Um just so you know, this will be true probably in the other goal sessions as well.

But um you all have the packet, you all have our track tracker, so you can certainly read and see what we accomplished over the last quarter, what we're gonna move forward with, and we'll definitely have a time where we can ask questions about that later.

But we thought using this time with you all to actually provide some uh be more intentional about certain items within that tracker that we actually need your feedback on.

That was a more useful uh usefulness.

So that's what we're gonna focus on today.

We're gonna focus and drill down on the business registration conversation that we started a few months ago and some of the progress that we've made and some of the research and analysis this year has done and walk you through the kind of a staff version of what we heard, what we've learned, and kind of our direction moving forward and get any other feedback when you see that.

So if I don't just jump in there just to say um, as Jessica said, this is gonna I think be a tact that we try to take going forward.

We had a we're halfway through your goal period, hard to believe, um, of three years, and so the staff goal leads had a couple of sort of midpoint check-ins to talk about how the process is working.

Um we've learned a lot, and there's a lot that's going really well.

I also think that you know the the kind of tedium of using every quarterly check-in to go through every single bullet point was maybe not the best use of time.

So I do really encourage you to continue to read those in your packet.

They are also always put on the website um after we have our quarterly work sessions.

They're already up.

Amazing.

Um but we'll do these deep dives, and we also are gonna get back uh in a better habit of supreme meets between staff goalie's and council goalie.

So you're up next, Councilor Massey, you'll be having a combo with me and the parks goal leads before our parks one.

The last update I want to share is just uh starting this month in the pilot.

We will be doing a goal deep dive each month.

Um, because one and a half years in, you guys have actually accomplished a lot within these goals, and I think it's really important to do that storytelling and celebrate um the progress you've made.

So parks is up first in August, then we'll do affordability in September, and economic development in October.

Before we go on to that, I just want to thank uh you folks for that.

You know, the the business development you know update is just so detailed and so comprehensive, you know.

And even when I think I know what's going on, I always find new things in there.

So um, it's it's kind of must read, you know.

It is just it is just very comprehensive.

The CD report.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

And I know it takes a lot of time.

It's a lot of hands-on deck.

So I think you'll see some things are um, you got about 30 people looking at document every month.

So it's uh oh, that's fun.

Yeah.

Well, I will say the island station neighborhood sends that out to people on their email list.

They don't send out Jason's Friday emails, which kind of drives me crazy.

But um, but they do send out uh CV report.

That's the thing they send out.

Do you hear that, Jason?

He's watching.

Yeah, of course.

Thanks, Councillor Massey.

Appreciate that.

Okay.

So Joseph gave a bit of a review, but just to ground us here before we jump into what we heard from you all last month, what our proposals are.

Um or not last month, last quarter.

Um so we met in April, and we gave not only updates on the internal feedback we've been hearing and the peer research and the business survey, um, but we also received input from you.

We wanted to know your priorities as we move into this um draft final stage of these proposals.

And so today is round two, where we want to just confirm with you all that there's consensus around what we heard, if it's still true, um, and if there's consensus around what we proposed, and just have a couple of discussion items um to make sure that we're moving in the direction that everyone wants us to meet here.

Um, so I'll dive into the six things we heard, and we'll stop at each slide, each each of those six things and have a brief discussion to make sure everyone's good with how proposed what we heard before we four.

Okay.

Um, so for the first thing, this one might be the simplest maybe.

Um, so last month we heard what we thought was probably the most consensus around providing um business assistance using the business license revenue.

Um, so this would require a code amendment to allow this flexibility.

So we have a proposed code amendment that changes the language from for revenue purposes only, right at the beginning to revenue for revenue and economic development purposes.

So this code change will appear on a future agenda when we go over the full code changes.

But just to give you an idea of how we're operationalizing that, we don't need to get into the specifics of what business assistance is right now.

We just need to remove a barrier that doesn't allow us to do that.

But future conversations will be had about what business assistance actually looks like.

So any questions about this concerns?

How does this sound the mark?

So the last meeting we talked about about kind of the code measurement that will come and just make sure we hit the intent of what you all want.

But there was this big desire, but really about the programming of those funds.

So right now we would change the code to basically create that fund that would keep those in lock in place with economic development, and then we could program those every link in the future.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Sure.

Is the intent you think to create a fund?

Or is it to increase the use of these within the general fund for economic development purposes?

I think we can go regularly.

My recommendation would be not to create that you fund.

And does so there's an administrative burden that comes when we set up new funds.

Um this might be a good question for the budget committee.

We've got some feedback in the last budget process.

We created two new funds, an art fund and a tree fund, and some people are really excited about that, and some uh including our budget committee chair was like, I've been here before, and you're gonna be coming back to us and get rid of these funds one day.

So I I think what we're talking about here is the spirit of these resources being used not purely for a revenue purpose but also for a programmatic purpose.

But I just think I don't think we're asking for approval today to create an economic development fund.

Yeah, people often equate a new fund with more money.

Yeah, no.

Just more accounting.

Appreciate that.

I think it is we heard this with our tree dollars, though, and that's part of the reason we created the separate fund.

How are the dollars we're collecting actually going to the services that we're supporting?

And so in the next budget, if we're not doing a fund, being able to clearly tell that story.

I totally agree with the important.

I totally agree.

And then also we could talk with our finance directors here, but like also that I would think would be rolling over to every year.

Like that wouldn't be just washed away for any unused funds into the journal fund.

I would think because you want to be dedicated to our economic development purposes.

Does that make sense?

In that case, you'd have to have it be a time.

So that's that's where I think there might be some conversation.

And then so you're saying that any excess would become beginning working capital for the next binary.

What I'm saying is it's we wouldn't lose any dollars, then so that was a conversation, I guess, for future.

Well, I mean, I think as a general rule, you know, broad language that gives future councils flexibility is a good thing.

Um, and not, you know, it doesn't mean a commitment to spend all of it that way or anything like that, right?

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Is this something?

And I guess this is relevant to the whole thing.

Is all of this code being brought into a consent agenda in the future?

So is this something we have to decide now, or is this something that we'll continue?

It very much could be.

So coordinates can't be on a consent agenda, I don't think.

So I mean it comes in here.

But it can go as fast as you want.

I read, I thought I read in the staff report that it was saying it would come forward in that future consent.

Yeah.

Um, this is what happens when your city recorder is out the week forwards are reviewed.

Scott would have found that.

The spirit would be if you if you all feel comfortable with where we end today, and that could come back to you fairly quickly in the form of a hearing, but also that could go fast as well.

Code language isn't intense in my opinion, as coming from planning background.

But I guess the only reason I ask is like, is this something we need a decision point on today if we're going to bring this forward, or is this something that we have for the fund?

The fund that you don't you could still we could still have direction to move forward quickly with code amendments like the tree code existed with a tree fund didn't sell.

Sure.

Okay.

Council closer body has an hand raised.

Oh okay.

I am not seeing that, but okay.

Counselor culture body.

Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Seth, for this information.

Um counselor, uh, council presidents say if it's not going to be a fine.

Um I do appreciate the flexibility allowed, but I do want to make sure there's some accounting done uh or requirement to make sure excuse me that defines that they are going to what they were intended for in some way.

Um I don't know if we might go now that potentially is a funding, um, but if there's some way that we can keep the accounting so that way that's not flexible um and accounting for those dollars when people do ask them rather than two asking how much money is is available from collecting if we can actually have a responsible answer.

That's good.

Thank you.

I guess I'm kind of wondering, you say this doesn't bring in any new revenue.

Would this be able to fully supply all of the existing economic development expenditures that we're making, or is this money less than or more than that amount that we're already spending on economic development?

Like you're talking about the URA grants?

No, I think the purpose of this is business owners were hoping that we would spend these dollars on expenditures that benefit economic development.

And I envision us like we talked about, this doesn't add new money to the city, we're just kind of showing where really clearly where the money's going.

But as we're earmarking certain funds for economic development, I guess I'm wondering does it equate to more money than we were spending before on economic development?

Or less than if it is more, do we have a plan for what we do with more?

Yeah, I appreciate the question.

I think it's um it's hard to answer because our we'll budget differently every single biennium.

Sure.

I think with the last two years or less two bienniums, you saw us invest more in economic development dollars than we ever have, I think in the last 10 years.

So moving forward, I know we have other priorities which might require some URA dollars, might require some other dollars.

So I could I see these funds being able to study any any change in URAs potentially.

But also it depends.

That's a programming programming question that we can talk more about too later.

We did get some business input on how they would want to see these funds used as well.

Um, and get into it at a time, but I also see this as complementary to our other funds potentially because they're limited to sticks and bricks in a lot of ways, like URV dollars and CET.

Um, so this could be a little more of those softer projects um more business assistance oriented um than what we're able to offer now because it has to be like physical improvements now.

This is excellent.

Makes sense.

Right.

So I I remember in the survey uh some call for training, which is something that did happen a few community directors back with some training for the small businesses and stuff.

Um yeah, but just to be clear, this language that you would put in would not say we're spending all of the revenue on this, it's just would give the flexibility to spend some part of the revenue.

Okay, okay.

I'm going to assume that means consensus on that.

Move forward with that proposal.

Appreciate flexibility also dedicated economics and all that.

Okay.

Um so the second thing that we heard um was support for lowering or exempting the fee for home-based businesses, COVID certified businesses, and long-term rentals with less than two months.

Um what we proposed to the staff reporter and outlined here is that we would lower the home base fee to uh to 75 dollars from 175 as the base to 75.

And so that's responsive to pure city findings, um, as well as for business survey findings, and then for COVID certified businesses, um, this is something I've heard from this council um as something we want to potentially do to align with some of our equity values and our business business friendliness values.

Um, and then for the rentals, um, we're proposing exempting model rentals for two or less units.

Um, this is um supported by the business survey as well as staff input on the event tree burden of enforcing for rentals, um, as well as pure city findings.

This is a common extension of cure city uh just so um I guess I would like to know for each of these.

Is this still resonate now that you see it in this current proposal?

Um questions, comments, or concerns that's all this.

So I have a question.

So the the the issue on the um two-unit uh rentals, is that based on sort of the the outlook that these are you know small rental operators that we're trying to give a break to?

It is is that the reason we're doing this is what you're asking?

Yeah, um it's not necessarily that it's there's not a strong nexus between footprint and what they're paying, um the use of the system, um, but really it's the administrative difficulty um of reaching these property owners.

Um and then just there's not a lot of baggage for the buff, yeah.

There's a lot of money coming in from it, but um it's it's it's a bit tricky.

Um could also see it though, the way you first described it.

I think some folks that aren't really like in the the business of being a landlord in a sense of multiple properties, some have two properties or inherited one, and so it kind of just takes into some of those circumstances I certainly heard a lot of stories in the business surveys and rentals that 30-ish rentals responded to it, um, with stories of just their children living out of their their house that they have here and feeling like it's absurd to be paying the business feed or running a business.

Um can we go back on the slides, please?

Yeah, back to the back number two.

Sorry.

Sorry, I don't know if that's it.

I wasn't there we saying we had to pin Adam and then Scott's the tax support.

Now we're good, we're good.

So the home based uh so on the rentals in addition to the exemption later slides said also a price for the ones who aren't exempt a price per unit.

Yeah, we'll get to that.

Okay, yeah, okay.

So on the home-based, you drop the base fee, but they would still pay the if they have employees.

I I I'm sure many don't, but there probably are some that do.

Think about daycare in the home and other things.

Um do they still would have a per employee fee?

Yes.

Okay.

Do we have a sense of how much revenue is lost by each of these changes or we will get into the loss from the long-term rentals?

We do have a way.

But right now, because we don't distinguish between home-based and not, we don't have a way to accurately capture the percent.

Correct.

It's not assumption.

Um they actually so we could find a we could use talk to IT because there is a button they click if they're home-based on the application um about data.

It's just we don't currently have it in our spreadsheets that we get their box checking um data point.

So we can get we're using assumptions here, and we did do calculations of with with the assumption of a hundred home-based businesses, which does seem a little low, but um, and so we plugged in what it would look like for them to be a 75 and how that would change the revenue and what it would take to compensate for that the other end.

Do we have a sense with COVID, how like what percent of our businesses are COVID certified?

I also based that off of the business survey.

Uh it was a very low percentage of ARVO.

That's good.

Is this a program similar to our like utility assistance program that is underutilized among Milwaukee businesses?

Or is this something that you should be helping people connect with, or do we think that that accurately represents the percent of COVID businesses?

I I guess I don't understand it.

Maybe you would know this better, but like it's pretty it's not an easy processing.

We heard that when we were doing the um the code on the uh contracting.

It's yeah, we definitely heard that.

It's not a little very type of entry for what businesses have on the cost of bodies hand is rate.

Anyway, it's uh um yeah, um, I I I'm obviously looking at how the thing is important.

Um I'm not proposed to the home based basic production um called the obviously.

Um the rentals, the one thing about the rentals um rentals are directly tied to our housing, right?

And they'll say, I see if maybe as opposed to exempting it if there's a way to incentivize it somehow and put the burden of proof on the landlord.

Um not to call it a burden, but to somehow, you know, they get the exemption if they're providing homeless no more than 40% of the tense income and a big way to for them to provide information that shows that you know what the you know they're not making redacting or calories and things like that.

Um but I feel like it might be an opportunity instead of just exempted it to maybe leverage it uh to somehow help keep rents low.

Um I'm just gonna toss them out there.

So I appreciate the sentiment.

I think sorry, Mayor.

No, well, go ahead, go ahead.

I mean go ahead.

I mean, I think um I like the sentiment too.

I think that like having people prove what percentage of someone's income it is sounds very hard to administer, but maybe just a flat rentals under $2,000 or something like that.

Um so not letting not exempting people who are you know renting big houses.

Um I don't know, it's an interesting thing to think about.

Yeah, actually, I didn't think about that.

Maybe maybe like a you know maybe an exemption for for families that are renting houses, right?

Um the thing is this too.

I mean, because it's not really an hour to prove the condition.

If you go on, if you go to apply for rental, like if you go through Zillow, for example, you have to prove that stuff anyways.

So normally the rulings uh for most rentals is two and a half times the rent is what your income is to be.

So that's kind of I mean, we can kind of use the same formula to kind of formulate based on that what that equates to percentage-wise, or at least not possible pay care.

Because they also do income verification, and the way they do income verification for rentals typically is to there's an uh they use uh uh some randoms uh use what's called plat.

Plat is a service that will you enter your bank account information, your social, and then it verifies your income uh automatically report actually for the venture that shows what their annual income is, what their debt to income ratio is, what their you know, what their income is to the rent.

Um so I I don't think it's it's as complex um as we're making it.

That's the thing is that the landlords are already getting that information, they already have to verify income.

So I I think there's a way, maybe not in the middle of the lease, but upon you know, in you know, when they're renewing the lease or offering annuities, if they want to maintain that exemption, then once they verify income, all they have to do is report it, and then it's we can see whether it's 45%, 50%, 30% of the income or not, is the information that's what they're already going on.

They have to do all that things.

Um I mean, I I don't I guess I don't know how what percentage of landlords are doing that.

I'm a landlord, I'm not doing that.

I'll say that.

Um I have a basement apartment in my house.

I have somebody who's been in there for several years, but I don't know that we do we know how many people would be using a system like that.

Um, I I think the sentiment again, uh, as I was saying, it was is great.

I think administratively, I don't know that it's gonna be implemented well.

That's that's my that would be my concern.

Is that creates a lot more potential for us?

And I don't know who, quite frankly, as well, like who actually would be doing this.

So that's just these are questions.

I understand one idea of people an exemption for providing a low moderate income, low income, however you want to describe it, rental.

But I don't know how efficient or effective or how burdensome that would be on the staff side.

And maybe Joseph, can you speak a little bit?

I mean I I speaking of our administrative capacity.

I don't think we're doing we're doing some code compliance on this, but in term in terms of people we know have active rentals or have active businesses, but we don't have the capacity to do thorough scans of the Zillows and the you know uh every year and see, oh, this one's advertising something, do they have a a license?

I I just want to shut that expectation.

So I think part of the exemption was also a recognition of sort of our actual compliance um processes that as we are currently staffed and capable to do.

Well, if I could just offer this, is that I agree.

I think it's a great idea.

Um so uh I I I like the idea.

Um but at the same time, um I think that we're probably getting too far the weeds about administering this, and so I I would I would I would like to you know propose that we view this as a as something that we're interested in doing, and and basically letting the staff you know come up with with the with the most sensible solution, and and maybe there it maybe there's not a sensible solution because of the the problems with administering in that company.

I just wanted clarification if we were to look into this further, is the ultimate goal to tie this to affordability affordability goals essentially okay.

And so I mean to clarify for me in order to kind of change the conversation regularity.

So you only get an exemption of two or less if you meet what we're talking about, or is it or is we talking about you get an exemption period, regardless of as many rental units you have for this?

Because that also is a different good question.

I think that's a good question, and I think the other question in my mind is if we really want to incentivize we would have a bigger fee than we have, right?

For the ones who are charging higher rents.

If we want to um discourage high rents and encourage low rents, we probably would need a separate approach to that.

Um that's different from the business license, I guess.

I mean, I do think, you know, we talked about I think about you know other communities that uh inspect their rentals, and you know, I think in the short-term rentals, a lot of communities inspect have inspections of them, and you know, how would we fund a process that where we we had some capacity to do that by taxing short-term rentals, by taxing you know, high-end rentals, whatever.

I mean, I think that's a kind of a separate conversation than this conversation.

We're gonna talk about this in the next slide, but my understanding with our switch in our structure of how we're doing a fee for rentals is we're talking about people who pay four to eight dollars a year if they're doing a per unit basis, or is that still the base fee?

Oh, and that's in addition to base.

Yes, so per employee in addition to the base fee, it's a unit in addition to these fee.

Yeah, so this is exempting landlords with two or less from the 175 dollar base fee.

Plus any additional plus the unit cost does not include short-term rentals with these.

So sometimes the terminology of long-term rentals with two or less units is a proxy for um a different range of professionalism, you know, like it being like an individual family or an individual who has rentals versus a corporation who has rentals or someone who uses you know, property management company for like 10 different rentals across the region or something like that.

So like I I tend to prefer the language around two or less units because it gives us more of a um of like a local community sort of measure.

Um, that's not a good term.

Like you're getting more of like a mom and pop sort of operation.

Um I think I mean maybe that's maybe that's rapidly changing, but I think that this measurement, this metric is sometimes used to identify like individuals or individual individual families, um, which is different than with larger business.

Um I I like what counselor Coserbody said about trying to ensure the affordability within these units.

Um I do think that there's potentially more that we could do around rentals to um to further that conversation, but I think it's a good start to say that if um if these rentals are interested in being exempted, um then I mean they have to send some type of an invoice or something to their to their renters anyway, or they should be sending some type of an invoice to their renters, they could just provide proof of that.

Um, and then it's just a straight calculation.

I think you know, the administrative part is is probably always going to be burden burden some.

Um but I'm wondering if all of these these three areas could be opt-in rather than an automatic thing, and then the proof to show that it is a home-based business, that they do have COVID certification, or that they are a small scale renter, uh, you know, or landlord, um that they are meeting, you know, like a percentage of median income for their rent.

Like I don't know, that kind of puts the some of the burden of the administration on the applicant.

Yeah.

Would that be more helpful for our staff?

I think if we go that direction, and I absolutely agree, I think it's opt-in that we take everyone that's standard unless they approve otherwise.

Yeah.

Um, but I want to know if that's where we all the consensus is.

This is also step two, by the way.

I think we're talking about I like I forget who threw it out, but there's a difference between the small landlords we're talking about and the larger, like Henley Place or Axle Tree.

And I really do like the idea.

The three things that we capture here, I think are good values that we're looking at.

I think a fourth value that we could look at is like council requisite body saying what incentive financially could we provide for people to provide like actually affordable rents?

And so maybe this is you move forward with these three.

We can look at a fourth option that is tailored to the larger rentals that says I I there are so many questions here.

Like, is it a with a large company?

Is it an aggregate of all of their folks?

Is it each individual unit could be exempted out of this?

Is it like all sorts of questions asked because we actually set it up?

But I think that one is a worthwhile cause to explore.

So consensus around who wants to try.

So are are folks open to the idea of these three areas?

Okay.

Are you open to the idea of these three areas being opt-in?

And are you open to these three areas being a starting point for then a continuing conversation around some type of incentivization for for renter rental units an incentive for um property owners to provide an affordable rent?

And I would add a friendly amendment that that last one I I like, but I think it is more tied to the affordability goal than the F dev goal, and I think we are going to be having a conversation soon about future affordable housing strategies you'd like us to pursue.

So I'd ask that we put that on that parking lot for us to have further discussion about.

That sounds good.

And Counselor Kay has his hand.

Counselor Coshabadi, sorry, I just wanted to uh agree with Councillor Sandjordan.

Just say thank you for uh your input because that's um I I do agree with that, and I think that's very effective way.

It's also a way well, hopefully there's a way to make sure that existing companies that own units in Milwaukee do not take advantage of this as well.

So I do appreciate uh uh your comments.

And you're just too counting on a council president as well.

I'm wondering if there's something there that we can potentially leverage from the public well, and I will note that the county, I haven't read it myself, but the county did recently uh make permanent their short-term rental.

I think short-term rental is another piece of this that we should be talking about, you know, in a separate conversation.

That's probably a good conversation with the TO TO THE TRANSITERINGS.

Okay.

But we can proceed on these three elements of the fourth element can follow.

Yeah.

I think that's I think that's good.

And in terms of like the end product of what this looks like, I don't if it's something that council has to vote on the language of, like in code or in, you know, a I'd rather it be more specific, like a percentage than um an actual number, because then we'll have to update that more frequently.

So if it's like in the fee schedule, that's fine because we do that you know, pretty frequently.

But if it's if it's a larger change, then I would be hesitant to put specific numbers in.

I think that's an excellent point, counselor.

And I would ask staff that we do anything possible to avoid numbers in code and always point to the schedule.

But yes, I think this could be a the things you see here, you know, the the code will talk about exemptions as spelled out in the fee schedule.

Okay, yeah, excellent.

That's great.

And I guess before you move on, I will just say just put a pin on the fact that when this comes, I will probably need to recuse myself because that exemption will apply to me.

Yeah, so I will be creating an exemption for this.

I'll just add for the next slide.

The exemptions will be listed at with the other exemptions in code.

Um and that you'll see that when we when we bring it to the next agenda.

Um, but there will be no numbers.

Okay.

Third thing.

Um, so we heard that there was support for changing the rental fee to per unit.

Can you guys advance the slide?

Oh, I advanced my own, sorry.

No, interpretive dance.

Go.

Um the reason for moving to per unit would be to increase the nexus between the local footprint and the fee charge, which is done a little bit better through a per unit count than a per employee count.

Um, so how it's proposed, how we're proposing moving forward with this support is moving from per employee to per unit um at a rate of four dollars per unit, including the home base the uh the base fee, not the home base fee, the base fee.

Um, and so if your cities with similar structures charge between 180 and $6 per unit.

Um, so transparency on how arriving at the $4 unit was using that range, and just thinking let's see how it goes at the $4, it gives police room to increase it.

Um so any concerns, these are fee schedule changes mostly.

There's no um real code amendment here.

Um but the concerns, comments.

I guess just a question about this and you know, the our current, I mean, going to the city manager's point about she'd prefer the numbers to be in the fee schedule.

Um I don't think they are currently, right?

They're actually in the code.

The cost is not in the code.

The costs of the licenses and the per employee and all that is not in the code.

No, oh, okay.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Um, and then do they typically get indexed and then they go up by CPI every year, or do we keep them at a not adjust it?

Yeah, so I don't think there's any escalator.

Oh, really?

Well, there definitely used to be an escalator on the per employee.

Uh yeah, there used to be an escalator on the base of the employee fee.

We should do that.

Yeah, should be a thing.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know that we don't have to say we can definitely look at another year.

Yeah, yeah.

Some in front, correct me if I'm wrong, Sierra.

But also part of the the reason that there we are talking some numbers is because there was a consensus last meeting for whatever we do to not be reducing what we're what we've been making if it's either staying at the same amount that we're making every year or potentially coming up.

So that's also why you see some of these numbers at where they're at.

I think that's great.

And I would advocate that when we bring the code for adoption, we bring the fee schedule update at the same time.

I'd be curious to see like an average for for a bigger apartment complex.

Like, what does this mean?

Like for the Axle tree or the seven acres, how many employees they have, or how many employees they acknowledge having versus um the units and what the income difference is gonna be for us.

That'd be useful to see.

And in broad strokes, I can tell you the what increase the revenue coming in off of those two or more units.

Yeah, okay.

Um specific.

Yeah, it'd be good to see a couple couple examples.

Could we also see we're talking about trying to be revenue neutral here?

It would be helpful.

I kind of alluded to this with the three buckets, understanding for each of those the revenue we're expecting to lose and produce the revenue that we're expecting to gain, and just the whole like the COVID, the last slide.

Yeah, but then also just what the total pot of revenue is that comes from this, understanding that as well.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

All that we're touching on it a little bit, but not in the as you are asking for um in slide or two here.

Yeah, but we can get that in the detail book.

Is there are we trying to be revenue neutral?

That was the direction you guys gave in April was to make changes that didn't reduce the overall um amount of revenue we get from business license.

But but revenue neutral is different than that.

Yeah, I think this would be good.

And this could feasibly bring in more revenue.

Um so I I should say not revenue neutral, just not revenue negative.

Yeah, we're not going back.

Yeah, yeah.

Very good point.

Okay, I think are we good?

So fourth thing.

Here we are enhanced.

Next time I'm doing it differently.

Okay.

Thanks.

Um, okay, so there's two parts in here.

We kind of touched on the first one on the very first slide, but it's a piece six of there was that input and consensus to maintain or increased revenue.

Um as well as we want to pay for business assistance or related city services to economic development.

So this is where I get into a little bit of the numbers.

Um because of the previous slides, this becomes difficult because of the exemptions we talked about.

Um it's really hard to recuperate the losses of that.

So exempting rentals with less on the rental side only, I try to split this up.

Exempting rentals with uh less than two units, that's over 350 business licenses, license payers.

Um so that's a really substantial loss to revenue, and it will be recuperated slightly by the administrative efficiency to gain from that, as well as by the switch to the pre-unit fees um that I mentioned in the last slide.

Um, but on the rental side, it will not be it will be revenue uh negative uh if we continue down this route with that exemption, um, and how it's proposed now with the four dollars per unit could play around, but it's pretty it would be pretty substantial loss to recuperate.

Um and then on the business side, um, we just need to recuperate revenue losses from those home-based fee reductions mostly.

Like I said, there won't be a ton of COVID certified um exemptions.

Um, and so for that, in order to make up the loss there with the assumption of there being a hundred home-based businesses.

Um we're proposing that we do a tiered approach where the larger businesses are making up for that revenue loss and not our smaller businesses.

Um, since our fee is already quite high, um, it already can be a burden on the smaller businesses.

So for businesses with 20 or more employees, we are proposing increasing from 175 to 275, and that gets us back up to more of that neutral part of the business side.

Sierra what's the picture when you combine the two?

So if you're looking at just right now, our current VR revenue.

Um is this at the rental on the business side?

Are we looking at our phone?

That happens with well.

Um I guess Sierra Siorie, that's the same.

I guess so.

Um Sierra.

Um do you yeah, is this is it revenue neutral or it's revenue negative?

Yeah, okay.

I'm sorry, what's regular so if you look at the rentals plus businesses the exemption, though you're already okay.

Um we would be we would be reducing our overall revenue from the business license program by doing this.

And did you look at tiering it even more?

Like saying businesses under maybe reducing you know, businesses with five or fewer employees, businesses five to twenty, businesses twenty to fifty, businesses fifty to up, or we just assume I mean they're paying per employee, the big businesses, but should we also be tiering that base?

Yeah, I tried a several different models.

Um this one was the most straightforward.

Um it seemed the most it just felt a little wrong to increase the base fee for businesses under 20, um, just considering the business um survey input already being so high, so I leaned towards more getting tiering at the 20 mark, 20 frame mark.

There's always the possibility of increasing the space any more.

I just want to balance being business friendly as well with that.

Um, or charging rentals more, but also don't want to impact affordability.

Um there's a number of variables we could look into to become more neutral, not negative.

Um but they come it's all a give and take on other values and priorities that we have.

How much of a I think this is where it would be helpful to see the actual numbers, like I'd be curious how much revenue then we would be losing by adopting these code changes.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll see if I can pull up this for G right at it.

I'm gonna just offer an observation here.

Um these aren't even around it areas errors to large companies.

I mean, whoever's cutting the checks, they don't even talk to a manager or supervisor at paying these.

Great.

And that's just a fact hearing that.

Would you want me to explore what number we need to get to for those 20 plus businesses to become neutral?

I guess I'd want to understand a little bit more.

I think this is what Councillor Savage is being put more.

What is it like being a business of 20 employees versus a business of 50 employees or business of five?

Like why choose that as the cutoff?

And is it better to have a cutoff that is like 50 or more employees is even larger, or is this the appropriate tier?

Generally at a federal level, the definition of a small business is around 20 employees.

So I think that this is trying to stay within those boundaries.

Um and I think it's a good precedent to keep, you know, of like similarity in terms of the definitions of those categories because when we do have instances like you know if if something like we went through another pandemic and there were federal dollars that came down to benefit small businesses, we would be able to isolate these numbers and be able to get that money flowing into the community faster.

So like I think that's why you see um you know businesses around 20 being a small business.

Um there's a huge difference when you have 20 full-time employees versus you know five full-time employees or one full-time employee, the margin and like and the liability that you can absorb as your business grows, you know, it's certainly not nothing, but it's it's very very different.

Um having gone from a business that had 6,000 employees to a business that has you know no full-time employees.

Sure, yeah.

I'm working a lot harder now.

Yeah, you didn't hire yourself rookie move, right?

Um, but it I mean the the things that that small businesses on on the on the other end of the spectrum have to contend with, the difference between 175 and 275 could be huge.

Yeah, um, but I think you know you're right, Counselor Massey.

You know, you get to a certain level, and probably anything above 20 employees, that's like you know, that's a blip and in payroll.

Yep.

I guess I asked this in part trying to understand the policy choice we have.

Is it better to continue with this 20-tier and have like increase the cost of it, or is it better to create a third tier that is like extremely large corporations that you do an even larger fee for, if that makes sense?

Yeah, I I feel like at that point of the conversation, you get into when your policy starts to influence opinions about the city.

So, like for example, you know, if we said any business over a hundred employees is going to be um receiving a fee of two thousand dollars a year, then regionally the conversation is well, Milwaukee isn't a business-friendly place to bring your business, and so that you know, we know that that's not true on a granular implementation level, um, and people would be extrapolating that opinion just based on short fee that somebody might not fully understand, or they might, you know, just like oppose government being involved in their business at all.

So you get into much more subjective territory when you get into like slicing and dicing things a bit more, but I I'm not going to assume that your uh question is going down the path of like let's tax corporations, but if it were, yeah, um, I think that there are other discussions that we could have amongst council about how we would be able to increase revenue and do it in a way where we have dialogue with the business community and find out what's palatable.

Yeah, it's more just trying to figure out if we're trying to be revenue not negative here.

Yeah, if but it sounds like the best way is just increase the fee on 20 plus employee businesses.

It's just the base paper, so just the basics.

Anybody over that will still have to pay per employee?

Sure.

There's still that increase.

How about council cost for bodies and this reason?

I don't know why thank you, right?

So I actually wanted to say that I did like the I don't know if I really all response, but I did like uh bear your your input on the uh on a tier for more employees.

Um I think my answer my answer for 20 employees, so I appreciate that.

Uh um I actually have the first part the rentals.

Um I know on on the previous slide I was talking about the leveraging and incentive, but I I am curious to know about do we know with the slight increase on the per unit fees?

Do we know if that we anticipate that having a negative impact on those units rents at all?

Or is the fee minimal enough because it's spread out so much between the United States that we don't anticipate impact?

So thought it's a thoughtful question.

I I think it's speculative at this point, but yeah, certainly some landlords would probably pass on any kind of fee increase of any kind of utility or business registration or anything.

Um and some might not.

So I don't know.

It's difficult to answer, but definitely consideration.

But we're not proposing to increase it over what it has been.

I mean, other than the per unit cost, but for small small people with small numbers of rentals, we're not proposing an increase.

We proposing an exemption for two or three for two, yeah.

And there's no guarantee or requirement that they would pass that savings on to any of their renters as well.

Right.

Sierra, you probably have better numbers, but even if you just take that 350 times the base rate, you're talking 44,000 dollars.

Yes, I have the numbers here now.

Um so on the rental side, we bring in around 85,000 um for the original with all of that 442 payers, so minus the 350 um payers for the less than two rental units.

Um then we look at when we do the as provoke proposed 175 base fee plus four dollars per unit, it would be 28,000.

So it goes from 85,000 to 28,000 income that would be smaller.

So we only have we have less than a hundred landlords who have more than two units.

Yeah, wow.

Yeah, I'm surprised.

Okay.

So if we're really looking at I mean, I'm I'm gonna I guess I'm trying to get my mind around the the actual goal of the rental exemption.

And if the rental exemption is to make sure that smaller rental property owners are able to let's say stay in the city and remain stable and keep their small rentals going, um could we also be looking at the um uh like whether those property owners qualify you know as um as low income?

I guess I mean like if I were really looking at this rental exemption, I think the big net is small mom and pop renters.

But a lot of these 350 um small rentals are renter landlords, um they might actually just be stable enough, and this could be an incentive that you know they certainly would take advantage of, but does it really meet like our goal?

Yeah, I guess and so I'm I'm hesitant in saying this because there's even more accountability in here.

But if it re if it remained an opt-in process, and the two pieces of proof to receive the exemption are related to your income and the affordability of the rental, then I feel like that gets us closer to the goal of um reducing displacement and supporting smaller businesses to provide um affordable housing.

And I would be really interested to hear what you all have to say about that.

Interesting, because from the staff report, my understanding was the reason we were doing the small business or the small rental exemption was because of the admin complexity of doing it.

But often takes that out of the picture, right?

Yeah, well, well, it still has to be verified, yeah.

It must be verified.

I would also wonder how easy it is to just say that provide some documents as a property owner because that's who's isn't being registered.

So yeah, I'm doing all this stuff.

Here we go.

Here's some, and I don't know, and who's to know if they actually are because that actually impacts the renter, right?

The renter would know because then you know how much they're paying.

Um so I also see that as like we might get a lot of exemptions, like people opting in and not just much rigor as far as what's provided and on our side as well.

Like you talk about it's kind of the the affordable housing conversation we've had in the past, like all of a sudden we're starting to verify and affordable housing and and manage affordable housing.

We're just doing it kind of back in now through a rental registration, which is um I don't think ideal.

I think there's other policies that we could start talking about when I talk about affordable housing.

Um let me throw another thing into the mix.

This is a policy.

If we didn't exempt them, but we treated them equivalent to the home-based and we charge them 75 dollars.

That would be 26,000 or an income for 350 businesses.

That would fish.

Yeah.

I think it also I like that idea.

In part, I was looking at the numbers.

If you take seven acres, I think it would be our largest rental uh provider in the city 235 or units, four dollars a unit, they're paying in total uh 1,11 a year with this new schedule, which you can take it divided by each unit and 12 months a year, you're increasing every unit's rent by 39 cents if they're just directly passing those costs on.

If you take a single unit and charge the full 174 plus $4 divided by 12, it's $14 and 90 cents.

So almost the average rental in Milwaukee is about uh $1400, so it's like a 1% increase compared to seven acres, which is let off really easy to absorb those costs.

So I do think that makes it easier, it it just makes it more scalable.

Um I think that makes sense.

For the business side of things, but that seven acres wouldn't be involved in any of the rental exemption conversation.

No, that's not what I'm implying.

I'm just saying I feel like the burden of this part of what we've said is we want to make the burden of this be borne more by larger companies, and I think the burden of this, at least on the rental side, is born it's the inverse.

The system we're creating is borne more heavily on small rentals than it is uh seven acres because they're able to pass on the cost so much more effectively.

Okay.

So then what is your I mean, I think you've made a a good case for the the business portion of this slide, but what's how do you solve the rental card for us?

I was saying I like the mayor's suggestion of 75 for home-based for two or less.

No, for two or less.

Yeah, that's also changing it to the home-based account.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I think that sounds good.

Does that still create um uh like a compliance or like what administrative burger?

Okay, that's amazing.

Okay.

Okay.

It's simple, but I but I like it too.

But all three of the opt-ins, I just want to level set.

Right now, you file your business registration, and we're we're good.

We we we it's one thing.

I mean, the most administrative burden is when people have issues with the form and we're helping them.

Right.

Any kind of opt-in, if there's a expectation of verification, that is an additional set.

Yeah.

So that's okay.

I just want to even an opt-in for uh 75 for uh for a 75 reduction of 75, it's still gonna have some level of verification that we will we will administrate and decide the right SOPs for the right level of rigor for the revenue we are bringing in.

I guess the one pushback I'd have for you is are we checking to make sure people are filing?

We are that's what compliance does, but that's what I'm saying.

We are to the extent that we can, but I cannot guarantee you that every single landlord in this city is being enforced for code enforcement for our because we just do not have the the staff in the capacity to do that.

Okay, and I would guess, I mean, yeah.

There are people who aren't advertising on, I mean, yeah, if people go through Zillow, code enforcement is looking can find them.

If people are just renting by word of mouth, 100%.

And correct my wrong, like, but really you're a gig economy driver in Milwaukee.

You shouldn't get a business license.

We are absolutely not able to enforce interesting.

Quite a few home based businesses for sure.

So I just wanted to, I it just and again, I'm not I'm not saying it's gonna be wild wild less, we're just gonna trust everyone, but we will if the direction is to go with the opt-in, which I think makes a lot of sense, and I love the 75, that's also part of my revenue heartache.

We I just want to make sure that doesn't we're we're we're not going to probably review every single application to make sure there's perfect compliance.

We're gonna have to do the right level of administrative oversight to make this make sense.

I think that makes sense.

So I'm understanding because I maybe I got confused.

So no more exemption.

$75.

The home-based business amount.

Yeah.

What's the opt-in now?

I guess.

So if you're gonna say I'm a COVID business, I have two or fewer units, or I'm home-based, they're going to have to say that to get the thing.

That's the opting in.

And then we will have to figure out some level, what are you going to submit to prove that you are of this are you qualified for that reduction?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Um, yeah, I I do like that.

I see there are but this what this isn't really a question, this is just something I think C because I I think it does more in a discussion in the future.

But I am curious to know how much revenue we're losing because of our code department, our code portion department is not right.

And if it's worth an investment to my second to pay for it, so I'm not a question that'd be discussed right now, but it is something I've been thinking about because when we have these important issues, we talk about the lack of being able to enforce them, which ultimately has some revenue sounds curious, you know, what that number might be if we actually might say very hard.

And it's yeah, and it's not just about revenue either, it's about things like our home energy score and our climate goals and all kinds of things.

Yeah, I think that's a good good conversation to have.

When we see this come in front of council, what a consent agenda or not?

Could we see just a breakdown of here are the buckets, here's the expenditure, and here's the total revenue and I would actually say like friendly amendment.

Yeah, if we could get it um maybe in a report before ahead of that so that we have a chance to really kind of weigh in and adjust before it comes to us on the recession.

Is that right?

No.

No.

Just in the document.

If we find a problem, we could raise it in a one-on-one.

Yeah, let's get through the slides.

I think we should at the end of this, we should talk about timeline for returning to this because what we could do is provide that in the next quarterly update, but let's talk about that.

We're on four.

Let's go to five.

This time.

Okay.

Um, so for number five, um, we talked there was comments last time about Gresham's rental license fees paying for rental inspections.

It was during the discussion of looking at how different pure cities structure their rental license fees.

Um, and so I heard the direction of look into this because it's not just standard revenue generation, take it with a grain of salt is how I interpreted that input.

Um, so our response is to not consider Gresham's rental fees as a comparator given the different revenue purposes.

So their per unit count like cost is like I don't know, 40 dollars per unit, something along those lines.

Um that's the response we took.

Any I would like to have more information about that, to be honest.

Um maybe you just it's just sending a link, but um, I'd like to know what they charge and what they do with it.

And I don't again, I do kind of feel like that's for a separate conversation about rental regulation than for this code, but I would like to know that.

Can you share your uh your thoughts on that about what they're or do you have a particular interest in in the inspection programs and what they're inspecting?

Yeah, I think we have unsafe apartments.

I think uh every place that started in inspecting Airbnbs has found unsafe Airbnbs.

I mean, I think there are uh there are things being rented that are unsafe.

Well, I thought that was gonna be your answer.

Yeah, um and um that's a whole nother level of co-enforcement.

So be careful.

Well, it wouldn't be code enforcement, it would be uh it would be building inspectors, but yeah, yeah.

So that just so it's clear, Mayor.

It sounds like you want more information, but you want that as more information part of a separate conversation than what we're talking about here.

Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, if nobody else cares about that, you can just send me some links.

I just would like to know what they're doing.

What I hear is that that information could come to us outside of the meetings and not necessarily in an additional work session, but like when I first read the slide, I thought, oh well, I mean, it does that mean that doing rental inspections is off the table.

But like when I first read the slide, I thought, oh, well, I mean, it does that mean that doing rental inspections is off the table.

Um, and maybe it is in the short term, but I think like you, I our city is growing very quickly, and a lot of things, if we don't put a good foundation in place, then um then it'll be really hard to retrofit that.

So I'm not saying like, hey, I'd like to have a rental inspection program next month.

That's I don't hear don't hear it like that.

Um, but I don't know, I think it's a it's a good conclusion to say Gresham is not a comparator, but it doesn't mean that the models that they have shouldn't be considered as we also consider looking at you know what our models for growth look like.

That's great.

Okay.

Now we hear him from Councillor Closer Body, so I think he must be okay on that.

Um okay, last one for the most part.

Um there's a second slide to this one, so I'm sorry.

But the so we also heard last in April um to research business taxes in pure cities.

Um, and my interpretation of this was that because it may cause artificially lowered business license fees because there's another form of revenue coming in from businesses in these cities.

Um just my quick update on that one, and then I have a second slide about maybe other interpretations of that discussion from April, um, is looked around, did some research, and it's true for Multnomah County, but only Multnomah County, nowhere else in the state does it this way of using um business income to add that two percent tax.

Um no place in the state but Multnomah County.

Correct, yeah.

Wow, yeah.

I'm surprised by that.

Okay.

Um, yes, it's very rare.

Um, and so that impacted Gresham again and Trapdale, which were some pure cities we were looking at for comparing fees.

Um so we're not gonna compare fees against theirs just knowing that they could be artificially lower revenue generating sources.

But I have heard in the interim that maybe that would just research business taxes in pure cities generally, not really for that, um, just to understand as a model.

Um, and so I just wanted to add a few notes of um just kind of what we've done up until this point that um that thank you that addresses this.

So again, um Multnomah County only jurisdiction or pure city research for the business survey when it comes to something like a um tax on income on grocery seats, they did request that whatever we choose for our model that we keep it simple and not have a ton of paperwork, is why we kind of leaned away from the model of using income.

And then um, same in the same vein, um, staff also asked that we maintain or reduce the administrative burden um emphasis on the reduce part um of this, and so we felt that that using that type of model might um increase the administrative burden or would um and then in the sentiment of wanting to use that type of model to be able to charge our larger businesses more.

I just wanted to emphasize that we still collect like the highest fees off of our large businesses that anyone in our pure cities, so if our largest businesses went in located and beaver to my hills where they would pay less there, so we are already charging them higher than our peers.

Um, but we are I hear you that we're going to increase that um even more.

And then um if we did want to want to evaluate this further as a model using um business income, that maybe that could be a separate revenue generation conversation outside this any comments, questions, please.

Yeah, I left the last conversation because counselor Steuan Jordan has some experience with this as having worked for Multnomah County, and some of what she said in that conversation, you know, intrigued me about how the county collects a tax and and the cities get their proportion.

Obviously, we probably don't have a county that's gonna do that for us in any near-term sort of scenario.

But um I did I guess I did have an expectation of learning what that generates for Droutdale and Gresham and Wood Village and whatever the smaller cities are and Multnomah County.

I I would like to know what that generates for them.

But I do agree with your basic point that uh a discussion of a tax is different than this discussion of a business licensing fee.

There's an East County Cities line item, and that is the revenue from the business income tax that's passed through to the cities every year.

And there's an IGA that governs that so I would agree with you that there has to be a better relationship between cities and the county to be able to not only negotiate that IgA but also hold harmless the pass-through funds in the budget process every year.

Um there have been instances in which um county commissioners have wanted to carbon to that money, and that it's that that's why the IGA exists to make sure that that is held harmless.

And I'll see if I can find it.

Very good stuff.

Um okay, I feel actually pretty good.

I think it's the next stuff.

It's not yeah, it's you have you have a tracker going to the actual point.

You can see what we do.

How many of you take any questions at the email?

I just wanted to know that um parking's gonna become more and more of an issue downtown.

I think we all know that.

We've been hearing it more and more.

Um Laura and her team that are going to be working with Rick Williams again starting next month.

We're gonna be participating with Rick and redevelopment and economic development on new parking strategy.

Well, last time we did parking strategy, managed strategy, understanding was in 2018.

We updated it and we did a data like analysis to see how parking was doing back in 2022.

We there wasn't much of an issue then.

There certainly is some issues now.

So we're gonna do uh some updates and also how we and our policies as well as topic just kind of research that's coming.

And related to that, I just wanted to call out that um Emma distributed a paper from um Siona Belai, one of the downtown business owners, uh, and I think she was daylighting that with Dan.

I don't know if that's happened yet, but I have spoken to her about it.

Uh, and she was that was definitely her plan.

Um, and maybe with the business of Milwaukee as well.

Um, so I just encourage people to read that.

I think there's some good food for thought there.

More important conversations coming your way.

Thank you all for your time.

Appreciate the conversation.

Counselor Stafford has the goalie.

Was there anything else you wanted to?

Sorry.

You can't get out of here yet.

Um, I just wanted to mention for my for just transparency and awareness.

Um, you all know I've talked about um the involvement that I've had with both the business of Milwaukee and um Downtown Alliance of Milwaukee.

Um, I've talked with both of those organizations about my intentions around creating an emergency fund for businesses when they are vandalized or broken into because there are some immediate time-sensitive costs that are often too small to fall under an insurance claim.

So, for example, for just for for context, um, our at B-side the deductible for our insurance is $2,500, which I feel very fortunate to have that and not the $10,000 deductible that some other businesses have.

But the whole scale, the spectrum of those deductibles can create an environment where businesses are paying out of pocket to board up you know a window or a door, and I think that this not only has an impact on their um, you know, like whether they're burning through their reserves and their ability to stay in Milwaukee and stay strong in Milwaukee, but it also has a visual impact as those things, you know, the longer that it takes for them to get repaired or the longer a business is closed or things like that has an impact just you know on the morale in the in the community.

So I want to spark uh conversation and some effort around creating this fund, and I'd like to dedicate a thousand dollars from my um personal council budget for that fund just as a starting point.

I think that there's a lot of um potential that we have in our conversations about um revenue and URA revenue and um and economic development funds specifically that I think that um I I would like to um move that converse for conversation forward internally so that we can think about what that support looks like logistically as a standalone you know pocket of money.

Um one has nonprofit status, one is working on nonprofit nonprofit status.

So um I think that this I just I wanted to mention this today because um you know that this has affected me personally and the conversations that I've been having with other businesses who have also dealt with some of these things and have not been such prime time examples.

Um they're still hurting, they still have to replace equipment, they still have to replace doors, blocks, that kind of stuff.

Um I think this is a really useful um way for us to show up for the business community, and so I wanted to make that clear here, and then um let you know that I'll bring further updates in our you know, in our council um either council reports or in the quarterly reports about what this looks like long term.

And I'll just add a really quick, I think really exciting update related to the two groups that Councillor Stavan George mentioned next week.

We will be um engaging with those two organizations in the city and kind of a facilitated workshop to really talk about our goals, our respective roles and advancing those goals and the process for how we collaborate and coordinate.

So I think this is uh a prime example of a real opportunity for all three entities to work together, and I'm super excited to share what comes out of that um that conversation.

Just that's hopefully next week, there's still foundation.

I'm I'm choosing optimism next week.

Okay, and you team.

Thank you, Sierra.

That was a huge that's it's this is a huge lift on the business uh code, and you're gonna create that.

All right.

Thank you guys.

Uh and our next item is the Kello Community Enhancements update.

Uh Peter Casarelli, our public works director, and Adam Moore, our parks and greenspace development manager.

All right, done by six, right?

Yeah, yeah.

We said we kind of wanted to shrink this one to have some.

Uh and everybody got a letter from that timeline from the watershed council for this.

We need to wrap up this discussion uh soon.

Um we have enough time to make a decision by August 31st.

To make it into the 90%.

Okay, uh Adam Moore, Peter Passarelli, uh here to talk about community uh enhancements at Chromebook Park as a related to Kellogg.

So here's what we know and just provide a little bit of context.

I'm not going to get into the California project.

We're just going to focus on Chromebook.

That was the consideration before we were short on time.

It's even more of a consideration now.

Um the Kroeburg channel, it will be self-sustaining.

It's going to backflow.

It's going to look more like a delta and be very, very natural.

There is very limited opportunities inside that channel for community enhancements, other than the shared use path, which we've already talked about.

Uh Kroneberg Park will be used for staging uh of the dam removal and creek restoration, which means they're gonna pile on all their equipment, they're going to store things, uh, they're gonna bring in their they're gonna really tear up that park.

Um the park will be restored at minimum to its existing conditions and existing amenities will be replaced.

That is the minimum.

Um we have this opportunity to add community um enhancement features to the park itself.

Um, in order to produce the design materials for the public discussions in the fall, decisions on long range, uh long-term maintenance and who provides that maintenance needs to be made.

In order to have that discussion, there should be a visual point on your on order to have that discussion.

We have to tell uh the Kroger design or the Calvin design team what amenities we want by that August 31st deadline.

And I think some additional context that everybody knows also is like we are not currently the parks provider, right?

And you know, language in the IGA says it had been negotiated, including uh language if we're putting in new amenities, we're probably uh uh taking care of them, taking care of them and maintaining them without you know subject to NCPRD's approval.

Well, and I'm absolutely right, Peter, and that's in the newly drafted IGAs, the current IGA still would require us to request continued maintenance of these facilities.

And and as we know, regardless of what IGA we're going with what we have heard from uh Director Selle and the district advisory community means is other than what they have in uh the pipe right now, uh which is a single property, they are not building any new parks until they have an operating levy, and so I think we can assume that with this project or perhaps with others that they would take the posture of you building maintain.

Um so this is just a look at uh the staging for uh the restoration.

We're not going to spend a whole lot of time on this.

One of the reasons why Kronberg is going to be a big staging area is it um it's on the right side of the over the pass uh on 99, and it also provides great access to that channel and then a lot of space for materials and so when you say they're gonna um do all their staging there, they're not actually talking about removing trees.

There might be trees that really might get removed, yeah.

We certainly have had lots of discussion, and we would we've told them that you know, as as part of this project, we have uh you know tree permitting requirements that we need to go through and tree protection, so there are yeah, there's significant not just on Kroeb, but a lot of this whole restoration project that well, and you you know, I don't guess there are very many people in the city now who were here when light rail was built, but that big oak tree, there was a huge protective zone around the big oak tree.

And that is that is in the 2015 plan.

Okay, and we attempt to be consistent with that.

Um just to uh kind of respond a little bit to your point.

The uh Kellogg projects is in process of inventorying those trees that need to be removed, exactly why, what infrastructure would be impacting it, and uh we hope to have more information of that as the design moves forward.

Uh they are nearing 60% completion, so they're getting ready to have some of those conversations.

So, speaking of the 2015 Kroneberg plan and Cronebird Park, uh this was a plan that was developed by NCPRD and the city.

Community engagement was done by uh NCPRD, and just like Belfort and Bowman Bray, uh these were adopted into uh by the city in 2015 and added to our comprehensive plan.

Uh this is a plan that is extremely flexible.

Um I wasn't around in 2014 or 2015 when the discussions were happening here.

Uh but you see it um recommending experiential nodes, which could possibly be a lot of things that could be bird lines, they could be interpretive art, they could be nature play, etc.

etc.

etc.

Um this park has only and the 2015 plan has only been partially um constructed.

Uh in CPRD, a great deal of their time is spent there on removing invasives and and helping to establish that meadow that is in there.

Um, but it is mostly a pass-through linear park, uh through park is what some people refer to it as.

Um, and we know that um Kroneberg particularly over the last six to twelve months uh is a very big challenge for vandalism, illegal camping, and yes, gorilla art, uh meaning unsanctioned art.

I think that's gone up the last year.

My understanding is that uh from NCPRD, this is the highest rate of uh response in the district.

Wow.

And counselor castle body, do you have a question?

Oh no.

Councilor Cost Robot.

Well, I I heard about the trees, and I was curious.

Uh do we know what we how many trees will be rulers?

I might have missed that if we say and are there ties to are we going to be at an deficit after this project and shows of the tree?

We don't know that.

We will know that soon.

So this is just a look at some of the existing conditions.

These were all taken yesterday afternoon.

The park does have lighting, it does have some of the very basics along with a ADA trail.

There are some uh crushed gravel trails, which are also ADA accessible, uh those smaller uh and do require more maintenance.

Uh the park uh frankly does does not look neat.

It does not meet what what I would want to see in a natural park, but we can talk about that uh in a second.

This bottom uh right-hand corner on the screen there, that's one of those experiential nodes, uh crushed uh rock uh in a circular uh pattern with log seating around it.

Uh very limited amenities is what I'm trying to get at.

Uh there are frequent problem areas.

Uh there we uh one of my colleagues thought that those were cats in the corner of that two upper left-hand corner pictures.

No, that that's trash uh from over the weekend.

That is outside of the park, technically, it's under the uh one of the right-aways.

I don't know off the top of my head if that's uh trinet or ODOT right away there.

It's on the other side of the fence uh which has been cut and pulled open so that people can um use the space underneath the bridges and then access the pedestrian bridge.

Um we can see a number of what look like trails through the high vegetation there.

Uh anytime you start to get one person or animal putting a trail through that high grass, people are gonna think it's okay to follow.

They're gonna continue to follow, and all of a sudden we have refer to road paths or desire paths, everybody's got all sorts of different things.

Um the biggest problem in addition to the right-of-way areas next to the park, um, is underneath that bridge.

And even with uh the type of features that were put into the design of that pedestrian bridge that leads back to 99E.

Um, this is an area where we see a great deal of illegal camping and code response.

So these are the proposed CFMs, community uh enhancements.

Uh they are a draft, uh, as you can see them, very big 12 letters.

What might be harder to see is that they um looking at the 2015 plan as as a reference, uh they propose uh in this draft a nature play area uh in the center of the park.

That's A there.

Uh B is down uh underneath the F in draft uh showing a primary overlook there.

Uh over on the right hand side of the screen, you see C, which is a designed to be an outdoor classroom.

Uh in the center there, you have E, which is re-establishing that meadow.

And then F is what would be a new path going uh down towards the bank down below ordinary high water, which is why the time limits of these conversations really exists to provide an overlook uh near the creek or those different creek uh deltas there.

So this is what's been proposed.

This is what uh staff was asked to respond to.

Uh we we thought we provided pretty clear comments back as long as six months ago, but uh we've been asked to provide greater clarity on this, and so the features in question are right, re-established a meadow, at a nature play area, at a community or outdoor classroom, add an overlook, add a uh a boardwalk or uh excuse me, I'm losing my train of thought here.

Uh at that space to overlook the creek there.

So A is nature play, and that's up close to the highway.

That's uh closer to the center of the park, yes, it'd be closer to the entrance of the park.

Entrance.

So I thought we were looking at it from the oh from 99, yes.

Yes.

We are looking at it from the creek.

From the creek from the world.

From the okay.

I mean, now there's a fence there.

There wasn't a fence there a year ago, but now Odot has put up a fence there.

So I guess the play area there isn't insane.

But um it doesn't seem like the nicest area for a play.

And if we're going to get nature play in Milwaukee Bay Park doing the nature play and Croneburg.

So everybody understands kind of the layout here.

Because when staff thinks about this and this park, we think about its remote area.

We think about the fact that it is designed to be a natural park that is consistent with NCPRD's 2025 system plan, it's consistent with the 2015 plan.

Uh but when I think about that space, uh, for me, and this goes for all parks, but particularly for natural parks, following SEPTET crime prevention through environmental design standards, particularly for visibility along trails, paths, and amenities is extremely important.

If you're not familiar with SETET, there are lots of great trainings on there.

The basics is that we as people feel a lot comfortable when we can look around and see what's there, right?

So we want to make sure that the limbs of the tree are up to seven feet tall, right?

We want to make sure that the undergrowth is not too high.

If we are going to have a large center meadow with paths around it, we're making sure that it looks intentional by at least at the very least, we're mowing a strip of at least two feet on either side of that trail.

So people don't look at it and say, gee, no one's taking care of this park, as opposed to, oh no, they didn't just ignore this park.

It's intentional.

I see.

You might even go further than the mowing strip, adding rocks, adding fence, adding borders, for example.

Um the 2015 plan and staff considerations are that this should be a passive recreation area for natural exploration throughout, but not a consolidated nature play area.

There are plenty of landscape features that we can put into this park that uh children or adults can use and still keep that pass-through linear park sort of phase, but uh a consolidated playground uh is probably not part of staff recommendation there.

Um don't treat this as a typical neighborhood park, is what we're saying.

If we're talking about shape coverings, those are fine.

Pergulas, trellises, all sorts of different options there, but uh uh truth be told, we need to let the rain fall through.

This is a similar conversation to what we've had at Milwaukee Bay Park or even Scott Park, Bowen Bray and Belfort are those type of neighborhood parks, a closed shelter from all the elements, great.

But I would avoid things that look like enclosures in Cronford Park.

To that end, electricity and water, I think should be provided there.

We are going to need to do cleanups, but I would not put a drinking fountain there.

You want to put one at Dogwood Park as part of this project?

Great.

I would not put a drinking fountain in Cronberg Park.

Uh I would not put open electrical outlets there either.

Um access into the channel from Cronebird Park, I think needs to be limited to staff and programmatic elements only.

I would not create an entrance into that natural channel from Kroneburg.

I would put a fence along that bank and then use the overlooks or the boardwalk to allow people to get close to nature, but do so in a controlled fashion.

We already have a park where every look and cranny is full of challenges.

And by having a space in that channel that is going to be sometimes very wet, sometimes not so wet, um, full of all sorts of natural debris, we are creating additional spots for uh illegal camping and hazard at trash clean out.

Um we are creating more maintenance challenges, and I I think that uh Trollworks Park is not the place to put that that entrance there.

Overall, when we think about maintaining it, and again, those pictures that you saw are just from yesterday, so this park is being maintained, and that's what it looks like.

I think that if we think about maintaining this park and we put in community enhancements there, we have to ensure that it looks intentional, that it's wild by design, so that people feel comfortable there and invited in to then view the birds from the overlook, read the interpretive sign.

Those types of things will be extremely important there.

And you know, I do I do not like going into a project suggesting that there could be problems, but this is this is a property where we have a lot of challenges.

Um and I don't see them getting better very quickly without a lot of staff time.

Um the engagement so far, so uh engagement so far has been very limited.

Uh we are having a conversation about what we show the public.

Um so the public hasn't seen that draft that I have uh shared with you all today.

Uh Northwest uh North Clackness Urban Watershed Council, Mickey Wick, as we often refer to them.

They did work with Unite Oregon to provide engagement to the Calab project as a whole and discuss potential uh community enhancements throughout the project.

Um we have a nice summary of what they've heard.

It's consistent with the 2015 plan, consistent with uh NCPRD's 2025 system plan, and it's consistent with uh what we've talked about here.

The requested amenities are right, keep it in natural park, right?

Have those loop trails, have a variety of different trails, not just a hard pack, uh 2% grade universal ask uh trail, but but have some different sorts of features, have something that is interesting to explore.

Um my comments here are today just to be very careful on how we do them and make sure that we we do so in an intentional manner because we already have some challenges there, and they could potentially get worse, or we could have this project put in a lot of new enhancements and not necessarily see things get better.

So the next steps for this design, which I've shared with you, um we will share our feedback with the leadership team.

Uh, the leadership team will then work with the designers.

Um they have to be from from Greenworks.

Um they will work to get those that design into the 90% plans in time.

Again, we have to tell them exactly what we want, uh, where we want it by August 31st.

Uh, those reviews, uh the the final uh public enhancements would be reviewed by that cat team.

Now that cat team is invitation only, those are not general public open houses or general public meetings, even to the extent that this is a public meeting.

Um there would there is on the books a project-wide open house for fall of 26.

We're looking at the end of October, beginning of November for the general public to talk about these uh these features and the project as a whole.

Uh of course we know it's a very large project.

There are still some additional design considerations that I think are prudent to talk about as they exist in the parks and space world, right?

That shared use connection to Dogwood Park, what's it gonna look like when people get in there?

Um we can get into the nitty-gritty.

A lot of these are usually staff decisions, but we do need to see what that looks like.

Is there going to be a lead wall for sitting?

Are there gonna be bowlers?

What type of uh of railings, etc., right?

What is that shared youth path that it's gonna flood?

Right?

What are the different considerations that we have in the design for when it's going to flood?

Uh, what does it look like when that shared use path connects to Milwaukee Bay Park?

We expect it to be at that crosswalk near the existing bathroom, but we we haven't seen that that design quite yet.

So there are some decisions that will need to be made there as well.

Um most importantly, the long-term maintenance and programmatic access to the Calilog channel.

That is a decision that needs to be made.

At this point, our understanding is the way that the channel is going to be designed based on grades and materials is so that it is self-sustained.

We don't need to go in there and redo the channel to make sure it continues to flow.

But you know, it would be pretty much open at the Willamette at the Milwaukee Bay Park.

Anybody could walk through there, but we do need to discuss how are people going to get into that channel when they have to respond to an illegal camp.

Because right now there is nothing in the design that provides anyway access for potential tools too.

And then finally, um what is the what is the maintenance of those adjacent properties look like?

Okay, because we can do everything that we want on Cronebird Park or in the Kellogg channel, but we have if we have right-aways that are owned by a railroad, for example, or TriMed or others, and they aren't being maintained, we're going to see those problems move into the park, and it's going to limit the park experience.

And so I think thinking about the space underneath the uh the railroad tracks and the trimet tracks is is something that we need to think about with this project.

And so this is a staff recommendation that Peter put together.

Um recommendations are to support the community enhancement features uh that are consistent with the 2015 Robert Kronberg Nature Park Master Plan and the objectives of the Kellogg Creek restoration.

As we said, everything that you saw on that draft is consistent.

I think we would shy away from having a consolidated play area though.

Spread those out if you're going to have them along that through pass.

Uh express the city's expectations to the uh the Kellogg project team to work with NCPRD to secure long-term commitment to maintain those new enhancements that are constructed along with the project.

And three, direct staff to return to council if proposed community enhancement features would result in significant new long-term maintenance obligations for the city.

Peter's your on.

Yeah, I think that covers I think that covers what those recommendations are.

I I I would say uh, you know, Adams mentioned this August 31st day Neil mentioned it, I think, in his email to council.

You know, that's to get the uh what what will be included in their 60% design uh will just sort of be the general concept and uh conceptual project estimates.

I think in the material that I shared with you, the uh in the staff report, there's some costs there in there.

Uh and then between the 60% design submission and the 90% design submission, green works would then work to catch up and design those amenities and put together the plans and specifications to meet that 90% deadline.

Um so they they would have a little bit of work to do uh for them.

You know, I do think uh we would like to see that commitment from NCPRD to maintain that those uh those amenities.

Uh well, so on that score, I mean, I don't know how optimistic we should be, but I mean I feel like we should tomorrow you should if if if this is ultimately if if council agrees with this, those second two bullets need to start tomorrow, right?

Because we need to be back here by August when is it 18th?

Is our problems for the follow-up on the 18th?

Yeah.

Well, and that's you have a big parks and greenspace update then.

I just want to put a minor point on this.

I mean, I agree.

We all said it.

We as we know what we assume the answer is like to be.

I think it is critical, the question still be asked because this is a very weird thing where we have a separate project leading a design process on property we own, but apart we don't operate or maintain, and so that entity that operates and maintains it needs to at least have the opportunity to come to the table and and I think share in writing their answer to that question.

I just designs been shared with them.

Yes, we did uh prior uh to staff providing feedback to the design team in what I believe was December or January.

We did work with NCPRD to make sure that we uh agreed on certain terms.

We did not discuss maintenance uh in those conversations.

These were staff to staff conversations about hey, your system plan says it's a uh an a nature park.

If you built a playground there or uh a concentrated play area, would that still count?

Yes, it would, okay.

But do you agree that maybe this is not the place for it?

Yes, they did.

Those sorts of conversations are what we have with them.

Yeah, but I don't think those they're having any conversations with NCP leadership, correct?

I and I I just express as your um administrative, I think it's very important to in writing have the project team make that ask and a request or response in writing as well.

And I I I agree.

I I um I do think um it's interesting twist here that it is there, they paid for Lango Hanson and that plan.

Uh they haven't done that much in Milwaukee, but they did do this one push in 2015 to do three parks and kind of one bell swoop.

Uh and uh it was yeah, anyway, it's their plan.

Yeah, which can't be pointed out to them.

Um can I ask you to go back to the first slide with the uh where people were accessed from the working the map that had you have another map that showed where staging would come from?

Yeah, that one.

So I mean Cromberg is a park, it's one side of the creek.

The other side of the creek is a lot of private parcels, but really the public we own the what will be exposed creek bed on that side as well, right?

But do we not anticipate any public access on that side?

I mean, the only place where we have public access that we could potentially have public access where we own property down to that water is on that 28th Avenue.

So it's Milwaukee Bay Park and Milwaukee Bay Park, yes.

Right, yeah, no, I meant on the downtown side of the 99.

Yeah, and not around the current bridge.

I mean, we have go trails around the current bridge where people are going down, um, but we wouldn't really have any.

Okay.

Okay.

Thoughts, everyone?

So, where is the Presbyterian church in relation to the to the uh 28th Avenue access?

Oh this is the church.

Okay, that's what I thought.

Yeah, it's pretty far removed.

Yeah.

Is the 28th Avenue access our future potential home station?

This is not intended right now.

I have not heard any conversations about having public access for 28th Street.

I believe it's just the for work access shown here as access for staging.

Yeah, yeah, and I I was just using that if that's the only property that we have control.

Other questions from anyone?

Thoughts well, I I don't know if this is important or not, but the Presbyterian Church allows access through their property.

Um, to that side of the creek.

Yeah.

I think two things that I'm wondering.

The mayor kind of asked this question, and I didn't really hear the answer to it.

Element A is the nature play area is really close to the highway.

Correct.

Why not switch element A and E so you're removing the play area a little bit from the highway or providing a little more space?

Uh this was meant to be uh more consistent with the plan, and the reason for the locations of the overlooks and outdoor classrooms is that it's assumed that the creek channel is the place where you want to have that discussion.

So, does that outdoor classroom, if it is used for environmental education, the assumption is that it's close to the creek to um thus have conversations about what you're seeing in the creek channel there?

Um I don't think personally, and again, this is just my personal opinion as a staff.

I don't think I would put a playground in for a couple.

And and I wanted to I wanted to follow up uh Peter on your recommendation, the recommended staff recommendation when we say we want to consistent with the plan with that modification.

Correct.

So staff recommendation is all of the elements except LMA.

Yeah.

If you want to spread them, some nature play features spread those out, but I would not I would not put a playground in that mark there.

And I would say moving classrooms higher up is going to have a noise impact on trying to do anything there.

The closer you get to 990, the noisier it is.

I do I do hope yeah, maybe we need some actual reality checks about even where they have them, how noisy it's gonna be and how workable.

I don't know if anybody's done any noise testing out there, but um trains, yeah.

Trains well, yeah.

The train is yeah, really loud.

Um, but luckily it's not uh that ever present like the highway.

And can I just understand a little bit more why not element A?

I might have missed that in the list of kind of design elements you were considering.

Is it because like the mayor was saying there's a nature play area nearby?

Is it too close to the highway?

Is it a concern with camping?

It's uh it's the remote location on this park and the lack of direct access to the park from uh from a real neighborhood.

It's all of the above that you just said, Council President.

I think it's not the right place for a play area by our estimation.

There's the neighborhoods that would be served by it are going to be served by play areas, other places, and it it does present some safety access and camping concerns.

And I would say, I mean, I think there's still conversation around play and dogwood park at some point, or is that off the table now because of the paths?

It's certainly a potential.

I mean, it's we really haven't given large additions.

Yeah, I mean, it was proposed when with Coho Point and you know, that's that nursery that schools have some funding for it.

If we were talking about the Albert Park, this conversation would be much much different.

Yeah.

Um, given its location, given the eyes that are on that space from uh the sidewalk in the streets and the cars passing by.

Um, that is not something that you have in Chromebood.

Um the harder it is for somebody walking by to see what's going on in the space, the more challenges you are going to have in that park.

And that's why I'm saying if you are going to do outdoor classrooms or overlooks or boardwalks, you keep them open and airy and highly visible to whoever is going to be there.

And I do think, I mean, I think all those points are well taken about the visibility, the camping issue that exists now.

Um I do think if we have more overlooks and you know, sort of outdoor spaces that are inviting for people that we will see more you know, use of the park by birders and thousand percent totally agree.

People could do Alarbond could do their bird count there, and all these things.

Yes, and and I am a firm believer in exactly what you just said, right?

That I I follow the Jane Jacobs model, right?

Add the positive uses, right?

Be comfortable with flexible use, be comfortable with the way that people want to use a space, right?

Design it for use, right?

Don't try to control use with your design.

Um but this is a space that is so far removed along the highway, along the train tracks.

You have to cross the bridge to get to downtown.

There's a reason that bridge there, you can always find a group of teenagers in the middle of it.

It's because from either side, right?

They can't be seen.

And if somebody is coming around, a principal or a parent or PDI.

Some somebody like me, right?

They can immediately stop what they're doing and get to the other end before they get caught.

Um, it is a we have created the ultimate teen hangout spot with that pedestrian bridge always.

So, Adam, just for the interest of time, can you go back to the recommendations?

I just want to make sure folks do get a dinner break if possible.

Umor, I heard you say that we should get to work on bullets one and two with that modification to bullet one about the nature play, um, and then return back on that August 18th with um, we'll ask for a response on the ICPRD question by then, so that we can have a discussion with you about if we want to ask keep visiting them for the project team, knowing that that signs us up for maintenance operations liability.

I mean, I I do think another piece of answering that question is gonna be what's the value of these and what would it cost us to build them later if we ultimately become our own parks provider at some point?

Um what are we foregoing by not having them built by this parking lot?

And we do have those estimated costs.

Yeah, the 18th, just so everyone remembers, is going to be a large conversation about parks operations and maintenance costs and nothing.

To the mayor's point, I also think these operating costs are not hitting us in 2028, they would hit us much farther down the line when this project is complete, um, which makes me think about the maintenance costs a little bit differently.

I will say I'm not really sold on getting rid of the nature play area, or I want to have more conversation about that.

You might not need my boat there, so it's fine for the interest of time if you want to just go forward.

But I feel like we need direction from council on that inclusion of A or not A, the item A.

Um I think so, yeah.

Today I think that lays into the question for NCP RD, right?

So uh we know that SCP RD is definitely not a fan of uh concentrated nature play area at that park.

Much more ritual play.

The original plan uh called possible possibly filling those experiential nodes with nature play along with a list of about eight other things.

Okay, it was vague.

Okay, yeah.

So let's have a head count.

Um who is okay with the staff recommendation to um forego the idea of a nature play to eliminate the idea of nature play of a consolidated nature play area in the park.

I think I yeah, I'm okay with that.

Counselor Kosh Rabadi have views on that.

And I said that's the technology.

Um that's the eliminate maybe not not put in a nature area.

Correct.

Yeah, kind of like hearing more about it.

Maybe maybe I missed some information as to why uh skip it, but uh the volume comes in enough time.

But anyway, um I I don't know if I want to go on.

Adam, do you want to synopsize your what led you to that recommendation?

We think that uh a playground of of A type it doesn't fit with the existing use of the park.

We feel like the park is too remote to be a space where we want to have uh those type of of recreational amenities.

We want to keep things uh more focused on passive recreation, and then instead of having it in a concentrated play area using creative uses of natural materials for benches or landscape features that can then be explored as you pass through that park or design the outdoor classroom with additional seating that looks like benches or basalt rocks or things like that, uh logs, things like that for that outdoor classroom.

Those are all fine, but I think the idea of a concentrated playground where we're going to have safety surface and uh play equipment on top of it.

We just don't feel like this is the part for that.

And if I had been around in 2014, I would have reduced it from the list personally.

If it's possible uh to concentrate and other spending so long.

I don't think we have really time for that.

No, because we're we're discussing what we will show the public for community engagement.

I guess my concern with removing it is if you don't have that element, we'll have three outlooks, two that are above, and a lot of empty fields.

And I just wonder what's actually bringing people into this park.

Like I think there's value to need more eyes and put traffic in this park for it to not have some of the concerns that we're talking about.

And I think that A helps maybe even redirect the kids who are smoking on the bridge to at least go into the park, um, which I would prefer more people in the park as opposed to hiding right in the back area.

They're gonna go hang out in the classroom, but um you're gonna hang out with the park is very very active.

It is active because people are using the trail, and they are going through the park, and there has been very few times when I have been in that park, and I go to those parks at times early in the morning and in the evening and things like that.

Um there are very few times when there are not people in that park.

Um they are using it as a natural park, and if the idea is that we're gonna have a natural park, then I think that we want to have amenities that are focused on it.

And I should say I at the end of the day, trust your professional judgment here.

We have a majority on council wants to do that.

I think that's fine.

I am not totally convinced, but I don't think you need to do the legwork to convince me today.

I think that's I I'm okay moving forward removing that element.

I think one option and one thing that we can think about here is what is most important, not for the park in the future, but what is most important to go along with the Kellogg channel?

And perhaps that is the way to think about it because we were talking about community enhancements that go along with that park, not necessarily what makes sense for the 2015 plan, because the feedback that we hear from the Kellogg team is we're not here, these are their words, we're not here to implement the 2015 plan, uh, is what they say.

Uh and so I guess my question to you is what makes the most sense to get out of this uh this catalog project for the community.

That would be my question.

Well, I do think to the council president's point earlier about you know attracting people to the park.

To me, it's the creek that attracts people, it's the water, it's the wildlife around the water that attract people to the park.

Um that meadow though does, I mean, it does uh contribute to that wildlife because it has lots of bugs, it has lots of pollinator plants, it has lots of bugs, so it contributes to the president's presence of the wildlife there too.

Um but yeah, I mean the focus is the creek and the water.

Yeah, not the 99E.

Yeah.

Again, this isn't something we have to do late work on today if we really just need to move.

But to that point, I'm where are people?

I had thought there were gonna be natural trails kind of along the stream bed.

Where are people entering those trails?

Am I just totally wrong about those trails being an element of the proposal?

And is this not my understanding is that is no longer a consideration of the project, but that is a better conversation for the project team.

I think we have a consensus.

I think we have what we need Well, I'm sorry, we have a we have a position, not a consensus, yeah.

And we'll talk much more on the 18th about operations and maintenance, and hopefully I'm a response for NC3.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, we're adjourned, and you have 15 minutes for it's not a pizza night.

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I got that as well.

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Somebody said