more a deeper dive conversation about this.

So two different tracks the MLBE discount, bid discount that is for the city spend on projects, so city capital spending, inclusion plan, uh language is what we use when we're talking about the private development side and to uh incentives.

Uh and so uh economic development department, we have been talking within our group about is there time to is it a good time to refresh some of the policies around our tax incentive program and what we are incentivizing, uh what the public benefits are and then how we might look at those.

So more to come on that.

There's opportunities potentially tier the incentives, there's opportunities to do different things in order to pull the lever differently for some of you some of the public benefits we're hoping for from the projects.

Thanks.

Okay, I have a couple quick um things.

First of all, um in terms of our numbers, I would find it helpful maybe to not just have uh numbers on what we've done in housing but also forecast.

So like things that are in the pipeline, and of course, there are various levels of things that are in the pipeline, but maybe things that are permitted going forward, so things that don't exist because you know when you're looking at finished projects and necessarily sort of looking backwards, so um that as a metric might be useful.

Um the other thing I uh wanted to point out there was just and this is just uh brief um uh there's a brief reference to uh ward comparison for investments.

I tend to think that it's more you I get a little more clarity at least if it's disaggregated as not downtown investments.

So um things that are going on in the downtown uh corridor.

I mean, I don't want to suggest we have four wards, but we have three wards with neighborhoods, and then we have downtown and downtown is a very different animal.

So um being able to, and and we've started to do that in some other reporting, but uh the more we can see X downtown data to have actual comparables in terms of the neighborhoods that are in different wards, I'd find that useful.

Um so if we can move on then to engage.

Real quickly, Mayor, just in response.

I think Miss Barron shows the slide where in terms of future uh projects.

These would be the future of the affordable housing projects that we're supporting in one way, shape, or form.

Uh, and we can certainly talk to the planning department.

I believe on at EDPT they do do some level of forecasting of what we know about the pipeline, uh, but we can certainly look and see.

Great.

Thanks.

Uh questions on engaged and connected community.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Saucy.

Thanks.

I'd like to go back to economic prosperity and affordability.

Just um, and then I do have another question, but for the corridor, uh appreciate the numbers on the corridor improvement authorities.

I think that's positive.

Um City Manager, you and I had a conversation about some of the infrastructure pieces that corridors have taken on, particularly in Plainfield, our North Quarter, you know, bioretention islands, engineering's been helping us, maintenance of native plants, but just you know, without a corridor manager for some time, it's hard to manage some of these infrastructure pieces.

So I'd like us to continue to think about what is that uniformity across the city as it relates to these different pieces around you know, we call it beautification, but it is economic development, so that's one.

I don't need to answer just that's a statement on that.

Um, when is the last time the affordable housing fund board met?

Uh a couple weeks ago, last week.

Okay, last week, okay.

Last week.

Um, I just didn't remember.

I I have more on Brownfield, so thanks for that.

And then if I can jump into engaged and connected community, I just have two comments.

One around um the recap videos, love them.

Communications does a really excellent job.

They're easy to watch.

I'd like us to consider doing them in Spanish as well.

We have translation services at our city commission meetings.

I think I've can count the number of times on my fingers when people have utilized that.

And so I think we're asking people to to come and engage and we're providing that.

But how could we go a step further?

And so I'd love to see if we could do some of those videos, those recap videos in Spanish.

Um, and then you know, I know we had this pilot with C FERT and the pilot with uh additional support.

I just want to say at this meeting again, I was not supportive of those investments.

Um has nothing to do with the services.

I just in particular with with Seafert.

I think we have some really great communications professionals, and I think we need to consider looking at do we need more investment there.

Um we had a good session with C FERT.

Um, we did our videos.

We were having to talk about some of the city things that we're doing, where I think if the city did that, they already know the content of what's happening.

So again, it's a productivity thing, it's not a it's not a service thing, it's just where does this best sit?

Um so I appreciate those ward videos.

I think that was a real pro positive step.

Um, but I just wanted to say that I I don't I when this comes before us for that next budget amendment, I don't intend to continue.

I tend to tend to keep my vote as the no, so thanks.

Uh anyone else on engagement.

Okay, let's move on to the next half then.

Mayor, just from a time check, we have half an hour.

Yeah, before um public safety.

What I would suggest we cover health and environment pause, see what questions we have there, and we can continue this at our next um commission and cover mobility and uh public safety.

I think it's appropriate, especially since I've mentioned it yet, but we have to go in a closed session uh at the end of the meeting.

So let's do that.

Or or we can it at at the body's pleasure, we could pause now and just do all three at the next meeting.

I will prefer that.

I would prefer that.

Okay.

Great.

Okay, so uh we will uh put a uh tab there, and uh I would like a motion to move into uh closed session for employee review and also labor discussions.

So support uh Madam Clerk, if you call the roll.

Yep, yeah, okay.

Commissioner Balkan?

Yes, Commissioner Purdue?

Yes, Commissioner Asassi, Commissioner Kilgore, yes, Commissioner Knight, yes, Commissioner Robins?

Yes, Mayor Legrand?

Yes, and that'll be in the law library.

Thank you all.

We're adjourning to the law library.