Okay, I think the steps ready.

All right.

So good morning, everyone.

Welcome to our committee of the whole meeting for today, August 17th, 2026.

We have a light agenda.

We will have executive session after our meeting for discussion of matters concerning the medical financial credit or employment history of a particular personal persons or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person, persons, or corporations.

And at this time I'm going to turn it over to our city manager.

Good morning, uh Mayor and Council.

Good morning, so we're happy to be here, and we want to thank Jonathan Zamora as well as the senior club for hosting us at this meeting tonight.

So before we get started, we have three uh excuse me, two items that we just wanted to discuss with you, and Carol Samuel is here to talk about the request for proposals for the affordable housing consultant bureau.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Good morning.

Um, we would like to issue a request for qualifications for an affordable housing and then a housing consultant.

While we are doing a study with the comprehensive plan about housing, we would like to have on contract, and we used to have a contract that a contract has expired.

A consultant on an hourly basis to give us a guidance on specific projects, on state programs, on financing, um, help us determine payment in lieu, all of those kinds of things that um are related to the policies and decisions that the council, the planning commission, and the planning department um make.

And our way to do that is to do a request for uh qualifications and select someone early this this fall uh to have them on on call.

You said this is something we had before.

We did.

Um we had housing action council contract with us, and they would help with some of the um uh lotteries and things like that, but that's long since expired, they've had a uh change in staffing, so we want to do a new one.

So it would be so when housing action capt did that, it was more so for specific projects from what I recall.

I don't know if anybody else recalls that.

I want to make sure that that's not that.

That this is more broad for anything that's coming in that's looking at all projects, not just something specific.

It is more broad.

Um we would like it to be more broad.

Okay.

Any other questions, Council?

Sorry, I have a question.

Carol, since it's an hourly thing, how do you budget for something like that?

How what would the cost look like?

Well, you you kind of project ahead how many projects you think we think, you know, three to seven projects, three to seven, you know, engagements over the year.

Um I can I I know of some things that are coming towards us right now where we would like to have some engagement.

Now, what housing action council, when we have them on board, they the developer would pay.

And I think there's still a way for for for their work.

There's still a way to engage the developer if it's about the specific project.

But we would also like available to us a broader consulting.

Yeah.

Hi, Carol.

I have a question.

So I'm always you know trying to push for whenever we're developing that we prioritize our local community.

So I'm hoping this is something that this, you know, when we get this new um consultant that this something they would consider because I do understand that with HCR, their limitations and the like, but still I'm always hopeful that we can push that we could have some priority here.

Interestingly enough, our text includes a little bit of local preference in it, some language for it, but yeah, I think it's a matter of implementing it, and that's what we would like as someone who understands all of those things, or a group.

It doesn't need not be one individual, um, who understands those um legalities, uh the policies, and how we might um implement that.

White Plains recently uh implemented.

Um everyone's watching them to see how their local preference withstands um test.

So this group is working for us.

For us is working for us, not the developers, not any of that.

Correct.

Correct.

That's how that's correct.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, and next up, we're gonna ask uh Matt Rudokov if he could speak to us about uh an item having to do with the payment and move of taxes for steward gardens.

Good morning, uh members of the public and members of the council.

This is uh projects to gardens at 2000 Frost Lane, which has an existing pilot.

And the pilot is not being changed.