Okay.

Okay.

W KRP in Cincinnati.

City Council to order.

This meeting is being held in person at City Hall and by video conference.

The public may participate in this meeting by coming to City Hall or joining the Zoom webinar.

The meeting is being broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel and Comcast Cable Channel Thirty within City Limits.gov for those on Zoom.

When it is time to take public comments, staff will monitor the comment cards, email inbox, and Zoom participant lists and chat.gov.

We ask that all Zoom participants who intend to speak label their Zoom username to show their first and last names for the record.

Spanish translation services are available upon request.

The public is asked to request translation and other meeting accessibility services at least 48 hours before the meeting.

For more information, contact the city recorder at 503 786 7502.

Servicios de tradución in español este disponible cuando sea solicitado.

Se pide al público que solicite servicios de traducción y otros servicios de accesibilidad por lo menos 40 y 8 horas antes de la reunión.

Para obtener más información, llama a El Secretario de la Ciudad A 53.

Siete ocho seis, siete cinco ceros.

Translation services are also available in other languages.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

And the Republic for which it stands.

One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

We offer our respect and gratitude to the indigenous people of this land.

And then on announcements, we uh the Portland Book Festival continues this month in downtown Milwaukee.

Check out several workshops and an author talk.

And I want to give a shout out to um Siona Balai of uh the Toolbox Gallery because she really brought this potential idea to uh to me and to others in town and spoken thanks to the library and to spoken word books, which jumped on board.

And so we had seven events in Milwaukee, which is more than uh any other non-Portland town.

Uh and I hear that the Portland Book Festival people were pretty impressed.

Um, so there have been a few already, but there are um four more before the end of uh the weekend.

So Wednesday, November 5th at 4 p.m.

at Spoken Word Books.

Here Marjon Anvari lead a workshop on preserving stories.

Also Wednesday, November 5th at 6 p.m.

at the library, join author Wendy Wagner for a reading and discussion of her new novel, Girl in the Creek.

And then Sunday has two book festival workshops.

Uh, one featuring Ed Edmo discussing Native American storytelling at 2 p.m.

at the library, and a Make Trouble Make Art workshop at 5 p.m.

at Spoken Word Books.

So all of these are free.

Um so come out and participate in some of these great activities.

You know, we have a kind of a slow season after Halloween before December or before Thanksgiving.

So it's a it's nice to have some some new events in town.

Uh Friday, November 7th is the deadline to participate in Metro's Community Chores Choice Grants Voting.

Visit Oregonmetro.gov community slash community choice by Friday.

Uh the cities put this also out in some emails uh to people that are on parks on email lists for parks issues.

Um, but yeah, please do get in your um your top 10 choices for what you'd like to see happen in our community in the park sphere.

Um Friday, November 7th is also the deadline to share your thoughts about reducing speed limits on local streets.

Visit engage milwauk engage.milwaukeegan.gov slash set the pace to share your thoughts on uh the idea of a 20 mile an hour speed limit.

Saturday, November this Saturday from 7 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

The city is hosting a free event for Milwaukee residents to dispose of leaves.

Bring a utility bill to show proof of residency.

Leaves are accepted in paper bags, plastic bags, or loose.

Non-perishable food items are also collected during each session, and that's at the Johnson Creek campus uh 6101 Johnson Creek Boulevard.

Next Tuesday is Veterans Day, about which we will be saying a little bit more in a few minutes, but uh the city offices and the library will be closed in observance of Veterans Day.

Next Wednesday is the first of my uh office hour sessions.

I'm taking a uh cue from what the city manager does, and I'm gonna have a monthly session where people can stop by and raise whatever issues they want to raise.

So next uh Wednesday from 10 to 11 a.m.

Also on Wednesday, uh the Milwaukee Poetry Series next reading featuring Carlos Reyes Reyes.

This reading will be at Lening Library at 6 p.m.

And finally, well, not finally, um Friday uh November 14th is the deadline to participate in the neighborhood survey.

That's an opportunity to um weigh in about how you'd like to see your neighborhood uh, you know, what kind of activities or what kind of things you'd like to see your neighborhood undertake uh or what questions you have about your own neighborhood association.

And that uh website is engage.milwaukee.gov slash NDA.

And on Saturday, November 15th, the North Clackmas Watersheds Council is hosting a winter restoring wetlands workshop.

Visit the watershed council's website, ncewatersheds.org for more information.

For more information about each of these events, please visit the city's homepage at Milwaukee, Oregon.gov or call 503 786755.

I will note uh just as uh on behalf of the Milwaukee Parks Foundation second Saturday, which is this Saturday, there's always a work party in Minthorne Springs, and it looks like we'll get a break in the rain, so that'll be nice.

9 30 a.m.

to uh noon at Minthorn Springs.

Okay, here's the haiku.

Uh Willamette Whispers, unheard upon silent shores, the stream meanders, submitted by a resident named Andy Bachman.

Uh I appreciate I got a lot of haiku submissions, and I'm in good shape until uh February or March.

So um yeah, yeah, yeah.

And actually, Jennifer and Hamid get the credit for um generating all the submissions.

So I appreciate their help.

Um right, so our only proclamation today is Veterans Day, and it's gonna be uh presented by counselors Massey and Koshrabadi.

I believe Councillor Massey is going to start.

I am thank you, Mayor.

Uh, this is the last uh public meeting before uh Veterans Day, which is uh a week from today, it's on uh November 11th.

The the origins of uh Veterans Day goes back uh to World War One, and it was originally called Armistice Day, and it was uh uh observed uh on the first anniversary of the end of World War One.

And um uh that Armistice went into effect at 11 a.m.

on the 11th day of the 11th month uh in 1918.

And uh it was known as Armistice Day up until I believe the early 50s when uh President Eisenhower uh uh changed it to Veterans Day to honor not only the World War One veterans, but all veterans who uh were actively serving or who had served before.

Um there are about uh 16 million veterans in the United States, which represents roughly six percent of the population.

And uh, you know, uh the thank you for your service is always uh appreciated and that kind of thing.

But I would ask you to go a little bit further and uh just uh ask a veteran that you know or come upon.

Uh you know, tell me about your service because I think that you'll uh find some interesting things.

Um they uh they're more likely to tell you about uh the camradery that they had in the service, the friendships that they developed uh in the service because uh those friendships I can tell you now, and I think Adam can too.

They last a lifetime.

They may be the most important friendships you have in your life.

And um uh I have one of those friendships uh with a shipmate of mine, uh uh an Irishman from Massachusetts named Tom.

And uh our wives, uh Cindy and Gail like to laugh and say, these guys text each other more often than teenagers in middle school.

And I said, Oh, that's not true.

And I counted them today.

And before 8 30 this morning, there were 29 text messages sent between he and I.

So um uh those are important friendships.

Uh you build a lot of confidence and trust in those people because sometimes your life depended on.

Okay.

And uh so I would just say uh ask a veteran uh about their service, and you might uh hear some interesting stories.

Adam.

Thanks, Robert.

I appreciate that.

Um I mean just to touch a little bit more on what Robert said.

Uh you know, this is a very special day, not just for the vets, but but for for everybody for people who call this country home, right?

Regardless of if you feel like you belong here or somebody thinks that you don't.

Um this is uh this this country was fought for by these these men and women in uniform, brave individuals, courageous individuals, people who gave up everything they had back home to serve their country.

Um so it it it it it's it's incredibly it's it's not just symbolic.

Um it has a deeper meaning than that.

And you know, I I as a vet, I I want to as much as Robert said, you know, talk about this every I want to thank you for for blazing the path before us uh before my generation.

Um I think that's kind of how it goes.

We we all thank the generation before us because if they didn't leave the path, then uh we probably wouldn't be here uh today.

Um so I I want to thank all the veterans out there and a lot of veterans that are still struggling with their their wounds of war.

Um that that have wounds that didn't even didn't even experience war, um, because the military life is is is not not easy, not one that's that's taken lightly either.

Um so I just want to extend my my gratitude for for all those veterans, everyone who who has served and you know, speaking on the friendships, uh he's not wrong.

We have a group chat, actually.

Um there's about uh about 10 of us in that group chat, and any time we get together, there's about 30 of us that fly in.

Um I'll tell you, it's like it's like we never missed a beat.

Um, and when when if you've ever had a friend that would say that that you would die for, I know a few that have actually done that for me.

So um I'm lucky in that sense.

Um blessed um to have known such brave individuals.

Um with that said, I would also like to extend a happy birthday to the United States Marine Corps, who's that's right, whose birthday is actually November 10th, right before Veterans Day, because we had to one up everyone.

Um, and for those of you who don't know, the Marine Corps was actually born in a tavern.

So it was a lot of alcohol problems there.

Um as a Marine myself, um, I'm I'm honored to wear that Eagle Globe and Anchor and some people know us as Jarhead, some people look know us as leather necks.

Um people know us as the greatest fighting force in the world.

Um, but one thing that everyone in everybody can agree with is that we do have the best damn uniforms in the service dress blues.

So I do want to wish a happy birthday to to the greatest fighting force the world has ever known, to America's 911 force.

I I am honored and privileged to be a part of them.

Um and again, happy veterans' day and stay strong to all those veterans out there.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Um, we had been gonna have a guest, Tina Kennedy, but she wasn't able to make it.

Do we have anybody here who's making remarks?

Oh, reading the okay, but there's nobody here in the crowd that's making further remarks.

Okay, so who wants to read the proclamation?

Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

Um where is the United States?

Uh it's hard to read.

Where's the United States?

Uh Scott.

He's trying to blow it up for you.

Okay, I got it now.

No more movement.

I tried.

I tried.

They never get to the battle without the Navy.

It's true.

Thanks for the rights.

Whereas the United States uh first proclaimed November 11th, 1919 as Armistice Day to mark the end of World War One, the war to end all wars, and to solemnly reflect on the horrific consequences of all wars.

And whereas since 1919, the 11th day of the 11th month has come to be a time to recognize the contributions made by the millions of men and women who answered our nation's call to arms in the pursuit of world peace.

And whereas Veterans Day brings communities together to honor military veterans and their legacy of selfless service and sacrifice, and to remember the millions of civilians and military personnel who have died or have been injured by war, and whereas the United States Department of Defense recognizes that the uh risk of future wars will be greatly increased by climate chaos and the resulting uh forced migration uh due to devastating starvation, inundated inundation, fires, flooding, and drought, and we should do everything necessary to decrease these effects.

And whereas the city of Milwaukee has been proud to partner with the American Legion Post 180, the Susan Lee Barlow chapter of the daughters of the American Revolution and the Fort Kennedy to recognize and support veterans in in this community, and whereas the city of Milwaukee recognizes the sacrifices made by those who serve our country so that all may pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

Now, therefore, I Lisa Beatty, mayor of the city of Milwaukee, a municipal corporation in the county of Clackham in the state of Oregon.

So thank you.

And with that, we move on to community comments.

This is the part of the agenda during which council will hear community comments on city business that is not already on the agenda.

Before we begin, is there any follow-up from the October 21st comments with Sagar?

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a few quick follow-ups.

Um at that meeting we had Dave Ash and Brenner come and uh provide comments and testimony on us on a range of things, including um some asks about where vehicles can park on home avenue, and I'm gonna be having our engineering and code compliance team reach out to Dave to provide that information.

We also had Elvis Clark testify about safety concerns on behalf of the Ardenwald Johnson Creek Neighborhood Association around 37th and Harrison, and we will have engineering staff attending the NDA meeting on November 24th to discuss that more.

Um we also then received some correspondence.

The only general piece of correspondence we received in writing um was um from uh um about speed limits on Lake Road, and so thank you in your announcements, Mayor.

You referenced the um engage Milwaukee survey out right now about reducing speeds on collectors and uh neighborhood routes.

Um Lake Road is not a collector or neighborhood route, it's an arterial, um, but I still encourage folks to take that survey by November 7th, and then on November 18th, our staff will be here discussing the proposal to lower speeds.

I will ask them as well in that presentation to talk about speeds on that section of lake, um, even though it's an arterial.

Um, and I believe that commenter also asked about uh possibilities to get more of our slow the flock down signs, which I love.

Um so I'll be working on a plan for that.

We we did them specifically kind of for um the 29th Greenway, but I think the message applies all over the place.

So we'll be looking to do another run of that and make those available to the public.

Great.

I know, yeah.

I've had requests for those too, so that's that's great to hear.

Okay, I do not have any yellow cards.

Uh no one's here to testify other than about something on the agenda.

Okay, uh, Mr.

Stoffer, anybody on Zoom?

We do have a zoom audience tonight, but I see no hands raised, and I and I don't have any yellow cards either.

Okay.

So I'm not gonna read the rest of that script then, and we will move on to the consent agenda.

Tonight's consent agenda includes minutes of the city council September 16th, 2025 work session, September 20 set September 16th, 2025 regular session, October 7th, 2025 work session, and October 7th, 2025 regular session, and a resolution authorizing a financing application with the Oregon Health Authority for the construction of a raw water pipeline and treatment site preparation.

Does any member does any council member wish to remove a consent agenda item?

Seeing none, I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve the consent agenda is presented.

I second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda as presented.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

Opposed say no.

None heard.

The consent agenda passes unanimously.

And we move on to first of three sort of park and nature related uh business items tonight.

And this one is about the uh ongoing discuss as a continuation of discussion.

We started a couple weeks ago about uh negotiations with the uh North Clackmas Parks and Recreation District Board about trying to get Milwaukee Bay Park built.

And I will let um the city manager give us an update.

Thanks, Mayor.

I'm just gonna give Scott a second to pull up a very short slide deck.

It should be saved in the folder.

If you don't see it, Scott, let me know.

City Recorder 1104 work session, regular session, finals.

Yeah.

Sorry, now I have it open, so it's probably gonna we'll get there.

We'll get there.

All right, so we um you know, spoiler alert, I don't want to do a large build up and then kind of with a letdown at the end.

We received um the latest update from our uh partners of the county at 4 51 p.m.

So um we're not gonna get a big substantive update tonight.

Uh but what I did want to recap for council and for anyone watching and following along on this important topic is sort of what has happened since our meeting two weeks ago.

Um, and then a very brief update of where we are now and where I think the next steps are.

Um so uh at our last meeting, we discussed um uh the the latest verbal terms that have been relayed to staff um regarding our ongoing 10 months of negotiations to restart Milwaukee Bay Park.

The direction from council was to send a letter to the NCPRD board of directors, and that letter was delivered on October 23rd.

Um the letter included, you know, a lot of points, including a timeline of um how we got to this point, but really the the ending note was uh articulation of terms that the city is asking for in an agreement to advance Milwaukee Bay Park, and those terms were one that Milwaukee would be um to would take over project management of the park project that NCPRD would transfer designs and contracts to the city that the N the NCPRD would contribute financially.

Um these values came from a previous letter transmitted from the board to our negotiating team, and they included 3.1 million of zone one STCs.

These are SDCs paid by Milwaukee development into the district and 2.5 million of Metro Local Share dollars that had been um previously budgeted by NCPRD for the project.

Um and then we also um, as you'll recall, had been uh at the county's ask negotiating a addendum to the cooperative IGA, they call it the master IGA at the same time, and it was our um it was the council's wish that those be adopted at the same time, that negotiated addendum and a park um agreement.

Um so we sent that letter, we asked for a written response by November 1st.

We did not receive a written response by November 1st.

Um the board did meet publicly on October 29th as the NCPRD board at that meeting.

Um they adopted a new uh system plan for the district.

They also approved a contract um to look at revenue strategies for the district.

They received a financial update about the financial health of the district and authorized um a con a consultant to support with looking at um options for improving that financial outlook.

There was also um a variety of community testimony, including five Milwaukee residents that testified um asking for a response and um an agreement on Milwaukee Bay Park.

Um so my next slide is is gonna be a little bit of kind of what happened today and where we go next, but I just wanted to pause there and ask if other counselors wanted to share any updates uh that have happened between that meeting and today related to this topic.

Um well, so I don't know whether I should do this now or after your other slide, but I mean basically we're not gonna talk substance about the agreements because we haven't had a chance to read them.

Um but I did want to talk a little bit about process and I wanted to um I wanted to clarify um and actually apologize for uh some things I probably uh some meetings I probably should not have held.

Um so I want to give a little bit of a timeline.

So we had three meetings at the beginning of the year, and the third one was on April 29th, and that was the point where we agreed to revisit the comprehensive IGA or the whatever we're calling it, the cooperative IGA.

Um, you know, that was not what we went into the um to the two-on-two negotiations to do, but we realized that we were not gonna move forward if we didn't, so we agreed to do that, and we sort of took a pause in the two-on-two meetings while staff worked uh, you know, on that cooperative IGA.

So there was a pause from basically all of May, all of June into July.

During that time period, I uh met with two councillors, two commissioners other than the um commissioners that were on the negotiating team.

And I want to sort of briefly describe those meetings.

Um the first one was I was uh invited uh to Commissioner Schrader's home for a um for a meal in her backyard with a um mutual friend that we have.

It was a wide-ranging conversation, but we definitely, among other things, talked about Milwaukee Bay Park.

And that was in June.

And on July 1st, Councilor Massey and I uh met with the new newest commissioner, Commissioner Helm.

Uh, and that was really um trying to introduce her to Milwaukee.

We brought her to the we had coffee at Keeper, and we brought her through City Hall, and we walked down to Milwaukee Bay Park.

We did definitely talk about Milwaukee Bay Park.

Um was it improper to talk about it while we were in a pause in the two-on-two negotiations?

I don't know.

I don't know if it was actually improper, but in retrospect, I wish I hadn't.

I wish I had sort of just said, you know, we're in negotiations and and we shouldn't be having these conversations.

There are two more recent conversations with Commissioner Helm that I definitely um regret having.

Um so she since the point where we got back into negotiation at the end of July.

And and that, you know, that meeting tempo since then or conversation tempo since then has been fairly um rapid.

Um Commissioner Helm reached out to me twice asking to talk.

One time we met in Milwaukee Bay Park, and another time uh last week we spoke on the phone.

Uh those two conversations I really do feel I should not have had.

And um uh they've led to some mischaracterizations, they've uh, you know, and I just uh I want to apologize to all of you as having been elected to do the two-on-two negotiations, that um I should not have had those conversations outside the two of two negotiations.

Um I have something else I want to say addressing the um some of the comments that were made at the board of directors meeting last week, but that's sort of another issue.

So I don't know if anybody else wanted to talk about um conversations they've had with the county commissioners.

Well, I'll try then.

Um I went to the Clackmaster Cities Association dinner in Gladstone.

Thank you, Gladstone for representing.

It was lovely.

Um I had conversations with a couple of the county commissioners, um, which I did not initiate.

Um I uh so I spoke with Commissioner Savas.

Um Commissioner Helm was present, uh, as was Chair Roberts, and I reminded them that they would represent a majority of their board.

And so Commissioner Helm excused herself.

Um so I spoke at length with Commissioner Savas and Chair Roberts.

Um I think that the conversation that you referenced, um, Mayor, and thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Um I think it uh spawned some confusion for or miscommunication amongst the county board because the way that it was characterized to me was that um that you had advocated for something that the council had not um set as you know the the goal parameters for the negotiation.

And so um I just made it very clear to them um multiple times that any conversation that happens outside of the negotiation that we have directed um our representatives to have is just that it's a conversation to the side of uh of a negotiation, whether it's paused or not, um whether it's appropriate or not, I'll you know, like we're all big kids, we can figure it out.

So um, but the what I what I picked up from the conversation was that they felt very strongly that that conversation that you had had with Commissioner Helm had uh had you know sent a very different message than what the negotiations you know were the direction we were going.

And I think it's actually a moot point.

Um I think that uh we as council appointed two representatives to have negotiated discussion around a positive outcome for Milwaukee Bay Park, and um and that's what we were expecting.

Um whether you have a conversation off to the side or not, uh it has it doesn't have the power to derail those negotiations.

It doesn't have the power to divert our goal that we've all determined um, you know, was the North Star in those negotiations.

So I made that very clear.

Um I also did that someone from the county come to this meeting because we have discussions in this format because we don't we're not able to have executive session on this topic.

Um the city council advice is that that is not a legal use of executive um session for us.

Uh the county has other legal advice from the county council, and I'm not even gonna spend time debating that, you know, y'all are lawyers.

You can debate it.

Um but they are able to have more discussion as a body through their use of of executive session than we are, and certainly so it's a lot more public to be having this conversation.

Um so I think that you know, the more that we can bring to light in the discussions that we have here, um the better.

And that's why I had invited Commissioner Savas and Chair Roberts to come to this meeting and have a discussion with us and get the negotiations back on track.

Um I thought that we actually made progress in the conversation that I had with them.

We shook on it, and um they're not here, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary, you know, to I haven't heard anything otherwise.

So that's um it's disappointing um because I thought this would be an opportunity for us all to just recenter around um around a North Star goal, which is to make sure that all of the residents of North Clackamas, whether they be Milwaukee residents or unincorporated residents, or you know, or even somebody from outside of North Clackabus who wants that park developed, you know, to see something happen in their lifetime.

Um anyway, so I I'll divulge that I had those conversations.

That's the lead of it.

Um I also received a phone call from uh Commissioner West and Commissioner Schrader.

Um, I reiterated essentially the same.

So um that's I've been pretty um consistent in my communication with them.

Um I have also advised them that any of the conversations that they might be looping back and forth if they're not having them in the executive session is you know, is their responsibility to hold because this is where we have our conversations.

That's all.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I do um, yeah, I mean, it's an odd situation because they do everything in executive session, and we don't talk to you other than here in public.

Um and that does bring me to um a comment that Commissioner Saas made at the um DAC meeting last week where he implied that we breached some confidentiality.

Um there was never any agreement that of confidentiality in those negotiations.

I think uh everyone involved would would agree to that.

We never made any agreement about confidentiality.

Commissioner Savas and maybe maybe the whole their whole team, I don't know, have had this interpretation that if they route all their communications through their attorney, it's somehow privileged, and that that somehow confers some kind of of uh confidentiality on it.

Um that's not the way attorney client privilege works.

Uh once they they speak to someone that is not part of their attorney client, you know, dome umbrella, there's no more attorney client privilege.

So when they are talking with us in these negotiation sessions, there is no confidentiality.

We made no assurances of that, and I think Commissioner Savas was um unreasonable to expect that.

Um so I just wanted to clarify that because I've heard a few comments about you know us breaching their confidentiality.

Um it looks like the council president would like to speak.

My fingers hovering over the button.

Um I just need to jump on and say that across various meetings or I guess various ribbon cuttings and um events across the city.

I've had chances to talk with our different county commissioners who um as representatives of us here in Milwaukee talk about all things in Milwaukee and inevitably parks is something that they want to bring up.

Um I really will say that Mayor, you and Telser Massey have been acting on behalf of the entire body, speaking for the body at these negotiations.

And I think that is the bottom for these these discussions to really substantially happen.

And I have a lot of faith in what you all brought forward at the negotiating table.

I my top priority here, as we spelled out in our letter back to the county, is to get this part built.

And if there are any county commissioners or staff members watching, I I want that to be clear.

We are incredibly ready to continue to negotiate.

We will listen to whatever counter purpose you have, give us something back.

Um I I really want to continue to make forward progress here.

I appreciate the work that happened at those two on two meetings, and um I I do not want conversation.

I'm sorry, a lot of this is new because I I thought we had dedicated two individuals to have those meetings and that any other meetings would that we would be privy to a little disappointed right now because it sounds like everybody's had a conversation with commissioners about parts except for me.

Am I the only one that followed the rule?

Am I the only one that stayed true to the agreement that the five of us made on this test?

So that's a little disappointing.

Because why am I on the outside?

Now, your conversation is different because that was prompted by the conversation the mayor had.

So that prompted them to come and basically corner you.

So I uh I I get that, but I thought we had an agreement that we had a trusting decision making that that that we had put forth.

Now it's like everybody's out having their own conversation.

So I had a two-hour coffee meeting with Commissioner Savas and didn't mention parks one time.

Could have I have a better relationship with him than I'm sure before you do.

But I'm not in those meetings.

I didn't complain about it either.

Now I'm hearing that everybody's just out wheeling and dealing with.

Now look at where we're at.

I mean, mayor, that that conversation is what prompted where we're at now, clearly.

And the fact that that wasn't brought up to us until now, until after we had a meeting.

I mean, we sat here in the last meeting pointing the finger at the county, and little did we know that you had a meeting that none of us knew about that resulted in this situation.

I mean, that's not kind of I mean, we shouldn't know that.

I think, well, I didn't I mean I didn't have a meeting.

I had a conversation with we didn't know it's Commissioner Helm, and I never would have construed that conversation as being about uh departure from the district.

She raised it, and I said, as we said in all of our meetings, uh, you know, we are not we have no, we had no vote.

We are not looking to leave the district.

Uh, you know, we are focused on the walkway park.

I mean, I stuck to that message through the thing.

So I was very surprised when that became this idea of withdrawal that we saw uh last time.

But I do I do take uh, you know, I do take responsibility for that conversation having been uh the trigger for that.

And I will say she apologized for misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I said.

So I think she recognized maybe that there was some.

I'm sorry, real quick, Council President.

My problem is I I just don't seem to think that we're we're understanding what we're dealing with here.

We're dealing with egos.

We're not dealing with what's in the best interest of the people we represent.

We're dealing with egos.

Anything, even what was just said about Commissioner Salvis right now.

Do you not think he's gonna look at that and use that as another reason to not negotiate with us?

This is the problem.

This is the problem.

There's ego involved, there's bad blood, it has nothing to do with what's in the best interest of the district.

It has everything to do with what's in the best interest of the individual who's trying to get this done.

Like we're all on here together trying to get this done for people.

But there are egos involved here that are beyond how do I want to say that are beyond common sense and logic to do the right thing because it's not about doing the right thing, it's about one upping somebody, one upping the other and getting the thing.

This is getting this is why we're in the same position that we're in.

And this is why I've asked to always be a part of that discussion because I'm not looking at it.

I don't have a 15-year history with these people that are up there deliberately trying to block us from creating this part.

Like we know what this is about, but there's no reason to sugarcoat it.

But it doesn't help when there's these side conversations happening throughout our council.

It it hurts to trust.

How am I supposed to trust if I'm the only one keeping my mouth shit?

How am I supposed to trust now when knowing that nobody else is?

Like, how am I supposed to have confidence that the two that we've selected to negotiate are now going to negotiate and it's not gonna shoot ourselves in the foot?

This is it means it's frustrating.

I trusted this council.

Well, I I hear your frustration.

Um, and uh yeah, all I can say is I wish I had not responded to the last two overtures from Commissioner Helm.

But um, anyway, uh council president had his.

And I might say, Counselor Pussar Matty, these meetings that I think all of us have described are not any meetings with an intent to talk about parks.

I think it's just yeah.

Well, I have a full hour coffee meeting with the council president, yeah.

Right, and not one time did anything about Milwaukee Park and not one time, and I put that on my life and my family's life.

You can even ask Mr.

Stalker, so not one time.

You don't think I wanted to?

You don't think I wanted to be like, hey, man, where are we at?

But I stuck to the word that this council agreed on, and I didn't.

And the fact that this is a meeting that happened months ago, and we're hearing about it now after the fact that they had sent us this, and we had pointed fingers.

I mean, it's just no lack of transparency.

Just to clarify the timeline, my two solo conversations with Commissioner Helm have been within the last months ago.

Or was the one that meant that you talked about in June or July?

That was yeah, that was a meeting too, right?

Well, that was a welcome to Milwaukee meeting that Commissioner, I mean, Councillor Massey and I did together.

Uh, it was a walk around downtown Milwaukee for the new commissioner.

Why are we hearing about it now, though?

If parcel was talked about, how come we didn't care about it?

Yeah, that's not that that's my problem.

I I appreciate that frustration, and I guess just closing my thought.

I don't think that any of us are initiating kind of side conversations that are substantive.

I think that when this has been a conversation that others have raised with the mayor or I, um, you know, I've at least said in the conversations that happened after the letter, um, which are the entirety of my conversations.

I've said we wrote a letter, I described the content of the letter, and that's about it.

Um, but I I will say I I hear the frustration, I appreciate that there.

I think months have gone by since I was like the fact that we're hearing it now, and we acted like I sat here in this chair in the last meeting, really upset because I was like, why is the county doing this to us?

But little did I know that we're also part of the problem, we're also part of the problem.

So it's it makes me even more frustrated because it's like, okay, how do we solve this problem?

Because we're both part of it, and it's just it's really frustrating.

I'm sorry.

Well, I was gonna say, I think Emma has some uh ideas about next step, so that might be the somewhat of an answer to you, but I want to give counselor the chance to.

Yeah, um, I'm gonna be very clear that as independently elected individuals, we have a responsibility to represent a lot of different policy areas that affect Milwaukee, and when we as a council make a decision to go into um negotiation or mediation, and we have representatives that are appointed to be a part of that, then you are correct.

It is not appropriate to have any leading conversation or lobbying conversation outside of that process, but we all know that we see different boards and different city councils and and individuals that we've also built relationships with, and you're talking about seeing you know, like we all have those connections, and it makes it very impossible to ignore that person.

Now, let me say this next piece before you respond.

Um I think it is completely respectful and appropriate to reiterate the points that have been made on this dais to say that we have a team that's been appointed to do negotiations, our council is in favor of doing the negotiation, and anything that derails that process, especially something that happens outside of those negotiation sessions, shouldn't be considered as part of the council um action.

It's it's an action of an individual, it's a conversation of one of the five.

Does that make sense?

So I actually think that when we all have an opportunity to reiterate um what keeps us on this path, this North Star towards Milwaukee Bay Park or any policy area, when we have a chance to reiterate those points, that does show that we have trust on this council.

It does show that I trust the people who have been appointed to our negotiation team to do the negotiating.

And that's that stays the same.

I personally still trust our two representatives to get in that room and work out the best possible solution for Milwaukee Bay Park.

And I trust that the county is probably grappling with some of these conversations right now.

I hope that they also get back in that room and have a discussion about how we benefit all of our residents.

But I don't think that when we're approached and the topic is brought up, and we know what the what the bumpers are for that conversation.

I think it's it's okay to respond and say, hey, listen, this is what we've talked about publicly.

This is um this is the process we're following, and I want to support that process.

So get back to work.

And I can I can appreciate that.

Number one, if you're dealing with rational people, which we're not, right?

Whatever anybody on this council says about parks, we know that certain commissioners will use that as a reason to not deliver the park.

We know this, we know our audience.

We're not dealing with people who are logically rational when it comes to the subject.

They're looking for any reason to tell us no.

So to give them more ammunition is is it makes no sense, number one.

Number two, having those conversations is fine.

That's great.

Having the team because we trust that team, but hearing about it a month later is inappropriate.

Hearing about it a month later is inappropriate about having about two meetings is inappropriate if we're a team, right?

So that's where that's what I'm talking about.

I'm not so upset with the the mayor you have having that conversation because you're part of that team.

But when I when I hear about it a month later, it loses, it's like, well, where's the trust?

Like, why didn't you tell us earlier?

And then when I hear council president also having conversations, I'm like, okay, well, what is he having conversations about?

And again, Council Savage wasn't your fault.

That was problem you were jumped, basically, but that was prompted more by what happens here.

But I also stayed in the discussion, not lobbying for anything, not have you know, if anything, I I felt like it would have been really helpful to have the disclosure ahead of time because it was embarrassing to go to the dinner alone, I might add.

No, I'm just joking.

Um it was hard to go into that space um and not know the um content of the discussion that you had outside of the negotiation team.

Um, and then here um, you know, they were alleging, you know, the the content of that discussion.

I don't want to pass judgment on that.

All I want to say is that anything that happens outside of the negotiation team on this topic really shouldn't sway the direction that we are going to be able to hope to go there.

That's the problem.

Like I just look at it like this.

We know who we're dealing with.

We need to play chess, not checkers, right?

If you're someone was supposed to come to me, I'd say, look, we have two representatives that have been duly elected by this council, you can talk to them about your parks.

That's it.

That should be it.

Because if we start going off at different tangents, this is how they're splintering us.

This is how they're dividing and conquering.

This is their plan is to sow this discourse to say, oh, well, the mayor told us this, and then Will's like, well, that's what that's the point.

But if we stuck to it and said, look, I'm not dealing with parks, that's the mayor, and that's council Robert Besie.

You got a question with parks, please handle it with them until until I'm told otherwise, that's it.

We can be disciplined enough to do that, then we can show a united front and have a little bit more, in my opinion, a little bit more behind us than Commissioner West and you than you, and you later than me.

I mean, that's I do I do think they're trying to splinter us.

Um, but I do think um we do have the response now, and so um we do have something to look at and to come back to you with, and I think that's the proposal that Emma wanted to talk about.

Thanks, Mayor and I I just want to add, you know, um my only bit of commentary on this, having sat in every two-on-two session, is I want to reassure the rest of council and reassure the public that those conversations at the table have been entirely consistent with their action from council.

There has been no deviation from that direction.

The letter that you sent on October 23rd reiterating the city's position um is is a consistent message.

And so I I just I've observed all of those and can vouch for that.

Um, so I do uh we do have a response.

We did not get a response in writing by November 1st as requested, but we did receive draft IGAs, and um despite the miscommunication and um brief detour from um what we were originally talking about to talk about other topics.

We are back looking at two IGAs, an addendum to the cooperative IGA and an IGA related in Milaky Bay Park.

So those are uh we're receiving the city attorney at 451.

Because of that late hour, um, we need some time to review the drafts.

Um, and I don't want to risk any misstatement of details or facts tonight.

So we're we're not sharing that um here.

That said, this is always a matter of urgency and importance to our council.

Um, and we know that it's taken a long time to even get to this point.

And our next meeting on November 18th is a very full meeting.

Actually, the next two meetings are very full.

So, given that, um, the negotiation team and I met very briefly prior to this and wanted to propose scheduling a special session for next week with council where we can uh review and discuss the terms that have been put in those draft IGAs.

Um again, just we would hope we're hoping to do it tonight.

We didn't get them in time to process that.

Um, next week would typically be a semi-session week, but Veterans Day is on Tuesday, so we don't have a meeting on Tuesday.

Um, but I think our ask was to see if there is availability among council to schedule and notice a special session for Wednesday through Friday of next week um to meet.

I will note I think the DAC meets on the 12th.

Um, so I'm not sure if there's yeah, the DAC meets from 5 30 to 7.

So I could meet later that day.

Um, but yeah, it would have to be later.

Um so I guess we're asking yeah, or if or I guess earlier or earlier.

Yeah, so could folks look at their availability, council folks, and um tell us Wednesday, Thursday, Friday um availability for holding and noticing a special session to discuss the agreements that have been received.

I'm available Thursday and Friday evenings.

Me too.

Um Thursday and Friday will fine for me.

Okay, we can maybe proceed them with 5 p.m.

on Thursday.

We'll get that noticed.

And it'll be a special session.

Um, so we'll be noticed publicly.

That's Thursday, Thursday, November 13th.

Thursday, November 13th.

At 5 p.m.

Yep.

Okay, well, we'll discuss this more then.

Well, thank you, everyone.

Um so we have a few more things on our agenda.

Uh the next is a um discussion uh about public private green space partnerships, and I'll invite forward our public works director Peter Pasarelli and our Parks and Greenspace Development Manager Adam Moore.

So meeting Mayor Bailey and Council and Peter Castro, the works director uh with me tonight, and who's gonna be providing the presentation is Adam Moore, our parks and green space development manager.

Uh one of the items that we identified in our parks and green space coal strategies was looking at uh public and private partnerships and how they relate to uh our green space and how it might relate to how we manage green space in the future.

Uh Adams has broached the subject with our parks and recreation board, had an initial discussion uh last month.

And this is sort of the initial discussion that we want to have with you uh about it and get some feedback and potential future guidance to to move forward with this.

So there we go.

So yeah, right on time.

This is just a very general uh overview, but uh we spent time as staff uh doing some research into public-private partnerships and how they might be utilized in our parks and green space.

And as a staff, we presented uh four different types uh to the parks and rec board for some feedback.

Uh those four types are uh program-based partnerships, capital improvements, operation maintenance, and revenue generating.

Um, and these are all for different types of partnerships that we could potentially see the city getting involved with, or perhaps the city is already involved with them in some ways, and we need to look at formalizing them.

Um we're talking about programming partnerships.

Uh, we work to identify basic uh uh activities that can be done in our parks or in our green space.

These could be recreational, cultural, educational, community programming uh in the form of outdoor fitness.

This could be art classes, uh, environmental education offered by a third party on public property in agreement with the city or NCPRD.

Capital improvements, right?

Those are infrastructure improvements that are made uh in public parks or green spaces that are provided by a third party to the city or the park district for the public good.

This could be not just fundraising or developmental services, but this is also financial agreements.

Perhaps there's some ways that we can in parks utilize uh different bond rates or interest rates.

Uh, you see these not necessarily as much in uh smaller neighborhood parks, but in larger park projects or in uh different uh large infrastructure projects, bridges, I think are a big fan of public private partnerships and utilizing different bond rates and interest rates leading to public uh amenities.

Uh OM partnerships are operational and maintenance uh partnerships, those could be assistance provided by volunteers or third parties in our green spaces and parks that just improve the physical experience for our park users.

These can be our friends of groups, these can be commercial businesses, these could be adopted park groups, providing services in exchange for their benefit, um, you know, just out of their goodwill.

Well, uh well, uh, I think that one thing that we identified in having this conversation as a staff and with the parks and wet board is that these definitions uh are very use when we're talking about partnerships, and I'll get to this further into the discussion.

But the parks and wit board in particular wanted to see a process that we set up that allowed for entrepreneurship um and allow for creativity and flexibility.

Um for example, a commercial entity could gather their employees, they could sponsor an event, they can uh have brandy t-shirts, and they are using the partnership with the city in our public space to indirectly advertise their business or maybe directly advertise their business by going out and saying we have adopted this lovely green space, and you want to make sure that you know that our company and our employees are here to provide those services to you, the city of Milwaukee, and to your public.

So that that might be an opportunity for that.

Uh that's a little bit of a stretch, but um what we've seen in our research is that these partnerships uh each one of them is a little bit unique.

And then revenue generating partnerships.

So the use of public space for commercial activities provided to the public to enhance the experience in that public space.

This could be in the form of concessions, equipment rentals, right?

We talk a lot about kayak rentals.

Uh the use of underutilized space.

So perhaps we have public facilities that aren't getting utilized as much as we would like to.

You see this being common in community centers or senior centers, where there is some slow time in that public space that might be leased out uh by a third party uh for their benefit, um, and as a way to offer a variety of new programming.

And as a way to offer a variety of new programming.

Or this could be the use of special amenities operated by third parties, right?

So perhaps they're one of the suggestions we've heard in some of our community engagement in the past is why don't you allow for a private organization to build pickleball courts on your land and start a pickleball club?

And the only people who get to use it are people who pay for the pickleball league.

This is again just something hypothetically that I'm bringing up that we've heard about in the past, and one way in which that partnership could uh come to fruition.

So with those kind of just four basic types in mind, we uh had a conversation with the parks and wicked board at the October meeting, and we uh asked them a few questions.

And the first one was what's the difference between a partnership and an agroup and who needs to benefit to make it a partnership?

And the example that we gave at the meeting was you know, across the street, we have a privately owned parking lot that we, the city lease out and we make available for the public to use and for staff to use.

That's a that's an agreement that we have.

And the question that we pose to the parks and write board is is that business arrangement or is that a partnership?

And through our lengthy discussion at the uh board meeting, uh PARP felt that in addition to a situation where there are really three parties involved, not just the city and the partner, but also the general public, um, and the impacts on those three entities need to be considered, but we also need to be implementing shared goals, right?

It's not just quid pro quo, even if you're considering three different entities, but are we advancing our goals for parks and green space more area entities, partnerships?

And then again, above all else, make sure that we're protecting our sensitive natural resources.

The second question we asked is how do we benefit how do we balance public benefit with commercial or fee-based use, right?

So if we're going to find a way to open up some of our publicly held assets for private companies to use, parks and rec board felt that we needed to beforehand develop a strategy and a plan that details the public schools through community engagement and identifies the environmental limitations at our parks and green spaces first, and then allow commercial-based entities to submit proposals.

Then we followed up with what are the limitations that we should be considering when we offer these partnerships out to people.

And the Parks Right Board felt that the impacts on available general general recreation space in addition to those sensitive natural resources should be avoided.

And what I mean by that is we as a city have a very small amount of acreage per thousand people.

Uh it's somewhere around two acres.

The recognition from trust for public lands is six acres per thousand people.

The national recommendation from the recreation and parks association is 10.

Um so we felt as though we don't just need to think about our sensitive spaces, our wetlands, our natural areas, um, our natural resource protected areas, but we also need to make sure that we're not losing uh completely some of that space for unstructured uh play.

Um that all being said, the parks and rec board felt that we needed to allow for a creativity, flexibility, and place banks opportunities to be sought.

The type of partnership might be important when we're considering these locations.

Um, and most importantly, evaluating the proposals that we receive on a case-by-case basis would be really important.

Basically, the parks and rec board said, hey, we don't know what we don't know.

We aren't entrepreneurs as the city, and there could be real benefit to the general public if we allow people to submit proposals to us.

And so what that might look like, right?

And so the question was how do we enter into these partnerships or offer fee-based use of our uh public assets equity fairly and transparently?

And the Parks and Rec Board thought that a transparent solicitation process after that uh strategy and plan had been adopted in a publicly vetted uh manner where public involvement is available for the selection of those partnerships and a development of those partnerships would be really, really important.

So, what does that mean?

It means we're doing community engagement, we're working on our strategy, we're adopting our plan, we're doing some community engagement, and we're sitting out a request for proposals for partnerships in these spaces, and we're making sure that the public is involved.

That could be a tree board member or parks and write board member or equity steering committee member on the evaluation team to look at the proposals that we received.

Maybe you're gonna clarify this, but are you talking about a process where we just said bring us your proposals for any of our parks?

Or are you saying we would identify parts where we were gonna entertain proposals?

Well, I think what what the Parks and Rec board has said is that we we do need some structure, and that structure can come in the form of policies that offer that framework and a parks uh or green space management plan that lays out what those public goals are that we want to meet in these partnerships, and then what the different parameters are um and then put out that RFP that that request for proposals and so see what comes back and then evaluate them as a public body uh with the public involved.

Uh, how we do that would be spelled out in that strategy and that that plan.

Um so it's not a complete free-for-all, but it's setting up so a framework and a plan that then opens it up for proposals that we review and decide yes to this, no to this, maybe to that, and here's how we need to tweak it based on its location or what is being offered.

If I can add in that's gonna get into this on some of the recommendations, like when we look at our larger parks and green space goal, one of the other strategies that we've identified is developing a green space management project, right?

And that's the thing that we're you know, we're in the very early process of developing uh the scope of work for going out and doing an RFQ and hiring a consultant to help us go through that process, that engagement process with the community to develop that green space management plan.

Oh, sorry about that.

Uh so that's an important part of it.

That green space management plan as we go through that.

I think one of the deliverables out of that is this framework that we're talking about.

I guess I can meet really briefly.

I'm confused.

Are you saying a one-time RFP for like I guess what is our describing here with RFP process by which businesses would reach out?

I think what CARB's biggest concern and why the RFP process was brought up was that they wanted to make sure that everybody had this opportunity, that we weren't getting into a situation where somebody knows somebody and maybe they are able to uh further uh their their partnership with the city through that.

So we need a fair and equitable and transparent process that allows us to say we are accepting proposals, whether that's a one-time RFP or a multiple rounds of RFP, whether that's a situation where people are submitting ideas uh to a body that's identified in that green space plan, I don't know.

But they wanted to make sure that it was open to everyone, uh given that these are our public assets.

If I could just add on to onto that a little bit there too.

I I think as going back to this green space management plan, that's the process to develop the framework that identifies that future process on how we solicit for these public and private partnerships.

So part of that going through this engagement with the community and developing this green space management plan will set us up for uh determining how that process is gonna work.

You know, I think to add this point, we want to make sure that we're being equitable and transparent and make allowing opportunities for people that are interested in or groups or businesses that are interested in these public and private partnerships to have that opportunity uh to propose in a way that's uh fair.

I say the geese are flocking.

Yeah, yeah.

The geese are flocking, and I think Counselor Stavensort had hers up first.

Um, just curious if you've considered other um uh other tools.

They're like much shorter tools than an RFP, like a request for proposal, so like request for proposals is huge.

Um, but you could do a request for qualifications or um a request for interest, and those could be just like a one page thing that the partners would respond to.

We could outline the parameters like insurance requirements, um, you know, sharing of financial records, things along those lines that could be determined on the front end, and then they just respond with a short, you know, one page kind of proposal, and we keep that you know, for consideration on file.

Yeah, and I I think the the RFP was an idea that came up in the discussion.

I don't think that we are married to any idea right now, and I think our recommendation is staff is that we need to develop this green space management plan and decide while we're doing that.

What are the guidelines for these public-private partnerships?

What are our goals and what is the process?

Is there a better way than an RFP there could possibly be that?

And I think that the parks direct board isn't necessarily concerned with how we solicit those, as long as we're doing so in a way that is equitable, transparent, and fair, but also allows for that entrepreneurship and creativity.

Because in the discussion, we might mention some of the ideas that I've heard in passing, uh, or some of the ones that I I know have been kind of uh talked about elsewhere, you know, a filling sauna on the Willamette, you know, Parks and Red Board looked at us and said, Wait, we can do that.

And I said, I don't know, can we?

You are the ones that are pulled to be providing us the direction.

And so I think that they see this as an opportunity to put together a good plan and put together a framework that would allow our community to get creative and not only implement uh our goals for parks and green space, but also for economic development and affordability.

I would just encourage that the mechanism be as simple as possible so that um partners who might not have a lot of experience or a lot of capacity to respond to government process could still respond and be creative.

Um we increase the um opportunity for new and exciting proposals that way.

I just couple quick like so the example that you gave with uh kayaks, let's say kayak rental.

What's the process for that person right now?

Is there one?

I don't believe you have one.

So not necessarily as a city, I don't know.

Well, we have had we've had a couple of instances of having kayak rentals.

Um so we did have somebody who did a pop-up kayak thing probably in like 2018, brought in a trailer every day with kayaks on it.

Um, and they had some kind of uh, you know, some some kind of a permit from the city and from NCPRD.

And I thought more recently, I think Joseph maybe like two years ago was in conversation with somebody who wanted to do the same, but it never kind of came to be.

But I mean, we have entertained that idea before and have had it in one at one point.

Yeah, and they I think Adam's right that we don't have any kind of formal process for um like those money-making business endeavors.

We kind of shoehorn them through, I think our temporary event permit process, but I think this conversation, this development of this plan enables us to do a more thoughtful path.

I mean, not the temporary event permit is a free plan.

So we're also giving away public space for a private enterprise to make money, and we're not, you know, that that comes to top of cost for the city and not reaping anything.

So I think there's there are pathways on that case by case basis, as you know, you see in the staff recommendation.

We don't want this to be a no, we'll not discuss any cool ideas until we have a management plan.

But um that it really is that kind of case by case thing until we can be a little more strategic and a little more thoughtful.

And if I just might uh add on to that, you know, because it was individual businesses coming to us and saying, hey, what about this idea?

That made it feel uh that's more of like about one off or that shoe more sort of process in the parks and record board really felt like, hey, if City of Milwaukee, if you're gonna do this, if we're gonna open up this, it needs to be something that more people are aware of that you shouldn't just take it upon yourself to ask somebody, hey, can I get a temporary use permit to you know hawk my kayaks in Milwaukee Bay Park?

It's like, no, we need to open this up and make this a formal process and then evaluate it on a case by case basis.

We do have some questions.

Um wait a second, the geese are still flying.

Did you get all your questions?

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Council President.

I guess I would just echo the concerns that Councillor Steven raised.

I think the RFP is really, really demanding on small businesses who want to put forward great ideas.

I also struggle with making small businesses in Milwaukee will run the city's timeline as opposed to their own timeline.

I would rather see some type of rolling process that is that case by case basis or allows for that an entrepreneur to bring forward an idea as opposed to the city saying we will allow you to bring forward an idea on our own timeline.

Um I I do, I guess I'm confused, and I could use some clarity here.

I'm hearing we're gonna define a process in the green space management plan, but before then we're gonna have an interim process or case by case bases that we'll go through, or I guess help me understand that people have good ideas now that's a good idea.

Yeah, well, it's yeah, it's it's really about long term versus short term.

So right now, and I see someone in the audience, uh, as already, you know, we we're we're already entertaining short-term things.

We'll get into the temporary event permit process, and we're trying to be as flexible and meanable and creative as ways we can do that.

That's just different than saying, you know, we're going to for 12 months or for an ongoing basis lease, you know, lease or give this portion of a park over for this kind of private enterprise.

So I think what we're saying is until this management plan is done, we'll continue to field those cool creative ideas for those temporary short-term um bases and use our best judgment and and conversation and direction from you.

I think when we actually brought this up last time to you, what you said is proceed with evaluating those and just prioritize maintaining as much access to the rest of the park as possible.

So that's kind of what we've been doing, and that's what I think our staff recommendation is until we can think about the right way to do solicitations or you know, easy processes to to um to uh invite ideas, whether it's on a rolling basis or a one-time basis, however, we do it for longer term or more permanent installations.

Does that make any sense?

It does.

It just feels like a lot of um lot of like thought and time and process that has to go into accepting applications that we can review on a case by case basis as a city.

Like I think about our naming policy and what it would look like to adapt something like that into the ability to have a platform for people to submit ideas on a short-term basis until it can be further refined and management.

I think the way you're coming out.

I think they just went would frame it as if I was if an application came across my desk tomorrow saying, can we put a permanent ice cream stand in Milwaukee Bay Park?

Um for Lumless.

And um I would feel like that would be very hard a proposal for my staff to evaluate when you guys have directed us through the parks and green space goal to come up with a management plan for how we manage that space.

And it would be it's it's kind of an easier thing for me to wrap my mind around of an operational standpoint on okay, how do we kind of think about maintenance and security and access on a short-term basis?

But if we're talking a permanent thing, um that that's harder.

And so I actually think it's more about providing some transparency to our business partners that we know you're interested in this, and we don't want to be telling you, yeah, maybe one day we say we're we're embarking on this plan as part of this goal.

The plan will be developed next year, and through it, we're gonna wrestle with this question and get some public input and get some council input and come out with some really clear guidelines.

But in the interim, if you have an idea for a like a shorter term couple day thing, submit an application, we're happy to talk.

That has foundation started to break through.

And I think one thing that uh goes along with that is a second bullet point, which is you know, you brought up the naming policy or the memorial donation policies.

You know, we had people who came to us and said, I want to donate a pension to this park, or I want to donate funds um in exchange for some recognition to a project.

And we had to say, you know, hey, the we are not ready to write that policy yet.

And now we've spent you know, nine months working on those policies, and those people are still still needing.

And so the Parks Market Board felt is though it was really important that we we hold to the timeline in the parks and green space goal that you council has adopted for developing this green space management plan.

We know that there are other topics, the one previous to this and some that are come after this, um, that greatly extend um some of our work.

But the parks and board really felt as though this green space management plan and some of these different topics that we've been wrestling with could be nestled into that plan, and we should move that forward.

Um we've kind of gotten to many of these questions.

Um I guess the first question is what sort of general feedback would you have for us?

So is there any additional feedback that you might have?

I guess I have a uh sort of threshold question.

We have someone who wants to testify.

Do you want should we let him testify and then come back to these questions, or do you want us to answer these uh questions?

And um, I mean, generally it's not a public hearing, so we don't have the formal uh requirement that we hear from him before we make a decision, but it seems kind of comparable to that.

So I I guess I'm inclined to let him um testify before we answer these questions.

I would definitely like to hear from him before I answer at least.

Just worth the parks and your board meeting, I would look at the chair and say, well, this is your meeting.

I was about to do that.

Uh there, it's your meeting.

You can do whatever you want.

Okay.

Then uh uh Michael, you can that you guys can stay there.

Michael can come on the side and um hit the red button.

Uh we'll give you three minutes.

And um Scott, you can be looking at uh Zoom to see if anybody else is raising hands.

Well, thank you, Mayor Beatty, and thank you, City Council, City Manager, Emma, and thank you to staff.

I am so appreciative that this topic is you know moving forward, right?

So when I think about dissecting an issue into like race parts, like let's sell it down to something really simple, like um, you know, I want to uh build a you know, um race bed in a city park, a raised bed in the city park, right?

And I don't want it to be temporary, I want it to be permanent, right?

And I want to say, you know, everybody can use this race bet, right?

And maybe they'll say, you know, in memory of you know Michael's brother Jonathan passed away, right?

So would the city rip that race bet out because I didn't go through a process that's gonna be developed in two or three years, you know.

Like I guess the question is if a citizen or or a business or a nonprofit wants to contribute something really neat and important and probably aligned with all of what everybody wants to see happen.

There we wouldn't entertain that.

It sounds like unless it's a temporary situation currently, we're going to delay any kind of contributions to our green spaces until we hire a consultant who will consult on which consultant to hire, and we write the report that will tell us which other reports we need to write.

And then we got to do some citizen engagement, get a lot of feedback, right?

We gotta do all these studies and I am dramatic, exaggerating, and probably near my three minute weapon.

But I suppose I I would love to see um kind of just like common sense practical ways to address citizens' desire to like get involved and do it, you know, um without waiting three, four years and lots of money on consultants and reports and citizen engagement studies that we already have.

We have a lot of citizen engagement, you know, feedback and information um of of what you need to see happen.

So thanks for listening.

Appreciate it.

Okay, bye.

Michael, I don't know if we got it.

Can you give us your full name and senior residence?

Yeah, so I'm Michael Talcano, and I'm a small business owner in downtown Milwaukee.

Um, and my wife and we live in Portland.

Thank you.

We still have a Zoom audience, uh, but they are raising their hands.

So with that, I'll turn it back over to Adam.

I would just add as just kind of a quick little staff response, please.

Appreciate your comments, Michael.

I don't think anyone's proposing a three to four year process.

So you within your goal action plan, the the timeline for developing a green space management plan was in 2026.

So just as a note for you all.

Okay.

So these are the questions.

Uh they might look uh familiar to you.

They were in the staff report.

Um, and so we're just looking for you know general opinions uh on the topic uh specifically.

Um, and so we're just looking for you know general opinions uh on the topic uh specifically, uh, and this second one is very long, but it's basically saying um what directions you have for approving uh permanent or long-term profit or for profit installations in our parks or green spaces um prior to the completion of that plan, right?

Which would be done towards the end of 2026.

Um or should we continue to uh explore this question uh this question through plan development?

And then the third one is you know what additional questions do you council have to staff to investigate?

Um is there specific types of engagement um that birthday council would like to see us take.

Do we need to convene our small business folders in a shortened expedient way, which we might you know uh learn from them and find and draft a process that is easier for them to respond to?

Um do we need to hold focus groups?

Do we need to do any QB engagement, or do we just need to write uh as the testimony said, you know, get to it.

Okay, I will tell you I find question two sort of hard to parse through, but um I'll call on counselor massey.

Yeah, thanks for the uh report.

I'm obviously uh been privy to this uh from my uh work on the par.

And um so I think that we quite frankly don't know what we're doing yet.

And um, so I'm I have no problem with uh studying this, getting feedback, trying to understand not just what the businesses want, but what the community wants, okay?

Because um, everyone who wants to come in and uh uh set up a business in the parks, I don't I don't know if the community wants that business.

So I think there's a missing component here in trying to make these decisions.

Um the idea of allowing a permanent development in a park, it's like it's like kind of like signing a 10-year waste hauling agreement, you know?

You know, and uh, you know, I I you know that that's kind of a non-start as far as I'm concerned.

And I just think that we need to go slow.

I know that uh businesses like to go fast and break things and all that other kind of stuff, whatever the you know, the the buzzword of the of the day is and that kind of thing, but uh that's real interesting.

But uh I think we're not gonna need to go slow and see how this works.

Um, you know, uh, I certainly don't want to park.

It's nothing but vendors.

Okay.

Uh yeah, we might have a vendor dense uh event, you know, July 4th, whatever it is, I don't know.

Uh, where we have a lot of vendors, like we do at uh, you know, the soldiers and that kind of thing.

And but that's okay.

And uh, but they put up uh their their uh tents and uh they're there for a day or two and we bring it back down.

So I just uh I think the the you know the community is is uh we don't have any community thoughts on this uh just yet.

Um and um I just think we need to go slow and we need to talk about things in a temporary basis or an event-based basis before we even consider anything long term because we just don't know.

So is there something that's between uh temporary event and a permanent structure?

I mean, I also have some skepticism about permanent structures in our parks, but we know, for example, Milwaukee Park is not going to be under construction next summer.

Um that's one the few you know definitive things I think we can say.

Um is allowing something to happen there over the summer months.

Uh is that a temporary thing or is that a permanent thing or a long-term thing, you know?

Um if it's something that doesn't um you know build any kind of permanent structure and you know, and there is power there now, which was done by Dan for the um for the um uh little float.

Um so I guess uh that's the question that's mulling around in my head.

Um I don't know who was up first.

Thank you, Mary.

Uh yeah, I I would agree with Counselor Minnesota.

Um really want to commercialize our public parks, kind of just sounds like odd to pay to play at a park that's the public has already paid for with their taxes, right?

So um it hurts me.

That makes sense, but to have a permanent structure on a public property that's that's a commercial that's a business that belongs to a business, it just irks me.

Um my question is the biggest question of all is how are you gonna make it equitable if you have to pay for it?

It doesn't make sense, right?

Like parks right now are completely equitable because they're free.

You add an element that requires people to pay.

Well, now you're cutting some people out of being able to enjoy that park or that amenity, right?

The other question is you gotta look at how you're gonna regulate something like that.

If somebody wants to say, Yeah, I need the whole space of Dogwood Park to do a yoga class that I'm gonna charge people 20 bucks to come to, and a family wants to come and play at that park, it's like sorry, you gotta be off this park that's public property because you won't pay to join the the event that's happening here.

So I see that there's some good that can come from this, but I also see that there's some pretty bad that can come from this and potentially open up indoors blocks and commercialize what left, what little left we do have belongs to the public.

Because right now you gotta pay for everything these days.

Everything costs money.

The one thing that doesn't is going out to our parks, right?

And join the day.

And it would suck to walk down to a park and be told, hey, this is a closed event unless you got 20 bucks.

So I think there's potential for something on a smaller scale on a temporary scale, but something like bigger that would take up a lot of park space that would literally alienate people and prevent people from enjoying the parks, especially like imagine if a business outside of Milwaukee did that, and Milwaukee residents try to go to their own park, and the business was like 20 bucks, right?

Like there's just something morally and and and ethically just doesn't sit well with me.

Um so if we can find a way to make it equitable, I I would like to listen because that that's the that's the track there.

Council President Yeah, I hear the concerns.

I think that I'm thinking about how do we build a system in which we can allow for private actors to bring forward amenities that don't like restrict our parks, but augment our parks and what's allowed.

I think that kayak is a good example.

Not everyone has the money to buy a kayak.

Not everyone has the means to take a kayak down to Milwaukee Bay Park to paddle around um to access that bay of Milwaukee Bay Park.

And so I think that providing a private service that someone will profit off of that augments the existing facilities in our park and allows for not restricted access but expanded access is a good example of what that can look like.

Um more medium term, I see a pathway to explore these conversations.

Um I appreciate that work being done.

I guess what I'm thinking about as I look at these questions is what is the short-term pathway for us to have these conversations, kind of like what Councillor Pluser Body is saying.

We might have skepticism, but how do we hear you out to hear what it might look like?

I think of this, I would be curious to see what uh like temporary use of pop-up process looks like.

Um then for a more like uh I'm fine to hear proposals.

I might disagree with them about a permanent installation, but I'm fine to hear them, and I think that in the short term to have some type of process to hear them makes sense.

I would think that it makes sense to have carb accept proposal like that, to put it up on engage, and then you could bring it to council with you both.

Um I think that that's kind of how we would approach ordinances and other things like that, and we're a public body that is elected by the public to represent the public.

Having a process like that doesn't seem out of the norm of what council can do.

It's a process that certainly could be refined, but in the short term, I think approaching something like that, or at least having some kind of pathway for the conversation.

It doesn't mean that we have to vote one way or another on any proposal that's brought forward, but I think what I'm hearing is what is in the short term a way that we can hear um these ideas provide a forum for public discussion.

And real quick, just I I I do want to say first off, Michael, I love your son of smooth.

And it's great.

Um those hunters.

I don't do the the cold plunge, I just do the cold bucket.

Um, but I I do think to to the example, because I did want to speak on the example you gave because I do think there's two different things that we're we're potentially talking about here.

One of them is hey, let's put a community uh a flat raised bed for a garden, I was gonna say flat bed, um, for a community garden and everybody can enjoy it, versus hey, I'm gonna put a raised bed for community garden and you're gonna pay for the vegetables.

So I think there's two different things that we're talking about.

We should make it easier for community members to want to do something like that, where it's it does allow community members to take part in it, but as opposed to but there's gotta be a separate process if we want to go that route of saying I'm gonna put something here, you gotta pay for it to use it.

So I think it's a little bit it's two, there's two separate conversations potentially going on here.

Or two different routes that we could go, is what I should say.

Okay, I'm gonna throw a completely different question at you, which is this, and and then maybe I'm just not remembering, but does green space management plan is this about parks that NCPRD manages for us?

I'm sorry.

It's about both.

Both.

Okay, it's about both.

So it's about you know our natural resource areas that we have that are parks that NCPRD manages.

And it's also about these spaces that NCPRD manages.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um I don't know if I have coherent thoughts, but I have a couple of thoughts.

Um I think that sometimes when parks are left to um to be developed or to be maintained with solely public dollars, then those parks languish.

Then you find deferred maintenance, then you find a lack of um playground equipment or benches or ADA access or things along those lines.

So I think that there is a place for the blending of public and private funding to be able to augment what we have available in our parks, as the council president said, um, to create vibrant programming in some way, but I agree with counselor coserbody around the exclusivity of what that um uh pay to program pay for for programming um could create in our communities.

And I think that um, you know, in Oregon and in Milwaukee, we feel really strongly about open green space.

We feel really strongly about that being a great amenity in our communities, um, and we want that to be accessible for everyone.

Um so but I think that there are some examples of the way that these two worlds, public and private, can kind of blend together.

Like um the parks and recreation department does have pay to you know, pay-to-play programming.

They do have classes that you can sign up for.

There's yoga in the park, and there's you know, Tai Chi and things like that.

And some of those you just show up and you can do some of them you have to sign up to do, uh, you know, to kind of cover like the instructor cost.

Um, I think of community gardens, those are public um benefits.

I believe, you know, but you do have to pay for you know the plot or contribute in some way.

Um, but those are permanent, semi-permanent structures.

Um, I think about sponsored benches, um, you know, that create more of a place for people to sit and enjoy the park, or if they have mobility issues that that might create a way um, you know, for someone to enjoy um or participate in park programming a little bit better.

Um also think about like our carefree Sundays events, you know, like there are um sponsorships for things that happen in the parks on those days, and those are businesses coming together and doing something in the parks, but it's a temporary um use, it's a non-permanent kind of a thing.

Um those are free generally, um, but the business gets the benefit of having you know their name out there and the publicity out there.

So I think what I would be interested in um exploring further would be um some type of a public private uh temporary use um like agreement that we might be able to do, or at least the process to to solicit ideas for um permanent or semi-permanent, you know, like I guess I think about like Milwaukee Bay Park, right?

If we had um if Soniglow sometime somehow came into like you know a billion dollars, and you were like, I'm gonna build the best splash pad down in Milwaukee Bay Park, but it's gonna be a cold plunge spec splash pad.

Um I think uh if we were able to provide that free of charge for you know for all the residents that might want to be there, that would be amazing.

I would not necessarily have a problem putting soniclo on it.

Um because the alternative is that we don't have someplace for residents to go and um and have that augmentation of the park experience.

So I'd be interested in looking into this further.

That's the short of of my um soliloquy.

Um something that would be temporary that we could look at um or future councils could look at re um reapproving, um, you know, after a year, after three years or something like that, so that we're not necessarily like tying the hands of future councils um would be helpful.

Um or even if it's if um private partners are interested in doing some type of enhanced programming and we're able to help support the permitting process, or we're able to make it easier for them to be involved in that partnership.

I think at least that opens up the door to the conversation.

I think we should um I think we should be open to that because public funds are not going to support all of our amenities as long as we need them to.

And we have more and more people who are coming into Milwaukee to live in apartments, and apartments don't have green space.

That's all I know.

So you asked us questions, and we just gave you more questions.

I mean, I think I'm hearing a few things.

Um I'm hearing you want something, you don't want to wait, you know, for any consideration of any interesting idea that might stretch the bounds of temporary or short term until this management plan is done.

But I think I'm hearing some of you say, let's do an active solicitation, which I will share is a lot of work.

I mean, even if we do it as a simple thing, it's still we're very much proactively saying we're we're engaging and we're we're actively you know asking for ideas, which then we have to vet and go through.

I'm also heard then no, we should just be passive about it.

So if people bring ideas to us, consider it, maybe bring those here.

And there's pros and cons for both of those.

The passive approach, it's who knows, who knows what call, and who knows who'd come.

But the active approach is more work.

So I think I'm still a little, I'm not I'm not quite hearing what the consensus direction is.

I mean, obviously, we're doing this green space management plan.

It's in your goal action plan, we're gonna do it.

And I think we obviously need to keep wrestling with this question through it, but the the operational actions you want to see the city take in the interim are still a little unclear to me.

Um again, we have our temporary event permit process.

We are using that as the venue for considering things that I think fall into this sort of unknown category and betting them on a case by case basis.

And I can commit to bringing anyone that raises some red flags to you as a body.

But if you're asking for more than that, I do need to know, I need to know if three or more of you are asking for that tonight, if that makes sense.

So the question is, are we asking for something more than the short-term you know, case-by-case event permit that we have now sort of before the end late 2026 over the next year before we get to having this green space management plan?

I would just be curious to know if any businesses um take advantage of that.

Like you don't need to tell us right now, but that's a piece of information that would be helpful.

Do you mean the current temporary event?

Yes, they do.

Well, I mean, yes, they they they we have we have folks who have solicited ideas that are of a temporary nature that are a business idea and that are utilizing that process in that way to engage with the city about that again.

It's it's also important to point out we are talking about just a couple of the millions of different varieties of partnerships that we could enter into.

Um another way to think about this is you know, we have that very lovely uh soft level complex that with Clack's parks, and we allow people to come in and program that through their leagues.

Um there is whether they're alternative profit or nonprofit, there is some small amount of uh revenue that is generated.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a business that is building the permanent structure.

So for example, again, they'll solve all uh complex has a concession stand.

Um do we enter into some sort of franchise agreement or lease agreement, or do we need to make it a partnership where some of those goals that we've identified as a city are also being implemented along with just we've got the concession stand, we would like you to make money off of it.

Um that's an agreement, a partnership would be can we advance those goals?

And so I think what parts with is a lot of the things that we're wrestling with here today, which is how do we find that balance?

How do we offer entrepreneurship?

But how do we protect this uh space, which is one of the last places where you could go to for free that anyone can go to at any time?

Um, and that's the balance that parb thinks that we need to find.

I mean, like just whatever with what I just heard, then it sounds like what we're doing is already accomplishing that.

I mean the temporary temporary use permit.

I mean, it sounds like we're already making it work with that micro balance.

How long is a temporary use permit?

So to be honest, it's so I don't have specific, we don't have it's 14 days or less.

It's very it's they kind of intentional.

So anything over 14 days, we don't have a process for as well.

I'm trying to hammer down.

I that was do not have a date.

Like we don't have a certain day, right?

It's it's it's temporary, it's left big to invite some conversations.

Sounds like direction is more about refining that what's already there than it is about creating something new.

So I don't I don't, I mean, I'm not hearing anybody wanting per minute.

I mean, here's what I might throw out to see what my colleagues think.

I think that in a year we're gonna have some type of more concrete process that's developed through our green space plan.

I think in the short term, if there are proposals that take Counselor Massey's example, uh summer long pop-up in the park.

Is that happening through um is that happening through a temporary use program or not?

I'd say just as an interim basis for the year until we develop our green space proposal, we have a temporary process where um staff develop a really short like few questions um that you have to answer.

You can submit a proposal to power, they create a recommendation, we put it up on engage, we get public feedback, and then we have a council session to approve that type of thing or consider that and vote on it.

I think it's something that lasts for longer than three months probably needs an actual public input, and that's just a short-term year-long process that includes the opportunity for businesses to bring forward ideas.

We don't have to quiet them for a year.

Um, they can still engage with the city um while we develop an actual process.

How long do you think that's going to take money to do that?

That means you'd have to probably submit your permit what, what, two months in advance before the three months are going to do it?

So that's what I'm saying.

We're gonna already have a process in place.

If somebody wants an extended one, then I think it should be a case-by-case basis, and then it goes back to council.

Uh, counselor massey.

Yeah, um I love everyone member of the PARB.

You don't want the PARM in this approval process.

The PARB is a is provides uh you know recommendations on policy and that kind of thing.

They're not in the process of doing city manager's job, approving uh permits uh and that kind of thing.

So uh I you know um the PARB is inappropriate in the in the in the process of approving or disapproving permits, they're gonna offer us advice about you know this green straight green space program and all of that kind of thing and the parameters of this, but that's not really a role of the PARB to be uh vetting individual um you know permits, and I would I would say that we're not either um so to circle back to the question of what's short term and what's long term.

Um, I guess in my mind, we're really talking about next summer.

Like what are we gonna do next summer?

Because nobody's probably proposing to do anything in the park.

Well, I mean, we know there's some some light uh like block or something, but um, there's probably not a lot of use, a lot of proposals for February, March um in the parks.

Uh they so what is it's about next summer?

And and we we all focus on the locking park, it could be other parks too.

Um, do we want some ability to propose a summer use ahead of having finished our green space management plan for next summer is in my and to me that's the label I'm just telling the question.

Um I I think that's fair, Mayor.

I will say there is a proposal, I think, for the winter.

Um but um, which is why we wanted to get preparing this conversation because is Councillor Massey's right.

I mean, this is one of those things that this this temporary event permit process is a power delegated to me.

Um and I make these cases and what where usually the staffing there was a pretty straightforward, pretty cut and dry.

I make some judgment calls, but then when things start to kind of push those bands, that's when we bring it to you for some policy direction.

And I think like, you know, what we were to kind of really simplify, I think there's sort of three paths I can take.

We could say, hey, businesses, we're not approving anything for the next year because we're moving, we're we're doing a management strategy.

I don't think I'm hearing it you say that.

Step two is kind of limp along with what we've got now, and you continue the delegated authority you've given staff, and just so you know, when we get a temporary event permit process, we share it with a bunch of people who are public safety, natural resources to just kind of weigh its merits and then some fairity, right?

And then CPRD will definitely get their own program and CPRD if it's an NCPRD park, um, and then we make a dis I make an operational executive decision.

And then I guess option three was create something totally new because you want to move on this even faster or you know, with more direction and clarity at this point.

I I think what I'm hearing is kind of variations on the middle, um, but maybe some interest in or kind of some direction to me as your operational executive decision maker here that like you know, be as creative and lenient as possible um when you know we're we're posed with interesting proposals that bridge this line between our economic development goal and our park experience based goal.

But I I think you know, just so you know how I've you know done this in the past, if someone were to propose something on Alp Rock Island, which is a sensitive natural habitat, that's kind of a no, you know, until at least we have a much more robust policy framework for me to make that decision.

If I if I could add to that, I think if we go back to where we were recommending, we're not recommending, you know, part of the recommendation is we want to make sure that we're not we're limiting the long-term piece right now if we figure it out these temporary uses and whatever we define temporary, is it the months of the summer?

Is it 90 days?

That's fine, but long sort of long-term pieces, like we want to we want to limit those right now until we develop this framework, but utilize our our current special use permit uh process that we have in place right now.

Uh and if I could just add one more thing, you know, I think what this kind of gets down to that fundamental point, which is what is uh what is a business agreement and what is a partnership?

And the parks and report really felt that we as a community need to identify certain goals, and that if we are opening up our publicly owned assets, our parks and our green spaces to partnerships, they really need to be partnerships and fulfilling those goals, and those goals haven't been identified yet.

So we can continue to use this temporary use permit in the way that we're doing it, but those goals that make it a true partnership as opposed to just an agreement to lease out the concession stand or to uh rent out your kayaks.

If we haven't identified those goals, according to the parks and work board, that's not a partnership, that's a business agreement.

I still am hearing some confusion about are there things outside the scope of a temporary use permit?

And I don't know if you have clarity on how you invest act.

I would say in the intervening months until we have an actual green space management plan, if you put that on the council agenda and allow us to discuss if there are things that you feel like you can have clear direction on as a council, I think that in the short term that's the best way to do it, as opposed to saying anything outside this small, clearly defined scope is a no saying we can have the conversation here on the dais and those decisions or anything that you're unsort about.

Um I guess my take on it is I'm at your middle ground of um I'd like to uh you know, I'd like to activate the parks.

I do think there's a balance.

Uh I mean, I'd like to maybe have I'd like to next summer or over or over the winter, uh, consider things that would uh activate the parks on without building any permanent infrastructure, obviously.

Um but I do think that uh the sort of considerations that people have raised.

How much of the park is it taking up?

Is it impeding other people's ability to use the park?

What is it cost?

Is it, you know, is it is it only is it is the cost only, you know, covering the cost of producing whatever it is, or is it a profit generator?

Is it you know what is it for our I mean the equity base that you know the parties?

So far is equity, transparency.

Okay.

Um I'm fine leaving those decisions in your hands personally.

Um, I mean, if you yell help if you get a hard if you get a hard one to bring back to us fine.

But usually what happens when I say no and they come to you.

But yeah, I think that's I think that's a fair way to proceed.

Um I guess that's what I'm gonna split all sides.

We're not gonna go actively sell unless you give direction to it.

We will, you know, I think we talk very openly about both our economic development and our parks and greens based goal, but it's just one make sure I'm not getting direction to go put out a call for someone come off your temporary about permanent ideas.

So one other thing I can if I can add to I I think this was helpful.

Uh, you know, as we develop our developed scope of work for our green space management plan, we want to make sure that we're considering these types of things.

Uh as we develop that framework for public and private partnerships within that green space management plan.

So it was helpful hearing all the different the different perspectives there.

Okay.

Does anybody need a break or anything else on that?

We're done.

Okay, we're going to take a break till a quarter till eight forty-five.

And our next I don't know how it river water quality testing.

Water quality sampling of the lamb at the parking data for traditional purposes.

members have have brought up the subject of with an interest to uh have uh a more route to have routine uh water bottle water quality sampling of the laminate out in front of the uh Milwaukee park area for recreational purposes so we've done a little bit of research on our end that to take a look at what that might look at and and provide a recommendation and sort of the bottom line up front uh we'll say is our recommendation is that we don't want to do that for for a couple different reasons uh and we we can get into that uh one b cost uh and and capacity but if we do want to move on the next slide um so a little background here you know we do have there is uh regional water quality sampling going on right now uh portland parks uh our portland has checked the rent program for their recreational programs that they have that's actually managed by the Bureau of Environmental Services uh they do samples beginning in May through September weekly at I think nine different sites during the summer and then uh I think four or five of those sites and continue to do water quality sampling throughout the throughout the year uh they do it once a week and it's focused strictly on E.

coli so it's a bacterial equilibrium sample uh they do those tests they they uh they analyze those in-house they have their own lab they they and and they have the staff to do that uh our our partners uh water environment service at Kellogg Dam or not Kellogg Dam but at the Kellogg uh resource uh facility uh they do sampling as well for their permit requirements uh being a wastewater treatment provider uh I think uh Greg Geis was here earlier last month uh and in October well and I asked him at that time if he could make his testing somehow because you know when when we were first about this their testing goes into some deep six DQ database that's really hard to maneuver and could we somehow make it more readily available and I assume we haven't had an answer on that he said he would look into that but yeah I I haven't heard back from them yet on that I don't I I can follow up with him and ask them that but they they test you know weekly uh and uh you know three times a week actually and they have a monthly reporting that they have to do to the state to make sure that they're in compliance uh and they have to meet certain requirements there uh they test for E.

coli they also test for other parameters as well but not a broad spectrum of you know waterborne diseases or anything like that.

And to confirm could you let me know if I'm getting this wrong they test their ethyl so they test what comes out of the plant they don't test in the river.

I think they're testing down in the bottom of the river.

Well they they actually are they're they're testing as it leaves their treatment process so as it there's they'll probably grab a sample a continuous sample uh of what the what what's going on during that that day and it's not in the creek it's at some point at the end of their treatment process.

Okay I thought that well if you had I thought that I mean I they had said it was down use I don't know how they collect collect it from down there but yeah collected from like in my experience we had a wastewater treatment plant back in Wino we had a uh the sampling point that was at the very end of the treatment process after we disinfected uh and we we took continuous samples from from that point uh but it wasn't at the point of actual discharge into the creek it was there's a pipe that was between these points okay so we do have some of those samplings going on um the Portland uh check the rec program uh I think their their most southerly point is up near Waverly uh in the west is you know just south of Milwaukee Park so we're sort of like in between uh so those are the sampling programs that are going on right now right um I think from from our perspective and I think I'll end this in the report uh there's some things that we need to consider uh if if we were sampling and uh and and providing that input and you know there's there's a lot to uh to that we have to focus on in terms of managing public expectations related to safety uh and and responsibility right now we don't have that responsibility for maintaining water quality and that great uh but by do by doing those by taking those samples and reporting those samples out there there may be an expectation from the community that we we do have a responsibility for that uh in addition you know it is it is duplicate duplicative of existing state and regional rules you know um GEQ does uh algae testing uh and our regional partners Portland and West also are currently takes testing uh if we did testing and we're reporting that could have some unanticipated regulatory consequences for us on our NPTS permit you know as we sample and if there was uh if there were problems that that popped up that could come back to us in terms

Um DEQ does uh algae testing uh and our regional partners, Portland and West also are currently task testing.

Uh if we did testing and we're reporting that could have some unanticipated regulatory consequences for us on our NPTS permit, you know, as we sample, and if there was uh uh if there were problems that pop up that could come back to us in terms of how we manage our our stormwater, uh we have impacts future impacts on uh uh our stormwater management plan.

Um an example of that would be uh from what I saw back in Illinois, um nutrient sampling at the discharge points of wastewater plants.

Uh the DEQ or the LOEPA at that point in time often utilize process sampling to make determinations on how to make adjustments to permits.

Uh so they could utilize that information and and not saying that it would happen, but there's a possibility that we could come up with stricter uh permit requirements uh of our NPS stormwater permit.

So it could be an unforeseen consequence.

Um I think the other thing is we really don't have the internal capacity to go out there and sample every week and process samples.

We don't have a lab.

We'd have to take samples every week and bring it to a lab and have somebody uh analyze that and pay for that.

Um so uh that's that would be challenging for our perspective.

So then do we have what's the next slide then, please?

Yeah, so our our recommendation really is that we don't uh begin our own water quality sampling or reporting program.

Um we can certainly move west to see if they can uh be more transparent with their water quality sampling that they provide and uh you know work with them to maybe they can report that on their website as soon as uh but I would not recommend the city getting into that business right now.

So do you have uh an idea if we were just to contract out to say we want to pay a lab to come once a week or you know, whatever, four months, five months.

Um post that, you know, and give us that data.

Um do you have any idea what that would cost?

Well, when I was looking at an internal using our own staff to do that, uh you know, I was gonna be in that 10 to 15,000 range uh per season season of uh hiring a consultant uh or uh a firm to do that.

Um it would be more it would be.

I mean, we're gonna have to take it okay.

I mean, we're we're gonna have to take it to a lab anyway.

It seems like letting them be the collectors of it is the path of least burden of the staff, right?

Um certainly be less of a burden on the staff, but you're in the it would be more costly to do it.

But we could certainly take a look and see if we could keep could get proxy to do that questions, thoughts counselor.

Are we in the question period only?

No, no, it's not we're done with the staff report is done.

So I think that this is a uh solution and searchable problem that does not exist.

I think that there's you know, I I agree with a lot of things that were said in this report.

Uh actually my research says it's not five places I sample it around Portland, it's eight.

And as you said, the most southerly part is Waverly, they also do it in Southwater River Park dock.

Um and behold, the United States Geo Logic Survey also does uh sampling in Portland.

The DEQ is done at Portland Portland.

Um I'm sorry, the West is doing doing their own sampling, the DEQ is doing sampling.

Uh and I found these in about two minutes.

Okay, so there's a lot of sampling going on.

And I agree that uh we could maybe um help the interested parties uh find this information more readily.

Um, but there's a lot of information out there that I don't think needs to be duplicated.

And uh this may sound like uh you know uh uh a small task or inexpensive task, but you know, it's just like why do it if it's not needed.

I don't think it is needed.

So all those people are testing for E.

coli.

Okay.

The US geologic surveys do it like for every element of the universe, I think.

Uh well I mean we were we partnered with USGS at uh a few a couple sampling stations uh not in Atlantic, but in uh Johnson Bay to do sampling to meet some of our sample requirements for uh our storm water permit.

Uh and uh but it's not we're not sampling uh just to see specifically what what the people like what's on in in the lab.

Right.

Well, I I'll say I like the idea of giving people more information.

I do take the point that we uh have to, I mean, I would I'm surprised when I look at Portland's uh those whatever it's called, check the rec website, which says it's safe to swim.

It's like uh the lawyer in me says the uh that should say E.

coli levels are below you know, hazard or you know, below the uh bench lines set by the DEQ or something, but I mean safe to swim is more than just see cob I it's PFAS, it's other things, it depends on person's own um susceptibility, and there's not a standard where we could say it's safe today and it's not safe tomorrow.

But what we could say is we're under the water quality here is under these bench lines and then set by the proper authorities.

Um and I kind of like the idea of giving people more information.

Um to encourage people to swim and to use the water in other than motor boats.

Uh but um so I guess that's where I'm coming from.

I do I guess the the point you raised about the potential impact on our NPDES permit is does give me some pause.

Um, but it's uh I mean I it would depend on what's subspecies we're testing for, right?

Whether it's likely to come back to us on that.

Do you think any E.

coli would come back to us on that?

Probably we wouldn't be the I mean it's data.

Yeah, DQ confused, not effectiveness um of our stormwater problem.

I I I think uh my my my concerns that's really concerns the uh the fact that by putting that data publishing that information, the city publishing that is like it feels like there's some certification of what we're saying that meets the standard, and it's it's sick if somebody gets sick, they could come back and say, well, six said it was fine, was it and are we are we subject to some sort of line?

I think you were first.

I have the last six you turn Waverly Country Club.

Uh the most recent sample is E.

coli count below 10 organisms per 100 milliliters, and E.

coli Q less than 406 is below the health standard set by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

It's there.

Well, and it is a valid point that the water coming from West is not going very far to get to Waverly Country Club.

So it's probably not dramatically different in Milwaukee Bay than those numbers.

Um the fidelity of information that you mentioned was not there, is in fact there on the slides.

I go into the um check the rec.

Right.

But if you read at the top, they use language like uh it's safe to swim, which is not language I would ever propose to put on a website as the headline on the website.

Um you go to the first page of the the link that we were given in the staff report, it says it's safe to swim.

And then in smaller time, it says, you know, it's under these benchmarks or whatever.

I don't know what you're looking for.

What are you looking for?

What am I looking for?

Yeah.

No, I'm not looking for.

What do you mean what am I looking for?

Well, I'm just giving you the exact you know, laboratory results.

Yeah.

So I don't know what you're looking for.

You're saying that the Portland side is only saying it's safe to swim, and there's there's higher quality of information there.

No, I'm saying you can't say it's safe to swim based on one kind of test.

I think the mayor is saying if we were to do something like this, she would like the more high fidelity data, not any disclaimer or statement of safety.

Yeah, yeah.

All we can say is it's under these benchmarks because there are so many other things in the Willamette coming from Eugene, coming from you know, down Claude Creek, down Johnson Creek through uh past precision caspars, we can't attest for everything in the lameth safe for everyone.

We can only say it doesn't it's safe by terms of how you want to do that.

That quantity of sampling is $15,000 is just I'm not proposing doing that quality of sampling.

I'm not at all proposing I'm saying I would like us to provide the public with more information.

Uh I don't know what I would say with, to be honest.

Um I I kind of asked that of Mr.

Uh Calcano today.

Um beyond E.

coli.

Um but I take your point that the E.

coli test for Waverly is pretty darn low, and so there's not a reasonable uh chance that we're having excessive levels of E.

coli in Milwaukee Bay given how close they're testing.

I took that to be your point, and I take I think that's a point we'll take um council president.

I'll prefer to counselor staffendrop first.

Um I'm kind of treading water between a point of order and a recap.

I don't like I don't is that is the ask here.

Um is the ask here to determine what the language is, or the ask is actually like what is council's interest in further testing water.

That's okay.

I felt like sorry, I'm so many buttons.

You're a little downstream.

No.

Um what is missing between the available data and what community advocates are asking for?

What is missing?

I I think uh what's missing there is the the data from Wes.

You know, West has not readily available and online somewhere.

Uh we do have that point of data waverly that that is part of the check the wreck program.

Uh but we also don't have specific data out in front of the walkie bay park, right?

That's uh and that data is you know, single sample taken on one day, and it doesn't necessarily reflect what might happen on those other days dependent on changing conditions in the river, you know, whether it's a weather event uh that impacts the water and it brings in additional contaminants uh from upstream.

Uh so it's it's indicative of a sampling that happens on a specific day.

Right.

And uh that sampling on the check the wreck program, they do it weekly uh from uh May to uh September at uh eight places and then uh other times of the year.

I think there are four or five sites of those eight places that they do once they sampling as well.

Um so okay, so locations, frequency, also substances and substances, yeah.

So you know, E.

coli is not necessarily indicative of you know parasites or virus, it's just indected indicative of bacterial content.

Okay.

Um, and to go back just a bit to um your points around transparency of West data.

Um if their data are are more readily available to the public, then what gap will persist?

Would it still be those three things of West's data?

I I I think it it it paints a clear picture, okay, but it doesn't paint that picture exactly right out.

If um residents were interested in um an individually funded effort to sample some of that water, well, how would they go about proceeding with that lab to figure out what uh what do we want to sample for and get the uh sampling set from the lab and instructions on how to take that sample and go take a sample?

Okay, and then bring it back to the lab for analysis.

I'm gonna take the council.

I'm sorry, I don't want to go.

I'm gonna take the council president's question or comment, and then I do have someone online who wants to testify, and I don't know if Mr.

Calcano wants to testify as well, but um, we'll let the council president go first.

I guess I kind of get back to uh I'm gonna go upstream as possible.

It seems like the folks who are asking for this want to have data that we can point to as a city to talk about why it's you can see when the laminate more folks out doing that activity.

I think Telser Massie's right if there's data that we can take back off Portland to collect.

I think maybe our babies right if there's data that's not collected and just equalized people that we would want to do this.

It's gonna cost a lot of money to do regular check-ins on all of these different factors over an entire summer.

But I wonder about the workload it would take to put together a city website that says at the start of the summer it's safe to swim in Milwaukee or whatever that might be, whatever Justin thinks is okay for us to say, but compiling the data from different sources, West City of Portland.

Um, and then is there some one-time test that we want to do with different things?

I know it's not going to be comprehensive enough to like there will be fluctuations day to day, but something that we could point to that says at the start of swing season we tested for these factors so that community members and our businesses and folks around town can point to this and say we have some type of factual basis for the fact that it's safe to swim at Elk Rock Island walk in the park.

Um thanks for that question.

Uh I think I would really caution about taking one-time tests using that as a as a uh a reliable source of what the conditions of of a water body, a dynamic water body that's constantly changing, you know, minute to minute, hour to hour, uh, day to day as reflective of what's in that water.

So uh I don't think that would that would be helpful and would really sort of put us in in a bind saying that a we did this test in May.

This is what we saw then, and it's Milwaukee residents.

If you're interested in swimming, you're safe or not.

So I don't think it's very it's reflective or or good practice.

So take two public comments.

Um so first uh online, Mr.

Name Cadwallater.

Give you three minutes each other.

Hello, can you hear me?

Oh, we can hear you.

Thanks.

Oh hi, this is Dave Cadwalleter.

I am uh resident of Milwaukee.

I am also vice chair of the Island Station Neighborhood Association.

Tonight I am speaking just as a citizen, not on behalf of the NDA, although our MDA did uh write a letter in support of this proposal.

Um just a few um comments, and I really appreciate all of the um um effort that was put into preparing this report.

And um I agree that these are all very valid concerns.

Um sometimes when I focus on all of the things that can go wrong, um, my wife challenges me to think about all the things that could go right.

And I haven't heard a lot of discussion about that tonight.

So I invite you all to just take a minute to allow yourself um permission to do that.

Um we've been talking a lot about Milwaukee Bay Park here tonight.

Um we've been waiting for that splash pad since 2017.

How great would it be to have a place to cool off on these increasing number of days where it's above 90 degrees?

Um, and to have a place where it could be a magnet to attract people who, you know, maybe, maybe you're right.

Maybe there's not already more than a handful of people who are going down there to swim.

But what if what if there could be?

Um, I hear the concerns about like we can't commit to regular testing, continuous testing that uh conditions change frequently.

Um I'm also reminding us about our um drinking water quality report that we produce.

And and that's not continuously tested.

Maybe it is, but the the report is spent out periodically, right?

I'm not the residents are not asking for a day-to-day um report on the water.

And I know that you know, drinking water conditions can change too, right?

So we know that there's inherent risk in producing reports periodically, but that shouldn't stop us from sharing any data or collecting any data.

Also, on the subject of Waverly, yes, that is close, but I don't I didn't hear any mention of Kellogg Creek and Johnson Creek that deposit right into Milwaukee Bay right there.

And, you know, if if you're if you're down there, and and I'll I'll be the first to say, you know, my kids and I, we go down there, we go to Elk Rock Island.

And sometimes I worry about what's coming down those creeks, and I just sort of say, uh, it's probably building immunity, it's fine.

Um, but even if we just got a periodic report as a parent, that would make me feel a degree more of confidence rather than I'm just kind of blindly trusting this here.

Um, so that's all.

And I just wanted to say, you know, again, let's try to think of all the things that could go right.

Let's think about how this could be a boost for visitors to Milwaukee Bay Park, bringing more visitors downtown on summer days, a boost to the economy.

Let's try to think about all the things that could go right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, I wanted to ask, and and I'm I'll ask this question of all three, because we now have a third person who wants to testify.

Um if you're recommending testing, would you are you recommending testing more than E.

coli?

And if so, what else?

Well, let's think about the water, for example.

Are we testing when we when we send our water quality reports to the residents?

Are we sending just what's legally required of us by law?

Or are we kind of just doing our best to say, like, hey, if we want people to feel as comfortable as possible bringing this water, what are the things that we should test for?

What should we disclose?

Um, so uh so I think yes, it should be for for more than just C poli.

If if you know, we we consult the experts and we think, hey, if if you wanted to increase the confidence with that when you and your family go swimming here, what are the things we should know about?

Um I don't have a specific list, but I think that we can piggyback on what other cities have done.

Okay, thank you.

Michael, you're next.

Thank you, Mayor Beatty, and thank you, counsel, and thank you to the staff for preparing this report.

Um, my name is Michael, I'm a small business owner in downtown Milwaukee.

Um public park that had a stigma or reputation for violence, gang activity, you might ask the police to, you know, patrol more.

You might install more lighting, you might uh install a security camera.

And what would be the consequence of that?

Well, maybe families would feel more comfortable using the city park.

So the question I have for council is do you want to live the values that you have decided upon and put down on paper?

Is that did that mean anything?

Is that lip service?

Or is it is it action?

Creating a testing program at Milwaukee Bay Park to reduce the stigma that it's not safe to swim there for families who don't have the money to pay for a public swimming pool access, right?

This is an equity issue, despite the fact that wasn't included in the staff report.

This is an equity issue.

Families who want to help their kids learn how to swim and don't have the money to pay for swim lessons and are hindered by the stigma that there is toileting going on in Janssen Creek from the unhoused population.

And that's flowing out into Milwaukee Bay Park, right?

That's not weight really.

Okay.

So, you know, we all have a lot of privilege and wealth.

And we ought to think about folks who don't.

And what hinders them from accessing nature and creating, you know, there's place attachment theory, right?

This idea that we belong to a community because we have fallen in love with its natural resources, its beauty, its sense of community, its ability for the elected officials to understand that there's a need and address that need with a common sense, a practical, low cost way to increase environmental stewardship through place attachment theory to increase environmental stewardship, to help families with mental health through winter swimming to help families create bonds and connections to nature and have a cool place that costs no money to cool off in the summer.

So I would just I would ask council do we want to live our values and address the needs of the citizens who who want to use our public parks and are are held back from that because of the stigma that it's real and exists.

And I think you ask anybody who's been in Milwaukee a while, they'll tell you there's a stigma that exists.

And it's not a stigma to the water.

There's a stigma that it's not healthy or safe to swim at Milwaukee Bay Park because you have historical issues that have been remedied.

But we ought to we ought to do our best as a community to help people help change that stigma.

Just like you have a, let's say, a public park with a reputation for gang violence, right?

The elected officials might say, well, we don't have a responsibility to put in more lighting or to make sure that we reduce the stigma.

But isn't that the goal of our public parks that they're used?

Right.

Um and I would just You're out of time.

I gotta be the one to cut you off.

But I like that the more heat you get, the sweater comes off.

It works good.

I'm used to sweating.

Okay, thank you.

And then on back to online, we have Jacob Sherman.

Jacob.

Hey there.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you.

Oh, great.

Thank you, Mayor Beatty, city counselors uh for the record, Jacob Sherman, your favorite Ardenwald neighborhood resident.

Um I'm uh submitted some written testimony, but just wanted to chime in as well.

Um, to you know, throw my support behind this.

I do think in many ways, what we're focusing on is how we can combat stigma and misinformation.

And water quality testing might be an approach.

There might be other more effective approaches as well.

Um, but I think as others have testified, I think this is real.

You know, I've recently been doing some um work to try and support swimming access in Milwaukee Bay Park and on social media have been exposed to kind of the litany of misperceptions.

Annie F ew.

Um Karen, Karen uh telling me about all the other things that go up on upstream.

The Willamette is gross, puke emoji.

I would never put my kids in that water.

Uh nauseous emoji.

Anyone who swims in the Willamette isn't from here.

Throw up emoji, the Willamette River is nasty.

Um, this is just a small sampling of the comments uh that you know, I and others have seen online as we've talked about how the Willamette River really is a gem.

Um, it is uh as we've I think as we all talk about when we're thinking about Milwaukee Bay Park.

Uh, the river is such an amenity, and it's not something to just look at.

It's not like a piece of art on the wall at a museum.

But I think as others have kind of testified, it's a free, no cost place for people to reaccreate and stay cool as our summers are getting hotter and hotter.

Um, so again, you know, maybe there's an opportunity to piggyback on testing other jurisdictions are doing.

Maybe there's an opportunity to take some of that basic testing other jurisdictions are doing and put it on our own website.

Um, maybe there's other opportunities to write about uh river access and the pilot or other things like that.

But you know, for generations, uh rivers um all around the world, including here in our own backyard have been used for waste.

Um, and we really changed things in the last 20 years.

And I think we should be telling that story and helping people feel more comfortable.

So hope you will support this effort or other efforts like this to get people in the water.

Things like the little flow were really amazing, and I think this is a big economic development play for us.

And um, thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight.

Thank you.

Do you have suggestions on specific substance to test for?

I don't.

Um I think I would look probably to kind of best practice in terms of what others are doing.

And I think if Portland is just looking at a coli, maybe that is a base as a benchmark could be um effective enough.

Okay, thank you.

All right, I see your goose, but actually, Counselor Costa Body had one up or was about to put one up before the public comment.

So I'm gonna let him go first.

Yeah, I just have some quite I mean like I I understand where the public is coming from, right?

Um, but I I think the you know the stigma is not Milwaukee Bay Park, the stigma is the entire Willamette River we're talking about here, right?

So I mean that's the other thing.

Like you're talking about a stigma for an entire river that doesn't just flow from Way to West, flows through Oregon, right?

So um, you know, I don't know if anything we do will ever take away those stigmas because you're always hearing something about the Willamette, right?

So um, I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything about it, but uh, I don't want to be held responsible for the entire river.

I'm trying to, you know, say that it's it's clean.

Uh I just don't know if that necessarily falls on us.

But my my my question really is about if we can provide that information that that isn't gonna be costly, because that's the other thing.

Like, how do you do it without it costing the city too much, right?

Because that's still, I mean, we're we're not exactly in the best places financially, uh, along with any other local uh municipality.

Um, and then also then the timing, right?

Like the periodic.

So if you get something that's posted a month ago, I I don't know if a report from a month ago is gonna make me feel safe about going into the water if it's a month old.

Like that's the thing.

Like, what's the period of how often you're testing?

Because if you want people to really be safe and you want to break the stigma, you're gonna have to test quite frequently for over an extended period of time so people get used to seeing those results.

Then is when you can kind of pull the pedal off a little bit, because it's a psychological thing, it's not just about the numbers, right?

It's not just about what's in there, it's a psychological thing.

They have to see consistency that it's clean.

But if you're only doing one report a month or one report every three months, I don't really know if you're really moving the needle on the stigma, and I don't really know if you're moving the needle on people wanting to swim in the in the Willamette.

So it's it's really about you know weighing the two, right?

Because at the other end of the side, well, it's like Councilor Massey said, like you don't want to create an additional problem for one that we don't currently really have.

Like with the test that we have E.

coli's fine, and uh what I'm just trying to understand how this is gonna work and how how often you do it is really what's gonna matter on people trusting the safety of the water.

I'm not gonna trust a report from three months ago.

So that's that's that's where I'm kind of confused on is well that was one of Peter that was one of Peter's points.

No, I know, and that's what I'm saying.

For for just in general, this is what I'm at right now, is just I just don't know how it would work.

I mean, sure, if you want to take some information from Portland and from West or and add a page to our website, I'm I'm fine with that.

You know, if you want to add a link to Wes's report or a link on there that goes to Portland's report, I just don't know if we have the capacity to do it, and it it and and how often would we need to do it in order to really change the perception.

So as someone who's relatively new to the Willamette Valley, I will say it's interesting to like the Willamette River I've always known and enjoyed swimming in has been relatively clean.

But you hear from people who have been here since the 80s and they don't want to touch the Willamette with a 10-foot pole because the Willamette has markedly changed in the last 40 years.

I think that that stigma is something that really exists in our community is something that makes it a challenge to have this amazing natural resource be something that people feel comfortable going to.

Um and I think at the end of the day, that is what we're hearing from community members.

They want some type of effort from the city to help break down that stigma.

I don't think that we like I totally take that in a dream world, if we had infinite money, we would test on a daily basis constantly and could report about the conditions on the Willamette River.

But having some type of baseline to show you that the Willamette River of your childhood is not what you're swimming in now, and that it is relatively safe if we can show that at some point in time, whether we say that at the start of swimming season, say to start out the swim season, we did a test.

Here's the link to Portland's continuous testing.

Here's the link to our West data.

The Willamette is a great access.

People can feel fine to swim in it.

Whatever we need to couch that in legal terms to make that work.

I think that type of resource for our community is very valuable and it's valuable to point back to.

It is not a perfect statement, and we will not have the context of every day or every week or every month, but something to show facts and figures about why the Willamette is safe, I think is valuable and some scaled down version that meets the resources that we have.

I think would be an appropriate next step.

Councillor Massey.

So I will I will say that there's probably one question that we maybe have not answered, ask.

And that is why the city of Portland and you know uh samples for E.

coli.

And evidently nothing else on a continuing basis.

Um I actually know something about toxicology from my previous profession.

And you know, um, and toxicology and industrial hygiene, uh, you do a lot of surveying, and uh you see some exposures to chemicals, heavy metals, all that kind of thing.

But typically that requires long-term exposure to have negative health effects.

So even if precision cast parts is putting something in the in Johnson Creek, um these studies show that um, you know, you gotta have a lot of exposure, you know.

And I don't think we got any pearl divers, you know, on the bottom of Johnson Creek, you know, spending all our time down there getting exposed to whatever heavy metals may be coming back there.

And I'm not, I probably shouldn't be disparaging uh uh precision cast parts.

But I go back to the first point is that let's just ask the Portland why do you sample for E.

coli and evidently nothing else?

Because you know what?

They got a lot of resources.

I bet they got an answer.

So you might not have lived here, but there was uh the big pipe.

Does that mean anything to you?

It does.

Okay.

I think that's why they sample for E.

coli because there was a history in Portland of sewage overflows, sewer and storm water coming out of the same combined and combined sewer overflows.

And so that is why you know, people didn't swim in the river in in Portland, and it was about E.

coli.

I mean, it was about sewage.

Um, and so and you might be right, but I think that we should ask that question because there may be other reasons as well.

Because of this uh saying exposure issues that I just will just say, and Peter, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but West and Portland's BES are wastewater treatment providers.

We are not a wastewater treatment provider.

That's correct.

That's why one reason they test is they're regulated on it, and we aren't.

I I a couple additional, I guess, comments uh following up on some of the discussions that we've had.

Uh I first up, I want to just briefly talk about our drinking water and what we do there, because I think there's a very important difference of what we're talking about.

So our drinking water is uh regulated by the Clean Water Drinking Act, right?

So we sample and monitor our drinking water continuously.

Uh I should say monitor it continuously to make sure that we're it's meeting our disinfection requirements that we to ensure that it's not contaminated with bacteria, and we sample uh frequently throughout the month uh to to test to see what we see out in the distribution system.

And then at the end of the year, we report out all of the different samples that we've done in our water quality report.

Um, but it's continuously monitored.

You know, if we have an upset in our system, our SCADA system sends out an alarm saying, hey, you your disinfection's not working, there's a problem.

uh frequently throughout the month uh to to to test to see what we see out in the distribution system and then at the end of the year we report out all of the different samples that we've done in our water quality report uh but it's continuously monitored you know if we have an upset in our system our SCADA system sends out an alarm saying hey your your disinfection's not working there's a problem so we know and we keep track of what's going on there to make sure that we're uh providing clean safe drinking water uh the testing requirements that what we sample for there's a broad spectrum of inorganic uh uh chemicals uh and organic chemicals that we sample based on schedules that are set out by the EPA is part of the Clean Water Drinking Act uh we also sample for coliform which is an indicator a bacterial indicator of bacteria in the water uh monthly uh we take 32 different samples throughout the distribution system to make sure that uh that we don't and we don't uh see that in the system so a completely different process and what we're talking about in the Willamette taking a sample is going out in a in a moving dynamic body and taking one grab sample at one discrete point and saying this is representative of what the Willam it is in terms of how it's the health of that water body at the at that point of time it's just a very discrete point uh that's what that sampling would look like and we would be sampling just for that E.

coli parameter so which is what Portland check the rec does um I I do feel that uh you know I I would say that we don't have any legal or regulatory obligation to to sample for this water and I I I still feel like it sets us up it sets up an expectation of when we publish data that we might have and that we're validating the safety of the safety of the water based on a a really small uh sample of of what's going on in the river so that's those are really some of my big concerns there.

I mean wouldn't the sampling be it's interesting how much we've heard about what's going on in Johnson Creek just to the last day I haven't heard all that before um but um uh wouldn't the sampling be there be some validation of it because of the sampling that's happening at uh at Waverly I mean wouldn't that be somewhat I don't know you know yeah I mean if our point in time and capture and their point in time capture are pretty similar then there's some assurance people have it's just indicative of that water at that very discrete point when we've taken that sample uh and th you know that water body is very dynamic there's a lot of of movement across the stream it's so it's a w uh across the river and it's a wide river uh and uh so it would just be a very small point in time uh that in in a uh in a water body that changes regularly okay on a different topic we had a um suggestion from one of the speakers and I had actually kind of had the same idea which is having a website that's a compendium of what testing is already done and just being a page to refer people to where there is data what do you think of that idea I I think I'm amenable to that I think that's uh reasonable uh yeah it's a way to handle it we could point uh we could point people to the data that already exists agreed and I think you know I I I hear really appreciate all the comments about you know the really the policy goal here we are not a regulatory body for the Willamette River and I think we all know that and so I think really this is about promoting access to our waterfront and I think that's a really noble goal.

I appreciated what Jacob Sherman said about this might not be the only way to do that.

I think our permitting of the little float and our support of efforts like that are other ways that we can really get people down there.

I think sharing that information is fine.

I would hesitate to say anything about you know and we've reviewed this and we think it's safe because to Peter's point um we aren't we are the um we are not the regulatory body and there there is liability risk there.

And we've reviewed this and we think it's safe because to Peter's point, um, we aren't we are the um we are not the regulatory body, and there there is liability risk there.

So I'm not saying that because I don't want people to feel to be informed or to be excited about using our waterfront.

I just I think often about what the scope of our role is as the organization, and I don't think our scope is to tell people if it's safe or not to swim in the river.

Okay, council president.

I want to try and call the question here and see if we can provide clear guidance to staff.

I think what I'm hearing is there's consensus to have staff go back and develop some type of website that provides information on swimming conditions in Milwaukee with the knowledge maybe we're not telling people it's safe to swim.

I I frankly think we should be trying to get there, but me trying to dispel this like biases that people might have about our river.

Um the part that I'm not sure if there's consensus on that I want to just float forward.

I think it's appropriate to as we put that together, have staff recommend.

Is there any one-time test that we might do or something that we do that supplements this data and staff to provide a recommendation back, knowing that there are going to be caveats that we have to provide to that data?

I don't know if there's consensus for that on the dais.

I might put that forward.

I think there is consensus on the website, but could we check a pulse check with counselors to see if folks are okay with staff in putting together some type of website?

Also saying, is there some extra data not found in other sources that me we might want to test for to be able to supplement our website?

Okay, let's take the first question.

Um is everyone supportive of staff trying to pull together a website?

Yes, getting nods all along.

Okay.

That would be a web, a web page on our current site.

Yeah.

And I we would link to existing data to Portland at once without suggesting that this data says the water is safe.

So yeah, I mean, when yeah, I mean, I think we'll work on it.

You've got a you've got a lawyer.

He'll he'll help you with wording.

Um second question is should staff feel free to come back as they work on that and give us another uh other ideas about things we might do a one-time test for.

I mean, Peter seems pretty this one-time test is little value.

Let me put this back.

I would like to, I think the direction that if I were giving direction on my own would be our residents have clear biases against the Willamette River and swimming in the Willamette River.

I don't think that those biases are reflective of the data that we have currently in the Will Ammet River, and if that's not the case to dispel those notions about the Willamette, staff should put together a website saying it's relatively safer, safer than you might think, including links to data.

If there are any gaps that prevent us from saying something like that, or something else that might be valuable to tell our residents outside of just E.

coli or the West treatment data.

Is there some other tests that we could do to provide some type of baseline for our residents to know that?

I've heard people talk about brain-eating bacteria, or like, is there just something else that we could provide?

I know that it will not be like guaranteed.

I know that there might be liability concerns, but like is there not something else that we could do to test for something else here that staff could bring back?

And I guess that's that's my ask.

When you put together this website, is there some gap that we might be able to communicate to our residents by doing some type of test.

Well, I don't think you need consensus of council on that.

I mean, I think staff would do that if they I think the answer is no.

I think I mean I think right now there's there's not something, and I don't know what additional work we you we can do to go above what this staff recommendation is, which is so yeah, I mean, I think if you all had other things, or if when the mayor asked, you know, the the the commenters that there's other things, you can provide direction to us on that, but I don't think staff going back and thinking about it more is gonna come back with an additional answer.

And I think I I I would say the the standard that and I've I think I've outlined it in the in the report on page two.

So there's a discussion there that you know, with Wes's DEQ uh NPDS permit, you know, it established their effluent limits that are identical to the state's water quality criteria for primary recreation contact, which is at 126 uh organisms per 100 milliliters of water.

So uh at a at that's the that's the criteria that the state uses to say that the water is okay for primary recreation contact.

They don't they don't have an expansive list of all the waterborne diseases that might that might exist out there.

Oh, okay.

Counselor Massey.

Yeah, I this is a uh I think it's a fishing expedition.

Like tell us what else we sample for.

Well, it's a pretty darn long list.

Okay.

And so before we go off and say come up with a list, which I quite frankly I respect you.

I'm not sure you have the expertise to develop that list.

Okay.

Um and I can go back to let's ask some questions of people who have some resources and expertise in this and and find out what's out there because I'd be surprised if we don't find some of these things.

And uh understand the rationale for either uh discounting it because of uh exposure levels or or discounted it because of exposure times.

And uh I I'd be surprised if you don't find some things like that, you know, rather than going off on this uh Easter egg on of coming up with a long list of things to you know to have some lab, you know, test for because that lab would be glad to do it for you at cost.

So let's do the easy stuff first.

Okay, oh counselor customer.

Yeah, I would just say to to add to the web page.

Um with it on top of the links.

I mean, maybe in maybe we can add what has been done over the last 20, 40 years to the Willamette to clean it up to make it better to make you know what I mean, like talk more about some of the mitigation efforts that were put forward after some of these disasters that happened, these you know, I I think that helps too because I don't know, I don't know what's been done to that river to clean it up since all that since the big pipe and all that.

I don't think a lot of us do.

And I think maybe having a little bit more of a timeline of history of like, okay, this is where this is what happened to the Willamette, these are the mitigation things that have been done, just gives more people more peace of mind when they do go in there knowing that okay, stuff has been taken care of.

But um, you know, I'm I'm with Counselor Massey.

I I just don't know what you what we want you guys to come back with.

So I mean, I'm all for the web page, but um I don't know, I don't think we should be fishing for a reason to swim or not to swim in in the Willamette.

Okay.

Um is that the consensus?

Anybody in disagreement that we aren't asking staff to do any additional testing or come up with a list of chemicals or anything like that, a list of substances.

Okay.

All right.

Um and I will say, I mean, on this point, I mean, if you start doing a history of the lamb, everyone's eyes will glaze over.

But um mitigation efforts to clean it up.

Yeah, I would maybe do something on Kellogg itself, because um Kellogg had a lot of overflows back in the day and um doesn't anymore.

Um, and it's um I mean part of that is because they've divert more, right?

They build new diverter lines and they divert more to um to tri-city.

But um, but yeah, I mean, I think telling the story of why Milwaukee Bay Park, Milwaukee Bay is uh, you know, should not scare people, um, is something we should try to do.

And Mayor, and I I I think that's that's great, and I think we will get to work on this website.

I also just I don't want to glaze over that second bullet up there that we're not trying to minimize the interests or the questions that our constituents are asking.

Um and I think the city does play a role in promoting use of our waterfront, but we're not the only ones who do.

You have a parks and rec district, you have a water environmental services district, you have watershed councils.

Um there's others, there are other agencies, frankly, that are already set up to do more of this work than we are, and so I just don't want to lose that piece there too.

And well, except that the resident who started all this started with Wes.

Sure.

No, not referred to us by Wes.

So total totally understand, yeah.

And and I can't ever promise that agencies will be receptive, but I just think I I really appreciate the energy and the passion our advocates have, and I want them to know that again the city, you know, we we we will do what we can within the roles and the authority that we have, and I encourage them to also ask the same questions of other agencies that represent them and have more direct regulatory control on this.

Okay.

I think we're done with this one.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

And now we have council reports.

And this is uh counselor or count the council president has some folks from the uh elks who have been very patiently here all night.

Uh so he sent us a letter about uh uh a draft letter about supporting the an ask by the elks and I guess the cert team or something.

So go ahead.

Uh not at the request of the cert team, just the elks.

Let me pull this up here.

Maybe if someone else wants to do the report, could you get my pull the letter up on the screen, Sir Stoffer?

Because I don't want to pull my computer out.

I counselor Anderson.

I I read the letter and and I'm not sure what the ask is.

Yep.

Um, and so I kind of know the topic area, but I don't really know what the what the ask is.

I mean, what what are we supporting?

I've got my email here.

So uh we can also have folks at the Elks Lodge speak to it.

I'll give a quick summary and then they can supplement however else they want to add it.

Um the Elks Lodge is doing an annex to be able to have different like uh um emergency um response place at their facility to be able to respond to a disaster if it happens.

Um this is a part of FEMA's program to hazard mitigation grant program um that after a disaster, they offer these grants up for local areas to implement projects to be able to respond to a future natural disaster.

And so the Elks is stepping up to provide that space for our community.

The Elks have been advised by um someone at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management that in order to be competitive for a federal grant, it's helpful to have letters from community members saying that this is going to be a valuable community resource and tying it to existing emergency management work, which is why I mentioned CERT and some of the other programs that Milwaukee does.

Elks Lodge is outside of Milwaukee city boundaries, but it is a really important spot where we've got a lot of members who are residents of the city.

It's a space that while outside of our city limits is so close that most people would think it's actually Milwaukee.

And in the case of a natural disaster, it would be a real asset for our community to have a space there.

Um so this is a letter that discusses why we support this project and why we'd be a value added to our community.

Chief Burdick has already sent in a letter.

We would be adding to that chorus of support saying that a project like this would be well suited for our community.

But if you want to come talk about specifics of the project, maybe that's helpful.

If you could state your names and city of residence for the record before you speak, that'd be helpful.

Uh Dave Hollingsworth, Gladstone.

Uh Jason Allen, uh unincorporated Glacabus County is where I live.

Um, just to kind of add a little bit to what uh Mr.

Anderson said, um, and thank you for giving us the time.

We don't care about the length of time we had to wait.

It was fine.

It was reminding us of our own process internally.

Um so to get yeah, yeah.

As chairman of the board for the elks, I'm responsible for managing this.

I get it.

So um so the the project this this all came about when we were approached by CERT and by um Tutie Smith to saying that there was this grant opportunity available, and if we had anything that we could do to um help with what the state was trying to do with this grant.

So what we did was we look back on what we've done for the community in the past.

The Mulalifiers, I was not a part of the Elks at that time, Jason was um, but we were a staging place for uh all of those families to be able to come just have a place to bed down for the night, get a hot meal, shower, whatever they needed.

Um, and as elks, we want to be a part of the community for all of that.

We have a building called the Annex.

It's not something that we would build, but it's a it used to be our old main lodge um in the 50s and 60s when our current building was being built.

That was where we had our regular meetings.

It's now just uh um basically a storage facility for the lodge, and it's a pretty much an unused building, but it's a large building, it's a couple thousand square feet of space.

And so I had the idea of using this as um the grant.

And 270 to 280,000 of upgrades to make it so that all of the current things that are breaking down water, electricity, ramping up for what and just getting it to the point it could take all that solar do and be able to house, we figure 70 to 80 people inside the building, which is in addition to all the people that we could place on our 5.4 acres of land there.

And for FEMA and a local uh emergency management systems to utilize to have as a headquarters in case other facilities weren't available.

Um we know that there's other places that the uh local authorities can go, but we would just be another resource.

So that's all we've done is we've applied for that.

Now with this grant, one of the things that we had to do is the emergency mitigation.

Um FEMA wants it to be that we earthquake proof or otherwise mitigate a natural disaster for the property itself.

And so they've added some things.

They're not subject to that.

So they've added some um pieces to the grant and they keep pushing us back.

This is a grant that was we originally wrote in December of last year, was supposed to fund in April, and due to a variety of reasons, it's just been it keeps getting pushed back.

And but the state is asking us to continue to do things like what we're asking you guys to do is get letters of support.

Um, keep providing more information on how we would utilize this property after the um if we got this grant approved.

So I hope that's you said FEMA wanted you to do seismic improvements.

What's that?

You said FEMA wanted you to do seismic improvements also, but not including that in the be actually the focus of the grant, and then the ability to use it as emergency management staging and basically housing, be a secondary role for it.

And so we've had to add in some uh seismic upgrades as part of our improvements to the building itself uh to make sure you've gotten all that like scope.

We've yeah, we've gone, we've gone through the process of uh doing everything that they've asked um at every every hurdle, you know.

But it seems like about every six weeks we get asked to do something else to satisfy FEMA, and then now FEMA is basically closed, so we can't even contact our local FEMA people that we worked with years ago for letters of support and say, hey, yeah, these guys stepped up and helped.

Um, so it's kind of frustrating in that sense.

But we're trying to we're reaching out to the community to see what support we can gather.

And the um so the seismic probably dramatically increased your total ask of them.

We couldn't increase the ask, we had to reallocate some of the improvements that we're gonna make to the building itself.

So we still have the solar that's gonna go on, but some of the infrastructure we're gonna have to figure out uh internally how we're gonna fund that.

And we have fundraising goals and a lot of I'll say we have a lot of tradesmen who are willing to put their time and effort into that building that before we would have probably paid for their time, but they're stepping up and saying, you know what, we can probably do this in place of we don't we don't think the seismic upgrades are gonna be hugely costly.

Not not it's not gonna overpower the entire grant, but it's gonna definitely add a an element that we have to mitigate.

So anybody else have questions?

Yeah.

So uh who operates the facility in in case of an emergency.

Um we would, yeah.

I I so I can I can actually speak to that.

So in the case of an emergency, technically the the officers of our lodge, our board are ultimately in charge.

So uh me and our three other vice presidents, uh, I'm currently the president of the lodge, and we have five trustees.

They are the they're the nine board members that are ultimately in charge of everything that we do.

Um, but we also have a committee that we put together uh called Earth, which is the elk uh emergency response um team, which they um they were formed during the Moala fires, and basically the Malala fires are what actually got me involved, other than just the guy that showed up down there and drank a few beers every once in a while.

Um the the Malala fires were amazing in the response that we did.

In fact, it was so quick and so swift that we beat FEMA to it, and they just said, Well, what's the point?

They're already on top of it, and just started like without us being without us asking, just started cutting us checks because of what we had we had accomplished.

So we have a we're a lodge that um is actually the fastest growing lodge in the country.

Um we have we have grown over double in less than three and a half years.

Um I affectionately refer to it as the living room of Milwaukee is what it has turned into.

And uh because of that, we have a vast amount of volunteers and people that are actively working on always that response when something is to happen.

That's great.

Great to hear.

Uh what's one more question?

What is the CERT connection?

They're just a they they're a partner in this.

They've they were um one of the first people that we reached out to, or at least our Earth's committee reached out to to see what we could do to uh mitigate stuff in this community.

And one of the things that they did ask that we've already actually done was we hold um water filters in case of a water emergency.

We we have two pumps that could make clean drinking water for the community, and that's part of what they asked us to do outside of this grant.

So we've already started working with them and try to make sure we can respond however we need to.

I did not know that.

Yeah, and I should know that.

I think you know what I'm gonna say.

Yeah, I'll move to continue the meeting until 1010.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Ooh, I'll second it because I have a question.

It's the move and seconded to continue the meeting till 10 10.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

None heard.

Meetings continued.

Please proceed.

Were you finished with your oh how competitive is this grant?

There was 16.8 million dollars.

Um, we understand that there were 30 original applicants and they narrowed it down to 10.

Um I believe they're trying to be equitable in their distribution of funds.

And so they're just trying to at this point dot their I's across our T's so that they know that the people they're gonna give the money to are gonna use it responsibly.

I I can't say more than that because I don't know if there's a group asking for five million of the 16 or if they're all kind of we we specifically didn't ask for millions of dollars because we didn't want to be greedy.

We could have asked for you know the whole group if we wanted to, but we didn't know.

But we know that some of the other projects were less likely to be funded.

Um and again, Oregon uh emergency management.

Um Shannon Breyer is at that level who's been working with us and is kind of leading us along the path of trying to get us approved.

So they I think the state level really wants this to happen.

So you're saying 30.

You're you made the cut 10 out of 30.

Yeah, we made the first round.

And that's a national thing, or that's an Oregon.

Okay.

Oh right, I'm done.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I just want to say thank you all for your work on this.

This is gonna be such a great resource to have in our community, and I'm so happy that we can we have the easiest job just chiming in and saying this would be great.

So and I did forward you um copies of the grant application that we submitted, so you must have a copy of that actual application.

We've got lots of questions.

About 60 pages of government speak.

Yeah.

Um so I'm I guess I'm not yeah.

I'm not inclined to words with the letter, but my one point was I feel like we should say that it's not in Milwaukee.

Um you know, that we support it.

Oh, and that it serves our community, but it's not in the city of Milwaukee.

Um, look, I think any letter helps our cause.

Yeah.

Um and that's all we're looking for.

Is there the OEM just said you get as many letters of support as you can, and you guys be at our really closest municipality, besides I don't even oak grove and all that.

We just reached out and said, Yeah, we want we would love to support if we can get it.

Um Mary, is there a part of the letter that you feel uh like gives the illusion that it's oh yeah.

I mean, I think the whole tone of the letter implies that it's in Milwaukee.

So I mean, I think it could be as simple as somewhere saying, you know, the law, the elks, comma located just south of Milwaukee or something like that.

I mean, I don't think we have to make a big deal out of it.

Um, but I feel like yeah, the whole letter sort of implies that it's in the I'm fine not to include that.

Like I don't think that that level of detail is necessary, and if that complicates the folks reading it or gives them a reason not to fund the project.

Um I don't know.

Uh I'm just fine not to include it.

I don't think we're being false in this statement.

And I and I don't believe that what what uh the ultimate goal of this grant would they would limit the the help that we would give to just Milwaukee.

You know, we we're gonna give it to anyone in our region who is looking for support.

So from the Elks perspective, we're here to help everyone to include Milwaukee.

So I don't feel a need to include that parameter.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh so any other everybody good with signing on to this letter.

I would like to say that unlike council president, I'm willing to sign his letter without any audits.

Something that he is not willing to do on any other letter.

Without it, hey, I did your parts letter no I give you part flash to write that part letter.

Okay.

So we need a motion, or we're just kind of head nods that we're all okay with signing the letter.

Okay.

I'm glad you stayed all night for this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right.

Come back anytime.

Any other council reports?

Uh yes.

Okay.

Quick.

Um had a cab meeting.

Just want to give you guys an update on where we're at.

We're currently in the process of putting together our uh needs assessment for the next year.

The county needs assessment.

We're working on the format, trying to simplify it.

We're we're talking about um you know the outreach part of it.

Um, we're just we're doing a lot of the legwork to get that needs assessment put together.

Um we are also I I just want to get this out to everyone who's listening or may watch this later.

Obviously, we've heard about the SNAP uh benefits uh being partially restored.

Well, Clackamas County has a website um that has a list of food resources.

So I just want to make sure that people have this website.

It is clackamas.us what is a backslash four slash.

I don't know they do slash food dash resources, and that'll take you to a page that has a list of food resources in every single every city in the county, um, regional resources.

Um so please, anybody who does need that, and and even if you don't need that, please share this with as many people as you can and get it out there.

I would ask our council members that we send this out on our social media, and if the city could post that website on their social media page, it'll greatly appreciate that.

We absolutely can, and we are producing our own resource as well.

Our library took that on, but we will do both.

Excellent.

And then the last point is we are also in the process of creating two subcommittees within the cab.

One of them is the community outreach slash community needs subcommittee.

The other one would be the legislative subcommittee to help advocate at the state level for for community needs.

So it's all about for it.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other water consortium?

Okay.

It was a fairly short meeting, but um Rebecca Geyson Giesen, um, who's uh been working on the water consortium for 27 years is retiring.

So uh they had a big send-off for her.

Um they lost their Spanish media partner, which resulted in a carryover of a hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars.

And so um they're looking at uh ways to spend that because they can't spend it on the Spanish outreach that they plan for for the year.

Uh and so they last time they did an equipment drill was uh like three years ago, so they think that they're gonna do that again next year, uh, which was not originally planned for.

And uh they're also gonna do a one-time uh purchasing emergency drinking water bags.

Um I I brought up the topic of the uh of the uh the legislative proposal for the uh the uh water systems operator uh training, and uh they said yeah, they uh sent a letter of support, but they were not really at all all upset about it, which kind of surprised me.

None of the cities were no one was, but they they wanted to talk about fourth grade water uh conservation training a lot, not about operator training.

So at any rate, that's their water consortium.

Interesting.

Okay.

Just a couple quick it's it's the week of open houses and ribbon cuttings tomorrow morning is short stack, open house eight to ten and hillsides on Thursday, three to five.

Is anyone going to short stack at eight tomorrow?

8 a.m.

to 10 a.m.

Um can I send you with some flyers to be going on the early side?

Uh yeah, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Then I'll print them right after this and have you bring them.

They're from the Harvey Street project.

And I just knowing what daycare drop-off will be like tomorrow.

Probably can't make it there right away.

And there's also rubbing cutting at Bonaventure on Saturday.

So yes, it is quite the uh week of ribbon cutting events.

Yeah, those scissors that were used yesterday, neither the sharpening, don't they?

Yeah.

Okay.

We're at our wait, no, we have three minutes.

Anything else?

Another haiku, another haiku.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

You have to move to haiku.

It's time to go home.

I would like to sleep very soon.

I move to uh adjourn.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Somebody over here can second.

You don't have to wait.

It's we moved and seconded to adjourn.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Okay, you can stay.

We are adjourned.