Council President.

Um, right now, but if there was several communities that run rental registration programs also attach uh a fee uh to the rental registration in order to help fund code enforcement to be more proactive so that people are actually living in we know that there's a challenge with affordable housing, obviously.

There's also a challenge with safe housing.

Uh and that's that's clear in our community.

And so, like, how do we look at the ways we're collecting data in order to decide in the future whether or not we are going to um take proactive steps as opposed to being reactive in the city.

I would also say too that all of the land banking models that currently operate in the state run on uh a rental registry.

Um, so land banking is a model in which we encourage development uh on underutilized properties and address uh blight in our community.

Um, it's also um for instance, right now we have no idea how many vacant properties we have in the community, and we also don't know what we can do in order to encourage people.

I think about models where, for instance, we get a lead grant, right?

Um, and we don't necessarily know how many homes out there that are being rented that need a lead lead of bait, and it's a it's a it's a process in which people come to us.

And so these are data points that we can collect.

Um if we ever decided to say, hey, we have a grant out there that we want to apply to a particular type of housing or in order to encourage a particular type of type type of housing.

If we don't have that database to work from, um we just don't know what's uh who we're reaching out to, right?

Like targeted to targeted action in order to both incentivize an investment and then again uh to address both blight um and uh and uh unsafe living conditions.

Uh I think those are those are points in this.

Currently, our system does not permit us to collect uh the types of information that that I'm suggesting that we would get.

Um, and so um I don't know if uh possibly we could have uh um both.

I'm gonna ask for for you for you to give some feedback and then I'll uh also uh director Connor.

Sure.

So um and I'll apologize to Councilor Najene.

He reached out at the end of May and asked if we could sit down and meet, and I said no, because we had the election coming up, and then we just we had a situation in my office that you're aware of.

So I said I just don't have the time now, so I do apologize, Councilor Natine.

I wasn't able to sit down with you ahead of time to answer your questions.

On the rental registration application, we do ask questions about lead abatement.

So we do have that data and that information.

Just to back up and give you a little bit of background.

In 2017, the city had an ad hoc committee to review the possible establishment of a rental registration program and other housing issues in the city.

One of their recommendations was to establish a rental registration program.

What they recommended in the report and what the city council at the time adopted in an ordinance is not the same.

It's sort of a uh a watered down version, if you will, of what the ad hoc committee had recommended, but we did create one of the first rental registration programs in the state for long-term rentals, not short-term rentals for Airbnbs, but long-term year-round rentals.

So that ordinance was established in 2019, and as part of our questions, we do ask questions such as sprinkler system led abatement, but the purpose of it was to capture information because it was created as a result of all the fires that were happening downtown several years prior to that, when the city realized several apartment buildings are owned by out of state landlords.

We don't have a local contact for a local property manager, and a lot of the buildings were owned by an LLC, which was owned by another LLC, which was owned by another LLC, some of them five deep, so we really had to drill down to find out who the owner was.

So that was another one of the reasons really a public safety matter for the fire department and others to know who actually owns the building and who a local contact is.

You know, to be able to enforce um the paperwork filing.

So we have a pretty good rate.

I would say over 95% participation rate, which is really um really good for this program, but we did a while ago check around to uh various towns and several other communities do it the same way we do, no fee, um, and just basically information gathering, but then others, like you said, counselor and agene do charge a fee.

For example, Sanford, it's on a sliding scale, but it's like $300 for every three unit and up properties.

Orno charges $25 per unit.

So they're kind of all over the place.

Um, a lot of the towns that just do it for information gathering only, it's actually administered by their fire department because the fire department needs this contact information to be able to go in and do safety inspections, so they want the landlord contact information.

Um but so some of those data points you said we we are collecting, but it is for three units and over.

So I know that you had said, is it possible to add uh single family homes?

I don't know how we would determine what single family homes are for rent within the city unless we're constantly scouring the classifieds and online.

I don't know how we would determine that information.

We can certainly get information from the assessing department regarding how many duplexes we have in the city because those are not included yet because it's three or more.

Um I know you brought up some other categories as well.

The ordinance specifically excludes dormitories and nursing homes, and I can't remember sort of the other categories.

It's really just your traditional apartment building that would be participating in this program.

Okay, that makes sense.

Out of curiosity, how accessible is that information to like let's say the public, for instance, if they wanted to determine anyone can submit a FOA request and we would provide that information to them.

But currently the way the database is set up, there's like no dashboard, correct?

Like the you can't actually view that information from like let's say uh a website.

Like if I wanted to look at it is it is not in a website platform, it's a um it's a database that staff uses.

Okay.

Um and and currently, do we how do we how do we track Airbnbs in our community?

Or let's say um uh home health care uh you know, occupied home health.

Right.

So Airbnb is being a short-term rental, and most of the communities that we found that only license short-term rentals or have them register, they considered that 30 days or less as a short-term rental.

We don't um that's they're not required to register with us or get a business license with us.

We did um a while ago, this question came up, I say a while ago, three to six months ago, and we tried to do some searching just online, and there weren't a lot of short-term rentals that we found compared to Freeport, Bar Harbor, you know, the standard places that have a lot of tourism in and out uh by nature of their community.

One of the things I've noticed is that a lot of the Airbnb properties that are advertised in the community are actually for longer term rentals, uh and and ultimately it's usually uh housing for uh folks that are associated with the hospitals is the way it seems to be pitched at.

I I'm I'm just trying to determine like right now we don't have a system that allows us to classify the different types of uh of rental properties, especially like we don't even have the ability to say, hey, we're gonna track duplexes or three units that are owner occupied um or uh single family homes or give them classifications as far as the types of um uh uh what I'm thinking about when I'm talking about a dashboard, right?

Like if we could look and say uh how many recovery houses are in the community, how many uh CLAs are in the community, how many um how many um uh um uh boarding homes are in the community, you know.

So we do license lodging houses, uh lodging homes uh in the ordinance, but those are defined as uh bed and breakfasts as well as inns, motel hotels, as well as um I'd have to look at the definition if there are four or more rooms for rent in a particular structure.

I'd have to look at the definition, but we do license lodging houses that our ordinance was updated and changed a couple years ago to match the new state law changes that were put in place at the time a couple years ago, three or so years ago.

We worked with the city attorney who drafted that for us.

Um the uh the other places that you just mentioned, a lot of them have state licensing, and so the state has a searchable database on their website, Department of Health and Human Services, Division of I don't know, licensing and regulation, I can't remember what it is.

Um, but it is the searchable database that you can put in uh the name of the community, the type of housing you're looking for, and if they have a state license, their address will be listed, the owner will be listed, the number of beds or uh tenants, their licensed guests, I don't know what their name is clients, license to house.

Um so that's all available on the state database.

And we don't require somebody who has rental housing that is vacant to still file.

Um is that correct?

If it's vacant, they do file.

If it if it's if you have three or more rental units in a building, you're required to file, whether they're vacant or not.

The exception would be if you are doing a huge demolition project and no one's gonna go in there for six months.

You're completely gutting it and completely rebuilding, um, then you don't have to license it or register until that time.

Uh, but it any property that has been purchased within 60 days, but they must file within 60 days, must file with us within 60 days.

Again, so we have that contact information.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um Director Connor, do you want to come up and talk about just land banking real quick and also like the code enforcement perspective?

Wherever you want.

Good evening.

Happy to answer any questions that you may have and um and help uh shed some light where I can.

Okay, perfect.

I uh right now, how does code enforcement uh identify uh properties that uh they need to uh look look at for code violations?

Like how's that done?

So our our standard practice, we are we are normally complaint driven as one can imagine.

Um tenants will call and complain um or or highlight, I won't want to say complain, they'll highlight issues in the building and we'll send code officers over there to to review those um those complaints.

Um we have members of the public that will call and and and recommend that we go look at you know particular properties.

Um we work hand in hand with the fire department uh as part of the rental registration that the clerk was talking about.

You know, there is a requirement for a fire department to go in and do their their life safety inspections.

Um the fire department goes in uh they identify several other code violations, building code violations that then they then uh relate to us.

We will send a code officer over to investigate the the building code portion of it and um and then take care of that piece while fire is taking care of their their piece of it.

So we're we're mainly called out as needed.

Okay, so there really isn't like a proactive approach at the moment.

At this time, we we just don't we don't have the bodies to do that.

Um you know the the best proactive approach that we have is uh as code officers are driving around the city from appointment to appointment, if they see something, if they see a new building or they see a new deck or they see tall grass or they they see something, that's the the extent of the proactiveness that that we have right now.

Council Longshow.

Thank you.

Um I would love to in the future uh maybe have a discussion about having a code officer uh work on commission base.

Um they've done that in some larger cities and towns, and it was amazing how the uh city cleaned up and landlords had to uh do much better.

So just a thought.

I I do know you know we met with the Sanford uh their their uh their folks and we we spoke to them about their rental registration program and their land bank and you know their fee goes into the land bank and it funds that code officer position.

And I believe they also have a credit uh uh as if your building is is up to standards and has no violations that your rental registration fee diminishes if not altogether goes away.

And if that account dwindles below a certain point, then that code officer is no longer funded.

It is directly tied to the land bank account.

So you know that there are other communities that have incentives.

If you if you don't have any violations or if you correct the violations that have been identified, um rather than a refund, they give you a credit.

Um there's like the clerk said, there's there's many towns with scales, scaling models of of what to charge.

Um, obviously you don't want to um price out you know the the larger you know uh landowners, but yeah, that's that's the extent of of how the code officers are operating right now.

And what you're speaking to is basically creating a revenue stream that uh that transfers costs to the user uh over the taxpayer, right?

Like basically we what we're saying is by having an income that's coming in that and I don't know if we would get to a position where we're actually talking about charging for any type of of uh of uh registration process, but the way that it works in certain communities is that these positions are actually paid by the enterprise funds that are generated from the rental registration and therefore not part of the general fund.

Correct.

So they're they're jobs that are guaranteed that aren't based on uh the mail rate.

Correct.

Okay.

Um if you just maybe speak like quickly to I I think the what you see it as far as like a benefit to being able to collect more of the information that we're not like for instance, uh duplexes, single family homes if you're renting, right?

Uh you still I believe have the same uh expectations of having a um uh a um safe living environment, and but those generally are not properties that really come to our attention at all unless again there's a complaint that comes forward, right?

Correct, correct.

Uh the exception is the um lately the group homes or the the residential care facilities, if you will.

Um you know, the the new rules that the state passed, uh that uh uh DHS passed requires a letter for this new license, requires a letter from the local municipality that says the building uh meets all zoning requirements and all safety requirements.

And it is given code and fire the opportunity to actually get into all of these buildings.

Uh the majority of them are two are two residents.

the um lately the group homes or the the the residential care facilities if you will um you know the the new rules that the state passed uh that uh uh DHHS passed requires a letter for this new license requires a letter from the local municipality that says the building uh meets all zoning requirements and all safety requirements and it is given code and fire the opportunity to actually get into all of these buildings uh the majority of them are two are two residents um you know they're they're individually owned properties with two residents in them we've we've gone out to a lot of those for the very first time um simply because the owner needs that letter from our department in order to get their license from the state uh right now it's a one time it's it's the initial license um we're we're lobbying uh our our state delegation and we're lobbying the state to to change that to an annual requirement so that we can always make sure that we're getting into these buildings to make sure that they're they meet all of the fire requirements you know chief caron's back there but his department has has done yeoman's work in getting into all of these these buildings and finding out that they're they're putting you know residents in in rooms with no egress no second means of egress so they're they're finding a lot of of these faults and they're they're bringing them to light which is a good thing.

So you know that's that's one area that we've that we've started really capturing more data on.

And to speak to that that's all done right now based on general fund funding right so like ultimately this is a business that we're talking about specifically right which also is generating the revenue to pay the mortgages.

Correct.

And I would assume that I would assume they're paying the mortgage exactly so so eventually the the these entities actually own the buildings and we're the taxpayers paying for the inspection while actually while the ratepayer is not seeing a like that that's an indication like right there of of like an industry that like could use a business license uh in order to defer some costs so that we could actually reduce the the the allow more of the money that's in the general fund to go towards other budgeting pieces.

I'll defer to the clerk on that the clerk is you know the maintainer of the business licenses of the city so yeah she they that office oversees those but you are correct those our inspections fire department and and code comes out of the general fund for those so I think everything that we're talking about would require some type of investment in a new system and then possibly more uh capacity in order to track these pieces am I correct on that I would say yes definitely and I I guess we we should probably have a general discussion up here but I you know I'd love to have an understanding of where everybody else is at considering the possibility of extending our rental registration looking into it anyways.

Thank you Counselor Council Longshow.

Thank you Counselor Shitham I think it would be difficult on single family homes but I definitely think the two units um seem like it's it's it's more much more doable that's my opinion.

Counselor Harriman Thank you I'm definitely in favor of expanding the program um to two units and to single families that are rented um and I would be also in favor of some kind of fee structure so that we can fund uh more proactive code enforcement other counselors Council Roy thank you um I'd be in favor of um like the diminishing um fees that you were saying right for great status I think that would be really um a game changer for a lot of people and want they would they would want that right because again charging another fee and all that stuff cutting into the profits and all that stuff it's kind of tough.

But I think you know over time I I think that's a a good idea to to do.

So Counselor Noble I think it's a great idea.

I also had a question is the registry in Lewiston is that something that people they do it every year or do they just do it when they buy the building no it's an annual filing it's uh due march excuse me March 1st of every year.

Thanks Josh for bringing this forward other comments Councillor Martel no I have a question for Director Connor um expansion of the rental registry program uh obviously means more work for the code enforcement department um we are short staffed as it is uh I I'm very much in favor of pursuing this but I'd like to know what the next steps are and I'd like to know depending on how far we go with this what sort of impact do you envision that having on your staff with with or without um a fee structure well answer both.

Okay so without a fee structure obviously um you know expanding it to duplexes and single family homes with the current staff will I would venture to say take years before we get all of that data because we are we're going to have to find a way in between doing the reports and doing the inspections of of going out and trying to track down these rentals.

That's all they do.

Much like we have a CDBG funded code officer now who has to spend 80% of his time in the four census tracts.

Comes more administrative work.

So we would definitely need a a third administrative assistant up front to handle the bulk of all of those that new paperwork coming in.

Our current tracking system.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilman Ajine.

I would like to ask the same question of the city clerk.

Currently the rental registration comes through you.

And so if we expand the rental registration program and it stays within the clerk's office, could you give me an idea of like the capacity that's being used now and what you'd see in the future?

Sure.

I I don't know how many duplexes there are in the city, so I don't know how many accounts that would add, but right now there are a thousand accounts, which it a thousand buildings.

So in a thousand accounts, because it's not based upon units, it's based upon buildings.

So there's a thousand buildings that are part of the program that are three or more rental units.

So I don't know how many duplexes that would be.

And again, single family homes, I don't I don't know how to tackle that because you could own a single family home.

Maybe you are going out of state or out of the country for work for a year, so you decide to rent out your home temporarily for a year and then you're coming back, and it's not just purchased as a solo uh rental or solely a rental.

So I honestly that would be such a revolving uh door.

I don't know how we would do that.

We would have to talk to other communities and find out how they're that's structured.

And I don't know how I wouldn't even venture to guess how many are within the city that would apply for that or comply with that.

I I would assume that like for all the rental registration pieces, primary residences would not be counted, and that would include so for instance if it if it is a three unit or even a duplex, right?

We wouldn't count um or ask them to register if it is a primary residence, even if they're absent for a period.

You know, like owner occupied, yeah.

And and I think like right now we have to consider like if we want to move forward uh with looking at we're we're only looking at this from the conversation we had, right?

And so like do we consider um asking staff to to come up with like the the pieces uh as far as like what software has we'd have to use, what the cost is, what what those types of pieces are, do we want to refer to a committee, or do we want to do a combination of both if we want to proceed?

Because like all you know, ultimately I think there's some value just in the basis of being able to collect real data for the city, like how many the the inventory of housing, like do we have that?

Um we have what we collect from the for from from the real estate uh piece, but not all of it.

So and if I may Counselor Harriman, too sorry.

I was on the committee it took us a year and a half.

I'm sorry, there's no public comment.

I just want to tell you that it's a year and a half to when we would did that committee, and you can ask her too.

And it was a lot of work.

So I'm just saying, which I'm thinking about.

There is no public comment during workshops.

I want you to know you never asked people that were on these committees before.

There is no public comment.

Thank you for that, but please please observe the rules.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Harriman.

I think I think Director Connor wanted to answer that previous question.

I just wanted to expand.

Uh I know the the clerk said there's about a thousand buildings.

Uh we did a uh recently we did a search in in our current system, and and there's about and she can correct me if I'm wrong, but there's about sixty, five hundred units currently uh that are on the rental registration that are three units, you know, a property with three units or more.

So that's the scale that we're looking at as is about sixty, five hundred current units to be inspected, you know, by the fire department.

Uh Counselor Harriman.

Yes.

Um I was just going to suggest a way to perhaps um find out the single family information is to look at homestead exemptions, but then that wouldn't be perfect because you could also pull in some second homes that aren't rented.

Um, but that would be one way to potentially separate out rented single family homes.

Chief Karen, do you have something you'd like to weigh in on this?

I did want to just make uh one point.

I know this is not public comment, but uh the fire department does proactively inspect every house on the rental registration.

Um we have poor compliance at times with certain properties, but we do use that list and we do make an attempt to inspect every one of those.

And is as a result of that um housing committee or rental registration committee that was formed that we make reference to or what the red rental registration was born out of also funded the third fire inspector specifically to inspect those dwellings on the rental registry.

So it is something that we do proactively.

Thank you, Chief.

Um Counselor Nejin, you you you uh are driving this bus.

I'm I'm gonna ask you what the what the next steps you envision being in this process.

Well, I think that there is some historical context that we don't have clearly.

Um that that's one piece.

Um but also we're not gonna make a decision right now, right?

We're gonna make possibly uh agree uh to take a process to go forward, right?

And and um I do think that in some cases we're we're we're not clear on like for me personally, I want to make sure that all housing in the community is safe.

Anything anybody who's renting a property, I want to make sure it's safe.

That's one piece.

And it doesn't matter if it's a 10-unit or two unit or a one unit.

I want to make sure it's safe.

I also want to make sure that people who are running businesses in our community that are that are fairly lucrative and also have impacts in the in the community in in certain ways.

Um if we do decide to license those businesses, we have a database to be able to understand where it's coming from.

I also want to people to be able to when we're talking about like promoting like, hey, we need more one-bedroom units, do we?

Uh I don't know.

But like to have do we know where all the one bedroom units are?

You know, like we just don't have data.

Um, and so like what we're asking for, I think, is a shift from the way we're doing things currently uh as well as an investment um in some type of software, and that's not a decision that like we're gonna come to right now.

So does it go to the does it go to the committees or does it go to staff and maybe staff can weigh in too?

Thank you.

Counselor Blanc?

Thank you, Councilor Chittam.

I believe on that form, correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Um does it ask for bedrooms?

Uh it does, right?

Absolutely.

It captures a lot of information, and then assessing would also have number of bedrooms as well.

So they would have that in their database and we would have that for rental registration as well.

You're right, counselor asked for a lot of information.

A lot.

Yes.

Yeah, which is very helpful.

Um again, I would uh I don't think we should do the single family homes at this time.

That's just my opinion.

I think the two units is much more doable with the staff that we currently have.

So that's just my thought.

Any other questions, uh, comments, concerns from the council, counselor noble?

I'd just like to know the data of it.

Like he's talking about like how many of those single family homes are being used as businesses, and is that information that we can get because they apply for a business license or because you have to inspect for a license.

Do you know what I'm saying?

I know I know on my street there's a there's a duplex that was being used as a um like a group home for special needs.

I don't know, you know, clearly they're making money there.

Shouldn't that be reported or shouldn't we know as the city council magine?

So uh there if it's if it's a licensed facility from the state, there is a database that we can check.

We don't house any of that information.

And I think that that's kind of what we're talking about with like data that we want to see in the city, like to have a dashboard where it's including all of our inventories, so we can be like, oh, how many houses were built before this time and haven't been letabated, right?

Like how like where are they located?

Like all of this, all these pieces of data that like um the city doesn't necessarily house um or nor have access to, you know, and and so that's kind of uh I think just a big piece of like why we would want to extend that the rental registry program.

But I think if people are comfortable with the concept of uh possibly extending the rental registry program, I do think that there are costs associated with that as well as capacity constraints, and I don't know if it's better for staff to to come back and make recommendations if if they make recommendations at all, uh which is why I'm I would love to get feedback from staff.

Um it sounds to me as though nobody on the council is opposed to collecting more data.

Um the question is how far do we reach?

And I would like to suggest that informally we ask staff to begin investigating what it would take to include duplexes in the current rental registry.

Does that start the ball rolling, counselor?

I would think so, but I also think that like a database that is like accessible, that is publicly accessible, like d the the system in which we're collecting the information in, right?

Like right now I can follow the clerk's office, which I'm sure is not fun, um, and all this information.

Um possibly we could be using a different system.

So uh th there are two parts to this then.

One is to make the data that we have, the existing data more accessible.

Um so that's question one.

How does that happen?

How much does it cost?

How long will it take?

What sort of resources will we require to do that?

And then question two is, and perhaps following that, this is the data that's publicly available.

Do we want to expand that data for uh multiple apartment houses?

And do we want to extend it into duplexes?

Does that is that sound like a fair synthesis of what this workshop is headed toward?

Yeah, I think I think so.

And and that would allow us, once we know that that information, like what the costs are associated with, as well as the the capacity constraints to make a decision on whether or not that's something that we want to fund or not.

I but I do think again that like the the single family home status with businesses that are single family homes, like that we have to we have to account for that.

I have absolutely no idea how many owner-occupied homes exist in the city.

And um the majority of the housing, I say half the housing in my community is single family home.

In my neighborhood is single family homes.

Um so you know, I I do think that's a data point that's important because I do know that like some of these uh group homes or home health care offices do require additional services that again um the taxpayer pays and and they're they're basically unlicensed like businesses.

So counselor Longsham.

Thank you, Counselor Chitam.

So it sounds like you're you'd like to at some point also uh figure out a way to maybe license and charge those um type of group homes uh that would make sense.

Yeah, definitely, but at the same time too, we just don't have access to that data.

You know, too if you go on the state website.

Yeah, but not in the dashboard that I can see like what what neighborhoods have all that like you know, i are there four group homes on one street um in one neighborhood, you know, like these types of pieces that I think um have value to like understand exactly where our housing stock is and what our neighborhoods are made of.

So uh I'd like to ask administration, uh do you have a sense of the direction that the council is leaning at this point?

Would you like to do that?

I think so.

And we can confer with staff and come back with something and we can keep the conversation going, obviously, after this meeting.

So we'll we'll report back with more and then take it from there if that's if that's sufficient.

Great.

Um everybody comfortable with that?

Works for me, yeah.

We've had the public discussion.

It seems like most people are in support.

So thank you.

Well, productive.

Thank you, Director.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Chief.

Um Thanks for everybody who participated.

I will declare this workshop over.

Madam Clerk, I believe we have an executive session to vote on.

You do.

Executive session regarding consultation with the city attorney requested action to enter into an executive session pursuant to main revised statutes annotated Title I Section 4056A and E to discuss the legal matter with the city attorney.

May I have a motion?

So moved.

Second uh Councilor Nejine, Councillor Harriman.

Counselor from Ward 6.

Yes.

Ward 7?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward 2?

Yes.

Ward 3?

Yes.

Ward 4?

Yes.

Ward 5.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Lewiston, do not go away.

We will be back.

Good evening.

Welcome to Lewiston and our city council meeting.

The mayor is absent.

Um, I have the good fortune to fill in for him tonight.

So uh since this is one of my uh maiden voyages in this seat, please be gentle and kind.

Thank you.

Umpson, who has been uh strong advocate for the Martel uh development.

Uh, I would ask her to lead the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Well done.

Uh we have acceptance of the minutes, three minutes in a row, Madam Clerk.

So actually, uh um Mr.

Council President, uh, just for clarification, we uh sent you the June second minutes and the June sixteenth minutes.

I forgot to email you the June thirtieth minutes, so we'll have to punt those to the next meeting if you don't mind.

So tonight would be adoption of the minutes of the second and the sixteenth.

Thank you.

So moved.

Second by Councillor Harriman.

I'm sorry, Councillor Martel.

Councillor from Word Six?

Yes.

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Uh, we now have a public comment period.

Um the public comment, as you all know.

I see a lot of familiar faces here.

Uh you have heard the instructions from the mayor time and time again.

I won't repeat them, but I will ask you to be kind.

There's a three-minute limit.

When we reach 18 minutes, I will call.

If there are still people waiting, I will ask the council to waive the rules rather than continuing on.

So uh if you uh wish to make public comment, please line up and let comment begin.

Aaron Sol, Ward 5.

Um, so good evening, council and staff.

I don't know where the mayor is.

Uh so first I wanted to say thank you to counselors Martell and Longchamps for always demanding safety.

So we thank you for that.

Chrissy Noble.

I work and live in Ward 5.

I want the violence to stop.

So when you say that your ward doesn't want outside help, that's not true.

We need help, and you need to give help for the police.

You need to allow them to have assistance.

You need to do your job.

They're doing their job.

And I want the violence to stop.

I work on Bartlett Street.

So saying that we don't want help is just not true.

We had a meeting a couple weeks ago or last week about this very topic.

And you, the ward five representative to a ward that is being terrorized, had nothing to add.

I don't understand that.

So we would like to know what your thinking and what you think should be done.

So thank you.

Hi, Brett Martell, Ward 7.

I'm here because I submitted an agenda item for tonight and it was refused.

So I'm going to speak on public comment because it's not on the agenda.

I submitted the agenda item under the emergency provision in the council rules.

It was blocked from being added to the agenda.

It's clear that the mayor seems to have no real desire to remedy this issue for Lewiston residents.

We know what it looks like when the mayor of this council takes something seriously.

For example, when ICE was suspected to be in town, you didn't wait for a special meeting or get recommendations from council or the PD.

It took nothing more than an inaccurate rumor posted on Facebook to get you to personally spring into action.

You and the representative from Ward 3 went down to the report reported location, a local business, began yelling at the building and banging on doors and windows, only to discover it was a perfect perfectly legitimate search warrant being executed while investigating an alleged case of multi-million dollars in EBT fraud.

Did you or the council wait for actual incidents of city staff assisting ICE in a way that was prohibited by city guidelines?

Nope.

Preemptively passed an emergency ordinance preventing actions that there was no evidence had occurred in even a single instance.

After taking such actions in an emergency manner, it's nothing short of hypocritical to say that the public safety crisis we're facing fails to meet the definition of an emergency.

The fact there was such pushback against the submission of an agenda item speaks volumes about how serious this issue is being taken by city leadership.

Like I said, maybe my suggestion to bring in uh agencies from the state or federal government isn't the right path forward.

But it would have allowed for public comment and council discussion.

Uh refusing that discussion under the claim that the current situation is not an emergency is just simply ridiculous.

It cannot be accepted.

This public safety crisis cannot be accepted as the new normal for Lewiston.

This cannot be our standard operating procedure.

And by doing nothing, having meetings and talking with no action to follow it up is condoning this type of behavior and asking our residents, our business owners and visitors to this city to deal with it.

RPD does an amazing job apprehending these criminals after the fact.

Stellar.

We need to be focusing on prevention.

It will not be a consolation to the friends and family of someone that loses their life to either a stray or targeted bullet when we let them know that the shooter was quickly apprehended after the fact.

The time for talking has come and gone.

It's time for action.

And whatever that action means, it needs to be preventative in nature.

And it needs to send a message that we will not accept this here in Lewiston.

Please the rules of the council do not allow for applause, disapproval, booing.

Please, please admire uh accept those rules.

Good evening.

Marcella Clair, Ward 5.

Uh, good evening, Council.

Once again, I find myself in a familiar position of being absolutely disappointed with the leadership of this mayor and council.

Both Councillor Martell and Councillor Longchamps have basically pleaded with the rest of you to please bring in federal law enforcement or the National Guard to help get a handle on the gun violence taking place in our city.

Councillor Noble has stated that the constituents in her ward do not want help from these outside organizations.

But I'm here to tell you, Councillor Noble, that I live in Ward 5, and my neighbors have all reached out to me and my wife Rinso, former Ward 5 counselor, because every time they have reached out to you, it has fallen on deaf ears.

I implore every single one of you, please take a page out of Councillor Martell's and Long Champs playbook and please seek outside help before it's too late, and another innocent victim loses their lives.

Do better.

Good to go.

Good evening.

I'm Amy Smith.

I live and work in Ward 3, and I serve on the City of Lewis and Planning Board.

First and foremost, I want to thank you, the City Council, for your service and for continuing to show up.

These are complicated, emotional, and exhausting times.

As a member of the planning board, I know how difficult it is to receive a thick packet just a few days before you need to understand all the items, perform due diligence, and then vote on several items in a few short hours.

Some items are small and procedural, while others are huge and can have significant long-term impact on our community.

There have been times when planning board members receive a two-inch thick packet on a Thursday afternoon, and we're expected to have thoughtful questions and opinions prepared for 5 30 p.m.

on Monday.

Many of these packets represent several years and several thousands of dollars of effort devoted to bringing a project to life, and it's impossible to actually digest them in such a short time.

We all do our best and need to trust that city staff is putting responsible and fully vetted items in front of us.

Last week, tonight's agenda was published on Thursday, July 2nd at 3 p.m., one hour before city staff and most of the country were preparing to enjoy a long holiday weekend.

I hope you all got the rest that you deserved and saved your packet review for yesterday or today.

If you're like me, you skim the agenda to quickly assess where you spend your valve where to spend your valuable time and then dig into the items that catch your attention.

There's a seemingly small and innocuous item on tonight's agenda that merits your full attention.

I'll be commenting on it later tonight, but suffice it to say that I've been deeply involved in aspects of the item for over five years.

And when it appeared, I still had to spend 36 hours of deep digging to really understand what's at stake for the city.

This is not how government should work.

We need transparency and collaboration, and we need to value the time that our elected officials and community members to vote to making the best possible decisions on behalf of the 37,000 citizens who depend on us.

We are worth the time and effort that it takes to get things right.

We deserve priorities and decisions that work for everyone over the long haul.

I deeply trust the folks who live, work, play, go to school, and volunteer here, who experience on the ground challenges such as gun violence and the triumphs, such as the recent opening of the main mill, and who hold a deep commitment to our exceptional community.

Please remember you are not alone.

There is an army of community members and organizations that are standing by to help carry any load that's too much for city staff to handle.

Please partner with us, listen to our ideas, value our community-informed opinions, and accept our offers of help.

Thanks again for your time.

Thank you.

Ronnie Parity, Ward 6.

I came to talk about committees.

I I've been one in public health committee.

Public Health Committee should be advising you.

Why don't they come to any of the meetings and advise you to things?

We got a senior advisory committee.

What are these committees doing?

People putting their names on committees and being elected to committees just to sit to have their name on the resume.

Yes, I've seen that.

Please, these committees needs to, you need to start using people who know what's going on, like public health.

Our seniors, what we never got the thing back from uh Tim.

Tim was a good advisor to the senior advisory, but I never saw anyone come and say what that thing that he uh said, what our seniors did.

You and if you need people, use these people, and our advisory committee should not be just sitting every two every month doing nothing and not coming to you to advise you on things that you should be advised on.

And another thing you don't do is listen to us that historically know what's going on.

Historically, I've been around for 30 years.

And historically, I can tell you story after story.

But you don't come to us are Amy Smith tonight when that rental registration.

Amy knows so much about that stuff and everything.

You don't come to people who know things that might help you out.

We don't expect you to know everything, but we do expect you to come to us and ask for help.

Or people who know what's going on.

If we're not using our advisory committees, then what's the sense of having them?

And I feel bad because I helped start the public health advisory committee back in 2009 or 2008, I don't remember.

And we did things.

We had conferences on bed bugs, we had conferences on drugs.

We did things to help things.

And you know, and we should reach seniors.

Is opening up, I want to tell you, it's opening up, is having the grant opens sometime in August.

We should be helping seniors to get transit to senior plus.

They you should see their building.

It's fantastic for seniors and everything, and you should be supporting it.

And I don't see that with transit because the bus doesn't go up there anymore.

Okay, seniors have to stop at some place like the Salvation Army and won't go around whilst in way.

And I did talk to, I know David's gonna look that up, and I did talk to the person in Transet, Terry Adams.

Because I don't trust you guys to call these people and do something, and you're not using public health, and you should be using public health.

Thank you.

My name's Melissa Dunn.

I'm a community organizer and homeowner in Lewiston.

Last Tuesday's meeting, we heard from a city councilor and their dangerous call for National Guard to be on our streets, unnecessarily unwarranted and unprovoked.

This outrageous incitement rally cry is reminiscent to the white supremacy mating calls for militias to come into our community demand the law, incredible threats from white nationalists who have an off and unhealthy fixation with targeting our community members.

Calling National Guard wasn't a suggestion.

It was a blatant and reckless threat to our most vulnerable who have already experienced state and white violence just because of the location of housing.

The mobbing group is incited by inflammatory, racialized, inaccurate information, oftentimes intentionally and knowingly misleading their following and the public while doing the inciting.

It's a wounding and a betrayal from elected officials to be complicit in civil and criminal conspiracy to attack members of their own community, to mischaracterize them with threats of federal agents to do so.

I ask sitting elected officials to condemn these calls, misuse of systems and federal entities being weaponized for our community to be wrongfully defamed and attacked.

There should be strong leadership visible and condemning these treasonous acts from intentional chaos agents.

Civil andor criminal conspiracy would be half-truths or no truth at all.

If any colleague is repeating propaganda or believing propaganda to be reality, credentialed in degreed people would refer them to the crisis unit or for services because we don't entertain the delusions and psychosis of radicalized Robert Cards, self-induced or not, because if we did, he would have carried out with his violence.

And he did, but only because police and power holders self-identified with him.

Now, if the city of Lewiston code enforcement, Lewiston Police and Public School has been and is threatening the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and business people.

If they continue to entertain and cite and allow a platform for white violence while actively oppressing and silencing the people, if we were to experience violence by their negligence, hands and doing of state and white violence in their efforts of targeting and gentrification, we will pursue protections and other legal avenues to the fullest extent of the law and take their seats, their uniforms, their badges, their pensions, and for some, even their state issued hand toys.

And I do want to remind people we do have a resolution denouncing white supremacy.

We're asking elected officials to condemn heinous calls and threats of National Guard and the threats by white nationalists.

Hello.

Born and raised in Lewiston.

I analyze governmental corruption and fraudulence.

Sir, would you state your name, please, and your current residence?

Oh, sorry about that.

Nathan Pearl.

You said where I live specifically.

You live in Lewiston.

Yes.

Thank you.

So, yeah, born and raised Lewiston.

Uh I analyze corruption and fraudulence.

So a recent recent realization, which is really important, is our country has been capable of building skyscrapers for 141 years now, since 1885.

Out of our 250 years of 250 years of existence.

Yet we allow 800,000 plus unhoused citizens to suffer.

And I see the intensification of homelessness happening in this locality quite a bit.

And I do notice that there's expansions between both Bates College and the Somali population.

So if it seems like a lot of the locals, the natives, I guess you could say, are kind of getting pushed out.

A lot of the panhandlers that you see, they're white, uh Caucasian.

So you know, it's uh it's important that we focus on building skyscrapers, housing in general, rather than missiles.

Thank you.

Uh council rules call for an 18-minute uh initial public comment period.

Uh that time has lapsed.

I would entertain a motion uh to suspend the rules.

So moved by counselor longshagen.

Second by counselor Najine.

The suspension of the rules requires a five-vote majority.

Uh Madam Clerk, would you call the role, please?

Counselor from Ward Six?

Yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Ward one.

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Please proceed.

My name is Ciri Cressy, and I live in Ward 5.

And I had heard that uh, as apparently several others have, that at least one of the counselors had a few days ago called, or at least posited the idea of calling for the National Guard in response to shootings, mostly in my neighborhood.

And I want to state very, very clearly that I think that would be a catastrophic thing to do.

Calling up soldiers to go after children, armed or not, civilian children.

I have yet to even think of a situation in which that ever even looked like a good idea.

Ever.

I mean, it Kent State massacre, the uh English soldiers shooting live rounds at Irish children in I think in Dublin in mid-20th century, uh things going on in currently Palestine.

It never works out well.

And at least of all because it just looks incredibly bad.

So please don't do that.

There's there's got to be a better way.

Thank you.

Martin Chartran, Ward 3.

Uh, like many here, I'm saddened about this recent series of gun-related incidents involving youth.

Uh it's it's just an awful thing, and none of us can fix what happened.

Uh we do have a choice of how we move forward, and I'm here to ask you to move forward in a way that will move us toward nonviolence, repair, and healing, and not towards more harm.

The idea of calling for National Guard presence or really any outside military or police presence would harm us more.

Uh I hope you will oppose this proposal.

Um much of the media coverage has really sensationalized what's happening.

So a handful of youth have committed acts of violence.

It's also true that our criminal legal system charges and incarcerates black youth at disproportionate rates while underinvesting in their communities.

This is the school to prison pipeline.

This is structural violence.

If we want things to get better, we need to address all of these forms of violence.

There are many factors that might have contributed to the young people making the choices they did, insufficient supports, uh, underfunded schools, poor housing with lead paint in it, the general availability of guns, and our cultural norms that promote violence.

Our national and international leaders model using violence to achieve their goals.

Young men in particular are exposed to images that connect guns and violence to self-worth and belonging.

Some youth may lack a sense of hope or connection.

We all need to be accountable for these realities.

There are many public health approaches to guns violence that look at facts and what is going on in the lives of the youth involved.

How can we anticipate those circumstances and prevent them?

Uh, where are youth getting access to guns and how can we make guns unavailable?

This involves intensive coordination, and we have the infrastructure here of many community organizations already doing this type of work that could be uh funded more and brought together.

I'm a behavioral health professional.

I work with kids, not kids that are violent, but I know from experience that these young people, all young people fervently seek attention and approval.

If they can't get it by taking constructive action, they will get it by taking destructive action.

And this small group of youth have gotten a lot of attention now.

So what if we gave them half as much attention when they overcome challenges at home and at school?

It may not fix it, but it could go a long way.

If we can take a lead in addressing the needs that youth have attempted to meet through violence and support those individuals directly involved to repair their relationships with the community, we can re-establish trust.

But if we continue to dehumanize black youth, portray negative images of them, trying to try them as adults and bringing in military response, we'll be stuck in a cycle of blame and violence and no one will win.

I hope you will advocate to end the cycle of violence.

Good evening.

My name is Lisa Jones.

I live in Ward 2 and I own a business in Ward 7.

The first thing I have to say tonight is thank goodness for flock cameras.

We keep hearing that they have assisted the LPD with solving violent crimes.

This is especially important since we are down anywhere from 11 to 15 officers, and this city council refuses to get them outside help for the violence crisis in our city that we were currently just gaslit about.

It's been one week since the pointless special meeting that wasted four hours of all of our time and didn't move forward a solution to the violence here in Lewiston at all.

I've decided that my role in this is to make the public aware that the Lewiston City Council has no intention of stepping up and using whatever resources necessary to make our city safer.

I say this because literally zero steps have been taken, and the one suggestion that came from last week fell on deaf ears.

The public deserves to know that you do not take this seriously and you do not want it to end.

This notion is further supported by Council President Chitham refusing to add emergency agenda item after two people shot Point Blake in the face.

You all simply do not want this to end.

It was pretty tone-deaf and classless for Carl to post a picture of Washington, D.C.

and mention fascism over the weekend while most of us were celebrating.

I say a tone-deaf because our mayor, the top elected official in our city, has had nothing public to say about the literal fascist behavior coming from Councillor Harriman.

From removing our ability to thank the LPD for their work on their social media page to illegally blocking constituents online to sending the cops to my house in a failed attempt to deprive me of my First Amendment rights.

Silence.

That's the fascism people need to be scared of.

We have rules for a purpose.

Andrew Jones, Ward II and uh chaos agent, apparently.

I got the t-shirt and everything.

Um before I talk about a couple other things.

First thing I wanted to comment on was something that I saw in this chamber.

Uh after the first speaker, uh, there appeared to be appeared to be a sidebar discussion between uh Scott Harriman and David Chittham.

Uh so I'd like to ask you guys to engage in some transparency.

If you have something to say, use your microphones.

Uh I don't think that's too much to ask.

Um, maybe it is for Scott, I don't know.

Um Brett brought up a great point.

Um, this council used its emergency powers to uh bring forth that agenda item to uh prohibit the city and the LPD from cooperating with federal law enforcement for the purposes of immigration.

But here we are, we can't have an emergency agenda to uh discuss and take action on the gun violence in our city.

Um it got shot down the same day that apparently two people got shot in the face, and I don't know if you've been watching the news today, but there was an armed robbery involving a juvenile and a stolen gun with a filed off serial number.

So again, uh it's gun violence in our city, and and you're you're just not addressing it.

So what are you doing?

Um at the uh emergency council meeting last week.

Um I pointed out against the rules, but anyway, that uh we have a state rep, um Scott Harriman, who uh has the ability to bring this to the main legislature, uh, but we didn't hear any solutions from him.

I don't think we're gonna hear any solutions tonight.

He appears to be uh too busy doodling.

Um, David, take a look if you if you're curious, but I don't know.

That's all I got.

Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Ephraça It Isaiah.

I'm a War II resident.

Um Tuesday, I think uh one of the counselors asked why Lewiston were facing this, and um I really think we have um a lot of youth.

I think Lewiston is the youngest city in Maine.

They have the most youth, but I believe we're not investing in youth.

Um, people are declining to approve the budget for the school.

Um kids are out.

The school is kicking out a whole bunch of kids.

They're on the street doing nothing.

So what do you expect?

It's the perfect storm.

We need to work together.

We we do not need to go and look into federal agency like ICE or now National Guard.

It's ridiculous.

We need to work together.

We need to build relationship with these youth.

We need to find out the root causes.

One thing I'm hearing from the youth is they are bored.

There's not much to do here.

Can we invest in youth?

Can we do something?

Can the schools stop kicking out our children?

Our children are on the streets, and if they are on the streets, they are gonna hang out with the wrong crowd.

And this is what's happening.

And by the way, I have lived in Lewiston since 2002, and I feel this year has been the most divisive year that I have ever lived here because it's uh election year, everything is becoming political.

Um, supporting your neighbors, your immigrant neighbors becomes all of a sudden um political.

Some people are not even um they are scared to voice out that they support immigrants because that's considered political.

So and this issue with gun violence has been happening for a long time, and we have been dealing with that for a long time, and and and so a lot of people make it seem like this is something new that happened and it's appearing on the news, but it's been every summer the the the crime has been going up, and I believe um it's every summer, and it's been the same every summer, but I believe this year is a political year, and the media and everybody want to make this a big big deal, but this has been happening.

I'm not trying to minimize this, but I believe we need to figure out how as a community we can work together instead of blaming.

I hear people are blaming the youth, they are blaming the parents, they are blaming the school, the police, the city councilors, the city hall.

Uh we need to stop blaming people and figuring out how we can figure we can find a solution to this.

And I think the best solution is for us to come together and invest in youth.

Thank you.

Uh quiet in the chambers, please.

Please continue with public comment.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

My name is Robert Glassby.

I live in Ward 6.

Um boy, this this gets more and more frustrating coming to these meetings.

Um I think I just want to encourage those who have the ability to solve this problem to keep going.

Frustrating to hear rhetoric constantly.

I've never been a part of something so divisive and so polarizing.

Um to hear accusations hurled, um, without research, no data, no solutions, no contributions to problem solving, finger pointing and blaming.

This is not something that's gonna happen overnight.

We didn't get here overnight, it's not gonna be fixed overnight.

So I don't understand where this desire for a solution to pop out of thin air comes from.

So all I would say is please continue to do your work.

Obviously, a lot of folks are asking for more transparency if you can do it, contribute.

Um, but keep working towards uh a common ground.

Um it's I understand it's tough, but what I keep hearing from the same people at every meeting, just keep doing what you gotta do.

Please just keep going.

Matthew Agron, Ward 4, Councilors, City staff, and the rest of the public.

We are one Lewiston.

We are not multiple Lewistons.

We are one.

This culture of violence, which seized or has seized our city, where we now have 14 and 13-year-olds carrying guns and shooting at each other, is not unique to Lewiston.

It's nationwide at the moment.

But here in Lewiston, we need to come together as one.

It shouldn't matter if you live in the tree streets or out near no name pond.

We are made from those who have lived here our entire lives and those who have come from away.

Hell, I came from away 20 plus years ago.

But we need to do everything we can to help curb the violence that spread here.

We need to do it before this level of violence spreads, before, as Susan said, her mother doesn't leave the house because she's afraid of getting shot.

And how long before somebody's mother, father gets catches around, not aimed at them but fired in the general area.

We all need to do our what we can.

That means we need to talk to each other.

Like to quote the line from Pete Seeger here.

It's important to be able to speak and listen to those who you disagree with because it is.

It's a melting pot.

Lewis and PD is not gonna be able to solve this on their own because this is not TV or the movies, where 45 minutes case is solved.

Everything's all better.

They need the public to speak up.

We need our parents and guardians of our children to become the adults and be the role models for these kids, and not be afraid by becoming that role model that they'll have DHS called on them because they're being too hard on their child.

I'm not saying beat the hell out of the kid.

That's the only thing I remember from my foster family training.

You can't hit the kid, but you can discipline them.

And then we need to find out where all these guns are coming from.

Half the guns the city took off were stolen articles, stolen.

Stolen.

Where are the other half coming from?

Are they local?

Are they from away?

Thank you, Mr.

Agrin.

Further public comment.

Seeing none, I'll close public comment.

We have a city administrator's report.

Administrator Kane Rice.

Thank you, Mr.

Council President.

We have a couple of cards to curb public sessions coming up on Wednesday July 8th, which is tomorrow evening, 5 37 p.m.

Public Works Staff will be at Geiger Elementary School, 601 College Street.

And on Wednesday, August 26th, from 537 at McMahon Elementary School on North Temple Street.

We're also going to be adding a few others, so please check out Lewis the Main.gov slash Cart to Curb for more dates coming up for answering any public questions or any other information they'd uh like to have.

I want to highlight some great work happening uh from our library with uh Director Houston.

Uh he has recently launched a new partnership with Woodlands Memory Care in Lewiston to bring audio books, large print books, and other library materials directly to residents each month.

Uh this is a first-time effort that began last month and has already been warmly received uh by residents there.

Uh the partnership is especially meaningful as it supports engagement and quality of life for our senior population.

Uh Lewison residents who are unable to visit the library may also be eligible for the Lewiston Public Library outreach program by contacting the library.

So please contact the library for more information if you are interested in participating.

Uh just an update on street trees, as you know, something I'm very passionate about.

Uh thanks to a community resilience grant from the governor's office, the city planted more than 20 trees in the tree streets neighborhood, including some less common varieties for our area, including Yellowwood, London Plain Tree, and lilac trees.

Uh the project included community planting events at Kennedy Park and Bait Street, which I attended.

Um neighborhood families and about 30 uh Tree Street youth participants helped out planting these trees uh in the ground.

So thank you to all who participated in those events.

Uh reminder the Beyond the Badge event is coming up July 23rd, 3 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

at Smart Pain Park.

Uh all are invited to attend to have some time with our police department, fire department, uh United Ambulance and Life Flight of Maine.

Um, a variety of kids' activities, live music games, and other community events.

So please come down to Smart Pain Park again July 23rd, 3 to 7 p.m.

I want to congratulate Seniors Plus, uh, who's chosen uh for more than 2,000 applicants.

Um they were selected for a T-Mobile hometown grant.

Uh this $30,000 uh grant will fund a new ADA accessible computer lab and privacy pods uh at the encompassed education and nutrition center, expanding access to digital skills training, workforce development, and telehealth services for older adults with disabilities.

So congratulations to them.

A few staff uh updates and milestones.

I want to make you aware of uh Lewiston Police Officer Josh King was promoted to detective.

Uh Matthew Weir was promoted to fire captain in the fire department effective on June 11th.

Conroe Malley uh was hired as a firefighter with the fire department effective on July 1st.

Uh Kelly Friedis was hired as the senior utilities accountant in the finance department effective uh this past Monday.

Um and Erica uh Soyat was um promoted to senior assistant correct effective uh July 2nd.

So congrats to all, thank you for your service uh to the city.

Lastly, I just want to say we had a really great event um last week.

Congratulations to the main mill museum, uh Rachel Ferrante, all staff, board, everyone involved there for uh a really tremendous dedication event.

Thank you to all the dignitaries who came uh and spoke and to mark the event.

Uh great turnout, uh fantastic story for the city.

Um, really a story of our revitalization, particularly downtown, uh, and much more to come.

So thank you to all involved there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Administrator Kenrath.

Um Madam Clerk, we have a consent agenda consisting of eight items.

Do eight items on the consent agenda this evening.

Item number one, amendment to the traffic schedule to add section 55, parking prohibited day of designated trash collection, even numbered side, and section 56, parking prohibited day of designated trash collection, odd numbered side.

Number two, amendment to the traffic schedule to remove the two designated parking spots on Bait Street as noted in section 34, parking reserve city officers and employees.

Number three, order authorizing execution of municipal quick claim deed for real estate located at 38 Larrabee Road.

Number four, order approving the disposition of 71 Brigham Street.

Uh number five, order approving the disposition of one Carver Street.

Number six, order approving the disposition of nine C Ris Avenue.

Number seven, appointments to the Lewis and Auburn Transit Committee, and number eight, authorization to accept transfer of forfeiture funds.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Do I have a motion?

So moved on all.

Councilor Harriman.

Second.

Councillor Najin.

Madam Clerk.

Councilor from Ward 6?

Yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Ward three?

Yes.

Ward four.

Yes.

Ward five?

Yes.

Motion pass by vote of seven to zero.

Item number eight.

Receipt of the city clerk reporting report regarding valid signatures for the citizens initiative petition.

Yes, and we'll just clarify for the audience it's item number nine.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

No, I just for folks following along.

Item number nine.

Didn't have my glasses on.

That's okay.

Um there are two items for requested action.

The first item is to accept the city clerk's report regarding verified petition signatures for the petition to amend the syringe service program ordinance.

Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

Uh Councillor Nejene, Councilor Longsham.

Any discussion?

Council Martel.

It was me.

I moved.

You moved.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

It was Martell and Long Champ.

I apologize again.

I'm gonna do that a lot tonight.

Um any discussion among the council.

Madam Clerk.

Did you want to go to the public for their comment on this?

Or no?

Do we have public comment for accepting a report?

Uh usually on most agenda items, the mayor would throw it out to the public.

Mayor's not here.

That's that is true.

That is true.

Uh let's go to public comment then.

Any public comment on accepting the report from the from the city clerk.

Ronnie Parity, Ward 6.

I want to support this, and I think it should go to the people.

I think your decision on a thousand on a hundred syringes was wrong.

And as a public health nurse and a former public health nurse and taking many courses in public health, I think we should go to one to one, and I like, and also the cap says 20, so that gives a break to the thing.

I think look at Bangor.

Bangor had a hundred needles and they got an HIV outbreak.

And I try to look up Lewiston's HIV data today, and I couldn't find it.

So does anybody have data?

This is again what your public health committee needs to do.

They need to get you guys the data.

Is there HIV in Lewiston and Auburn?

Okay, you need to get that data.

You need to go.

I want to know about hepatitis B too.

Very, very, in fact, that's more contagious than hipp and then HIV when needles and everything.

What people have to go through after a needle stick is unbelievable.

And I, as a neurist, know this because and I know what people and my patients had to go through.

I even saw somebody get hepatitis, the family got hepatitis B from helping her husband do blood glucose testing.

So again, blood is very, very contagious, and hepatitis B is.

And then HIV, if someone's high and having sex, are they really gonna do safe practice?

And are we preaching safe practice?

I know family planning sometimes is involved in these things too.

But there's a whole issue set here.

And please accept this, and I know it's going to the public, and everybody I've heard from the public, and I know a lot of people, is they want the one-to-one.

So will you please start listening to people?

And you can put a cap of 20, but that's I don't even think we need that.

Look at Bangor, and they've been doing a hundred, and they still have an outbreak of HIV.

But I would like to, I would like the committee and uh Ned and charge of the public health committee.

Please get data on what Lewiston and Auburn is going on in Lewiston and Auburn and Escoggan County, please.

Thank you.

Is there any other public comment?

I would like to have public comment on both elements of this item of this agenda item.

So if you wish to speak on whether what action you would like the council to take, please take this opportunity now to speak on that, because I would prefer not to have a public comment period for each individual vote.

Go ahead, sir.

Yeah.

Uh Martin Charter and Board 3.

I would just add that the reason needle exchanges operate, needle uh surge service programs operate is to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis B.

And I hope that the public keeps that in mind and lets them do their job the way they want to Lisa Jones, Ward 2.

I um and just coming up on the urging of Council President Chittham to say that I would like to see this on the ballot in November.

Um I believe over 900 citizens signed this petition.

And we want change in Lewiston, and giving us the opportunity to vote for change would be wonderful of this body.

Thank you.

Rinseul, Ward 5.

Um, I honestly at first I really wanted this to go to to the ballot.

Either way, I if you adopt it tonight or if it goes to ballot, I I find it is going to be a win.

Um I think it's important that the residents of Lewiston know that there is no testing when you come in to get those needles.

So we have no idea what the data is.

We don't know if it's spreading disease or not spreading disease.

Because I don't believe anyone goes in there and gets tested.

So the responsible thing to do is to require them to bring those dirty needles back because they end up in our streets, our parks.

You all know that you know the speech.

So whether you send it to referendum or you adopt it tonight, um, I would like to see that the public have a chance to say 966 people came out to sign that petition in a very short amount of time.

That says a lot.

So um thank you.

Andrew Jones, Ward 2.

I just wanted to show up and uh support this uh petition.

I think it's uh long overdue.

Uh I should remind you that in the original uh needle ordinance that uh was passed by this council, the original one before it was neutered horribly, uh, did have that one-to-one exchange.

And that was one of the provisions that you folks stripped out under the uh guidance of the so-called experts in the uh harm reduction industry.

Um another commenter said that we should allow these organizations to do the job that they want to, and I should remind the council that letting those folks do the job the way they saw fit resulted in COSI.

So I support the one-to-one, and I hope that you adopt it tonight.

If not, I would like to see the citizenry uh approve it at referendum.

Thank you.

Kate Bashon, uh Ward 4.

I'm here to support.

I would like you to uh approve the ordinance tonight, the one one-to-one needle with one distribution center and better tracking that way.

Um I think it's very important.

Get this the needles off the streets.

There's kids out there playing, playing ball, dogs getting you know walking around.

So I I think it's very important for you to adopt that tonight.

Thank you.

Matthew Agrin, Ward 4.

You guys have a choice tonight.

You can adopt this tonight as a body, or you can send it to the people to vote on it.

Either way, decisions will be have to be made.

We had 900 people vote uh signed that say, hey, we like this idea.

That's a little over a third of who the number of people who voted for the original school budget.

That failed.

Um 900 people is not minute.

I would like to see you guys take this tonight, but if not, send it to the public.

Let the public vote.

We'll find out how the public as a large feels about this whole thing.

Thank you.

Marcel Leclerc, Ward 5, personally, myself, I would actually prefer this to go to referendum in November.

I would like to see what the voices of Lewiston have to say about it and whether they vote this in uh in November.

Thanks.

My name is Renee Fortin.

I live in Ward 4.

I've never spoken up here before, but I would like to see it go to referendum.

I want to hear the voice of the people.

We've heard your voices somewhat a lot on issues that we've asked help for.

And I think with all of those signatures, we owe it to the people to allow them to vote on it.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

I'll close public comment.

Um I'm going to uh mention that my understanding is that this council does not have the option to have a first reading on this ordinance tonight.

The decision before us is whether to adopt this through the normal process, which would normally entail a first reading on our next meeting July 21st and a second reading two weeks following that.

Uh the other decision that we can the decision that we can make tonight is to go that route or refer this to uh a referendum in November.

Uh Madam Clerk, correct me if I am incorrect there.

That is correct.

You're correct.

Thank you.

So one of the options open to us is not to adopt this on first reading tonight.

So that despite the requests of some of the people who commented is not an option open to the council.

I will take a motion uh to determine the course of action.

So, Mr.

Mayor, if we could just back up.

So we have a pending motion on the floor, which is to accept the report that hasn't been voted on yet.

Uh thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

I will take a motion.

Uh we the motion is on the floor.

Any discussion from council on whether to accept the report.

Council and Jean.

I would just like to thank the clerk's office for processing the signatures, especially during an election time and all the other pieces.

Thank you.

Sure, thank you.

Any other comments?

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Counselor from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Ward four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Now the next item for you is to determine a course of action as required under the city's election ordinance.

I will entertain a motion from council.

To do button.

Which course of action do we want?

We have we can either vote to address this at first reading on July 21st, or we could or later.

Those are our choices.

Counselor Longsham?

I would like to send it to the voters.

That would be my opinion.

That's your motion.

That is.

I would second the.

Seconded by Councillor Nejine.

Any discussion from the council?

Councilor Martell.

I would like to see this get adopted by this body or at least move towards that process that you defined for the first and second reading.

I don't believe that it will pass.

So I am willing to support sending this to the referendum immediately and helping clear up the agenda for likely future items that will be there.

But I do believe that this should be adopted.

I don't think it will, sir, for those reasons in a matter of efficiency.

Thank you, Counselor.

Any other comments?

Counselor Harriman.

Yes, thanks.

If I could ask staff just to clarify, will this be on the general election ballot this November?

Is that the course of action here?

Yes, it would be this November.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions, comments.

Counselor Nejine?

I would just like to state that this has been a very divisive issue in our community for quite a while.

I do think that uh the previous council did some good work around an ordinance that did go into place.

Um the issue of the one to one versus one to twenty, one to thirty, one to one hundred has been very uh contentious.

I would I know that the majority of my uh constituency that has reached out to me supports the one to 100.

Um I think that that needs to come down to a to a vote within the city to make this decision.

This is not something that no matter how my constituency feels, or the majority of my constituent who reached out to me feels, uh it it is a divisive issue.

I'd also like to um thank uh uh former counselor Sewell uh for organizing the petition.

Uh I mean it was a lot of work was done there quickly.

Um if it goes to public referendum, uh hopefully it can be put to bed at least for this election cycle, um, and then we can talk about it next year.

Any other comments?

Uh I would like to admit for the record, although I'm not obligated to do so that I did sign the petition because I do believe the public ought to weigh in on this.

Uh I've made my decision and my position clear when we pass the ordinance initially.

Uh I will tell you that I intend to vote against this when it comes to referendum, but I would prefer that the public the public has a voice.

Uh that's my position.

Anyone else?

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council from Ward 6?

Yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We will be seeing this.

Please refrain.

Please.

Please respect the rule of of uh our our council.

I would appreciate it very much.

Uh we'll go to item number 10.

Item 10.

Public hearing on a proposed increase in water rates and approval of amendments to policy manual number 69 regarding the water rates and charges.

There are two items for requested action.

The first item is to conduct a public hearing to receive citizen comment and input on the proposed water rate changes.

No motion or vote is required.

The presiding officer can simply open the public hearing.

I will do so.

I am not the mayor.

But I will open the public hearing.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Would you introduce yourselves, please, and tell us what this is all about?

Good evening.

Kevin Ganggiam, the Director of Public Works.

Erica Kidd, Deputy Director of Public Works for Utilities.

We're here tonight because as you see that the finance director has put together in the packet our our revenues projected for next fiscal year put us in a deficit.

So in order to follow PUC guidelines and also adjust rates so that we don't have a larger deficit in the future and we have money to be able to handle any contingencies, we're here to request uh a change in rates.

That's it.

That's it.

We can go into more details or questions.

Any questions from council?

Council Najine.

Just to clarify the this account is a is is an enterprise account, and the cost of the utilities are actually directly correlated to the charges in order to actually run the service.

Am I correct?

Correct.

So ultimately we would be running in a deficit if you didn't increase, which means that we would, through the attrition of not funding it completely for what it actually cost to run.

Correct.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Does the Public Utilities Commission require the governing body of the utility to uh approve or or endorse uh rate increase?

Do you need the approval of the council to take this to the public utilities commission?

Correct.

Uh we were here in in May to present uh this case as well.

Uh PUC has strict guidelines on rate increases by water utilities such as ourselves.

So uh we're here tonight again to go over this because of notification and and so we are uh in compliance with that reviewing the rates again tonight and proposing them.

So we will be submitting uh this hearing as well as our information for rate adjustment after tonight's hearing.

Do you have any sense on how long it will take the PUC to act on this?

Director Roy may have a better idea.

So once the public hearing is completed, um all of the documents will be uploaded to um the PUC, they review all of that and then will get back to us.

So I have to have the minutes of the meeting, so we'll have to wait until um the City Council approves the minutes at the next meeting before I upload that portion of it.

So it could take about a month.

So my question really gets to if we take no action now, the water division will be operating at a deficit at the end of this fiscal year.

Is that what I've heard you testify?

Correct.

That's what you can see in the performer and what the finance director and we have put for you.

So the real question is will the PUC act quickly enough in anybody's estimation to prevent that from happening to the Lewiston Water Department.

Correct.

There's a date, I believe, on the documents you have of August that it would start the rate increase.

So all the approval pieces will be done and ready for that August date.

That's less than a month away, and I'm just wondering, can the PUC act that quickly?

They review all the documents as you as I upload them.

So I will upload the ad.

I will upload all the comments at the public hearing, I will get everything ready.

The only last piece will be the minutes that will be done at the next.

So I think so.

They have that already.

Um what they're waiting on is just um the public hearing comments and the council approving in the minutes.

So am I to infer that once they have that complete information, they will pro forma approve the rate increase.

Correct.

There is about five individuals who are on this case.

All right.

So they assign five individuals.

It's not just one employee at the PUC.

Thank you.

Council Harriman.

I think my question might have been answered, but um I was under the understanding that the water division, it's not like they're going to run out of money, you know, within the next month or so.

Uh there are some reserve funds.

The rates just need to be increased to keep up with the increase in cost of providing the service.

And yeah, I don't know that we have to worry so much about whether this gets approved in a few weeks or if it takes a few weeks longer than that.

But that's just my understanding.

Any other questions from council?

I'll open it up to public comment, public hearing.

And um, Council President, if you if you don't mind, uh the PUC regulations require that a statement be read from the main state statutes before uh the public comment.

So if you could just indulge us for a second, we can't.

I did not know that.

Please read the statement.

Thank you.

Main revised status annotated titles uh 35a, section 6104, subsection four.

Notice that rate change may be investigated by commission at the commandment at the commencement of each hearing held pursuant to this section.

The consumer owned water utility shall inform those present that the rate change may be investigated by the commission in accordance with this section, and that petitioners filed pursuant to subsection 7 of 35A main revised status annotated section 6104 must bear the signatures and the printed names and addresses of the signers.

Upon request, the utility shall provide customers with petition forms that include space for signatures and the printed names and addresses of the signers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will now open it up to public comment.

Anyone care to comment on the proposed rate increases for the water division?

Seeing no public comment, I will close the hearing and we can post haste relay the transcript of that hearing to the public utilities commission.

Any other questions from council then I believe we move on to the question of approving.

Is that correct, Madam Clerk?

Yes.

So then the second motion before you is to approve the proposed amendments to policy manual number 69, water rates as outlined in the attached vote sheet as recommended by the public works director, finance director, and the city administrator.

Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Council Najine.

I will second that unless Councillor Martel wishes to Martell.

Any comments, uh questions?

Do you have anything further you would like to add, Director?

I do not at this time.

You'd like us to vote in favor of this, I presume.

Uh yes, per my memo.

Uh we had our last rate increase in 2021.

Uh every year we try to make sure that we are forecasting our expenses and try to stay tight and within budget.

Uh the capital outlay we have is is driving some of these costs.

As you can see, we have had several large breaks this winter.

So we are working to maintain the integrity of the system to provide safe drinking water to all users as well as fire protection.

So we believe that this was an inadequate amount and and not a burden on the on the users.

Thank you.

Anything else from council?

Madam Clerk, please call a roll.

Council from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Word two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you.

On to item number 11.

Item number 11.

Public hearing for approval of an outdoor entertainment permit for the LA Balloon Festival.

Requested action to conduct a public hearing on an application for an outdoor entertainment event for the LA Balloon Festival and to grant a permit for an outdoor entertainment event as required by the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 10, Article 1, Section 10-3 to the City of Lewiston for outdoor music concerts for the balloon festival to be held at Samard Payne Park on July 14th through 21st.

Contingent upon positive recommendations from the police department, fire department, and code health officer and land use inspector regarding compliance with all regulations and compliance with all city ordinances.

Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Any discussion or comments from the council?

Public comment on this issue.

Christine Holden, Ward 1.

I'm sure it's a combination of the heat, humidity, and overwork that you and staff have had, but the festival is in August.

Not July.

And if you look at the accompanying application from the city, it says uh August 26 to August 25.

My sympathies, you're all overworked and underpaid.

Thank you.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Obviously, we are not going to approve a permit for July.

This will be in August, and the dates will not be running backwards.

They will run forward the way the clock normally runs.

Thank you.

Any further public comment?

Counselor Najine.

Can we just verify the actual dates?

The date is the setup date starts on the 14th.

It actually runs to the 23rd of August of this year, 2026, not 2025 and not July.

So we have a week set up and then we have through the weekend of the 21st.

Friday the 21st is uh the first time.

Counselor Neijine.

So on my original motion, I move that we accept based on the verbal uh modification that uh I assume uh city staff will update uh before permanently filed.

Good catch.

Counselor Harriman, is that acceptable to you?

Yes.

All right.

So the motion has been friendly amended friendly amended.

Any other discussion?

Madam Clerk?

Council from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Word two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four?

Yes.

Word five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you.

On to item number twelve.

We're moving right along.

Public hearing for approval of an outdoor entertainment permit for the fiddlers rendezvous.

Requested action to conduct a public hearing on an application for an outdoor entertainment event for the fiddlers rendezvous and to grant a permit for an outdoor entertainment event as required by the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 10, Article 1, Section 10 3 to LA Arts for Outdoor Music Concerts for the Fiddlers Rendezvous to be held at Kennedy Park on August 9th.

Contingent upon positive recommendations from the police department, fire department, code health officer, and land use inspector regarding compliance with regulations and compliance with all city ordinances.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Were you an auctioneer in your former lifetime?

I was trying to move things along, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Very much appreciated.

Do I have a motion from the council?

So moved.

Councilor Najine.

Second.

Council Martell.

Any discussion?

Questions from Council?

Public comment?

Back to Council.

Anything further?

No.

Madam Clerk.

Council from Ward 6?

Yes.

Ward 7?

Yes.

Ward 1?

Yes.

Word 2?

Yes.

Word 3?

Yes.

Word 4?

Yes.

Ward 5.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of 7 to 0.

Thank you.

Item number 13.

Item 13.

Public hearing for approval of an outdoor entertainment permit for the Arise Lewiston event.

Requested action to conduct a public hearing on an application for an outdoor entertainment event for the arise Lewiston event and to grant a permit for an outdoor entertainment event as required by the City Code of Ordinances.

Chapter 10, Article 1, Section 10 3 to the Prayer Reform Net Organization for outdoor music concerts for the Arise Lewiston event to be held at Kennedy Park on July 18th.

Contingent upon positive recommendations from the police department, fire department, code health officer, and land use inspector regarding compliance with all regulations and compliance with all city ordinances.

Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Councillor Martell.

Second.

Councilor Najene.

Comments, questions from the council.

I do, Madam Clerk, and I hate to do this in public, but there are bathroom facilities at Kennedy Park.

Our application continues to point out that there are none, and we've spent a significant amount of money to get those installed and operational.

Yes.

So the uh city administration maintains that application and they can update that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else from council?

Public comment?

Oh, I'm sorry, Council Najine.

I did not see your hand.

I I think the point on the public bathroom, uh, just to mention is that the amount of people that they expect to attend versus the amount of porta potties presented has to match, right?

So like I I still think based on the amount of, you know, if you have you have an event that you expect 400 people to show up at, you need more than one one bathroom.

Well that's true.

Uh that's true, but the the application says there are no public facilities, no bathroom facilities at city parks, and that's not true.

Gotcha.

Uh public comment.

Seeing none back to the council.

Any questions?

Counselor Longsham?

No.

No questions.

All right.

Madam Clerk.

Council from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Word two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

On to item number fourteen.

Item 14.

Public hearing for approval of an outdoor entertainment permit for outreach in the park event.

Requested action to conduct a public hearing on an application for an outdoor entertainment event for the outreach in the park event and to grant a permit for an outdoor entertainment event as required by the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 10, Article 1, Section 10-3, to the first universe United Pentecostal Church of Lewiston for outdoor music concerts for the outreach in the park event to be held at Kennedy Park on July 25th and August 22nd.

Contingent upon positive recommendations from the police department, fire department, code health officer, and land use inspector regarding compliance with all regulations and compliance with all city ordinances, Madam Clerk.

Motion from the council.

So moved.

Councilor Najine.

Second.

Councilor Martell.

Any comments or questions?

Public comment.

Back to Council.

Madam Clerk.

Council from Ward 6.

Oh, that's me, yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Ward three?

Yes.

Ward four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you.

We're making good progress here.

Agenda item number 15.

Item 15.

Public hearing and final passage regarding an amendment to the parks and recreation ordinance to add access times for the South Lewiston Little League fields.

Requested action that the proposed amendment to the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 54, Parks and Recreation to add an access time for the South Lewiston Little League field receive final passage by a roll call vote.

Motion.

So moved.

Council Najine.

Second.

Council Longsham.

Thank you.

Discussion.

Public comment.

Council.

I do have a questi uh Counselor Harriman.

I was just going to point out that Director Welch is here.

I didn't know if she had anything to add.

I see you, Director Welch.

Do you have something you'd like to share with us?

I do not.

I would just make myself available in case there's any questions.

Thank you.

I should have recognized that initially.

Councillor Najine.

So we probably want to send her home as quick as possible.

That that I bet she'd appreciate that.

I do want to point out this is second reading.

What's the situation with the pickleball courts?

We we haven't had any.

Will there will there be an upcoming agenda item on that?

Uh we don't have one planned right now.

Um we have put temporary signs up of the pickleball courts.

Uh I talked to Deputy Director Bates, so we have some permanent signs going up, hopefully in the next week or so.

Um we have not received any phone calls of concern as a recreation department, and Deputy Director Bates said the same thing.

She has not heard any concerns that have been reported to our departments.

Um right now we're just kind of seeing how it plays out, and then hopefully we can get more information and make a decision in a recommendation again towards the fall.

Thank you, Director.

I appreciate that very much.

And else from the council.

Madam Clerk?

Council from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Word two?

Yes.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion pass the vote of seven to zero.

On to item number sixteen.

Item 16, public hearing and first passage to establish the residential rental properties ordinance and moving the rental registration section into this new ordinance.

Requested action that a new ordinance be created in the city code of ordinances designated as Chapter 23 entitled Residential Rental Properties, and that the proposed amendment to the residential rental properties ordinance to add the code language regarding the rental registration program received first passage by a roll call vote and to continue the public hearing to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

Motion?

So moved.

Second, Councilor Martell.

Comments or questions from Council.

Public comment, public hearing.

Anyone care to weigh in on this?

Back to council.

Councillor Najene.

Uh agenda items 16 and 17 are tied together, correct?

Correct.

Can we accept uh can we work through both of these together?

Is that possible?

Um they are two separate ordinances, and one is adding and one is removing, but it's two separate ordinances.

Okay, no worries.

Thanks.

Thanks.

So for one brief moment in time, we are going to have duplicate ordinances on the books.

Is that correct?

Correct.

All right, thank you.

Let's let's make it very quick so that we don't have this problem.

Anything else from the council?

Madam Clerk.

Council from Ward 6.

Yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Ward three?

Yes.

Ward four?

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you.

I want to move on to item 17, which will fix the problem that we now have two ordinances saying exactly the same thing.

17.

Public hearing and first passage to remove the rental registration section from the buildings and building regulations ordinance.

Requested action that the proposed amendment to the city code of ordinances, chapter 18, buildings and building regulations, Article 6, registration requirement for multifamily buildings regarding removal of language pertaining to the rental registration program.

Receive first passage by roll call vote and to continue the public hearing to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

Motion.

So moved.

Second.

Council Najine, Councilor Martell.

Any comments?

Public comment.

Council.

Madam Clerk.

Council from Ward 6.

Yes.

Ward 7?

Yes.

Ward 1.

Yes.

Ward 2?

Yes.

Ward 3?

Yes.

Ward 4.

Yes.

Ward 5.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of 7 to 0.

Thank you very much.

Phew.

That was a relief.

We got rid of that problem.

Item number 6 18.

Item 18.

Public hearing and first passage regarding an amendment to the amusements and entertainment ordinance to eliminate the requirement for a public hearing for outdoor entertainment permits and to authorize staff to issue these permits.

Requested action that the proposed amendment to the city code of ordinances chapter 10 amusements and entertainment to remove the requirement for a public hearing for an outdoor entertainment permit and to authorize city staff to issue these permits.

Receive first passage by a roll call vote and to continue the public hearing to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

Motion?

So moved.

Councillor Najine.

Counselor Longshamp.

Any discussion?

Councilor Nejine.

Just really briefly.

Based on the positive recommendation of the departments required would be shall issue.

Is that correct?

Yes, we will we won't issue that until they have the sign-off.

Right.

But ultimately, are there conditions in which a permit could be denied?

And if so, is there a an appeals process for it?

That's all I just want to check.

Um there is an appeals process for a denial of a permit, but I don't know that we would um really um I mean we certainly work with the event organizers.

We meet with them if there are any concerns or obstacles, we try to work that through to resolve it for them so their event can be held.

Um I don't recall really any denials.

Um they may um have some concerns initially, but again, uh the department will work with the event organizers to figure out a solution before the event.

And in that appeals process sits with staff as well.

There is an appeals process, it's part of our park policy use.

Um they have an opportunity to appeal to the city administrator or his designee, and then if they don't like that, they can also appeal to Superior Court.

It's in our park policy.

There's already a perfect process.

Thank you.

Anything else from council?

Um I asked for this as part of a uh uh a method of streamlining our council meetings.

Um I I cannot think of a special entertainment permit that the council has ever denied.

Um, and it seems to me that this is perfectly suited to a staff function.

I am told that this actually lighten the load on staff because you no longer have to prepare agenda items and put together the information for the council to say yes.

So uh this is a win-win all the way around, I I view.

I will open this up to public comment.

Come on, somebody want to say something?

No.

All right, back to the council.

Counselor Martell.

No, I'm just wondering right trying to slow down this well-moving meeting.

Uh nothing else from council.

All right, madam clerk.

Counselor from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Ward three?

Yes.

Ward four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed with vote of seven to zero.

Agenda item number nineteen.

Item 19, public hearing and first passage regarding an amendment to the business licensing ordinance to remove the list of city parks and refer to the parks and recreation ordinance.

Requested action that the proposed amendment to the city code of ordinances, chapter 22 businesses, section 22-422 definitions to remove the list of city parks, receive first passage by a roll call vote, and to continue the public hearing to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

Motion.

So moved.

Councilor Nagyen.

Second.

Councilor Martell.

Comments from the council?

Questions from the council?

Public comment.

Back to council.

I don't see any.

Madam Clerk, please call a roll.

Council from Ward 6?

Yes.

Ward seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

Yes.

Ward two?

Yes.

Ward three?

Yes.

Ward four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Uh agenda item number twenty.

Item twenty.

Public hearing and first passage for an amendment to the zoning and land use code.

Article 11, district regulations for changes to the no-name pond conservation overlay district to require require soil distribution within buffers to follow main DEP requirements.

Requested action that the proposed amendments to appendix A of the Code of Ordinances zoning and land use code, Article 11, district regulations for changes to the no-name pond conservation overlay district to require disturbance of buffers to follow DEP regular requirements.

Receive first passage by a roll call vote and to continue the public hearing to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

Motion so moved.

Second.

Council Martell, followed by Councillor Najine.

Any questions from Council Director Connor?

I'm merely here to answer any questions, but just to quickly summarize uh if you guys all recall, uh, this item was brought before the planning board.

They made a recommendation, it came before the council.

The council heard it a few times, made some uh recommendations of their own, went back to the planning board.

The planning board heard it and uh voted on it uh with a 7-0 uh in the affirmative, and it's bringing back to uh the council for your action tonight.

Thank you, Director.

I see the chair of the planning board here.

Um a seven zero vote on the planning board is somewhat of an anomaly.

Is that correct?

I I I would I would agree with that, yes.

Thank you.

Hi, Shannon Cox Ward 3, also planning board chair.

Um, we uh if I could amend or add to what Director Connor said, um we spent a fair bit of time deliberating this.

I think we counted like four different public hearings.

There are some very engaged residents from the no-name pond area who have come to every single one of those, even when there wasn't a public comment.

Um a good chunk of the recommendations, in fact, everything that we recommended to council was rejected, and we received what you are voting on tonight.

We considered that we approved that, and we are reviewing additional language that we will bring bringing forward to council with a new recommendation at a future date.

I think we found ourselves in a both and instead of an either-or situation.

I think that this language provided a certain level of clarity, but the request that planning board originally received was to provide clarity of intent and interpretation for staff to be able to apply, and while this the recommendation that city council made strengthened the actual ordinance itself for water protection for no name pond, which was not the request we had originally been made, it didn't actually clarify the the issues of intent in the original area.

So we support that, which is in front of you tonight, but we look forward to bringing forward something that does that which we were originally requested as well.

Thank you, madam chair.

I appreciate your attention to detail.

Yeah.

Uh Council Roy.

Thank you.

President Tutum.

Um the questions that I had was I knew uh in a couple of meetings, we had a lot of residents that came in and kind of have we worked with them to make sure like they're pretty okay with us because I they brought up some good arguments and some good stuff.

I'll take a first run at that, but the they that has worked with them has really been staffed from the the code and planning department.

I'd like to say um we also use a three-minute timer and we're pretty thoughtful about how we apply public comment.

And even in in times when public comment has been closed and there's back and forth exchange.

Um we also did the same thing with council president Chitham.

Um, we really do want to have a dialogue.

We want to understand the concerns of folks, and that's why we quite frankly saw the same agenda item so many times.

We really did want to make sure we understood what the concerns were for staff and what lack of clarity when there isn't clear intent in the way the ordinance should be applied, and it's it's not an area that gets developed very often, so there's not many times to test the intent and how to apply it.

Essentially holds up somebody's permit and their ability to develop the property that they've bought with the intent to put a house on it, and if we want to continue to be friendly towards businesses and to residents and have good customer service, we want that to not be a problem in the future.

So for us, that was part of why, while supporting tonight's language, we are bringing forward hopefully something at a future point.

Um, but what I can say is I witnessed in each of those conversations that the folks in the audience, while not always feeling like they maybe were getting the the outcome that they wanted exactly the way they wanted it, they always felt heard.

They always contributed.

There was a lot of information that they would share or that staff would relay to us that they had provided.

Um, and they always informed our discussions.

I'll let Director Connor speak to the rest of it because I know that staff was really engaged with the residents.

Thank you, uh, Madam Chair.

In answer to your question, Council Roy, yes.

We we've been in contact, close contact, I would say, with with all parties involved, from the realtor of the sale to the the abutter to the property owner.

Any other questions, comments from the council?

Uh this was sort of a hybrid public comment.

I did not formally open a public comment.

Does anyone wish to weigh in on this issue?

Seeing none, I will bring it back to the council for any additional questions or concerns.

Seeing none, madam clerk.

Council from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Word one?

Yes.

Word two?

Yes.

Word three.

Yes.

Word four.

Yes.

Ward five.

Yes.

Motion passed by vote of seven to zero.

Uh thank you.

That's first reading.

I assume we'll have second reading on this ordinance change on July 21st.

Yes.

Thank you, ma'am.

Agenda item number 21.

Item 21 order authorizing the city administrator to execute a credit enhanced enhancement agreement for Martell School Apartments phase three.

Requested action to adopt the order authorizing the city administrator to execute a credit enhancement agreement for Martell School Apartments phase three.

So moved.

Motion from Councillor Harriman.

Second.

Second from Councillor Najin.

I'm going to open it up now to you, gentlemen.

Would you identify yourselves and take it away, please?

Sure.

John Blaze Acting Director for Economic and Community Development.

And we've got Pen Pen Lindsay here from Lewiston Housing Authority.

A lot of the information is the same, but requirements for a TIFF requires a public notice, and this information needs to be provided in a public setting.

So go ahead, I'll go ahead, Patton.

You can start.

Thanks, John.

And thank you all for having us here tonight.

We appreciate it.

Nice to see you all again.

What I'm before you tonight to request is a credit enhancement agreement for Martell Phase 3.

There is already a TIFF district.

So really this is just the credit enhancement agreement for the third phase of the project.

As you know, the council was supportive of uh TIFF CEAs in that TIFF district for both phases one and two.

Phase three will be an additional 44 units of senior housing, uh, very similar to phase one and phase two, which were also 44 units apiece.

Uh they were all one bedrooms.

Phase three will also be all one bedroom apartments.

Um restricted to uh residents age 55 and above, uh, as with phase one and phase two.

Um what you're seeing on the screen is an early um rendering of the phase proposed phase three building.

Um it will be separate from phase one and two.

Phase one and two uh connect to one another, and phase three will be independent of those two, but we'll be on the same site, and they will act sort of interchangeably from a community standpoint on the parcel.

Um above is the proposed site plan.

You can see where I'm where I'm referring to phase one is in white, phase two is in yellow, and phase three is in blue.

I'd love to talk a little bit about the current housing need um in Lewis, so I'm not sure why the graphic isn't completely showing up on this slide.

Um, but Lewis and Housing maintains um multiple waiting lists.

One is our public housing waiting list, and uh another is our housing choice voucher waiting list.

These are uh residents that are looking for um housing with some form of assistance.

And as you can see from the slide, there are a hundred and uh sorry, one thousand six hundred and seventy-seven applications right now on the public housing waiting list and one thousand four hundred and fifty-six.

Um what you can't see in the graphic is that um uh ninety percent of those uh that are looking for housing on the public housing waiting list are looking for one and two bedroom apartments, and uh 73 percent on the uh housing choice voucher waiting list are looking for one and two bedroom apartments.

So that's exactly what Martell Phase Three is aiming to provide.

Uh a little bit about affordable housing development impacts.

Um we um we asked our contractor on Wedgewood, Hubert Construction to provide some information on jobs that were created with the Wedgewood project.

Um on a project that had 40 million dollar budget, uh 347 workers were um employed on that job.

You know, if you take the full-time jobs created based on sort of 2,000 hours annually, that would be uh almost 60 jobs just during the construction phase, um full-time jobs, and they also gave us uh similar um projects for uh non-LHA project that Hebert did in town, that's the Trinity Jubilee project.

Um much smaller project, four million dollar budget, created eight point six uh full-time jobs during the construction period.

We also have a um study by the council of large public housing authorities, which talks about um one million for every one million dollars spent on capital investments, one point eight million dollars is generated in economic activity over time.

And so for that reason, we want to make clear that what we're what we're providing here is a long-term benefit, a long-term economic driver for the city of Lewiston.

Uh, this is just a summary slide here.

Um, what that would translate for Martell phase three.

Um, you know, long over time there will be um property management staff, uh, maintenance staff that are employed by the property, um, you know, at a budget of 17 million dollars using some of the metrics we discussed in the previous slide.

That's 187 full-time jobs created during the construction period.

One of the things I really want to uh focus on here is that uh while Martell phase one and phase two are already um awarded tax credits by main housing, Martell three is the application is being submitted in September.

Um Maine Housing feels very strongly about um the property tax relief that is provided by the municipalities in which these projects are being proposed.

Um for a TIFF at 75 percent for at least 15 years, which is what we are requesting, that would be two additional points in our application to main housing.

And as I'll talk about on a um on a slide coming up, the difference between one or two additional points is a make or make or break.

So here um last year's round, the 20 that we're applying for the 2027 round in the 2026 round, which was last year's round, main housing received 15 applications, and they were able to fund 40 percent of those.

Uh the average uh funded score was a 69.

The average overall score was a 67.

So you can see how the the point grouping is really tight, and so this TIFF really makes a difference from a scoring standpoint with our application.

I think this is probably the most important slide, which is the the true economic benefit of the TIFF.

So what you can see from this slide is that um the total development costs in this project is just uh under 17 million dollars.

Um with some soft costs and financing costs.

There are a number of sources of funds in this deal.

So by having low-income housing tax credits, that's bringing in just about 9.6 million dollars in equity.

Uh main housing is providing uh over three million dollars in straight subsidy, that's zero percent deferred debt.

Uh, and then this project can also support another three point five million dollars in interest paying debt.

Um without the TIFF, we would have a $754,000 gap in our sources.

Um with the TIFF, that $700 that TIFF provides the $754, balances our sources and uses, and allows the project to move forward.

And just just to add a little bit more to that, the uh the performer that was in your packet identifies that 754,000 uh dollars that's identified as as a need uh to generate this project is in the the actual um pro forma that's in the in your packet.

So um I know that some counselors like to see all the numbers.

Uh again, we've included all of those, um, but that that's the critical piece that gets this project uh to hit the go button.

So thank you, gentlemen.

Identifies that 754,000 uh dollars that's identified as as a need uh to generate this project um is in the the actual um pro forma that's in the in your packet so um I know that some counselors like to see all the numbers uh again we've included all of those um but that that's the critical piece that gets this project to to hit the go button so thank you gentlemen questions these uh TIFF terms are identical to the ones in Martell 1 and 2 is that correct yes that's correct public comment before you start we're moving this meeting right along very quickly if you wish to make public comment on an item please prepare yourself by standing behind the podium and I will recognize you immediately thank you Matthew Agron Ward 4 can I ask you guys to please hold off giving this TIFF until we actually see construction of Martel 1 and Martel 2 start how many times have they come before us and promised we're starting today we're starting tomorrow let's not give them another TIFF until they've actually started construction because we've been told over a year that they've gonna start construction this is a system that has not worked we should reclaim the property and sell it off and let somebody else build it at this point I don't truly believe that they're gonna build anything because they keep telling us they're going to build they're going to build so let's hold off giving them this TIFF until we actually see them build something thank you anyone else care to weigh in back to council counselor Najine um thank you council president just just to verify there there is a difference between the the Martel 1 and 2 TIFS and this TIFF I believe Martel 1 and 2 are 30 years and this is for 22 am I correct on that?

Yes I was I was referring to the percentage at 75% but this is a shorter tip window.

I also just wanted to check just looking at the like the little blueprint right looks like there's some parking there that was originally proposed to be some commercial property is that because you haven't worked through the development plan in order to do something or you actually need that parking the the phase three project uh has its own parking um which is separate from the parcel which uh would be potential commercial in the future okay so that that's still a potentiality out there and anything that um was proposed would would come back before the and anything that's commercial pays a hundred percent tax unless you ask for a specific tip or yeah that's correct it's outside the TIFF district thank you other questions seeing none madam clerk counselor from word six yes word seven yes one yes word two yes word three yes word four yes word five yes motion pass by vote of seven to zero thank you all uh item number twenty two thank you gentlemen Mr.

Lindsay Director order approving the letter of intent with echo hospitality consultants requested action to approve the order the city administrator is authorized to execute a letter of intent with echo hospitality consultants I have a motion so moved counselor Martell second counselor nagen any questions uh director I'll let you kick it off um I'm just gonna bring up a uh slide presentation that we prepared um I I do know um first of all I'd like to um welcome Chris Thompson uh from hospitality eco hospitality um he's gonna help present he's one of the uh investors on this project um we will we will present a PowerPoint presentation I do know that there's been a lot of public um input in terms of emails that the council has received um I just want to um start off the conversation you know that I'd like to acknowledge uh the thoughtful comments received regarding the the um the letter of intent with eco hospitality consultants um we have heard residents expressing strong desire to preserve the red shop and ensuring that any decision reflects long-term interests of the community um the city shares that same goal um as you'll see in the presentation tonight and this we want to be stewards of this public access asset um staff recommends uh right up front the approval letter um in the letter of intent tonight but offers a condition that one community conversation um be held before the finalized uh public hearing process um on the items are discussed tonight to make sure that public input is heard is considered um and then that we have a strategic economic development project that will drive tax base in the city so uh you know um I do have additional information but I and I

Staff recommends right up front the approval letter in the letter of intent tonight, but offers a condition that one community conversation be held before the finalized public hearing process on the items are discussed tonight to make sure that public input is heard, is considered, and then that we have a strategic economic development project that will drive tax base in the city.

So you know I do have additional information, but I and I I just wanted to reiterate that at the beginning here.

Um we're not we're not uh approving anything tonight.

We are just really specifically looking at the letter of intent for us to work through these specific items that we'll we'll cover in the in the uh PowerPoint presentation.

But um I just want the public to know that we heard what they were saying, we understand what they were saying, and that uh we really want to offer and Chris has already come out and said this that we want to offer a community conversation, we want to have an open conversation, more of a not a formal workshop with the council, but something that we can do, like we do a planning event, um, like if we're working on a comp plan.

Um, these are some of the things that you know, as a trained planner and engineer, we would have uh workshop or community conversations.

We'd work through some of these issues, try to identify identify them up front, make sure that this is the public's being heard, and then as we present the JDA, the the credit enhancement agreement, the TIFFs that we're talking about, the land transfer of the red shop with a parking lot, um, and the expansion of the parking garage agreement.

Um, all these items are kind of vetted out front.

I just I I want to be clear about that.

Um this is an important project uh to Lewiston uh and to our community.

I think this is our best step forward.

Um we've heard other proposals, the council has heard other proposals, but I just want to make sure that we I would like for this to be approved with the you know with the intent of of having a community conversation.

So it uh started with that.

Um, I'll get into the slides.

Um the letter of intent overview um really what it includes is the uh red shop purchase and redevelopment.

Um it includes um some guidelines for a TIFF, uh a JDA, a CEA for the red shop, and the hotel expansion, um, Semain uh Sumard Pain Park uh concert series, um, an abutting parcel purchase for hotel expansion at 39 Lincoln Street, and then a parking garage agreement.

Um Red Shop development really is the acquisition and the renovation of the red shop, uh historic building uh down in Samarit Pain Park.

Um this if I can point to it, um, it's really this this box right here.

I know it's a little bit hard to see.

Um this is the adjacent um hotel area.

This would kind of would be the expansion area, this would be the area for the concert.

So everything kind of melts together, and obviously we have the parking uh the parking lot just across the street, the Lincoln Street parking lot.

Um what they have agreed upon is about a $305,000 uh purchase uh price.

Obviously, they would want to do their due diligence on the project, uh, making sure you know the ownership and everything that's there, any environmental concerns.

Um they would want to do, you know, potentially a phase one uh boundary surveys, anything that you would do when you're you know lending uh you know, borrowing money to do a project, um they would probably want to do that and follow that process.

Um that process would be laid out in a purchase and sale agreement in that time period, it's it could be up to a year or more to do that work.

Um we want to continue the partnership with a potential uh winter winter boat storage with the rowing uh team and the with the rowing organization that's here.

Um the city um has uh inserted protections and prior investments.

Um and what that means is that um in the event that the they don't move forward, um whatever the market price uh is at that time or appraised value, or the total if the developer is put some substantial monies investment into the building.

Um they the city would have the opportunity to buy that back, whichever is cheaper.

So whatever um avenue is cheaper, um that would be the uh that's basically the baseline for the red shop.

Um hotel expansion and adjacent development, um hospitality growth.

There's a lot of vacant, uh there's not a lot of vacancy uh in this area.

Um Chris can talk a little bit more on that.

Obviously, they see this as something that's required for you know either an expansion or a sec second hotel.

Um the adjacent development is the 39 Lincoln Street.

This goes back to a 4.9 uh acre um agreement that was in the 2011 uh JDA that had expired.

They really want to just reactivate that that joint development agreement that was done way back then.

Um they want to uh in addition uh utilize some miss mixed use uh activation and then parking.

Um they want to expand the parking.

Currently, right now there's 15 allocated spots in the linking parking garage that the uh agreement has signed based on the need on the ordinance requirements and things like that for the expansion and what what Chris's team is gonna need.

Um we'd be looking at additional uh required parking and the Lincoln Street parking garage.

Um there was some public concern about the uh parking lot capacity.

Um right now we're running um we're running about 60 percent vacancy, so we have a lot of capacity right now.

Um overall, we're running um citywide, we're running about 50 percent or between 42 and 50 percent, depending on the numbers that you get.

But we we just did this analysis not too long ago when we did the parking uh the parking study.

Um moving on to the next slide.

Um I'm gonna turn this over uh to Chris.

This is uh this is the existing plan, but I'm gonna move to the quickly to the next slide, and then kind of what uh what Chris envisions.

This is what he had submitted to me, but I'll turn it over to him for any any detail.

Thank you, John, and thank you all for your time and consideration tonight.

And speaking of the microphone.

Is that better?

Okay, thank you.

Um, thank you, John, and and thank you all um members of the council and members of the public um and city staff for your time and consideration tonight.

Um, so just going back a few years, um, we began work on this project in I think it was 2009, 2010, with then economic development director um Link Jeffers and Phil Neto.

Um, this was right after the city had finalized the original Riverfront Island Master Plan that had wanted a hotel downtown on the river as part of the um thinking behind that project.

And when we started our conversations, you know, Lincoln was quick to say we can put the hotel wherever you want it.

We said no, no, we think where you have it, which is right where it is today, is a great spot.

We think the park is an amazing amenity, and we're excited to be part of helping to realize this vision that the city and members of the public put a lot of time and energy uh into uh bringing to reality.

So we have viewed this project really as part of you know a decades-long commitment to the city of Lewiston.

I you know, grew up in Lewiston Auburn.

Um, this is um, you know, a project that we've done lots of projects all over New England, but this one I'm particularly proud of, not least because it took um a plan and how often is it the case that what's put on paper in a plan and what actually gets built at the end of the day are the same thing.

It's often not the case.

We were very excited to say no, let's do exactly what you all wanted to see happen.

A big part of that for us was believing in the future possibilities that the balloon festival had been happening for some time.

Um there's since gone on to be an amazing amount of programming in the park that I think is very exciting, and there's lots more.

I think that could be done.

We do a lot of that work at Thompson's Point, which is a project that my team and I um developed also going back to 2009-10.

That's a big part of what we do.

We do a lot that's free and open to the public, um, food trucks, local musicians, local artists makers.

That's a big part of who we are and what we do, and I think there's a lot of potential to do more of that in the park here.

We had looked at the red shop, Lincoln Jeffers and I when we first walked the site back when it was a you know vacant lot.

And I said, Lincoln, what is that red building sitting on the corner of the canal?

And he said, geez, I don't know.

But this was back when the city was in the early stages of talks to acquire the canal rights from then.

I think it was Next Air Energy or FPL.

And Lincoln said, if we do in fact consummate that deal, we'll own that red building.

And I said, Well, if that happens, I'd like to have the opportunity in our joint development agreement to be able to develop that.

We'll do all of the work, we'll put in all of the money.

We'd lease it for a dollar, and we would proceed with that, you know, with that vision.

That was written into the joint development agreement.

Um that that the JDA, to my knowledge, still is in effect.

The one piece of it that did expire.

We had a horizon on how many, you know, years after we opened the Hampton Inn, we had to begin work on the Red Show.

So we opened the Hampton Inn in 2014.

We spent you know five or so years getting it up and stabilized, and then began to dig into the red shop.

Um COVID hit.

Um and I reached out to Lincoln one day in I think it was spring or summer of 2020 and said, hey, you know, we've been working on the Red Shop, we'd love to with our masks on, get together and start talking about how we can bring this to life.

And he said, That sounds great.

That was always the vision of you know, our agreement.

And as he started digging in, he said, Well, geez, I think we missed our moment.

Um, the red shop piece of the JDA expired literally weeks before.

So, you know, that's that's on us as the developer for missing that window.

Um, but I said we're committed to seeing this happen, and our desire to see that uh unfold remains unchanged.

So, anyway, here we are today.

Um we're excited about the idea of taking that resource and figuring out how to do what the city and its residents would like to see.

We don't do projects that we don't um look back and feel pride at having done.

We've never done one.

Um we've never done a project that you know the city and its residents weren't happy with, so we'd be eager to have these kinds of conversations to see how the vision that we have.

Um I met with um Amy Smith, it was a long time ago now, but we had conversations about perhaps there are ways to make these two things happen in a way that could be compatible.

I think what her program has done with rowing, regatta.

I mean, it's really an amazing benefit to the community, and I see no reason why what we envision that building doing, which is being a hub for programming in the park.

Um, the park is an amazing asset.

I mean, I don't need to tell you know the council or or um residents of the city what a great asset that is.

It's incredible.

Um, we'd be delighted to be a small, a medium or a large part of seeing that get programmed more actively.

Part of that would be, in our view, taking the red shop, which is an extraordinary you know, timber frame building.

It's a really beautiful little building that should be turned into something exciting, interesting, and it's positioned to be able to do that to serve you know public benefits, to be able to support additional live music programming in the park, etc.

So that's what we would like to see happen.

Our vision is to renovate it initially as a seasonal building that would support you know, Memorial Day through Labor Day, basically programming in the park, existing programming where it makes sense, and then creating new programming as well.

We've had a couple of conversations with potential food and beverage partners, local partners who we could work with to bring that to life, and that would be our goal.

Um the other piece of this project uh in the park is the creation of a partnership to be able to bring seasonal um concerts, you know, live music, nationally touring acts to the park.

Our concert partners at Thompson's Point are interested.

We walked the site with them way back when Lincoln Jeffers, um, Mary Ann, um, Amy Smith, a number of others came to Thompson's Point several years back to see our operation there, how backstage worked, how we could potentially take those pieces and bring them seasonally to the park.

So it's been a long-standing conversation that we're you know continuing to stand behind doing our part to bring it to reality.

Um, thought is that initially that series would probably like at Thompson's Point, which is now grown to be a you know substantial series with you know anywhere from 18 to 22 um nationally touring acts of summer.

We started with two, I think our first season.

So our goal would be to you know start with a modest number, make sure everybody's happy with what we're doing, make sure that the city and members of the public feel like this is actually a benefit.

Um that's how we've always programmed at Thompson's Point.

We build um a series that fits the neighborhood.

You know, we say no to more acts than we say yes to because we want you know um artists who are gonna be um you know good team players with a community who respect noise ordinances, all that kind of thing.

So that's what we would envision doing here with a concert piece.

And then last um, but in our mind certainly not least is the expansion of the the Hampton Inn um hotel, either with additional rooms that are part of that um building.

We're still assessing whether it makes more sense to do that or to have a separate building um adjacent to it on the land that we acquired from Rebecca Frangis um after we had closed on the land with the city and started the Hampton Inn, we bought the parcels next door, really uh up to an abutting the city parcel that's right next to Atlas.

So our thought is either to utilize those for a single new footprint or potentially two new footprints, one that could be potential mixed use ground floor, you know, residential or small office suites above.

Um we're still assessing how we do all of that on that piece of land, um, or we can join them and have one larger footprint.

So that's our goal in our um plan, and um thank you for your time.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Thompson, for that presentation.

Appreciate it.

Uh Counselor Longsham.

Thank you, Councilor Chittam.

Um would you anticipate this project starting if you were if we approved it?

Um Mr.

Blaze said we have some diligence still to do.

Um I think we will need probably substantially all of 2027 for both the red shop and the hotel footprint to really figure out exactly you know um what the nature of the building program is.

Um but I'd love for us to be able to get started late 2027 or early 2028 with construction.

I think it's important to note that um each of these items that we discussed um would be broken up and brought back to council.

So I think we would we would come back with the the red chart purchase and sale and the land purchase and sale, um, and then we'd come back for the TIF request, um, the parking amendment.

I think again um requiring additional uh public input at that time, and we'd have the specifics laid out.

Um and you know, each time we're gonna report um the findings of you know what what they had, what what we had to overcome to be you know to get the project there, and the timing of that would be all laid out at that particular moment for each of those phases of of the projects.

I look at these as separate individual projects.

This LOI is really just uh kind of an overview of all the projects that are inside of this one thing, and we really want to kind of make sure that though kind of all those are are kind of together that pushes a really good overall project, but we'll be back on each on each project.

Thank you.

So basically 2028.

Yeah.

Um I am happy to hear um that you were talking about the the rowing team.

I think you know, uh, for lots of reasons, they're very passionate about that.

Um I have heard about this project for say I first heard of it from Lincoln Jeffers probably about four years ago.

Um so um I don't think anyone uh is really thrown off by what uh is here today.

Um I would like to see from what I've heard the concern uh with the rowing team was or some of the concern um was storage, storing their um rowing equipment.

And if this isn't gonna start until 2020, uh if we do approve it, I would hope that um they could continue to be there in some sort of partnership.

I I don't know how that would look, nor will I try to suggest anything, but I am glad that uh you have mentioned them.

And I I look forward to the project.

Um it is a beautiful place, and again, um this is not something that I'm I'm just now hearing about.

Thank you.

Yeah, Councillor Lounge, if I if you could I add go ahead.

Um we did we did talk to the you know the the crew and the rowing team uh about about that um the storage and then specifically we had an idea that and we actually walked down the site, we had an idea that we could do um individual readiness training for the uh main Army National Guard.

I've got connections there as the when I was the former master planner of the guard.

Um we could do an IRT project there and build them uh you know, a modest structure um using some of the the TIFF funds that we had.

Um I would say though we haven't gotten uh uh uh a definite yes, I think maybe they may be still open to that, but I think I didn't get um uh really affirmative feedback that we would this would be something that we take back to council.

But we would certainly be open to that as staff and something that I would spearhead.

Um I'm a big advocate of rowing.

Um you know, I love canoeing, I'm an outdoor guy, that's kind of my wheelhouse.

Um I would love to see uh you know a structure built that can accommodate them.

And um I think we could utilize, you know, I'm just forward thinking and and talking out loud, but I think we could utilize TIFF monies for a little project for the guard to come to do individual training.

There's this engineering units in the state, and we could request that as a project that and that's something that I'm willing to spearhead.

So thank you.

Thank you for thinking on that.

Counselor Harman.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Can you email these slides to us?

And then um because this is the first I've seen them and they weren't in the agenda packet.

Um there's also the letter of intent also references an exhibit A and an exhibit B that I didn't see in there.

Do you have those as well?

Um I I do have them.

That's something I can share with the council.

Okay.

I'd appreciate that because I I have to keep bringing this up.

It's a continued frustration of mind that we don't get the material before we're supposed to make the decision.

And it's really difficult to do our jobs.

Councilor Martel.

Thank you, Council President.

Um thank you for your presentation again tonight.

I'm very excited about this project.

Uh I look forward to the economic development and the the money in the the commerce that I think that it'll bring.

Um I am glad to hear that you're willing to work with uh the row team that's in the in there now.

I don't think it would be fair to require uh or encumber the deal and the investment in order to demand that you continue to leave space or whatever, but I think it's good that you're you're you're looking into that.

Uh you said that we're looking at maybe 2028 before like a groundbreaking or anything close to that, right?

So I'm just posturing uh maybe like a worst case scenario.

If there wasn't able to be a deal worked out where both of those entities could could stay in that spot, would you be okay with them remaining in that space until we got further down the line doing what they're doing there, which would allow that to continue, but also allow them to look for other alternatives in the next year and a half, two years.

Um that that would allow for that and allow for a little bit of flexibility on on their part.

Yes, absolutely.

Oh I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Uh Councillor Najane.

Uh thank you.

Uh Council President Chitham.

I this is not uh to you as the developer, this is more to just staff in general as the process.

Um I was made aware that uh the planning board had uh turned down the the possibility of the had voted zero uh zero to seven in support of selling this property unless they could be uh introduced to an executive session discussion, which didn't happen.

Um and so um I think that's somewhat problematic as far as our processes are concerned.

The comp plan and all of our uh large development plans sit with um uh the planning board and and and the planning department.

And so um while council does have the ability to say, yeah, uh we're going to not um uh uh adhere to the planning board's opinions.

I mean it it's just a little bit problematic the process, and that's why I wanted to name that.

We've met multiple times over multiple years over both of the rent plans.

Um and they were collaborative uh through these processes.

I have no problem uh with this JDF C I I've seen it before.

Um but the public seeing it now for the first time.

And so uh having possibly a workshop before we're asked to accept uh a JDA, I think is important.

It the I have uh quite a few residents that are reaching out about the 75% TIFF and they don't understand it, and it would be good to be able to explain that out like in a process.

I have no problem uh with this JDA I've seen I I've seen it before um but the public seeing it now for the first time and so uh having possibly a workshop before we're asked to accept uh a JDA I think is important it the I have uh quite a few residents that are reaching out about the 75 percent TIFF and they don't understand it and it would be good to be able to explain that out it like in a process I also think um based on the original agreement um the the red shop was to be rented right that's right and the change now is based on uh from my understanding and correct me if I'm if I'm wrong but it's the the um potential of um historic tax credits that you could then apply to that property it would when you when you put uh improvements in it am I correct there yes yeah um yeah I I think in all honesty this does absolutely match uh some of our goals uh with the rent plan it ties up the other side of the of the um the park uh and buttons it up in a nice way where you know if the Chinberg property is uh is complete uh we already have the the picker house there um the main mill is adding a huge uh uh um impact to the park and now um this makes the gateway functioning as an economic area um it one of the challenges that I just just to mention this like you the Lewiston farmers markets right down there right and and and we tried to purchase that property from the city and and and we're turned down um which we completely understand the the development that's going to happen around there is going to cause us to have to find a new home you know and I I think that's good uh for the economic vitality of the city to be completely honest um but I do think there are that there are some real challenges in the way we brought this forward as far as um this is a big development piece and and um I think that we really should have made sure that the planning board could have understood uh what was being put forward before it was put forward and also um a little bit more work with with our community partners who um many of them were involved in some of the planning processes for for uh the revised RIMP pro um plan so um that's just my my feedback on that um I I'm not quite sure like my question directly to you is if if you didn't uh if we approved a JDA tonight that excluded the red shop uh does that stop this process um like so basically if we put in uh uh something to say uh if the the sale of the red shop could go back to the planning board with with the full plan in front of them um for for another recommendation and also give the public a little bit more time to understand what this development agreement is because I do think this is a very big piece that makes the city um very attractive for other types of development that we want to see even though the idea of counselor yeah do you have a question in there?

Yeah well that was the question the good the question was if we approved tonight the JDA but but asked to uh revisit that one portion of the red shop um in like a month's time I'm not gonna speak for Chris but just a couple of things for clarification um it this is a letter of intent it's not a JDA we would be coming back for a JDA um and then um it's you know basically for process for the city um and I asked planning this specific question um you know about the notification because we did we did hear verbally that the planning you know planning board made a decision it was a seven and nothing vote and we and we didn't receive anything our department didn't receive anything in writing um so we didn't have any of the specifics on that but um you know customary recommendations from the planning board and the finance committee um that would be in the packet uh for the final disposition so that's when typically we would see that information so uh again I mentioned that we would be back uh for the sale of of the red shop in the disposition of that um and at that point that recommendation would be included understanding what you're saying counselor nej the the first part of our discussion was that we understood that there needed to be more you know uh you know public input and we would welcome the planning board to um a commute the community conversation that we're you're offering here and hopefully we could you know address your your specific concern thank you uh counselor Harriman I I would would you hold your question or comments until after we've had public comment these folks have been standing there very patiently were you finished Council Nee I just want to quick follow up please make it quick so uh the letter of intent informs the JDA correct it it it informs the JDA to work on the JDA it's not it it's not specific um there's no specifics in it um it doesn't have any legal binding uh entity to it um so it's not necessarily a legal a legal document so and as a former member of the planning board I would just say that they're not community

Please make it quick.

So the letter of intent informs the JDA, correct?

It informs the JDA to work on the JDA.

It's not it, it's not specific.

Um, there's no specifics in it.

Um, it doesn't have any legal binding uh entity to it.

Um, so it's not necessarily a legal, uh a legal documents.

And as a former member of the planning board, I would just say that they're not community members, they're appointed members of a board that has a functioning duty in the in the city.

Thank you, Counselor.

Uh Councilor Harman, would you be willing to wait until after public comment?

Um I'm not not really.

Right.

Please make it quick.

Um, I was also wondering why the planning board's recommendation wasn't provided to us because I um I realize that that's public information, but I don't necessarily follow every single decision that they make, and it's typically in our agenda packet, and I thought it was unusual that it's not in our agenda packet this time.

And I I was reminded of the fact that they did vote unanimously against this.

And I just wonder why that was not included in the information given to us.

Is there an answer to that question?

Perhaps uh the chair of the planning board can address that.

Um I would very much like to move to public comment.

Uh counselor Longshamp, you've you've been fairly patient too.

Yes, thank you.

Uh well, the conversation hasn't stopped up here yet.

We go to public comment after.

And we should never have asked them to stand up for 20 minutes.

They should be sitting and then asked them to stand up.

I'm just recognizing that.

Anything further from the council.

Can Director Connor answer the question that was asked by the council?

Please, Director Connor.

Thank you, uh Council President.

Um, in answer to uh Counselor Nade Jean's uh comment uh that that lies squarely on uh my department.

We uh we recognize that there was a failure from our staff to uh notify the council when the planning board did request a uh a joint executive session.

Uh we own that.

Uh the reason why it's not in the packet is because uh historically we normally submit our recommendations when the property's disposition is taking place, when the vote for the disposition is coming before the council, as this was just a letter of intent uh to begin the process moving forward.

Uh we we had planned to provide the planning board's recommendation with staff's memo at the time the disposition was to be voted on.

Uh so that's that's from the staff's uh point of view from where we're at tonight.

So that's why that's not in your packet tonight.

Um happy to answer any questions, but again, the the chair of the planning uh board is here as well to to help.

Councilor Nanjine.

Did you okay?

Great.

I'd like to go to public comment now.

I'm happy to answer any questions outside of my three minutes and prepared remarks.

Should anybody have them in in terms of my actual chair um role.

My name is Shannon Cox.

I'm a Lewis and resident taxpayer and chair of the planning board.

I appreciate the considerable work that the economic and community development department has invested in bringing this proposal forward, and I appreciate the desire for more community engagement that's been expressed tonight following the written comments received.

I support continued investment in Lewiston.

Additional hotel capacity, badly needed, expanded tourism, activation of our riverfront, and new opportunities for residents and visitors are all worthy goals and aligned with current plans.

The question before us tonight is not whether this project has merit.

It does.

The question before us is whether this project requires the public disposition of one of Lewiston's most unique public assets.

I do not believe that that case has been made.

The Red Shop is not simply another city-owned building.

It is located within Samard Payne Park, surrounded by publicly owned land, contains important public infrastructure, and occupies a unique place within one of Lewiston's signature civic spaces.

Decisions about its ownership will shape our community's ability to steward the riverfront for generations.

As both the planning board member and a Lewiston resident, I believe this decision deserves the highest level of public scrutiny.

The planning board unanimously concluded that we had not been provided sufficient information to determine whether permanent public disposition was in the city's long-term interest.

We weren't reject rejecting the redevelopment.

We were asking whether permanent disposition was necessary before making an irreversible decision.

Indeed, it was not necessary in the 2011 agreement or a lease was provided.

To deal with the input and the public opinion at the JDA is a short-sighted approach.

It is short-sighted to not provide that input prior to the stage that we're at now.

I don't believe that these questions have been answered.

A long-term ground lease or comparable public-private partnership could accomplish the same development objectives while preserving public ownership.

I've provided examples emailed to all of you earlier today of communities throughout Maine and New England, which have successfully used these models to encourage private investment while retaining stewardship over important civic assets.

They are proven economic development tools.

More broadly, I hope we take this opportunity to reflect on how Lewiston approaches its public assets.

For too long, I believe Lewiston has too often negotiated from a place of scarcity instead of confidence.

I believe we've earned the right to think bigger than that.

Today, our riverfront, our downtown, our parks, and our historic buildings are among the very reasons that people want to invest here.

They are not obstacles to development, they are assets that create value.

We should negotiate from that position of strength.

Our goal should not simply be to attract investment.

It should be to attract investment on terms that reflect the value of our community and leave future generations with more opportunities, not fewer.

Great cities don't become great by giving away the assets that define them.

They become great by investing in them, partnering around them.

And ensuring they continue to serve the public for generations to come.

Having served in your role, I can appreciate how hard that is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would you be available to answer questions from the council comes back?

Thank you.

Hello again, Amy Smith Ward 3, Executive Director of Lewiston Rowing, and I oppose the sale of the Red Shop to any buyer.

The city should retain ownership of this unique and valuable community asset.

I'm going to discard my written remarks because I want to comment on the process and how completely non-transparent this has been.

Lewis and Rowing is the current tenant of the Red Shop, and we've been asking for meetings with economic development, with Chris, the planning board asked for meetings, and everything was shrouded in secrecy, and nobody would give us any kind of information about what was being planned.

That's wrong.

So I just want to say I'm very curious to hear how many public comment you guys received today that were against selling the red shop.

Maybe you can answer that in a minute.

Because I feel like if that public comment didn't happen, and it largely happened because in the last 24 hours, we alerted people to what was going on.

I don't know if Chris would be here tonight.

I don't know if this would have just sailed through.

But as I said previously, this appeared the Thursday before a holiday weekend on a packed agenda, item number 24 with some weird little title that said nothing about TIFFs or the Red Shop.

And so the process was not transparent.

We could have avoided this conversation if economic development and city admin only respected the interest and the wishes of a dedicated community partner and the planning board to fully understand this proposal.

Thanks.

Hi, I'm Morgan Kinney.

I live in Ward 7 and I work in Lewiston.

I have a history with Lewiston Rowing and wanted to piggyback off of Amy's comments.

These reflect what Councillor Nijin was referring to as the public just getting to see all of this for the first time.

And the framework provided here for negotiation, I think has several serious flaws and needs more deliberation.

Some of this is based off of a 2011 joint development agreement that you've all mentioned that was not included in the packet after reviewing that.

First off, it's unclear who are the actual entities and principals who are involved in the negotiation.

The original agreement was made with the city and Parallax Partners, LLC.

Parallax was legally dissolved in 2024.

When and how did this agreement get reassigned to a different entity and who is that entity?

The LOI implies that the city is negotiating with those in control of the Hampton Inn, but provides no documentation of the relationship between this entity and the single member LLC eco hospitality consultants.

If Lewiston Hampton Development LC does hold the JDA, it has not satisfied the conditions whereby the city would convey the property at 39 Lincoln Street at no charge.

According to the 2011 agreement, they were obligated to acquire the property's abutting 39 Lincoln with 24 months within 24 months of a certificate of occupancy in order to get that parcel for free.

They purchased only three out of the five abutting properties, and therefore if they want to acquire 39 Lincoln Street should pay fair market value for it.

Thirdly, the 2011 agreement had an option for the developer to lease and/or purchase the red shop that expired in 2022, as you all mentioned.

Since there was no active option in place, why did this not go out for a competitive bid?

Fourthly, uh why is the city using the red shop as a bargaining chip in its sale?

Uh when it has that has not been approved by planning board or the city council.

Thank you, Councillor Harriman, for asking about where exhibit B is that lists all the pre-approved events that will hold have first priority holds on Smain.

Samard Pain Park.

And lastly, why are we giving away all programming control of Samard Pain when we don't have proof that the developer can create a successful national touring concert series in this location?

I would suggest that if the developer could bring one successful concert to Samard Payne in the summer of 2027, proof of concept, um, something like that before an exclusive arrangement is considered.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Alison Harris of uh Ward 3.

First of all, there's a leak right there.

I don't know if you've noticed that.

Um might be worth addressing.

Uh I just want to say that the Red Shop appears to be a unique historical building, and it's a gem.

And we have a uh a situation right now where Samard Payne Park is the exciting development of the main mill.

Um that this could be a real resurgence of growth.

I think once we sell that building, it's gone.

And I urge you to think long and hard before you agree to sell that, because it is a unique asset for this city, and I think we should keep it.

Thank you.

Martin uh word three.

Uh I just really learned about this today.

Uh I it's I'm not an expert in development agreements, but initially looking at it and from what I've heard from someone on the planning board, I would ask you not to approve this tonight.

I uh think that as others have said, the property is a unique asset.

I I'm also I'm just not a huge fan of the tenure TIFF.

I think we're negotiating, we're we're negotiating ourselves away before we're we could we could we could stick up for ourselves a little more in terms of like foregoing that tax revenue.

Uh I think that also the concerts in the park is something to really get some details in terms of the agreement.

I used to live in Bangor, and what was a park there turned into a concert arena, which was all right, but then slowly it was built up bigger and bigger until there's just essentially a big building there, and no one can see across the field.

Um it's been very completely commercialized, and I think that was unfortunately created kind of an eyesore there.

Um, and I don't think it was necessarily worth the revenue that they get.

So I would want to be sure that whatever structures are built there to host the concerts that they're of a more temporary nature and do not block the park or sort of wall in the park.

Uh and yeah, I think as the planning board decided the public should have there should be a more thorough process on this.

Thank you.

Uh Sam Chamberlain Ward 5.

I am a property owner, I'm a taxpayer, I own two small businesses here in Lewiston.

Um, I think I would urge the council to decline this LOI in its totality, if nothing else than just the technical issues.

It's apparent that this LOI was not returned reviewed by anyone who's ever seen a contract before.

I mean, this is ridiculous.

Um, two missing exhibits.

This is giving the developer 20 years of exclusive rights as the the municipality's only uh nationally touring concert promoter.

Um this also says that the uh developer can leave infrastructure in the park and that anyone that's using the park is responsible for the cost of removing that infrastructure.

Um this also says that the red shop can be sold back to the city only if the developer wants, not if the city wants, right?

Not if the taxpayers want, not if our community wants.

Um this is a terrible decision for the city.

This is a terrible option for the city.

Um I do firmly believe that this would bring incredible benefit to our community.

This is not the way to go about it.

I spent seven summers working for a professional concert promoter putting on concerts in public parks that we put up and tore down in 24 hours.

It's incredibly possible.

It's done all over the country.

And the fact that the red shop is at the center of this is abhorrent.

Um as a small business owner, this has continued to demonstrate a lack of um planning thoughtfulness and organization in the economic development department.

That has been my experience.

It took me months to get a hold of the economic development department in order to participate in a public grant program.

Um I own two businesses that I will not bring to the city of Lewiston.

I love this city to my core, and I cannot trust this city to care for our businesses in our community currently.

I urge you purely on the technical basis to reject this LOI.

Thank you.

Matthew Agrin.

Well, let's start with the fact that this is not very transparent.

There's missing items.

There is unsure of what some things mean.

There are whole parts that we don't see.

How can you approve something we can't see?

I don't know.

Who thought this was a great way to bring this forward?

Maybe two weeks, let's come back and bring up all the examples so we can see everything that's in there.

So that we can see if maybe this is a good idea, maybe it's not.

But this is not very transparent.

It dropped, as everyone said, Thursday before a holiday weekend.

And now we're here.

And even your own economic development directors admitted there are things missing.

Postpone it.

Is there any other public comment on this issue?

Bringing it back to the council.

Counselor Longsham.

Thank you.

Councilor Chittham.

I just have a question.

Um this is a historical building, correct?

Yes.

Is this the first historical building we've ever sold?

No.

No.

Um does every historical building that we sell get this much much attention.

Do we usually I'm just not sure.

I in all the transactions that I've done over the last few years, this seems very different.

And I don't know why, but it does.

Usually it comes to council, we get a consensus on whether we want you to move forward or not.

It's basically why you're sitting here today.

And then we typically approve it because we gave that thought that we were going to.

The only other time that we didn't approve something that came this far was the database in the last few years that I'm aware of.

Um I do understand what everyone is saying.

But I think this really sets a bad tone for developers.

When we have a meeting with them, they share their, you know, what they want to do as far as development.

Um we agree, and if I can remember correctly, we all agreed.

And then to have you come here and then to shut it down.

I and maybe it was, you know, maybe there were some things dropped.

Um it certainly seems like that.

But again, I've never really run into this type of uh situation where the city is trying to sell something.

Um we have a developer here that wants to develop.

So again, I'm excited about the project.

Um I think most of us were.

I think there are concerns with how the process went.

I think that's unfortunate if that's accurate.

Um, but it still doesn't change my mind that I would like to see uh this move forward.

Thank you.

Councilor Harriman.

Thank you.

Um I guess first, can I ask who is eco hospitality consultants?

That's me individually.

Okay.

So there's it's just you.

And all of the entities that were, and it's a very, you know, it's a legitimate point to make.

How do how does anybody know who's who?

I'm integral to each of those entities.

So I'm not going anywhere and haven't.

So then I had some questions also about some of the terms that aren't really it doesn't seem to be what we had talked about before.

Um there's a piece in here that says you would serve as the city's preferred partner for development and execution of seasonal programming in the park.

I thought it was just going to be concerts and not an entire control of the entire park.

That's it's not it's not meant to be in any way control of the entire park.

What we were hoping to do, and this is I think partly just um uh mischacterization in my drafting, so that's on me.

Uh the the example that we had talked about, and this is the hard part.

We've we've had conversations from Lincoln Jeffers to Nate Libby to, I mean, it's gone back years, and and in good faith and on a handshake for a long time.

And we operate that way a lot.

Um we're not the flashiest developers you'll ever meet, but when we say we're gonna do something, we do it and we do it exactly the way we said we would do it.

Um what we had talked about was a combination.

Again, this came from our experience at Thompson's Point in Portland, which we've been working on since it was a derelict rail yard um in 2009.

It's it is it does have as part of its neighborhood um a concert venue.

It's seasonal.

Um to the gentleman's point, I forget his name.

It's it's not Bangor.

Um, it's not fully built out.

Um substantially all of our conference concert infrastructure apart from power, um water, a few core infrastructure pieces like that live there year round.

But generally speaking, we bring everything in and we take it out at the end of the season.

We control the site, so we don't have to move it out after every show.

It's a it it can be done.

It's very costly to put up a stage and then take it down again and all the infrastructure to come in and out, etc.

Our thought and goal was that if there were pieces of seasonal infrastructure that could live there seasonally, um, that's great.

We also spent, I think um many, many hours over many years in conversations with the consultants who were building out the plan for you know, part two of the Riverfront Master Plan, um, who had uh asked us.

That was a big part of the reason why city staff and you know others came to Thompson's Point to visit and see how our concerts laid out, because the city was envisioning spending new dollars on its own, irrespective of anything we were imagining doing on new infrastructure for the park, potentially a covered pavilion and power and things like that, and was interested to know if our goal, if the city's goal were to have large nationally touring acts, how might we do that?

So if we're gonna spend X dollars, you know, you put the power here instead of there, and it's in the way of a tractor trailer bringing in, you know, whatever.

So anyway, that that's how all of those conversations had you know had unfolded.

Um but uh so the concert piece of it, and we were excited about the opportunity to bring to three, four, five, and our thought was we start small.

Um I don't know that we would realistically be able to mobilize a concert program by 2027.

I think it's gonna take more time than that.

I mean, I think it took us several years from our first conversations with our concert partners at you know Bowie Presents in the State Theater who are local, who are independent, vowedly so.

They're not, you know, um Live Nation AEG, they're an independent group.

That's who we work with, and that's what we do, and that's what we would envision bringing here.

Um so we have that part of the program, and then also a series that we do, which is free and open to the public in Portland, food trucks, live music, that kind of thing.

So we were envisioning endeavoring to bring those two pieces of programming forward.

We were not imagining that you know anything else had to come through us or only we could do.

In fact, there's you know, lots of things that are happening at the park currently and perhaps in the works for the park that we think are fantastic and would have no interest in, you know, seeing that um unravel or undone or be an obstruction to that in any respect.

It was those two pieces of programming, and then to be totally candid, I was our attorney.

Uh, you get what you pay for sometimes with your drafting.

Um I put that language together.

It was not intended to limit um, you know, um other people's activities in any way.

We were just talking about those two pieces of programming and any other similar things we might bring forward.

Um we were and and and casted as a preferred relationship for that reason.

You know, if someone else came in with something better, you know, great.

We would, you know, defer to the city if someone else wanted to bring in a you know festival or something like that that wasn't something we were offering, that that would be that would be great.

You know, rising tide lifts all boats, that's what we wanted to be part of.

Thanks.

Yeah, I I understand that, but it just seems like several of the terms in here are just very very heavily stacked towards the developer, like it it says developers shall not be required to install any permanent infrastructure of any kind at any time during the promotion term, but may choose to do so or to install seasonal infrastructure at its sole discretion.

So I just don't feel like we should be giving our park away to a developer to install whatever they want at their discretion.

That makes perfect sense.

But I mean, if we were to come forward and say we have you know um seasonal green rooms that we would like to bring and install in the park so that you know several of the shows could utilize them, um, it was that kind of thing.

We weren't looking to in any way, you know, um put plant a flag and say nobody else can do anything here.

That's not at all the intention.

And and for my part, to the extent that the our our drafting needs to be changed to reflect that is the intent, and that's perfectly fine with me to revise it accordingly.

Okay, yeah, I just think there are a lot of things in there, like there's another.

I mean, it it sets up the sets up the occasion that it would be very difficult to use the park for anything else.

Um like it also says developer shall have the right to leave selected concert infrastructure, including but not limited to stage refrigerated container, portable toilets, temporary lighting, signage, including sponsor signage as applicable in place for the duration of the season with any cost associated with moving or relocating such infrastructure to accommodate other third-party events borne by others.

So it sounds like basically you get the park, you get to build whatever you want and leave whatever you want there, and I just don't see that as being very conducive to the community using the park for any other use.

That's a fair point.

And that that goes back, you know, from my perspective to conversations we had had with Lincoln and Nate back when about the goal being to have a substantial concert series that could be you know, several a dozen shows in the summer in order to achieve that, having infrastructure that doesn't come in and out with every show.

Generally, you need to be able it it again, it can be done in different ways, but we felt that that was the model that would work in order to support being able to achieve that goal.

Um, and so if if the goal is to set ourselves up to have a couple, and that's the extent of the um how we want to imagine what that concert partnership can look like, then we could do something very different.

But if the intent is if the shared intent, and we aren't interested to do it if there isn't shared intent, is to have something more substantial with multiple shows, six, eight, a dozen over the course of a season.

I think having the ability to have that kind of seasonal infrastructure is important, um, and there's a cost to purchase it, install it, move it.

Um if I could add just a little bit to that, you know, um again, I think we would come back to council.

Um my envision, we I've been providing Chris with aerial photos.

Um we want civil engineers getting things to scale, getting things laid out.

Um we would provide options to the council.

Um that would be something that we again we would we would like to provide more information in those community conversations.

Some of this stuff has got to be we've got to work on it.

Um this is just a letter of intent that lays out the items that we need to work on.

Um, and from my perspective, you know, laying this stuff on paper would be something that we would share with you, and that we wouldn't uh we wouldn't feel comfortable approving unless you know council weighs in on it, we get public process.

So we have been we have had those conversations.

We are sharing aerial photographs, we are sharing what um what they're doing currently at the park right now.

We are sharing what um what they're doing currently at the park right now.

We don't want to impact that.

Um there is conversations about the stage and how we're designing the stage.

Um that's something that the city is doing.

We want to create more, you know, we're really getting into the weeds of the design at this point, but um, we really want to create some modularity there.

One to uh have the the the person that's performing the concert bring in the required items that they need.

So if they wanted to build a green room or another room, they could do that, but at the same time, they could take that stuff out, and we would show items that are permanent.

There is there is going to be the intention of having a permanent stage there that the city the city is going to invest in.

Um we just want to build it in such a way that it meets what we think would be the ultimate goal to maximize that site.

Um, and we would have again site, I think we would have site plans that would be part of that approval.

Um, and you know, perhaps even bringing it back to the planning board may be something we should consider.

Thanks.

I I guess my point is that there are so many pieces in here that seem to need work, and there are pieces that are missing that I don't feel like we can really move on this tonight.

Um this is too many questions.

Uh that's it, Councillor Roy.

Uh thank you, President.

Um, three things from you that stand out.

And first, before I get to those three things, I love music.

I really really want to see this here.

I was just in Bangor, spending my money in Bangor a couple nights ago.

Love the shows out there.

Bangor started with a field and a mound, kind of like what we got, only probably a little bigger, right?

Um, but three things presentation, timing, and transparency.

Three big things for me.

These weren't here with us.

So this right now, I mean, I although I really love and want to see this right now.

I don't think this is the right timing to I mean, it needs to come back to us.

This is it's not finished.

There are things missing.

We really need to see the whole picture, and we need to let people know about it.

So that's my feeling right now.

Thank you, Councilor Roy, Councillor Longsham.

Thank you, Councilor Chitham.

Um, what they're asking for right now basically is just a letter of intent.

I think you've clearly heard from uh most sitting up here that they don't agree with um some of the items that are missing.

I mean, you know, you speak of Lincoln Jeffers and Nate Libby, but neither one of them are with us now.

Right.

So my thought would be is that obviously you would go back to the drawing board, uh, you're you're hearing all of us, hearing our concerns.

Um you add in the things that uh that have been mentioned, uh perhaps counselors can email.

Um, and before any final draft is is written, you know, you obviously uh get input from the council and perhaps uh the planning board.

But this is just a letter of intent, just to continue to move forward with the negotiation, right?

Or um am I correct when I say that?

Yes.

Um, and then they would bring back.

I I just again I think what this does for developers that want to come to Lawston is really start um putting up questions.

Um, you know, people get this far, and then we have we basically uh don't want to move forward.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Councilor Najin.

Uh thank you, uh Council President Chitham.

So just to speak to the letter of intent really quickly.

Um this is a process that like we're not super familiar with, right?

We did we always kind of stumble over this.

Um I want to see the project, I want to see the hotel expanded, right?

There's no question.

Um the uh 30-year TIFF in um, I guess like what's the word I'm looking for?

Um concept uh at 75%.

I I'm okay with also like I think there are people that uh it that I answer to my constituency that needs to understand what those numbers mean and what that looks like overall, right?

Um the knock-on uh benefits to economic development within the corridor that we're trying to actually improve um how that how that affects the business.

I would also say this too.

I've been to Thompson's point at least three dozen times, probably more.

Um it isn't it isn't the Bangor waterfront.

It also has functioning spaces adjacent to it in the old mill buildings that are both collaborative and support other businesses.

And I also would say that Thompson's point is managed well to be able to be open.

All I'm saying is I know the model because I've been there several times for both events that are concerts and events that are community events, events that are that are uh charity events.

I understand how that space works.

I think there's and I see how it could also work better, but I think there are legitimate questions about some of the points that were brought up that do need to be worked out.

I think that having a JDA come before us that isn't informed by both the planning board and community partners and the general public um would be would be challenging.

Um because it is it it is a city park that we've put a considerable amount of of investment in.

I'm absolutely fine with saying I want to see something like this.

Um I'm not absolutely fine being like all of these terms that are in here are what I want to see because I think there's a process there that we do need feedback from from, as well as the fact that I think the way we did it wasn't necessarily people have questions about the difference between uh a letter of intent and and a JDA and the steps in it, right?

And and I think that's presentation worthy.

Um I would I would support the leather letter of intent based on uh the promises that these terms are actually changeable, that there will be uh further conversation with uh community partners, uh general public, et cetera.

Um, and that we do a good presentation for the JDA, so everybody really understands what we're talking about.

But I I do think that this locks up that whole corridor and changes it it it really changes the trajectory of the economic development in the city.

Thank you, counselor.

Um I I'd like to weigh in uh as counselor from Ward 6, not as presiding officer, if everyone will accommodate that for me.

Um I think you've heard tonight that there are some real concerns with the draft letter of intent.

Um I do want to clarify for the folks at home and those who don't speak the language, JDA is a joint development agreement uh which has yet to be developed, but that's what JDA means.

Um I very much want to see development of this area.

I like very much the vision uh that you bring to this, Mr.

Thompson.

However, I think it's it's premature at this point.

Um I I look at the uh letter of intent.

I've heard the concerns of other members of the council.

I share those.

Uh I think there's loose language in there.

I think it is uh um premature to bring this to us now.

I do want to encourage you to go forward.

You've been working with and you've listed now three different uh directors of development and economic development here in Lewiston over the past uh well at least three years that we've had three different economic development directors.

I think you alluded to the fact that 10 years ago you were discussing this.

Um so I fail to see the urgency of of acting on this tonight.

I do want to encourage you and the economic development department to uh to proceed.

Um I don't believe that you need the letter of intent to do that.

I was very encouraged to hear that you want to have much more public involvement.

Uh the folks who are speaking in public uh really want to learn more about this and the plans.

So my concern is that this is premature tonight, but I do not want to send the message that we do not want to see this project move forward, albeit with some of the concerns that have been raised tonight addressed in the meantime.

Um I would entertain a motion to table this uh if someone wanted to make that motion to table it.

Until what next meeting?

The next meeting is July 21st, two weeks hence.

Um is that enough time?

No.

I can't answer that question.

Uh public excuse me.

We're talking about public uh involvement, we're talking about public meetings, uh receiving input.

Uh I I don't know.

Someone else can have to answer that question, counselor.

How much time would you expect to need?

Who am I asking?

I was just giving you the motion that you asked for.

I'm tired, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

If I could is there a second to that motion motion to table.

Uh I will second that motion.

Um it's been moved and seconded to table uh indefinitely, but that is not the same as removing from the table.

We want to see you back again.

Uh and I would look to you to see whether or not and the administration to see whether or not two weeks is sufficient time to address some of the concerns that have been raised tonight.

Uh Counselor Long Chang.

Should we vote to table this before we go any further?

We're still yes, talking about the motion.

Uh it's been moved and seconded.

We will have a vote, but we want to have discussion on the motion to table.

Well, was that it?

Counselor.

Uh Counselor Nejine.

So the discussion right now is just discussion on the motion to table.

Yes.

I would not be in support of a motion to table based on the fact that um this developer has been working with us for over two decades, and they're just simply asking us on whether or not we agree that we want to see a project come forward.

Maybe not the terms specifically, but I would be in favor of tabling.

I don't know exactly how much time it needs, but um I I understand the point that this is a letter of intent, but we shouldn't be signing a letter of intent that contains terms that we don't intend to follow.

So we we need some time to at least have a new letter drafted that that contains the things that we are looking for.

Um I just don't know how much time that is.

Counselor Martell.

Yeah, and I just want to reiterate I absolutely support this project and I want to see it happen.

I'm just trying to give you the time you need to answer some of the questions that we had up here tonight, but you will have my vote for this project when it comes.

Counselor Roy.

Uh thank you.

Yeah, I'm excited about the project too.

I just need some things ironed out here first.

Uh Counselor Harriman.

Just a technical question.

If it's tabled without a date certain, um, can we take the the item back off the table at any time we want?

Madam Clerk.

So uh counselor, if I could uh be so bold as to uh recommend uh that the wording be to postpone to allow additional time to address concerns raised by council.

And then that hopefully gives enough latitude for staff to determine when they're able to answer the questions and bring it back to council.

Thank you for your wise counsel, Madam Clerk.

Uh is that acceptable to you, counselor?

And to me is the second or yes as well.

So the new motion is to postpone until the staff has had time to bring back uh recommendations.

Any other discussion?

Madam Clerk, call the roll.

Counselor from on the motion to table.

Counselor from Word 6?

Yes.

Word seven?

Yes.

Ward one?

No.

Word two?

No.

Word three?

Yes.

Word four.

Yes.

Word five.

No.

Motion passed by vote of four to three.

Gentlemen, thank you uh very much for your presentation tonight.

I I hope that you have sufficient information that when you come back before us, uh, all of the questions that we've had tonight will be addressed fully.

That you've had an opportunity to set up uh uh opportunity for public uh participation and a workshop of some sort.

Um if the city can give you any assistance in doing that, uh please let us know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's a little unusual, Madam Chair, but I'm I'm going to uh uh accommodate your request for a question.

Thank you.

It's a technical question for staff, though I greatly appreciate the conversation and look forward to future pieces.

Part of the request from planning board that you have um provided that you have not received this evening that we are saying clearly that you have the desire for an executive session and a discourse between the planning board specific to the red shops disposition and not the other items in terms of means of business between our two bodies.

And I would inquire that we we endeavor to schedule that in a way that precedes whatever date this item comes before.

Because I think the concern is that your discussion tonight didn't technically include a disposition and thus you are speaking to an intent and further bringing somebody who's trying to invest along a public road of which we have already said there are concerns and will be brought into public spaces unless we have an executive session.

So I'm I would just reiterate that, and if there has been any miscommunication between the two departments on the third floor or our two bodies as a result, I'm taking out the middleman and really requesting that publicly in this forum that we seek to have the executive session about the disposition of the red shop.

Thank you very much.

Uh Mr.

Administrator, can we schedule an executive session uh before the July 21st uh meeting?

Uh we'll discuss with planning staff on council.

Thank you.

All right.

That concludes the uh discussion on item 22.

We'll move along to item 23.

Madam Clerk.

Excuse me.

Item 23, discussion regarding inclusion of event permits for social service programming on city property and parks.

This is to discuss the topic and determine a course of action if needed.

Uh this is uh request to Councilman Najine.

I'm going to ask you to open this up, sir.

Yes, certainly.

So uh I'm just aware uh of the fact that some of our public spaces um sometimes because of activity that occurs in those public spaces without coordinating with the city.

Um there are occasionally incongruous um activities that happen at the same time.

Uh I can I can tell you that um having some of the um and it seems like it's mostly centered on Kennedy Park, but it really should be centered on all of our parks.

Uh the uses that are currently unregulated uh sometimes compete against themselves and also compete against things like the pool, depending on the location, um and also the uh uh the skate park, Kennedy Park in particular.

Um so I would like to consider adding to the uh event permits, any activity that's gonna have basically 25 people or more that is focused on uh the five uh general um outline pieces that I put in, which were financial and medical assistance services, sign-up programs, clothing drives and distribution programs, food drive and distribution programs, accessible medical care, including uh mobile clinics, um, and substance abuse clinics and harm reduction programming, including mobile units.

So basically, I'm not saying you can't use parks, I'm saying just like every other use in our parks that you actually make sure that the scheduling is appropriate and that you get a permit to do so, especially when we're talking about bringing in a considerable amount of people into a public space.

Um and in some cases, and I'm not like pointing fingers in any way, shape, or form, but in some cases uh we're required to use city staff in order to maintain cleanup for some of these activities and that costs taxpayers.

I would like to see uh through the per through the permit process, um, if you have uh individuals or organizations that are not uh are putting additional uh um challenges on uh city services that maybe they don't get a permit uh the next time, or maybe they have to pay uh uh uh a fee to clean up.

Um so that's that's what I'm putting forward, and I'm wondering if uh they would like to I guess move to uh have these added to our our uh permits uh for a first reading the next meeting.

So questions, comments, counselor Harriman?

Thank you.

Um yeah, I would support the concept of this.

Uh I don't really want to I don't want to restrict the activities of these groups uh as far as you know they're they're doing good work in the community helping out people who need it, but there are some unintended consequences sometimes, and I think it would be just for the city to at least know when things are happening, where things are happening, and then as Councillor Nagyen said, um maybe a little extra layer of accountability when there are uh you know when there's a lot of litter to clean up or something like that, uh I think it could be helpful.

Uh counselor Longsham.

Thank you, Councilor Chitham.

I would agree with uh Counselor Harriman on what he has has said.

Thank you.

Uh question for you, Councillor Najine.

Um there is a uh uh Prince of peace parish van that shows up parked on Chestnut Street I believe.

Uh no not Chestnut down here.

The next one down and sometimes up on Bait Street.

This is parked in a public street how how would you differentiate that?

I think that's what you're aiming this this ads how do you differentiate that and and uh so so for these services that I'm mentioning here it's public spaces so it's it's parks it is uh sidewalks and it's uh public rights of way.

Um ultimately the there are plenty of private spaces that that that we that if you don't want to pull a permit you can you can do these operations and uh Princip's parish for instance has a giant parking lot uh right next to the basilica um but and they can partner with other organizations to park uh their vehicle on private property I think the challenge is especially when we think about like some of the the the uh mobile clinic service services things like that um as well as the I mean ultimately the people I'll give you an example was it Monday um that Princip's Parish was at the top of uh Bates Street there was a at the same time like uh I think a recovery center was having like a cookout uh right below that and then there was somebody who is doing like a clothing handout at the same time and so there was a whole bunch of people using the park for for reasons that like for basically distribution um of of of goods and services um and at like four o'clock the park looked like it gone through like uh tornado um so ultimately if you're going to be serving uh the public on public space uh for these for these reasons I would like to see a permit um not just for the parks uh to be honest because you're right the parking spots right next to them are also um you're serving the park but you're like I'm in the street so other counselors wish to weigh in on this council Roy thank you um I'd probably like I like the idea of this uh cleanup especially like it shouldn't be on the city to clean this up right so I think the organizer uh organizations or the organizers of what's going on they should be responsible for the cleanup and all that stuff the city shouldn't but again knowing where people are and what they're doing and all that stuff is is a good a good thing so no one else to uh counselor Najine so I guess I would make a motion that we uh direct city staff to uh um make an amendment to the to the um permit uh schedule to include these things uh I I'm actually a little leery about making a motion that hasn't been presented in the agenda I think if we have consensus on this that would send the same message 100% agree.

Okay is there anyone who is uh violently opposed to asking staff to develop uh regulations around uh what counselor Najine has presented seeing none then I think there's a consensus for public comment oh I'm sorry uh we have public comment thank you Mr.

Chartran hang on does the council wish to have public comment I don't believe it's called for there's no action to be taken I see no issue with it no one has a strong objection go ahead sir and ward uh I think this goes down a slippery slope I see the pros to it uh I see the reasons for it I also think it's uh one I don't want to see disincentivize people who are trying to support the community I also uh think that it gets to a slippery slope of regulating the what people do in the park a lot because in some cases these are organizations that do stuff but in some cases it might not even be an organization it might just be a group of people who care and want to offer some support to the unhoused or that kind of thing and so I would hate to see it become so bureaucratic that those people have to get a permit to to go out in the park and share some in share some information or share some goods.

I would support that.

And uh maybe there can be some kind of process where there's a there's if there's if there's someone anybody can put in a complaint that there was you know trash left or cleanup issues, and then that would that would trigger the need for I don't know if anything could be done that way.

That would trigger the need for uh permit or uh fee.

Um if you do do a permit, I would definitely ask that there's a sliding scale so that based on the budget of the entity or people that are doing this that it would the fee would be from zero to more based on that budget.

Um that yeah, if if people do things on a regular basis, maybe the permit could be once a year or something.

Those are my thoughts.

Thanks.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Back to council, counselor Roy.

Thank you.

Um I I like the idea of probably putting in there a sliding fee scale for that.

I think that's pretty pretty important.

Um also I um I think the reason for permits in my idea is liability, right?

So the city's liability in these public spaces.

That that's my concern and where I'm coming from.

I don't I don't know like um how that goes, but I just think we need to know what's going on on the public spaces because of that.

Thank you.

Uh the devil's in the details.

Um your points are well taken.

However, I think those sorts of questions can be addressed.

The council has already expressed a desire to have staff develop uh uh a template for this.

Um we'll come back and debate the the validity of the individual elements in that template.

Counselor Longshore.

Thank you, Councilor Chitham.

Um is it necessary to even uh charge for these permits?

I mean, I don't even think we should be charging.

And second of all, unfortunately, we're living in a time where to hold people accountable for them for the uh the things, the items that they're leaving all over the place is through permitting.

That's that's just the reality of it.

But I think we need to be clear on the uh charging or not.

Counselor Najing.

So one of the things that I had written in the in the piece here was uh fee structure to be discussed, but primarily focused on availability and appropriate use of space and set it activity, conflicts and other standard scheduled uses, safety and accessibility and expected costs through city services, including staff presence before, during or after the event or activity to clean up costs.

So basically, if it's if you're talking about uh, you know, uh handing out tablets uh or like signing up people for tablets, I don't think that requires a police presence in any way, shape, or form.

Therefore, I don't think that the we would be talking about charging fees.

Um, you know, as far as um like cleanup uh is concerned.

I I I trust that these folks can figure out what would be an appropriate fee.

Thank you, counselor.

Uh yes, as I said, the devil's in the details.

Deputy Administrator O'Malley.

Yes, currently we charge $50 for any application that comes in for a permit.

Um there already is a sliding scale for nonprofits or for uh for-profit um to use Kennedy Park, there is no charge unless someone wants to use the gazebo, if they want electricity, there is a charge associated with that.

Um we already have a lot of those things in there.

Um so I'm not really sure.

Um, you know, if we're talking about somebody who's going and just handing out food to somebody, I don't know how we're going to enforce that unless we have people in the building.

And I think I told Council Legina story of that the this afternoon, where there was a church from out of town who just pulled the pickup truck right in the middle of the park and set up three tables and started handing out food and clothing.

Um, how many people are going to show up for that?

I mean, you're saying 25, we have that already in our uh special events policy that's already in place where they need to get a certificate of insurance.

You know, we had another group that just showed up and began um broadcasting loudly over speaker another church um that was asking everybody in the park to repent.

Um so I had to go out and speak with them.

But again, those are things that we see when we're here.

Um but I did talk to that church group and said, Oh, we've been showing up on Saturdays, you know, at least once a month, and nobody's ever said anything to us.

Um so I think we may have a problem in enforcement, but there already is a process in place in our special event policy in terms of trying to regulate and try to know who's in the park.

But I do know um that there are some groups that will just set up and never tell us, and I'll see their picture in the Sun Journal.

Um, and I'll check that we've they've never applied for anything in their handing out turkeys and having a Thanksgiving meal in the setting up um tents in the park, and they've never come to the city to get um any type of application.

So I think we will have some difficulties in terms of um enforcement, um, but there is already a sliding scale in terms of when they want to use uh different parks and what they want to do in there.

Thank you.

Uh counselor.

So that that begs the question do we have an ordinance that that find people for uh unauthorized uh use of parks?

The way the special events policy is written, it's more of we expect people to come in and and apply for the applications, and then if they don't follow that, then we refuse them or we turn that down.

But what we've been seeing, and I had this conversation with the city clerk, I think a week or two ago, that people are just doing what they want to do, and we're we're kind of try chasing them around.

If you recall, um there was a group that was going to come and just hand out needles in Kennedy Park without being licensed to the state, and I had to contact the city attorney.

We sent them letters, um, and that's when we knew who they were.

Um so it's very difficult when as uh we had a public comment when some well-intentioned people come to Lewiston to try to help, don't realize that there is oftentimes cleanup, and sometimes we have no idea who they are, so there's no way that we can recoup any of our funds.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Um are we clear on the request to administration?

We can review the special events policy, I think, and the the park use, which would um cover the areas that Council Najina is talking about.

That that may seem to be the path of least resistance in terms of administrative burden.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um everyone's comfortable with that.

All right, good.

Um I was just quickly referring to the rules.

Uh we now have a public comment period.

Uh does anyone who has not spoken previously wish to speak?

Good.

That avoids the whole question about what this second public comment period is all about.

Thank you.

Um reports and updates.

Councillor Longsham.

Thank you, Councillor Chitam.

Uh the safety committee met for the first time today.

Uh I think it went really well.

Uh, there was a lot of um input by all the individuals um that are part of the uh safety committee.

So we do plan on meeting monthly.

Um, and we have a bunch of things that we really want to want to tackle.

So thank you.

Council Martell.

Thank you, Council President Chitham.

Uh as the City Council representative to the Lewiston Seniors Advocacy Council.

I want to recognize fellow member uh who's here with us tonight still, Louise Sampson, for uh her many years of robust advocacy for the much needed development of senior housing in Lewiston, uh including the Martell School Project.

When the announcement was made for the ground baking ceremony of phase one, I received a number of correspondence from other members of the council requesting to have Louise included in the ceremony.

So I just wanted to recognize her here, but I will be making a formal request to the council and to Lewiston Housing Authority to recognize her considerable considerable efforts uh with including her in the groundbreaking ceremony, and we hope that um they will be engaged in uh willing to do so.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate that.

And I I second all of those sentiments about Sampson's uh diligence and perseverance in moving this ever lengthening goal post closer to us.

Um we do have now official date for for groundbreaking, so that's good news.

Um I did anyone else?

Uh there was mention made earlier about uh transit considerations for the seniors plus facility on Mollis and Way.

I have a meeting scheduled with uh folks from Seniors Plus and Larry Allen, who's the director of uh the City Link Bus Service scheduled for next Monday, and we will be talking about that very topic.

Anything else?

Gee, it's still Tuesday.

And I'm for a while.

Can can can we uh think of something else to drag this meeting out?

I'm sorry?

New business.

Say that again.

New business.

Oh, new business.

Well, yeah, there's another thing.

Any other new business?

Oh, wait, what's the next thing you ask?

Uh new business.

That's the last thing.

That's the last item.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

I was just wondering if we could get an update uh from administration regarding the third floor and the progress on the reorg.

Yes, thank you.

Um, so as uh many of you probably know, there has been uh interest and an effort by at least uh a couple on the council to potentially bring back to the council consideration of funding the economic development director.

Um I've been I was told uh to sort of hold uh until we had that um that brought back before the council.

There's been I know some some legal advice given that's maybe changed that.

So we have not been able to uh we'll say press go anything because we've been unsure of the level of funding that um we may be working with, and we certainly don't want to start uh moving positions, um rebranding things, uh only to find out we have uh a different level of funding or a different position added to that.

So um we would like to get moving on this uh ASAP uh for sure.

Um so it's really just been a matter of determining what we have to work with uh and not wanting to obviously backtrack um if that were the case.

Uh very quickly, if it's okay, and and I will be very quick.

Um, the Sun Journal had asked me shortly after we had uh decided on the five vote to re-org the third floor basically what my thoughts were.

Although it was never published, I would just like to share here.

Um I have spoken with many developers and small businesses, business owners, and a common concern has emerged regarding the challenges they face when navigating the relationship between economic development and the code enforcement department.

Many feel that the current structure can create unnecessary barriers when trying to understand licensing requirements, zoning regulations, permitting, and building codes.

Creating a more unified approach by bringing these functions under one umbrella would provide a true one stop shop for residents, business owners, and developers.

This model has been successfully implemented in many larger and highly successful municipalities.

In some communities, economic development and code enforcement operate under a single director, while others establish a community development department that includes separate divisions for planning, code enforcement, and economic development, all reporting to the same leadership.

This structure promotes consistent goals, improved communication, and more streamlined development process.

By aligning code enforcement and economic development, the city can more effectively track properties, identify opportunities for redevelopment, and target economic investment where they will have the greatest impact.

It also fosters a more collaborative environment that encourages business growth while maintaining compliance with local regulations.

Economic development is one of the most effective ways to strengthen the city's tax base and generate revenue.

Encouraging responsible development and business growth helps reduce the tax burden on our residents while creating new opportunities for investment, employment, and long-term community success.

A unified community development model would position the city to better serve its citizens, attract investment, and create a more efficient and business friendly environment while maintaining the integrity of its codes and regulations.

I just wanted to share that.

Thank you.

Councilor Roy.

Thank you.

One of the things I I really want to say, I haven't planned this because I don't even know what my email address is for my position to be honest with you.

But what I'd like to do is I'd I'd like to have people email me.

Um thoughts and ideas about how we move forward as a city for what's going on.

Like I would love people to talk to youth.

Find out ideas.

I don't want to, you know, I just want ideas because I want to try to move these ideas forward.

And I I really want people to be heard because we don't have all the answers up here, and and we never claim to, but I I really want to listen.

I'm really concerned, and I really want people to reach out.

So talk to our youth, talk to your kids, talk to your grandkids.

Email me.

Anyone know my email address?

MROY at Lewiston Main.gov or email any one of your wards reps, please.

We really want to work with everybody, and that's my plea right now.

Thank you, Councillor Roy.

Um, I wholeheartedly second that.

Uh Councillor Nagy.

I I'm sorry, I just wanted to follow up on uh on on the piece that uh Council Longchamps brought up.

So the supermajority of council removed a position that we're currently trying to fund.

Is that correct?

I will answer that.

Yes.

I believe the council acted hastily uh at the 11th hour in removing that position.

I believe that the city administrator has always had the ability to reorganize any department or any series of departments within the city.

Um my feeling is that for Lewiston not to have a director of economic development is short-sighted, and I have been moving heaven and earth to try and figure out a way through the limitations of our charter and our council rules uh to make that happen.

Against the will of the supermajority of the council.

I I have I'm a member of the council, and uh I I feel that the council made an error, and for me to sit quietly and not do anything about that uh is a dereliction of my responsibility.

This is why this city doesn't think we're transparent and doesn't trust us because decisions like this are made.

Decisions like this are made behind everybody's back.

You came to us and you asked me, I don't know about anybody else, if we would second a motion, and we said no, we didn't want to do that.

We wanted the decision to remain the way it was, and we wanted to see where that was going, and now we're funding that position after we all agreed.

Most of us, you left because you were sick, and I understand that.

But this is this is the underhanded stuff that the city is sick of.

Our constituents are sick of this.

Thank you.

Counselor Martell.

Um I'm gonna agree with Council Noble here.

This is exceedingly arrogant, Counselor President.

We are a body, we voted as a body in public in session.

I really don't care how much you don't like it.

It does not mean a damn thing to me.

I hated when we passed the ICE ordinance.

It made me sick.

I didn't go run around trying to undo everybody else's work.

And to think that you have either the power or the right to do that is just abhorrently self-centered and egotistical.

And it just goes right along with uh I suggest we ignore the charter or all these other you you just alluded to it again.

I'm trying to find whatever possible way I can uh with the charter rules and the so that you can undo something a supermajority did in in open session.

Stop.

I co-sign everything, Councilor Noble just said plus some.

It's embarrassing.

And I alluded to that in an email back to you when you express to the council how much you thought we messed up by voting in a way that you didn't agree with.

That's true.

Unfortunately, your vote counts equally as much as the rest of ours.

And that's it.

Not more, not less.

You should consider that.

Thank you, Counselor.

Anyone else?

Counselor Longsham.

I would ask Councillor Chitam that you uh stop investigating where you can find uh more funding for that.

Again, exactly what our other counselors have said, and I'm asking you tonight that you stop doing that.

You let our city administrator reorg the third floor with the intent of using one of our directors to then also direct the economic development team.

So I would ask that you do that so we can move forward with the plan that we have already put forth.

Would you be willing to do that?

The council has made its uh views very clear tonight.

Um as I said, I believe that the decision was made in haste at the 11th hour.

I think it was a wrong decision.

Uh, if the council is reaffirming that decision tonight that it does not want Lewiston to have an economic development director, it does not want to fund the position.

Um I've got other battles I can fight.

Uh this one was very uh uh important to me, and I felt honestly that the council had aired and it made that decision without due forethought and without due deliberation.

So yes, um I I will back off uh an attempt to write what I think is a wrong.

What an insult to your fellow counselors thank you, counselor Chittam.

So is that a clear path that you have now, uh city administrator?

Yes, thank you.

And please do not leave us without a director for economic development.

There will be a director.

I know it will not be just for the economic development department.

Nor it nor did that uh that's not what we voted for.

So thank you.

Thank you.

There being no other business, um I will ask for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.