City Commission to order, and as uh is our habit, we like to start with a moment of silence.

So please join us in a moment of silence.

Under Godissible Liberty and Justice.

Thank you.

Um we have an interpreter for one language, and that is Spanish.

And if she can come up and introduce herself and explain her role in Spanish, that would be great.

Oh, we can do the roll call first.

Hang on just a second.

All the roll, Madam Clerk.

Commissioner Perdue.

Present.

Commissioner Knight.

Present.

Commissioner Belchak.

Present.

Commissioner Kilgore.

Oh.

Commissioner Sasi.

He's here though.

Commissioner Robbins.

Present.

And Mayor Legrand.

And Mayor Legrand.

Present.

Thank you.

If you can introduce yourselves.

Good evening.

We're pleased to provide a Spanish interpretation services for those in attendance this evening.

This includes interpretation during the meeting.

And for those who want supervide public comment.

Thank you.

Buenas noches.

Estamos encantados de proveer servicios de interpretación in Espanol.

Para los presentes esta noche, esto include interpretación durante la reunion.

Thank you.

Um I would like a uh entertain a uh motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting.

So moved for it.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Brings us to petitions and communications.

Madam Clerk.

Communications 11 received expressing opposition to a single holler trash program.

See and filed.

Communication received from Ivan Chiquito expressing support for changing the name of Delaware Street to Millier Penn Street.

Communication received from Tom Lozuski regarding the conditions at Mount Mercy Apartments.

Commit communication received from L.

Andrew regarding the Grand Rapids Housing Commission.

Mr.

Mayor, I think we may have skipped over our public comments on agenda items.

I am so sorry.

Sorry to the public.

So I'm uh I if I leave this meeting, it's not because I don't want to be here.

Um we're I'm taking it as it goes.

So Mr.

Jones, if you could reverse if we can reverse our agenda here for public comments.

These are on agenda items, so anyone has any comments on uh the city commission agenda for today.

Um this is your time to take three minutes and speak to us about it.

How you doing, everybody?

I'm D Jones.

Thank you, David.

You're a nice guy.

I'm not gonna speak on it right now though.

I'm gonna stay on uh resolution five uh for fiscal committee, which is uh you guys are proving the grant for GRPS television authority.

So what I hope that if they do have a television authority and they speak on the things that GRPS does, if that is the thing that they're gonna be doing with this grant funding.

I hope that uh as the uh GRPS uh starts to develop uh television network and program and that they start to educate people on the initiatives, uh other things other than disk sports, but also esports and stemming uh steam careers.

Uh it'd be nice to actually be educated on the things that uh the school district does, uh, continuously get updates because a lot of people don't know what's going on with our school district.

So if they do have an authority, if they happen to develop a television network and they have programming on this TV network for our school district, I hope that they are educating people on the curricula, on the programming, on the things that's happening on the everyday basis because people are uh um they are worried about our education system, they're worried about our local education system, people have concerns about uh teachers being paid and things like that.

So I just hope that we're being able to be transparent as possible if they do have a television network that they're continuously being transparent and updating people on the real things that's going on with our school district.

Thank you.

Hello, Lucas, first word.

Um I actually wanted to generically highlight this agenda tonight because this happened to be the meeting I could come to.

Um and it happens to be like a good old classic, boring get business done agenda.

Uh and it gives me an opportunity to point out just in the general sense to the public, um there's a lot of basics just getting work done.

And it's been nice to have faith in this elected majority to just take care of the things and not feel like we have to be here all the time.

Doing that in good faith, rewarding that faith in the elected majority.

So that was really the agenda thing I wanted to highlight because the uh the boring stuff is a real refresh from the federal.

Waking up every day with that level of stress, but knowing that the local government is just kind of carrying on doing business.

That's a little something.

That's a little something of stability.

And I think people that may have blown this meeting off because it didn't have a big hot button that they they could show out and come talk about.

I think they're maybe missing out because there's a lot of boring stuff that's gonna get checked off list tonight that's important to keep in the city running.

All of it.

All of them, every single item.

Um I do want to say a little throwback to what you've been doing that I haven't been able to make it to.

Thank you for keeping on with the engagement on trash.

It's a big step in the right direction.

Thank you for making arguments against some of the greed-driven and performative arguments by some people.

I think there's a lot of common sense solution that you're entertaining.

So thank you for getting the business done, including tonight's agenda, and I'll be back later.

Thank you.

Uh seeing no one else for our initial public comment.

Uh, just so the uh everyone here knows there is a public comment time at the end for any item that you wish to um communicate to the commission about.

Um so I will take us back then to report of city officers.

A comptrollers warrant report for the period of August 26, 2025 through September 8th, 2025, in the amount of 31,465,357 and twelve cents.

Received and filed.

Treasurer's report for the period of August 28th, 2025 through September 9th, 2025.

Uh, this brings us to our consent agenda.

These are items that passed unanimously out of committee and did not uh get pulled out of consent agenda for further discussion by any one on commission.

Um can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support.

All in favor?

Aye, all opposed, mayor.

Yes.

Um sorry.

Um I just wanted to say for that um was that the treasures or fiscal fiscal, right?

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it will be updated.

Okay.

My bad, move on.

All right, thank you.

Uh that brings us through the consent agenda and um to ordinances to be adopted.

Madam Clerk.

In ordinance amending section one of the budget ordinance 2025-11 for fiscal year 2026 amendment number two.

Uh Commissioner Robbins.

Oh, I'm sorry, can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support.

Commissioner Robins.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Um, these items came before us, or this ordinance came before us um at fiscal this morning.

Um our CFO must miss Molly Claren um gave a highlight of some of the very ones for Breberty's sake, I won't go through each of them in detail.

There are uh 16 in total.

Um, the full full list and uh a full description of each of them are in the agenda packet if people wish to um go back and listen to our meeting this morning and review or just read them through through read through them in detail.

Um and then lastly, I'll just note that um if commission approved the budget ordinance amendments, um, this does leave the ending contingent balance untouched at 1.5 million dollars from our general operating fund.

Thank you.

Discussion?

Sorry, Mayor.

Yes, this is the one that I wanted to speak on.

I um am in approval of all of the other items except for one, which was the uh enhanced support pilot.

I am against that and would like that to be removed from this pile of uh things that we are voting on currently.

Okay.

Uh are you making a motion?

Yes.

Okay.

Support.

Support.

All in favor of removing that item from the uh the budget ordinance, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Aye.

Opposed.

Thank you.

Um, did you want to speak further, Commissioner, or not?

Well, yeah, um, just w when this uh initial uh enhanced support pilot had came up uh before us a few months ago.

Um I was uh also opposed to it at that point.

Um I feel like there are a number of things within this uh enhanced support piece, um, even with our general um our communications department that can be done within the city.

We have the proper staff and people who are qualified to do some of the things that we were trying to do with that pilot, and also feel like uh in the time that we are in that it's important for us to be fiscally responsible of the dollars that we're spending on things that may not be necessary.

Um and I have not uh necessarily seen the um benefit of having these additional supports.

Um and so I have been against it from the beginning, and I just want to make sure that uh that is stated for the record now.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Commissioner Ussi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Commissioner.

Um I uh appreciate you saying that and making the motion.

I think we were aware that it was going to fail.

Um, not you know, because we've had productive conversations with um one another.

Um I too at the beginning of this year felt like this was not the best use of our funds.

Um I have yet to see the full value of it.

I I see more of the value in the city departments and how do we connect and coordinate better.

Um so I would as well have been a no vote, um, but prepared to vote yes and good governance and to move forward this evening.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh then seeing no further discussion, uh call for a vote on the budget amendment, uh budget ordinance.

All in favor say aye.

It's a roll call vote.

I'm sorry.

Sorry, roll call vote.

Let's pretend we didn't say that.

Commissioner Knight.

No.

Commissioner Beljack, yes.

Commissioner Kilgore, yes.

Commissioner Sasi, yes.

Commissioner Robbins, yes.

Commissioner Perdue, yes.

Mayor Legrand.

Yes.

Uh can I have a motion?

No, so motion carries.

Can I come with a motion for immediate effect?

So moved.

Support.

All in favor of immediate effects, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Uh, can I have a motion to suspend the rules to consider the following two ordinances?

Uh salary ordinance and uh salary ordinance.

I'll move to suspend the rules.

Support.

Thank you.

All in favor suspending the rules say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Um, Madam Clerk, if you can see first, salary ordinances for 61st district court employees represented by the association of public administrators union.

Um Commissioner Saucy.

I just call for a motion.

So moved.

Support.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I want to help you out.

I've been there too, and these lights are not helpful when you have a sorry.

I've been there too, Mayor.

The lights are not helpful when you have a migraine.

So I know you're you're battling through that.

So this is an item for the 61st district court as previously noted for one of the um unions, which is the association of public administrators union.

Um over the last couple weeks we've been reviewing um the different uh bargaining units, and this will follow a three-year contract period, and the first year will be a five percent increase, and then the following two years a four percent increase.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, any discussion?

Seeing none, uh, Madam Clerk, if you call the roll.

Commissioner Belchak.

Yes.

Commissioner Kilgore, yes.

Commissioner Sasi, yes.

Commissioner Robbins?

Yes.

Commissioner Purdue, yes.

Commissioner Knight?

Yes.

Mayor Legrand.

Yes.

Can I have a motion for immediate effect?

So moved.

Or all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, motion carries.

Uh Madam Clerk, next ordinance.

It was salary ordinance for 61st district court employees represented by the Grand Rapids employees independent union.

Uh can I have a motion?

So no.

And Commissioner Ussi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, this is for the other union for the court as noted.

This is the Grand Rapids Employees Independent Union.

Their three-year contract period will follow for the next three years in the first year at four percent, the second year at 3.5%, and then the third year at 3%.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, uh any discussion.

Uh seeing none, so again, a roll call vote.

Commissioner Kilgore.

Yes.

Commissioner Sasi, yes.

Commissioner Robbins?

Yes.

Commissioner Perdue, yes.

Commissioner Knight?

Yes.

Commissioner Belchek, yes.

Mayor Legrand.

Yes.

Um, thank you.

Motion carries.

Can I have a motion for immediate effect?

So moved.

Support.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

This brings us to the public hearing portion of our evening.

Um, and our first public hearing.

Um, going ahead and introduced by Ms.

Bohatch.

Um, this is a hearing uh to comment on the draft federal fiscal year consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, future needs of housing and community development programs.

Ms.

Bohatch.

Good evening.

So somebody said we had boring routine items tonight.

So this is really exciting stuff, right?

Give me that.

Come on, it is exciting.

So tonight's public hearing is our last step in our process to finalize um the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report that is um submitted to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Um, the CAPER is our annual fiscal and performance report.

It's one of three documents that's required to receive federal funds for the community development block grant, the home investment partnerships, and the emergency solutions grants programs.

The first required document is the consolidated housing and community development plan.

It serves as the city strategic plan to address housing and community development needs and priorities.

It guides investment and program in these program funds over a five-year period.

So it's really a five-year strategic plan related to these programs.

The second is the annual action plan.

The that plan serves as the annual application for those three funding sources, CDBG, home and ESG.

So every year we submit and tell them what our planned actions are and our planned expenditures.

And then finally, we provide this CAPER, the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, and that basically tells them what actually happened in terms of the fiscal expenditures and what accomplishments we made based on our planned actions.

And it's always the most recently completed year.

So this CAPER that we were asking for comments on tonight covers July 1 of 2024 through June 30th of 2025, and that represents the fourth year of our HCD plan.

So while the CAC CAPER is required to receive CDBG home and ESG program funds, information is provided in our CAPER for all of our funding sources because we allocate those on an annual basis in one streamlined process under our neighborhood investment plan.

And we include other resources such as the opioid settlement funds and perhaps we might have ARPA funds or recovery funds and other resources that come in, maybe on an annual basis or more long term, and we do that through one process.

So here's an example of our funding sources during that time period.

And our you can see that the largest amount of funds come from the community development block grant that has more eligible uses for it and a variety of uses.

But in this in during this time frame, we also had some American Rescue Plan Act dollars for the home program, which was a special allocation, as well as the OPRAID settlement funds and justice assist and Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Funds.

Through the neighborhood investment plan, when applications are made where we make selections for projects, applicants are asked to identify an outcome area that they plan to address with that project, and then behind the scenes, we work to figure out where that project meets eligibility because all the different funding sources have a different form of eligibility.

So then we align those projects under those outcomes with the appropriate funding sources to be able to maximize our investments.

And here's an example of how those funds were spent during this time frame in the various outcome areas, and again, this is based on projects and their eligibility by funding source.

There are documents that have been made available that this is very high level of what's in the CAPER that's been made available online and in our office.

And here's just some information in terms of what our program population looks like in terms of who are is being served by those programs, and you can see that the program participants compared to the GR population based on race and ethnicity.

Some high-level sort of roll-up of this information.

283 households receive financial assistance or services that prevented or resolved homelessness.

More than 1,200 unhoused residents receive services and access day center space, so a safe place to go during the day.

So there's education, fair housing education, outreach services, free legal services for and representation for individuals who had issues, maybe perhaps with tenant or landlord concerns.

There has been pre-purchase housing counseling as well as down payment assistance, and there was construction of 150 units that were completed during this particular program year, and we had 176 that were underway at various stages of progress.

And then here's another example of an adaptive reuse from a school building in which 39 affordable rental units were for seniors.

And then under the improve the conditions of existing housing, we have over 3,000 code compliance cases that were brought into compliance, which addressed health and safety issues and nuisance nuisance issues.

And there's a 512 properties received some type of home repair, whether that was minor, substantial, or received some type of access modifications for physical disabilities.

And there's a little bit of a map there that shows you where those projects occurred.

So those programs are eligible citywide, but again, have some income limitations and eligibility requirements, but you can see where those projects occurred throughout the city.

In outcome five, this is where we really have our successful partnerships with our neighborhood associations in terms of engaging with neighbors and helping to build leadership opportunities and have them become engaged with the neighborhood and or other city activities that really help support you know quality of life and I guess positive you know interactions in their community and impact our community.

Under improves safe community safety, we have a variety of activities that again that are supported by our neighborhood organizations that provide crime prevention in neighborhoods, and we also use the opioid settlement funds in this area as well, where we have substance use disorder and services, and as well as we made some investments for actual physical improvements to the Cherry Health Southside Health Center to provide expanded services to persons who are needing assistance, as well as providing uh harm reduction uh supplies.

And then under outcome seven, um, this is where we focused on services and programs that help support job training and readiness for adults and youth.

And um, and under our outcome eight, everyone asks the question about this.

This has been in our in our plan.

Um we have not made investments there as that area of our plan has been really supported by other investments that we other resources that we didn't previously have in the city in terms of infrastructure improvements.

So we're not we're choosing to um prioritize our resources in other areas.

So this is the public hearing in order to provide comment on anything that's in that plan in our plan as we turn it into before we turn into the um to HUD, but we're also tonight um accepting comments about any future needs.

So anything that people would like to see included in whether that's services or activities that we could support that they think would be beneficial to the community.

So we'll take comments for those future needs.

We'll include that in our new consolidated plan when that is developed, as well as help to prioritize funding decisions in the future.

So after tonight's um public hearing, there still is time if people are interested in providing written comments.

So we've been taking that since the start of the comment period on September 9th, and we'll continue to take comments through uh tomorrow.

Sorry, that's the last day, but we'll we can receive written comments through tomorrow as well, and then we will finalize the plan.

Thank you.

And then one last opportunity to um tell people to save the date.

Um so if anyone is interested in these types of funding opportunities, the community development department will host information sessions that will help people understand what opportunities may be available, what anticipated resources we will have, and also to provide some information about how to apply and um and also some tips on how to be successful in your applications.

And that is it.

Thanks.

Um want to give input or comments?

I have a um question, if I could, Ms.

Ohat.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the overview.

Uh I always love to see, you know, we we approve the the awards and then we come back and see all the great work that's happened in the impact, and I always love the the visuals, uh, particularly around the home repairs because that's such a big topic of conversation.

So thank you.

Um and just in general, because I know this is around evaluation reporting, um, that I think when we look at demographic uh alignment, um, just looking to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the intended audience.

So whether it's around race and ethnicity as as listed here, or social economic status or income or what war people live in.

Um I think it's helpful to see what is the need look like, and then how do our services meet the need as opposed to just pure um uh kind of makeup of the city.

So that's my only piece of feedback around reporting.

Um, I'm not sure if this is specific for the federal port report, uh, but just in general, as we look to see and measure the impact of our investments and our award decisions, we'll love to kind of see some sort of um comparison between need and community and and and um um groups in need, if you will, um, and then how we how well we do with meeting that said popular target population.

I appreciate those comments and um um things are a little more challenging today, so typically we would provide that that's part of our consolidated plan, and that's part of our planning process to identify um you know socioeconomic disparities, and we're try to highlight that and try to focus resources, and um we are now in this um time not allowed to do that in our planning process and not able to provide that information in our next plan that will be approved um under the current administration.

So we're having some challenges doing some of the work the way that we would like to do that and explain it and display it.

That major barrier is is overstood.

Um I'm thinking uh that aside, just our purposes for our conversations and inside of how are we are our intended dollars and programs meeting uh the target population could be an opportunity for a kind of a separate um present or an amended amendment to the presentation that might not be intended for the federal government, but I think it's really insightful for us and and for the team.

So thank you.

That's all thank you.

I keep doing that.

Thank you, Miss Bohatch for the presentation and thinking about your question, Commissioner.

Each one of the provide do because I know like a lot of times we'll go to places and they'll have to do a sign-in list or different things, they they have to collect data on some of the participants.

Is that correct?

Um, so income eligibility is a critical component.

So that typically if you are providing a direct service, then typically they will have to do that and it's income-based.

Yep.

Um, so that is a critical component.

But for example, neighborhood associations, we support that based on an area-wide benefit where we have determined um the population in terms of that um, you know, at least 51% of the population is meets that low mod income qualifications, and so we can provide it that way.

We're not expecting them to right.

Okay, yeah, that's what I thought.

So from so from like a reporting piece, that's something that's provided in the reporting that the agencies that have um been awarded these things would would provide.

No, they do not, and they're not really.

I mean, we would I mean I'm sorry, we monitor them to make sure that they're collecting like the number of people and those sorts of things.

Yes, okay, thank you for clarifying that.

Any other questions?

Nothing from the commission, and I'm not seeing anyone else coming up to the microphone.

Available moment.

I just said and and it's probably minimal, and I probably asked it another time, but no, I'm there.

So um, I was wondering in the um opioid, and you may not be able to give this either.

Um, when you talk about the harm reduction supplies that have been given, has that number increased over the last year?

If we know or the last couple of years, is that so um that was the first um I getting through the end of a of a program year, and so I can tell you after we conclude this year.

Gotcha, gotcha.

So this time next year.

Gotcha, and then just one last model was um you mentioned something about outcome eight not really being um that there were no investments planned in that.

So then are you taking the funding or is the funding being being able to spread across other um specific areas or uh what's what's so that was an outcome that was established when we first did our five-year plan.

Um we used to do a lot of investment in um residential streets um, for example, improvements um in uh residential areas in our target area um with vital streets and the dollars that they have available there, it really doesn't have the need.

And then when you look at part we did perks projects in the past in that area, and um, you know, the resources that are available now through the millage and other um grant opportunities.

So we've really just taken the resources that would have been in competition for that, and we're using them in other outcome areas where it's eligible.

And that's primarily CDBG.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner.

Thank you.

Sorry to belabor things.

I don't, but um I have a comment for future in the public comment part.

Um I am curious to see more under Ocum 7, improve economic opportunity.

I see you have done a um a consolidated plan here, includes job training, readiness, and whatnot, and um you know, opportunities to connect with resources in the community.

What um additional things could we be doing to be fostering neighborhood um startups, businesses, entrepreneurship, things like that that would be a thought for the future.

And if we can find ways to enhance neighborhood infrastructure, I would like to put a word in for additional supports for our neighborhood associations and other community.

I know that we're limited by the number of dollars we get um through CBDG and other things, but those in those organizations have been around for a long time and they have been operating on shoestring budgets then, and those budgets have only gotten about the well, they're about the same, and we all know what the world is like now.

Um, and we're asking more of them to be doing public outreach, um, you know, helping with getting surveys, helping to get the word out about different engagement opportunities, and they are backbone uh to our and they're doing other things too that I think we can also foster more money into if we're looking at the future under outcome eight, um, including um maybe this is under outcome five too, with community gardens, food production, resiliency in a different way as we think to the future and becoming a self-sustaining neighborhood and in collaboration with community.

Thank you.

What's that?

Uh yep, I think we have at least one public comment.

Yep.

I want to make sure I'm doing it at the right time and you start the timer.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Jim Davis.

I live here in Grand Rapids as a proud board member, former board member and president of a neighborhood association, a former planning commissioner, and currently seated with the public safety committee.

I'm grateful for you all being here on a very long day.

I'm grateful to Miss Bohach and the community development office.

It couldn't be more important the work that you do right now at this time.

So as we analyze where we've been and look to where we're going, I appreciate just a couple of minutes.

Um I want to recognize the state and federal officials from any and all parties who are working to understand the very real implications and consequences of our recent proposals from the federal level.

Um, that reconciliation package that we've all witnessed and lingering state budgets conversations here in the state of Michigan have me and my employer at Family Promise of West Michigan very concerned about our working class families.

But the recognition of these grave consequences and the bipartisan efforts that continue today to mitigate these chasms in both the budget and in understanding are appreciated.

Uh, luckily, housing is a nonpartisan issue.

Uh we like to say housing is where jobs go to sleep for all you economic development people out there.

But just so everyone knows here in the United States of America, family homelessness rose by 39% in 2024.

That is uh a big issue that we expect to see exacerbated by cuts to Medicaid and SNAP here in Grand Rapids.

We operate the bulk, the primary um 51 rooms of family shelter.

We keep families with children together and make sure that they have a stable place to live as they look for their permanent and positive solution.

And as we're assisting through that, just know that all of our shelter rooms are full today.

They've been full every day since I've been employed for five years, and just as many families in the shelter are waiting for one room to open.

We have half the amount of shelter rooms in the city of Grand Rapids and its surrounding communities that we need today, and the issue will get worse, rest assured about that.

So as we talk about the flexibility of federal allocations like CDBG, we know that there are limited resources, but very few of those funding sources can go to the production, the acquisition of land, buildings, or redevelopment for any property that's going to be used for shelter.

And family homelessness is an invisible issue that I like to continue and bring before you.

A couple of issues with the plan itself.

Um first of all, we're grateful for it, and we love being a participant.

But uh from my team, these are bullet points.

Um don't shoot the messenger here, but we'd love to connect with you, send letters, sit down and talk as Family Promise of West Michigan, and we will be submitting something in writing tomorrow.

Um, specifically um uh a couple of feedback notes is that um, and it may be due to the timing of the city budget, but when RFPs are open for these dollars, um it may not be that they even know what will be budgeted for these grants.

That is not the city's fault, but we're asking for that to be improved.

The turnaround time between the LOI and the RFP due date is really tight, especially when you're doing multiple applications.

And as mentioned from Ms.

Bohatch, we're not sure what funding source we're applying for.

We're just telling them what we'll do and then being kind of pushed into an area.

And we'd love to be able to be prepared in advance of that meeting to write proposals specifically for funds that we're targeting.

There are other issues at play.

I've used my three minutes.

I'm grateful to each of you, and thank you so much.

Thank you.

How y'all doing?

I'm D Jones, Pastor Entrepreneur and Visionary.

Also the chair of the stock and community hub.

Very excited to be chairing the stock and community hub as the West Grand Neighborhood Organization is one of the neighborhood organizations that holds businesses accountable and get them to invest into the community.

One thing I like to see from our federal and state government, if possible, is uh additional funding into our community uh development uh department.

So we can actually build affordable housing so we can 3D print homes so we can utilize services like Next Steps West Michigan, which me and the net Vandenberg, the executive director checked out the tiny homes there and seen that they build all of the houses in houses.

And if you work at a workforce development program besides the in-house program that they have, that you can be able to get one of the homes that they have.

So I'm asking uh my community to advocate, I know it's hard, uh, but to continuously advocate and use your voice to ask for additional funding.

I know it's a hard thing to do, but I'd still ask for funding and I'd still led worked with those legislators and the Republican Party to actually try to get some funding because we need the resources.

We need to uh we need to negotiate.

We uh need to put our prize to the side, not saying that anybody is prideful here, but I'm just saying that people need to put their pride to the side when it comes to the community and uh use their voice.

And uh it's not a time to be sitting here uh being scared or being the voiceless because silence is violence, and I don't want you guys to sit there and be silent when the community has needs, especially our community uh development department.

Uh so I'll continuously advocate for 3D printed homes.

Hopefully, we can be able to uh change some of the uh framework within the community development department where we can actually utilize some of these funds from the federal government or the state government or any type of grant funding that we get to 3D print homes or build tiny homes because housing is a big need.

Also at the West Grand neighborhood organization, the stock and community hub.

Uh, we're also looking to put tiny homes, and we already spoke to Next Steps West Michigan, and they're looking to partner with us to actually build the tiny homes.

Uh, we probably I don't know if we're gonna work with ICCF or uh Habitat for Humanity to oversee these homes, but I know this is something that we're speaking to fruition and that I brought our executive director to the South Side from the West Side where we live at to be sure that we get the resources and we make the connection.

So I am doing my due diligence to try to make the community better, and I'll continuously grind and do my due diligence to advocate for affordable housing because I just actually walk here.

I have a car, but I wanted to walk, and I seen people sleeping.

And sometimes when I'm uh walking early, I see people getting up like fresh day, like you know, it's crazy because I get up in my bed and then I walk and I see people under the bridges.

And if you go in the inner city in the inner city of GR on the west side, there's one bridge and they don't have any gates.

But if you get closer to downtown where they're about to build that soccer stadium, there are gates.

People shouldn't be sleeping under the bridges, but that's a concern to me.

So affordable housing, 3D housing.

Thank you.

I didn't expect to uh put on my West Grand hat tonight, but I will.

Um it's relatively boring, relatively not boring to us.

So as Vice President West Grand, I want to echo a lot of what Dee just said.

Um I want to share just a bit of inside baseball to to help connect what you see in these plans because obviously we're cheering this stuff on.

Um couple weeks ago we had our board retreat for the West Grand neighborhood organization, and I took the body through an exercise in mission vision and messaging that I conduct for executive clients, and a lot of you are like, well, what that guy does that stuff.

Yeah, there's another side to me that you don't get to see in this room a lot.

And the without wasting too much of your time, there's a uh there's a whole Greek mythology ethos mythos thing in this exercise.

But one of the things in telling this the hero story of your organization is a hard question for the room to entertain, two of them actually.

One, what is it that only your organization is doing?

And two, if your organization disappeared tomorrow, what would they eulogize that is not happening anymore?

And those are really powerful discussions to have with community leaders.

And the answers to those are sometimes really terrifying and heartbreaking.

And I'm not gonna run you through our answers because we're gonna make that into messaging that helps get more members and get more funding.

No, I can not gonna show you those cards right now.

But what I will tell you is that stuff doesn't happen without these funds, and we really appreciate these kinds of plans, and I encourage the entire community to get behind this sort of thing and more.

Thank you.

Uh seeing no further comment, uh, this hearing is now closed.

That brings us to our next public hearing, and I believe Ms.

Ranero is going to lead us through discussion of some projects that we've seen before us, um, but we are now moving to the public hearing uh portion.

The first of these is hearing to continue uh consider an application for issuance of economic development bonds, um, submitted by Michigan Christian Home DBA Beacon Hill at Eastgate.

Ms.

Renew.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Good evening.

I also want to I want to just um give you a quick overview and then invite Jeff Hughley up with Beacon to give you some background on the project and why it's important.

Um so this is uh this is a request to the economic development corporation ultimately to help issue bonds and the amount and the uh amount not to exceed 190 million uh to finance the expansion and renovation of their continuing care retirement community on Boston.

Uh the project will include expansion and revitalization of the western portion of the campus.

So we anticipate a building to be demolition uh demolished, and we also expect uh units to be uh rehabilitated in another existing building.

So we've got 29 units being renovated and about 149 new units in the new building.

So the the economic development corporation recommended the project plan to city commission and received approval at its meeting on September 9th.

Uh this meeting um is obviously uh public hearing on the project plan, but it also constitutes what is called a TEFRA hearing.

Uh TEFRA is the acronym for tax equity and fiscal responsibility act of 1982, which applies additional tax requirements and considerations to tax advantaged bonds such as EDC bonds.

The this uh commission will see this project again on October 7th, and then um and then hopefully we'll move forward with issuing bonds.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that um because the economic development corporation is a separate legal entity, this doesn't have anything to do with the city's bond rating.

Um so with that I'll invite Jeff up to talk a little bit more.

Good evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Jeff Hughley, I'm president CEO of Beacon Hill at Eastgate.

Uh I want to thank Director Renero, city staff, commission, uh leadership for partnering with Beacon Hill over all these years.

We've been around 15 years in a redevelopment mode at the corner of Plymouth and Boston Street in the third ward.

And uh it's been a joy to watch the mission grow over these years.

Our organization started 65 years ago.

The main uh goal of this project is to replace that 65-year-old building, which has served seniors in an incredible form for all those years in a variety of variety of fashions.

Um today we serve about 450 seniors across a variety of levels of care.

Uh independent living is the largest part of this project, but it's not the focus.

Our focus really is on bringing state-of-the-art assisted living and other memory care programs uh to the community.

As a nonprofit, we've been able to drive value into the market.

Uh the community has really come to us, and we've been able to develop a high level of care.

Uh, our five-star rating is the top in the region, and we continue to be great stewards of all of the proceeds we've gained over these years uh from bond issuance that have been authorized through the EDC.

Uh, this hundred and ninety million dollars will represent a three hundred million dollar total investment by Beacon Hill into this community.

And we we employ 250 people every day, 365 days a year, 24-7.

Um, and it's it's an incredible mission that allows us uh to continue to expand and serve uh a population which is burgeoning.

I think all of us know seniors.

I think tomorrow we'll know even more seniors, and it just continues to be an area of need for us.

So our mission remains vital.

Uh, your permission to allow us to issue bonds through the EDC will allow us to you know extend the horizon of our mission beyond what we can see today, and it'll be our pleasure to continue to find new ways to make that happen.

So I want to thank you for your attention to this and would welcome any questions.

Uh but in the meantime, uh, we're here to serve you and serve your neighbors, and if if there's any way that we can continue to do that for you or people you know, let me know, please.

And if if there's any way that we can continue to do that for you or people you know, let it let me know, please.

Thanks.

Uh any commission questions?

We have seen this project before.

Um, that's great.

Uh any public comment on this.

And thanks for making the point, Ms.

Renault, this is not our bonding uh rating we're talking about here.

So that's important for people in the audience and on TV to understand we're facilitating some, I think, really good work in the community.

Um at no cost to ourselves.

Um thank you.

Uh seeing no questions and no uh community input, uh close this public hearing.

Thank you.

And this is referred to community the whole uh that brings us to our next project, uh public hearing on an amendment to the Brownfield plan to include 443 Sheldon Redevelopment Project located at 443 Sheldon, surprisingly enough.

Ms.

Renau.

Yes, thank you.

Um on this one, I want to call some attention to uh Bryce Hanson, who's our developer in the room, who I will also welcome up to talk here in a minute.

He can um six successful uh emerging developer grant recipient, and now uh we're seeing uh a Brownfield plan project uh in front of you uh which started with an emerging developer grant.

Uh so this is this was an existing um land bank lot.

So I just want to call some attention to that.

The property it was uh has been vacant since 2000.

Um it went into foreclosure in 21 and it was owned by the state land bank at the time uh when the properties were transitioned to the Grand Rapids Land Bank in February.

This was part of the portfolio, and Bryce has an option through March of 26 to uh close on that uh sale.

Uh the project before us uh with the Brownfield plan includes the new construction of uh uh residential building for 26 apartments uh along with a surface lot.

Uh the building is expected to be all electric and solar ready at project completion.

Uh six of the 26 units are anticipated, that's about 20 percent or is 20 percent anticipated to be income restricted at 60 percent AMI.

We've got 3.8 million roughly ineligible activities, with most of that being uh potential rent loss.

The DDA did contemplate this recently at their board meeting on September 10th to consider pass-through.

Uh so there's a a couple of different partners here at the table.

And with that, I want to invite Bryce up to uh talk a little bit why about why the project's important.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Well, I want to start off as always by saying thank you to everyone for taking the time to be here today and for your consideration of our project.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Bryce Hanson.

I was born and raised here in Grand Rapids and moved back shortly after graduating from Western Michigan University.

As I arrived back, I started looking into different housing options and quickly realized just how expensive the market had become.

Now, this realization inspired me to explore different avenues in which I could potentially make a difference.

Through programs like the Emerging Developer Program and the Housing TIFF program, I've been able to take the first step toward addressing this challenge.

Now, these programs are incredibly vital to the financial feasibility of projects like ours, and they allow new voices like mine to make an impact.

Our project will bring investment into one of the city's neighborhoods of focus and priority areas outlined by the South Division Area Specific Plan.

With a total of 26 units, we'll have a mix of rents that'll reach different income levels.

On the market affordability rate side, we'll have two studios priced at $1,300, 161 beds priced at 1400, and two two-bed units priced at $1,800.

These rents are designed for individuals earning between 70 to 80% AMI or a range of roughly 52 to 68,000 annually.

However, we recognize that those numbers are still out of reach for many people.

That's why we're setting aside additional units at more affordable levels.

We'll have two studios priced at around eleven hundred dollars, three one-beds priced just south of twelve hundred dollars, and one two-bed unit priced just above fourteen hundred dollars.

These will serve individuals earning between 44 and 52,000 dollars.

From young professionals starting their careers to lifelong Grand Rapids residents, our goal is to create housing that'll serve a wide range of people that both want and deserve a place to call home.

I'm joined today by my partner on this project, James and our consultant Jess, and the three of us are happy to answer any questions that you may have, but I just want to say thank you once again for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Uh any questions, colleagues, comments.

I want to say wow, and thank you.

Um your story is great.

And this is your first project, and you just jumped right into it.

I did, yes.

And through and has the emergency emerging developer program taught you everything you need to know?

It's taught me some.

It's been an incredible help.

I will say that.

Um I'm sort of half-teasing because it is a good program, but you really learn by doing in this world.

Of course.

Um, especially in this field.

So I want to particularly just say thank you to you and call out as a new developer setting standard for the future.

Um, I talk about building the city, the future, the city of the future, and housing is a key component of that, obviously.

I am impressed that you have chosen to put an investment into an inner downtown neighborhood on the heart side area.

Um it's all electric and solar ready.

So that's very visionary, future sit future thinking.

And I think that the transparency you have offered in your presentation to actually list the rate of the monthly amount.

That is not something every developer does.

So thank you for doing that.

It's really a leadership thing.

And I think you even listed like the kinds of people, the income that they might be able to afford.

Right.

So that's taking that conversation to the next level to so people can see themselves in our city and living in these places.

So very impressed by this project.

Um, can't wait to see it happen.

I hope that everything goes smoothly from here on out.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um not seeing any public comment.

Um, I will close this hearing and uh refer this to committee of the whole.

And that brings us to our third public hearing uh regarding a development project, and that's the amendment to the city brownfield to include powers place redevelopment project located at 764 and 800 Powers Northwest.

Yes.

This project is just south of Walker Ave on Powers.

I want to invite Adam Rogalski, uh, who's another emerging developer up here in a few minutes after I just give you a brief overview.

Um this is a this is the project in the middle of a neighborhood.

Um it's going to make way um it's actually a really complicated site, but it we're gonna put eight townhomes with a total investment of 2.7 million.

Uh the eligible activities for housing TIFF are really significant site prep because of the the comp the complexities of the site, but total roughly 1.1 million.

This project qualifies as housing.

Uh therefore our Brownfield Redevelopment Authority housing TIFF uh interim guidelines require at least 20% of the units to be maintained affordable for the length of the Brownfield plan or at least 10 years.

Uh, because of those significant site prep costs, we are um we are advocating that um we hold the developer accountable for the full 25-year term of the Brownfield plan and do one unit instead of uh two.

So instead of 20%, we're seeing 12 and a half percent of the units remain to be affordable for again the entire length of the Brownfield plan.

Yeah.

Those are the things I wanted to highlight quickly, and I'll invite Adam up to here to sell the project.

Thank you.

Uh good evening.

My name is Adam Rogalski, and I'm the emerging developer on this project.

Uh, before I talk just a little bit more about my background and the project details, I just wanted to start with some gratitude because without the help and support of these people, I wouldn't be standing here today.

Um, in no particular order, the economic development staff, Director Rennero, and McKenzie Miller, thank you for championing my emerging developer grant earlier this year and continuing to support the Brownfield Housing TIFF.

Uh to the planning department staff, Director Turkleson and Rowan Brady.

Uh, your counsel and your advice throughout this process has been incredibly valuable to the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board, uh, Chair Edwards and the members for supporting my uh emerging developer grant in April uh of this year in the housing TIFFs last month.

I appreciate it.

Uh to the West Grand Neighborhood Association, executive director Vandenberg, and to the board for supporting this development uh and also providing valuable feedback on how to think through the community engagement process.

It's been incredibly valuable.

Uh to first ward commissioners Belchuk and Robbins.

And I'm just grateful for your time.

And uh finally to my wife and my daughter, thank you for letting me pursue my passion uh and spend a little bit less time at home.

Uh my background, my connection to this neighborhood goes back to 2009 uh when my wife and I got married and moved into our house, which is just around the corner from the site.

Uh as a reminder, the site's close to the Westsider Cafe, the Dairy Queen Lewandowski's market for those that aren't as familiar.

Uh, we also brought our daughter home to this house uh in 2011 from St.

Mary's.

Um as mentioned earlier, it's an eight-unit townhome uh design.

Uh there'll be two beds, two baths, all front porches, rear decks in the backyard.

Uh it's a project that I would be proud to have my daughter live in when she comes back as a as a young professional and to this neighborhood.

I think it'll provide opportunities for uh unfortunate events for divorce A's may need to find uh opportunities to stay in the neighborhood.

Uh uh working class members of of the city.

I think it'll be a great opportunity for folks to um to uh identify uh maybe a non-traditional apartment uh living style.

The rents, the majority of the rents uh will be between 80 and 100 percent AMI uh with the goal of having at least be at 60 percent AMI with the approval of a state grant.

My plan is to break ground uh later this year and uh uh open them up for rent next year.

Um wrap things up with the struggles um and the lessons learned throughout this process.

Uh about a year ago, uh my architect passed away who was helping me on this project.

It was jarring uh and and unexpected.

And while I um well, I think that this is something that I've spent a lot of time prioritizing on.

I just encourage all of those in this room to check in on people, friends, family and and colleagues.

We don't know what others are going through at any given moment, even though we may think we do.

His name was Jeff.

Um last month, as we were wrapping up completion of this project, or so we thought uh the steep slope in this property uh that requires a retaining wall to both protect uh the project uh that I'm working on, but also the neighbors uh to the east at the top of the hill on Pine.

The retaining wall estimate came back uh and and more than doubled.

It forced us to pivot uh uh the design, but still stay true to what you see today.

Uh I've got a great team that's um surrounded me as an emerging developer, and I'm just grateful to to the expertise of uh the engineers, the architects, um, and the consultants on this project.

I'll wrap things up with lessons learned.

Community engagement matters.

Just because you're allowed to develop something doesn't mean that you should develop um the maximum amount of what's allowed.

It's important to understand what's appropriate versus what's allowed.

And finally, dialogue matters, in particular respectful dialogue.

I've met a lot of neighbors um throughout this process that have a lot of different opinions, as you can imagine about what goes here.

Uh it's been it's been uh an opportunity for me to incorporate their comments, their feedback into this design to hopefully make it the best product possible.

Um in closing, I'm grateful for the city's past support of me as an emerging developer, and we'd be grateful for your support of the uh with the Brownfield Housing TIFF.

Uh, thank you again for the opportunity to present tonight.

Thank you.

Um thanks for investing in your own neighborhood, and certainly um looks like a great dense design.

So any uh commissioner Robbins.

Thanks, Mary.

Um good to see you again.

I I know um, like you mentioned, uh, Mr.

Ragalski had reached out to me a few weeks back and um kind of gave me the the high-level specs of this project.

And I know um, you know, sometimes we get it's easy to get excited about the the really big projects that bring you know hundreds of units of housing um to our to our community, but um I think we should be equally as excited about projects like this too that just you know match the character of the neighborhoods that are that are in.

Um you know, I love when there's personal stories tied to them as well.

Um I I think it we're just lucky to have uh a community of people who really care.

Um, you know, they're not just looking to make a quick buck, they really want to invest and do what's right for the neighborhoods and reach out to neighbors and understand what the needs are.

So um have greatly uh appreciated getting to know you throughout this process.

I know it's been um you know a challenge from uh the site design and things like that too, but um just grateful to to have this project here before us for public hearing.

And I know um you've got interest, as you mentioned too, in doing some other projects around the city.

Uh Commissioner Knight.

Um, yes, uh thank you for your presentation, and you know, as uh my other colleagues state that we're grateful that some um developers are bringing um online new units for uh our residents as we know housing is in great demand here in our city.

Um I'm can I'm I'm just a little trigger that hit me is that um you only have one affordable unit in all of these units uh that you're putting in Angels 25 or how many units total?

Eighteen.

Eighteen, and only one of them are affordable in all of these.

Eight eight, eight, thank you.

Eight.

Yeah, I'm still go.

Eight.

There's one affordable out of all of those units, and so you're asking for um a waiver of the policy to just keep that one.

And so I know this unit is you know, it's in a different space, it's in a different area, different part of the city.

Land record requirements are different in the building as the one that was just proposed to us that has six.

Um course they have more units, but still the balance, right?

Um so I just want to throw that out there for us to think about as as to the why, um, and then what we're allowing in that um as reimbursements for it because the rest of them are what they are, right?

Um so I just want to throw that out there uh as a note for us to keep in mind.

Sure.

Yeah, the staff were really prioritizing the affordability period uh versus the 20%.

And so that was um that was where we landed.

And I think that um Joe and uh Adam can speak more to the performa, but we're really trying to make it a deal.

I I hear you in the the the period, the length of time, but also thinking about what we need in the length of time is it if if just thrown out there if we consider to or can continue to think about just the period and not the what we need.

We're gonna end up in the same bucket that we've been in for the last couple of years, right?

Yeah, if I may, uh Joe Gastonelli, Michigan Growth Advisors.

We uh are the consultants on the Brownfield plan here.

Um so what's really unique about this project is it's a small footprint with that we're fitting eight units on, eight really important units in the community.

But the site is sloped like this.

It's a really really steep site.

So the um the Brownfield plan only has so many TIF dollars to go around to fund the um uh the eligible activities in this case, they're almost entirely being consumed by that retaining wall that Adam talked about that doubled in price a couple weeks ago.

Um and so as we are structuring this, we had we initially proposed two units in compliance uh with the policy, um, but for a shorter affordability period, because again, there's not enough TIFF to fund all of that.

Um, but you know, in negotiation with staff, that's how we ended up with the one, but for the longer duration of time.

Um so that's the why behind it.

Um for what it's worth.

It's really because of this the um the site challenges here, which are pretty unique in a project this relatively small.

I get it.

Thank you.

I I mean I saw all that, I heard all that.

Just wondering then how do we go back and recalculate what we do and if this is the thing that we need to be doing.

Just throwing that out there for thoughts.

Commissioner Belichick.

Thank you.

And I do appreciate the comments of my colleagues.

Um affordability is something we are always striving for, especially in our neighborhoods, and especially in a neighborhood of focus like this.

Um I uh appreciate your time spending um with me to update, and it's the first time I've had a developer asked to do that, so thank you for doing that.

Um, and I do appreciate you sharing your personal story.

Um there are it's very we as you and I had a chat, um, and I will share this publicly that we talked about affordability.

We talked about um how even at 60% it isn't always feeling affordable because of the income levels in the neighborhoods that at age 35, which is what the statistic says, um, the neighborhood that this is being built in and single earner would be making about 35,000.

So double double income may earn 50 to 60,000.

So it's still at 60 percent, not always great, but I do think that um with the extra challenges.

If you would like to explain that a little bit, how if you want to say how much a doubling means, um, I invite you to do that.

But these are two bedroom homes with porches and a little backyard, uh townhouse style.

So that is something that is gonna really accommodate the families, and there is a significant community benefit because the neighbors up there on Pine were gonna lose some of their garages.

It's pretty much a disaster of a site.

So um really there's a whole bunch of neighbors that are gonna be impacted by this in a positive way too.

So those are some of my comments for now.

Thanks.

Seeing no public, no one coming up to the microphone publicly.

That brings us to public comment on anything that any citizen uh resident wants to bring to the attention of the commission.

Thank you.

Oh, they cut it.

Hello.

How y'all doing?

I've been here too long.

I knew to do that.

Uh I'm D Jones, passionate entrepreneur and visionary.

Uh I just got back from the Computer Science from Michigan conference.

So I spoke to you guys last time at City Hall.

I was going to be driving to Lanson.

I was at the uh Lance Community College.

And I was speaking at the Computer Science for Michigan conference.

So this first piece of uh nice art you have, you see, uh the streaming platform party.

They actually made a nice cool post of me of me actually about to be speaking at this conference.

It's cool to say that 40,000 people checked that out on X.

It actually was viral.

And it was today at this conference, so I know cool karma is gonna come back.

And then the cool thing, David.

So you'd probably don't know who Tyrese Gibson is, but Tyrese Gibson inboxed me on X.

Ladies love Tyrese Gibson, uh David LeGrim.

But the funny thing is, so he inboxed me.

He's a celebrity, he was on uh Fast and Furious and all of these things, a great singer, and uh he inboxed me about this cryptocurrency that they developed.

I was like, what the heck is Tyrese inboxing me?

Like out of all things.

So then I go in the chat and I look at the person who developed the coin, and it was NBA legend Scotty Pippen.

And he he hit me back, and he was like, so they developed a coin, a real world asset around the NBA championship game five ball from 1991.

There is an actual currency around the championship ball from one of the greatest NBA teams of my Chicago hometown team, the Chicago Bulls.

So that third sheet you see is the custodian, Scottie Pippen, the person who actually has a real world asset with seven figures at very, very healthy coin and a real world asset.

A coin, a cryptocurrency actually backed by something by historical legends, historical legends.

And then the crazy thing, so Amazon is actually hiring people up to four 400,000 uh for uh cryptocurrency expertise.

And so the salaries for 400,000 from Amazon, one of the richest uh organizations on earth is crazy.

So, David, I just wanted to show you that there are crazy things.

There are actually coins that are actually backed by actual things, not just out of thin air, not out of just the casualty, but NBA championship legends like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin, some of the legendary NBA 75 greatest players of all time.

Crazy stuff.

And it was Tyrese Gibson, the celebrity who's the one who invited me to this.

I'm giving it all to you from hand.

Oh I got it.

This is how the universe sent it to me.

You get it all right there.

So it was cool to speak at the conference.

I actually got the Lego education people.

I actually connected them to Fortnite because they have Lego Fortnite, and now we're about to do all of these cool things, and then I used to spoke to the executive director of uh of learning from uh East GR, and they actually have an esports team, and we got the esports finals and all of this cool things.

I'm gonna be a billionaire, a trillionaire, a pioneer, a visionary that had a vision for this, to have celebrities to have NBA legends sitting there speaking to me and inboxing me, having celebrities, bald headed celebrities, ball fine guys that ladies love, inboxing me on X, and I'm verified, and it's just a funny thing how the universe spins.

And I just had to show you this universal lesson, David, because I remember you said that, and I had to let you know I'm gonna keep standing on business.

Good evening.

I'm Reverend Dr.

Lisa Townsend.

Um, I have a doctorates in ministry, and I own a counseling center 30 years in the Grand Rapids area, 3501 Lake Eastbrook, and um the ministry piece.

I come from a family of pastors, and I am a pastor as well, and I have a doctorate in ministry, pastoral Christian counseling.

Um, so a D Men and a PhD.

And I am here today um reluctantly, but very much needed.

My 84-year-old mother recently uh went through a neighborhood um issue.

She filed an ordinance against a or yes, against a neighbor, um, in regards to her fence.

Um, so she has vinyl fencing around the totality of her property.

She owns uh 4311 and a 4313.

So we love this property.

It was our grandparents.

Um it's it's in our history, it'll be passed down from from years and years and years from now.

And um, we've taken much pride um through the city.

Um it's one of the highest um homes uh when when I want to say I guess um property-wise, uh, the assessment of it is very uh highly valued, one of the most expensive in our neighborhood and the most maintained.

And um what it ended up happening from 30 years of living in this neighborhood is when my mom filed this ordinance.

Number one, I don't come to make a complaint, but I come to help things when it comes to the city of Grand Rapids and and property disputes.

I'm hoping that I could lend my expertise to help that process become a lot better.

I hear so many individuals stating that there is just a long list of neighbor disputes.

And the way that they're they're handled or dealt with such a lengthy process, and from what I've gone through with my mother, I believe that this process could be shortened, and I think it could bring individuals together, it could unify individuals and not divide individuals.

So I'm gonna cut to the chase because it was a long this issue lasted very long, long duration.

What wound up happening is that my mom did know from being there 30 years that this neighbor was taking his fence down and he was moving it over, and every time that he did, he was moving it over her property line.

So she contacted the city and they said that there was nothing they could do about it, that she would number one have to get um a surveyor.

Well, thank God she did not have to purchase or pay for a surveyor because our home had recently been assessed.

So they just needed to come out and place um post on the property lines, and it was found that our neighbor was well over the property line, not only in the back of our home.

Yes.

You're your three-minute point.

So thank you for coming in.

If you want to talk to us afterwards, that'd be yes, I would.

I just wanted to say in closing, after this, the case has been closed and we did win it in court.

But after that, the city workers as well have been sending my mom like complaints and um about other things and about her property, and it appears to be implicit bias, and I do want to talk a little bit more about that later with um a commissioner.

Um thank you all.

Um, Mayor Le Grand, thank you, Mr.

Kirlgore, Miss Knight, Commissioner Knight.

I thank you all, and hopefully this some this is something that we can talk about a little bit more in depth when I have more time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, Lucas again.

Uh so the main reason I came here tonight.

Um unfortunately he's not here.

I already uh gave him some trouble about that, but he's got a good reason.

Uh I wanted to highlight one of those times that two things can be true at once.

On my mind is a recent interaction that reminds me that as many gripes as I have about policing.

There's a lot of good work that we can still do when we align.

Uh I came to give a belated thanks to Chief Winstrom for a great conversation in early August.

And I want to share with you some ways that we align on the topic of downtown parking management.

So yeah, I was a big grumpy bear when I came at this topic for weeks, sending you photos every weekend about the problems that I was seeing around the arena.

Uh as so many of you have graciously done, though, the chief proposed that we have a practical discussion.

So we met up at Studio Park to take a look at the total bedlam of people parking in loading zones and clearly marked no parking zones, and we exchanged some ideas on solutions.

I spoke about the open rebellion downtown that parkers seem to be allowed to proceed with, creating safety issues and sabotaging those of us that are picking people up from jobs, or ride share drivers just trying to do their jobs.

And we also talked about how much the city needs to step up and make plans to handle the many events that will be competing for traffic and parking resources, and how much the amphitheater alone is likely to be underestimated right now in the estimation of authorities with its impact to those issues.

Much of uh what we came to was a common option that a night shift for parking enforcement would go a long way in helping with all this.

If you think about it, in just the vicinity of the arena alone in just one weekend, you could probably write enough tickets to pay the chief's salary for a month.

So it's a little bit of a chicken and egg.

If you want to have the money to pay the night shift, you have to have the night shift to write the tickets.

I get it, you're kind of stuck in a loop, but I would encourage you to find a way to make it happen.

The city needs to function at all times, not just until 7 p.m.

or whenever the traffic ticket folks go home or the parking ticket go folks go home.

The time to get on top of it's right now.

The time to set these habits and change these behaviors is now, not after the huge venues open.

So I want to say I appreciate the chief's time and the ways we found clear and obvious agreement on solutions.

And I believe in when he says he's prepared to help these departments that would be involved in this late-night enforcement to have security and safety.

I think there are some conversations that he described to me that should be rekindled.

And I think this is manageable.

So let's do it.

I'd be happy to brainstorm with anybody uh up there or on the staff, because as you know, I've seen this movie before.

Thank you.

Hello, friends.

Mark from Grand Rapids.

Something has been bugging me this entire time.

Recently, the Orange Fellow and his regime has put out a political violence bill.

Unfortunately, the bill has come up.

They want to honor Charlie Kirk with this bill.

No.

I've seen the videos of him disrespecting individuals, especially the black, especially the black people.

He is no martyr.

To me, he's in the category of John Wayne, Al Campanis, and Jimmy the Greek.

And for him to be honored with this bill, to me is disgusting and disappointing.

Even worse.

Voted for it.

But the 95 Democrats who voted for it should be ashamed, including those four black individuals from the Congressional Black Caucus.

And especially one individual who represents this district.

Hillary Scoldman, have you lost your mind?

Your seat is getting ready to get hot.

Somebody go put we could put charcoal in that seat with lighter fluid and light it up.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

That's the problem.

I could get the political violence stuff, but you should have voted no.

But you didn't.

And now you will be held accountable for your actions.

You could be primaried out.

So you better be ready.

That's all I have to say about that.

Boycott Tesla.

Hello, my name is Avery Harbison.

Uh, I'm a recent graduate from CMU who just started working here in the city of Grand Rapids.

Uh and I'm hoping to move here in the next year once I get a little bit more income, sort of, as we've talked about with a lot of this uh housing development.

But I've recently joined some organizations or gotten involved in some conversations around housing, and specifically I'm interested a lot in ADUs, and I know that that's something that uh Mayor LeGrand you've shown interest in.

Um, but there were two policies in specific that I thought could be helpful when looking at this and that I wanted to advocate for.

One would be the creation of a revolving door loan fund for individual homeowners to create ADUs.

So basically just lowering that barrier of entry and then allowing people to you know create an ADU on their own property rather than needing to go to an external developer, uh especially just to keep uh wealth within the neighborhoods that you know we already have people living in.

Um and then the second was what I've been referring to as the condoization of ADUs, where essentially people will be able to buy uh an ADU outright, which is not currently allowed under uh zoning law as I understand it, uh, which would just allow for flexibility in homeownership.

So I've been thinking about you know, like you have your mother-in-law who is wanting to sell her house, but instead of selling the house.

You can create uh, you know, mother-in-law's cottage just in the back.

So she's able to uh liquidate some of that.

You can take over the house, she has more money for retirement, that type of thing.

Or for someone like myself, if my parents lived in GR, they don't, but if they did, uh they could create uh an ADU, which I could buy as a condo, and that would be say eighty thousand, hundred thousand, hundred and fifty thousand.

That is, I think, much more accessible in terms of that missing middle housing.

So conduization of ADUs and then a revolving revolving door loan fund for individual uh homeowners to develop ADUs.

Thank you.

Seeing no further public comment, uh that takes us to our commissioner closing comments.

Uh Commissioner Beltrick.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I just want to say today has been incredibly eye-opening and productive.

Uh we did have our review or started our performance review for last year, and um there is much to be proud of in our city, um, including accolades, like we like to share about being one of the best run cities, about um our number one LinkedIn city uh of uh rising city.

And some since Lucas Leverett mentioned you know the boring things among the boring things but important things that I feel very glad we have a well-run city.

We uh approved carbon filtration for and a new system for our water coming from Lake Michigan.

This is something that is a huge investment and capital fund coming into the city so that we can all take baths and drink water safely.

We also on the committee uh community development committee talked about and passed the GR Mobile Mobile GR's plan uh for pedestrian beacons, and we were talking about how to make our streets safer.

That's come up in a lot of ways.

We've heard about housing, we've heard about solar and the Butterworth project, and we're coming on the heels of a very powerful Michigan municipal league, which I want to commend our city manager for actually being at one of the keynote speakers, and I'm gonna say out loud, he was one of the best.

We actually um got up and had some fun to music.

I will leave your imaginations to the rest.

Um, but we were talking about placemaking and art and how Art Prize and other things are making a difference.

And um while we were hosting right here during Art Prize, all of the state cities from around the state.

And this is all about in the end making changes so that people can live better lives, empowering people, empowering our neighborhoods, and talking about how we design those streets, design those um places we like to frequent.

And I'm really pleased to have met the happy urbanist look him up on TikTok.

Um I just want to say in closing that there will never be everything done all at once.

But today's one of those days where you can look back and say there is a lot going on and we are growing, and we have the city of the future in progress right now as long as we keep planning and thinking long-term and and and on that note, I did look to get to two AI and the and uh tech week kind of conversations.

One was at Michigan Municipal League on AI and governments.

Your commissioners are talking about that, and but I also attended the A AI and Future of Work.

So we are we are there, guys.

We're on the edge, and I appreciate everyone's beautiful day in our neighborhoods.

Commissioner Kogram.

Sure, I'll be really brief here because it has been a long productive day.

Um I just want to uh highlight once again for my colleagues and for the public who maybe didn't tune into the earlier meeting with our annual review, um, highlighting um some updates, possible policy changes, possible ordinances um that I'm really um hoping that uh this commission will be able to champion.

I know we have our workshop coming up in November, I think November 13th, um, where I'm hopeful to put uh renters' rights forward as one of the initiatives that this I believe is commission could really champion for the upcoming year.

So we got to talk about that with the annual review earlier today.

Uh I just want to once again informally keep that on our radar.

Um met with many community members in terms of what tenants are going through, what their experiences have been, uh folks like the Urban League who are working on tenants' rights day to day, uh and I'll be meeting with uh Housing Kent soon uh in October to discuss this uh as well of what what's what are the needs, right?

How are our current uh ordinances that have been on the books uh since at least 2018 working within community and what updates can we have?

So I'm looking forward to hopefully receiving my colleagues' support in November on Rentard's rights, uh, and we'll continue to be chat with community on this important initiative.

Good night.

Commissioner Purdue.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for those who uh came today who were able to engage.

Um I just want to give a special uh shout out and just uh moment of gratitude uh for um kind of the the the developers who came and presented to us today.

It was really great to hear, particularly those who are considered emerging developers who received some of that support um through our emerging developer program grants and the technical expertise in ushering through our economic development director, uh Ms.

Renero.

Uh so that was a highlight certainly for me today, um, and just a tangible example of the ways that we are looking to leverage our resources and our tools and our expertise uh to bring additional housing, to support economic development, to support small business, and to support local.

Um so those are all my comments today.

Great to see you all.

Thank you.

Commissioner Knight.

Uh yeah, thank you all for being here.

Um again uh accolades for the Michigan Municipal League conference that went on here and the reception that we had for the MBC Leo group um on Thursday evening.

Um that was uh well received and a great opportunity to host people from across the state uh get together to see what other communities are doing in our community or across our state and and how we align.

Um just want to uh throw that out to you, Lucas.

That uh ain't nothing boring.

Promise you.

It may seem like it, um, and there may be days that we make it seem like easy, but I promise you that we are always keeping our eyes on everything that is happening uh not only at our state but our federal level to make sure that we are in alignment and that we're kind of ahead of the game um in things as it pertains to our community.

Uh I know there have been some things that have come out in the news uh as of late, and just want to make sure that people understand that um we stand on what we stand on.

Um, and we are not wavering from that and how we protect and support our community.

Um and if you got any more questions about that, you will see any one of us.

I'm sure we were happy to be elaborate on that.

Uh just want to add for those facts, 243 days in, and I hope you all have a wonderful night.

Commissioner Sazi.

No comments.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Robinson I have nothing else to add this time either, so have a good night.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Clerk.

City Attorney, uh City Manager.

I'll be brief.

Thank you, um Commission, for your support doing the um municipal league and especially Commissioner Sassian and Knight for their help in um hosting MBC Leo.

Uh also I want to thank uh the commission and mayor today for your uh support and recognition of uh Hispanic Heritage uh month and the proclamation that uh was made today that reaffirms I think to Commissioner Nice point all the values that we have long stood on uh that um seemingly are questioned uh nationally as well as locally.

Much appreciation to the staff on our performance management report today.

We uh unfortunately could not get through it all.

There was such uh a lot of good things to talk about, and so we'll continue that dialogue at our next committee of the whole meeting on the uh remaining portion of the presentation around uh public safety, health and environment, and uh mobility.

And lastly, there was a good update today on uh Butterworth and the plans for solar.

So I want to thank Mr.

Matthews and uh Miss Wilkinson for their work on that and look forward to the result of uh the RFP process.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Um and I'll echo the city managers um comments on the solar um Butterworth, that's something that we were working on when I was a city commissioner um four thousand years ago.

And um it's nice to see us getting close to fruition on that.

Um I also want to point out um I was struck tonight.

Um Miss Bohach was uh doing essentially the same work uh when I was on commission uh in 2007, 2008 that she's doing now.

Um great to see her faithful, persistent uh stewardship of all of the complexity involved that's involved in getting dollars into our community but also getting them into the right uh areas.

And um when she was done with her presentation, the joke I was gonna make, but I was worried it would be a little flip would be that you know um I wasn't sure she left anything for anyone else to work on because to see the span of work from you know working on uh actually doing community engagement to um to preventing uh people falling into uh out of housing security to um bringing things online to helping senior projects.

Um really grateful and I think it's uh you know she's a she's emblematic of the work that's being done by um the staff and the and the great people we have working for the city.

So I'm particularly wanted to lift up um the great work of our of our city staff in in pulling in the direction and and being so faithful to the long-term commitments of this city, which I think are frankly reflected not only in the people we elect, but uh also in the people who who serve uh and and put their careers into that form of public service.

So thank you to them.

Thank you for all to all of you for engaging.

Did I say something you wanted to respond to?

Go to the back of the room.

No, no, no, no.

I uh you just uh I just forgot me here forgive me.

I forgot to uh publicly thank our city engineers uh Tim Bergman.

I don't know if he's not here, I don't think but yep it has served us uh faithfully six years and is uh moving on, taking another assignment.

But we appreciate the work that he is uh doing and look forward to working with Cindy Urban and uh Jeff McCall in the interim.

Amen.

I think that's what you say at the end of uh meetings.

Meetings adjourned.