Okay, so this is a meeting of the uh fiscal committee of the board of representatives.

It's Thursday, March 26th at 5 30 p.m.

I'm present for the board are um Virgin La Cruz, co-chair um what's your name again?

Eric Morrison and I'm a co-chair Andrew Zachary, also president as Parker Johnson.

Thank you.

I missed you.

And we are ready to go.

We'll lead off with Melissa Alroni from the South Museum.

Beautiful.

Um it's my joy and honor to be with you.

Uh this will be my last official uh Board of Representatives Fiscal Committee, because I will be officially retired um uh in April.

Uh I will be presenting to the Board of Finance on April 2nd.

Um it is the honor of my life to have served for almost 21 years as the CEO of the Stanford Museum.

We just celebrated me last night, which was Caroline Simmons was there.

It was just sheer joy.

And I also want to introduce a new member of our team, replacing Peggy Vane, uh David Eichler is here on this call with me.

I want to introduce him.

You will be seeing more of him as we go forward.

But again, I have just adored this work, and I have adored working with these beautiful uh committees.

Um, the Board of Reps, the Board of Finance, you guys are the fiscal smarts and the watchdogs, and we feel so well uh well loved and honored uh by all of your service.

Um I uh sent over.

Is uh Janine on this or David, can you share our report?

I'm not sure if David can or is Janine here.

I just I don't I don't see Janine, I do see David.

Uh and if they if I can, uh Barbara Montable can help you.

That would be great.

Anybody just I do not have your presentation.

I checked both mailboxes.

When was it sent?

It was sent a week ago.

Um we updated it with Mayor Simmons uh material.

I sent it specifically to Janine.

Okay, if you sent it to Janine, let me search by Janine's name, not yours.

So I have it.

Uh do you want me to share?

David, that would be great.

If you can do that, I can save you guys the trouble.

Oh, beautiful.

And then uh if you could also email it to me as well, just so I have another copy while I'm looking.

Yeah, and tell me we with your email address.

Bontalvo M-O-N T-A-L V-O.

Perfect.

At Stanford C T.gov.

Beautiful.

We'll take care of that.

And thank you so much, Barbara.

I really appreciate it.

So let's make this a little larger, David.

So I you all had sent some uh talking points.

I sort of stayed with our original format.

I think you all may be familiar with this, but this is the presentation that I give to the mayor.

I give to the board of representatives and the board of finance.

I think it hits every topic and probably more.

But again, mission statement.

Uh, we'll just go quickly.

I'm not gonna read every one of these, but you can see our operating budget request.

We had requested 7%.

Mayor Simmons uh has put forth uh a 4% increase, it looks like across the board with a lot of the outside agencies.

Um we are highly accomplished partner, you know, uh of many decades with the city.

Um, and I'm always proud to say, you know, that we get, you know, actually less than a third of our funding from the city, but it is so critical to um to what we do.

And we feel as though we're a beautiful steward uh of the city's funding, um, because we also raise 75 over 75% of our own operating funds, you know, at about 5.7 million uh every year.

Um our expenses have gone up a bit with our new astronomy center.

Um, so we were just looking to get a little bit of a bump.

I hope the fiscal committee uh will see uh a way clearer to moving our 4% forward.

And and just to, you know, a little fine point.

I I I've always sort of defended uh how we operate.

And then I kind of came up with this line that we're deeply grateful to the city for the the 4% increase, about $6,000.

Um that brings our funding to nearly 1.5.

And then when you actually look at our $5.65.7 million dollar budget, you see that you know, if we look at it another way for the investment of little less than 1.5 million, we return another four plus million to our community in our service.

So just keep that in mind, because that's the way this organization has been grown and has succeeded in our in my tenure.

And um we're we're just deeply grateful to have a great partnership.

Um let's keep scrolling down, David.

Um, again, just hitting some key community impact challenges and community service.

You can certainly see this.

Um, we're celebrating our 90th anniversary, which is incredible.

Let's scoot down to some of the challenges.

Again, we're still in this crazy ass uh economy.

Um we have seen health care all over the map, and I will say I'm trying to sign up for Medicare right now, as I'm 70 years old, and it ain't easy.

So um, so we're still seeing some of that escalation.

Um, and healthcare costs are we've gone, we went up 40% a year ago.

This year we went up 25%.

So we're really struggling with our target numbers because we're putting in for a certain amount of of growth of expense, and they're blowing past it.

So that's why we keep incrementally asking the city to help us straddle some of those challenges.

Um and the price of things, you know, it's just an odd, we're at an odd stretch right now.

So I the you can see our in-demand educational service.

Keep scrolling down, David.

These are really key top points on our success.

And this is year over year data, um, which is very exciting.

Let's keep going.

Our preschool is bringing in about a million dollars a year.

It sure wasn't that way when I got here.

Uh, so that's exciting.

Look at the chart of numbers here.

Um, that it gives you our year over year.

So we're still crawling back.

Um, but I will tell you with numbers with the planetarium and astronomy center opening mid-November, really not doing programmatic programmatic rhythm until January.

Um, we are serving right now, as of the end of March.

We've brought in another 6,000 students.

And the important piece of this is that we have just sat down with West Hill.

They're going to be under construction uh through the grace of the city and capital funding.

And they are bringing their um uh their uh uh environmental um farmer uh program, ag program, over.

We'll have a couple of classes a week uh over at the nature center.

So we see this as a rich, rich partnership, and that's what we're finding with other schools.

I want to tell you that we're serving all of Stanford's public schools.

Um we are serving also private and parochial.

Um, but you know, we're so proud of the quality, you know, the in the schools and on-site program last year, you know, 30, 33.5.

This year we're probably gonna be uh about 40 or maybe more actually more than that, probably more like 45 with the astronomy center programming.

So it is our honor to share this with you year over to year.

So you see that we're a solid solid investment.

Um keep going down.

Again, we just we amplify our request with this extraordinary partnership.

Um the budget numbers are I'm not gonna go through them.

I'm gonna be happy to ask any questions that you have, but this is our um we updated this.

This is our February by the end of February results, David.

Yes.

So we we climbed out of again a late start on the Planetarium and Astronomy Center.

Let's go down to the next.

And this shows the February.

Yeah.

So we've climbed a bit out.

We were up over a hundred thousand, and now we're we're looking better.

We're going to see some good growth there.

Let's keep going.

And then we'll show you the budget.

This is next year's budget that we have requested, which reflects the four percent.

Our capital, we got uh let's keep going, David.

Um the capital request we made um for a pavilion.

We got zeroed out on balance funds of about 670,000.

You know, unfortunately, that's what our that's what it costs now with all the process that we go through with the city capital.

Um, but we did have 50,000 in um non-recurring funding to help us with further tech conversion, pulling ourselves out of the city and go to the last page.

Yeah, those are the capital projects.

So that's the 50 non-recurring, which will be exceedingly helpful because we're trying to get our telephone system set up and we're trying to get our internet stronger between the astronomy center and the rest of the campus.

And then the next page is the pavilion funding, which uh was zeroed out.

So that's my presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions, any comments.

Uh thank you, Melissa.

Uh are there any questions from anyone?

Uh probably one here.

And are there any questions from anyone out in on Zoom?

Oh great.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

I love you.

Thank you kindly.

You guys have been an honor and a joy to work with.

I'll see you around town.

Wait, Melissa, wait, wait.

Oh.

Virgil, uh, representative Dola Cruz.

I see you raise your hand.

Please do, sir.

Yes, thank you.

Uh Melissa, the enthusiasts on the show is uh both ages.

I really appreciate uh love that you exceed what you're doing.

Thank you so much for your service all these years.

I am so grateful to you for saying that.

Um it is the um it is the center of my life, and I am gonna be a longtime Stanford uh citizen.

So as I say, you're gonna be seeing me around the Stanford Museum and Nature Center, and you're gonna be seeing me around town.

So I love you for that.

I love you for that, Virgil.

I really am honored to have those words.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

You bet thank you.

Okay, thank you all.

All right, thank you.

Um further.

I don't see anybody.

Parker, did you raise your hand?

No, sorry, I was just waving uh goodbye.

Oh, you were waving goodbye.

But thank you for all your help over the years.

You bet.

I'm I'm honored and I thank you all.

Eric, I'll see you around and Virgil, all of you.

All right, thank you.

David, David Eichler, thank you for being here with me.

My pleasure.

Okay, loves.

See ya.

All right.

Next we have uh Eric Miller Miller, sorry, from the Stanford Arts and Culture Center.

Eric, you're right.

Uh, yes.

Barbara Eric has a presentation.

Okay, let me pull it up.

Sorry.

I have one of those days.

Great, thank you.

All right.

I'm Aaron Miller, I'm special assistant to Mayor Simmons and an arts, the arts and culture program manager, and I'm here to present on behalf of the Arts and Culture Commission the our request for the FY26, 27 budget.

Next slide, please.

So kind of just a brief history of the Arts and Culture Commission.

So the Arts and Culture Commission is uh charged with stimulating, facilitating, and coordinating uh and cooperating with many of Stanford's arts and culture organizations.

Um every year we receive funding from the city uh that then we put out as the Stanford Arts and Culture grant.

Um so this past year we had 200,000.

Um, and I'll talk about that more in the next slide, but yeah, so every year we receive a grant, and then um arts and culture organizations within Stanford apply.

Um then the commission meets um and uh then distributes the grant.

So for this past year, uh, which we consider the 2026 grant period, so it runs applications open in uh October, closing uh around Thanksgiving, and then organizations have from January through uh December to spend the grant from this year.

So the commission met this year already.

Um we received 31 applications for the 2026 grant.

We received over 400,000 uh in request in requested grant aid.

We had 200,000 to distribute, so we received over double of what we request uh of what we had.

We continue to see a uh diverse applicant pool that really represents Stanford.

Uh we had six new applicant groups this year.

Um, and so we have Latino and Hispanic groups, uh Black and African American groups, Jewish, Polish, uh, and many other groups who apply.

And then one of the great things about many of the programs that the commission chooses to fund is that they're free and open to the public.

So um, for example, we have the spring holiday concerts by the spring and holiday concerts by the Stanford Corral, um, ballet under the stars, which will be in Mill River Park with the Connecticut Ballet, uh, the drawing contest that's getting to know Ecuador and the Ecuadorian uh flag raising.

Uh, we have art in the park, which is always uh well received by many in the community that's put on by the Stanford Arts Association, um, music school and summer music session within tempo, uh, and also my architecture summer workshops, summer camp, uh, and both those are two programs that really work to um provide opportunities, not only uh in STEM or esteem for my architecture, but also for um underserved communities.

Uh, and so this year the average grant was about six thousand four hundred dollars, um, which is down about a thousand from the previous year.

Our largest grant that we gave out was 14,000, and our smallest grant was 1,000.

And then uh next slide, please.

So for this upcoming fiscal year, we're requesting 208,000 uh in funding, which is uh $8,000 increase from this past fiscal year.

Um I think the commission really works to work with our great uh arts and culture organizations here in Stanford, not only to encourage the arts, but also to promote the arts and uh really serve as a great attraction uh to Stanford.

That's it.

Thank you.

That was a lovely presentation.

Thank you very much.

Uh any questions?

Any comments.

Thank you very much.

Uh Stanford Partnership, Jody?

That's Daryl.

Oh, okay.

Maybe what else is hi, Barbara.

It's I I just uh sent you an email also.

If you could pull up the presentation that just says of the three, which I provided, I'm just gonna present off of one, the one that's entitled City of Stanford uh FY2627.

I am just gonna search.

Did you send it to just my email address or the email?

Yes, no, it was the we had our back and forth uh yesterday.

Yes.

Okay, so that means it is in the group email box.

I see.

Let's get it open and get it shown.

Uh okay, and then just uh if you can also do the whole next slide when you're ready, I'll keep clipping through them.

Yes, yes, yes.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Hi, everyone.

Um, Darrell Johnson, as the presentation's coming up, I'll start my just quick intro.

Daryl Johnson, the executive director of the Stanford Partnership.

Uh, I have been in the role leading the organization for the past uh 12 months.

I literally celebrated one year in the role last week.

I am a 28-year resident of Stanford, uh, three kids raised here who uh went through the public schools.

Uh and my wife is the COO of the uh that was the correct one.

Yep.

Uh my wife is the COO of the Stanford JCC.

So we are uh embedded here in Stanford.

Most of my professional career was spent in the for-profit sector, uh working as a marketer for large companies such as PepsiCo Heineken and WWE.

And I appreciate the opportunity to uh present to you tonight about our amazing organization, the Stanford Partnership.

So I have about eight, nine slides, and it's really a journey to show you what we do and the impact that we have.

Again, Stanford Partnership, our mission is very much about bringing together business, the corporate community, government that's uh city and uh state individuals, and community leaders to launch what we like to call innovative initiatives to sort of help grow our local economy, strengthen the community, and shape what we hope will be the strongest future ready city uh here in uh the state of Connecticut.

Um we have been next slide, please.

We we have three strategic pillars which we focus on as an organization, which I will talk about two of these pillars in the next couple of slides.

Uh first, we uh do quite a bit in the talent and skill development space where we provide programming that helps to expand uh education pathways and skill development, specifically in the tech and tech enabled spaces.

Um we also do quite a bit in the economic stewardship space, uh, and that is um I think we lost the slides.

Uh economic economic stewardship where we help uh fledgling entrepreneurs, people who are starting up uh businesses.

There's uh a ton of support, which the partnership provides.

Uh and then the final um slide is or I'm sorry, the final bucket is what uh we're terming community advancement.

And in the community advancement space, we are just uh getting started really uh under my tenure, where we're involved in uh two specific initiatives.

One that just kicked off this past Monday, the Husky Stay Covered Initiative.

Uh, I will be co-leading with some others, the community engagement uh initiative, which will help those individuals who will potentially uh over 8,000 residents who may potentially be impacted by some of the changes in Medicaid certification.

And then thanks to Leah Kagan and the uh Department of Economic Development here at the city.

We will also be launching a uh free Wi-Fi uh initiative at Latham Wilder in Cove Island, where we will be providing free uh resilient, uh really strong Wi-Fi, but the key there is working with community members to provide support with individuals who may not be digitally savvy.

So the reason why we exist as an organization is to drive impact.

We look for new ways to uh shape and engage with Stanford's future.

We create opportunity, as I said, we work on education over our history.

We worked on housing and economic mobility to help residents thrive.

And then the final piece is uh community building, and that's how do we help build sustainable systems to make sure the city is uh future ready.

Next slide.

You can keep going.

Next slide, please.

So won't cover this, but uh for uh all of the members of the board of uh of Reps Fiscal Committee.

This tells the story of our organization.

Uh started in 1978, and we were really sort of the organization that acted as the economic development arm of the city before that uh group was actually formed.

We've worked on initiatives such as helping the bring and helping the building get built downtown uh for Yukon Stanford.

We were at the center of the Mill River revitalization.

So you can spend time there, but I will not clear that slide because I'd like to just spend a few minutes talking about some of our current initiatives.

But we have been a pillar for 48 years now here in the city.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

Uh, next slide.

So this is one of our signature programs, which is uh the Stanford, the Southwest Connecticut Tech Hub.

And this is a regional collaboration that aligns industry, government, and education to really help grow tech enabled skills.

We work with individuals in a very bespoke way in which um individuals will come to us who are looking to either upskill in their job or find a new technology or tech enabled um job that might be data analytics, that could be cloud management, that could be cyber security, and we build a very bespoke um training initiative for them, take them through it, and then on the back end, uh, which is really uh high impact, we work on job placement.

Uh, and over the last 20 to 22 months, we've placed over 200 individuals into new tech or tech enabled roles.

So that's the Southwest Connecticut Tech Hub, and that um a major part of the funding there comes through an initiative called the Good Jobs Challenge, which is a federal initiative that is then administered by the state of Connecticut.

This program here will actually be sunsetting based on the funding part of this program will be sunsetting um at the uh end of June.

Next slide, please.

Stanford Tech Hub.

Um, this is a space in which we provide um place-based on-site uh tech training uh for digital skills and career pathways specifically for Stanford residents.

So uh what we do there is not probably dissimilar to what we do with the Southwest Connecticut Tech Hub, but this is a place-based initiative where we're providing four days a week with individuals in a classroom setting.

Um we are providing uh training and support around in-demand tech skills in those same spaces, data analytics, cyber, cloud management.

Uh, a primary uh large piece of the funding for this initiative comes from Charter Spectrum.

Uh we are this ribbon-cutting visual you see here.

Charter actually built out a space in their building uh in one of their towers where they've allowed us to and provided the technological support and other things that are needed to do this in-place uh technology training.

We do a one-week sort of intro to give people a sense of what the training is, and then we have a six-month program where it's intensive four days a week, instructors side by side teaching people.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

Start lab.

We run a co-working space um uh through the um benevolence of a board member who is the property manager at Chipan Landing.

We use um space there where we uh run a co-working space to help early stage entrepreneurs and small businesses.

We provide education, mentorship.

This morning we ran a session in the space that was entitled seven tips uh to present your startup idea in this TikTok era.

You know, it's it's you know, in the VC space, it's you get two and a half minutes.

How do you present in front of a potential funder what your idea is and really bring that to life?

So this is uh some of the work that we've done around this uh initiative.

Um we've sort of freshened up and we're seeing lots of great energy there.

And then the last slide, uh, if you click over Leadership Fairfield County, this is a professional development program that we provide for Stanford area businesses to send to us uh their emerging leaders.

And what we do with those emerging leaders are we ground them in regional social and business issues.

We go up to the state capital and we spend time with our local reps.

The governor gives us time.

Um, and we we lean into state issues that are impacting us here.

We spend time up at Garner Correctional Facility one morning, and then we come back and we go to uh the police uh uh station and Chief Shaw spends time with us talking about um how you know the city really and and his group, uh the police department really works to um make sure that you know we are a safe and a vibrant community.

Um economic development initiative.

So this is a nine to 10 month sort of one day a month uh initiative where we work on elevating uh Stanford's emerging leaders.

So that is that.

I wanted to just spotlight our four major um initiatives there.

We have some other things which we work on, but these are really the key initiatives for us.

So I'll pause there.

Thank you, Daryl.

Uh excellent presentation.

Thank you very much.

Um I've actually been to Starbucks just as a little bit of a oh, you have okay.

All right, so check it out.

All right.

I needed a co-working space.

So come come back.

We we have new and lots of exciting stuff going on.

Uh any questions?

Do I see a hand up?

Oh, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, everyone.

Uh next, Michael.

Michael Moore.

Um Steph Gothouse Learning Communications.

By the way, anybody who's hungry wants water or something.

I think there's food next door as well.

Ah, yes, the thumbnails on one.

Do you have a presentation or is Barbara have it?

Right there.

Great.

Good evening and thank you.

My name is Mike Moore.

I am president of Stanford Downtown.

Uh, can everyone see my presentation?

Presume, yes.

I want to just take a moment to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight.

And I want to just commend everyone, uh, a member, every member, the committee for their dedication to this process.

I know how intensive it is, and I know the pressure you're on to help um manage finite resources to serve our growing city.

Uh, if I may, I would like to just take a moment to introduce my organization.

Um the organization was created in 1992, and in other states it's called a business improvement district.

In Connecticut, these business improvement districts are called downtown special services districts.

We were created in 1992 uh to help serve downtown and draw folks to stay in downtown and engage with our city center when downtown was primarily auto-oriented and primarily office.

There was very few folks living in downtown.

We're very well known for our events.

Um people may remember Alive at five.

Um, but we the organization and downtown have made uh a substantial change.

Walking over here, walking over here, um, you know, I and in any transit through downtown, people recognize the traumatic transformation that is going on with the these two large mixed-use developments that are taking place on Broad Street as well as the Complete Streets project that is taking place across the uh across from the Avon Theater at the intersection of Bedford and Four Streets.

And that signals even this the it signals the change in the market and the change of the needs at downtown.

Right now, downtown has over 5200 residential units.

Many of them have been built over the last 10 years and potential and a particular spike over the last six over six years, and including the years after COVID, the COVID-19 pandemic.

And we have over 2200 um units that are either in construction or that are fully have received their full land use entitlements that will be built over the next three years.

So the downtown landscape has changed dramatically.

I have in front of you for our scope of services and our scope of services uh traditionally had involved um environmental maintenance.

If you've traveled in downtown, you'll see our ambassador team that provides daily curbside maintenance, um graffiti removal, power washing.

Again, our focus is to make sure downtown is a safe, welcome, and an attractive downtown.

And our core, our core mission is to address the daily maintenance needs of downtown.

We also provide hospitality and social service outreach, and I'm going to talk about that in greater detail.

We have a public realm beautification program as well.

We provide gardens, we manage gardens, over 20 gardens and six public parks in downtown.

We have over 80 ground planters that you will notice in downtown.

We have over 300 hanging baskets.

That number has spiked in the last two years.

And we've partnered very closely with the city to deliver an urban forestry program.

We had a particularly busy winter.

We actually for snow events over two inches.

We actually cut a four foot swath on all sidewalks in downtown.

We actually had to clear uh snow.

We had over 60 inches of snow in downtown.

Typically, we have 30.

So this year is very busy.

And of course, we have event production.

We are the producers of our annual balloon parade spectacular that happens just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

And we have begun our begun our focus to investing in and partnering very closely with Mayor Simmons and her administration to foster the complete street movements or complete street designs, which is, you know, if you've experienced downtown, it was uh the recent iteration of downtown was um designed around auto traffic.

It was very cod car dependent.

Well, we were moving away from that, and we're working very closely with the city to make sure that all our streets are very accessible.

They are a multimodal, meaning welcoming to bikes, bicyclists, um, yes, certainly uh auto auto uh auto users, but also mass transit and pedestrians, particularly.

We do much with placemaking.

Um, if you've walked through downtown last year, we uh make a significant investment in public art.

We um every other year, we actually invest in 26 sculptures that um typically animal themed.

Last year they were pig pig and themed, and we commissioned 26 artists, 26 different artists to paint and um disperse these sculptures during the warm weather months.

Uh this year we're going to be actually doing a more permanent installation in August, which is we're contracting with a firm in Montreal to bring high-end um swings, which are very family-friendly uh swings that are led, bring public art.

We're going to bring those to Columbus Aquamus Park, so we'll do much more to discuss as we move closer.

So I just want to give you a sense of our scope of work.

We very work very closely with Ms.

Kagan.

Um we are uh with the city.

We are re reviewing our approach to retail development and activating storefronts and bringing retailers to downtown.

We work very closely with Ralph Blessing and Vanita Matter from our land use bureau on uh land use uh planning decisions as well.

So it's a pretty broad scope and it has grown.

There's one thing that I want to bring um attention to.

Our organization is a again a special taxing district.

We have over 500 uh 500 properties in downtown.

And the property owners in downtown have chosen to tax themselves above and beyond their obligations, their property tax obligations to the city.

So property owners in downtown pay an additional 1.3 mills from excuse me, 1.39 mils above and beyond their property obligations to the city.

That funds roughly two-thirds of my budget, and we raise the remaining one-third from contributions, uh, event revenue sponsorships.

This year we have um certainly we do we do benefit from an operating uh budget sub uh operating budget subsidy from the city.

And we have asked for a spike in funding this year, and I will explain why.

So just a hint and um uh we can certainly make this presentation available to the members, but this is a summary of what we do for public uh realm maintenance and beautification.

Um we would take a roughly a third of our third of our allocation that we've requested from the city to subs uh help subsidize the operations of our public realm maintenance and beautification.

And also public and community events uh will be uh one of one third of that investment from the city as well.

We starting in warm weather months, we have multiple events per month up in April.

We're actually doing an event on uh Veterans Memorial Park called Touch a Truck, which is a free community event uh purposely scheduled during the uh school vacation for the public schools, in which we partner very closely with the city and EMS and fire and police.

They bring much of their equipment out to Veterans Park, and we provide a free uh free family-friendly event that brings thousands of folks throughout the day.

But we also, in addition to our large-scale events like our annual balloon parade spectacular, we provide farmers market.

Uh, we provide our heights and lights events in December, where uh Santa descends the tower at one landmark square.

We have uh uh street closure events, um two in particular.

Uh one's called Arts and Crafts, which takes place on Bedford Street, and then also we have um a street closure event on Lower Summer Street as well.

They're distinct block parties that we manage.

So we have a year-round with a primary focus on warm weather months of activating the public realm here in downtown.

One way that our um one way that our scope of services has changed dramatically over the last two to three years is we have branched into partnering with Domus Kids and specifically their Project New Um Project New Hope uh initiative to outreach to teens that come to downtown.

We have seen a spike in teens, not just from Stanford High School, although Stanford High School is just outside the district, but we see a spike in teens coming to downtown, and that brings a flurry of flurry of issues that we try to address.

Remember, we try to focus on the built environment, also the environment user experience within the public realm in downtown.

And that is very important to us.

It's the core to our mission, it's at the core of our mission.

And so we found that many kids were coming to downtown.

This was in the summer of 2023, and unfortunately starting a number of incidents, violent incidents.

And we thought this was not a uh an issue that we wanted to respond with police enforcement.

We decided to partner very closely with Domus to do outreach to these teens to um prevent confrontation and to try to steer them towards available services and available programming.

And what we're asking for the city is for a larger investment so that we can um expand that program.

You'll notice that uh I've included a report that we received from Domus that um tracks very closely the number of youth contacts they have and the outcomes.

And this is just a small, a small sample.

This is 285 contacts during the month of February when it's very cold in downtown.

We know what the inclement weather was like.

And so this these numbers spike in warm weather.

And why we think this is a program that's in need of greater investment from the city is because again, we are expanding our scope and we are addressing um kids that come from throughout the city, and we consider this a citywide um initiative that we we want to expand and start providing more constructive activities instead of just um the interaction and preventing uh confrontation.

We want to start investing in workforce uh training for the kids.

We want to invest in camp spots for the kids as well and having much more constructive um constructive activities as well.

And again, we see this as downtown grows, we see this issue growing at the same time as well.

And also we have started a partnership, it's now in our third year with Pacific House.

Um, if you'll notice the gentleman who is actually in the picture in my presentation, his name is uh Jason Giaramillo.

He is a former client of Pacific House, and we contract with Pacific House for uh 20 hours of case management and outreach services to the homeless, folks with mental health challenges, and folks that have or a threat of uh being homeless.

And what Jason does, and I have a small summary of his um outcomes from February is what Jason does, he is a very specialized, it is not something that a service that we produce uh provide in-house, but Jason meets with folks that have demonstrated mental health challenges, substance abuse challenges, or a threat of homelessness.

And what he does is try to give one-on-one case management and connect these individuals with permanent housing or housing options.

Again, we do not see homelessness as a police enforcement issue.

We see this as an issue that is very complex and requires outreach and a sensitive and professional touch.

So, again, what I'm trying to demonstrate today is we have an expansive core of services, and it is only expanding to meet the needs of our dynamic downtown.

And we think this is a vital citywide initiative.

And so I want um I'm hoping the folks from the committee realize that this isn't just an investment in downtown.

It's an investment in kids and folks who are at threat of homelessness from throughout the city.

And so just to finish, I have some more information about uh the the market in downtown.

I referenced uh a few statistics before again, 5700 uh total residential units in downtown with more than 2,000 planned over the next um three years.

We actually welcome over 1.9 million visitors to downtown.

We have a software that we use to track that, and those 1.9 million visitors uh represent 11.6 million visits.

So they may come to downtown multiple times.

And it's interesting the growth of UConn Stanford as well.

Almost 3,000 folks are enrolled as students, both as undergrads and grads.

Again, why do I bring up these statistics?

Because I want to demonstrate how our downtown is dynamic, it is growing, and then needs change as well.

So looking forward to uh next year, just so you know, our initial investment over the last three years are uh initial three uh year investment.

Each year we invest 25,000 of our own cash um in homelessness outreach services.

This year we're spending just over 67,000 um to invest in our relationship with uh with donus kids.

The city does share us, um, does provide us the mayor's office provides us a grant of 10,000 towards that.

Um, but most of that comes from our cash, and we do want to expand this.

We think it is we don't think we know this is necessary, and again, we want to just we want to grow beyond just providing um uh uh point of contact um services to offset or prevent confrontation.

We want to expand after school programming, camp enrollment, and workforce engagement.

Um, and that that will require additional capital.

And again, some additional images.

This is our farmers might market that we provide and from some of our spring plantings that we provide at Latham Park.

So I hope I didn't speak too quickly, but I want I I know that you're under a tremendous pressure.

I know it's a very tight uh budget.

Leah and I talk about this quite a bit.

Um, but I think it is a worthy and a necessary investment in our downtown and our youth and our social service provision throughout for the city.

So thank you for your consideration.

I'm available to provide uh answers to any questions.

Thank you, Brian.

Appreciate it.

Uh, are there any questions?

Uh anybody yes, Parker Johnson, representative Johnson.

Representative Johnson, did you raise your hand or is that an accident?

I think you may have sorry.

Yeah, my uh mic didn't unmute.

I just want to say no no firm questions, but just want to say big thanks to to Mike and his team.

Get a lot of comments when I'm out and about downtown.

These uh is managed to make a lot of fans.

So thanks for all the good work.

Thank you.

And uh I see representative Hughes.

Thank you, Chair Zachary.

Just wanted to also echo what Rep Johnson said and thank Mike for all that he and the downtown district does uh for our downtown.

And I definitely think it's a fair request given how rapidly uh we are growing downtown and how that uh increases uh the needs of the services that you provide.

Um, and just you know, the the more as Stanford can support its downtown core.

I think the the better the city does as a whole, um, and the more vibrant uh downtown will become.

Um, so just want to totally lend my support uh to this request.

And uh thanks again, Mike.

And I yield.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Arm bar.

Any other questions?

Me.

Um, as the Stanford probate court represents many um underprivileged people, um, and as a renter myself, you stated at 68% of the property owners and elected special assessments.

How many of those properties are rental units?

Okay, so we can I just clarify as something all property owners in downtown are obligated to pay.

Okay, so they all of them.

They have to pay.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, as uh there's as our obligation.

The 68% figures that 68% of my overall budget is derived from that assessment.

So those renters are the stop here.

This is a board meeting.

I just asked a question.

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

I I I don't believe you're an organization that's presenting.

Where was Stanford Pro Bitcoin?

Yes, all right.

Well, um, I'm not I'm not sure of the rules, but I do believe that it's for the time for the board members class.

Yeah, sorry, you could talk aboutwards.

No, you asked if anybody had questions, you look at I realize I've I've I erred this.

So I apologize.

Okay.

Sorry, scared away, Mr.

Johnson.

Um, just to know about the market in downtown um 90% of units in downtown movements.

So in that in the in the near future, uh we anticipate over the next three to five years the market will stay um in that direction.

That's right.

So you have a partial answer.

You're gonna stop here.

I like the rules.

Okay.

Um, Barbara, do you mind pulling up the slides that I've shared with you?

Thank you.

I'm sorry, that was Leah.

Yes.

Okay, no problem.

Um, but I actually um okay.

I I had uh Stanford probate court primed up.

So let me just pull yours up right now.

Thank you.

Barbara, I stopped sharing models.

Shouldn't have any issues.

All right, thanks, Barbara.

Um, we can probably just jump into the next slide or maybe even two ahead.

I think I left that placeholder in there.

So um my name is Leah Kagan.

I am the director of economic development for the city of Stanford.

I've been working for the city for the past four almost four and a half years, um, and been with economic development throughout this period of time.

Uh currently, the way that our department is structured, if you're not familiar, uh we have a special assistant to the mayor for economic development, and we have one program manager.

We are requesting an increase to have a second program manager in our department through this budget.

Next slide.

Um other than that, there are no other changes um to the budget.

I'll go through the two um requested increases in the next slide, but there's no other changes.

So we have put in a request for an additional uh position uh to expand the capacity of our team and an increase in our consulting fund budget of in the amount of 50,000.

And the goal um, the reason behind this requested increase is because last year we began doing business attraction marketing, and we want to continue this work and gradually expand it.

And it is uh it is not cheap.

So um, we in line with what we uh anticipate we would like to spend to target the the audience we are looking to target for this work, we put in a um this this increased amount.

Next slide.

So key challenges and changes.

I think I just thought I would share a few things in terms of how we are looking to reinforce the work that we're doing, especially with the increase of an additional staff person.

Um in the four years that I've been here, we had really seen a very interesting um uh transition with commercial real estate.

And I think that um, you know, we uh coming into this in the post-COVID era, which don't really like to talk about it anymore um and and bring it up, but we've seen such a shakeup in the commercial real estate both in Stanford and across the country.

So we really want to be very proactive in how we're attracting additional uh commercial tenants to our real estate.

And as many of you know, we've had really good success in our conversions of commercial to residential real estate where we have um you know vacant or slightly outdated property, but at the same time we have still a very large concentration of commercial real estate.

Our our vacancy rate has gone back down over the past few years.

So you know, at the peak of the pandemic, it was you know hovering around 30, 32 percent.

We're going back down to about 25 in our central business district.

Um, but we still have work to do, and it really is an a constant process.

You can never kind of um be idle because tenants are constantly renewing leases or or exploring other cost savings as most businesses do.

So this is something that we really want to stay on top of.

I would say that in addition, uh the one of the reasons why we are requesting uh an additional staff person is because of the need for really intensive small business support.

We over the past since last September, so not a full year yet, we had brought on a consultant.

We had um many of you may recall we had an uh an ARPA uh fund specifically for small businesses that the mayor had initially set aside uh the start of her first term.

We had done a small business grant, and at the end of that grant, we had distributed over 1.3 and a half million dollars, one point 1.35 million dollars out of the 1.5.

So with the remaining funds that we needed to expend before ARPA expired, we decided to direct it towards a small business uh support consultant who came on board with our team and really has done small business outreach, executed small business events, connected people within the community with a with resources outside of the city, even if they're at the state level.

And we felt that this has been a really productive use of our team and has really been able to deepen the engagement with small businesses, as I'm sure many of you know with um the transitions in the economy right now, small businesses, many of our downtown businesses are in need of additional resources and support.

And so part of what uh we would be able to do with the expanded staff is deepen our support for small businesses throughout the city.

Lastly, I think Stanford is at a really unique uh point in its trajectory.

We are the second largest and fastest growing city, and we have so much momentum, and expanding the department for economic development will help us meet the moment and uh take on new initiatives, uh, deepen our partnerships with organizations like the Stanford Partnership and DSSD and others that you've heard from.

And so going from a team of three to four would really help us do that.

We accomplish a lot with a team of three, and so I can only imagine how much more we'll be able to do with a fourth staff person.

Um next slide.

A few other quick things I wanted to mention since I had the opportunity.

Uh, this slide, uh, you know, looking for performance improvements and efficiencies, a few things I'll highlight.

Our department has begun tracking our metrics.

So we brought on a new system for tracking business outreach and engagement that we can then use to um scale our outreach, monitor how we're doing, see what's working and what's not working, and tie this as well with our marketing campaigns.

Um the past year we did uh a business attraction campaign, and uh many of you probably saw some of the ads at the train station that were donated by charter communications.

One of the lessons learned with this is that when we're working with a marketing firm, we really need to go all in in partnership with them.

So instead of having a marketing firm design the campaign and then separately pay for ads, marketing firms typically can get better rates when they are paying directly for the ads.

So we want to um we're gonna go out to RFP uh at the beginning of this uh next fiscal year to work with a firm to continue our business attraction marketing for.

Lastly, I just wanted to highlight a few areas of really strong cross-departmental collaboration.

The first is around sustainability.

Um, the city has a part-time sustainability coordinator.

We've worked with them uh over the past year and a half on securing a planning grant to develop public-private partnerships, um, a pipeline of projects around sustainability.

Um we did this with the support of the Connecticut Green Bank, and it's a collaboration that gave us the framework to then continue this work over the next few years.

We're very excited about.

Uh, second, we are collaborating with uh the tax assessors department.

Um, they typically send out income and expense statements every year to collect information that supports how we develop our grand list.

And uh we are partnering with them in doing outreach to businesses to make sure they know that they need to complete this form and submit it back to us so we have accurate data.

And lastly, we are collaborating with the health department.

We worked very closely with the board of representatives on the single use plastic ordinance.

And so we are also working closely with the health department in terms of the implementation of this ordinance and its impact on restaurants and other food service providers.

So while we do focus heavily on the business community externally, we do work on many initiatives within the city collaboratively with many of the departments.

And I think that was my last slide.

Thank you so much, Barbara.

Happy to take the touch.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Actually, I have a few.

So uh first how much so you said the vacancy rate is 25% at the moment.

How much is class A?

How much is class B?

I don't have the exact breakdown in front of me.

Um right now I can get that to you, but it's we, you know, so we'd have to get back to you.

I don't want to give you an estimate and it not being uh that is outside of the downtown.

So our a downtown vacance uh outside of our non-commercial central business district vacancy rate is higher, it's about still closer to 30%.

Um in terms of the breakdown of class A, B and C I can get that to you.

Great.

Thank you.

The other question I have is you received a sustainability grant.

What was the size of that?

It was a planning grant for 250,000.

It was through um an organization that uh received federal funding and we applied in 2024.

So we were very grateful that uh when we were awarded the grant in 2025, we were still able to access these funds.

Serendipitous.

Um that grant covered personnel or recovered.

So it could it it covered working with a consultant to develop a plan for the city on how it can engage different entities, so either the city, municipal departments themselves, or external stakeholders, for example, developers, on how we can all collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So for example, the green bank has many programs that can provide financial incentives, whether it's solar, uh path on affordable housing, or um electrification uh school buses, and so developing a roadmap with public input and input from the private sector on what the city should prioritize and what we can help support externally.

So bringing more resources, financial resources into the city and its partners so that we can all work on these goals.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Let me see if there are any other questions.

Anyone else have any questions?

Oh right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um next is WPCA.

Um Bill.

Yes, uh, good evening.

Uh it's Bill Brink with WPCA.

And I'm here with uh Rudin Bull.

And I'm not sure, Barbara.

Do you want to pull up our presentation or Radeen will in one of you?

I thought you said Rudin will, but if she can't, I'll go ahead and grab it.

Hold on.

Well, I think she's on, so let's see if she can.

I I still had the probate court and the sound.

Barbara, you can just pull it right up.

Okay.

Okay, can I can I just share my screen?

Sure, you should be able to go ahead and share your screen.

If you can't get it to show, let me know.

I have it up.

Okay, let's seems like it's not sharing, so I'll just go ahead and share and then just let me know when you want me to switch slides.

We won't share.

Thanks, Barbara.

Uh you can go to the next slide.

Okay, so uh just a brief overview of the WPCA.

Um, we provide wastewater uh collection and treatment for the city as well as providing wastewater treatment for the town of the area in.

Um we operate and maintain also operate and maintain the city's hurricane barrier and the three stormwater pump stations for which we get reimbursed by the city.

We are an enterprise fund within the city, so we raise our own revenue and it funds our operating expenses, also funds all our capital projects that we can fund from either our capital reserve that we um develop through our operations, or we issue uh revenue bonds.

Um the WPCA is overseen by nine member board of directors.

We have a total staff of 47 and includes all the administrative staff, laboratory staff, plant operators, mechanics, electricians, and also we operate or I should say we manage and oversee the uh the uh city's fat soil and grease program.

Um so that consists of a regulatory compliance coordinator and two environmental technicians.

Uh next slide, please.

This is a uh our organizational chart, which you probably can't read.

Um as you can see, you know, so 47 staff overseen by the board, myself, and uh and six managers, uh, and so forth and so on.

We can go to the next slide.

So overall, our operating budget this year uh, which includes our debt service, and as well as a contribution to our capital reserve is 29.7 million.

It's an increase of a little less than 800,000 or 2.2 and 3 quarter percent increase compared to uh to last year's current this this current year budget.

Um as I mentioned, it does include a contribution to our capital reserve fund, from which we fund uh a portion of our capital projects, and that is a 3.1 million projected uh increase in our capital reserve, which will come from again our our operating surplus, if you want to call it that.

It's the same as what we operate under in fiscal year 26.

And it's also consistent with our financial uh plan, which says that whatever we draw from our capital reserve we should replenish in the same year.

So that's uh consistent with our capital improvement plan.

Uh staffing changes.

The only staffing changes we have is uh we we hope to include to add an additional mechanic to our treatment plant staff.

Um currently the uh number of mechanics assigned to a treatment plant is four, and uh they operate in teams of two for safety reasons, and we find that that you know with with four individuals uh any given moment, you know, one may be out on PTO, which then brings it down to three, and then we're not as efficient because we we have three people doing the work of two.

Um so if we can increase our staff from four to five, then then we can more consistently maintain the staff of two mechanics performing you know different functions at the plant.

Uh the budget also includes increasing the hours of our customer service specialists who uh sits at the government center to receive uh customer walk-in payments of their through user charges, and that includes uh increasing her hours from 30 to 35 weeks.

Other than that, there's no other uh changes to our 47 staff.

Uh next slide.

So just to go over some of the significant increases and decreases in our budget.

Uh one of the more significant decreases is a uh uh a budget of uh two two million one hundred sixty-nine thousand for electrical uh use at the treatment plant, which is 14014,000 less than what we budgeted for the current year.

And that represents a 5% reduction that's attributed to both uh the fact that we are using less energy because we've done a number of energy saving measures.

We also entered into securing a contract that fixes our supply costs for electrical use for electrical use.

Um, but there's also you know offset by increases by ever source.

But overall, we're expecting a 5% decrease.

Um the other hand, we see an increase in our natural gas use by our sludge dryer uh of 83,000 uh going up from roughly 617,000 to 700,000.

That's a 13 and a half percent increase, and that's due uh mostly to the increase in gas prices, but also an increase in sludge volume that we're seeing from the increase in population coming into the uh city.

Um and uh also significant uh increases or increase of 300,000 for process and uh chemicals that we use.

This includes glycerin that we add to the process for nitrogen removal and chemicals that we add to our oil control systems to uh eliminate odors emissions with the plant.

And that's an increase from 400,000 to 700,000.

Uh there are number of adjustments to uh benefit costs, both up and down to largely offset each other.

So active medical and life insurance increased 83,000 offset by OPEB amorization is of 74,000.

Uh OPEB service costs, a decrease of 33,000.

When you look at the pluses and minuses of the other items, the net uh net impact on employee benefits is only 4,800.

Um significant change is our payments to insurance fund, which went down uh almost 184,000 compared to last year.

That was a large increase.

Uh our budget right now, I think is around 500,000 to put that in perspective.

Uh next slide.

Thank you.

Uh so other notable variances, these are variances of 25,000 or more.

Uh contracted services were increasing to 375,000.

And this is due we from this account we pay uh for the engineers report, which will be in support of our next revenue bond issue.

Um, on cost data services, which we renew each year.

Um, our annual audit and other miscellaneous professional services.

Uh OSHA safety requirements increased from 60,000 to 80,000, and that's for safety training and equipment.

Uh, we you know that's a that's a large emphasis that we employ for our staff uh because they do work in a uh very difficult environment.

Uh central service cost allocation of 679,000 is an increase of 68,000, and this is our reimbursement to the city for the services that they provide uh to the WPCA, including things like IT, HR purchasing, payroll, legal support, and that sort of thing.

Um laboratory contracted services and 190,000 is an increase of 20,000 from last year.

And this is a uh a large um one-time fee to get uh the conversion for our our laboratory software from uh to a Hawk WIM system, which is a more robust uh system that we can use to automatically take um testing that we do in the lab, record that it generates reports that we can then or that we're required to submit to Connecticut DEP for a permit, uh, and we can also track um the custody of when a sample is taken.

Uh we you know, just like uh you want to be able to know who took the sample, when it was who collected the sample, um, you know, when was it tested, that sort of thing.

We're not able to do that now, but that'll be uh done with this uh new testing and reporting software.

And then lastly, equipment maintenance for repair and equipment or treatment plant uh increase from 700,000 to 800,000.

Um this is uh replacement of of uh equipment repair of equipment, including spare parts.

Um if we have to go to outside vendor to repair the the uh pump or a motor, then that comes out of this account.

And we've seen a large increase in in this account uh over the years because we've seen a very large increase in both spare parts and the cost of you know labor by our outside vendors to do the repairs.

Uh next slide, Barbara.

Thank you.

Um so as I mentioned, we we raise our own revenues to uh to pay for our operating expenses and debt service.

Um revenue side, total revenues uh are uh estimated at 29,932,000.

Um it's an increase of about 420,000 or 1.42 percent compared to the current year.

Uh interest income is uh projected increase from a million dollars to two million dollars uh because we're getting very good um uh interest rates on our capital reserve funds that we have invested with uh Morgan Stanley.

Um that's consistent, you know, the million dollars we exceeded and we look to exceed this year, so I think it's appropriate to go to two million uh for next year.

Uh Darien's capital reimbursement actually went down.

So Darian pays us as I mentioned before.

We we uh provide wastewater treatment for town of Darien, and they reimbursed us for the uh for that service by paying both a fraction of our OM operating cost as well as a portion of our capital costs, and that's largely um the uh the payments that we make each year for our revenue bonds uh that they pay uh towards.

So so their capital reimbursement is projected to decrease um about 600,000 for two factors.

Last year they paid a very large portion of our uh capital costs because their flows relative to ours were higher.

Um and secondly, uh they're seeing the benefit as well as we did of paying off our 2006 revenue bond issue for the upgrade that was done in 2006.

Uh so we paid that off last year.

Uh we saw a very large reduction, and they since they're paying us basically one year behind, they're now seeing a debt benefit as well.

Excuse me.

And then so reuse fees.

So the bottom line is sewer use fees, which is a very large portion of our revenues and is what you know our our sewer user charges are based on.

We're showing as being level to last year of 21.1 million.

That's the good news.

Um looking towards the debt service.

Um our debt service went down considerably last year.

As I mentioned, we paid off to 2006 uh plan upgrade cost.

Um so it's relatively level this year.

It's uh slightly less, so 11,850.

Any questions on the revenue or operating budget at this point?

I can go into the capital costs if that's okay.

Okay, so our capital project requests these are are these three.

Okay, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I just wanted to uh make the note that uh in the budget book you can find WPCA on page 355, 361, 365, and there are some supplemental pages as well.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thanks.

Sorry, Bill.

No problem.

I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand up.

Uh so um these three uh capital projects are recurring projects.

Uh so we replenish them each year based upon the amount of work that we expect to do on these um three items uh based upon our capital improvement plan.

So first one uh is major replacements.

This largely pays or does pay for uh capital projects, uh capital equipment replacements, that sort of thing at the treatment plant.

So it includes it's 1.1 million that would be paid from our capital reserve, and it includes uh 300,000 um, I'm sorry, 350,000 to replace pumps and mixers, uh sort of liquid stream process uh equipment, uh HVA equipment at 100,000.

Uh we plan to replace uh two building roofs, at least one for 200,000.

Uh generator fuel storage tank, 150,000.

That's for our large uh generator.

Um holds uh 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel, uh sludge dryer equipment at 300,000.

Um again, it's funded from our capital reserve fund.

Uh second project sanitary sewer rehabilitation of uh 2,450,000.

This is a very large expenditure, more than what we spend prior years.

Um but we did do um so this covers any you know rehabilitation or repairs of our collection sewer sewers in our collection system.

Um we're budgeting one and a half million uh for rehabilitation of sanitary sewers.

This is removing uh infiltration inflow identified from our sanitary sewer evaluation survey that we performed uh uh last year that identified uh a lot of uh sewers that needed um the identified a lot of sewers were leaking uh infiltration inflow into the system and require repairs.

So we've increased this budget from prior years, like 500,000, tripled it to one and a half million.

Um also just miscellaneous repairs, these are ones that uh are spotted in the field where we've where we find uh broken line that's not necessarily part of the um II removal program, but just you know, pipe that needs repair 300,000, uh things like replacing manhole covers, 50,000, and then another item replacing the force main that serves the uh that this that's uh serves the Saddle Rock uh Road Pump Station in Japan, uh 600,000.

Uh this will also be funded from our capital reserve fund.

And then lastly, uh sanitary pump station upgrades.

So there's again another count that's recurring that we keep adding uh monies to each year, and this pays for any uh capital projects that occur in our collection system.

Um so includes uh the pump stations and the collection system.

Um so if a pump fails, we have to replace a pump uh that comes from this account.

Um just uh just as an aside, we we have to replace uh a pump or a cove island pump station, and we just got the cost from the uh vendor.

It's over 100,000, and I couldn't believe it was that much.

It's not that big of a pump.

Um we've seen tremendous increases in equipment costs uh since COVID.

Um any questions on this?

I'll go to the next page, if not.

Okay, uh Barbara, can you go to the next page?

Now these two projects are are not recurring.

These are large projects that we will fund with revenue bonds that we hope to issue um in fiscal year 20 uh uh 27, likely um next fall.

Um so we need to increase or we want to increase the uh the amount that we're budgeting for the replacement of our plant water returns activated sludge pumps and lease activated storage pumps.

Um we had uh prior budgeted uh 9.9 million.

Uh the design now is complete, and now it design is complete, and we have an updated cost estimate from the uh engineers, and it's 14.6 million.

So uh that's a substantial increase, but again, not too surprising.

We did make adjustments to scope.

We we added some things to the project, and it's probably the prior cost estimate was at least three three years old.

Um so it's not too surprising we had an increase, but I was surprised it was that much.

Um and then also with the Alver Lane and Commerce Drive pump station upgrades.

Uh those are Alver Lane's uh our oldest and and um second to counter our largest pump station.

Um hasn't been rehabilitated or updated in at least 30, 40 years.

Um so it's well in need of an upgrade.

Um we have prior, I think we're carrying an estimate of 5.9 million, and we're increasing it to six and a half million uh just because we know that um cost of you know that inflation over the last few years is easily uh 10 percent.

And I think that's all I have.

If there's any thank you, Bill.

Um questions for me, I'm from anybody else.

So thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, uh probate.

Hi, Nelly.

I'm Nelly.

Um and so we uh unfurled our 2026 uh information about the public and uh the general statutes 458.

We another city department or agency.

Uh so um we uh we have need of the town to to be there for the quotes and also we have in need of some of the uh things uh right now we have a few issues that have not been uh too incomplete.

I also already we do apologize.

We were just told about us having to be here a week ago today.

We're not an agency nor are we a department, so we've never actually been a part of this meeting before.

So everyone else is so well prepared and there's not much to say except uh we um uh working on the statutes.

So let me ask a couple questions.

You have even our summary of what you just typed out or print it up.

You can send that to us.

We've already sent everything to you guys.

Oh, yeah, I haven't seen it.

Because they gave us one week program.

I guess so.

Yes, we sent everybody everything to the email provided today.

Oh, okay.

I have seen it.

That's that's my that's on me.

And others may have.

So Barbara, this is a good thing.

I I think that maybe there's more of an education point to us being here.

So yeah, are you one question?

Are you looking for the city to provide funding?

Or are you simply actually statutorially?

Yeah, uh and and the net own the uh for uh the proposal of the uh budget 2026 yeah, we have another thing.

So yeah are you one question are you looking for the city to provide funding or are you simply statutorially automated to provide oh and and then we uh provided for uh the proposal of the uh budget of 2026 is yeah we have nothing we give it to everybody and um the reason why we're asking more than before is mostly because of postage actually Barbara could you make that a little larger I'm near I'm very near sighting I'm having trouble seeing it because that's the statute that's great thank you that's the statute okay so that's a statute all right and then we do have a few uh issues now we are not uh taking care of well the statute okay but we are not uh asking for that one yeah we have not we have not increased the budget to accommodate for the um deficiencies yet um we are trying to work our best to do what we can to clean up ourselves before requesting money from the city to minimize what we have to request from you understood um so especially the vault we have many closed files we are trying to um digitize and destroy before we actually request for funds revive the fire safe cases because the vault we have by statute is supposed to be fired from it is not okay um and that way since we've been here uh so we are trying to produce the amount of files are in the vault then we can request those fire king cases understood we also uh asked for um additional post and uh why lines which we need as soon as possible is actually ports electrical it's not electrical it's not electrical ports your data ports the cat six cable that we should have which we do not have to have and we do not have um kind of any security no we we we requested electronic access to the port um the previous security supervisor had looked into it and priced it out for us and it died with yeah let me make a note friction I forget his last name okay so let me just start off fireproof vaults how many do you need and what is the cost we have not done because we haven't covered yet rough probably five thousand the case and you need two probably no we probably need 15 to 20 okay 15 to 20 at roughly five K each roughly yes it is literally a guess to it okay yes and two you need postage postage is a huge cost so yeah 2000 a year yeah that's the yeah it goes up obviously postage increase goes up plus the volume of people in Stanford and the CD's dying goes up so everything goes up.

Conserve people okay is more that too the B of the city the more and you need CAT5 or CAT six yes ports do you have CAT for wiring we have fiber optic but we're not up to speed with the mandate to be up to speed with what our probate port administration has provided us because the actual facility has not updated our wiring nor the amount of ports and each each desk is because I have two ports one for a phone one for a computer and right now they're all daisy chain okay all right so there's a lot so do let me I'm new with this it's my first year it seems sensible if you put together some rough numbers and try to make them firmer and come back to us the we have to go down the budget reasonably soon.

So do you think you can get it done today is Thursday you think we can get it done a week from today um if you start possibly if the city would allow I think sammy is the department for IT and I believe facilities also they both have to work congruently together.

Okay let's see what we can do about that uh I can't I can't promise anything because as I said I'm new and no we're we appreciate any but the the way to where you we are here also is probably because we are asking more than 2500 and in that we are asking for 6250 for the 2026 2027 uh budget okay not more than 25000 but most of it is not actually any of what we are talking about now is mostly for uh us being able to function as we function today yeah unless we have been functional so what would that 625 cover then actually um yeah I know you don't have it but here you know so we were asking less than we should have been the previous years so we've been borrowing from tomorrow to pay back yesterday for a number of years um until I created the spreadsheet and we have marked everything.

But actually, um I know you don't have it, but here you know.

So we were asking less than we should have been the previous years.

So we've been borrowing from tomorrow to pay back yesterday for a number of years, um, until I created the spreadsheet, and we have marked everything.

So these are your actual operating costs.

Correct.

Okay.

The ones in red above are the estimated.

Okay.

Because that was when we submitted the proposal.

And then the highlighted yellow is actually what we would give back to the city of Stanford for postage.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

If you look in the uh general operating budget uh page 304.

You'll find item 5060.

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

And we we know we want to keep the cost down for the city as much as possible.

So we have been trying to prepare um ourselves.

Yeah, and we we clean up uh as much as we can in the vote.

Okay.

Every week when we run on that, and we use the internals actually for us to get some faster.

I understand everything for jury, right?

I understand that.

But we do want to we do want to ask, you know, exactly what our operating costs are.

We do root buyer more budget going forward.

We just want to be as prepared and asking for as little as possible.

All right.

Let's see what we can do.

Okay, we really cannot.

Because you put it in their grass for 625.

That's all and the mayor has approved it.

All we could do is cut it.

We cannot add to it.

We understand that.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

It's our that's the way the world works here.

We understand.

All right.

Uh so all I can say is thank you.

We'll see what we can do.

Um it's not a huge increase, but we could I think as you said.

This is probably your first time presenting to us.

Yeah.

It's probably I one recommendation make us ask for more next year.

Ask for what you need.

Yes.

And then you can always you may not get it, but if you don't ask, you're not gonna get.

We would we would definitely, and if if the city could provide um the I like I said, the IT and the facilities would be greatly talking about with I guess technically runs that others that we'll figure that out.

We'll or we'll try to help you.

Oh I thank you so much.

Really, really appreciate it.

Yeah, I can't.

I'm sorry, I had to catch you up before you really no listen, you looked at me, so I was like, I have a question.

You told me to stop, it's not my time, I will stop.

Uh anybody else.

I always see representative crew is represented more.

So I think we're good.

Whoa.

Do you need it?

Yes, we have many copies.

Uh yeah, I could.

I'm I'm we have sound waters.

Yes.

I have your presentation up.

Uh Ms.

Shemitz, when you're ready.

If you're not able to share, let me know, and then I can go through your slides.

But if you prefer to share and do the slides yourself, that's fine as well.

Sure.

I just uh start sharing.

Did that work for everyone?

I can see it.

Yes.

Great.

Let me just make it full screen.

There you go.

Okay.

Terrific.

Thank you all.

Um, I've it's been a long night.

I know you have many of them.

I've actually enjoyed listening to everyone and uh getting a sense of all that great work going on.

Thanks for your time tonight.

Happy to answer questions.

I will make it brief.

Um, and I guess the first thing just if I could um how many of you know something about soundwaters that would actually shape how I how I engage with you all often I people know a lot, but I I don't want to presume.

I know there's a lot of new members.

Um give me a sense of a thumbs up, a thumbs down.

Not that you're negative, but you know you don't know anything there.

I think it's fair to say we have a few people who know quite a bit and a few people who know nothing.

So somewhere in the middle might do well.

Fair enough.

All right, thanks so much.

Um's our ethos is that the sound, Long Island sound, um, is the best classroom.

Um, and we reference it as the million acre classroom.

It's where we teach the science of the natural world.

Um our belief is that when students discover the sound, they can embrace the world.

One of the challenges of our community is that even though Long Island Sound is our greatest natural resource and is our coastline, it is a very hard place to get to.

Um and I mean literally and figuratively, uh, that even if you can get down to the beach or whatever with your class, whatever, it's a very hard place to get out to.

You need skills, you need materials, you need access, you need so much.

And our goal is to lower that barrier to access.

And what you'll see is that I would say we are wildly successful with our community in Stanford.

And our goal is that every child here grows up intimately knowledgeable of learning in part of the natural world of Long Island Sound for their learning, for their for their health and for their futures.

We believe the issue is simply too big to think small.

As you all know, young people are inheriting a complicated planet.

They know this.

We teach every high school student in in Stanford Public Schools.

Some come to us in ninth grade, some come to us in after school programs and summer programs and get very intensive with us.

We reach every Stanford student in multiple grades, minimally, that will be first, third, sixth, and ninth graders at no cost to the city.

We are embedded in the curriculum of Stanford Public Schools.

They are a fabulous partner.

That might be on our schooner.

It might be on our research vessel, as you see here with the after school program.

It might be at our harbor center at Pakutsi Park.

That is where starting after spring break, we'll have all the half of the ninth grade coming, the other half came in the fall.

It might be at Cove Island, where our first and third graders and sixth graders will be, some in the fall, some in the spring.

We'll be in their schools during the winter, doing after school programs.

It's an extraordinary partnership.

And again, provided at no cost to the city.

Our goal, and we realize it, is that every student interacts, learns with and thrives on Long Island Sound as part of being a citizen of our city.

I have this quote from Leslie Gata.

Leslie is probably now she's probably around 25.

That's her on the right.

We found this photo of our younger.

I've known Leslie probably all that time.

But even me knowing Leslie, I didn't realize how much Soundwaters was part of her journey from when she was a student at KT Murphy when she did our summer program, when she did our after school program, when she became a summer intern.

She then went on to Yale.

And she now works in the field of climate science.

And as she noted when we were talking, and she has shared her story with Soundwaters, not every Soundwater student, not every, you know, Stanford student will go on to enter the environmental field.

That's not our goal here, but every student will walk away with an unparalleled appreciation with the natural world.

And we believe her words there, that alone, that's the catalyst for change.

We truly believe this is how we change the world, and we are thrilled that Stanford, we work with many communities.

Stanford is our home port.

Stanford is this is the community that is our home.

It's my home.

And it is where we have the most extensive relationship of any district at all.

We provide singular opportunities.

It's a late night.

I could talk soundwaters, and I often do for hours and hours.

I will not force that on you tonight.

But there's so many different programs we do.

As I said, we have our extraordinary resources of the schooner.

We have a research vessel.

We have the opportunity to be at Cove Island Park, which is a spectacular space to teach coastal ecology.

And we have our new harbor center.

This is a picture from there that opened in 2022 at Bakutsi Park.

And part of our goal, and the city is a great partner, is to provide additional opportunities.

One is job training, and that is provided at no cost to these young people.

They work with us for uh three months before going out in the field, and they are played a stipend in that time.

Um we last year we added a high school program.

Last year it was just a handful of kids, and now it's a full-on program.

Again, the stamp from public school students after school at no cost to them.

So it's the uh the job training.

I would say about a third of them right now are then go interested into the marine fields, others go into other fields.

That's okay with us.

The idea of engaging young people in skills that might be welding, that might be uh construction, that might be fiberglassing, might be small engine repair, it might be a power washing, all the skills that um make up the maritime community, uh, which is a thriving industry looking to hire as well as other fields.

So from you know, the the most adorable moments with our preschool students from the children's learning center all the way up to our young adults.

These are high school graduates who are learned job skills.

That's the gamut of opportunities for Stanford young people that we uh that we that we provide.

There's a community impact uh as well.

Um we do a lot with our community.

We offer special programs with other nonprofits, whether it's the boys and girls club, whether it's B1C.

Um we also lead community efforts for volunteer hours.

Um usually uh these will be dozens of cleanups over the course of every year.

Last year, just some of our number, there were 45 cleanups.

Um, every Stanford park and beach, uh, over a ton of debris removed.

This is kind of part of the fabric of what we do.

Um, it's when students get volunteer hours, it's when people have a way as a family to give back as individuals.

Um, and it's an important part of what we do with this city.

Um, and finally, uh what we're asking um, as we have in the past is 100,000 of support.

That is a fraction of the amount of scholarship we provide to Stanford Public School students.

It is our is our great pleasure.

It is our commitment.

We have always believed and always act on the belief that the sound is not a place of privilege, um, that every student and most especially every Stanford student, this is uh their home.

Um, and so the investment that you make, um, which we apply directly to the salaries of our extraordinary team, that is uh what uh helps to make this possible.

My comments here at the bottom, we say we are a coastal city, we're a waterfront city.

So few of us get to live that every day.

I have that incredible privilege.

In many ways, being a waterfront is what makes us unique.

And what we seek to do in partnership with the city is leverage the waterfront as an amenity for learning, for living, um, for celebrating life here um in our community.

That's my presentation.

I'm happy to take questions of what we do.

There's so many different programs.

I I'm mindful of your time and how hard you work, but uh, hope you have some questions and I'd love to answer any.

Oh, thank you, Lee.

Uh Representative Morrison, Representative La Cruz, any questions?

We think I personally think Soundwaters is a great program.

Uh I'm glad you're here.

Thank you very much for all the work you do and for bringing so many children and young adults out to the waterfront, seeing what Long Island Sound really is.

It's a great uh coastal city and it's an interesting place to live.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you for talking.

Thank you.

Wait, wait.

Yes, of course.

Yes.

Uh I want to echo your comments.

I have seen the results of Soundwater's work on the environment and on the children that they said they serve.

And I don't know what we would do without them.

So I want to thank Lee again for all the Soundwater for Stanford and the region.

You know, love the oyster shows, the kale, the number of things that have come back on the sound.

So once again, thank you, Lee, for all you do.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And Lee, just one last comment.

Lee, if you're here.

Yeah.

Uh my wife met the man who started the big and oyster project.

Oh, really?

Fabulous.

Fabulous.

Yeah, they I I'm thrilled with what they do.

Absolutely.

That's wonderful.

All right.

Thank you very much.

It's a late evening, 7.15.

We're at your formally adjourned at 7.13, actually.

Let's call it a night.

And uh thank you very much.

Uh thank you all.

All right.

Good night.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a good night.