Good

morning, everyone.

I'm going to call this meeting of community holds order.

And our first item of business is a proclamation recognizing National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

And I will go up to the microphone and our um County Bohach is coming up as well.

Yes.

Well,

I'm turning the mic down

for them, so mic's on.

Right on.

So I'll read the proclamation.

Whereas lead exposure is a significant public health concern, particularly for children and vulnerable populations and preventing exposure through education, collaboration, and improvements to drink and water infrastructure and housing conditions are essential to protecting the health and well-being of our community.

And whereas National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, October 25 to 31, 2026, raises awareness about the importance of reducing lead exposure, promoting testing and prevention strategies.

Whereas the city has long-term commitment to reducing lead exposure and has replaced over 9,000 lead service lines to date, and whereas our program has helped thousands of children from protect thousands of children from uh lead-based exposure by making more than 2,000 homes lead safe, whereas the city's prioritize transparency and community engagement, whereas these accomplishments have been possible through strong partnerships with organizations, including the Kent County Health Department, Healthy Homes, Rental Property Owners Association, Link Up, and Grand Rapids Public Schools, residents, contractors, and many staff members whose dedication is advanced lead reduction efforts throughout the city.

And whereas our program is recognized as a model for other communities in the United States by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And the city was recently recognized by lead service line replacement collaborative with the Excellence and Community Engagement Award in recognition of its work.

Now, therefore, I, David LeGrand, Mayor of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, on this day, call on all residents and community partners to join me in recognizing and supporting efforts to raise awareness, promote prevention, and continue advancing initiatives that reduce lead exposure and protect the health and well-being of our community.

Thank

you, Mayor.

Thank you, Commissioners.

We're very pleased to be in front of you today.

This collaborative effort between community development and water to help raise awareness and educate our community about the impacts of lead.

As the mayor acknowledged the water system reliefs, received a national award this summer in terms of our collaboration and outreach programs that we have for lead service line replacements.

And we could not obviously the city is it's not just the city, but it's also our partners, which we're very, very fortunate to be able to work with.

We have representatives from Healthy Homes Coalition here today that we've been working with now for about 15 years in some way, shape, or form, and our lead service line initiative.

We also, through our water advisory council uh that we've had now for seven, eight years now, uh the relationships that we've built with the neighborhood associations, the GRPS, really a great partner with the Kent County Health Department as well.

Very supportive.

We're very, very pleased uh to say that we're still making progress.

We have a ways to go with lead service line replacement, but the fact that we have such great community partners that help us get the information out in terms of making sure that they're aware of the risks, the impacts, and then being proactive in terms of replacement.

We're very very pleased.

So, County.

Yes, thank you.

We are excited to actually celebrate this week, and I want to thank um Wayne and his team for the work that they've been doing most recently.

Uh the community development department has actually been doing the um work with lead-based paint hazard remediation and homes for 23 years.

We received our first grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2003, and from that since that time, we've actually received nine competitive grant awards through that HUD program, as well as nine grants through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and we've brought in 38 million dollars in total over the years for um ensuring making our homes more safe.

But in addition to that, as the mayor read, not only we uh address 2,000 homes, but we've also with those resources and our partners that have been mentioned, including the rental property owners association, who are not here today, um, we have been able to support training more than 3,500 individuals and lead safe cleaning and work practices, assisting nearly 160 section three eligible um individuals and companies and maintaining professional certification to perform lead remediation and conducting more than 1,000 community outreach events to educate residents about lead hazards and available remediation resources.

So not only addressing the homes specifically, but making sure that we have education and resources for economic opportunity as well through these programs.

So again, we appreciate our partnerships and of course the dedicated staff.

Wayne has a crew from water here, and we have um also have uh our community development staff from this program.

I'm sorry.

The one the one other thing I'll add for the benefit of the public is um this is one of the I mean we've talked about the the work we do, but this is in terms of the actual outcomes.

This has been one of the huge success stories in our community.

So uh if you look neighborhood by neighborhood and zip code by zip code, um the zip codes that have the highest lead exposure now are vastly lower than the lowest neighborhoods were in 2003, and overall uh lead exposure in children is about a third of what it was in 2003 in the city.

So our numbers have just massively massively reduced.

So that's that's remarkable to go from say 10 units to three units and something to cut that exposure level with these kind of programs in in that time is really remarkable.

And it means that um overall over overall in the city, every neighborhood is getting cleaner, all every place we count uh lead exposure numbers are going down, and that's really great, and and it's a testimony to a lot of people's work.

So just wanted to point that out.

The numbers are real, the progress is real.

So we're not just doing work, we are really really seeing results.

So one do a

little bit of a

thing.

I'm sure that it was a very good idea.

This is the real work, and it's here together.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Okay, that brings us to um a few items of uh fairly pedestrian business.

The next is a resolution approving a request for for micro pardon me, Miro Mediterranean LLC for a development liquor license uh for location at 10 Ioni Avenue Northwest.

Mr.