My microphone on.

Uh the first item is a resolution that uh implicates uh hiring of a city attorney, but I did not feel the need for him to recuse himself since this is simply a scheduling uh discussion.

I don't anticipate that I'm obvious of course he doesn't get a vote on it, but if anyone any colleagues object, otherwise I'm just uh I'm I don't see that there's a need for him to recuse himself from the room.

Um we did discuss that.

So the first item is a resolution uh to schedule meetings for the city commission for 2026 for deliberation of the city attorney uh selection uh and to on May 5 review review the proposed preliminary budget uh and to adjust some start time uh the start time for the December 27 26 meetings.

Uh can I have a motion?

So moved.

Okay.

Um the clerk, maybe you want to just roll through this.

Yeah, so for the for the first part, so this is kind of like a um a bunch of a vehicle for uh a few changing of city commission meetings if we're scheduling new ones.

So the April 1st meeting is isn't as needed um if needed for continuation on the um deliberation on a city attorney approval.

Um so we just want to make sure we have that on the books in case it's needed.

May 5 is our annual um additional meeting for working on the the fiscal plan and then the December 26 meetings adjusting the start times is to um adjust the first meeting in December of December 1 to make that a seven o'clock at night meeting and the 15th at 2 o'clock on the meeting and then on the evening of Tuesday the 15th would be the um oath of office for the um commissioners um com troller and library commissioners that are elected to the November election.

So um so we'll have a long day that day, but that that's what we did in 2022.

So great.

Mayor may I add more context to for the public.

Uh uh Clerk Hondor mentioned the April 1st meeting if needed, but I just wanted to remind the commission and the public there are two dates that precede that.

The 30th at 6 o'clock will be uh proposed to be a night meeting in which uh the finalists who if they're selected by the commission will be available for the public for city attorney to meet, and then the 31st would be your day in which you would publicly interview the final candidates doing uh city commission uh meeting on the added May meeting uh that uh the clerk identified the special meeting for May 5th.

I just want to remind the public in the commission that the budget will be presented on April 28th, and we'll have four opportunities, including that day to deliberate before you the final decision on the 19th.

And so all proposed revenue as well as proposed uses of funds will be uh presented on April 28th.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

All in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

And uh sorry, city manager, you wanted to take a moment of point of privilege.

Uh I'll wait till we get to briefings.

Uh the second and third items on the agenda relate to a business in which I have an interest and I've recused myself at every step of this process and asked our uh commission president to take the dias, and so I am going to walk out of the room for the items two and three here.

You're there.

You can move if you want.

It's okay.

All right, colleagues.

Uh the next item for our committee of the whole is item number two and item number two and three, as previously noted, are companion items, but first is a resolution establishing an industrial development district for long road distillers at 1750 Elizabeth Avenue Northwest.

So moved.

Support moved and supported, Miss Renero.

Yes, this is the final step before this would go to the state tax commission uh for local approval.

Again, um this is to uh support their expansion over on Elizabeth.

I'm happy to take any questions if you have any.

Thank you, Miss Renero.

Colleagues, any questions?

I don't think we and we didn't have any, just remembering from the last meeting that we didn't have anybody.

Um well, we had I think one comment is related to public comment on this item.

Correct.

Okay.

Um hearing and seeing no other questions.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Item carries.

Um item number three is uh resolution approving an application application for a 12-year industrial facilities exemption certificate pursuant to public act 189 of 1974 for long road distillers for a six hundred and eighty thousand dollar project located at 1750 Elizabeth Avenue Northwest.

So moved.

Moved and supported.

Again, a companion item.

I don't think I'm not seeing any questions from Ms.

Rennero, so I'm gonna call the question.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Item carries.

Thank you.

And if somebody could step out and grab Mr.

Mayor, and we can then we can move on to our item number four.

Thank you.

Okay, this brings us to our final resolution item number four.

Uh resolution for publication uh of the date for proposed ordinance change uh with regards to rates, rules, and regulations of chapter 34 of the thermal energy franchise.

Uh and to uh demystify that.

Um this is an ordinance change that uh relates to the um I believe this relates to the steam energy facility downtown uh and to uh because the city well I'm sorry you can probably explain this just as well as I can, Deputy City Manager.

So um I'll I'll make a motion thank you.

Sure.

Um I I I can keep it fairly brief.

Um the franchise that we have with uh vicinity energy to operate the steam district is written based on the assumption that we're burning gas to generate steam.

Uh they've since purchased uh an electric boiler with uh partial assistance from the state and with our encouragement.

Um we just need to made that make this modification that allows them to offer this as a subscription to the uh facilities and owners that are uh that are currently on the district system.

Right now there's no provision to allow them to sell anything that is not generated by natural gas.

Great.

Uh any discussion.

Um I uh just for the uh the sake of the general public had a fascinating discussion about this whole operation.

And um those of us who have had businesses or been downtown know that this is something that's been around for a long time.

Turns out we have these sort of semi-mysterious steam pipes running underneath the city, and they go to various big buildings downtown.

Well, the interesting thing I found out was A, this is an ongoing operation that's actually hooking up new buildings.

Um so this isn't simply carrying a legacy project uh uh you know along.

Uh the other thing is that it's really really efficient.

Um it's it's it turns out that scales of efficiency really matter for operations like boilers.

Uh and so even though to in my you know simplified brain, it sounds like what boy don't you lose a lot of heat and heat transmitting uh steam around town.

It turns out that it's really really efficient to have a central point of production.

Um but this will allow of course allow them to reduce the point the you know we hope fairly minor but existing uh point source pollution from burning gas in our city limits.

So this is just like my stove at home is a point source of pollution in our city, um, but this is a bigger one, and so the uh moving to electricity is gonna allow them to move uh what pollution happens, and uh uh ideally in this case I think they're gonna tie it into solar production, so there won't be any.

Um, but it's all it's gonna allow us to make the air on the city cleaner or them.

It'll allow them to make the air in the city cleaner.

So and it has lower OM costs over time.

So good example.

We uh we needed to replace the boiler at one Monroe, the police department.

Uh, when we evaluated our options, we realized that it was more affordable over time to punch a hole in the wall and connect to the steam district than it was to replace that boiler.

Right.

Thank you.

Um any further uh yes, Commissioner.

I just wanted to give um Mr.

Matthews an opportunity to talk about how this fits into our climate action plan.

Um sure.

So the the mayor mentioned point source uh point source pollution, point source greenhouse gas emissions.

Um if you think about the facilities that are burning fossil fuels uh within the downtown footprint, um beyond the aggregate of individual buildings that have individual boilers.

Um that's one of the areas where we can make a fairly sizable impact uh with a single investment because they are at this point burning natural gas to generate steam.

Uh so if we can eliminate that, that gives us an opportunity to eliminate greenhouse gases that are being generated right here downtown.

Yeah, thank you.

And um just as a reminder for our public, that this is one of the top 20 items that we identified as our priority in our city commission review of that.

So thank you.

Thank you.

No further comments.

Uh, all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye, all opposed.

Motion carries.

That brings us to um our mid-year performance and financial.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for uh the time this morning.

Before we get started, I wanted to start with a point of personal privilege and recognize our student chapter of the International City County Management Association from Grand Valley State University.

Uh one of our own interns is part of that chapter, uh Chris Chris McGuire.

But we're also joined by the chapter president Isabella Granart.

Grunwald Grunwald, I'm sorry, my apologies, as well as some of her other colleagues, and so we thank them for being here this morning.

Um Mayor, uh, and also would like to highlight our own now permanent employee Long Ho was a member of that student chapter.

I believe he was chapter president at one point.

So we're very proud of the work that they're doing.

Um Mayor, before we begin this morning, I want to um just remind the commission that we have several opportunities during the year to have strategic conversations both on policy and budget.

In last fall and September, we started with the year-in performance review.

We also uh continue that conversation in November with your workshop in which we try to identify focus areas and prioritization.

Today's uh discussion will give us an opportunity to do a mid-year check-in uh fiscally, given all the volatility, federal uncertainty, state uncertainty.

I continue to grow um concern.

I I am uh continue to be concerned about uh some of the volatility uh that we used to depend on uh we did from the federal and state government that uh now seems like it changes almost every other month on what funding we may get or what funding we've received that it's being attempted to be clawed back.

Uh we also talk real high level about the performance of the organization and give some um outcomes on some of the accomplishments that we've done year uh mid-year of where we are in terms of our progress.

And so these are the uh what's before you are the um strategic plan prioritization.

I d I will say this year I've asked the staff to spend more time on the financials because there is uh what you'll see today is uh for me a cause for pause as we um approach uh the budget conversation that we outlined earlier in April, and so I'm I am uh not worried, but I'm very concerned about um kind of the current state and what we're projecting in the future.

And so uh then lastly, what I want to do after we talk about that is highlight all the work that's going on across the organization.

We have a lot of what I refer to as enterprise-wide uh initiatives and solutions where we have multiple departments uh working on things, and I share this at the end to talk that if we take on one more thing, enterprise-wide, something is going to have to come off the list, or we'll have to resource the organization uh much more in order to accomplish that.

So, with that, um you'll see the schedule.

We highlighted that earlier um during the um uh special call meeting discussion next.

Our values remain unchanged.

Uh we continue to focus on accountability, collaboration, customer service, equity, innovation, and sustainability.

Next slide.

And just as a reminder, these are the areas, the focus areas from fiscal year 26, in which we looked at the strategic uh priorities, the things that we wanted to focus on and accomplish within those that you'll be hearing some highlights on today.

So with that, I'll be thankful for our CFO, Molly Claren, who is going to uh give us the financial update.

And unlike years past when I told her to uh hurry up and get through it so we can get to the discussion.

I'm gonna ask her to take as much time as she needs to today.

Okay, thank you.

Um yes, so uh for those that were part of our fiscal committee this morning.

You already got a uh here, John Globinsky talking about the state of our economy, what's going on, but um as we've um seen at the Michigan consensus um revenue estimating conference at the end of January, as well as what the right place says the consensus is that um yeah, it's kind of a pause, or we're seeing a slowing down, maybe a little bit of conservative growth on the first half of um FY, or I shouldn't say F by calendar year 26, but they think the back's half of the year um even more slow down, and really it's driven by the the tariff effects.

Um if there is going to be a tariff effect that affects markets, um all that kind of stuff is making um outlooks confusing, but also uh causing consumers and and things like that to be cautious.

So with that in mind, um we're also seeing our nationwide unemployment at 4.3%.

We're um you know, the the one big beautiful bill, we have um some tax relief happening through that, and um there are infrastructure spending happening, but but again just the overall impact is it's gonna be slow.

Um at the I don't know if any of you attended the economic club last month, but uh they had ITR there, and I wanted to highlight that because I found it very interesting.

It's something we should be mindful of as we're you know, looking at that fiscal plan when we do when we do the budget.

Um it is now 2030 is in our is in our forecast now.

So what ITR is you know theorizing is we have this perfect storm of many things happening all at once.

So they're actually projecting a depression.

Um a lot of some other economics are saying it's gonna be just a slowdown.

No one wants to use the word depression or recession yet, but um ITR was very it was a you know, if you do have a chance to go look at that presentation, I encourage you to, because it is interesting looking at this, you know, perfect storm of things that are happening, and it includes you know, I will be on the back end of that um silver tsunami.

Um our US debt is gonna be you know growing to a certain amount where you know, during COVID, we had these, you know, the federal government was able to pivot and do these stimulus checks out to individuals.

They might not have that ability by that point in time based on how much they they are forecasted to be leveraged, which which is interesting, and then you know, um the supply chain shifts and um the real estate cycle, you know, we have that 18-year cycle is gonna hit around that time too.

So a lot of people are saying the argument against that is you know, AI as well as you know, policy adjustments.

We do have those levers to push as a city.

We are you know looking into more efficient ways of delivering service and leveraging that AI.

But again, I I just wanted to have us be mindful of that as we look forward.

Um we might not have as much time to talk about that during the budget, but um, you know, just for your awareness of what's what's ahead.

Um, as far as the Michigan economy, you know, they talked a lot about the auto sector and how tariffs are dragging that.

Um there is you know less incentive for the electric.

So, you know, there's this argument that the you know it's gonna lag a couple of years, but because there's less regulatory impact there, you might see might see a little boost.

Our unemployment in Michigan is actually behind what's going on nationally, so between five and five and a half percent.

Um, and then they focus really in uh what's going on in the region where if you're a more diversified economy, uh you're gonna fare better, obviously, than um our friends on the east side of the state.

So um that gets us into our next slide where I'm gonna just jump right down to the bottom.

Our what we have working for us in West Michigan is this economic cushion because we're investing in uh these massive construction projects that will spur spur jobs and um hopefully you know more growth.

Um as far as what's going on here internally at the city.

Uh this is fiscal year 26 is the first year we've been able to hit our five percent income tax allocation.

Coming out of the recession, um we divert five percent of our income tax over to the capital capital improvement fund for capital projects coming out of the recession.

We actually chose as a city to go below policy because our money was needed just to keep current operations going.

So we've done been doing this slow build back over the course of well, since I've been CFO, so over the over the past you know seven years, um, you know, to get us back up to that five percent because we want to maintain those assets we have out there, and and so we we are performing, you know, we're performing better than um projected on our income tax, so it's been easy to get us back up to that policy level.

So I wanted to you know give us a gold star for that.

But um again, uh as far as what else is going on with with our city, um, you know, competition for talent.

Uh we did with the fiscal year 27 or 26 budget invest in uh positions related to dispatch police and water services, and it's really just you know, we chose as a priority to enhance our services or make sure we're maintaining them efficiently.

And then again, I already jumped forward to our economic cushion, but you have things like the river transformation, West Side Growth.

And then I watched a you know presentation by the right place that was talking about our our diversity of all the different industries we're involved in.

And again, they were also really pushing towards that technology and tourism and health as big things that we've done we've done to help help ourselves on the side of the state.

So citywide, this this pie graph on the uh right there just shows how we how we've spread up that 735 million that we appropriated last spring.

Um I mentioned our income tax is outperforming on base, so we're we're achieving just under a 4.2% growth rate now, which is great.

Um then our our um ring compliant.

I mentioned the capital reserve policy already, but our challenges is we're absorbing those labor contracts.

Um, the class and comp study, we're we're looking forward at this budget as wanting to be competitive and get get you know, make sure we're retaining our workforce and getting the best workers out there.

Um, health care costs are always always on the rise.

Um and then uh we have amended the budget.

I'll get to that in a little bit, but um, you know, making sure we're planning for when we do do budget amendments, we have revenue support or at least a long-term plan for how to sustain those services if we are adding them to any of our funds, and then um, you know, maintaining that balancing budget with our revenue challenges, as well as um, you know, I'll mention the budget stabilization fund.

Moving on to specifically look at our general fund.

If you look at that chart up on the left, you'll see our revenues outperforming expectation.

Um, below you'll see it's is largely due to income tax that you know, growth on base is really helping us.

Um, our compliance revenue is estimated around 11.8 million.

So, again, those those are things that are aiding our income tax.

You'll see as far as other revenues go in that lower right, uh, property tax is always kind of a sleepy, usually we get about two percent, just a slow and steady um revenue source for us.

State share is fairly stable.

Um, I believe at the the time we put together this estimate, it does not include that 1.7 million of public safety trusts.

So that could improve this picture.

Uh, we did get confirmation, believe at the end of January that um that payment should be received in May.

So uh we'll we'll look for that coming in.

I'm hope I believe it's for the full amount, but uh I haven't seen the specific guidance from the Treasury yet.

So I'll I'll let you know by the time budget um is introduced where we're at with that.

So overall, our that yellow line, the net operating revenue that could improve by 1.7 million.

So we're looking at a negative four, but to be conservative today, this is what we're looking at.

Another question you might have is for that ARPA um grant revenue line, we expect those um reimbursements to happen now in fiscal year 27.

So that's why that estimate looks so so odd compared to where to where we were when we adopted the budget.

So significant budget amendments we approved 4.2 million for the public museum expansion project that came right out of our um balance for the general fund as well as that Oracle ERP support.

Um then um I will highlight the police officers we did add, but we added those in the anticipation of having those that public safety money coming in this fiscal year.

So that that um was largely offset there.

Um and then and then the rest you might already be familiar with because we approved them through commission, but um, these are basically the the budget amendments that happened in the general fund that were greater than 100,000.

Um thing I'll I'll just highlight though is we do have to be mindful of when we are changing the plan mid-year to make sure we're still looking at that five-year forecast.

So uh I always want to highlight this.

We are still waiting on a legislative fix as far as what is going on with court funding.

Uh, this is our largest subsidy out of the general fund, and it's becoming a larger and larger drag, preventing us from you know, paying for everything else in the general fund.

So you know, I just want to highlight this for your information for those of you that are involved in um advocating for the statewide initiative to you know help hopefully provide local government relief because I know it's not just us, it's other communities.

Uh looking at our forecast, very high level, you'll see that revenues, the blue line is not keeping up with the orange line expenditures.

Uh we we are around a break-even for fiscal year 27.

But you can see there is a bit of a you know a lapse happening, and what does that do to our fund balance?

Obviously, it's sinking our fund balance quite rapidly.

We'll be out of our compliance uh in our forecast right now by 2030.

Um that's below that 15% of general fund expenditure.

So this is prior to us making decisions on the budget.

Um, it's prior to us considering fee increases.

Our major relevant news have already been considered though income tax, property tax, state share.

So, you know, that's just something to keep in mind.

Um, when we do recommend, if we do recommend like revenue increases, stuff like that, we'll see how that impacts this picture, but also um it is it is a balance because you want to stay in compliance, but I know we care about affordability as well.

Um for more detail, I know we like to talk about the percentages of the income tax growth.

Uh we we performed really well in fiscal year 25.

Um our forecast right now is 4.2 for fiscal year 26.

And then we look at our modeling that we've we've you know, this year was a little different because instead of just doing this work in-house, we also have been working with GVSU doing a forecasting model because I know I've explained to this body before.

Um, a lot of the assumptions we used to make on income tax forecasting got thrown out the door with COVID.

We have more people working from home.

We have people are working in different ways, sometimes even totally outside of our jurisdiction.

So it it really impacts the revenue or the amount of revenue received for those individuals.

So getting more hands around other economic factors that influence um income tax growth, and this is the model we're working with right now, where we um slowly sink down to about three and a half percent by the end of our forecast.

Um one thing I will note is our compliance revenue.

We performed really well last year, around um 16 or 17 million at the end of fiscal year 25.

That also propped up our income tax growth and our fund balance in the general fund.

Um, but again, we're working off of multiple years every year of um income tax compliance, and eventually we get caught up, I think around fiscal year 28, and that's another reason you see that um revenue start to tail off more dramatically, is we'll be only working off of one year on compliance by then and only expecting about 10 million of compliance revenue in instead of you know five, six million more.

That's what what we have been getting.

Um, as far as our you we also have a budget stabilization fund, and we haven't talked about this in a little while, but um with uh our budget stabilization fund, it's essentially a rainy day fund for our city.

Um the commission can utilize this fund with it's for emergency, so it requires use of this fund, is basically requires two-thirds of those of this body to put any of that money to to work.

Uh, it was established coming out of the last recession.

Um, and the policy level is 10%.

So uh we have fallen below that policy level.

I want to make you aware of that.

This body could choose to contribute towards the budget stabilization fund.

I could I could bring forward an amendment if you would like, but it to get to the policy level at where expenditures are this year require about 850,000.

Um, if we want to look at our forecast for 27, um, it's gonna be more like 2.6 million.

So um, you know, that's just something for your consideration.

Uh you can only contribute to the budget stabilization fund if you're going to have if you had a surplus in the previous year.

So because we performed very well in fiscal year 25, you do have that option.

Um, it is something to think about.

If we do think, okay, around 2030, maybe we're gonna need to draw from this.

Um, do we want to put money away now?

But we are sitting in a fiscal year where we're operating at a deficit potentially.

So again, again, just something to think about.

Um, as far as our debt, um, upcoming debt and issuances.

Well, with our last um work through the ratings process and our last issuance, we did maintain our double A.

So uh proud of that.

Uh, we we're we sell very well, sometimes almost as well as a triple A.

Um, so I I'm a very proud CFO when I get to talk about our bond rating.

Uh, as far as what we have on our plate for the future, we have a fire training center.

Um, we leveraged the the state, as you recall the state grant we got um, but we still need to supplement what what we already put towards that with with bond money.

So we already approved 20 million um with with the new new estimates we have today compared to a couple years ago when we originally put this package together.

I'll be coming forward with about 14 more million of authority authorization to issue bonds for that facility in our forecast.

We also have 12 million related to street lighting.

Uh, we talked about NAPS Corner, I believe, in a couple of our different committees, but we're we're banking on having to pay debt on that, around 14 million.

Um Scribner's shortfall, we're about 13 million, and then the Calder Plaza restoration.

We're currently um forecasting 12 million, but I know that number has increased to around 17.

So we will hone that in before we get to introducing the um by the end of April for the introduction of the next year's budget.

ARPA, okay.

So our city was given 92.3 million, and it's been a long road uh getting that all out the door, and it's very exciting to see that we're only down to about 8.7 million to go.

Um I'll I'll remind you we have to have that money spent by December of 2026.

So this December.

So a lot of what we have left on the tables related to capital projects that we should see get spent um just with this construction season.

So those are projects related to the greenway.

Um you'll see the provisions of government services line, which is a big bucket, but there's some parking garage projects, um, I think a couple mobility ones for intersections, um, things like that, that's gonna eat up a lot of that money.

Um, and then I have Karin Farrakh who's gonna talk specifically about our grant position as well as the clawback.

So Karen.

Hi everybody.

Um just wanted to give um a quick uh sort of follow-up update on the um if you have may have heard that um the okay that's the incorrect date, sorry.

On December 10th um uh 2025, the Michigan House Appropriations Committee used its statutory authority to disapprove about 645 million dollars in multi-year work project funding.

Um, and this included four city projects and roughly 6.777 million dollars in funding that was put at risk.

Um, those projects specifically are the Plaza Roosevelt Park Improvements Um project, the Civic Theater Sidewalk reconstruction project, um, the election center grant at Scribner, just $1 million, and then the mental health crisis co-response for $250,000.

This was challenged and rolled on constitutional by the Michigan Attorney General.

Um and she stated that it violated Michigan's separation of powers and amounted to a single chamber veto of the executive authority or spending authority.

Um so in response, the House filed suit, and then on January 16th, um Judge Mike Gadola um issued in an injunction preventing unencumbered funds from being spent while litigation unfolds.

Um but funds that had already been encumbered, um, and that um means that they were legally committed through a contract or obligation before September 15th of 2025 do remain usable, and the state can continue honoring those prior commitments.

So it has been determined and backed up by the state that this um 6.777 million dollars in city project funding has already been encumbered.

So we have agreements in place for all four of those projects prior to that um September 15th date.

Um so as of now, um, all of those projects are continuing to seek reimbursement and or be reimbursed.

Some of those projects have already received full reimbursement for the funds that were awarded.

So right now everything is okay, and um, but there is that risk of ongoing litigation continuing.

Um we do continue to monitor monitor federal activity for rescission or clawback attempts, um, but fortunately the FY 2026 budget, which is complete with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security uh funding did not result in any significant negative impacts to city funding.

Thank you, Karen.

Okay, so um with that, you know, I talked about the economic picture.

Um you know, we have we have a lot going on capital-wise above what we normally do.

So we have over 65 million in grant projects managed by our engineering department that that are happening at the city.

So there is a lot of exciting things going on.

I look forward to talking to you more about it when we introduce the budget.

But as far as our approach to the 27 budget, which I know the city manager has relayed or or will be relaying, is you know, affordability is always a focus.

We want to make sure we're we're providing, you know, or maintaining our level of services and delivering them in the most efficient way we can.

With uh outside funding, we want to make sure we're leveraging grants where we can and um or at least when possible, and um, you know, we do we do practice lean and look for innovative change as well.

So if there is a if there if there is a way to better deliver the services, we're we're gonna investigate and run a pilot and figure that out.

Um any uh additional personnel or programming requests, um, you know, unless there's you know revenue backing, stuff like that, we won't recommend it unless it's a high priority uh, you know, for the city and the strategic plan.

So um and your areas of focus.

So that's the total economic picture.

Um we did break apart as some select revenue um investment areas that that you know we would appreciate some input on these these are areas of maybe a little bit more flexibility because as I as I said with the general fund because we're at this break-even area, it's really uh okay.

If we want to do this initiative of more of something, it's going to be at the expense of something else.

The way we have to balance that given our revenue picture that we know right now.

Um but we do know we have this uh neighborhood road funding um that's happening, and I um put in the estimates right now from the state report for the city of Grand Rapids.

These are the state, um this is based on the state fiscal year, not our fiscal year.

So you know, you can use these numbers as a general estimate, you know, say you know, nine ten million a year maybe, but um I will I'll get these adjusted for uh what once we get more information out of treasury, but but how that when those payments are going to come in, I've heard they might come in uh biannually.

Some people are saying monthly now, so um we'll we'll get that honed in for when we expect what revenue hit and what fiscal year.

Um but again, what are we going to do with with this money?

Um we had more restrictions with Act 51.

This seems to be a little bit less restricted.

I know in our um uh local streets major and local streets fund, we do have projects that fall out every year.

So uh we'll be you know giving you a prioritized list of um you know examples of things that could fit into this bucket of money for your consideration.

Uh the next uh item I wanted to highlight for you was that revenue share the public safety revenue sharing amount 1.7.

We did um add eight officers and two sergeants with this money, um, but we still have you know roughly 300,000 that we you know could find uses for it in violence prevention initiatives for exist, for example, like safe task force or cure violence.

Uh moving on to the affordable housing fund is our other um area focus.

We for total available for allocation right now is about 934,000.

Um we have an affordable housing fund board that determines use.

We do, you know, I I provided the layout of what our balances of as of today, what's being used right now in the neighborhood investment um process, but um they do require to keep 250,000 in their fund balance.

So that's where we came up with the 934.

Um we do have a plan to proceed in fiscal year 27 with that 700,000, but um you know, other uses that could be used for the remaining 233 would be housing Kent, um housing next as well as a contract administrator.

Uh third board equity fund.

I uh just just to remind the commission this is you know how we've used the money in um 2025 as well as fiscal year 2026.

Um generally looking into fiscal year 2027, it's going to be a million dollars again, is what we're currently estimating, with roughly a third going towards youth investment and the remainder amount going towards capital projects.

So that's been our rough um methodology for utilizing those funds.

And finally, uh for opioids, um, I did put in italics the the specific uses that we're allowed to use, you know, get these funds to work for.

Um, and then I provided where we've we've tried to use um these funds for things like you know, a social worker or expungement to help with the 61st district court gaps, but um again, those weren't great uses.

Um the you'll see in fiscal year 27 we are programming 800,000.

Um, and I did get a list from our um from Connie Villatch, our managing director, that the current RFP they have out for that is um you know, shaped for you know prevention and education, harm reduction and recovery and treatment.

Um when they've used these funds in the past, we've given to the Grand Rapids Red project for clean works harm reduction supplies or you know, pine rest with substance abuse disorder training, um Degajes Day Center, things like that.

So just to give you a flavor of where we have put these monies to use as we you know consider where where we'd like to go with that um money as well.

So on that, I will before you before you turn it over.

I just want to re-emphasize this is um I think this is my seventh or eighth budget, and this is the first time going into the budget where we're projecting a deficit for the current fiscal year for amendments.

This is not normal for us.

Now, while we have a lot of reserves, there's still a lot of uncertainty in the future, and so I'm saying we are proceeding with much caution.

I'm also very concerned about an ongoing conversation that is happening countywide about the renewal of the museum in Zoo Millage.

And we've had the briefing at the economic development project team highlighting the importance of that millage, that it provides about seven million dollars or so to the museum.

And if that millage is not renewed at the current rate, uh there may be implications that would require us since that museum is a city asset to uh make additional budgetary decisions and potentially reallocate resources.

So again, um we talked about the budget stabilization fund.

We don't have the money right now to contribute out of this year's budget unless I make additional reductions in other places this year or reductions in the proposed budget, which I am considering at this point.

But we want to, of course, not have any service impact.

And so I'm saying this as a sober alert.

If we're going to continue service levels in some places where there are administrative fees to offset them, those will be areas that we will be evaluating either that or reduction of services.

So with that, we'll take your questions.

Thanks.

Uh thanks for the overview.

Um comprehensive and uh appreciate it.

Uh Commissioner Belchak.

First of all, yes, thank you.

And yes, this is very sobering.

Um there's a lot to digest here, so I do I'm trying to you know be succinct, but I want to just um make sure I'm understanding that we are very carefully looking at the budget that's going to be presented to us based on these modelings that we will have a slowdown in income growth from income tax particularly, and we are already projecting a deficit in our current fiscal year spending and pretty much forward potentially if we can't balance the budget we're gonna be looking at, right?

Am I understanding that right?

Where we're at right now, we're doing scrubbing with the budget reviews with the city manager.

Um so we are projecting fiscal year 27, which starts in July, that to be around a break-even, but then we we hit deficits right away in fiscal year 28 and on.

So again, what what can we do to mitigate that or you know?

But but for clarity, I have to present a balanced budget.

Okay, I can't present a budget and deficit.

So if that requires reductions or other changes, uh I I have to by charter present a balance budget.

Thank you.

Um so on that, um, I just want to note that at a recent Kent County community action meeting, we were discussing projections and goals, and it was noted at that time that some of the research they had pulled had actually said that Kent County might be stagnating or slowing down in population growth.

So I just note that because that's also affecting income.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um I think that's one of the reasons you see in that forecast.

You know, it's you know, it what's what's funny is five years ago when I was budgeting four percent people like are you crazy?

You know, it's Michigan where you know, but uh, you know, that's that's what our model's showing right now, but you do see that, you know, kind of tipping tipping back down to three and a half percent.

So yeah.

So overall, what my takeaway at this moment, I'm sure there'll be more discussion that I can you know ask behind conversations that we have further, but um my key takeaway is that there's gonna be trade-offs, and that we need to have a really clear transparency, both from the staff and in support of what we as commissioners will be deciding and communicating to the public.

Um I do want to just also note that we have a lot of a lot of increased need in the community.

Um you mentioned affordability, but I think we have housing needs that are continuing to grow.

We have a lot of uh developers, including our emerging developers who are looking for assistance in order to build that housing.

Um I think there's some creative things we can be doing with revolving funds possibly or different things that we haven't explored in the future.

But um, you know, we have a climate action plan that we're trying to implement too.

So that I just I'm gonna be looking for those things.

And um, my big question that I'm gonna ask to all of our staff going forward is uh, I think you are asking these questions, but we need to know as commissioners and have the conversation of how do we prevent that scope creep on capital projects in particular, but on all of the things, and I guess I would ask if it's possible when we have budget amendments coming forward that we have a little line or some additional information that puts that modeling back in front of mind, maybe in the future fiscal year.

Sure.

I think uh one thing I will know.

I'm not understanding what you're asking.

So when we have a budget amendment come before us, it comes through all these dis different committees, and it might just be helpful to have a reminder of where we're at in our modeling.

And you know, because this is kind of coming as a shock to me that we actually are running a deficit this year, and it's not surprising when you look back, but when we're making these individual decisions, we're not always making them with the the holistic whole in front of us.

Yep, I I think on every ordinance we will tell you where we anticipate the source of revenue and where the um expenses being appropriated.

I think in this instance, uh all those amendments did not have a they were not budgeted.

So you begin with that from you know they were unplanned.

And the only amendment that we brought to you that was over 100,000 that had a source of revenue that was anticipated was additional officers for public safety.

So everything else to include the commission support was not adopted in the budget, and so I think we felt okay bringing those forward, otherwise we wouldn't have brought them for it.

So this is not we are in financial distress.

This is we need to begin to proceed with caution in the future.

Right, right.

Yeah, and and but we've had other projects that scrape, you know, creep.

Uh Scribner spent a lot.

I mean, these are all good things, but you know, we had the ERP that spent a lot, and these are all good things, and they are unplanned.

But if we can have that just in front of us when we're making these individual decisions, it's a it's a thought to put I propose.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner.

Morning, everyone.

Thank you so much for the presentation, and thank you, City Manager, for starting us this way.

Um, I guess um, you know, what really stuck out to me for this first portion is the information on slide 16 um related to income tax, but because we are an income tax city.

Um and uh Miss Clara mentioned the impacts of work from home.

Um there was a report from MSU that said, you know, we are probably half of pandemic era work from home, but it's still estimated to be about a third, I think.

Um yeah, I think that that has some real consequences for our budget as you as you outlined.

Um it looks like um our income tax uh is counts for about 60 percent of our revenue, right?

So what I'm really thinking about is particularly as we are partnering with a lot of large companies to uh come here to build here.

We um we approve something today in community development where we're working with um one of our local health systems to build help them build a trail nearby.

Um how are we leveraging our role in our partnership in that conversation to encourage folks to have to make sure that employees are um reporting on site more often because if you work from home and you live outside the city, uh there's no income tax that's paid on that time, right?

And so we either want to get folks in the city from the res yeah, we have resident and non-residents.

So if you but if you're non-resident and you're working from home, my understanding is is that no revenue from the city.

If you are if you're if your place of employment is within the city limits, we can get that non resident income tax.

So even if they were from home, yeah.

We have we have a couple people actually focused just on that because we did find coming out of COVID, we're like, this was a bigger dip than we thought, and we we did find that we had to go educate a lot of our companies, like Rockford, for instance.

They have employees from all over the place, but you know, that live throughout the state, but then they're here for a job.

We wanted to make sure we're getting that good.

We're like, we need the list of those employees so we know, hey, we're gonna send out a little information or work with their payroll office to make sure they are paying that tax on their behalf.

So we we have had to do a lot of efforts towards that.

I think I would like to hear a little bit more about that since this will be so crucial going forward um and hear more about some of those efforts that have been made and sure um what options we have to help uh incentivize and encourage uh this and and just to reground us and what all those different formulas about if then what counts will be helpful.

Um we can write that up for you.

Yeah, but out of everything um that was mentioned this morning, outside obviously our our spending on the revenue side, this feels like the biggest opportunity, and so I think it's worth spending some time there.

Mayor, if I can add uh to Commissioner Purdue's comment.

I think that remains the focus of uh downtown Grand Rapids Inc.

as well as the chamber and a large lot of our retailers getting more people to actually uh work on site to turn over the dollar in the economy, particularly in our large commercial areas.

I think that's very important, and so we echo those concerns and we we actually try to model it as a city, and we limit the number.

Uh we try to be flexible as employee because you need to do that to be competitive to recruit, but we uh try to make sure all employees spend the majority of their work week on site.

Any other comments, colleagues?

Thank you so much.

Okay, this is the next half of the presentation, and uh co-presenting with me will be Mr.

Lou Canfield, Miss Kate Barrens, Mr.

Doug Matthews had to leave to go be a part of the millage conversation that I mentioned in my previous remarks.

All right, good morning.

So this is where we get into the uh operational updates that are based on the first half of the fiscal year.

So through December 31st, you'll see that they are select highlights.

So you'll see some select highlights through December 31st, and then some key things that we are working on in each area for the balance of the fiscal year, and then selected metrics.

And I would note that you're probably gonna see about 40% of the metrics this morning, the ones that we have the the best mid-year updated information to present to you.

And uh at the end of the or after the end of the fiscal year, you'll see the whole collection of metrics.

Um so governmental excellence is where we'll start that that uh as the first of the six um strategic priorities.

Uh as you're aware, many of you were there for the uh the opening.

Um staff completed uh construction and relocation to Scribner.

It was a Herculean undertaking uh by many departments to move um all the work sites and services from 201 Market, nearly a hundred million dollar project.

Uh went live with just before the beginning of the fiscal year, the Oracle Fusion ERP.

And um we've been growing into that, led by the CFO and fiscal services and uh staff in all the departments um touch the ERP.

Um collective bargaining was completed in partnership with our uh union partners, uh a strong collaboration.

Um the the treasurer's office noted the ninth straight year of double digit growth in electronic payments, so those help us to be more productive in in that area.

Um we've talked about this a few times, but the uh steering council for uh use of AI by city departments has met and is uh doing planning and thinking about related initiatives.

Um we've continued a long string of earning the uh GFOA award for excellence, um many decades of that.

Uh began finalized and began rollout of some uh enhanced leadership competencies that um will uh be informing training and and uh performance review focus.

Um have automated uh direct withdrawal of um income tax payments and uh implemented also in the area of income tax uh enhanced uh forecasting model that will inform FY27 budget development, and then the um comp troller staff have launched the city's first uh formal internal audit plan, and that's been informed by engagement with um key departments to participate in that.

Um so that's through December 31st.

Uh remaining initiatives include having some recommendations for data readiness for AI and advanced analytics, so that relates back to the uh the steering uh council that I mentioned earlier.

Um part of that is uh that we have and will continue a uh training pilot using Microsoft Copilot, so that's the AI tool that we have available to us as part of our Microsoft application stack.

Um we're rolling out a new leadership development training program initially focused on new managers, um recruiting some key executive positions that you are well aware of.

Um facilities master plan recommendations that you've seen previously into our uh capital and other planning, and uh closing in on completion of the compensation and classification study, um, also a huge effort.

And then uh about to start the uh RFP process.

Um seems like we just did it, but we're gonna do it again for the uh the city's third party uh health insurance administrators.

So those are the uh recently completed and highlighted um initiatives uh for this fiscal year, and here you can see some selected metrics.

Um as Molly mentioned, we have strong uh financial metrics.

Um the percent of payments processed online ties to my comment earlier.

Um you can see um that we are uh doing um reasonably well with percent employee turnover.

We're waiting on uh the updated metrics through the end of uh that that last fiscal year, so hope to have those very soon.

And then we have uh a high percentage of community master plan recommendations in progress or completed, so that's being worked on very diligently.

Um, a strong and improving municipal equality index uh score, and you can see that we've been um successful securing state and federal funding.

So with that, I will turn the podium over to Deputy City Manager Barrens.

Thank you, Mr.

Canfield.

Okay, so when we get to economic prosperity and affordability, just like many of our strategic outcome areas is the work of many departments and partner organizations reflected here.

Um a few highlights, and I just want to speak kind of to the overarching themes that you really see us focusing on for this particular outcome area is a lot about housing affordability.

Uh that's something that has been an area of focus uh for many years for us at the city, and you see many programs or accomplishments at the mid-year that are really focused in or zeroing in on that.

So that would be all the way from the zoning code amendments that continue to uh make it uh a little bit more streamlined, a little bit less processed to get good, decent livable uh housing in the city, um, all the way to us using our own uh land bank land and pushing that out the door uh to many potential developers.

Um you see that reflected in the accomplishments.

We also have many programs that support local entrepreneurship.

We are not alone in that.

West Michigan is a very uh entrepreneurial uh region, but you see us continuing to try to layer our programs to together in ways that help support that um outcome.

So I will highlight here there is the focus that we've had, and and when we get to the data slide, you'll see a little bit more of the tangible outcomes there.

But the focus we have had on building not only the construction sector of the economy, but in particular um emerging developers uh really to try to get to both more stable jobs and opportunity for local investment, but also more housing produced.

So if you're a big housing developer, you tend to do a certain type of housing, and really we have a lot of opportunity for infill housing for the ADUs that the commission has heard about recently, and that takes a different type of developer and a different type of investor.

Uh so we are trying to build out that that sector of the local economy, and you see us layering programs to try to do that.

Um and then third, I think this harkens back to the conversation the commission just had about the income tax really how are we investing in changing the city in a way that is continually an attractive place to live and work.

Uh, if we need to pivot, as we have seen some of our local uh downtown property owners doing, pivot from office to residential to capture uh a different part of that income tax and to protect our income tax base in a slightly different way.

That's something we are trying to make appealing here.

So appreciate the partnership of some of our private property owners in looking at that, but also uh just the significant placemaking investments that the city has made and committed to over the years that you see coming to fruition, particularly in and around active and open space with the river corridor with some of those activation investments that are happening.

And again, that adds to the value proposition for an urban city like Grand Rapids to continue to attract investment.

Key remaining initiatives really will be around those same themes.

Um but you see uh here a raid and the bullet points in front of you.

We're really looking at a series of programs again around micro-local business and entrepreneurship, whether that's the revolving loan fund that will leverage the fiscal year 2025 third ward equity fund allocation to a revolving loan fund for small bus local small business, uh, continued support of uh local entrepreneurship through uh really amplifying a number of policy changes the commission recently made about our MLBE programs and targets and expectations, uh, and then we continue to push into uh housing affordability in a number of ways.

Uh that will be seen there with the continued understanding of how that workforce pilot program is working and being utilized.

Uh, so we'll monitor that progress and how it is able to influence what's happening at the city as well as our traditional neighborhood investment plan process that will be coming uh to you later this year.

And then here we have been show sharing this slide uh for a number of our updates.

So just um trying to maintain in front of the commission and the community just that closing the loop sort of process of you hear incrementally about each of these projects, they come to you through a variety of ways, whether it's through the economic development incentive programs or the neighborhood investment plan process or affordable affordable housing fund recommendations, but we are trying to capture that and provide some continuity of information of where those projects are actually coming out of the ground.

Uh and I know that uh Commissioner Kilgore with the support of uh the commission has been looking for ways that our website can be more transparent on that front.

So we're now moving over to the new website platform.

Don't ask me to say a lot more about that, but that is gonna give us an opportunity to really uh refresh the entire way people can access information about housing and housing affordability.

So appreciate your patience on that front.

It has taken us a while to get there, and we're still working with what are the best ways to array that information and have it in a way that uh is accessible and tracks what what we know and what we know that we can reliably replicate in terms of data.

Um so more to come on that.

It's still a work in progress, but don't want you to think we've lost sight of it.

Um, and then when it comes to the metrics, um, as Mr.

Canfield and Ms.

Claren noted, some of these metrics are uh we're in a mid-year, so we're just we're just measuring, we're just telling you what we know as of the middle of this fiscal year, uh, with a lot more that will come to you at the uh at the end of the year report.

But there were a couple things I wanted to highlight just because I think they help um validate some of the anecdotal information you're getting.

And the first there is in those top two lines, the EPA 1.1 and 2.

If you look at the difference between the number of private uh dot private investments there in fiscal year 2025, so the the second column from the right, you'll see a 1.63 billion dollar number, which stands far above the years on either side of that and and our historic.

That's the transformational brownfield program impact.

Uh so again, it it has driven a lot of private investment, which is exactly what it was intended to do.

Uh, and so as state uh conversations continue at the state, that's just a data point that I think is important to note.

Secondly, uh, there I wanted to call your attention to the middle of the page.

There's uh EPA 1.6, and that is really our monitoring of the corridor improvement authorities investments within their various channels.

So, this is facade grants in particular, but you see a significant uptick there.

Uh, it has been a commission focus area and a staff focus area for a while to help those corridor improvement authorities realize their visions for their areas, and they're really starting.

I think you can see that starting to hit uh stride, and with the recent commission approval of an additional position there, we expect to be able to kind of lift that up even further.

And with the recent commission approval of an additional position there, we expect to be able to kind of lift that up even further.

So appreciate that support.

And then a little bit here in the EPA 2.4 and 3.1.

I just want to call again starting to see some real push in that emergence emerging developer area.

And the I would call to your attention that the Brownfield Authority and Economic Development Project Team recently received a briefing about the experience of the Brownfield Authorities investment in emerging developers in particular, how how popular that project was in terms of letting us understand what the demand is to support that particular objective, and we're now trying to do some analysis of how successful have those grants been, and that that will take us a little while to wrap our brains around, but uh trying to understand what should be an ongoing investment in that part of uh our particular economic economic sectors.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to pause after this section for questions and comments.

All right.

Um so our third uh of the strategic priorities engaged and connected community.

We have um accomplishments through December 31st listed here, uh engaging in community outreach uh and water education events, 35 of them.

Um the uh neighborhood living guide has been updated and uh well received.

You saw a recent uh presentation on the um updated uh community engagement framework uh out of the communications department.

Uh we've uh been working through the commission connected pilot and um seeing some uh individualized updates that are ward-focused.

Uh we've got uh out of the development center the customer ombudsperson, which has been a position in place there, I think for almost a decade, um, and planning staff have attended almost a hundred community meetings.

Um PA has led the effort to serve uh more than uh 300 people through the annual clean slate expungement fair and has also uh launched Grand Rapids first critical conversations program.

Um city has uh supported mental health and financial literacy resources for um immigrant communities, helping them to um acclimate to uh life in the United States.

Um PA has uh led a uh partnership with migrant legal aid to grow the know your rights program and has supported almost a thousand individuals.

And uh we continue to support community cultural festivals, and you can see a number of them listed here.

Um key remaining initiatives, so um the water system, the utilities will continue to engage in the outreach and and water education programs.

Um we are uh in 311 um getting close to the end of a process to evaluate an AI-powered chat bot solution, so trying to give our residents more options as they uh obtain information and services.

Um, particularly from through on one.

So uh think of the kind of survey you might optional optionally complete at the end of a phone call, um, taking a few added seconds to provide feedback.

Um as you've heard in a recent briefing, we're closing in on the launch date for refreshed uh city website and then uh actually proceeding to implementation of that community framework, community engagement framework I mentioned a moment ago.

Um with respect to uh construction projects, infrastructure, roads.

Um there is uh enhanced support being planned for project uh related communications upcoming property tax seminar for new homeowners.

Uh we've got some important elections coming up, so there's a communications plan being uh developed uh with the clerk in partnership with the communications department.

Um we'll be implementing new language access technology to support income tax customers, and then uh coming up in just a few weeks will be the um the 2026 uh neighborhood summit.

You can see some key metrics here.

Um the 311 metrics remain uh ones that we are working to improve.

Um I know the uh the 311 manager has been focused on um retention and improving training efficiency uh when we need to onboard new new employees.

Um so it's been making some progress there, and of course, I mentioned that chatbot um solution earlier where we are we're hopeful that some uh customer traffic will migrate to that.

Um we've had uh some progress on uh improving the um turnaround uh timeliness for FOIAs, and um as others can mention the volume continues to go up.

Um we uh have had and you'll see going forward some every other year metrics.

So these are from the national communities uh survey that will be um implemented.

We'll have the next uh round of that coming up very soon.

But um you can see that we have had uh positive feedback on um public participation, quality of information that we um provide to residents, and um percent of residents who think the city does a good job welcoming involvement, and um you can see that we have kind of bounced around the target of being very close on uh board commission representation to our community.

And with that, all right, mayor.

Let's uh pause here, see what questions, comments you might have.

Any comments, commissioners?

I think it's sorry, Commissioner Cogar.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Uh City Manager, can you please provide feedback?

Um I'd like to continue to caution us with this uh excitement regarding AI use.

Um I'd like to have direct feedback on when uh if the commission is allowed to give the thumbs up.

This seems like every time you all come back, it's something new with AI.

So let's go.

I would love direct feedback on one.

How are we making ensuring which feedback which AI model are we using and how are we making sure it's not hallucinating and giving our residents whatever it just thinks of?

Two, what are the and how are we measuring the environmental impacts as I've noted several times to you all and have still not received an answer on the environmental impact?

And third, uh, when we will uh get timely feedback from this new council who's a part of the council, and will city commission have a voice on this AI council.

Because this is another this very disappointing to me to see this again.

Um I just think we are that's of course we want to give residents timely options for feedback from us, but we have seen time and time, these models are hallucinating, they're giving incorrect uh facts and information, and so please provide feedback on all those questions.

I'll start.

I don't see the either one of the Dugs here today.

Um but thank you uh for the question.

I just wanted to remind you we did a comprehensive briefing with our CIO to the commission on the AI council, its composition, and the fact we have university uh experts who are non compromised in their interests, they're not trying to profit off of it, they are purely looking at it from uh uh a neutral perspective that's advising us the council is early in its beginnings.

I think we have all the people appointed, they may have had one or two meetings at this point.

Um in terms of the bigger concerns that you've raised.

I think we from a more community-wide perspective have already acknowledged that with the zoning implementation and trying to evaluate um more broadly with data warehouse usage and and how that might be framed and permitted in the city, but specifically with the environmental impact of the city.

We we've acknowledged that that's going to be a little bit challenging.

Our our usage of it is primarily based on the Microsoft Office Suite and a couple other platforms, but uh but I hear the feedback.

I'm not sure I have any additional things to say beyond what we've already publicly briefed on at this point.

So there was no way where um the commission will have any interaction besides reports with this new form.

No, this is it is not a public appointed uh council from the commission, it's a staff council with a staff advisory group with uh the operating department experts.

Yeah, I still I this is quite a challenge of I I still don't see where residents directly get a voice on uh the council that will bring these.

And so my question well, another question I have is so you're saying it's Microsoft Suite.

So uh who is is the council is city staff who's reviewing Microsoft Suites uh hallucinations that it has where it can give wrong information, racist information.

Um this has been reported on time and time again.

So reviewing that.

Let me let me um defer on that question to where our tech experts are here that can answer it far more uh detailed than I think I can, unless Mr.

Canfield you want to take a swag at it.

But I think we better serve to have Doug uh start here.

Well, I I agree we can um provide specific written follow-up related to your questions working with Mr.

Start.

So I'm very displeased that you know we it's on the slideshow, but we can't directly speak to it.

Let's not do that again then.

I will hold on, hold on just a second.

Hold on just a second.

I want to make sure I understand what you just asked uh me.

Please explain it.

Well, you said you it's on a slideshow, we can't speak to it.

I want to make sure so if if there are further questions and we are um evaluating proposals and chat bots, if it's directly on the slide, I think we should be directly to be able to speak to any questions that we may have, like we just did for the rest of the member.

And I just want to remind um this commission and the public.

We are not robots and have immediate answers to every question that's asked, and there may be times where we need to follow up and evaluate with the staff.

And so unfortunately, as I said earlier, I offered to have the staff come back and provide that detailed briefing, but because of the time frame, Mr.

Canfield is briefing in substitution for Mr.

Matthews, who went to an important meeting to discuss the millage that I mentioned earlier.

So I would ask the commission's patience as we work through these issues.

Well, and let me add, I mean, I think it's entirely appropriate that we have a committee inside of our city staff to discuss uh how we are going to deal with a world in which AI is present.

Um I don't think that's inappropriate at all.

And the the questions you ask, Commissioner, are you know, obviously questions that are in the media a lot.

Um, you know, and questions of accuracy of information and and security and all of those questions are perfectly valid, and we can ask about environmental impact just like we can ask about the environmental impact of lighting this room.

Um I mean we're using energy to do that.

We use energy for lots of things.

Um AI uses energy, so does uh every time you turn on your computer or every time you turn on the lights.

So, you know, it's it's it's appropriate.

It's fine to have those conversations, but it's also true that we are living in a world where AI is present, and we all know that because we all know we if no if for no other reason then it's on my phone.

Uh you know, chat GPT is out there, it's readily available.

Um when you make a Google search now, Google tells you here's the AI answer.

I don't know how to not get an AI answer out of Google, to be perfectly honest.

Um Google just seems to give me it you go direct to AI.

So we're living in a world where this is happening, and I think it's very important that we not hide under a bush.

I mean, this is this is real, it is coming, and so I think it's entirely appropriate that we have a committee that starts to ask these questions, and frankly, I have in the past ask exactly for this that we have that we have staff discussions about how can we integrate it, how can it be useful?

Because, you know, just like the invention of the car after the horse and buggy, cars go really fast.

So then you have to think about security implications of running over pedestrians.

Um cars are really useful, but they also have downsides.

Um AI is really useful, it has potential risks, um, but it's also out in the world.

It's not something Grand Rapids, it's not a proprietary product to Grand Rapids.

Uh it is something that's happening on planet Earth.

And so I think we absolutely have to have discussions about how to appropriately use it.

Commissioner?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

And yes, I I am big on grace.

I think I last meeting, uh, last commission meeting that was actually like my word of the year for last year.

So I of course want to continue to give staff grace.

But as we said earlier, uh to give Ms.

Claren more time to I I thought I was coming to a presentation that we were having more time, we were going to be able to get into the weeds more.

So I look forward to uh what staff brings forward to us uh regarding AI, but if we're gonna continue to sort of celebrate it, I want to get into the weeds of it, and I want to hear more about it and making sure that constituents who have reached out to me on this very concern about what is the city doing with this, have accurate, equitable and responsive uh communications around this use.

So that's all I'm asking for here.

I'm very familiar that I am working with all fully blooded uh humans and not adults on this uh dais this uh morning.

Um, and I look forward to hearing more on it.

Thank you.

Commissioner Yassi.

Thank you.

Thanks for the presentation.

Um it did seem like that TPA coverage.

I was like, didn't we just do that a couple of years ago?

But I guess it's been seven years, and fun fact, I did want to be the HR director at the city, but you guys didn't hire me.

Um so it wasn't city manager.

So then I decided to run for office, if that's anybody's path in the future.

But um, you know, in all seriousness, I needed to to just put a joke out there.

Um, but I had a couple of things that I wanted to note and and bring up um as things that were sort of most important to me, or I'm happy to see them.

Uh appreciate kind of the levels of, you know, this is what's been completed, this is what's ahead of us, because today we just um in in community development listened to the project about um obviously the um the river and all the investments and the return of the rapids, and that's 17 years in the making, and it's still not done, right?

And so um we know that a number of things that we do here at the city are about us, I believe, gathering, communicating, indexing, and supporting.

So if we see throughout this whole presentation, um, you know, there's either grants that we've leveraged, there's partnerships that we've managed, it's public-private partnerships, it's one-time grant dollars.

I mean, I think the COVID dollars alone, that was even you know, taking that money.

Money isn't it's not free.

I mean, one, it's our tax dollars as all of us, but then there are the dollars to administer and to manage it, which you know, I think again, back in 2021, 22 when all these conversations were going on, it was, you know, we're kind of finally coming to this endpoint.

So, what I'm seeing is that we have remained very committed to being that gatherer, communicator, and supporter, even in the midst of a very uncertain economic environment.

There are geopolitical things that are occurring right now that we're definitely not on the bingo card for 2025 and 26.

And so, what is our job is to control what we have the ability to control here in the city.

Um, we need to be aware of everything that is going on, but we have only this ability to control.

And if we look at this presentation, I think we have controlled this very well.

We have managed it very well, we have communicated it very well.

I think what are the changing and the shifts is that there is more need and there is more support that is needed.

We in my opinion, we have to come and say what is the core responsibility of the city at this time with the amount of money that we have versus all the things that really a lot of folks are expecting right now.

So um, I just wanted to say that uh to in terms of my centering of what I'm hearing today in this presentation and it being the seventh time hearing it.

Um we do have a lot of new leaders in the organization, so I'm really glad to see a lot of that investment.

Um that's something that we definitely talk at our civil service meeting.

The civil service uh board was mentioned.

Um I would say for me, the number one things that I heard out of these sections.

Um glad to see the continued support for business owners.

I think we need to consistently evaluate what are the right tools.

We're gonna have that buyer event in April.

I'm excited about that.

And also what are the financial tools needed for people to be able to access those market places?

Um of them have different financial requirements than others.

Right now we are seeing credit usage at an all-time high.

People are paying for DoorDash via Klarna.

Um, you know, my day job is in the financial market, and I think it's very concerning.

It's not that it's not that people are irresponsible, it's that there is limited income.

Um, income has been compressed.

And so I just want us to think about what are some of those tools as we move forward to supporting small businesses, and I think that's actually one of the things that we're trying to do with the emerging developer sort of pause and that that subcommittee that we have.

Um I'm sitting next to Mr.

Clerk, but I think our election plan for 2026 is critical.

Um, you know, this is the time, and I know that you spent a lot of time and we'll spend more time connecting with individuals, communicating with people every single opportunity that we're connecting, how we're reminding people, what are all the ways that have been made um available to them to be able to access their vote in a meaningful way.

And then, yeah, I really don't have any questions, I just have comments, sorry, Lou.

Um and then for you know, again, going back to what should the city be doing, what is our core focus?

Um, we've had some really cold days and some really bad storms.

We had people who were upset, and I said, I people can be upset at me, but we responded in these critical events of I think it was 20 days of snow, as you said, city manager.

Um, I'm seeing John in the back of shaking his head.

20 days of snow, people working on our teams, 24-7, responding in really meaningful ways.

Um, probably not getting meals.

Um, and John probably would be happy if we said buy another 10 trucks and get me another 20 people, right?

That's but there's the budget that we have in front of us, right?

And so we're trying to manage all these expectations, and so to manage these critical weather events, I think we responded really well.

That's what we need to be thinking about, but also things like our tree pruning and the stumps and all of the work of the forestry.

These are activities, if we do them well, we'll prevent, I think when we have these serious weather events, we'll have it, you know, to be lesser to the residents and to the city.

It's not super sexy, I get it, but I think it is, you know, 2019.

This was the plan.

How do we bring up these plants and support even more?

And then lastly, I'll just say, um, you know, I think a lot of the big questions are people send me pictures of here's the amphitheater, here's a stocker stadium, and we're balancing the interest and excitement as well as I think a lot of uncertainty of what people are unsure what to prepare for, you know, when this first event happens.

It's happening on my wedding anniversary, so thank you.

Um but there people are planning for this, and so I know those are a lot of the questions that I've been getting from neighbors of people are excited, but they're unsure.

And so I think as we continue to ramp this up, and as well as you know, where does the dash fit in there?

Those are I would say those four things are kind of falling into the top priorities that are emerging for me, city managers we go forward in these budgetary conversations.

And then I will add one other thing.

I've talked about this to city um interim city attorney Strom about again when we look at our police department and we look at where have we back in 2019.

We did Hiller Hein study.

What can we civilianize?

Where do we put the best use in the in the money to go into complete police work?

But where can we um respond to things that are lower lower level calls in?

And I would say uh another one that has been emerging quite a bit with neighbors is just civil disagreements with people.

Um, and how can we look at other clinics or tools or some things that we've done as it relates to um the know your rights campaign of how could we funnel more support for those civil disagreements?

So then we don't have to have our police department responding to that.

It's sort of it's like that co-response model.

Where do we put those resources and tools?

And I know a number of calls I get into my office are about disputes between neighbors, so sorry that there's no questions.

Uh, I really didn't have questions because I thought it was a well-presented presentation, but more so where you all could see my thoughts as we move into this next stage of budgeting.

Thank you.

Commissioner Knight.

Um, thank you for all the questions that have gone forward.

I just had a couple things in one of these, I think it I don't know how we would address it, but knowing about the um and and current might be able to with the bills that have been introduced around the uh some of the housing changes um that are happening at the state, how that might impact us when we're talking about the economic prosperity and affordability and some of our zoning changes.

Um, and even thinking about the ADU task force, like how is all of that gonna work with us here in the city.

I'm getting a lot of um questions about how will that impact people?

Do we lose control with that?

How is it gonna impact us financially, right?

And and in the spaces that we can't um that we can grow, like uh hearing about the um project that's happening out at the old orbit room, the party spot.

Um, I thought that was really great to hear about the number of units that are gonna go over into that space because it's totally unutilized.

So it's like, you know, when these changes happen, how are we gonna be able to expand into spaces that are open within our city um to increase uh that footprint and that density that we've been talking about, and then um also thinking about the riverfront um business um and all the work that's being done along the riverfront.

I talked to uh Mr.

Davis about this uh just a little while ago and and where we are in starting to talk to small businesses and people who are interested in starting a business and having something along the riverfront and getting them prepared to be able to actually you know have a little small business along that corridor that can increase you know the tax and capture and all those other things that we're thinking about uh here in the city.

And then the last piece was kind of a tag on to the um the upgrades that we're doing to the website, and you know, I think it gets missed a lot when we think about you know, we see what's right in front of us, right?

And so we want things to happen, we want them now, and of course, housing is one of the things that's at the top of mind for everybody, like across the country, right?

But really being able to highlight uh 636 um low-income uh residences have been put into play.

Now, obviously, it's lower than the number that we have been talking about and what we actually need, but it has happened, right?

And and for people to be able to see that, and that may help people have a glimmer of hope that we're actually moving towards some change and we're actually accomplishing some things here in the city.

So that's my rant for the day.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I you know, those are that that that number you pointed out is just of course the completed ones, and it's interesting to look at the total number of new units doing quick math, almost 90% of those than last year were affordable.

Um so that's you know, when people talk about are we just doing market rate housing?

Um, the data is right there.

And I and I I'd urge, you know, those out listening to hear this.

This is the one thing that's worth that jumped out at me too.

Is if you look at the bottom line, and we're looking at you know, including um things that are in process, something strongly between half and two-thirds are in that affordable unit uh category.

Now, a lot of people, you know, affordable means different to different different things to different people, and what one person can afford is uh not necessarily something someone else can afford, but the fact that we're that many of these units uh have some level of affordable planning to them uh is really I think a credit to everyone work everyone working on staff in the city and the and the programs we have in place and to our city manager making a priority out of this.

So thank you, city manager, for that.

Yeah, Mayor, now I will just add to um Commissioner Knight's uh comments that uh those bills that you mentioned.

We'll we're gonna have more detailed discussion on those at uh the legislative committee today this afternoon.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Purdue, did you?

I'm sorry, Commissioner uh Dr.

Okay, well we're fighting over the microphone, but uh yeah, I know I want to give Commissioner Purdue plenty of time.

I just want to jump on the housing thing because that was my top line that I took away from this section.

Um I think that um my one question, just because I don't have it off the top of my head, is where are where is the percentage relative to the total line total housing needs?

So we built the building 2200 or so.

Um just kind of place that for us in context.

Uh okay, so there's a couple different data points, but I would call your attention to the to the slide.

Um about total new total new dwelling units permitted.

We're we've set a target of about 1,100 a year, and for calendar year 25, we were at 1621.

Um, the overall I will have to, I don't want to misquote, but let's just say 15-ish thousand was needed for uh the city of Grand Rapids, so we can come back with a kind of how are we making progress since that number was put out there.

Uh, that will have to be a follow-up in writing.

Yeah, thank you.

I just I did also put an exclamation point by that line.

Um, EPA 3.1 because 1,600 units is pretty fantastic.

And if you combine it with the 600 from last year, you know, it does kind of start to put us on par.

And I think it was worth highlighting that impact of the transformational brownfield, the the private investment is contributing to that of those housing units.

Because that's the question I get a lot from people.

It's like, what's the city gonna do for housing?

And I have to keep reminding people the city itself doesn't generally build housing.

We're not a developer.

We require people to be investors to become developers, the emerging developer program, etc.

So what are we doing as a city is what is all of us doing, and so um it's just really exciting to see that and the proportion that is going to be in the 80% or less AMI.

So that's what I'll close with to hand over the mic.

Thank you.

Um, so actually taking picking up where you left off on economic prosperity and affordability on slide 36.

Um, so speaking of, so I I'll start by saying I'm really enjoying the conversation and taking the time to celebrate all the work that we've been doing, the progress made, uh, metrics are looking great in a lot of different areas, and balancing that with you know what's next, how to continue to improve.

That's I think that's the definition of our all of our work, where it's about in.

It's like, yes, let's celebrate and let's move on to the next milestone, right?

So I want I want to acknowledge that.

Um, so you bring up uh the use of incentives to drive private investment.

I am curious about the ratio uh for EPA 1.1 on slide 36, the ratio of public incentive dollars to private incentive dollars.

Um is it one for one?

Is it one for five?

Is it one to point five?

Uh so some insight onto that will be really great.

Um, and relatedly, you know, when we talk about incentives, we have some really big projects, particularly related to transformational brownfield that have brought up a little, a lot of really great, I think essential questions about how we use those those tools, um, including, you know, we we hear a lot that these projects can't get done without some of these incentives.

But we have no way of knowing that, we have no way of confirming that without transparency into some of those projects, um, into uh their pro forma.

If we were an investment body, which essentially we are, and we were wanting to invest in a startup, uh, we will want we will want to see some sort of number sheets.

And right now we don't have that that line of sight into how true is it and how feasible is this project without our X number of contribution.

So that's something for us all to think about.

I would love to see how we can chip away at that more and increase transparency around that and understand about that return to make sure that you know we're we just looked at projections.

Anytime we're giving up some of those captures, we're giving up some of those captures that can go to support our revenues.

And so I think uh we've we've made a lot of progress when developing in the city.

I think we've met a lot of our goals, particularly when I think about the growth of downtown.

I think now is a really great time to question and to re-look at how we're utilizing all the tools.

Are they going to the right places?

You mentioned measuring success for emerging developers.

How do we do that across the board?

Anytime we're using our investments to drive private investment and other in other community-wide progress.

Um also just mentioned um I'm really hoping that uh we might come up later, but I think there's some opportunities to just mention it right now related to neighborhood associations.

Um, and I think we all are almost blew in the face of talking about how we need to do more.

We've been having a lot of conversations about that, and I know there's a lot of excitement of inserting that into this year's budget process.

So I want to name that in hopefully something like the public safety revenue sharing or the opioid opioid settlement dollars can really be used to provide enhanced services for folks.

The last thing I'll mention on this because uh we did briefly go over the third war equity fund, um, is that I just want to note that um because we're talking about getting those projects out the door, getting those at getting those um dollars spent is one of the challenges with managing the third war equity fund is that uh it doesn't always have I think full staff capacity and support.

It's done on top of someone's full list of things, and we really need folks dedicated to moving this work forward, which is why I'm really proud of the executive level director role that we are going to add to leave South Town uh investment in South Town.

Um, but I just want to add, I think we need that same level of commitment to initiatives like Third World Equity Fund because without it, they don't do well or they don't live up to their full potential, and then we kind of question those investments when really there's some real structural uh changes that uh threaten the success in the first place.

So I just wanted to name that though um I'm looking forward to continuing to support that this year.

We've been in a lot of really thoughtful conversations about how do we use the equity fund, but also how do we leverage it?

How do we partner with philanthropy to say, you know, we have one million in, how do we find matches so that we can leverage our investment to expand our impact?

Those are some things that I would love to see us do moving forward uh to make sure we're making the most use of all of our dollars.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um that brings us to the next part of our uh presentation.

All right, so we're moving on to the health and environment priority.

Um I'll pick up the pace a little bit so that we can make up some time.

So continue to make good progress, including with uh partner levels of government funding on lead service line replacement.

Um you talked a bit at uh fiscal today about the um ongoing work to convert uh sludge into uh biogas and some of the equipment needs to help with um doing that more for the city of Wyoming.

Um we will uh soon uh provide an update so sometime this spring on um costing of prioritized actions in the CAP plan, climate action and adaptation plan.

Um uh 56 homeowners have been helped through the solarized purchasing program, and we've also added solar on the community archives.

Um parks has completed a comprehensive uh asset condition assessment to help guide uh future investments.

Um program participation in uh parks programming is up.

Um more than uh 116,000 um participants in FY24 or excuse me, an FY25.

Um we've had uh a lot of progress on tree pruning and making more progress on stump removal, which we've heard is um a priority.

Um park uh condition um ratings is up substantially.

So if you think about where we were in 2018, made a tremendous progress since then, and we continue to expand our um low and no emission vehicle fleet.

Um we will continue replacing lead service lines in a substantial number.

Um the uh water career program continues to be uh an excellent pipeline of of people into um skilled uh work here at the city in um in the water system.

Um we are finding and continue to find that lining uh our sewers and manholes is a cost-effective alternative to um outright replacement, helps extend their life, useful life.

Um as I mentioned, we'll be completing and presenting information on the CAP plan analysis and uh and costing along with municipal facility energy audits.

You've heard recently about Butterworth solar deployment to power the uh the primary circuit, and and um I'll remind you we've received uh help from the state to connect uh that um future solar to the primary circuit.

Um at the uh opening of the or the um ribbon cutting of the MLK community center this past weekend, and that will open uh to the public very soon.

Um river trails uh will happen with construction season this spring, along with planning for the Silver Creek Corridor.

Um we'll continue to make progress on uh tree pruning and stump grinding and removal.

And um, I'm sure you're aware of, and we we had at a recent EDPT meeting a presentation on um the Grand Rapids Public Museum, and that included some of the uh accomplishments they've been able to make with significant um funding for riverfront improvements.

We look forward to the Ash Lagoon closure, which will be uh completed with federal funding assistance.

Uh and then um we're continuing that transition to low end uh no emission vehicles.

And we've got two slides of metrics here.

Some of them are multi-part or multi-line metrics to kind of break out things across multiple dimensions of that metric, but um these highlight progress in some of the areas I mentioned, including the uh percent of uh greenhouse gas emission reduction and and uh associated renewable energy.

Um we with the help of um purchasing of credits have been at 100% renewable for more than a year.

Um and uh you can see progress with vehicle conversions, tree tree um pruning and and stump removal, etc.

on this slide, and then uh continued progress is demonstrated on the lead service line replacement and um some of our uh environmental and uh materials management um items.

So I will now turn the podium to Ms.

Barens for mobility.

All right, thank you.

Uh so uh again trying to make up a little bit of time.

I won't go through each of these things, but again, major theme here in terms of what we've been able to focus on uh through the mid-year is really making the most of our rights of way, right?

Whether we're talking about some minor improvements or investments in micromobility so that uh a corridor is more amenable or a tool is more available to someone to help them get around our city, or the major road reconstruction projects where we're really trying to modernize, make safe again for all kinds of users and think about uh the city's growth into the future and where our investments need to be distributed.

That's really what we've been focusing on.

Uh you know, we're not making new right of way in the city of Grand Rapids for the most part, so we really have to make the most of uh the right of way that we do have, and we ask a lot of that right of way.

But our foundational obligation and that we think about with each of our project design is to make it safe and making it safe for all users almost always, and I'm just gonna say this because I try to say this every time I have the microphone, makes it less for convenient for the people in the metal boxes to go really fast because we have to slow those uh cars and vehicles down to make the facility safe for all users.

So this will just be an area of continued uh conversation with the community about what to expect and what we're trying to accomplish.

Um I did want to flag here the and recommend to you if you have time later and want to see it.

We did do a presentation at the community development uh committee meeting today about the in-river work uh for which we just awarded, and you'll have on your agenda a consent agenda a night tonight.

Uh, the construction crop project for the lower reach.

Uh, that's where we are removing four low head dams south of the Sixth Street Bridge.

So that just leaves one dam that is the subject of upper reach design.

So just want to call that to your attention.

Major, major milestone.

Um, with respect to key remaining initiatives, uh, again, we are looking at a lot, and you heard you had a more in-depth briefing, uh, so I won't go over it again, but we are looking at sort of implementing the community master plan in with respect to mobility and transportation improvements uh through uh the mobility blueprint process.

So that will be uh a way for us to knit together all of those vision pieces and help us uh prioritize uh where we've got some gaps in how we prioritize our the available funding uh and help set the stage for future capital decisions.

Um there is a transportation safety component to the fiscal year 2025 third ward equity fund allocation.

So two projects will be getting underway this year or will be completed this year.

Those are pedestrian safety projects.

Uh and we are currently working on identifying projects on the Kalamazoo corridor for uh safety improvements as well with the fiscal year 2026 third ward equity fund.

Always trying to keep that straight.

Um, and then we'll uh be looking a lot about park at parking.

So we have been uh, and by we I mean mobile GR folks have been working on a uh reviewing the parking portfolio downtown, both our own publicly owned lots and other lots that are available or could be available to the public and making sure we're optimizing that.

Some of the same ways that we are looking at that parking portfolio, we intend over time to carry into some of our other commercial corridors so that we understand where it's appropriate for the public to be investing in more parking and what we're saying about parking ratios and parking requirements.

So more to come on that.

Um another thing to call to your attention is really some changes that we are working on with the rapid with respect to the to the dash route.

Uh so this is an area where I would say we're really firmly in continuous improvement thinking uh with respect to the dash route.

It's it's not a static thing.

Uh it is something that we're continually looking at what is happening downtown, what makes sense to circulate people and really with that park once philosophy, and then where should a dash route go that you can uh take advantage of public parking and get to those kinds of places where we would really like to encourage folks uh to use different modes than getting back in their car and going a couple blocks, getting back in their car, going a couple more blocks.

Uh so you can see on your screen here some modifications to the dash route that we would intend to execute, and we're doing those for a couple things, but a couple reasons, um not least of which is actually taking a look at our contract with the rapid with their costs and with their expectations about purchasing the coaches or the buses and what that really means for affordability for the city and our residents with respect to parking rates, uh, which is where we get the funds to support that program.

Uh and so this realignment and uh different relationship with the rapid will help us avoid about seven million dollars of costs over the next five years, uh which helps us keep parking rates low.

So I want to caution everybody that's not seven million of unprogrammed money we can suddenly start spending on other things.

It was avoid a cost avoidance in order to keep us from having to really look at fees and costs to get enough revenue to cover those costs.

Um this also has the benefit.

This route also has the benefit of letting us really focus in on the downtown performance venues and uh the need to circulate people again from available parking to those venues conveniently.

A couple of key metrics I do want to call to your attention before we move on to the next outcome area.

Uh, because mobility has been such a key uh point that I actually have two pages worth of metrics here, but I'm not gonna call them all to your attention.

We have blown out, if you will, um the detail here about serious injuries and crashes.

So we have the roll-up number uh at the first uh second first line, and then under that for several lines, we're giving you more information about the mode of travel uh that was involved in some serious injuries and crashes.

So I just want to flag that for your attention, and you can certainly um dig into that and ask us follow-up questions later.

We're happy to give you more information.

Uh at the bottom of the screen, you'll see we've got a couple items that we measure every other year.

That's through the national community community survey, which we will be doing again this year, so expect to populate that.

Getting into the uh next data page, I just again want to uh call to your attention some data that I think is interesting and validates what you've been hearing.

If you look at those first two lines of miles of street projects each year and annual investment across the city, you'll see that um that fiscal year 24 and 25 uh was uh a pretty marked increase in terms of level of investment, but also combine the miles of streets we were impacting, which I think completely validates what we have been experiencing in terms of more and more areas of the city saying, Oh my gosh, this project is happening, it's really difficult to get around.

Uh, I think you can see that, and we're we're we're taking advantage candidly of one-time money that we need to take advantage of, and we need to invest it in our community, but it doesn't come without its um it its pressure points, certainly.

Um, and then last but not least, I do want to call your attention to um the the next three lines.

So lines three, four, and five.

We are breaking out for you there in a in a slightly different way.

Uh the investments across ward.

We do provide that every time we come to you with the annual budget.

Uh it looks a little bit different than this, uh, and it allows you that annual budget look that you'll see in May will also allow you to see where Vital Streets is in particular in the life cycle.

Uh very, very strong commitment to transparency to the voters about how we're spending those money, monies in particular, and also that they will at the end of that program will have been equally invested across the ward.

So every year it's a little bit different.

Uh some ward uh up, some word down, but over the lifecycle of vital streets, we are projecting um very consistent uh equitable investments across uh well, actually, I probably should say equal investments across the wards with respect to that dollar amount.

Uh so that's all I've got for mobility.

And uh, Mr.

Manager, am I turning this one over to you?

Yes, thank you.

Yep, thank you.

And I won't go into detail now, but I also wanted to just add Ms.

Smith did follow up with uh Lyme on rider education for more helmets for rider safety.

So they were willing to cooperate and increase uh the availability of helmets that are free to public.

Uh safe community.

And someone got me up, Joel.

You got me?

Okay, Joel has me.

Uh let's go back.

So we we've done a lot um regarding other ways to keep our community safe in terms of the you heard the fire department's uh empower program partnership with Corwell Health on uh more preventative type of needs for frequent users.

Um we appreciate those who came and opened up the Kindle Fire Station back in September.

Those thanks to those of you who are part of the MLK opening this past weekend.

Uh we continue to work with our uh social workers and doing community support for mental health challenges as well as created the uh civilian violence prevention position.

Uh next slide.

And we continue to um have good experience with the demand for expungement.

So thanks at OPA for that effort.

Uh continue to focus on our capital work in the fire department with the opening of the Vision Avenue Station as well as training center.

Uh, one of the things that you'll see in this year's budget is uh we work with the United Way previously when we provided uh relief to the flood victims prior to the city settlement.

And we're going to try to continue that partnership in a more formalized way and um a countywide disaster relief fund, but also ensure that there's some funding uh specifically designated for Grand Rapids.

I want to thank uh fire chief in the emergency management office for that that effort, and we'll more to come as part of the budget dialogue, as well as uh we'll continue to focus on violence prevention and intervention with our hiring of grant positions.

Next slide.

Uh several metrics.

We're gonna have a very extensive public safety committee meeting today, so I won't uh go in all uh uh go in detail on all of them, but I did highlight a couple on the uh percentage of police police beats covered.

Uh you'll see we're at a hundred percent for the first time in this past uh past 10 years or so, 100% beat coverage that's due to full staffing.

Uh the other is serious uh murder victims.

You'll see I've seen two numbers.

There's 13 for the calendar 24 and 14 for calendar and uh 25.

But the chief can clarify those uh this afternoon at public safety and one is too many.

I do want to um just highlight what many of you are already aware of by now in terms of the uh most recent office involved shooting um of uh Mr.

Dequan uh Johnson, which is now being investigated by the Michigan State Police, and as per our protocol, um we are certainly as I mentioned earlier, one life loss is too many.

Uh, but in order to really understand what's happening uh with the investigation, I know there's lots of discussion.

We are deferring to Michigan State Police, and then of course, the results of that independent investigation will be shared with the prosecutor for determination of what happened in that matter.

Um and then lastly, uh the dispatch response time.

You'll see um those are certainly uh meeting the target where 98 percent of the almost 100% of the calls are being dispatched within 40 seconds.

Um again, we'll have more robust discussion today on public safety at uh at the public safety committee, so I won't belabor the point.

Lastly, I'll close with uh enterprise initiatives.

I mentioned that earlier, what you'll see in this report are things that are being deployed upon the across the organization that requires lots of resources, both staff time and multiple departments to implement and uh our cup runneth over uh in terms of the things that we're doing, and we labeled them in those that have high impact and medium impact.

I just want to um share that with the commission.

Some of these are very new initiatives, such as the mobility blueprint, the parking investment strategy, um the zoning code rewrite.

Of course, we mentioned all the capital projects, the cap implementation.

Um next slide, the second one, please.

Uh, we just talked about the AI uh count advisory council that's really new in development, and uh we continue to roll out some of the things like a community engagement framework and um our website uh update.

So lots of things that are happening in your organization.

So I'll pause here for comments and questions.

So it's now noon.

Uh we've got public safety coming up in half an hour, and we've got one item left.

But I just wanted to flag a couple things.

First of all, I want to thank uh Jessica Smith for her work on that uh dash and the good discussion we had at Mobile GR about this.

Um lot of discussion about how important frequency is.

Um, and so this is just so the public knows uh a question of sort of simplifying the dash line, but also increasing frequency, and that turns out to be really, really valuable for riders and also not just for people who park their cars.

Um I I pointed out in that meeting that if I jumped on this thing I could cut my walk commute downtown by about half.

Um, and if it comes every eight minutes, maybe I'll do that.

Um so I wanted to thank her for that, and there's some real efficiencies in that too.

Uh the other thing that I want to point out is uh who knows whether this body gets more viewership than public safety um or committee of the whole.

Um, but as far as our public safety work goes, um, you know, there's been a steady um reporting out in the last year of success and a lot of our public safety numbers, and I want to highlight that.

Um so uh those of you who want to tune in can tune in, but um clearly really really impressive work being done in terms of community safety.

Um one of the markable num remarkable numbers to me that isn't actually in this reporting metric, but the chief I asked the chief to put this in, and he did is the number of shootings in the community, and those are really markedly down, and that's I think uh uh a credit to the to the people who are trying to um reduce community violence across the border.

So Mayor, I just want to let you know I did ask for a delay at the start of the public safety committee meeting at 1245.

Okay, great.

Commissioner Core.

Sorry, you're deferring to someone.

Yeah, Commissioner Sassy was before Commissioner.

Age before beauty.

I don't have my peripheral vision, isn't what I was when I was 18.

Okay.

Come on, everybody.

R this is uh little bit of laugh to get through the day.

Um no, I did want to um just share on the the safety piece.

I really appreciate you know this overview.

I think this really reflects this idea that there are a lot of mechanisms the city pulls upon to create you know a safe community or be part of creating a safe community as somebody who's who's you know been stopped, but also had family members who have been victims of violent crimes.

Um this is a space that's really important to me.

Um I wanted to know, especially just this was about this was about a um about a month ago um that you know a mother and her two children were were murdered in their home uh perpetrated by you know, I I don't know if the full investigation is done.

I think charges were announced, but domestic violence.

So even though we we talked about a lot of things, I just want to continue to highlight the importance of investment and supporting um, you know, investigation and actions after and supporting really that entire entity of our domestic violence prevention and post.

I think you know, there certainly is the importance of the prevention work, but then there's a lot of stuff that happens, say if there is a very serious violent crime or assault.

So I just wanted to continue to highlight that as a really important um focus area for me.

And then lastly, I wanted to say thank you, city manager.

I think I think I saw Mr.

Davison here too.

Thank you for that connection coordination.

Um that has really been reflected in our uh safe task force.

Mr.

Kane led that work for a number of years along with a lot of other things, and now Miss Lipscomb has been able to take that on and um you know have more, you know, instead of doing a number of things, has like a more general focus on this area, and definitely can see that investment uh panning out and that support coming out of that office is really appreciated.

I think it'll allow us to, you know, continue to identify like we've done in the past, or their department.

I mean, I don't know about federal grants, but what are other things that we can pull and um support on?

So that has definitely even been seen in the first, you know, these first well, six months of this fiscal year.

So thank you.

Commissioner Coger.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Uh so first I've got a few things here.

I'm really proud to hear about the uh further more built-out discussion we'll have on CAP initiatives uh to really get into cost.

Uh, you know, sadly we have some in community, such as the chamber who sort of have the cart before the horse.

I think in their uh most recent email, they said, you know, we talked about in cow and it's gonna have significant uh cost on community.

All of these things are preliminary, right?

There's still decisions to be made, and I'm really thankful that staff and the commission will have an opportunity to um show community in a very transparent way what decisions are being made in terms of that plan.

So thank you again for that overview today.

Uh this some standout moments on the things that we reviewed, uh the MLK Community Center.

That was an awesome opening.

Uh, but before that, sort of to highlight what we've talked about today of that sort of healthy tension uh that we could really have to have within our work.

Want to give a shout out to Miss Clay Poole.

Uh she did a fantastic job with meeting with the Martin Luther King Park Junior Park Sports Coalition.

Uh these were community members who had uh concerns around showers and lockers and certain things in her uh department uh along with myself.

We met with them, and it was a really good uh way to have that direct feedback with staff and um uh their commissioners, Commissioner Purdue was also very responsive to their concerns and um they were satisfied.

They were satisfied because the department really uh committed to ensuring that they're gonna be a part of the programming moving forward and you know will have a seat at the table.

So I thought that was really important and a great example of the work that we do every day.

In addition, I'm also uh thankful to hear the conversation continue about street calming and safety measures for Kalamazoo.

Uh that was another initiative uh where community really wanted to be heard and had some really uh understandable concerns.

Uh Miss Barrens along with Miss Runero and myself also met with uh community advocates, and once again, that same just like with Miss Claypool, we're taken very seriously and got that direct face time that I think that so many of our neighbors need uh with these concerns.

And so I'm thankful that we can really see here um that we're bringing community to the table, right?

It's not just us making what we think is best, but it's community led.

So uh thank you all for your work for this.

This presentation has been very nice, and I look forward to following up soon.

Thank you.

Commissioner Belchek and then Commissioner Purdue.

Um great.

I will be brief.

Um we noted that we had interns here earlier, city manager mentioned that.

I'm gonna highlight and shout out that at a previous meeting we had our water career program interns here, and there were a half a dozen of them or so, and most of them live in the city.

So I'm really proud of that work that continues to be building the bench of a really highly needed career.

And I want to say thank you for the continued work on the service line replacements.

I think that I've always thought Grand Rabbids is like uh a shining star and moving those forward.

Um and I um this last week got my house, my 1800s, whatever house uh done.

Um it had been 15 years ago and we've gotten the street done, but my house was one of those that missed, so I'm really grateful because that whole new our whole neighborhood's going back through and getting that.

Um so we have clean, safe water, which is really an important feature.

Um, and then I would just highlight that at a previous meeting too this morning.

Uh, we asked about uh service sub uh sewer separation, and just a reminder that we did re get we're almost a hundred percent service line separation on our sewer, which helps when we talk about having clean water in our riverfront and all the way out to Lake Michigan where we drink.

So uh those are the couple of things.

I do have more questions about the Dash.

I've been getting a lot of uh emails from the West Side, so I can follow up on those offline, but just know that that is something I'm gonna have to really look seriously at.

What's you know, based on my constituents.

Commissioner McDonald.

Thank you.

Thanks for the great presentation, very productive morning.

Um, I just want to highlight on page slide 52.

Uh, you know, when we talk about public safety in a safe community, it it really is multifaceted and multidimensional.

And so um here highlighted are uh the people uh the number of people who were diverted through emergency repon response through to an alternative outreach, um meaning not taking to jail, not taking to emergency room, but to connect folks with resources, nearly 8,000 people at this at the time of this report, um, over 200,000 young people um participating in out-of-school time programs and having emergency plans um for the most part up and ready.

Um so I just wanted to point out those.

Um I also want to um kind of agree with Commissioner Yasassian.

I think one of the the priorities that um is really needed related to safe community is continues focus on domestic violence, both victim support, which we spent quite a bit of time on the last few years, but also prevention, preventing people from becoming victims.

So we have a lot of amazing resources in our community of folks who are subject matter experts, um, some of which you are already contracted to engage in for the victim support and just want to continue leaning into that to see how we can partner with the PD, fire, community um or people serving organizations to prevent violence, particularly domestic violence before it happens, and relatedly, um young people.

Young people uh need to be an explicit focus to both for for violence prevention but also for just general youth enrichment and creating a great community.

Um our young people feel unconsidered, they feel left out, they feel like um life is in this city isn't offering everything to them that it possibly could.

Um I was talking with a group of young folks a few weeks ago, and they felt like the apartment building going up next to them almost felt like um almost like they were competing with it.

Like we keep investing in buildings, but not the people who live here.

And so I think youth DV are two big focus areas that I think moving forward, we really need to spend more explicit time on connecting those dots and really helping uh those folks highest at needs.

I also want to point out in terms of remaining initiatives.

Um what one thing that didn't make the slide, but I I I believe it's part of the work plan is the civilian appeals board um working to look at recommendations to see what policy improvements to make their work better, to make it more transparent, to make it clear, to make it fair.

Um, and so really excited to see what comes of that conversation.

And then um, I also have a lot of thoughts and questions about the Rafid.

Uh, I won't take this time, but I will take this time on the op on the topic of mobility.

You all know that bike lanes and parking have been a big source of tension here.

We've talked about that.

Uh, but even more so for me, one thing that is still not clear is who are we building this bike lane infrastructure for?

What type of users?

And it's really easy to say everyone, but I I really want us to be more specific.

So for example, you know, I I will be a leisurely bike bike rider.

Riding around my neighborhood.

Uh, I think that will that will be probably most people in our community.

Hop on the bike, ride around for a few minutes, maybe go get some ice cream.

Um, um, and then you have those who are using bikes to commute to work.

That's only one person up here.

But that is a very different type of user and a very different type of I think network that will be built for those.

And then of course you have like the enthusiasts and folks who like compete.

So I think I just bring that up to say those are three very different types of folks, and I don't think we've been clear to ourselves and the public of who we are for what purposes are we prioritizing in this process.

And so as we continue to have a mobility conversations, I would like for that to be clearer for all of us so that we can ensure that we are all on board, it makes sense, and there's clarity for all.

So I'll leave us I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So I think that moves us on to our next presentation, which is the discussion of the uh vacancy currently or pending, I suppose, technically, uh, in the uh first ward commissioner.

And uh our clerk is gonna lead our discussion here.

Thought I'd come off Daya so I can actually see your faces as I do this presentation.

Um so yes, with the impending um resignation of Commissioner Robbins, that'll be on March 6th.

Um the charter states if an appointe has to be a resident of the city for at least six months and a registered and qualified elector of the city.

That so that's that's the um the requirements there.

Also in section 37 of the charter, if there is a vacancy, it says the same shall, so the word shall be filled by majority vote of the city commission at any regular meeting.

There is no time frame in the in the sit in our city uh charter.

Some cities have um time frames of within 60 days, within 90 days.

We do not have that.

It just says it shall happen.

So there's not a time frame for when that happens.

So, like I said, um, and then pass legal opinion, state the the appointee must be a resident of the ward they will be representing.

That's quiet in there, but I guess that was um questioned at some point, and so there's been several legal opinions from the attorney's office that said that.

Um just briefly over the last two times that we had vacancies in the city commission, the 2018 vacancy when Commissioner Allen resigned, Commissioners Lanier, Jones, and O'Connor, and then a subcommittee from the third ward.

The that subcommittee was made up of um residents and business owners or had business interests in the third ward, the subcommittee interviewed and got down to three.

The application time was June 19, and the appointment was made on July 24th.

So just over a month time frame.

And so this lays out what that time frame was.

The last one when Commissioner Moody resigned, um, the committee of appointments served as the subcommittee.

The committee on appointments interviewed the candidates and it gave three finalists for the city commission.

That started that started process started on January 23 of 24, and it took about two months to March 19 when we had an appointing.

And here's the process that was used.

So here's um some options.

Now, this isn't all the options, but I think these are the four major options that you have.

Wait until the election is held in November and appoint the winner for the final two months of the year.

So that's one option that you have.

Um two is wait until the filing deadline on April 21 to see how many candidates file for the office instead of process and timeline for the appointment.

Um three is upon Commissioner Robbins' uh resignation, set a timeline and direct the city clerk to begin the application process, or four is wait to start the timeline and application process at another set time.

So um the individual will be sworn in immediately following the appointment at the meeting that they are selected, they'll serve until the end of um until December 31 of this year.

So what my ask for you is I'm seeking direction for the city commission how they wish to proceed.

Great.

Thank you.

Um and uh, you know, if we don't achieve uh a clear consensus now, of course, we can continue to discuss this.

Uh Commissioner Robins has not yet resigned.

So I think the the heart of your presentation here, frankly, is um slide number nine.

Um and I think that those are that's probably a reasonable summary of of our options.

Um I at least can see merit to all of them.

Um, the merit of waiting until the election happens is then this is the voters decide this um without any thumb on the scale from us um without any you know decision we've made that's that's made someone an incumbent.

Um the disadvantage of that, of course, is that's a while in the future.

Um the advantage to waiting till after the filing deadline is we would know who wants to run and who doesn't want to run.

Um we've been through that process before people committing to not running.

Um, and um certainly if you haven't filed, you can't run.

Um then we'll be faced with the question of do we want to make someone an incumbent who's going to be running uh so that they can do the work before the election, or uh would we be open to appointing someone who can't run because they haven't filed.

Um the disadvantage of that is um the accountability loop.

Um all of us are sort of accountable for our actions in the sense that um I think everyone up here except Commissioner Yasasi uh is potentially uh um you know uh eligible for re-election.

And so um the voters will get some input into what they think of us if we decide to run for re-election.

That's not gonna be true for somebody who we appointed who simply isn't going to be running.

Um and we can of course the next two questions are really we could do any of this in the future.

We could do it after Commissioner Robins.

We could do something right now, we could set a timeline right now.

So happy to hear from all of you.

I'm sure you've all thought about this because it's uh and uh we've been the telegraphing has been pretty clear on this.

This is not a surprise to any of any of us.

So I'm sure we've all been thinking about it.

Commissioner Knight, you wanted to speak.

Um sure, I guess if we're all gonna give a little bit of input on this, I think uh given the what happened uh before, which was very disappointing, at least for me.

Um I you know, my thoughts were um wait to see who uh files by the deadline, but then also to think about looking at someone who has had prior experience who is willing to step in and fill that space until elections are done and then allow that person to then go on.

Only because first of all, you leave the first ward with just one representative, right?

And I think that's um that's that's difficult for one person to represent all of that area in a reasonable way, right?

It there's a lot of work that goes into what we do.

Um, and I think a lot of people are not really uh versed on what that looks like, but um it given the things that we have before us, even with um uh our search for a new city attorney and our search for a new HR and now our search for a new chief, having somebody that's really versed in what happens and the processes that we have to go through here on the dais that it would be good to to look at um appointing someone after the filing because at that point they can't right, they can't file or they can't run.

So somebody who's really not interested in filling the seat but can temporarily fill in the seat while we have a number of these things before us that we really need to address and address appropriately.

So that's just my thought on it.

I think it's a a good way to approach it.

I think it's gonna be hard to leave one person responsible for that space and somebody who is educated in that uh ward who also knows how the inner workings of the commission um transpire.

Right, thanks.

And just just for clarification, um, and I appreciate you speaking to both questions, Commissioner, but logically the question is how do we do we initiate a appointment process and when do we do it?

And then the second question that we'll all have to come back to is who do we choose?

So we could choose someone who's running, we could choose someone who's who has passed the filing deadline.

So all of those things are really going to be part of a second discussion.

So I appreciate you weighing in on that second discussion at least preliminarily and saying what you want, but or what you're where you are on that.

I guess I'm looking at number two then.

Got it.

Uh uh Commissioner Yasassi, I think I saw your hand before I saw Commissioner Kilgers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, Commissioner, for your comments.

I would I would um say number two as well.

Um this was my suggestion of the filing deadline because of the concerns that we had in the last appointment process.

I was on the appointments body at that time.

Um I don't think that we actually I don't think the who is necessarily a separate for me because we have this thing in the city of Grand Rapids that's called term limits.

And um, you know, I didn't vote for term limits, and you know, all elections stand and people win.

You know, I've I've lost many elections before I I won these last two.

Um but I have I'll just be more explicit and say I have I have interest in appointing Commissioner Repart, past Commissioner Repart to help fill in this position for all the reasons that you said, Commissioner.

Um we have we have a lot of stuff in front of us, and we have a lot of stuff in front of us that we may not even know about at this point because of kind of where the federal government is or not.

So I I know that's the question, but I think that to me there's nothing that says you can't say who the person would be.

Um he lost that election by 300 votes, and I appreciated you know, Commissioner Robin's service.

I am you know uh glad I got to know him.

I'm thankful for his service.

And was I extremely sad that Commissioner Repart lost?

Yes, I was.

We lot I lost a very good colleague at that time.

Um, somebody who was well versed in issues that we have in front of us, like housing, climate change, um, and somebody well versed in conflict, quite honestly.

And um, I just think that we have an opportunity here.

I personally, you know, I and I, you know, pardon me, I'm sorry, Commissioner Belchuk.

I should probably should have said, you know what, what are your thoughts first?

And sorry, I jumped the gun because this is essentially, you know, your partner, and I think it would be hard to not have a partner, and this is your second year, and there's a lot of stuff going on.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say I support two, but I'm gonna also add that caveat because I don't think to me that is not something that I can't say at this point, uh, because I wouldn't want to then create the process that we did last time that did cause a lot of concern and you know, unintended consequences.

I will say that all the time.

Um some things that you decide to do maybe aren't the right decision, and I can sit up here and say that that wasn't the right decision, and now I'm looking for an opportunity to make a better decision without those considerations, and if I can remove that, um, because his word might not be enough, it might just be the filing deadline.

I'm gonna go out there and put that as a really appreciated process.

And if I was the person who lost in the past by 300 votes, I can't think of anything more democratic than that.

So thank you.

Commissioner Belchuk.

Uh I actually don't mind going last on this one.

I am I really appreciate people's perspectives, and I know the other two have raised their hands before anyway.

Commissioner Cober.

Yes, thank you.

Uh, thank you, colleagues, for your um your feedback.

It's interesting to have now a good conversation for the public as well.

Um, as someone who was very uh much a part of the last appointment process and was speaking with hundreds of our neighbors uh at this time.

I can tell you this is a flawed process.

It is a process that I believe that most of our constituents do not care for.

We in turn basically circumvent the voices of our neighbors.

I wish that Commissioner Robbins had given us the uh the ability to have a special election, but he did not.

And I think the most important thing here is to uphold the democratic process, which is not to give a running start and then have someone be an incumbent.

Um, and there was a lot of drama surrounding uh folks lying throughout the process, and that's too bad.

And I think the best way for me, I'm supportive of one, the option of giving uh the winner uh of the West Side uh the last few months of Commissioner Robin's turn.

Um, in addition, you know, each ward actually has three representatives.

The mayor is an at-large commissioner, so I believe that the first ward is represented well.

In addition, when we talk about these, so you only have one third warder, even though so many of us have lived throughout the city or you know, growing up on different parts or what have you, but you only get one voice that will be a west sider to decide who then fits in for the first ward.

Everyone else, the other five of us don't even live over the bear.

So that's my challenge as well as you get folks who are not first warders who are gonna decide that the majority of so it won't be yes, we represent community, but I represent the south side.

So that's my challenge, and why I will, and then lastly, I do take issue with us then jumping the gun and saying, well, this is who may be a good candidate for that, even though I agree with some of those distinctions that my colleagues said.

I think that's also a challenge that community says is somehow the folks who are picked for these positions are not everyday folks, they're not bringing new um uh new voices, new vitality to this body.

They are establishment, so to speak, and a previously elected is the very definition of that.

I think that I'm hopeful, and I think that community wants to see a new perspective rather than something that's been sort of rewatched, reused, repurposed.

Um, and so that that's my challenge is the establishment pick is picked, and it's not necessarily the voice of people, it's often the voice of those who are powerful.

Um, and so yes, I'd like us to wait until the west side of our city chooses who they would like to see in the seat.

So, number one, thank you.

Commissioner Purdue.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I think I'll start by saying the reality is that um we are we have to make the decision with all these guardrails that none of us created, right?

And so what our perfect approach would be likely doesn't exist, right?

Um, we are we're dealing with constraints.

Uh that being said, um, here are some things that I thought about.

And I'm I am the only other person up here, and uh well, actually the only person up here who has um led and been the and had to to to lead with the vacant seat next to me.

Um in my first four year or three years of this role, I started with three different colleagues.

Um, and having a colleague was so important.

I think one, so that the war can have full representation, because I can't, one person cannot represent all the different voices, and with every single person I've worked with representing the third war, we all brought our different strengths and our lived experiences and our professional training, and that allowed us to directly represent, understand, and even divide and conquer and connect with all the different constituents in the ward.

So I think that's important from kind of kind of having full representation is important from a from a representation and accessibility standpoint for the community.

I also think that, or I really I I know how important partnershipship is for this role.

It makes a world of a difference having a partner in your ward.

That A, you have one, but then B, actually working together in partnership, having that really good relationship.

It had it will totally change the experience of serving and how effective and how um sustainable that service can be because it's a lot to manage, it's a lot to juggle, especially with all our different constraints.

So I actually think that um having full representation in both seats field is the right thing for the community as a whole.

And I think we all kind of agree with that, but the the question is what's the timeline and what's the process to deciding who that second person is, right?

Um the other thing that I think about is, and one thing that I thought about when we went through this process to fill a vacancy in the third ward is how well are we setting someone up to succeed?

And one thing that I was looking for last time was someone who could totally focus on the role.

Um, I think that it is really difficult, really difficult to jump in to a budget process, several key hirings, learning the system, you're drinking from a fire hose, likely on top of whatever other responsibilities you have, on top of uh a race and one that uh will be for you know an open seat, and so it's gonna bring everyone out, which it should.

There's there will be competition.

And so um I'm I want to make sure that whoever joins this body is prepared to like jump in um and hit the ground running and be a really strong um uh contrib contributor.

So, with that in with that, I think that uh Commissioner Asassian and Knight, you all bring up really good points about the experience that former commissioners have on this body.

Um so I would like to do an appointment, an application process, an appointments process.

I think Kirk could be a really great addition.

My mind isn't made up about that, just like last time I went in to say who's gonna come forward.

Um in full transparency, last appointments process before we interview folks, I thought I would be supporting one person at the end of the interview process.

I wanted to support someone else.

Um and at that time, the elephant in the room, or if is not really elephant, um, is that this person said that their intention was not to run, but then later they changed their mind, their mind.

And I want to say again that I was one of the first people who planted that seed.

I was one of the first people to say, wow, we we really work really well together.

I would like to keep working with you.

We have complimentary strengths, like let's keep the good work going.

Then, as we did work in community, community members said you should stay on.

And so it is really uncomfortable, and I think unfortunate when we begin to call names and question people's character, when we communicated very clearly, kind of how that process played out, but folks can interpret that you know, whatever way they like.

My point is um I think having someone, I think in an open application, an appointments process, ASAP, um will be the best decision for this body.

Um, I think we we talk to some folks, we see who's who who we think will be a great fit.

And then if we get to the point where we say, we don't think there's a great fit, we don't um and you know what, on second thought, let's um let's wait.

I think we have to be open to kind of pivot pivoting and iterating based on what we learn throughout the process.

Um so I think it's really really key.

Oh, and I I I do want to speak to too um, because we're talking about like we're using these ideas of how do we how do we have full representation, how do we advance democracy?

Um, and there's conversation and comments about being part of the establishment.

I think the person that you mentioned, um, the establishment is the one that that did a lot of things behind the scenes to to cost that election, things that I think are called can be called into question from an ethical and moral standpoint as well, or ethical standpoint, I should say, not moral.

Um so all of that to say is um in order to set this person up to succeed, having full representation in the first ward, I still think that an appointments process is appropriate.

Um, and um ideally that person would um well, I don't know.

I I'll be open to what they say.

I think also people have said that um they want people who are not interested in serving.

Um I don't know if I'm that's totally where I'm at because I want somebody that's committed and want somebody that is going to be uh a full stakeholder and whatever decisions that this body will make over the next six to eight months.

And so, but I think that's all the more reason to open up the process, invite people to to tell uh us and the public of why this is a good time, what they have to bring, why they think this is the right uh approach right now for full representation for the first war, and then um once we have that information, we can make them an informed uh decision.

Mayor, can I can we get clarification from Commissioner Purdue on Kilgoring, which number I I I heard Commissioner Kilgorse say he preferred choice number one, he was pretty clear about that.

Okay, all right.

Great.

Let's go ahead and set a timeline and and get this thing going.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Balchar.

Um thank you.

I really appreciated everybody's comments and hearing your perspectives.

Some of us uh I've seen and I've had a chance to mention Ms.

Purdue, Commissioner Purdue and I were on the Michigan Works office yesterday for our meeting and happened to have a conversation.

But um I really really value everybody's thoughts here.

And I it's been it's been a lot to digest.

Um, and I do think like uh I do also share a lot of the feelings about you know making sure that the process is fair, that there's some sort of representation of the community.

And as the last couple specifically the last two weeks, I'm gonna say it has become increasingly aware to me personally that it it the significance, the weight of how much work there really is, and how much it really is a lot for one person.

So whereas in the past I might have been more willing to wait, I have moved especially forward on wanting more help.

Um and some of that is the amount of meetings, the amount of work, the amount of reading materials, the constituent demands, the um, and I I thought we were carrying in quite a lot anyway, but um there's just there's just a significant amount of work from appointed work, expectations in the community, thing, you know, things I want to actually do with my you know, hopefully reaching constituents.

And we have to remember, and this is often forgotten, I think, in our community, that this is a part-time job.

This is not something that's meant to be a 60, 80 hour week, a 40 hour week.

Um, you know, we've also heard comments today about being able to dive in and be full focus and how much it is to digest all the information.

I remember the first year, and I'm I'm much more settled in a lot this year.

And um it's it's a lot to still digest.

So being able to give that full representation, I think is gonna be really important.

Um so I actually had not considered number two until I saw it on this slide here today.

And so right now, I think that that is the one that I would be in favor of um to consider moving forward with.

I I think I need some extra support, extra help, and our community deserves that, and I think that there's gonna be a lot of people who would be interested.

We can discuss more on the pros and cons of having somebody who stays as an incumbent see kind of continuing the the work that they begin, um, the juggling they're gonna do to decide to run or not run, but those are all decisions beyond this moment.

Um, I just want to make sure that we can make these really big decisions with city attorney appointment and the other things going on with more voices that represent our community.

Thank you.

Um sure, Commissioner Rue.

I just want to point out I think two and three are really similar, and I wonder if we might there seems to be a lot of interest in a combination of those, and so to that point, um, I think you know, as we I hesitate to want to wait till April 21st, because that's just gonna pull out by the time we get done with our process, it'll be two, three months, two months before the primary, and then then it is really silly to appoint someone.

So I do think time matters here.

Um, and if they're only going to be here for 30, 60 days, yeah, you have you have a draft.

Okay, but before you you show that, um, so I think timeline matters, so I'm glad you prepare that.

The other thing though I want to say is we can make it clear that um in the appointments process, our vote and our support, it will personally will be part if you are interested in making sure if you want to wait to the following deadline to see if somebody is actually interested in running, you can still make that clear to applicants to say, hey, that's really important for me, or it's not important for me.

But I'm just saying that I'm curious to see in the timeline that Joel is about to present that that still might be a point of information, but I don't think we wait to start the process there.

We the process can still be can start well ahead of that.

I I think that's also fair in in consideration with what I just said about like the decision on the city attorney.

You know, if we're having interviews at the end of March, we may want somebody who can help with that.

Um I'll leave it there.

Yeah, it may or may not work, but I think Commissioner Sassy.

I'll just since again we're trying to get a a nose count here about what that is.

I I support my thing was my decision was to wait to the 21st, so I can support that in what you're saying, Commissioner Belchak.

And I don't know if my if my colleague who had supported in the past would, but I see what you're saying, and I think for me, yeah, like what you're saying is the decision point for me is that filing deadline to give that security of what I felt I would change from the last time.

But we I would be uh a supportive of immediately working to create that time deadline.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna take uh uh a point here to to I guess whip very quickly.

No uh please no more, like let's not discuss this to death.

But I'd like to know it seems to me there is a uh third option then that Commissioner Purdue and Commissioner Usassi pointed out, or a fifth option, which would be to open the process prior to April 21, but but close the process uh application process after April 21 so that we know at the point or at least close the have the decision making process that the actual vote and the decision for appointment happen sometime after April 21.

And I think that's that would be compatible with starting any time after now if I look at the precedent because we're talking about a roughly two month process and it is the end of February.

So roughly two months gets us past April 21 anyway.

So as I I think if we're looking for a model that moves us expeditiously, I think I'm hearing I think I'm hearing something like cons like not consensus, but I think I'm hearing majority support potentially, potentially.

So I'd like to ask uh those of you if you let's call it option five, which is the decision after April 21, but open application processes in advance of that.

Uh and I think I heard as expeditiously as possible.

I mean, there's as long as we're clear that we're not going to make our decision until after April 21.

No reason not to let people uh apply tomorrow as far as I can see.

Uh so Commissioner Belchick, options one through five.

I'm just struggling with the the waitings for the decision if I if the the goal is to actually have somebody help make the decisions and take the the load off.

So um right now I would be like a three moving to three.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner uh Purdue.

Um I would be the five.

Uh the April 21st is a Tuesday.

Um I think I mean I will be per I will want to have all the interviews and everything done by them.

I do want to point out we don't even know if there'll be a primary yet for this race.

I mean it might go all the way to November.

So if we do make the decision that by the end of April, we're still talking about five to eight months of of surgery.

So I I actually think then it's probably cutting a little too close to have the decision on April.

What did you say it was?

21st.

Yeah, right.

Uh and that's a com scheduled meeting.

So me no, I thought the meeting the meetings on the 28th.

I was gonna say, so but the budget will be presented on the 28th.

So this would, which is why I would appreciate someone being on a front end and not coming in the middle of the process.

Interviews will start.

I think the goal will be to make the decision that last week in April.

So have this be the two month process.

So you're your five.

You're three, Commissioner Saucy.

I'm fine.

Okay, gotta find uh I've got I think you got guidance there.

That's three out of the five of us.

So I did put together kind of a uh kind of a draft.

I don't have it up here because I was kind of waiting to see where we where we are here.

What the the the initial draft that I was working through to work on the calendar was to have application time closed before the April 21 and committee of appointments to do interviews after that April 21 filing deadline gets us into kind of a beginning of May.

We can exit we can expedite it, but it's gonna be that's gonna it's it sounds like it's a long time away, but it it is a very it is a kind of a tight time frame.

Okay, so I I think you heard um start right away.

We may have budget considerations that we'll have to, you know uh talk about city manager.

I don't know if you're I would ask if the commission would be willing to have a special call meeting between the 21st and 28th to finalize the appointment.

That sounds that sounds dual to me.

Uh Commissioner Kilgar, did you want to say something?

Yeah, I three out of five.

So with uh was it four?

You I didn't your number threw me off that you just said.

For the okay, got you.

So you didn't add yourself in the vote.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to go with the plurality, so I'll say that I'll I'll uh abide by the plurality of the decision and five.

Sure.

Okay, so it gives it gives me a time frame because so I'm hearing sooner than the twenty-eighth to be done.

Now the the last point is the pr the process is do we want to use the process of the committee appointments to whittle it down to um like we've did in the past.

I think that's sounds sensible to me.

Any uh but to lead the process that I just voted against.

That'll be fine.

That'll be fun to be transparent.

I do think there's a benefit that I happen to be on that committee.

So I think any of the yeah.

Even if you weren't on there, I would uh would have made a recommendation that you were because that's how it this it's been.

It was a very transparent commissioner Purdue did a very good job of leading it last time.

It was transparent for community.

You could log in and see the video, so I do think the process um would be good for community to see once again.

Okay, great.

I think you have your direction.

Thank you, uh City Clerk for leading us through that.

Uh Commission sorry, Commissioners Hussein.

I'll just say five minutes to use the restroom.

Okay.

Um I just want to say one one other thing, Mayor.

So thank you for the staff.

A lot of work went into prepare for this morning.

I don't want the commission to be alarmed about the fiscal challenge.

We've closed bigger gaps before.

I've called me and Miss Claren looking at a thirty million dollar gap at one point.

So this is very manageable.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.