Council Bill number 2025-352.

An ordinance approving the contract by and between the City of Joplin and Environmental Operations Inc.

for the removal of the asbestos located at 2008 South Sergeant Avenue in the City of Joplin, Missouri, for $63,900, providing how the cost thereof shall be paid, how the assessment thereof shall be made, and containing an emergency clause.

Mayor, we do have two citizens that requested to speak on this item.

Oh, thank you, madam clerk.

Mr.

Bowlander, good evening.

Okay.

Uh this may be the first time I'm gonna be longer than Dan, so I uh so I apologize.

Um I would respectfully request include this council bill 2025 uh 352 council bill, uh the next one, council bill number 2025-354, and council bill 2025 271 in my presentation.

Since all these council bills must be approved for the demolition of the little Freeman Hospital and the construction of affordable housing.

Please proceed.

Thank you.

Um little background, and I had to write a lot of this down because a lot has transpired since I last spoke to you in August of last year.

Um as you're aware, the city applied and city was approved for state ARPA grant worth 3.5 million dollars.

Uh the city proposed using our city ARPA funds as a dollar for dollar match, creating a total of seven million dollar project.

I know Leslie went over this uh at the beginning of the of the meeting, but there were three projects or opposed to the state to use funds on.

Uh they were the three projects that we proposed were the J Hab, which as you're aware, is our home buyer's uh assistance program, which has been completed, J Harb, which is our home buyers or homeowners housing and rehab assistance program, and our demolition program, which helps property owners demolish blighted and then safe properties and qualified census tracts.

Uh demolition of the old Freeman Hospital was one of the commercial buildings we proposed for demolition under this program.

Uh we did budget one million in our grant application to complete the Freeman Demolition Project, of course 500 that thousand dollars of that or 50 percent was our city ARPA funds, and the other 50 percent was the state ARPA grant that we received.

Uh probably one of the main differences, and I don't know if I communicated this at the last meeting, but the main difference between the demolition program and the J HAP program, for instance, is the demolition program is an area-based qualification program, which means anyone who owns property in the qualified census tract is eligible for for that for that program.

So you can make ten dollars a week or 10,000 a week.

Um, you are eligible for that program, unlike J HAP, where it's individual assistance, and we have to qualify you based on income.

Uh the ARPA restrictions, we're not allowed to place a tax bill or lane on the property uh when we use these ARPA funds to demolish the structure, which is unlike our local program that we use for demolition.

We are able to put a tax bill on the property.

Um this was intended to be a one-time opportunity on a massive scale to help clean up some of our uh most distressed neighborhoods.

Um especially as it comes to blight and unsafe building conditions.

Uh as you are aware, we presented the Freeman Demolition proposal uh to you in August of last year.

It did not proceed since we did not have enough favorable votes.

Um I'm sure I may leave something out, but I tried to write down some of the concerns this body had.

Um, if I remember correctly, not knowing the full cost of the demolition project was one of them.

Not knowing the environmental issues with the billing was another concern.

Uh the city taking ownership or taking ownership of the property prior to having a phase one and phase two environmental assessment completed was a concern.

Uh the property owner at that time uh receiving a benefit.

Well, the owner should have been demolishing the bill himself was a concern with a couple of the council members.

And another concern was the city was not acquiring all six slots from the previous property owner.

Um we were just proposing receiving four, which was uh the loss of hospitals located on.

And there was also there was no guarantee that affordable housing would be constructed.

I think those were most of the concerns uh that were stated at the last meeting.

Um first, how this all started again.

Uh we're trying to gather information, address those concerns, and we heard the the original proposal was dead.

Um, so we didn't know if we would be bring this before you again.

After watching the first council meeting, stepped in and actually approached the original property owner to see if they could acquire the property, construct affordable housing, if there was a mechanism to demolish the Freeman building.

After the meeting between the property owner and ESC, the city asked if we could continue to participate in the demolition of the of the hospital hospital.

So here's the proposal in front of you this evening.

Not all of them have been addressed, to be honest with you.

But uh first, ESC is the current owner of the property, will continue to be the owner of the property during demolition if the demolition contract is approved tonight.

The city has completed both a phase one and phase two environmental assessment of the property.

Um that first meeting we always try to conduct sometimes I call it a phase one because we have access to the same information that some of these um companies do, but we're not certified to do a phase one.

But we did prior to the first meeting uh when we discussed this, uh staff did a preliminary um environmental assessment.

Uh, this is typically completed in community development division by Mr.

Thomas Walters, and I gotta say he was spot on because in the phase one addressed all the major concerns that Thomas had addressed um last year.

Um the uh certified uh company that did the phase one assessment was Terragon.

We do do have a representative here tonight.

Uh he'll give a brief introduction of what they did and what they found.

Uh but uh that includes the presence of lead-based paint, which you can assume is in any building built prior to 1978, the presence of mold and the presence of of a asbestos.

Um I might have Rand from Terracon come up here and say a few words on what they how they did the uh assessment and what they found.

Uh another thing that's that we've heard that and we saw it too.

We have uh access to the old insurance maps, and there was an old fuel heating tank on the property, but that has since been removed along with the soil.

When they built the addition on the south side of the um hospital, that's where the tank was located.