We had a little bit of delay, and so had uh temporary measure people can advance the walking part of the government remain discussion first items.

The slides are up right now, so I think we may as well go along there and uh I put this by enough to help uh remind us for the work.

So briefly previous episode, if you might recall, last year, back in way back in twenty twenty-five where we left off.

Uh we had a great discussion on December sixteenth among the council about what we should do with our response um from our disappointment to the counties, basically awesome.

Um lively debate.

We got to a place where we kind of considered and made it on acceptable financial terms.

Uh, the council decided to allow the mayor to draft those financial terms in a letter and send it over to the county, kind of as like the teams are what we find acceptable at this point and willing to move forward.

And we would love to see some positive momentum or from the county by accepting the board in twenty twenty-six, in the current episode that we're in January thirteenth, we received a response um after the recession on recess on January thirteenth.

I think um Councillor Massie would say is positive with positive movement.

Um, and essentially, if you look at the first slide in the first episode, we asked for five point six million on the next slide.

It's probably better.

Do I need to move?

Yes to the proportional metro, yes, the trolley triple grant.

Um, they did not say yes to modesty waivers.

We can talk about that staff at a later date, which is fine.

Um, and then they did come up, didn't mean this at three point six million in the SDC conversation, but they met us at three point three.

So our original was three point one million of current STCs with a five hundred thousand dollar ask of accrued SDCs between now and the time the park is built.

They met three point one current STCs, and they said about two hundred thousand interests between now and then.

Um, and it's that's where we stand.

So overall, we got four point eight six million on the table.

Um as opposed to the 5.16 that we originally started at.

So we've they've come up and we feel like there's some positive here.

We'd love to see your staff take these numbers and put them in to uh draft IGs again so that we can start discussing staff to staff before have them heard of the day they met and they did not finish that discussion so they're continuing the discussion to next week.

Hopefully we receive data draft IGA when you know any issues.

That's the update.

I hope is the next steps really are draft IJs in hand and staff to staff conversations about um it's small ticket items, so to speak.

Peter would say those are not small ticket items, but to clarify the county is just discussing putting those terms into the draft IG and already agreed to those terms, or they had collective consensus to advance those terms to us.

Yeah, I understand they sent us over their response back to our counter.

So those are their numbers for using their numbers.

So we say that essentially that sounds good.

So we said that's the draft idea is showing those updates, and we'll go from there.

Did I miss anything, Councillor Massie?

No, I think that the first uh sort of uh positive movement operated by the web city.

Um it's not exactly what we want, but we know that this is like a negotiation, and you know, there's some other things pops that we worked out.

I think that there's at least uh you know a uh glad path to help with complete the negotiations and come up with something that's uh that we can work for them.

I will tell you that there's uh from my point of view, there's a there's a there's some uh sense of urgency from my perspective because obviously this is not going to pay for everything, so we have to uh seek additional funding sources and one of those big grails, and so there's uh some windows of rent applications that are opening very soon, and I think that we would have trouble uh gathering um those grant submissions if this between us and the county is not set up because they're gonna look at those and say you do we want to give them a grant when they're still feuding with each other and they can't decide what they want to do.

And if we have if not all of it substantially behind us, then we're more likely to be successful with the grant submission process.

And that uh I mean we'll never get all the grants that we kind of have on our wish list, but it's a substantial.

Yeah, those are good additions.

Uh so yeah, expediency.

We've always wanted this to go faster than asked.

We do hope that we can get to someplace within the next month or so.

Any questions or anything?

Um, I just want to say thank you to the county.

Um I think that this is a really good step forward, and there are a lot of choose your own adventure paths that could have been taken through this process, and I just really appreciate that they're having a constructive conversation about this.

I don't think it's an easy one, and it's certainly not for us, but it's really not for them.

Um given everything that they're taking into account and everything at the national level.

Um it's really hard to prioritize forward movement in this, and they did.

So I know you're watching.

Thank you.

Um, I think this is this is a good uh step forward, and we'll await the IGA drafts and then review things at that point.

Um it's never really fun to have a conversation, you know, in public meetings, and over the course of multiple years and all of that, it's it's always easier, I think, to get in the same room and just kind of hammer it out.

Um that isn't an option at this point, but we're doing the next best thing, so anyway, just really appreciate their um their efforts.

And those of the staff and administration in the city who also prioritized this over the holidays.

Yeah, uh just thank you to our team too for hanging in there.

It's like being in a dentist here.

So uh thank you for that and and for not uh not allowing things to boil over to a worser situation because it could have been a lot worse.

Um we're dealing with more than just government stuff.

There's like I mentioned before, there's egos, there's past there's history there.

Um and it's this is a good sign showing that both sides were willing to really look past that and do what's right.

So I don't know if it was the new year's somebody had a resolution that they committed to or what, but I just appreciate um I'll use I'll use uh uh Commissioner Paul Salvis's term of good faith negotiations.

I appreciate the good faith negotiations that's been conducted and the hard work that's been done.

So much to that and demonic submitted to the county.

I guess the one thing to think about in the future that we don't have to answer now is I'm just curious about the obligation for getting show on the ground.

Is there a date that we've committed to and what's the backward plan to finance then or we don't have the funds?

What does that look like?

I don't think we have to solve that today.

Um, but now that we have such positive momentum, we get new problems we get to deal with.

Yeah, and I I guess on that note, um, I think it would be helpful for us to go through some of the next steps in terms of the Milwaukee Center um and and some of the maintenance and what that looks like for our jurisdiction.

Um, and I don't know if that needs to be necessarily in a work session.

I think it could be a conversation with Peter or maybe you know, uh get some check-ins or things along those lines, but I think knowing as we move forward through the IGA process, not just the timelines that we need to meet, um, but also the um capacity that we are inheriting um through this and what what that will mean for our organization.

That is really good, Councillor Savage.

And I think what we'll help, I know what we help helpful is during the budget process to see if you work actually already including Milwaukee um community center as a part of that.

So you'll start seeing some numbers and some parts what's probably gonna be needed near term and uh long term.

And I don't know if within the grants that you're referring to, there are options for capital improvements for the Milwaukee Community Center, but it might be helpful to look through that lens for available funds that are out there too, so that we can take into account the maintenance that needs to be done on that building.

Well, there's there's actually free rant sources, and there's actually federal rand source in every moment, right?

Yeah, we've always known that there's state metro thing.

Uh so uh Adam has done a good job of rallying, I think, all of the potential targets, but some of them are fairly short order.

Okay.

Doesn't mean that they will reach the process, but the sooner they're picking some sort of uh success and process.

Yeah, okay, great.

Well, um it's good that we still have our sleeves rolled up on this.

Not over with relaxing.

Still uh still a lot more work to do for sure.

But positive.

And we've got on the 17 parts of me space.

And maybe that's a good time when you could talk about maybe there's more like financial clarity going forward.

Maybe there's clarity around this.

Good idea.

Anything else?

Yes.

Good job, Robert.

Bye-bye.

Shocked.

Okay, so it is Q1.

Um, and that means we need to go over some of our annual metrics today as well as go over what we've been in before.

Um, we met in October.

Um, and all of October through December to review of what was done um both in the council and the staff side, um, and then do some coordination and prep for the future actions to come.

So we're gonna start with the metrics.

Go over those, about like a third of them will be an update, another third of them will be getting your input on what was done to help me fill out those metrics on meetings convening, meetings attended.

Um, and then the final third will be stuff that we have to wait for the data to be fully available from to the 2025 year.

Um so we write in the first metric is dollars invested um directly into supporting our local businesses.

The annual goal is 250,000.

Um, and in 2024 weeks we did that as well as in 2025.

Um for 2025, we invested over 850,000, um, and that went towards 24 grants.

Uh, about 11% of that went to support BIPOC and LGBTQ IA plus businesses.

And then our questions about that before we move on to the go through each metric.

That's one that one's pretty simple.

It really only includes the grants.

It doesn't include there's other things that could be included here, like bike racks and the support of the passport program, but this is one metric that we have available.

Um that's open to include more things if we want.

Um, and then I didn't pause to do whether any questions and advancement of the five year action plan.

Um, so in 2024 at start, um, it was reported there's 29% of projects in progress or completed.

Um, and in 2025, by the end, there was 70-70 percent in progress.

And I guess the trolley trail now would be something that's on this in progress list potentially because that is a part of phase three of the Milwaukee Bay Park.

Um, so those items in red are the things that were identified as not being in progress yet at the time this list was created.

Um, but the rest are really through the grant programs being implemented and through the CIP project.

Um, outside of that, there's things like the main street and enhancements and parking solutions that have been ongoing improvements, not only reserved for the CIP land, but um it's not likely that this will reach 100% completion, which is the goal by the end of the three years because of the CIP being pushed back, but um we shall see.

And also some of the some of the projects on the list were not we weren't in the driver's seat, so to speak, necessarily.

They were conditioned to follow things like so you see dog report there.

Those improvements were supposed to happen as part of Goho development going through.

So we we had put some money aside to help improve dogwood park when that occurred.

Um obviously changing there, and to the trolley trail that those dollars because that 29% that was complete or in progress.

Um so we've just added a lot that's in progress that's really impressive.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I was using the same after that number before, but based on what the sending of these projects that are in process, the 77%.

That's also good.

And then what do we have here?

The external business related meetings attended by city councillors.

Um, so this is one where I need your help, and maybe we need to basically back to um the goal is middle 12, and I think that's throughout all three years, not annually.

Um, and so there were five and four.

I've never captured an equity focus number, I'm not sure if I remember zero or it um I just missed it.

Um, but for this year, some examples are meeting maybe meetings you attended of dams of the chamber.

I know the mayor attended a spage lock meeting.

Um, were there any other external business related meetings attended this year?

2025.

Yeah, there were um just part of the ones that the mayor available to so um switch law the board tools to so I have a question about that because would that do you feel like that would fall under business related meetings convened by the city slash counselors that with Oregon tool?

That's a separate metric.

Okay, we were kind of stuck between these two metrics because they're kind of very similar.

Yeah, and so we're trying to figure out what the what's the difference of that yeah.

So take note of those ideas that you were just starting out to Councillor Coserbody, you're you're gender meetings.

Yep.

I went to quite a few.

I mean, they're once a month, but to quite a few in 2024.

Should I say six?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's okay.

Um, did you I have I have attended um I would say maybe three of the band meetings that might be a conservative number, but I can't.

Didn't we meet with Jane 2?

Okay.

That's the other metric, right?

Yeah, and I'm just counting those as the the full body meetings, not necessarily individual meetings that it had with members of that organization.

I think that makes sense.

Yeah.

And then anything even at the state level, I think any it doesn't have to be will hold for this one.

Uh I want the board and business side.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's coming to mind.

Well, I was thinking that we just all maybe put the other than 40.6 is updated.

Yeah, it's not a good idea, actually.

Yeah.

So we're not trying to figure it out because you're that's the other thing.

Okay.

Um, and then as far as the meetings that we convene as either city staff or counselors for this ones, the notes were to be meetings, round tables, or summits.

I was counting the business intros um I visit the the business introduction to council to introduce the country, and then it's like two businesses.

Um then we have the meeting with the chamber CEO on the council body and staff.

Okay, and I know you went to meet with all the grantees, right?

That's completely much the number we want to count in here.

I can go counselor Savender and I did that.

We can go back and I'll look at my calendar and add those all up and thank you.

I don't know if you had it on your list, but uh mayor met with the key.

Okay, so or you want marquee level two RQ.

And that's a or those remote that's a corporate headquarters or run a log.

Thank you.

And the next metric is the total number of businesses registered within C this is one that we'll have to wait till February to get the final number at registration officially officially closes January 31st.

Um so we'll see that soon.

And the goal is an upward trend there.

So hoping that's what we will see.

I know we've had quite a few new businesses.

And then impressions of business friendliness.

This is a metric that we're pulling from the survey.

The goal is to have an upward trend.

Um, we do not have data for 2024, as I just sent out the survey in December.

So that's going to be open for till the end of January, so another week after this.

Um, and I just pulled a tentative number based on the responses that we've seen so far, and kind of came up with two different ways we could measure it.

Um these numbers are based off of when we had 223 responses.

The most recent I've seen is 255.

I'll be sending another reminder next week.

Hopefully, we'll get a couple more.

But the overall grade was 71%, which is passing at that time.

So the excellent grade is passing.

Um, and then the percent satisfied was 44%.

So that's part of the survey is a liker scale of um very satisfied to or very dissatisfied to very satisfied, uh six different areas.

So the ease of obtaining a business license, um, the clarity of building code zoning, permitting requirements, responsiveness with city staff, the timeline for inspections and approvals, um, overall experience with city departments and the city council's business support policies and direction.

Um so when you look at the overall grade of how many possible points there are on here, if every single respondent gave us a very satisfied five points.

Um compared to how many points we did get, that's where we get the 71% overall grade.

But if you just look at how many of them answered somewhat satisfied or very satisfied, the average across all these six areas was 44%.

Um so I think the metric does specify the percent satisfied.

So that's what we want to go with.

I just wonder if that doesn't quite capture improvement along the whole spectrum of people moving from very dissatisfied to somewhat dissatisfied.

I have a question.

So I guess that if you can clarify a little bit more, so does that mean that there's 56% of businesses unsatisfied with the city?

Not necessarily.

Um that's the average across each of these.

So I guess I don't know if you could say it that way.

Yeah, but um I guess it would be helpful to see the percentages for each, like how many said satisfied, how many sit satisfied, how many said it very satisfied.

It's a little con I'm a little because it's like 71% is our overall grade, but only 44% are satisfied.

So it doesn't make sense to me, it's hard to gauge what the what that's saying.

That's fair.

Um we look at the data as a stacked bar.

Yeah.

I think that's that's not good.

We can see each of those bars potentially move on the C area.

Yeah, see where we're maybe following behind.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And then on the previous slide, this is opening.

Do we have the opposite of how many businesses closed in the year?

Because that would be good to look at too.

Yeah, yeah.

I was just thinking the same thing.

Like, you know, when you look at um almost like two line graphs.

Yeah, how it does that or whatever.

We have registered and left the city.

And I think that will be helpful for us to look at both of those.

If we have a trend of businesses leaving the city or just dissolving their business, I don't know if there's a way.

Is there an exit interview?

Uh when you close your business to the business registration.

So assuming that you doesn't ask, are you leaving Milwaukee or are you dissolving your business?

I don't know.

It does.

It's a good one.

Um, I I have a couple of just thoughts, random thoughts.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with them.

But you know, um, you know, if you look at the state as a whole, there's a lot of uh businesses.

The state is not business friendly.

So when I listen to your questions here, they really seem to be focused on Milwaukee.

But it's kind of wondering if we're lean over from the state's, you know, sort of poor, you know, um uh view of businesses not a particular business friendly state that juice the you know the answers or anything like that, but that's just something that comes to my mind.

And the other thing is is that you know, I you know, when you see numbers like that, and I think numbers can be complicated, it can be misleading and all kinds of things.

So I just want to make sure that we have the right metrics that we know what they mean.

So when I see that one people were saying they're dissatisfied, I mean, how do you tease out what corrective actions you do to make that better?

And so I don't think you do that with what just if you all you have as player scale, you know, yeah.

Yeah, there was an option to like expand on your answers or anyone that is particularly relevant for you after the light grid scale.

So I'm hoping that that qualitative data tells us something.

So then um, yeah, that's a big question because I what do we do with this information?

And I'm sure that those who took the time to follow this survey will want to know right.

Trying to keep it send it all to those businesses that were just registered.

So we didn't want to keep it just the businesses, and it's quite possible.

Shared it with a friend, and the friend also commented.

We really did try to not allow leakage to happen with this sort of keeper really to businesses.

I think uh Siri has done a good job.

I am actually really pleasantly surprised by the amount of actually respondents so far.

That's that's kind of amazing.

That's that's encouraging.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that about 25% or 30% of registered business?

Which is kind of amazing.

Yeah, it's the inside.

I would be standing that's really collaboration from the new staff and how to tie this into business registration.

I think is we've I've been getting responses back.

People think this is great.

Good feedback though.

Or we're also trying to figure out what these metrics really look like, right?

This is our first first go at a lot of these.

So we will need uh just like a deep dive into the survey bindings at some point.

This is just a really quick look.

I feel like one of the measures of business business for jurisdictions is really how serious the how seriously the city takes businesses and economic development at the top level of things.

So the fact that we have identified this as a goal and that we're looking at um you know data and and metrics to track our progress, and we have those checkpoints.

Get out here, you know, help with more events, help with more awareness, boost um boost the events that are going on around town, those types of things.

So I think I think that we should be expecting a call to action from local businesses.

Yeah.

Sierra, you mentioned doing a deep dive on some of the numbers or seeing more detailed feedback after I'd love to program that in.

I know it's on the forecaster on our little January through March goals.

Um in time in the forecast for do you do that?

That'd be great.

We'll make that happen.

Okay.

Next metric, events and tourism.

Um again, minimum of nine annually.

Um, and so I may go with the ones that I'm aware of, and I'm not aware of all the events in Milwaukee.

Um, and that would be something eight.

Um, Earth Day, Pride, Juneteenth, Milwaukee West, Row Ray, Arbor Day, Winter Solstice, and Dia de Los Martos.

Um, are there any other events that we supported or put on Porsche?

Yeah.

Uh being the Bing Cherry, beginning the new year.

I didn't know what the city's rule are.

Uh first Fridays.

Yeah.

So we try to think of like ways of the ones that we put on ourselves, but also the ones that we support one way or the other when it's financial or these are all on traffic.

So what you're saying is good.

Well, don't we support the farmers funding?

Right?

We support the farmers market.

And which aren't we?

I mean it's actually an event that goes on in a limited time frame.

It's a big event too.

It draws a lot of people.

Sure.

What do you all think?

Yeah.

I think if it's there, we should change our whole sense.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not.

I wouldn't count each individual event.

I would just say the farmer's market.

Yeah, exactly.

Count the season as one.

Not each individual.

Okay.

So then do we count like Dan events?

I don't think um well.

Yeah, I mean, there are more and more events in tourism that are coming up.

Like the float.

The little float.

Uh a little float.

Oh, the little about what the NDAs do?

The concerts in the parks and those things.

Yeah, those are all city supported events.

Good job.

We're actually gonna have to change the goal.

Yeah, this I feel like within these there should be um some analysis.

Like, do we support this event financially?

Do we um do we support it through information dissemination?

Um, you know, and that doesn't mean like we did a Facebook post for it.

That means are paying for you know, like as a sponsor for you know, getting information out.

Um then are we physically there?

Do we have a table like at the farmers market?

Um do we have at a role?

Um, you know, a speaking role or um a volunteer role or something along the way.

What's that?

Logistical role?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like you know, otherwise it's just like, yeah, did you go?

Yeah, but we can measure well, yeah.

That's like doing the group, like the grants or like celebrate Milwaukee.

Like if you counted those, that's kind of like you don't want to count that because it's like that system.

So then the question is like for First Friday, that's an event that really needs, or as you know, it's a season that really needs support.

And that what we're hearing from community partners is that there's not the capacity out in the community to have that continue to go.

Um but I would imagine if we asked our community members, they love to see those events and want to see those continue.

So then the logistical question for us is can we support that in those three ways?

Financially, information dissemination, or logistics.

Yeah, um, and and uh so this is not like I when I look at this, I'm not like just checking off events, you know, like hey, we were there, shook some hands, yeah, shook some babies, kissed some hands, you know.

You know, that investment.

It's an investment.

Yeah.

Did we actually make an effort for that event to be successful?

Yeah.

Is the goal there to increase our level investment or increase the amount of events?

And like what's the ultimate that we're going towards here?

I would say and or events are different than tourism.

Honestly.

You know, if the city has a tourism strategy, then that's different than just supporting events.

That's helping to actually articulate the things that make Milwaukee unique and why people should assess visit Milwaukee.

Yep.

That's a good point.

This is really good.

Feedback.

There's some others like Noche Latina that we do in partnership with school district, but city has a table there.

Or I think about like our cultural grants, the Ethiopian food event that happened.

Little blue store is another great example.

But I think as we're if we're getting down to this level, I kind of do think it's good to count each farmers market as its own event or each first Friday its own event.

So you can see kind of blending it with tourism at this point.

And so we just see the volume of events.

But we're capturing like the number of things or number of activities that bring people into Milwaukee and trying to see the number of those expand.

And a reoccurring event, I think counts not just for that.

Reoccurring event, but also each happening.

Yeah.

So things that are coming up really rapidly, you know, would be like the Milwaukee Lights walk.

Yeah.

Um I don't know that there's I mean, there has been logistics support on some of the lighting.

Um, not all of the lighting.

Um there's been placemaking grant support, so financially, but I don't know that cohesively everybody on council knows what the Milwaukee light walk flights walk is, what the theme is, where you can go, what the dates are, so that we can articulate that when we're talking regionally about things that could bring people to downtown during like the slow very slow season for businesses.

And it uh from a tourism perspective, that would be really helpful.

So we might look at you know, within that strategy, what are some of the things that we can boost when it's not a hot you know, exciting season for everybody to be downtown for the you know, like farmers market has traffic, it's creating its own weather, you know, like but if you walk downtown right now, it's cold, there's not a lot of people out, there's everything is kind of like everything closes at eight.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Almost I mean, I think everything on this side I hate to say it's another thing to look at, but to compare the number of events that are happening in the summer versus the winter, like there's a different goal to adding another July event.

That's a really good point.

Yeah.

Because foot traffic that we saw for being in the new year was incredible.

Like downtown was packed.

The the walkable space between the Fream Keeper block and the farmers market block, amazing.

And hard to find a place to eat.

It was incredible downtown.

And then you go forward two weeks from that event, that one episodic event.

And I think you then talk to businesses about how things are going right now, and it's a little terrifying.

Yeah.

Um, so it's more important.

Um, this is my own um opinion at this point.

It's more important for us to add more events or activity or boost that strategy in a time where we're we have a big dip in foot traffic for businesses all across the city, than it would be to add, you know, like another July event that people are like, oh damn, you know, I'm doing five events this day.

Maybe I can make it by you know, for this extra pie eating contest or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's good.

So I think for the help of this, as I'm the what I'm hearing is as far as the three, can you restate the three?

Maybe um so financial investment, information dissemination, and logistical support.

And that logistical would probably capture like if you had a speaking role, right?

Yeah, and staffing, uh, if we have to use like either council staffing or if the city has staff there.

Um, I think logistical support could be like bare minimum, you know, are we lending the trailer, you know, for tables and tents and things like that.

And then higher level would be are we actually like picking up all the trash after being in the new year?

That's great.

Like basically servicing the event.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are we volunteering?

Yeah.

I like it.

I like all these uh great ideas, but I also will say that's good work.

Oh yeah, and one of the the things that Joseph would probably Emma tired of me talking about is that we don't spend enough time.

And uh so uh this is not perfect.

We want to make it better, but we've done some good work, and I just want to get it out there with the good things that we've been doing, and uh, you know, uh you know, we're give them a spreadsheet, but you want to give them some facts and figures about what we supported and that kind of thing, and uh be tied up and put on the website, put in the platform because yeah, it's not it's not it's not enough just to do your job, you gotta do your job and then tell people you're doing your job.

Yeah, I I appreciate that.

So we need that reminder.

And we get I I know from a staff side, speaking on many of our staff members, we get into this great.

We do the thing, check it off.

What's next?

What's next?

You know, and then you forget about the strategy or the or storytelling.

Um so I appreciate that.

And I think this is this is what we're trying to do with the metrics, is like eventually get to really good storytelling.

Um but helping define the goals right now is really helpful because it's gonna help tell the bigger story.

We're talking about a even a bigger story in events and tourism, and then also strategic when it's events when they have it in support.

Yeah, we just started playing three-dimensional chess.

How do you feel?

Well, like, you know, you're looking at just tracking events, and then we just threw all these different, you know, angles at you.

But I think that could be a collaborative conversation with businesses or business um groups, you know, as we're having as we're having those meetings or convening those conversations, asking things like in the survey, you know, we ask, are there particular times of the year where you are not seeing foot traffic or you're not seeing, you know, are there lulls?

Um, and so I think we take that information from the survey and then look at that in terms of the events that we're supporting throughout the year, and and really kind of like you know, cross-cap that's gonna be.

Yeah, awesome.

Okay, we can help you too if you want it on Monday.

So, yeah.

Um do we have a tourism strategy?

Is that something you know that need that is needed to be added to next year?

I could make a proposal.

Um so we meet Sarah and I meet um every every Monday, every other Monday.

But it feels like just big on.

Um, so maybe what we could do is take some of the feedback from this conversation and over the next couple of meetings, you know, like come up with something that feels like it's respectful of the staff capacity and could be layered in with what the city might be already doing, um, and then present that for your discussion on this on the tourism specific question.

Because I think it could be it could be something simple, like here are some things we already do.

Let's let's just brand them, you know, slightly differently.

It also could be hey, we're coming into a budget period, and we think this tourism strategy needs an investment of $20,000 a year.

Those are two different conversations, but they should be conversations that the council has as a whole.

And as we're coming into budget, I feel like it's timely to at least like analyze those paths.

Um I love the budget ask idea, and I also love the idea of getting more of the story around what we are doing is tourism and creating a brand image in Milwaukee has a brand image right now.

Yeah.

In turn heads.

Yeah, and there's there's similarity of some of the things that are happening downtown.

Like the um like there's a there's at least two, I think, lino cut events that are happening in the next month that are not at the same places downtown, but I just saw posts for those.

Um and there's I think that there is a story to be told about um uh like a very DIY, very artsy thread that's running through the city and what how that has translated into you know what Milwaukee looks like and how we are we are.

I think this also play a role in um communication strategy and meeting our communications manager later this month to kind of go over 2026 on this real quick patients, and I feel like this is okay.

And I need to notice the timing.

We don't have a word on metrics really doing great Sierra.

Um traffic, this number is coming.

It was 5400 average daily visitors in 2024.

Um we'll get this next month.

See if that one upward turn is the goal.

Sorry, trying to go for this property.

Um, but do stop me if you have um okay, access to commercial activity and hubs.

Um, we have been working on this one.

We got a number that was the percent of units within a quarter mile of a neighborhood hub.

Um and that was an existing shape file.

We're working on another request, which is the percent of units within a quarter mile of a commercial property.

So we're gonna get both those numbers for the 2025.

Um we I've been working on getting getting that second one.

Um, so this is a centroid point at the center of each commercial um property in Milwaukee, and that is the purple is the quarter mile walkshed around those.

And so we'll layer that over housing units.

I'm getting updated housing units from planning to see if there was any additional mineral housing on these single family properties to make sure that's most up to date.

We want to see an upper trend there, and then Q4 accomplishments.

Um thanks, um, Sierra.

And I know you've been working with Nick Linda Cool on the some of the GIS side of things in planning, but good job on this didn't line up because we're in January, and some of the data doesn't come until right now.

So sorry, there's some highlights, but we'll get all that to you.

Bookmark and all.

And then Q4, are we done at five for this item?

You're good.

We've got a bit of time because we did the parks update all.

Oh, oh, oh no.

Okay.

Uh Q4 accomplishments.

Um, the the CIP scope was on a Q4 to do the draft charter is complete.

It sounds like you're getting a substantial update next month, um, as well as just ongoing quarterly updates.

And you have heard that the timeline was moved back to maybe 2028 construction schedule.

Um the C grant program was launched in Q4.

We talked about this quite a bit.

Um, but this is available to commercial hubs and along commercial corridors.

Um, we launched in October.

We have given out about 37,000 um so far in that program to four different grantees, Stamp Stein Funeral Homes, Two Sisters, Cafe, Chapel Theater, and Little Blue Store.

Um, and there's one in the pipeline, which is another little who store grant.

Um, that's a little um picture of what they're planning.

They're gonna have a uh food truck in the back there and a little bit of an outdoor seating court, um, adding outdoor seating in the front as well.

And I'm sure a lot of other things are gonna come because they're having a consultant work on them, work with them on kind of interior design and other elements that will play out in their grant.

So it's moving to the world's yeah, that's good for up.

Okay, ships.

Cool.

I'm glad they found that.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and then in people we issued 15 grants, and I can't see what the number said right now, but 613,000.

And I wanted to just show you a couple of the consulting grants that we did that we have next year uh in that quarter and look at the packets.

Um but that's a wellness and cost of data to molly, just a few imagery pieces of their suggestions for how they can update element for that phase.

The packet is full of suggestions that I think are actually really fantastic.

But so they wanted to warm up the LCROC bonus space as this main entry point for them.

And then for Casa Data Molly, they one of the things was you know cleaning up the walls and the ceiling, removing some distractions and having a center point of the mural on the back, doing some tiling at a bar that you can actually sit at and being very intentional with the lighting in the space and on a lot of other suggestions there.

Um yeah, they I really like the work that this consultant has been doing on the Q.

These are our first two consulting grants, and little boot stores should be ready next week.

Yeah, product is cool.

Um and Q4, we also were tasked with kicking off the five-year action plan update.

Um so we had the Mercac meeting in November, at the end of November, um, to get their initial input and what they would like to see out of the next um engagement plan for the five-year action plan, how they want engagement to go, um, if they remembered anything of what went well last time, what to include this time, and their overarching feedback was just having direct engagement with folks, um, be there in person, have continuous engagement, don't just drop in and zoom out, um, continue to pursue those stakeholders and have to be extremely inclusive.

So they called out um being a QD service providers, BIPOP business, persons with disabilities, having a lot of language inclusion and all users and all of users.

Um, and so I'm leveraging our community engagement guide that our um community engagement coordinator put together to try and incorporate that into an inclicid engagement process.

Um, and we're gonna be in February to go over that with Mercack again.

And we'll probably come to MRC at some point to get your input as well on what you'd like to see out of that process.

Um the RAT residental high density um study that I don't think council has heard about that quite yet.

That's gonna be an update you'll get soon from the planning side, but um have a DLC grant and we're contracting by one of the West to evaluate the effectiveness of the RHD zoning.

Um, and that's going to kick off in February.

Um, they're still working out the details of the scope, however, but this is going to be what um our kind of market study was intended to be for the media that hub neighborhood corridor.

The corridor will um will include a lot of our students as well.

So this won't want something to be on the hubs and board.

Um we did a little bit of construction uh impacts consulting in the last quarter, um providing contacts as well as um writing emails to businesses about the impacted businesses that are within like a 500-foot buffer of the Monroe Greenway and the King Road construction, um, and also letting them know about the open house opportunities that may or may not be an ongoing role the economic development plays, um, just depending on how the needs play out for those construction timelines.

Business survey we talked about this already quite a bit.

Um it's gonna close January 31st.

I mean it will form three pieces, the business friendliness score, which we already saw, and the business tax code update.

There's a whole section asking about what that should look like, and then the five-year action plan as well, because we can break this survey down by where those businesses are responded, um, so we can look at it by the downtown and some of the Milwaukee businesses to get some insights there.

And next um, we are going to do that deep dive on the 2025 business survey.

Um you'll see the draft engagement plan, the RCD analysis, you'll have a further update on that business tax code update that we will have the survey back.

We will have an internal meetings next quarter and start to really get into drafting changes.

And then Harrison and Maine, um, we are tasked with revisiting that discussion this quarter.

Um that's all the um forecast we have and then um stabbing roard, you brought up revisiting the Metro Reuse Center discussion.

Um so we're going to look at that, and then updates and development timeline updates.

These are requests we've gotten from council, and um we are we started with this last community development update, just kind of having a few more robust updates in there about Dan's um meetings and what they have planned, and so you can check out that, and we're gonna also be incorporating some more robust development updates to kind of meet that need there.

So if you to see what uh Sarah's speaking to look in your work session packet, and it's the CD slash CIP slash housing slash economic development before they were doing mostly enough.

Um thanks for adding that those updates from from DAM's last meeting.

Yes.

And then looking forward further into Q2, the things that we have.

This was on our Q2 list, which is print present transportation enhancements needed to support workforce and business needs as informed by the TSP.

Not sure if it still makes sense to have that coming up in Q2 yet, or if that's still a relevant task at this time.

Um this one of them.

Um and then propose that's when the full proposal of the updates to the city's task code will be coming to you.

Um and then engagement on the TIF five-year action plan will probably be kicking off around that time spring of this year.

And um, another request that we discussed with Counselor Staben Jordan is maybe exploring an office hours with the economic development coordinator model or a related resource, such as an FAQ page.

Um we also do have office hours with the Metro Innovation Hub coming up next month.

Um so we'll see if maybe there's a lot of demand for that if we can continue leveraging the Metro Region Innovation Hub as the office hours or maybe quarterly.

Um but anyways, that's something to be explored with it.

One question uh work plan.

I saw one thing that got dropped from the October one in Q2 is proposed placement investments for priority hubs, but that's still in Q3.

We still have implement placement investments and priority hubs.

Are we gonna talk about scoping at all for those investments in this quarter or next quarter?

Yeah, I think I just need to remove that Q3 one because it's going to be contingent upon findings from the RHD analysis.

Um, and also kind of letting the the program run through and see what happens there before kind of having those discussion, but that's kind of what I was thinking, but it's a it's obviously up for discussion if you had if you wanted to think.

Do we need to?

I guess I don't know if there is a right answer to this.

Do we need to have a market analysis to know to inform what placement investments that we're doing?

Those seem like they could be related, but I could also see them be not necessarily related.

I don't I don't know if we need a market analysis to know that the little blue store with lots of subventions around them or something cute and that encode that shows that this is a little hub.

Yeah, yeah, I think um I think it's a good point.

I think ultimately a market analysis around the hubs will help inform what the market directly around those hubs can support, and that'll help both with property owners and developers get a sense.

But as far as doing an investments in place making, you know, that can look a number of different ways from so I think you're right.

We don't need to wait for market analysis to do some placemaking.

We also have our last market analysis of our hubs that we already did that talks about ice banking and other things there, and maybe we use that to help inform.

That's right, I forgot about that.

That's a good point.

Uh give some direction.

That itself is also, in my opinion, it's needed some more regressed analysis.

No, fair.

Well, the placemaking can be done in this moment with the place making grants of course in the hubs, but if we wanted to do more intentional approach to selecting where we want those to go, that's kind of what that would I guess.

This is also to council masses funding.

We're not changing necessarily both priority hubs we've already selected.

But the so I think as long as we move forward with the understanding of the existing market analysis that we have, the existing decisions being around the priority.

That might be sufficient to inform the placement decisions that we do.

Regardless, do we plan to build that into the project or I think it's um I think part of it is also with a potential corridor plan?

It's kind of doing a lot in the same area over and over again, or should we do it all kind of in a comprehensive way?

I think that's kind of where staff is a little bit um thoughts for place making.

We have grants out there that we're hoping like the community takes a whole lot and maybe pursue some kind of uh investment with those dollars in their own area that they know around the hubs or otherwise.

But we've also said we can use those dollars to do our own thing on like a city-driven place making, right?

Um and that can be part of more analysis around the hubs that can be part of the RHD kind of analysis, right?

Okay, that can and probably should be part of the corridor conversation as well.

So like we have these other policy driven conversations that we're gonna have around this.

So it's it's a little bit of how much leading into each other.

So, how do we kind of all put them together?

Uh do best job with the resources that we have.

So we've been saying come on community, hopefully we pick up some of that, and then we'll get to the RHD and we'll get to the core studies in the market analysis involved in the whole world, and we'll have a little bit more sense of what makes sense there from investment opportunities in the city side.

Okay, that makes sense.

I think I'm just thinking through the attention of like okay, one if we overanalyzed ourselves to death and we do that, then dragging our feet on some of these things that I think a lot of people have wanted to see.

But also, I think it does make sense.

There are there's a process for laying out.

So I I take your advice on when it's best to do this, but I do feel like it's smart to think about I mean, what things to ask the question at least what can we do now?

What can we put forward to our community to see things start to happen?

Because there are some hubs.

The little booster was a good example.

They kind of are rolling on their own, and are there supports that we can do right now that help support those.

Yeah, we've put a lot of investment Google storage because we haven't properly everything.

Yeah, that really helps that changes everything.

Um we haven't really figured out how to do sticking side of things in a way that we haven't really just talked to you all actually about what that could look like and sugar quick dollars.

Maybe that's the discussion you're actually asking about.

Maybe I don't know what I'm asking.

Yeah.

That's a little bit of the conversation.

I love placemaking conversation.

Maybe a little too much.

Rebecca giving you pretty well.

Okay, yeah.

Well, I think that there are some things that can be you can have a whole scaled strategy around placemaking.

But it's important that it's intentional, it's important that it's community informed, and that it's consistent.

And I so I think having that discussion around the hubs and the areas of economic development we have identified geographically.

I think that's important.

Um but maybe we can look at like the CIP and identify other areas where we can um take out, you know, like where do the ripples go.

Yeah, I feel like you mentioned that too before.

Like layer this with CID projects as well.

And maybe then it is just more of a framed around the budget conversation.

What's happening in our CIP, we proactively set aside to support in year two of the budget placemaking around hubs.

Um that makes a lot of sense.

I know there's just uh there's also like a desire to see things happen, right?

Um we just we haven't really figured out that something should be priority, but we like Council Stavan Jordan said you can have placemaking uh be a number of different things.

You can even have you can make art contests for the PGE on like the electrical boxes and potentially paying bills.

That could be a thing.

It can go really big fast and it can be really uh small but impactful.

So there's and maybe it is that conversation that we had had before doesn't have to be large investments, but are there small scale placement things that we want to encourage in our hubs that we can think about this year that don't like you don't need a market analysis to know that we're gonna paint our electric box a pretty color?

Um and are there small things like that that we can encourage in this year before we have that market analysis back?

Write this down a couple more we'll talk about it as staff and try to I think that's fair makes sense.

There are some best practices, yes, and a lot of resources um that talk about things that other jurisdictions have done and have seen um you know uh good feedback from so I think we could look at what some of those strategies are and what the cost uh applied to that strategy.

So for example, the uh electrical boxes.

I forget what I forget which city um in Seattle, or like the Seattle area I was in, but they have wraps around their electrical boxes, and it's gorgeous.

It changes just gorgeous the whole thing.

So we could have like that actionable strategy is we have a conversation with PGE about an IGA.

Yeah.

Um, and what is the cost of doing wraps on those boxes?

What's the cost of ongoing maintenance?

How you know how do we roll that out?

So you could talk through that strategy.

Um it might be that that's a low-cost thing that just takes time.

You have to find a vendor that you know could do the wrap, and we could do electrical boxes across the whole city.

That would increase a sense of community and a sense of feeling, you know, like connected geographically.

I know you're always asking for things to put on engage, and this to me seems like the type of like asking for placemaking ideas or that community involvement that Councillor Stavroid is talking about.

Like what does it look like to do some community community generated ideas?

Um yeah, what does it look like?

Okay, what's scalable?

What could we do what's outside the purview?

And even if it's I don't know, you can do cute things.

I love how invested um the folks at the little boost store are what does it look like to sit around a neighborhood and have a little potluck and talk about okay, what do we want to do in this neighborhood?

So trying to push on you a little bit.

Yeah, because sometimes we survey community um to get answers that we have already been told.

And I think that this might be one of those situations where there are some things that are already known and and perhaps that sit around and have a potluck and talk about things could be actually like taking a menu of options to the community um personally and saying, you know, we've we have already done the cost estimate on um creative trash cans, uh, you know, street planters, um, you know, picnic benches were or extra benches, um neighborhood flags, you know, all of those types of things, you know, wrapping the electrical boxes and and then gauge interest on which of those people would like to see done first rather than just kind of casting the net widely that might come back with some of the same answers that you can find in a best practice search.

I also realized I stuck in the same foil.

A lot of these are detailed in the last helps analysis, so I can go back and pull those out.

I think that's not yeah, but sorry, well, I was gonna say I don't want to beat this to death.

Uh but yeah, I was just gonna just to wrap that one up.

Um I think what I'm hearing is come for back to the council to have a discussion about the ones that we think are like probably the most interesting.

And use those however many uh you generate to go out to engage to get um discussion going and get feedback from the so how about this?

I'm I am willing to volunteer um to put together some materials um perhaps in partnership on Mondays, um that the council could could discuss.

And there might be this might be I'm just publicly putting it out.

This might be more than one hour ask if we were to vet specific strategies for costs within the city.

So I want to ask council's permission for more than one hour of staff time.

Um remember how we used to have to do this?

Yeah, I don't know that the council gives that permission.

Well, I appreciate the transparency.

It's part of our operating agreement together.

I would like to say that the request that I may have for staff to vet the strategies that I will come up with at a local level to say take the extra level and and talk to you know someone in public works.

I won't, but I may give it to Sierra and Sierra could talk with somebody in public works to say how expensive would it be to wrap all the electrical boxes in the city.

If we're talking about parks, we can give mobile okay.

So that's the level that I want to I that's the level of analysis that I would like to do to bring strategies back to council.

To talk 30,000 foot.

I'm hearing in your we had already talked about two sets of placemaking grants.

It sounds like we're honing in on that vision.

This year's placemaking grants are small scale, we're figuring out Councillor Stafford will help us go with that.

Next year is okay, larger, more like informed by the market analysis.

What's happening with placement?

Yeah, is that the right framing?

I think so, but and I would say I think right now we're trying to get it to be community-driven just because of capacity and what we're working on the grants.

Yeah, so I think the push is to hopefully get folks to really speaking themselves in the meantime.

But yeah, in the future, yes, we're talking about what Councillor Stavanger is in any subservice for that's a year later.

So we need a playbook.

Yeah.

We need the placemaking playbook.

The tourism plan.

Um look at us creating heartburn for city.

I'm looking just a little leverage.

You need a leverage in order to make these things not uh we derailed council accomplishments.

Yes.

Um please tell me what else to add to this because I want it to be doctor and memorial list.

So I added a couple things on your behalf.

Um letters to businesses, which mayor and counselor masse were working on Pathwork sponsorship, um, and then Mercac Factory Action Plan are the things that was kicked off.

So those are the things I captured for council accomplishments related to economic development and Q4.

Is there anything else that I can add?

Yeah.

Well, council made a decision about um some of the business grant investments, and I think that actually demonstrates an involvement and awareness of that grant program that you know is that's it's a work in progress, but that's that's a touch point that council had I think you could if you're looking for more checks to add, you just do regular correspondence with businesses.

Like I think I don't think we need a checkbox every month for counselor going to the um chamber events, but reflecting those correspondence.

Thank you.

And then looking forward for council actions, we have this quarter is to convene the first round of business round tables.

And this was supposed to be timed for after the survey results came in.

Um so those will be those results we are in February.

Um and then Stavan Jordan, I we talked about maybe you sharing an eyes on the street update of downtown business activity, um, which we can do that maybe the next quarter, or you could do it today, whichever.

I do think the round need to be some coordination around the business round table piece today, if that's still happening this quarter, or does it need to be talking about the first the round tables?

They're they're planned for the first quarter this year that we said.

Yeah, it was actually planned for last quarter.

We put it to this quarter time after the business survey is so like sleep back in the middle.

Yeah, I'm I don't want to push it another quarter.

You do I don't I don't want to just keep kicking it behind well, this is upon us.

And uh I guess my question is this is a pretty broad category.

What businesses, how many who's leading it, facilitating the uh agenda and the discussion?

There's there's a lot of detail in that and so I'm not against us doing it.

We're but this is here.

So I don't I I I've asked this question.

I said I I don't I don't I'm not sure I understand what we're trying to accomplish out of business round table.

I mean, there's lots of things you might accomplish, but I don't know what we're trying to accomplish.

I mean, I I since we just did the survey, I would I would think that it would be kind of preempted on that, right?

Based on some of those responses, and because like you said, we asked, like, okay, well, how do we fix what they're dissatisfied about?

Well, the survey's not going to tell us that the round table potentially could.

So maybe we take the information that's off the surveys and reach to those businesses.

Like maybe we have a our first meeting with the everybody that was satisfied and below.

And then we have another round table later with the ones who are satisfied and above or a little bit higher, and just kind of see where the where the uh what to the what the spectrum looks like on each side, right?

Like why why where's the opposite?

Where's the common space, and then how do we make sure that both sides are able to take advantage of?

I think that's that was the intent of the survey is to get something that had a little bit more meat on you know, on it to talk to businesses about.

There, I mean, just from like conversations that I've had in the last like week on Main Street, there's a lot of excitement about the open hour, the open office hour, or the the meeting with um the Metro Regional Innovation Grant.

Or not grants, the hub.

Um I think you know, I've talked to like I don't know, four businesses that are like, oh yeah, I saw that.

I'm gonna go.

Um, so I I really hope that maybe we could do something informal like that where we you know post up at Windhorse or Keeper or something that says, hey, come and talk with us about the survey um findings.

Were you dissatisfied?

You know, it's not something that you like that you're not expecting like an extensive planning so business round tables could be could be something that you know is very grand, or it could just be you filled out this survey, it looks like some of you are dissatisfied.

Let's get together and talk about what that looks like and how we can do better.

And I would prefer the latter, honestly.

I feel like that's it's a better fit than you know, like pay for a luncheon and all.

I mean, we can pay for copy, or we can pay for you know, snacks or something to get people to just like all you really have is 15 20 minutes that you can step away from operations, yeah.

You know, so are you do you do you think we should do it this quarter?

Or because I also see when you brought up the it depends on the detail because I can see us needing a quarter to prepare.

I I I like the Rebecca saying I'm just saying I don't think we had any of them.

So I'm gonna well I and I think that that's why we wanted the survey to go out first.

I mean, we we pushed this saying, hey, we do need to have the the where what when why and um here's a good way for us to get some of that information from our businesses.

We're seeing about a third of them have responded.

Hopefully, with this next push, there will be more that respond.

And um and I think that is something tangible to take back and say, all right, now we're gonna have, you know, over the course of the next month, we're gonna be at these three or four places, and you can stop in however much time you have.

Um, we want to go through some of the feedback that we got from this survey and hear from you specifically how you think we can do a better job.

Yeah.

That's how I did it.

I kind of love that idea.

Um, just logistically keeping it that simple, and it makes it so you can all figure out what makes sense for your schedules.

And it's also very thoughtful for the businesses themselves.

How many round tables in the evening or in the morning?

Can yes, I'm gonna work.

Or their family.

Or you offer multiple dates and times.

That's what we should.

Do one on the weekend, do one during the work work day, do one in the just holding in a different, like hold one in the industrial area, hold one downtown, hold one and uh off uh what is it?

International, right?

You know, maybe we do five different options and each of us signs up for one shift.

We'll do that too.

That was the that was the intent of uh getting the business survey out and getting some feedback, and then so we can give you all a few address, whatever or at least oh we're back and hold the first one so I can go to hers.

Well, and I mean, and there's no pressure to do this, but we all have a council budget, and so like using our council budget to pay for copy and you know, some kind of refreshments, like that might be the only time they get a chance to refuel.

Yeah, so I think I mean, yeah, I'm gonna do that.

Do you want me to do the first one?

Yeah, actually, I'm serious.

Okay.

Um, my follow-up is how would you like the survey results sent to you as like a PDF report at mid-mid month fine, or do you would you rather have a presentation at some upcoming?

I think we had talked about a larger presentation later, but if we're doing this soon, have a PDF sent out.

Yeah.

I like the spreadsheet with brought out.

Thank you.

Yes, okay.

If you wish okay.

Do you have any eye street updates about downtown this second?

Eyes on the street.

Funny you should mention that.

Let's mattle that was savage.

It's a topic for another time.

Okay, so a couple things that I wanted to highlight.

There were some amazing winter events that happened and so much activity downtown.

The umbrella parade, ridiculously huge.

Big in the new year, amazing.

The solstice events, holy moly.

I mean, people were everywhere.

And what I noticed is that there were people from not just Milwaukee that were here.

This was something that was on their calendar.

They were making a point to come to Milwaukee.

And I think it's because it's very accessible.

And they're family friendly, which is a big draw.

So I loved that.

The um the passport program.

Um a couple of counselors sponsored the printing, the first round of printing um for the Milwaukee passport.

And man, those things were like hot cakes.

So if anyone needs a passport, there were more of them dropped off.

I am going to distribute them to other businesses downtown.

Um and the passport is, have you all seen this?

Okay.

Um I mean, there were the first print job was like what, 2500?

Something like that.

And um they were like gone.

Um, so there's there's another print um that is in the works.

Um, I have made the request to Joseph and Sierra that um we contribute, like we as the city contribute as a printing sponsor to um another run of these with the caveat that City Hall and the library be included in the walking map because we have so many activities that the city is involved in and the library is involved in.

I think that should definitely be on the map.

So um, so I've made that request, and I think that the plan is to do another big run of them in the spring summer.

Um, but I mean the only thing that I can think of, and I haven't talked with other businesses about how the incentives are going.

Um, but like from our side, it's quite an investment um of freebies that um you know that are going out.

And so that might be one of the things that comes up in the business round table or that we ask about in the round table is you know, if you were a business that was featured in the passport, how is that experience going for you?

Um are you finding that the freebies or the giveaways are um are draining your resources and what does that look like?

So um that part is wonderful.

Um I have been thinking a lot about um, I think it was maybe one of our I don't know if it was our it was one presentation that you did, and I can't remember which table we were at.

Um but I remember you saying that we are not um back to pre-pandemic levels of activity on the streets, and that hit like a punch to the gut.

Um, because that means so much to the success success of um of the hubs of the businesses all around the city and for downtown.

So um that's been on the back of my mind um and really trying to take some of the um the one-time or you know, seasonal sort of activities and spread that excitement out across the whole year, and you know how what what is the city's role in helping to make that happen.

So those are those are my men on the street interviews for this quarter.

Yeah.

Oh, um sorry, one more thing.

Ah, sorry, one more thing.

Um, there are some things that we may not even think about that affect businesses, and um, and I don't know what the solution is, but I'm gonna just highlight a couple of things.

Um the right over here, the building that has um K-Marie and Windhorse and um and Charles, the the Tamale, yeah, sorry.

Um so they have been going through the process of getting their roof repaired.

Um just a new simple, just a new roof.

Um, but they found asbestos, and so there's a remediation process.

So that means that the businesses on that little strip have been closed now for almost a week now, right?

Yeah.

It's it's been a big so I just saw today that there's a GoFundMe that has gone out from Windhorse.

And I know that K Marie has a GoFundMe.

But I don't know if I don't I don't know who is listening tonight.

But um this is a bit is it's a really rough period of time in the calendar to have an additional closure.

Um, and that means a lot to small businesses in their bottom line.

So I just want to highlight that for council.

Um, and if you are inclined to go and support them either when they open back up and or through the GoFundMe's, um those are out there.

Will you send us that link?

Yeah, absolutely.

Is it okay to post that link when we post the YouTube video for this meeting?

Is it okay to post that link there?

Or is that unethical?

Interesting question.

At the very least, one of us could comment that one.

So yeah.

Well, can't you the end of the personal business owners?

No.

No.

No, but the GoFundMe covers things like um lost income and um ability to keep staff.

Yeah.

There's no revenue right now.

Yeah, so they've lost you know a week of the income.

Basically, at one of the worst times of the year.

Should really think about a rainy day fund for businesses for things like this.

Using our business registration fee money.

Yeah.

You know, so the city of Portland and Multnomah County have done something like that for vandalism too.

Um they did a small grants program and have a fund that is set aside with the city and the county, um, so that if businesses are vandalized or like but like with the collector's mall, you know, the they had a break-in and Christine had to replace the whole front door.

And that was like $800 that is out of her pocket.

Um, so having something like that that businesses could access, I think might be a really good stuff.

Might be why there's a model.

We'll talk about it.

We'll get into this.

I think this discussion is great, especially for the business registration code updates and what we get to make those funds more meaningful with the businesses.

That's perfect kind of appetizer to that next discussion.

It's on the street.

Okay, last update.

Yeah, I actually just have one thing.

Um, because we brought up Dam, and I don't know when it was the last time we had like a I think we need a new update from Dam.

I'm curious about how the relationship is with Dam, and maybe you can shed some light on that.

Um just because you know, not not to look in the past, but I do know with that I I did approach Jay Jones about that press release, just so you guys know.

Um and he was a little bit taken aback by it in terms of how it got released without being reviewed first because there's some inaccuracies.

But when I went back to look at it, the letter was from Mr.

Fisher, but when the chamber sent out that email, they said the letter was from their friends over at Dam.

That letter went out to a bunch of people.

If you look at the C C who CC'd on that, there's people elected officials who aren't even in Bacchus that got the thing.

Right.

So I just want to know it that is there an issue with dam as a whole, or is it just an individual on dam that had an issue?

Because I think for the most part, we've had a very good relationship with them, and we've been very supportive of Dam, council-wise, city-wise.

Um so I just want to make sure we're not blurring the lines here and creating distrust between two entities that have historically been pretty healthy.

Yeah, a check-in with Dan.

I think that's a fair question.

Um I know that they have been putting together their annual report.

Um, and I believe that they have intentions to bring that to council as a presentation.

Um, and so maybe the request when that gets scheduled would be that that is with as many of their members as possible, like that can make it for the meeting, and then we have more of a robust discussion um, you know, as jurisdictional body to advocacy body.

Yeah, so I would hope if it was the dam as a whole that they would have done a little bit more due diligence before putting something out like that.

Well, and there's also like Sierra attends all the meetings.

Um I try to attend as many as I can.

Yeah.

And I know that there's been over the last month or so, there's been several um additional meetings with leadership to discuss specific uh logistical supports from the city.

Um, and you know what their strategic plan looks like for the next year and where it might align with the with the cities.

You know, so I think those things are are like um lining up for some of our conversations about our plans, strategies around ECDev investments, all of that kind of stuff.

But I think you are wise to to say that you know if we are supporting um an organization that it makes sense to have regular conversation with the leadership of that organization, maybe the membership of that organization.

So yeah.

Thank you.

Other last I dead things.

Great work, counselor.

Oh man, it's not me.

Well, I mean staff, and but as the lane leader, you've been doing a great job leading this lane.

It's cool.

So thank you.

Thank you for your work because you're also running the business.

Oh god, it's like you're running too.

I just feel like it's always running.

Oh, yeah, that's that's always running.

Kids will do the same thing.

Um Sierra has one last thing for us, and then we're gonna move to council reports.

Yes.

The next Q2 is plan annual business summit.

So just have that on your papers.

I guess there's no guarantee.

That's very open.

And GMO scared.

So yeah, let's keep this one because I feel like it's a good conversation.

I feel like we kind of got some of that with the next metrics numbers and we've got 20 minutes left.

We can do council reports at the very least.

Scott has a presentation for us about ledge updates and voting committees.

We can hear that, see where we get to on reports.

Um let's do it.

Or long dinner.

Uh let's say uh yeah, early night.

Just right up there.

Coming from our active city manager guys we all know there's like a 20% chance.

So we've got to wrap it up.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

See you guys.

Thank you.

Great job.

Thank you for putting me in on the work session.

Uh quick updates, there's sort of annual updates at this point, so I want to make sure you get an opportunity to go down to council and then uh take feedback.

Uh so it's time for annual board and committee recruitment.

This is the fifth year in a row we've done the annual recruitment.

I think we're finally getting into a group where it makes sense.

And last junior years we have user alternates with.

So it's a little bit helpful to have that makes um building our board and committee maintenance uh much quicker.

Uh just a quick snapshot.

We have 15 standing boards and committees now, which is sort of an all-time high in recent years, but uh the the additions in the last year are welcoming the climate action committee, which is official and launching with a full site of uh members out of January 1st.

And then uh just at the last meeting, council created the naming review subcommittee to work on assets and parks and things that are proposed to have names attached to them.

That's not a committee that will be involved in this annual recruitment because the membership of that committee was designated by council and their policy um to be members by other committees.

So indirectly it's there, but now it's one of our 15 standing.

Um this year, uh at the end of June, we have about 46 of our now, probably around 100 positions with these new committees.

We probably have about a hundred.

We've been averaging about 88, but the new committees were probably pushing about a hundred volunteers tuning on our boards and committees.

Uh this year, as of the end of June, we have 46-ish positions.

And I say ish because uh as um our staff late ones know and I can tell council we are still working, Nicole that we recorder is working on confirming who sitting on our committees now with terms expiring at the end of June wants to be reappointed.

That's a question that we always ask of them, and it's been council's uh standing policy.

And if somebody's on a boarding committee and is in good standing and wants to be reappointed, then they just get put on a resolution for reappointment.

So we're still working to ask that question.

It is to be fair, you know, we're still talking about terms that end in mostly five and a half, six months from now.

And so folks knowing what they want to do in five and have six months is kind of a question, so we're still working to confirm that.

But we have up to 46 positions to uh fill or reappoint.

Uh and right now we have currently two uh vacancies, uh which is pretty good when you consider we have almost 100 volunteers.

Uh any questions about those numbers?

We'll get by the time we do interviews, we'll know exactly what position before.

So, real quickly, here's the timeline.

It's pretty much the same as before caveat.

It's about uh a month earlier than usual.

Uh February 1st in a couple weeks, we'll launch our app the applications.

We'll do the usual social media pilot article, postcard.

The postcard we send all mailboxes across the city.

We really see a series of bumbo.

So we're planning on doing that again.

That'll come February 1st.

The deadline to apply is March 15th.

That is uh half a month, that's about two weeks earlier than normal.

And the reason is Mayor Beatty seeing that council will be pretty swamped come uh April, especially in the May budget committee meetings every weekend and meetings around that.

Wanted to get the interviews done before the budget committee process started.

So we're gonna front load your calendars in April before your budget process uh loads up your calendar.

And so the mayor asked for these dates 8th, 11th, 15th, and 18th of April to be designated as interview times.

Last year, uh, even without the budget meetings in the way, it was quite a um messy process for Nicole to figure out all the dates.

You gotta figure out the council and staff liaison's dates, you gotta figure out room availability, you gotta figure out availability of interviewees.

We thought we thought, and the mayor uh actually uh requested that we just designate those times.

So this doesn't mean all members of the council and all staff liaison have to be at all those windows.

Uh in fact, we're already starting to get feedback from staff liaison and some council members as to who can't be there and whatnot, so uh which days.

So we're working on that, but at least these this part of the movie puzzle will be nailed down.

So March 15th, I'll say it again.

It's a two-week earlier deadline.

March 15th applications for all boards and committees will be due March 15th.

Turn it off March 16th.

Uh, then we'll do the usual behind the scene work to get uh Mays Art and Councils ready for the interviews in April, and uh hopefully that'll give us a slate of appointments to make on May 19th, or that'll give us a little boot room into June.

So the big change is that March 15th date.

But this is the general calendar.

Any questions, thoughts, feedback?

Uh yes, I know if we have an interviews on tax day, eh?

Very nice.

We'll be on the middle.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

We appreciate the phone dates of folks are not really asking if it works in my calendar, and we totally get that's why we have four options.

And when we get to the point where we're looking at you know, we look closer, we'll we'll work with council.

As a reminder, the panel consists of the mayor, one other member of council, staff lady is on, and when possible, the staff, the chair of that board or committee.

So, any questions about this?

Why we're doing an earlier deadline to accommodate those interview things.

Okay.

Well, that's pretty much it for board and committee.

Stop that share, and then I will start talking about the next one because once again, our it is time to talk about legislative updates.

And my report this time is pretty embedded because I don't have any updates, but I want to bring it up as an opportunity if you guys start thinking and as uh legislation, let's say concepts become bills.

And I know this is a short session, so it's gonna be a whirlwind of February basically.

Um, but council's opportunity at every meeting uh to talk about lift station tracking.

So here's the deadlines.

February 2nd, the session begins.

First chamber deadline is February 16th, second chamber deadline 26th, and March 8th is constitutional signing die.

Uh I didn't see any.

Usually I I include economic revenue forecast dates in there, but I didn't see those on the bill's calendar that follow in this range during the session.

So I know there's a February forecast, but I don't know what date is off the top of my head.

I can go look.

We can throw it on, but those are the days right now.

Um I don't know if we're watching any bills.

So if folks want to give you that now or want to shoot me an email later, and again, I'll defer to the council president who's in the building, as they say.

Uh don't know that they've assigned numbers, how do they sign numbers?

No, so the GC concepts floating out there.

And there's now, you know, with only four weeks, it's probably gonna be a pretty focused agenda.

That's as much as the legislature now.

So that's just bills, bills.

Anyone wants to throw any bills that they're they're not aware of now.

What we could always do is if people see bills that pop up, they want us to track time on February 2nd, other than that, make the way out on bills.

So it shouldn't be opening bill.

I'm not going to be specifically records related, but uh government mission ruling on public meetings while I know there has been a legislative working group discussing how to address those things, and I saw late last week or maybe looking for a fairly detailed um list of ideas.

I don't know if that's gonna get much player traction in this session, maybe uh maybe some small fixes and then an idea that'll come back in more longer form next year.

But that's the one concept I've heard that might be maybe that one will be coming.

I think it's fairly minor tweets now.

Yeah, something more that LOC and Milwaukee might want to see probably the label ones.

Yeah.

Uh anything else part of the you want to add about CMAP themes for the session or anything?

I think a big theme will be disconnect, the impact that that has and the transportation package, uh, just the fallout from the referral, uh open cities and counties uh they are as well as the city.

So thinking about those things.

Um but again, I think if we come into the February second council meeting, the idea of bills that we want to talk about, that first week of committee hearings really is the time to give our feedback.

Um we'll get a second go when bills head over to the Senate or the House vice versa after they go to the second chamber.

Um, but really we have that February 2nd as the deadline to okay pick what bills we want to talk about.

That's what we'll have the most important.

So I think everyone saw the email that came from the mayor about issues over uh waves.

And uh my question is do you think that those are gonna seem to be the initiative of the governor?

And uh you think that those are gonna be pushed into this session?

So it's a part of a housing omnibus, right?

Omnibus bills tend not have really controversial elements.

Um, this one does.

Yeah, I think one about like you can't appeal and all that stuff, yeah.

So I think we'll see what happens there.

Um I would just ask you to keep an eye on that and whether you agree with it or not.

I would just like to know how it's going.

Yeah.

Once we have a bill number, my professional faculty ideally stacked out.

So I also will be curious.

Well, no, okay.

Great.

It's typical practice to not put controversial elements.

So it's always interesting to see what changes.

Oh, button didn't begin with.

Yep.

We need to get bill numbers or you and concepts.

You should be an email to our start spreadsheet.

Yeah.

So since there's nothing there, we haven't had any letters being have been sent or being written any questions.

Anything else on lunch and content or outdate.

Cool.

Thanks, Congress.

Thank you.

Hold on, Mr.

Stop.

We've got nine minutes left.

Um start jump away, their council reports.

Council Mask has a script.

I just have a I just have a really short one, and it's not actually you know all the official list of liaison, but I've just got a number of the of the friends of the library for a long time.

And uh I just wanted to highlight a couple of things they had their annual meeting two weeks ago.

And um the city gets so much benefit out of a very small group of people, and uh the friends for their various fundraising operations, the book sales, land sales, etc.

Generates pretty much um all of the funds used by the library for all of the outreach activities.

Um, like the children's reading programs and that kind of thing, and there's some development programs to uh talks and that kind of thing.

So they raise around you know around 40,000 per year, and um all of it is spent on those activities, and uh it's just uh it's amazing to see the impact that those things have.

Like there were some there were like uh I think about 1,200 uh children involved and signed up for the summer reading program and like that.

And so not only did we uh you know sponsored the reading programs, but also underwrote the the uh yeah, each person each child gets a book at the end of that for their own if they get the key.

So that's 1200 books.

Yeah, that's great.

Books are great.

And uh, you know, they partnered with the uh the school district, so that the uh free lunches that children normally get when they go to school, we're actually given at the library.

Um so those uh those kids who needed that were given their free lunch and they just had to go to the library and pick it up and you know, and then you know library just facilitated that distribution in the school, you know, pay for it, delivered it and that kind of thing.

Um one of the fun things that they did with we uh at the request of the library, we uh we bought a puppet theater for children's playground area, the inside playground area.

And uh if you go down there now, you just see no problems.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah, that's uh it's uh normal.

That's really but you know they put out these uh uh these spice packets like that, you know, like they made up 50 spice packets and 47 on the first day.

Well, we'll go put some more yet.

Oh wow, and uh and the same thing happened on the adult reading program.

So they made up a bunch of packets on those and it was all so we uh do some more.

But there uh there are some issues with the French library because basically we use uh the Harvey Street uh city location to store warehouse sort of books, and um without some sort of uh place to uh to house those uh those book donations and sort of distributed library, that kind of thing, then um that's a major source of income that'll go away.

And eventually the Harvey Street uh location is gonna be a PS.

So I think that probably coming up this uh summer in Bayern, we'll probably have a better idea of computer about when in the biennium that's gonna happen.

So the uh the friends of the library are looking for another location.

Well, and obviously there's several different ways you scan that cat.

You know, the preferable one is to find uh someone who had a space that they're willing to let us use.

Uh you know, we like the Goldy Lux solution, you know, the judge might soon.

Um and uh uh but it may be uh it may be uh a rental, it may be a purchase, who knows.

I mean, we're kind of in the fortunate situation.

There have been a major gift to the frozen library last year, and another you know, fairly substantial one this year.

So they have a very good reserve and that kind of thing.

Uh but still be a big issue so that we can continue to generate those revenues on a basis.

But uh there's around 400 um uh members of the friends of the library.

Obviously, there's no less than 50 of them who were really the dedicated workers who do all the heavy lifting and everything like that.

So we're very appreciative of them.

And um I will tell you that uh it's it's interesting.

One of the best investments you can make is becoming a lifetime member for the library because it's a hundred dollars.

Wow, that's a pretty good deal.

Pretty good deal.

And you know what's in the state.

That's not bad.

What?

Yeah, I I question it, you know.

But that's okay.

It's interesting that there are some lifetime members in 100 every December.

Oh, that's when they renew their lifetime.

That's the cat model.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I just wanted to highlight the good work of that group.

I'm very proud of it.

I'm very proud of our library.

We have a great relationship with the library staff and that kind of thing.

And they're doing good work.

Yeah.

Councillor Maskett's here.

I think uh speedback on that.

I think there might have been already a solution on the storage as of last Friday.

Wow.

Yeah.

So some good news.

Good things can happen and I'm out of the way.

Um, there are council reports.

Council Christmas Rodney, you have yeah, um, actually, yeah, I'm just trying to find something on that, but I gotta get some more information.

But I did have a West meeting the 15th, so that's less weekend.

Um that was just like they looked at a year review uh on things that they've accomplished, their CIP plan.

Um doing their SDC uh realignment.

Uh and then they actually went over some some information on the atmospheric rivers that I thought was pretty impressive.

Uh and also a little uh nerve-wracking.

Um so apparently there was uh a diverters that they have was at a 10 million gallon per day capacity.

That's what the capacity is, and that's what it was at.

It was at max capacity.

Um the collection station was at 29 million gallons per day with a 25 million capacity.

So they were over by uh 4.3 million gallons.

And the reason we didn't see it, you know, overflow in the sewers and things like that is because of, and I'm not technical, so I would have to go back and find something, but just for the infrastructure that currently exists, there's enough out there that it was able to like release it without having to blow off manhole covers.

But just for the infrastructure that currently exists, there's enough out there that it was able to like release it without having to blow off manhole covers.

Um they had the they had crews had to in some parts like on the ridge line on Timberline and up there, they had to pump water.

They had to go up there and physically pump water out.

Um because they had to shut down their pump stations because of the power power outage, all the trees that fell blew the power line.

So they had to manually pump some of the stuff.

It was some of the photos are pretty pretty insane of what they had to do.

Um, which led up to saying this is why their CIP projects are moving forward, it is actually really good timing because they currently the old outpall is a 70-inch outfall that has that has a 61.5 million gallon per day capacity.

Um the new one is 90 inches, and that's gonna have 106 million gallon per day capacity.

And to put it in perspective, at 903 p.m.

on December 18th, we were at 79.25 million gallons per day capacity with the old alpha at 61, having a 61 million capacity, we were way over that.

So the new alpha is actually gonna be able to absorb what those what we just experienced, and then the old one is just gonna turn turn into a secondary outfall.

So we're gonna be in good shape.

Um we were lucky that it wasn't worse.

Uh, but I just thought it was fascinating with how much water was just flowing um through there.

Now there was a couple of of uh there was a sanitary sewer overflow in Oregon City on McLaughlin or Manhole uh was not in a publicly accessible area, and that was reported to DEQ, and and the that first atmospheric river was nearly four inches in 24 hours.

So I think the second atmospheric river was even more, I think it was uh at about six inches, 24 hours.

Yeah, they they were they were working, they were working.

I just thought it was fascinating how just how much uh water was flowing.

It made me a little bit concerned, and then I started thinking about everything else from Coho Point the what is it the Clomar that they had to do and all this stuff.

I mean, it's really cool, it's really neat.

And and if you guys are ever interested, um, you know, we can talk more depth about some of the stuff they're doing and a lot of more of the technical stuff.

Um it would be good actually for council to have a tour down there at West and kind of yeah, yeah, and to be able to sit down and kind of just go over, hey, like how does this all work?

Because I mean they they did a lot of work to really keep us safe and ensure that we didn't get flooded, it could have been bad.

And then so I just appreciate the work that they do.

The fact that they kind of saw this coming.

So that's why they're now moving forward a lot of these projects, so I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Um also had a cab meeting.

Uh we didn't get a chance to get the Oregon food bank in this last meeting that's scheduled for the next month's meeting.

Um, so we did go back over some of our subcommittees that we're doing.

Um we are gonna offer the the pay for the people's mileage, which I mentioned last time.

Uh they just sent out the vendor packets to some of the the members.

Um so yeah, we're we're we're all just oh, and we're also gonna go over eviction resources, preventive resources next in next month's meeting.

Uh, we're all just kind of holding our breaths a little bit in terms of what's going on.

Um I can tell you that personally, as the cab chair, am not happy or satisfied uh with how the commission has handled certain things.

Although it's an advisory board, it doesn't really feel like one because it doesn't feel like anyone's listening.

So I think now is the the time where if anything, um that is is very important because of how much it it deals with.

And some might say, well, what does food have to do with community action aboard?

Well, poverty, you know, hunger is a direct result of poverty.

Uh oh, and a direct result of our policies, which yeah, anyways.

Um say to the do you have a joint meeting with the with the commission?

No, uh they're supposed to meet with us.

Um they're supposed to have a liaison, but uh I I can't really tell you the last time a county commissioner was present.

I don't know who it is.

Um I probably should, but I I don't want to say that it's because they're not showing up, it might just be because I forgot who it is, but I think it was told to us before.

Um but uh yeah, I'm just you know same cabin.

I thought it was fire side.

Oh, yeah, right.

Yeah, she's on the run in turkey or something.

Um but you know, I I I I do also want to want to mention that uh you know, being the one thing about Cabot, it really shows you the numbers of things, so it doesn't tell the whole story, but it shows you the numbers and it shows you kind of you know where we are and and and what's going on county-wise.

Um I'm just I don't know.

I just I I had a lot more expectations from this county commission, specifically Chair Roberts.

Um it's it's just disappointing that two months into this and and we're at a real pivotal moment and uh it just doesn't feel like much attention is being put to some of these issues.

It's like it's all being lent to the state.

Like that's a good idea, right?

So um and then with that said, I did want to pivot real quick to um there was something else that I was gonna talk about in council reports.

Maybe not, I'll let it go for now.

Councilor Stop, do you have a report where I was gonna um if you feel like you want to talk more, we could always revisit reports after the meeting too.

No, I was just trying to find um I thought I saw an announcement.

I was trying to find it, but I can't find it.

So I'm just gonna go off of conjecture, not conjecture now.

Um, but I am pretty sure this evening there's a meeting over at the beer store that's happening like right now, where they're making ice packs, and ice packs are uh packets of information combined with a whistle.

Um, so that you can share information about how to identify and what to do when um ice is in the community.

Um so I thought that that was going on.

I'm gonna wander over there and see if they have some folks building those packs.

Um, I know that there's a group that have been putting those packets together, and they put together about 300 of them that went out in local food boxes.

Um so I really want to appreciate that work.

And speaking of food boxes, I also just want to really thank the ClackMax Service Center for our recent site visit.

Um they walked us through uh operations, they talked about the um the partnership that we've had with them through the Milwaukee Heart program, and that program provides um rent and utility support for Milwaukee residents that have um that are either seniors or um uh uh families with school age children um and that was uh one of the grants that the council put forth to um the Clackamas Board of Commissioners for funding through the Support of Housing Services pressure.

So um that uh for anyone who's who's still watching um that uh uh program was a pilot program and not because there's a lack of need out there, but rather that the county commission was looking for um innovative ideas and put out the solicitation for pilots so that they could test.

I think that there is a very strong case for that program to be continued, and what we saw in our site visit um is just the overwhelming need and the response and the partnerships that they've been able to build.

So um huge thanks to the Clackamas Service Center Um and uh and then just kind of a call to action for council um to continue advocating for that program to be continued.

Uh there's a budget process that aligns with ours, and it is the county budget process.

So I think that um uh a supportive worded letter would be helpful from council.

I'm happy to put that together.

Doctor Bath paying for the book.

Yeah, right.

So yeah, yeah, for real.

That was really cool.

Yeah, and actually I'm glad you brought that up because it did remind me of the last thing I wanted to say.

We should go it's 607.

Let's just do council reports of that.

Oh, yeah, that's fine.

That actually might be better.

Okay, because you guys are gonna like this.

Okay.

Oh my gosh.

Tune in.

Uh we're setting you up to for the fall, guys.

It better be good.

Coming late.