well good evening everyone welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of the city council we're glad that you're here and james tonight or perhaps watching at home or on a mobile device somewhere in the world we begin tonight's meeting as we always do first of the roll call vote made sure of the first ward and immediately thereafter we will say the pledge of allegiance to our flag if you are in chambers are suppose at home or elsewhere you can certainly join us but if you're in chambers or certainly invite you to stand and join us for both of these items we father we thank you for the beautiful sunshine and the nurturing rain we know that you are the great caretaker of all please be with all those that protect us both near and far keep them from you and from harm's way father we ask that you be with our colleague nancy and her family in the in their time of grief give them the comfort from your loving heart and also lord please be with and his family as he embarks on a new chapter of the of their lives grant him the wisdom to lead trinity college by your wishes now lord be with us as a council as we deliberate the issues of thank you mike there are paper copies of the agenda located in the rack in the rear of the room if you'd like to take a copy of that or if you have a computer or mobile device with you you can also find a copy of the agenda online as well as about a copy of all the background material counsel has reviewed  preparation for this evening's meetings we put that sort of information out on the website friday monday of the time before our meeting takes place so that do you have access as the public to everything that we're looking at as we prepare for these council meetings you will note as you review a number of the if you review the agenda that there are a number of items that have an asterisk next to them these are items that are what we call the consent agenda items which means that they're going to be handled all together in one motion one vote handling all of these items collectively in a moment i will ask the deputy city clerk to read for us the items that are presently on the consent agenda after she's done with that i will  offer an opportunity for items to be removed from the consent of gender if the audience cares to do so and i'll talk more about that after we hear from ana as to what is presently on the consent agenda to improve the minutes of the me twenty seven study session in june three two thousand and fifteen regular meaning to excuse absence of council member members peter and white men in a to accept in files of office from various boards and commission item eleven b to accept a a one ninety eight tax abatement application from otis integrated technologies inc at eighty eight east forty eight st for study and report item fourteen a one to approve a metro permit with georgetown charter township pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen e two to approve of facilities in coachmen agreement with c s extremes potations and to include payment of the associated encroachments and real protective liability fees in the total in the amount of seven thousand dollars for the eighth street reconstruction and snow melt transmission project pending approval as to form by the city attorney fourteen eighty three to approve of facilities encroachments agreement with c s ex transportation and license and insurance the payment one thousand one hundred twenty six for the installation of electric line and fiber optic cable under the existing railroad tracks on a street near fair banks pending approval  by the city attorney fourteen for to approve a contract with miss wonder environmental for a total amount to one hundred sixty thousand one hundred sixty four the building of a forested wetland to mitigate for wetland distributed disturbed during the building of the one thirty eight k v interconnect line pending approval s to form by the project attorney item fourteen a five to approve a contract with precision trenching for the annual contract of construction tributed generation policy for customer own generation and modifications to the net metering policy for the larger customer own renewable just tribute to generation installation i had imported a seven to approve an execute union of america local six ten effect of july one two thousand and fifteen to march thirty one two thousand and eighteen item fourteen eighty nine to approve the mers plan amendment for excluding any payment at retirement of occurred paid time off beyond two hundred forty hours from the definition of compensation effect of october one two thousand and sixteen i don't fourteen a ten to approve the mers plan amendment increasing division eleven employee pension contributions from two percent to three percent effective october one two thousand and fifteen item fourteen eleven to approve the wage scale adjustment for the how the public works nonunion employees to one point eight percent increase effective july one two thousand and fifteen fourteen twelve to approve classifications of one crew supervisor wage scale from a b m five from four sixty six thousand six hundred thirty in ninety three cents to eighty six thousand six hundred twenty and twenty cents to the b m six at seventy one thousand nine hundred twenty two eighty two to ninety three thousand one hundred sixty seven and operations in metering supervisor job from a b m four from sixty thousand five seventy five fifty four to b m five from sixty six thousand six thirty ninety three to eighty six thousand six hundred twenty and twenty cents item fourteen the want to refer claims filed against the  to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration i had important to to amend the two thousand and fifteen schedule of fees and charges to include the passport execution fee of twenty five dollars and passport photo fee of ten dollars as requested by the clerk's office effective media only fortini one point one to adopt a resolution of intent and stablish in the neighborhood enterprise zone to rehabilitate property located at one twenty forty six street item fourteen the one point two to approve the extension of the mechanical and electrical inspection contracts with the city of zealand in hauen church or township with an expiration date of june thirtieth two thousand and sixteen pending both jurisdictions willing to renew certain contracts item fourteen eat two point one to approve a first amendment to the two thousand and fifty house pool contract with the how and area community swimming pool authority for clarification to the city's insurance responsibilities from that of the how an area community swimming pool authority subject to approval as to form by or city attorney item fortini two point two to approve the bid submitted by w m r in the total amount of forty thousand for the traffic calming and caught crossing improvement for the tenth street and been rotty intersection with funds to be allocated from the capital improvement fund item fortini three point one two except as presented the may two thousand and five monthly financial report item fourteen e three point two two approve the fiscal year two thousand and fifteen two thousand and sixteen insurance program with arthur j gallagher insurance and to approve an insurance renewal with a s c for the third party in ministration item fourteen east three point three two approve the fiscal year two thousand and five year end budget amendment as presented it to authorize the finance director to make the necessary transfers an amendment i fortini point four to declare various evidence items items no longer needed for the public safety police division and to dispose of them as deemed appropriate item fourteen e three point five to declare surplus a two thousand and thirteen board super duty pickup truck and authorize staff to place and gov deals dot com i know fourteen e's three point six two approve the bid submitted by crown motors for the purchase of a two thousand and sixteen ram fifteen hundred pickup truck in the amount of twenty six thousand three hundred seventy three for the parks department and to amend the two thousand and sixteen budget as needed fourteen e three point seven to approve the bid and installation of windows for the hauen historical trust museum with construction at a cost of thirty six thousand four hundred with a not to exceed amount of forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine and to purchase the windows from systems international inc of kalamazoo at a cost of twenty one thousand four hundred seven with an amount not to exceed thirty thousand dollars funded by a grant received from the state historic preservation office of a sixty percent in a forty percent of the cost from bonds committed to the historical trust for projects in the current municipal capital improvement on budget all right thank you anna so that is what is going to be voted on collectively one motion one vote many of these items have been reviewed by counsel previously handled by the board of public works or are somewhat routine so you heard perhaps may not think there's a routine in fact you might have showed up tonight to specifically speak to one of these items and if that's the case at this time i would invite anybody who would like to remove an item from the list of things that the deputy city clerk just read step for the microphone tell us which one you'd like removed and if that happens will then handle it where it shows up in the in the agenda otherwise situated  a support supported by de boer is there any discussion on it i would only make one note and though it's seemingly routine because we approve insurance every year and  definitely quite boring if you never looked at insurance policies the city went through a process this year and ended up between the city and d p w saving about twelve percent on the on the rates that we pay so it was a good process to go through with obviously good results us down to the public order of the day a public airing of it we have two of them actually the first one is a public hearing of necessity related to the central avenue snow melt improvement projects this could be a very interesting discussion  for a whole host of reasons and i'm not quite sure how to begin the discussion if only perhaps to have brian white's ready at hand our director of the streets department and bryan or mr  acting as your city manager tonight if you want to introduce the item for us and then after that we will we will move forward don't all rushed off at the same time to bryant looks like you assessment roll first normal improvements along central avenue and i think what i'd like to do is get the visuals going  good and i'm going to get right into the to the maps here so the on the screens here before you there's two pages to the map and the legend at the bottom right is the key to this basically what seeing there is central avenue with fifth street be in the northerly limit of the current assessment district this is where the railroad tracks across central avenue and then basically  then if we go into the next sheet we take it all the way down to twentieth street over to the street so what i'd like to do is just share with you what the current assessment boundary is and then what the proposed amendment includes so the  current assessment boundary again the northern boundary that is fist street the southern boundary that is thirteenth street and the red areas in that area were previously approved under the existing snow melt already in place yes prior to the project right red is what was approved a couple of months ago correct and what we're discussing primarily tonight is anything in blue correct that that is that is what we're talking about into another distinction that i want to share with you is that we often talk of snow in terms of transmission and distribution transmission basically when we talk about it in that context and volves the  snow melt means the larger pipes that go on the street that provides the supply water the water out to what we call the distribution areas the distribution areas are actually the next to bill little plastic tube that actually does the heating underneath the roadway and underneath the sidewalk so there's two to distinction with distinctions that we make when we talk about snow melt talk about it in terms of snow melt transmission big pipes in the roadways and then in terms  with regard to to this the discussion here tonight so i'm not sure if we want to go any further than that at this point but that kind of sets the table for the discussion here brian if i may also  may the distinction between is that sometimes we refer to those things in between the transmission and the distribution lines transmission lines essentially or a large water pipes the distributor that transfer the distribution lines are the spaghetti things that look like rating floor heating  you know if you've been down town of lates you see that the things going back and forth in the sidewalk and scream area that's the distribution piece the transmission you probably wouldn't recognize as being anything different from the water line that you  yes correct why don't we stop there for the second and then i have a question for the city attorney the question is this in historical practice when the city has added a snow melt to a location extending down eighth street extended in other places when we did this a couple of months ago my understanding is that the transmission line the big waterline piece is not subject to an assessment the distribution the pex tubing the radiant floor heating if you will typically has been done on a fifty fifty basis the city pays fifty percent of the capital cost the property owner pays the other fifty percent hypothetically and we know everybody i think in the room tonight has heard about the offer of a donation to cover some costs related to this expansion we're talking about this evening hypothetically if the council were to accept that donation and use it to cover the property owner share of the distribution capital costs so the fifty percent share the property owner typically would pay for the being ready in floor heating kinds of things would we have to amend the assessment district at all or because the property owner share is being covered by a donation do we even have to in the district if there would be no assessment then we would not need to amend the district because a city can go forward with a project without assessments without doing an assessment district at a future time if there's a desire to assess for operating costs for example the district could be established at that time all right that's helpful thank you  any questions for mr white or for the city attorney at this time council otherwise let's keep the the discussion moving forward and i guess perhaps mr holcombe is here this evening and perhaps greg it might be an separate letter in a dungeon describing our effort to raise and provide five hundred thousand dollars to the city in support of this project this extension of snow melt down central principle from thirteen to twenty  in to cover what would be otherwise about one hundred fifty thousand dollars in capital sustenance that were notified a notice to that to the folks in that area as well as an amount of money that would cover approximately half of the operating cost the annual operating cost for the first five years which is estimated to be about twenty five thousand dollars also the the third part is in order to  provide funds to help in the transfer of the greenhouse from the city to evergreen commons we've earmarked an amount of money that should help pay for at least the appraised value of forty thousand dollars and we think that it might require a little bit more to get an apples to apples replacement for the greenhouse so all in all those dollars and those commitments as is are why we are raising the funds we think that this opportunity to take snow melt into this neighborhood which includes residential commercial and institutional uses is a chance to make our own central part of home in an even stronger  community to take the benefits of snow melt and potentially destroy teeth over time into this area we know that river avenue for example will not be touched again with major infrastructure changes for some years so even from central avenue district heat and snow melt could be brought to the river avenue corridor but all in all we've been working hard to raise money working with staff in a great way and appreciate all the great work that they have been doing to get this proposal to to you for consideration in order for us to add another component of our dynamic central city community using snow melt getting the big pipes and the little pipes into this co time the persons who potentially could be affected by the amendment to the assessment district receive notice of that if it's to that effect and at this time i think what we should do is open the public hearing and for those of you who want to make comment a few things that you should know first of all we ask you to step forward of the podium in the microphone so that everybody not just here in chambers can hear what you have to say but also anybody listening at home or elsewhere to hear what you have to say council rules require your name and residential address for the record and council rules also permit up to five minutes to address council on any one topic and the way that we accomplish that hopefully relatively easily and without disrupting your comments are that once you begin speaking and mediately beneath me you'll see a little green light turn on and when it gets to the four minute mark it will turn yellow and then when your five minutes have expired it turns red so you know that your time has expired you know it's take all five but you have up to five minutes to address council and i would make one request of anyone cost assessment assessed to you as a property owner i'm assuming many in here property owners so if we could get a sort of a sense as to your comments if you were asked to pay a capital assessment versus or in addition to if you were not asked to pay capital spending that be helpful for council to hear with that i will open up the public hearing at this time and invite anyone to step forward and address council in this particular item tonight i understand that my block is not a done deal but i think snow melt is a good idea however i don't think it's fair for the chosen few to have to pay for something that benefits the whole city so if i were asked to vote on snow melt i would say no having to pay the capital assessment i wouldn't object to paying the annual maintenance fee but i would object to paying the capital assessment i don't know why our block is not a done deal yet i i understood that it had something to do with the fact the city did question why doesn't the city want to do the block and find a centennial park previously approved was the was the east side of that block and i'm sorry which would block are you between i'm i'm i'm the only house that faces on central between twelve and thirteen on the west side so you have no interest in doing the block along capitol park along centennial park i guess we'll find out takes five votes on council to do something so well we'll find out on that answer yeah well that's where i would because i heard at this whatever that was last night that we had that meeting that it was contingent that my block was contingent on you doing that block on centennial park so i don't know i don't know but that's what i was told and that's what i'm that's what i would like to know i'd also like to know why my my rep on the council didn't call me and ask me what i thought you know before all of this came to fruition you know you know i think it there weren't that many people involved it wouldn't have taken many phone calls you know to call one of us and say what do you think about snow mail but i can tell you this i will not for paying for the capitol assessment i can't afford it it's a hardship we're on a fixed income but you know we can handle the maintenance free but i also wonder about across the street is that a done deal the west side is already a done deal because that's a huge assessment for them and we're neighbors he said you mean the east side right now that that assessment was approved a couple of months ago or whenever we did that earlier in the summer in the  but it didn't go it's it's not a public vote i mean they didn't want it i don't think so so i guess i'm having a little trouble understanding how you move ahead when people don't want it and most everyone i've talked to property at one west seventeenth which is on the northwest corner of central and seventeenth and to be honest when i read first received my letter about the assessment i saw the number and it did seem like quite a bit to pay but hearing that there's a group of anonymous donors behind this whole project that's willing to pay for the capital costs and of course very much supportive and i was supportive of it i do love the snow melt in downtown holland and i think expanding it out as a great idea and i good evening and welcome thank you and walter ron and again i live on the east twelve saint i have several comments one of them is regarding the inappropriate bundling of snow melt water and sewer well well i will not argue with the authority of this consul to make decisions regarding water and sewer i would argue that snow melt is more akin to bike paths and tulip lane are wonderful things to have the whole idea of the snow melt system is the vision is wonderful i don't think anybody's arguing with that the problem comes when we talk about you know who's going to pay for this  you know i don't know the particulars of how the big bike lanes and the to the planes were funded but i would suggest and encourage you know a revaluation of the approach that's currently being utilized to make note that the notification for the meetings that were occurring earlier in the year in march for the already approved storm system were very inadequate very inadequate most of the people were at least a good number of the people that i know personally who had a direct interest and investment in this stake in this huge stake in this were away for the winter snowbirds and again i think the snow melt should not be bundled in appropriately with water and sewer services it is a completely different item more akin to bike paths and tulip lanes it should be brought up as a vote to the entire community of holland because it will benefit the entire community of holland i think the residents who came up here and said there they were willing to pay the maintenance costs are being very generous i don't believe that either the capital  investment that's initial and any maintenance costs should should be on the shoulders of property owners we as a whole and i aside from what i mean i invite somebody to contradict this as a whole were very negative about taking responsibility of financing this project and i don't understand when we have consul members who are voted in by popular vote to serve the interest good evening and welcome good evening my name is michael dion i reside at four aid for college avenue which is right on the corner of twentieth street and i have two things one i just want to say the idea of snow melt coming up central avenue and getting close to my property is a great idea and i have the opinion that even though i am a block away from the proposed normal expansion i would be willing to even have a small assessment on my taxes i think the corps door between river and college from twelve to twenty eighth is going to benefit from this and put it all on the shoulders of residents on just the single side of the road is pretty harsh you know obviously somebody is going to walk across in the snow melts there  so i just want to put that opinion out there that i live in that area and that's my opinion the second thing is i'd like to hear some numbers because obviously we have a grant to coming in from the heart of holland foundation and we have the money needed to do this snow melt project and maintain it and there's clearly a gap or else we wouldn't have this meeting and all of that grant was enough to cover everything and all of the existing you know the ongoing cost of this is going to happen so how much are we actually talking needs to be raised here what are the ongoing costs because they few know numbers being thrown out that they raise five hundred thousand from a part of the city that's so what what what is the missing number here that isn't being covered that we're trying to reach and that disagreement is about so thank you tim might this be an appropriate time to show that one slide with us there are many ways you can heloc at the numbers this i think is one of the perhaps one of the clearest we'll find out where you think  i'll turn to so there's many different ways to look at numbers what i did in this slide was attempted to show that if five hundred thousand dollar  donation was made the additional costs in the distribution piece only just the distribution would be about three hundred forty thousand dollars now if we assess a portion of this is for the west side if we assessed a portion of that to the property owners of still leave the general city public taxpayers of course and so as i saw this number the three hundred forty thousand dollars is really what it costs  street west side that would be split in half fifty fifty so the city picks up fifty percent of the cost the property owner picks up fifty percent of that cost per foot basis exactly so historically those kinds of things are shared by the public at large as well as what is perceived to be the benefit of the direct property owner there so that's historically we've we've handled capital assessments of all types not just not just these west side as well which is basically the property in front of centennial park and then taking it down to thirteenth where this would link together so the idea would be to connect that gap that would go from strictly all the way on the west side in both directions at this point in time it's on the east side of the current assessment district so that cost is one hundred eighty thousand dollars in large so a big piece of that is a long  front of a centennial park and that's a fairly large number so the taxpayers at large of the city of holland would cost but the way the prior plan had been approved was to have the  sidewalk snow melted sidewalk on the east side of the road so this it would add it on both sides so i see an additional hundred eight thousand dollars that the taxpayers would be responsible to pay a part of that would come from that five hundred thousand dollars the third piece that i've identified here is that the twenty five thousand dollars number that would help defray the annual assessment over a five year period so the estimated cost of that is about five thousand a year so i just did the math and in my mind that left us with about twenty seven thousand dollars to address the cost of this green house that the city clearly will have another very large exposure for so  it's less than the praise the mountain certainly significantly less than what the cities to the cost of replacing their greenhouse would be the cost replacing greenhouse we've had estimates anywhere  from as low as seventy thousand to four hundred fifty thousand so somewhere in the middle of there i suspect is where the number is so clearly there is a great need if we if we move away and we transfer the property of the greenhouse to the every commons folks there is going to be a cost that's going to be borne by the taxpayers as well so all of those are are sort of the math as i see it in this gift if you will and how to delegate funds accordingly and i might also add that the transmission piece that the major waterline if you will to extend that from thirteenth to roughly twentieth street is about three hundred forty five thousand dollars and then as as tim mentioned on some of the distribution costs three forty and another hundred eight so those are the kinds of costs that from the capital side that are put into place every year there's an annual assessment for maintenance of the system in those kinds of things and that's been in place ever since snow melt has been anywhere in holland you know valves wear out and has to be maintenance done and there's a little bit of a cost that gets assessed or gets paid to the b p w four for various kinds of you know water sorts of things so that's where the annual assessment operational assessment comes from as well so hopefully it gives you a little bit of a sense as to some of the numbers can i clarify the annual assessment the annual operating assessment also includes  he portion of the mains ok so when we start talking about these transmission mains part of that cost his bit is included if you will in those fees so there's this th flushing of the bells and the replacement in the digging up of the of the sidewalk or whatever you have to do to fix things there's the energy component of pumping that water through the lines the energy there but there's also this pardon for those large mains that are under the ground so that part of it is borne by the large snowball users and so currently the system is small and we're looking to expand it significantly and that's part of why we're having this conversation so there will be additional costs in that operating assessment that are in essence capital related but it's capital related to the transmission piece not the distribution piece good evening and welcome thank you the name is john myers and i live at eight west seventeenth street i'm on the southwest corner of seventeenth and central america property goes sideways so i've got sixty six hundred dollars worth of this that i'm on the hook for if this goes through now it sounds like if the donation goes through that is wiped clear the how it was that they were talking about that  after that five year period is up just doing rough numbers i'm guessing one hundred two hundred dollars a year at a fair guess i'm not i'm not putting you guys on the record i'm just trying to understand what this will cost me well you look it up i'll go on can i respond to that just for fun john i read your numbers and yours is about two hundred fifty dollars thank you that's that's not nothing and i'm torn here because i want to see my neighborhood develop and grow if someone wants to come up with the money that's great that's easy sure i'll say yes to free stuff and i don't mind being taxed a bit if my properties improved upon that's fair i have issues with the with that being a special assessment because i don't think this is a special assessment area and this is this is the first major leg going through a residential area yes we've got other smaller legs but i fear the precedence of saying when this goes through that this will be treated as if you live at the end of a storm drain and a special assessment is used for the folks who directly receive money is that what happened it was a park township a couple years ago and thirty second street blew out that as much as that hurts to receive that assessment fee there is  benefit and protection where is this is an extreme luxury we live in michigan sixty six hundred bucks can buy a lot of snowblower gas my other concern is what happens to my driveway when the snow melt on the sidewalk wants to run into the street do you know what that creates any ice damming on my on my approach yeah i  think that's a fair question we certainly have heard that question before and i guess i want to be clear that we have these same situations in other parts of town where we have sidewalk that snow melted but the adjacent street is not so currently we have river avenue that snow melted on down to thirteenth street near the library and along the way that that sidewalk crosses thirteenth street across is twelfth across as  those streets are not snow melted but the system still functions so in this case i would expect that there would be the wind row of snow that would be applied from the snow plow you know doing its thing on the roadway but over time that when we're all of snow would melt away so the approach to see if some benefit of the heat melt in the sidewalk yes so the if you look at the map closely we're actually proposing to snow melt the driveway approaches i did not see that yes good to know right so the nugget that everyone's so delighted to see at the end of a work day when you have the wind road snow yeah hopefully the snow melt helps to minimize that that has value to me oh especially when it is so we're all we're all michiganders here right so when you get home late and the day was warm but the night gets cold in the sun goes down early that thing turns into an ice  me some value and so mr if it's worth two hundred fifty bucks a year but again please consider the issue of whether these types of choices should be under a special set and our weather should be under perhaps a different neighborhood assessments or a larger assessment to the neighboring streets i've waved you off my front porch as you walk down central central will become used more and more if it's if it's the main corridor that goes down and i don't think that the simple idea of market value being the determining factor of what makes it special assessment thank you thank  evening and welcome good evening my name is dan day i am the council chair of fourteenth street krishna form church and a happy to represent them tonight we had a council meeting a week ago this evening and we had received the information about assessment at that time and in tonight's hearing so it was a good time for us to have a brief discussion netter meeting a week ago i'm happy to say sort of that after a rousing discussion and none of our council members live on central avenue however i understand the situation after a rousing discussion we decided that we would be neutral on this issue with the understanding  that there would be no capital expense or assessment to the church they were willing to take a neutral position if that were the case so i'm here just to say we're we're happy for the gift and appreciate the appreciate that and expect that that would be applied if this project were to go forward thank you good evening welcome good evening my name is clint peterson i live at forty central avenue it's a corner of central and twentieth i'm excited about the project as a benefit the heart as a whole horror i believe the benefit to individual homeowners along the west side of central avenue as they look to all the city already clears my sidewalk regularly and a fair portion i pay taxes go to pay for that having the snow melt it provides no initial additional value to me as a homeowner the true benefit will be a clear contiguous section of sidewalk for those who exercise outdoors in the winter months i can see individuals driving in a parking at everything commons or somewhere along the route and running the path one central avenue to break up to eighteen that they currently use along a street an area set up for recreation in a general community sounds like a perk to me there are many perks and how and we all hope to pay for them even if we don't use them the snowmelt project on central avenue will benefit the greater community more than the few residents that live on the west side and therefore the expense should be shared in the community considering the realistic use as a snowmobile project i'm also concerned with the design as currently planned the snow melt stops at each road intersection and has been discussed this previously that will create an area of thermal transition where it's warm in the sidewalk cold in the street you're going to a point where you're going to have ice if people are using this as a running should be one continuous path as proposed i think that the i'm going to maine is fun plan is flawed and i have some concerns was a design however i see this as a singular opportunity to do something good and i don't want to miss out on it i am in favor of the project receding if the generous donation is accepted and applied such that the homeowners expense is minimised welcome thank you i'm mary lou drawn i live at eight east wall street and although we live on the side that was already completed in the previous assessment we didn't know that tell yesterday and we did receive a letter in the mail about tonight's meeting so we did do some work and this prose actually looked up to make sure that we got the letter we didn't actually receive the letter which is what my husband was kind of referring to earlier but it was sent out mr ellis looked it up for us but it was not ported to florida where my parents were we did however share that we did not want to pay the seventeen thousand dollars that's required for our block and it was reported to the council apparently as well that was my understanding but the vote went through anyway so i just want to say first off it's an awesome idea i don't think you're going to find anybody that's going to say that it's not it's wonderful that we have this area open it's going to be great for the city it's going to be great for people who exercise but i don't understand the direct benefit i called our insurance company and it does not decrease the liability because it's a city sidewalk so there's no decrease in liability we've always snowplows our own block we're not only snow plow our own block we snowplow our neighbors says well you know their driveways and such and we like it i mean i know that sounds strange but we really do we're home all day and we have an awesome snowblower it's twelve hundred dollars that works great so it doesn't that doesn't work for us it's good exercise it's the only thing i do do in the winter so you know between that cost which is seventeen thousand dollars and the maintenance and then the twelve thousand dollars we pay the city every year for the privilege of living where we do our cost is sure is going to be thirty thousand over thirty thousand dollars so we'll be paying so you know and then i looked i called our realtor to see would that impact the housing and it's really kind of stands up because there's this now in increased tax or however you want to call the sussman and there's really not that great of a value yet determined for the home and it is considered a luxury and i think that's really important to point out too as we look at funding this so  then people that live on tulip lanes or the bypass they don't have to pay a special assessment for something that benefits the entire city so again i'm a little concerned that our block our street is paying for what is really going to be a privilege for the whole city and benefit the whole city and a lot of people voice that they don't want to do this nobel i mean if the capital cost was covered that be great but i think also the taxes that are going to or the assessment i'm sorry yearly is i just don't think that's fair because it is a luxury and something for us that's quite expensive also i looked it up in the budget plan and i was shocked to find out it actually won't go on line until two thousand and seventeen february of two thousand and seventeen so we're paying for something now that we don't get to use for two years they don't have a final cap on the assessments for us they don't know for sure if it's seventeen thousand i mean it's close so i said to my dad this sounds a little bit like obamacare when it first came out because we didn't know what was in the package and they said sign it anyway so we're signing for something and we don't even know what all the costs are and that was surprising to me as well and i think the last thing is there's lots of time to figure this out how you can pay for this because since it's not really going to go on line told two thousand and seventeen there's a legacy fund for centennial park sidewalk and i was surprised if it's such a great idea then why isn't the city covering park why is that area being left out so the legacy fund could cover that part and then there's the general budget and the street improvements reserve fund because initially this was supposed to be covered under that and then the the funding for the roads was taken away because of the snow melt how this is going to be done and then there's the heart of holland grant so i mean between all of those things it seems to me that there should be a different way to fund this rather than on the backs of the people that live down central avenue guess i just want to say it's a great idea but it is a luxury and i think we should keep that in mind to thank you thank you i would note that sidewalks are specially assessed when they go in decorative streetlights are specially assessed when they go in and then the reason it's being done now is because the streets torn up i mean you know we waited for two years three different terror than that that was just done now and that makes no sense but the capacity isn't  it because new power plants not unlike so that's the that's the reason for why this is being discussed now even though there's not enough hot water to pump through it at this particular moment because the power plant under construction right now when it goes on line that's what provides the extra capacity but thank good evening a welcome good evening my name is ryan wilford i also live in eighty's and your comment about the lanterns made me come up here because i think that i'm going to use that in my as an example dear dear i like i said before it's fantastic it's a great idea or you know it's a cadillac but it is a great idea it is something that hall well you for it for a long time deal you have to pay seventy thousand dollars and graduations right that is quite a benefit for you then i look at something else and i look a little further and i have to pay another two thousand dollars to make it dollars it's going to take you two years before you really get something but give me the money for him so it's just i'm going back a little bit i live in the center annually and we bought it from the city or so it was a dump this was set by the city fathers at the time that we went through the house it's dubrow i hope you can do something was it i said who do we have great plans and we did we finished it even though we went through our tour and more you know miscommunication don't know how much money because we had two stores in every state room and all of a sudden we were told you can't have that even though one group said yes you can but our group said no you cannot we cooperated with the city we said ok historical district so here again we cooperated with the city next thing that happens we had a sewer problem we found the very word evil connected to the sewer line it's very puzzling to me it doesn't make sense it doesn't benefit me like my daughter said i bought into a brand new fnord blower before i went to florida it's a dead even because i use it thank you thank you well we've been discussing the reconstruction of central for quite some time and in conjunction with the whole has become a lower for me sure i said we've been discussing the reconstruction of central avenue for quite a few years and councillor hoekstra probably can tell you more about that since this goes right past his house too and part of the delay in the reconstruction of that street was figuring out the kind of pipe to put in the ground to potentially do district heat and snow melt was a piece of that so it has been discussed for i would say at least four years probably and and there was part of the discussion also as we talked about the new power plant and the benefits of having our own power plants and what that might do for additional snow melt hundred thousand dollars donation i was just going to be done anyway without the five hundred thousand dollar donation there were discussions about doing it without the donation but i think frankly there was hesitancy to do it absent those mon certainly discussed but i don't know that it would have gone through it was not initially when the rest of the central avenue piece that the ones that were talked about just a moment ago the piece of property that you own was not included in that because at that particular time the council didn't feel as though that would be probably the best path to go on but when the when the private donation came in that caused us to rethink about the issue so it was discussed it was pared back the donation was discussed and that caused us to rethink about it if i understood what you just said private donation had a big bearing on the decision yes  et's fire you know the private donation of five hundred thousand i commend the party or parties who made that donation offer and i've voiced been taught never look a gift horse in the mouth but sometime it pays it pays well you're looking to count the teeth and i feel that the as the property owner and fellow property owners here tonight we're getting sucked into this because of this large donation whether we want it or not street i had a short conversation with a few board members council members this past week and they just of it was well in fact it was worded this way we had a party with some deep pockets and they got the attention that rubbed me wrong because deep pockets are not  who's going to pay the other part of it if they have such deep pockets all to pay the whole  thing one of the reasons the council member of spoke to me he said well they want to go down to twentieth street because of ever well please sir chris to graph i live it for seventy two central avenue i i too am concerned about the assessment burden i i feel the pretty strong confirmation that that evergreen commons and those who are giving those donations or are pushing this project forward i think that's quite evident which again i'm not i'm not discouraging  private donations i just think the the assessment burden to the residents on the western side of central avenue is again akin to many of the things spoken here earlier about a park and those kinds of things that this the city should carry i look at my children who regularly ride their roller blades and rip sticks on those kinds of things on my front sidewalk and the other seven or eight children who live on the alleyway near my home and just the the concern that i have of if this is all brick pavers rather than than concrete the difficulty that has  which i understand is a temporary hardship for them but i think that would be unfortunate i also look at the city greenhouses and that has been there for so long and i work and i continue to do that as a way to to make holland a beautiful place i believe the green houses are a great visual for the people and the city of holland the flowers that and the activity that is going on there each and every day throughout the spring spring in the summer i think that is a great p r for the city of of the investment that we are making and i would like to see that remain within  the they operation of the city i just like to i i guess i'd be ok with with the project going through if there was no assessment burden that came solely to the residents along central and thank you thank you over four hundred twenty four street not in the cesspit district however i heard the word historical twenty seven years ago council thought a group that came to them about the second was crazy the first moment was donated it's electric you may not remember that second snow melt was being pushed for and by the people who were paying for it for eight straight and a little bit more was paid for by the people who were pushing for it that's not what i'm hearing tonight i just thought i'd point scott i think that is what you're hearing tonight yeah i think i get it you know that the capital assessment the donation is going toward the capital assessment which i think is consistent with historical precedent for it is oracle precedent though and it and i'm not here to argue i just want to make sure it was being paid for because that was part of the plan to take out the meters and to bring more people downtown which was a part of the plan that changed the direction right through is all one plan but the distribution was also being paid for by people who were pushing for not people who were coming in here and saying seventeen thousand ten thousand six thousand that's the difference i'm saying the people who were paying the sixteen thousand are the ten thousand where the warrens pushing the committee who made the vote who came to you and said let's do this right and what i'm saying is the intent of the donors for the half million dollars is to do precisely that but you're making a vote tonight before you accept the donation and if you don't carry through on that donation the vote tonight or the potential vote could come down to zero it didn't come through you write the check well that's what i'm understand i may be wrong we  have to hold tight and that they're going to question for the city attorney related to what the exact vote ought to be tonight assuming counsel wants to have the snow melt come in without having capital assessments of the property owners ok so that the reason this was noticed out has an assessment matter is that absent that sort of notice in going out there would be no ability if the council chose to do so to assess any of the capital toward the property owners but that is not the intent of the donors and when we get to the point where we close the public hearing that's a very specific question i'm going to ask the city attorney is how we would proceed assuming council different no the thing that was sort of bad tonight it has to do with what's happened in our neighborhood it's the city is it's very good at finding the owner of record for a properties on your property tax notice too but when it comes to noticing it's not very good at finding the owner of record and sending notices to that property i just i'm going to be with that comment that was made tonight to microphone remains open but you got one minute because you have up to five and i think it took about four last time around so you get a minute so first of all i'd like to say that we're not signing on my wife when she was presenting to the consul said we were you know we were signing up we're not we're saying absolutely without question that we're against this project moving forward the way the strategy is being implement it for financing the funding strategy that's been used i believe was was a strategy that was used to create the snow melt system along a commercial street in downtown and that makes sense you increase the traffic in front of stores you increase the traffic in your store you increase your profits and again these are willing participants who said yes to the proposal this strategy is not working on a residential street because there's no direct benefit that's been identified by this consul or anyone in the audience that goes to the property owners the benefit is for the community in the city of anyone else you've got a minute all right i think we need some clarity here and that people in this room are not understanding that this isn't really about money it's about the city precedent of doing a fifty fifty shared capital assessment that the doe my understanding is correct the donation can cover one hundred percent of this but the city is on willing to break this fifty fifty precedent that has been set for all of these other special assessments throughout the past and you were just explaining that this is being done as an assessment because then that gives you future of billet to assess these properties right and if you did this in a different matter my missing something  probably it's just that i didn't communicate clearly that my point was this if the council at any point tonight before the project gets going yes if the council at any point before shovels go into the ground wanted to have any portion of the snow melt installation be assessed to the property owner that had to notice out the assessment under the typical procedure now nothing prevents the council tonight from essentially taking the half million dollar donation and applying it in large measure to the fifty percent portion of the property owner would take it so if they think about like a ratchet note that only goes one way i think the fact that you said that is probably going to help a lot of people in this room understand it's ok let's go back to the problem with people i think we're missing that there was any option at all for their portion of this usman to be covered by those donations i think that was i think a board out understanding that that is still an option going forward yes it is and that's part of the discussion that will take place among coun so after the public hearings that yeah thank you for the clarification and i apologize for not being as clear as i could be it is fairly confusing stuff to be sure all right i will make one final scan for the room if that it's a waste of money for that you know she she is saying that she has just this side the people that come into hers her place is on sixteenth street right so it has no benefit for her at all to pay all of that money and later on the assessment too so that's what she's saying ok ok all right thank you you thank  well yeah i think you pretty much used all your time now so all right ask one question typically this is the opportunity to address council not i'm sorry it's part of it is i didn't get clarification but i looked in the budget notes and it said that if we went down evergreen commons we had to use bigger circles the draining for the electrical system tree so are those ready machine to warn us in that was in twenty fifteen it's said that that would have to be addressed and looking at splitting those costs with evergreen so are those big things in front of our house do those have to be replaced now with bigger ones or did you really buy the big ones it would go to evergreen to apples and oranges you're going with the big concrete things and no i' talking about like the transmitter the ones that go into the road and then they do the bleeder strum that's what i understood in the twenty you know what i'm saying right maybe the police were just referring to the transmission pipes themselves yes and it said in the from the budget approved the year before that if it went down to evergreen it would have to you'd have to have bigger transmission tubes that would cost more money and then that you would split that cost with evergreen so has that already been do we have the big ones already or do we have to now send back the on have and get bigger ones though so right now we've got basically the snow melt transmission mains accounted for two thirteen three the size of those mains are going to change at that point they're sixteen inch right now going in and they'll be sixteen inch so what we did was we basically tried to account for some flexibility in the system so he went to the bigger one correct ok thank you that's you know typically especially in these kinds of projects we overbuild at certain points with the expectation that later on there's opportunity then to expand the incremental cost is minimal compared to digging up a street and replacing pipe at some future point ok one more time across the river anyone care to address council decided before i close the public hearing ok thank you all very much all right so now this is where the sausage gets made right here we have a whole series of things before us let me ask the city attorney question first of all and it's the question that i think scott and i were were getting at earlier the question is this let us say that the council wants to ultimately receive the pledge at this point of half a million dollars from the heart of holland group of donors and we therefore do not want to assess that the distribution fifty percent capital mount to the property owners what sort of motion then off we do to accomplish that this evening if  anything the hearing that that council has before it is is focused a lot on assessment because dollars and cents make a big difference in this but but technically it's a hearing of necessity a public hearing in the ceci for the project and at a hearing a necessity for the project the council votes on whether to go forward with the project and then makes direction to the assessor to prepare an assessment role that comes back to council for approval at a later date and so what council could do is to vote to go forward with the project and determine that no amounts would be assessed to the property owners in these various locations that we've been talking about tonight i think we need to make sure we're clear because we're talking about a hearing in the subsidy to amend the district that's already been established to expand it and so we need to be clear on the motion that we're not undoing the district already established but we're just going forward with extending this project along central avenue for the additional area in blue with no amount to the property owners for the  construction so we would have a slight amendment then to the proposed resolution before us because there's a specific assessment right language in that proposed resolution the resolution would adopt the  assessment that's been recommended of the the language on how much should be assessed the property owners that's in the reports before council and so the vote would simply be to go forward with project with a resolution with zero about assessed to the property owners possible but let's say that that were to happen in essence then the city would be saying we're going to have to eat that amount we couldn't go back later on and assess capital wise for property owners that would be that would be a possibility the  couple steps that are going to have to take place they're going forward here would be one is the gift will have to be made and secondly the contract that's in place will also need a change order approved for that we haven't reviewed a change order but but the change order would have to be approved and so until that change order is approved then the the snow melt system expansion here would not be able to go forward on a separate consideration would your amendment be to just based on discussions earlier would that be to eliminate the snow melt distribution from an area oh let's just say d you assuming that's the case that you would need to make that motion is that motion to amend the resolution as well so it would be a separate  as i see it as a matter of procedure there's a couple of different ways we can go about this the first is we can have a series of i don't know four or five votes separately on things the other is to have one vote and handle all of these various pieces perhaps deletions of parts of the current assessment role perhaps setting the assessment amount of zero perhaps other kinds of things as as amendments to the motion that will be on the table and then ultimately once all the amendments are done we have some sort of motion probably as amended that comes for us to vote on i would recommend we go down that path instead i think it's going to be amended process could be a little bit messy but at the end of the day the vote is go clear as to what exactly we're voting on and i'm seeing some nods i think so let's plan on going down that path i think and the other questions for staff before we get a motion on the floor to begin our discussion and in voting this deals only with a capital assessment this does not neil deal with future operating assessments just to make sure everybody's on same page all right ok so who wants to get the ball rolling here one of the luxuries of being mayor and during the meeting is i can't make any motions so i force them to do these things if the move that we approve the special assessment snow melt district as described in the packet from the westside of central avenue from twelfth street thirteenth street to twentieth street so essentially as it was located in the packet which is sort of a base motion to get us to get the discussion going correct all right there is a motion on the floor for that we made by birch supported by de boer right that's our motion as it sits right now essentially what was in the package which includes an assessment district which includes essentially everything in blue you see here and it includes a fifty fifty assessment under the typical city policy that's the base motion that's before us i see the city attorney just a q leading up to your sister sister not just one point of clarification i believe the information the packet also goes down to state street has a lot of it and that the motion verbal the i think said to twentieth street and maybe i just didn't hear the part about state over to state street forgive me ron i did not include the twentieth half block well let me take a whack at this and we'll see how it goes could i make one request yes and then we handle the amendments in fairly discrete chunks yes ok ok that we don't try and wrap a whole lot of stuff into the the amendments let's handle them individually so counsel well let's try this and i would move to amend the motion that the given the pending five hundred thousand dollar contribution proposed to be newly included in the assessment district not be assessed the fifty percent capital share thank you very much it is their support for that support all right so now discussion only on the amendment only on the amendment to take the capital assessment amount which ordinarily is at fifty percent for property owners to zero using instead funds from the five hundred thousand dollar improving the street we would be doing the capital improvement and the water and sewer that comes along with it because that needs to be replaced it's long overdue in fact but while we're doing that when this opportunity did arise i think that makes sense and i'm actually in agreement with a number of the residents that the transmission  burden burden on the the property owners at that point and i'd like to see that's why that the donation is here it is very much to understand who is really pushing for this and what it will benefit who will benefit but transmission being that large benefit to get that warm water hot water down to devon commons i think really other comments come from a call i think anything we can do to alleviate the book any anxiety here is the fact that the project is not go ahead the property owners are not going to be assessed for the transmission line i think we owe them to project is not in essence go ahead unless the stock nation is received so they need to know that they're covered and i think that's a real idea at least i would think again just so we're all clear terminology wise the transmission lines of the major pipes in the streets right distribution are the spaghetti the radio heats down and the assessment historically has been fifty percent of the distribution piece not the transmission piece and i'm sure that i repeatedly have screwed that up and perhaps have done so tonight because it gets a little confusing so if i'm hearing you correctly that your concern is on the distributor the capitol's that's right just i just want to make sure that people understand that that's very clear and i've read it a good job but i think we just need a super clear please unfortunately this is one small portion of the issue that i have with this whole deal the reason we kept this so long is because we had we were told that district heating was going to be the thing of the future from the guard for the report so on and so forth make a long story short it turned out that it wasn't as viable at that at this point as well we originally thought so we held off the central avenue project for some time very prudently doing that if it had been a money maker had it been more prudent to do it fantastic we've been her it was alluded to a couple of times tonight that the fifty five we couldn't get off the fifty fifty deal right now we're talking about central avenue in the future we could be talking about a street up in holland heights we could be talking about maybe with there's a number of other places that we have used the same assessment style sewers going in curb and gutter sidewalk i am very afraid that we are setting a precedent here the other portion of that is you're lucky enough to be on the south side of the earth and south central south of thirteenth street fantastic north of that sorry about your luck am not saying that the gift is not very generous the philanthropy from the city of holland is here always has been the goodness of the people's hearts is very very eviden my concern is with the greater city the present that we're setting and the cost the annualized cost from this point forward if we were just the transmission in it was said tonight at the at the study session that evergreen common wants to be a customer fantastic we'd love to have them but the transmission line in forget the distribution the way the snow melt system is set up right now is we have a district the downtown district is the snow melt district this would extend the snow melt district down evergreen commons would be a customer just as everybody else down eighth street is in the other the commercial lines that is in a long drawn out way where i have a little bit of a are not a little bit i have a little bit more than a little bit of problem with this the unfairness and the precedent that we're sending gift fantastic precedent not so fantastic who may who felt as though they may have been slighted or weren't treated quite as as well as they thought they should have this is a project that's grown as and i use the term stovall last night into something that it's not the way that we treat our citizens and we need to point out also that our staff works incredibly hard a lot they're asked to work harder than they really should i lot of the time and you know apparently we're all humans in so we do maybe fall short in how we treat each other on occasion so if you were if you felt a front of ip address for that it's not how we do things  second thing is a what echo what mike said and think the donors for stepping up and offering the this half a million dollars it's no small piece change and that kind of activity that willingness to partner with the city in these projects is something that we've seen before but it's really quite remarkable we think about it so those two things i wanted to make clear  my twelve years of you know this council and all of stuff that we've discussed and talked about helping i've ever felt like solomon more than i do on this project there is good stuff on both sides there are challenges from every angle to overcome here we've used a model for assessment and paying for the snowmelt stuff which strangely started as some guy's idea because he had it is driveway or something without the great idea for downtown narrowly it was accepted as a project that way back when and now it is on the road to becoming perceived as merely a necessity but the model for paying for that is something that we've used from the downtown area which worked very well now we're making this for a into his far as i can tell one of the first intrusions into the price of the best word to use introductions into a residential area where the focus is a little bit different we're talking about people who have homes there are some commercial areas involved as well but it is not as densely focused on the commercial activity as it is downtown so the paradigm actually shifting when we start to look at a project like this and  the policy that we have or that we're applying in my mind probably isn't the best policy to use if this were running in front of my house and i didn't have to shovel the on my tax money i would be ok with that because a we didn't have to would have to do that work it would be a benefit to me as well as my surrounding that community and it's interesting that might be the comment he did living a block off of this project he sees the value to the community as a whole excuse me so i'm thinking that as we look if if we're going to do more projects like this that are making their way into the residential areas it seems to me that our policies and have to be changed i don't think i'll operational assessment is a bad thing they said i wouldn't mind paying someone but it has to be an assessment that it's manageable and people are having difficult times these days i'm making ends meet they're trying to keep their grass cather they're trying to pay for you know smoke detectors in their houses all the stuff we say that you've got to have in order to have a resident in the city people are complying with that we have to be careful not to  and then the b t w did a return on investment study and found that there really were probably wasn't a large enough customer base to support a million dollars spent on putting a pipe in so we sort of way that aside for two years now we have but they turn out to be good i think there's a potential value in this as well probably stuff that we don't even see right know so i guess all that say there's challenges there's ways we have to rethink about how we're going to do the assessment if there is an assessment but i think we can do that equitably and i think there was a point where i was not very supportive of this idea but the more i community my wife often walks to work she works at home college she's often met by a friend who lives or by the hospital yeah i don't see a lot of people walking up and down central or the middle of the one here but like a lot of snow there and who knows what will happen we've seen it in the past when we've done projects that seemingly were a little nuts but when we do and we see that there's actually a use that's realized so  cold but i think about the point of support of this project given the the parameters that we're looking at the you know the elements that are all part of this and seeing that the burden is potentially lifted for the homeowners in terms of capital investment we have to still work out the home maybe that's an operating cost at some point but i think you will be involved in that discussion and i think we've heard your concerns and i'm confident that we'll have a good discussion about that so that's a long way of getting to where i am right now  but there it is thank you david ok we're still on the amendment itself the setting the capital assessment at zero for the property owners and the other discussion on the amendment before we vote on the clear we're doing ok and i will call for the roll on the amendment to set the capital assessment at zero please  yes motion passes six yes one no ok so the motion is now amended to set the capital assessment at zero are there other amendments that anyone wished it wishes to make to the motion before we have a to change the assessment on the east side of central avenue between twelfth and thirteenth street which would be the property of the in there that we would a limb and the sidewalk snow melt on the block from twelfth or thirteenth street all right just for clarity brian can you bring up the previous line conference so removing that as i understand your motion or your amendment it's to remove that from the assessment district and therefore remove the sidewalk snow melt from that block ok that's the motion offered an amendment is there support arens supported by hook struck again debate is limited only to the amendment itself not to the rest of the motion is there any do that discussion or debate on the amendment white don't think there's a a question there it's not a part of the longer process or longer stretch to the district to   bryan i would assume from a technical standpoint the for lack of a better phrase the boxes would remain so that in some point in the future if hypothetically there was a desire to or a demand to have snow melt put in on the easterly side of that block the connector points would already be in place yeah you're correct so where the transmission goes we put the connections in so we don't have to get back into the street just should we desire at some point in the future  part of the whole planning ahead thing ok so we have a motion to delete from the assessment district as well as from the snow melt area the easterly side of central avenue between the twelfth and thirteenth streets jumping across the street because there well actually i guess we're doing some to no park to our we just proposed is that what's being said at this point all right at at this point it's in the motion we ought to be all meat cutters appear the sausage or now we also heard from the young lady the very first lady that was up here that owns the house the only house that faces central avenue in a block between twelfth and thirteenth that she was forty except for the direct assessment that i understand you correctly she would be realizing the full assessment of the capitol of the capitol yes because your capitol motion went from thirteen so it did not go from twelve to thirteen that's what the that's the one and that no that no your motion was thirteenth the twentieth that was addressing the capital portion only so right now just so we're clear the assessed area includes the blue line which is the west side of the block between twelfth and thirteenth street that's part of the base motion what is up for discussion right now is the removal of the redline block between on the east side of central avenue between twelfth and thirteenth street and that is the only thing before us at this particular but that was pertinent to that discussion that's why i'm not into saying that the will absolutely understand installed on the east signs and tell you park is it also being installed on central avenue between twelfth street and thirteenth street on the west side the answer is yes basically anything in blue is part of the base motion ok ok you know all of that is at this point in and as i want to look toward the city manager who are acting city manager who apparently is taking some notes on this as well as the city attorney and perhaps the city go yeah set the assessment as at zero for the west side of central avenue between twelfth and thirteenth streets that's zero and the capital piece for the westerly side of central avenue between the blocks of twelfth and thirteenth streets here's where we stand and the area in blue is currently all in the motion the capital assessments to property owners is at zero and the red block on the easterly side of central avenue between twelfth and thirteenth streets have been removed from both the assessment district as well as from snow melt at all are there any other motions anyone would care to  just a just a questions a clarification is ten year old park on the west side still in yes is still it yes because it's in anything in the blue is ok this point well i think it begs the question to vote on the sentinel part piece because i think there's differences of opinion on if we should do any of those so i would make an amendment that we eliminate the western section on central avenue that borders so into new park be removed from the middle between twelve at tenth and twelve streets correct yes it all right that's the motion is there support for that is there support for that i'll support it thank you movie support we haven't discussed in the amendment sensually of removing the centennial park piece to revert i think this is absolute foolishness  i honestly if it's good enough for the people who are living down central avenue and that we appreciate the value of this and we want to continue its path to our core and we want to connect hoods and we want to connect things and we want to increase value then we should be putting all in on that eastside or westside friend that includes the property that is city property we are no strangers to having city property including the stonewall district this should be no different cultural  i agree brian if we really are going to be serious about snow melt we really have to do it well and if people are going to run that whole length they don't have to cross one street they're going along a park they're on the way to amazing downtown i don't when i don't understand why you wouldn't do the park i think that's just a beautiful place to walk to enjoy to now what we're about slipping and falling and it just it just makes such sense all of a sudden you come to iceberg when we get to centennial park it is a make i just think we're really shooting ourself in the foot if we quit there and then we expect residents to support this and be a part of this vision of snow melt and all of a sun it comes to the city in legal clock yeah i i really think we've got to do the park and what else comes from richard i support it so you could comment on  the city has fifty percent of the skin in the game and understand that the city has fifty percent of the skin in the game and the idea that you would take a natural park and snow melt it i think when we have resources that are scarce and we have other things that are competing for those resources and we do have a contiguous path and guess what if you're on the east side of central avenue you're going to have to jog across central avenue because guess what snow melt stops at twelfth street on central avenue on the east side now to take your argument councillor birch all the way to its logical conclusion would mean that we ought to conclude ought to include snow melt on the east side all the  vote on the motion as amended thrice could have been four times but we only with three times the you cover each of the items that i can recall being discussed we don't we have to discuss the greenhouse of for years that technically aren't we technically no no because this is the assessment district the assessment issue and the green house while related is not  it's related only because of the effort in the private sector to donate funds eventually but that is not officially before us right now i have a pretty strong suspicion of that topic will come a pretty significant fashion over the next few months as you know the donation piece comes more directly before us before you but tonight i don't think it is just that night all right any other i wish i lived on central avenue on the west side of the street and i see that or i wish we could get this to go down to twenty  street my street but we did not do it that i say that because i know i'm very confident that the property values on the street where there's a snow melt will increase that is going to happen these properties are going to be more desirable in part of our city because of the ease of maintenance and the ease of access our parts of downtown and if i had my house on the street and i were in a position ten years from now fifteen years from now and i realize looking at how how would i i was working with a realtor probably how would i list this i'm willing to bet i could get an extra ten thousand out of the property value sale prices and to me that would make up for the couple hundred dollars i would add to my assessment every year and i'm i would i would love that because i think we would come out on top on that so i think that's being forgotten in a lot of this discussion  because we're all this is a great and this is great but i don't want to pay two hundred dollars or one hundred fifty dollars and i think there's a lot of opportunity here long term and i think this is going to providing fantastic corridor and increase the value property values for homeowners in this part worked out and i think that's a great part of of why this is important and why i've been in favor of this for quite some time one could build there people were very upset because they said that was such valuable real estate how can you just put trees there it's so foolish but we'll watch the property values of all of the blacks around it and that it went through the roof and that began people thinking how they are you pull our parks and suddenly every city wanted them and we are so uniquely positioned and how in michigan to have a snow melt story it is really unique when you get the national weather channel coming to a street with a camera just watching snow melt because it is so amazing that it happens on a little town like holland michigan it is you know it's so easy when you have it here to think it's just it's just usual just like you grow up in your own home and you and you take your family for granted just because they're always there and snow melt is is a great amenity many places want it they cannot do it we have a power plant that's close enough an hour moving the power planted it's even better because it's multiplying our capacity and our story gets even bigger and if we can get that snow melt out to evergreen commons and have the wonderful access for people to exercise all through eight street and up and central avenue to be able to go to evergreen commons park safely walk over even redo and over one hundred year old greenhouse with district heating most people don't even know what district heating is i've never heard of it til peter gard fourth came here as an international expert in energy but that is a wonderful story to have for our community and to use people that have great background in engineering and all kinds of skill and they attend evergreen commons they put that that kind of thinking together and we produce something that's not done anywhere else those are the kind of things that add value to our community it gives us a story that no place else has and whatever we have here that is uniquely ours it's really important for us to invest in it and to continue what makes us special every place has its special  things but to have snow melt to be able to do it as successfully as we have for all this time and now to take it into a residential area to tie in and nonprofit that is already world class people come from all over the place to see what is going on at evergreen comments how can you have such an innovative group working with the older contingent of your community how can there be you know coming from the more experienced segment of your community that is a story that is really big nationally as well because we no longer do aging in place like it's always been done aging is much more vibrant today and involves people that are much more forward thinking who have a vision of creating a better world not just leaving it and that's all part of this whole story that we want to build with growing snow melt from our amazing downtown all the way to our innovative evergreen commons and i think we'll look back on this meeting and say yeah was was it easy no where we glad to have mayor dykstra here to navigate these we all really appreciate his leadership and his willingness to be here for this meeting his last public meeting and we are very grateful for all of you who are here because you care about where you live your care about the ultimate vision for your community and you're here because you have a voice and isn't that what we want and i really appreciate the your willingness to listen i to think it through to even say you know that could be of value to me even though you came here of us and and i just think that is why democracy works in holland michigan because we're willing to be civil with each other and respect each other and appreciate what different viewpoints we come from so i do think that this is a historic meeting in many ways and i think we will be glad when we look back on it generations to come  the people who came out and i want you to know that you were heard and listened to and when you sit up here you try to weigh the pros and the cons and you look at every piece of evidence to possibly can and you stay away awake at night sometimes trying to figure this out so make sure that you understand that you were heard and i think when if we can get this paid for by a donor if we can get five years under our belt to help pay for the operation of it as dave said we can take a look see and see how things are going in and what happens i think it's a reasonable product project to move ahead with and is a aries everybody would be happy you know but i think it's i think it's a forward way to look and i think it's i think it's a reasonable good one so i'm going to go for the brian it's a little late in the game to ask this clarification that was brought up earlier but i just want to make make sure i understand that we will not be having cobblestone going your cross the street intersections as we do want to river avenue right now correct yes that's correct the plan as it is now is to not snow melt those cross streets so we're going to have i mean there are great street cr takes care of that i know i'm not taking anything away from them but the plow is also going to push big piles up on the on the edges the hopefully the snow melt will take that on the aprons it will take longer  you know there's a catch up time with depending on conditions but yes so we got the good the bad you know thank you just don't want to make sure everybody understood that when this first came out  i work for recycling company so anything that we can do to help the environment and things like that are very near and dear to my heart as i said earlier the fourth report with the district heating the potential of this going down central avenue and helping out with the college helping out with the aquatic center helping out with evergreen commons and some other big customers that we had identified it was very very exciting and i wish it i'm not given up on it i think sometime in the future the economies are going to be there to be able to handle that  snow melt absolutely nothing wrong with snow melt i use it all winter long i've got two dogs we go up and down each street quite often say for me say for them the  from evergreen coming from basically the general city i appreciate that i really do appreciate the work that's gone into it greg and and dave and everybody else that's that's been the been  that all being said it's the inequality that i have the problem with and i think of i've made enough bones about that in my heart of hearts i just cannot support this as it stands there's a lot of things i believe in but there's also a thing the few things that i don't believe in and i have to be true to the people that elected me as was very well pointed out one thing you have to remember in that though is that there's two sides to everything and fifty percent of the people say yeah you're right the other fifty percent say what the heck you think and so we have to we have to weigh those over thank you for bringing that up this  it's been said this is a tough decision and if you think this was fun stay around for the dog discussion the room having a couple minutes because that's going to be even more fun with that tape at this late hour that probably would not be a what a bad idea anyway as was said i appreciate the enthusiasm the heartfelt discussion that was had tonight it just makes me proud to be a citizen of the city hall and when we have people come out in the numbers that we have here and speak their mind that's what democracy is all about nine i definitely appreciate it thank you mike other discussion anyone else well just briefly say it's early as this after recently is afternoon and i wasn't quite sure how this was all going to shake out nor was i entirely sure depending upon how would shake out what my ultimate vote would  be i think you know there's probably universe of the green in the room that smells a good thing we like it successful it's part of who we are we think it's wonderful we get one hundred years of snow and it provides wonderful benefit to us i think the real question is certainly on the capital assessment the operating assessment side who ought to pay in and want to share what's the public benefit versus the individual property owner benefit and then you know reasonable minds can differ on that i guess i do think that there is certainly a more targeted benefit to those who receive the snow melt as opposed to you know me who's what twenty plus blocks away from the closest no melted area i think that there is a more direct benefit to the individual property owner and i think that's an immediate benefit i think it'll be a long term benefit much like you know the historic district for example is something that you know was was a bit controversial when it went into place and yet it turns out that that's one of our strongest neighborhoods in the city because of the benefit that it provides long term  so you know on if the capital assessment was under a normal formula fifty fifty and the public private wait might be in a slightly different sense but i think for the operational side that's not on the table tonight but we have one full of it because we know that something will be coming down the pike i think that the that the benefit the property owner receives both immediate and long term is certainly sufficient to justify its installation so with that we're voting on the motion as amended three times i'll try and recap it we're covering all the area in blue there will be no capital assessments for any of the blue areas to private property owners bryan you just you move the slide here no more thing to say and that's the red area on the east side of central avenue between twelve and thirteen streets has been removed from the district as well as from there for from snow melt that's or voting on clear with that and a place called plan parents yes thank you and again folks thank you for being here tonight you're invited to stay if you'd like we have a few more things to handle on the agenda tonight but if you'd like to leave you're certainly welcome to do that as well why don't we take the other special word of the day item it's eight b redeal havre dealing with an appeal of a business license non renewal and joel di who is our interim director of community neighborhood services if if you want to have conversation we ask that you step into the lobby please all right so joel please welcome interim director of community input services we invite you to introduce this item for us thank you thank you mayor council before you could night is a request from staff that you have pulled the clerk's decision to not renew two business licenses located at seven twenty one lincoln avenue by john graham operates the businesses there unknown as if we've got to go maybe joe which is a rubbish hauling business and the other one is a maybe joe resale operation over the past couple of years community neighborhood services which is the department that i have the pleasure to lead up stairs has received several complaints from neighbors about the condition of this property annually they have to apply in receive a business license from the clerk's office this year we've decided to not renew these license due to the complaints we have received we do try to work with the property owners are cleaning up the operation there they do respond but then very quickly we return to a quality that is really not you know good for the neighborhood and it really devalues the neighborhood so in response to the complaints were receiving from the neighborhoods their response to what we have seen out there and you can see on the screens as shown on the pictures this was taken earlier this year this really is not a condition that property should be kept in the city of holland and it has continued to be an issue in a concern here the pictures are going to see now  pictures that were captured today do an inspection we made this afternoon as you can see rubbish and material is just you know haphazardly thrown about in the back of the property the neighbors have complained about this the inspector that was out there today talked about a smell that you could pick up as soon as you got near this property sell it really is an issue that we really as staff did not want to continue to allow to occur in this area and then told the property owner or the business owner can correct these things we don't feel that the business license should be renewed in the city of holland questions for joel before we have a public be screened better than what's being screened it has to be stored orderly it's not being stored orderly when it comes pacifically to license there are several reasons why license can be not renewed and you know revoked by city council one of those is it's contrary to the health and moral safety or welfare of the public it is staffed opinion that the image you see on the screen today this is located across the street from a residential neighborhood is contrary to how we feel that the city of holland should be operating cleaning it up i'm an owner operator this winter people tossed up in the back i don't have any control i can't be there twenty first up and i'll put a fence across the front of the fence across the back and that's what i do could do one time clean up for people and in the winter time stop good sort of control this particular year was bad for the price of models all down and stuff so it's up to you guys but i do a service for the buena just like everybody else i'm sorry to say you would put a fence up in front of back where you have put a fence i am going to put one up i had working for me a good room for the roof ok how soon do you think you could get that fence installed a couple weeks and the questions it the bigger question joe was how long it is is it going to take you to get this cleaned up right now you got some medical issues go into the v a this week and next week and in an hour or so i really don't know right thank you for your service first of all do you have any and you said you get rid of your help which was can you do you have any other anybody else to help you know you're tackling this by working on it ok had about four years before that for the past several years our office has received complaints from neighbors this is lincoln avenue between twenty fourth street and thirty second street so on one side is a small strip of commercial which must council members even up and down that road plenty of times you know where i'm at on the other side is a residential neighborhood if the residential neighborhood that is consistently contacting us calling us so many letters to the clerk's office now requesting something be done here that is negatively impacting their quality of life as a residential neighborhood directly across the street understood do we have any evidence of vermin infestation i do not know if we have any evidence if we get we are talking about it  why they're getting cheaper and i want to recheck i'm you know and but i do think you know it's about quite a long time and i'm sure you understand that too and and you know we've had other businesses that when we have a long time then it comes to this point and it's not that we don't appreciate what you do or think that year business is not a service to the community it's just that it has to fit in the community right and if we can have those fences and you can keep people from taking advantage of you and you can just and you've got your new strategy now of going to shop and then just bring in the good stuff back you know i think we can really get to a good point and if you have responsible people working for you that's i don't know what the vote is that all ok i don't know what the vote will be but it's usually we go we back up our city staff because it's been quite a while night mary lou duran east frustrating and ironic that i stayed we actually went to joe's place of business and one of the things that i want to point out is it actually is a community service believe it or not because there's a lot of people around in that area that don't have a lot of money so he sells some of the things that he salvages have very low prices and he also lets them put it on layaway so while we were there just kind of proof we were looking for a table while we were there doing that then a bunch of people came in but i wanted to say a couple things one is maybe there was an alternative that it could be this could be tabled for a month and to see if the fence was up to we go to rich point church and we have a small group said do do work in the community my husband pointed out that we can ask if our church can come in and help him too so there are other avenues to reach out to help him i i do agree that we should back up the staff whatever we can but i think sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture and the fact that he is i'm sorry but you know i mean he served our country so sometimes maybe we can do some special things for people that offer a service to the country it would just be a month or two months or whatever you guys decide it would be reasonable to put up a fence with his finances the way they are and then you could reassess and then look at getting rid of that license but you know i mean i think that would be reasonable and if the fence was up the neighbors can complain wouldn't maybe they could but i mean i would say think that they wouldn't so that's all they have to say wife's characterization of him offering a public service he saw which is things that are the people would throw away he sells them at a very discounted price he recycles things that he can  and it's unfortunate that people in the community are taking advantage of his property and just dumping things and i think would be very unfair to to punish him for that he's obviously made some offers to fix that fix the problem on a more permanent basis again my wife and i will providing items at a very discounted rate to people who wouldn't otherwise afford them he was also bargaining services so there's a mechanic who would work on you know his his cart and he'd come back and you know pick out a few things so so so  i mean i i'm having trouble praising that off but what he does for the community for certain subpopulation of the community think is very wonderful and again i think we need to take and consider into considerations veteran status thank you anyone else ok close public hearing we have the request before us and i am open to your suggestions and discussions cumber birch i believe yeah i'd like t the circumstances it is this is this kind of is this a first warning went what are we dealing with here in terms we have notice on this our department has worked with this property owner in this business owner for several or the clerk's office clerk's office chose not to renew this business license the business owner is appealing that decision to this counsel and this counsel either can help hold the clerk's decision not to renew this business license ordinance is written in chapter seventeen the business owner can reapply for the new business license for six months or until they correct the violations that you see on here than they could come back to city council and ask for that business license to be reinstate d it's a similar process we did with the wooden shoe motel last year where they made their corrections with you know before that six month timeframe and they came back and asked that you know that that business license to be reinstated remind me joel  meetings three meetings for whatever it would be to kind of go out thirty days forty five or sixty days something like that right you could table it would be one action you could take you could say you're uphold the decision and he could reapply the tabling probably is the so would he have to apply for a license even though he didn't let me because right now he's operating without a business license yet well if it's tabled here then when it comes back for council decide on whether to to have their license issued and technically so the rubbishy and dealer it council makes a decision on issuing the license anyway right it's in the appeals process right now so it's sort of held in advance of this point until such time as counsel makes a decision we're looking at two licenses in not just right right we're going to handle both one we could it's one emotion you can handle it one motion if someone wants to separate the two you certainly could but you could handle both a one motion all right what's the pleasure of counsel let's get something on the floor to a discussion i'd like to i'd have to try to figure out what this motion is going to be but basically want to give ninety days  this to clean it up and get a fence up but we have to get the table on a motion here we have to get motion on the full table first and then do for two or whatever your amendment would be i would move we approve  help on this is the do we table it for ninety days or six sessions of counsel or until a date specific or day specific yeah i would prefer that be tabled to a date specific and i would also recommend maybe not ninety days because technically he would be he's operating without a license now in the past the hotel examples we let some short time of operation happen without the license being renewed and then they were ultimately shut down i believe both were at some point but we don't want to let them go too long without a license right without a decision on license right  you know perhaps this is a second meeting in june so perhaps to the second meeting in july or the first meeting in august first meet in august i think would be an adequate amount of time yeah that sounds that sounds an adequate amount of time  to not only find labor to clean the property but also install a fence and at that point you can assess the situation to either table it again or to grant the on the floor to first proposed to mike's technique on the floor to table this matter until the first meeting in august table emotions can have no further discussion so all in favor of tabling until the first meeting in august please say until the first meeting in august which essentially is about forty five days gives you some time to clean up the property get the fence installed and you know demonstrate to to the city that you know in addition to wanting to make the property better happening to make the property better and i would strongly encourage you to talk with these fine folks here i think that knowing them a little bit knowing ridge point church a little bit i suspect that there could be some  have both of these items which are currently table as of may fifth may thirteen to be removed from the table on the floor and emotion to that place all moved by hoekstra supported by the mayor pro tem all in favor of so doing please say i know i opposed the same all right they're back on the floor dation ordinance under the appears in the ministry to variances we are requesting that there be admits to sections fourteen four point three that will reestablish the members of the housing board of appeals to be the same as the members of the and that administrative staff be given the authority to grant administrative variances under chapter fourteen when the home receives a reasonable accommodation from the city's code under section thirty nine seventeen dash four which is our recommended fair housing accommodation before i move over to the fair housing accommodation are there any questions regarding the appeals and ministry to variances and nimitz that we'd like to make this evening seen on i'm going to move over to hold on one second thirty nine seventeen dash for fair housing accommodation it's recommended that city council approve this ordinance that will provide individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodation and rules practices and procedures to ensure equal access to housing pursuant to federal and state fair housing lolls and short and in the human terms if a person who is disabled and is protected under the fair housing lall feels that our zoning ordinance is impeding then to equal access to housing they will be able to apply to the zoning board of appeals for variance and the proposed ordinates we set forth definitions own what is individual for disability we also set forth the standards in which they will review and granting reasonable combinations as well as the process this ordinance was reviewed by city council in depth at your previous study session at that  time council member mentioned that they might want to make some minor changes to the ordinance that was presented last week those changes have been included in the new order that have been distributed to you this evening and just to make sure we are transparent and everything is on the up and up  city council i'd like to highlight those three changes for this evening for those who are still in the audience or those who may be home watching on t v will want to put on the dock at the dock and i can get it set up for you just put the p six which is the circle at the bottom of the page and what this says is that in this standard that will be considered as whether the property has been inspected by an independent third party as part of the accreditation process i'm going yeah i'm going to need assistance on that  one right the second amendment that is different from the ordinance that you received in reviewed last week as i did number seven the top circle there on the ordinance and it's whether programming delivered at the property requesting  example as well as instead of several examples and then the third one is whether the property should be managed and ordered supervised by a person living on site so will the thing that happened the change there was last week it said just managed the council member who's not here this evening recommended that we also add the wards and or supervised so those are the three amendments that are different than what you've seen in previous versions of this we are compelled to share those with you this evening again this is  second and final reading and it is request or a recommendation from the planning commission that these be approved for this evening right questions for  joel i guess one question i have and i know that council member whiteman has weighed in heavily on this this is sort of within his area of professional expertise and he's consulted with others across the state who have even more expertise than he does in this particular area so my only accommodation is credited and that it gives an example of car international i wonder whether we open ourselves up to challenges or not challenges to troubles by simply saying accredited without saying by whom  or under what standard and so instead of perhaps saying just by example karf international i wonder whether we should adopt some standards and whether we think we have enough information to pick an adoption of what standards are different legal counsel why we had a couple different agencies listed there in a prior version and and councilman whiteman felt that woods best to to use this language in fact this is a cut and paste from his accrediting requirements on the applicant so we're comfortable with the way it's worded the actually both items since it is a amendment to two separate ordinances of the city of holland fourteen dash four point three regarding appeals and administrative variances which refers then to the section thirty nine dash seventeen point four which is the language that you saw on the monitor a little bit ago so i will open up the public hearing at this time if anyone care to address council on a time by to step to the podium seeing no one i will standards that would be in line with what we are seeking to do with this ordinance to protect the neighborhood as well as how the people that are in the inspired to do that exactly but if you can have a template like that car for going to zation it gives the board of appeals some kind of framework to work from as they're trying to figure out if this complex is doing what would be best for everyone involved so i think it's well done that way any other thoughts or discussion in a place called the real reading it's raining dogs and cats something like that we invite chief messer who went to the academy hoping that someday he might be in a position where he could be talking about dogs and cats chief welcome that was one class the one particular class so we have just about dogs and cats but i took the class but anyway  i will turn it over to see journey and have him explain it just because there was that there is a bit of there's always there's already been a first read on this then there was some discussions at the last of the session and now there's going to be i'm assuming some kind of amendment to that first reading  but just quickly for for cash three paragraph one currently reads that you can have up to two dogs i'm paraphrasing up to two dogs  idea was presented to him there's no limit on cats the idea is presented to have for a first reading with an ordinance amendment saying three dogs five cats or a combination of five that study session i believe it was last week a suggestion was made to leave the dogs it too but otherwise adopt what was here first green so we get before you a red line version that has two dogs three cats and a combination of five dogs and cats and so if you want to you can adapt what was on for first reading which would be three dogs five cats or you could make a motion to adapt with an amendment to limit the dogs to two and a partridge in a pear tree also will be provided with like they're not covered they're not covered ok all right so we have the notion has as proven first reading which is three in three and five three in five up to five anybody cared to do anything first we have to prove this to make an amendment right so no no ok if then i would like to make i would like to go for what suggested now to in five minutes two dogs up to five animals so you make it you move to prove the ordinance with two dogs five cats or up to five total perfect yes all right that is the motion that's received from mayor kirk takes a job on june sixteenth jim wagner a clerk for the city of how and dear to me as you know i have announced generally that i will be resigning the office of mayor in light of my upcoming gnutella noid to assume the presidency of trinity christian college to formalize the matter i do here by resigning the office of mayor of the city of power in michigan effective adds up alive and fifty nine p m on june th fifteen it has been a pleasure and an honor to have been intrusted with these responsibilities for the decade that i have had the privilege to serve the people highland thank you very much for the attention to this matter best wishes  all right so should we accept it now i think that he will receive for information and then you make a motion to that the resolution when you get to eighteen a bill from to a motion to accept the letter of somebody with you of the city of howland is charged with determining the stipend given to luck that officials of the city the decision of the compensation commission are automatically effective unless the city council by a resolution adopted by two thirds of the members reject the recommendation to come compensation commission met in their my annual session on may twelfth two thousand and fifteen the city clerk presented evidence from other michigan municipalities with similar council manager form of government among other factors it was noted that very few communities compensate their mayor and council members using like utilizing the salary plus meeting stipend system that has been in place for how and for more than thirty years the clerk noted th system increases the record keeping and workload in the city clerk and finance offices and started their stated that a simpler system of compensation would be welcomed after considering the research completed by the clerk's office the commission discussed amending the matter in which the mayor and council members are compensated the present compensation model is as follows the mere at the amount of eight thousand seven hundred fifty six dollars and twenty cents per annum cost fifty five thirty five per regular meeting and study session the total compensation not to exceed thirty thousand paid in monthly payments city council two thousand eight hundred fifty seven plus fifty five dollars and thirty cents per regular meeting and study session total compensation not to exceed sixty five hundred paid in monthly payment study in records from the past four years it was noted that the mayor's total annual stipend had average eleven thousand six hundred thirty five with the highest level of twelve thousand seven hundred six in two thousand and fourteen city council members similar clearly have a range average less than six thousand much less than the maximum allowed therefore the commission recommends the compensation model for elected city officials be simplified as follows the mayor would receive twelve thousand years we've paid at a monthly rate of one thousand dollars and city council will be paid yearly at six thousand six thousand dollars paid at a monthly rate of five hundred a month this change in compensation amounts to less than one percent increase over the actual two thousand and fourteen compensation and sets a benchmark for future just minutes by the compensation commission the commission review the system in two years impossibly make for their recommendations all right so mr c attorney correct me if i am incorrect and the idea is that in essence we can accept this information or we can affirmatively make a motion to reject protest to be approved by two thirds of the members which would be six votes that would be correct discussion their protests in the past i think rather than simply accepting for information we want to know so people would say that well it's sort of sidestepping accepting so we've actually had a motion to accept the recommendation that is disinformation but sentiment but it is i'm going to stay the charter it lays out and i this is the reason for my question earlier lays out the process that we need to follow that would be as it's been stated that unless we choose to reject and we act essentially do nothing and i then i think that's important because this whole process of determining compensation for this body i appreciate the fact that it's done independently pretty much out of our  it's a group of their peers who are making that determination i personally feel much more comfortable be separated from the process so i want to affirm the work of the group it is and that's i think a motion just except for information so there's something in the record that it was received would be a good thing and that that really does amount to no action because you're not taking  place basically this is related to what's going on with the do energy park we need to take some utilities railroad right of way and the electric utility oversee a six which was item three that was covered already in the consent agenda item two is simply to enter  i just want to bring up the fact i think people should be aware that we are going to they will be able to get a passport if they come to the city hall and our deputy clerk would help them with that and what a great service and maybe she could explain that not only are these fees but there's also some of these from the government so people would know what it's what it's going to cost them if they come here and it's a great service and  thank you for getting that through the government i know you work hard so you know would you give us a quick recap on the how a person can now get their passport taken care of  have a fee but the state has on their for one hundred ten dollars for adults and children is eighty dollars for sixteen years and younger there is an agency execution fee and that's for the facility that is accepting that at twenty five dollars and then we also are doing photo passports as well and those are ten dollars for as part from the photos we are open this saturday from ten to two we had agreed to be open the third saturday of a month of the month from tended to for the families there cannot make it during the week we are available eight to five monday through friday with no appointments for passports we have  three staff members that are able to issue out to assist with the passports one of them out someone could also bring in their own passport acceptable or federal government acceptable partner state acceptable photograph their have to take a photograph right right and we do offer the service so it's kind of like a lease but just a little side note renewables if you are going to be new your passport you know it's five years and you know i'm up to five years you can renew it but you do have to send it in more more then welcome to review the application for you before you send it out just to me sherry things filled out but we cannot send it out for you for we need your passport but if it exceeds the five years county also offers the service kind of clerk's office when we got passports for our daughters that's where we did it it was wonderful but this is really really fantastic do we take cash check credit card what's our pain can only send in a check or money order to the department of state and we can accept cash and credit cards for our separate fees but there will be needs to be at least some check or money order that goes to the department of state her wonderful from last year was where we put up the temporary color to get a sense for what this proposed improvement would look like and again just to briefly review  we received some concern from the neighborhood in the area particularly with regard to the pedestrian crossing from that neighborhood over to collin park took a look at the core door and had some input from edgewater  o basically came up with what we have here on the second sheet which is basically some restricting of the pavement markings as well as reconfiguration of the concrete curbs at the intersection difficult to get the concrete subcontractors but we did have one bid that was reported in the in the staff report and their scheduled time frame for completion is basically the end of august so happens to be the same concrete company that's doing the concrete work on us thirty one for and out right now so they're in the neighborhood thanks for any questions from brian  washington area there by college park really worked hard on this along with city council people along with joe brian many many people worked on this and sometimes i think probably well crazy people at city council but we did work with these people and this is a great were citizens get something started and we help carry the ball has been a great project i'm really excited about getting it done then really get it done i know i have you know just from personal experience we like to seen this done sooner and humid happen so proud to allowed transportation and also to move this along and a donation from robert and janet g man lets in the amount of two hundred fifty parks and recreation for the digraph nature center land improvements received several donations from maryland smith the amount of dollars as an anonymous donation and also from the mater urban concession stand in the amount of one hundred ten dollars and thirty three cents a public safety services fire division for the two thousand and fifteen s symposium was received from bend by your board one hundred forty doing walters for thirty and eventbrite for admission fees in the amount of one thousand two hundred thirty one dollars and twenty cents the human relations department for the multicultural festival held this past weekend receive donations for american tower area quarterly amount of two hundred fifty herman miller carers in the amount of two thousand five hundred dollars  minato six on doing business as mcdonald's in the amount of five hundred in the alliance for cultural and ethnic harmony in the amount of one hundred dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation and an expression of gratitude be a sea of lime green t shirts and orange supervisor t shirts and kids of all sizes and shapes and quite young and they were pretty excited to go on it is kind of a funny that bob was there as well is a wonderful thing for a community and much work to make it happen i've been involved and i said one hundred twenty emails in the last three days trying to get more details worked out but there's just lots of things but it's well worth it thank you thank you communications from me this evening i'll probably save a little bit of communication till i do eighteen if that's ok with you all  so aside from that i will just simply say check out city of holland dot com lots of information their information about us how to contact us information about what we're doing things that we're going to be talking about genders minutes packets permits forms of all sorts interesting videos you name it we try to put as much information is there as we possibly can so you don't have to come into a city facility if you don't want to course you love to have you come to city hall come to the transportation department come to the police station whatever it may be but  preferably not in cuffs but what we also know that sometimes your schedule is not our schedule and it's easier sometimes just simply wherever you are if you're traveling if you're on the road if you're waiting for that dentist point me to get started to hop on of the city's website and find out information also  courage you to check out the city's mobile app report potholes debris down limbs you name it that's a fantastic thing just recently had some wonderful kind of communication through that app it's a really great thing and we  eighteen in the reappointment of david stubbs to the stork district commission for a three year term which would expire june thirtieth twenty eighteen i place those before you for your review and hopefully approval movie proof or move by a divorce  i went to thank mike for his prayer and i appreciate people's kindness to me my dad passed away on sunday you know i didn't think it was going to do this so it's hard for me  n father's day his next sunday so thank you remember to thank your dad who he's here and i appreciate working with so many men who i know are great fathers and i know the type of a father is not very well appreciated many times that a lot of people don't clap for fathers  and they are often very taken for granted and in many times maligned in sitcoms and and all that kind of stuff and i really think that is sell such a mis ervice in our culture and i think it's really important for us to thank those who have been the heads of their families and giving back to  their to their children and taking the responsibility to be leaders in their community and in their church and in their civic organizations it's much easier to be self indulgent  coach potatoes and many things in our culture pull people to that to that extreme and i would i would just like to say thank you to the many men in this community who are fathers that people can really look up to and want to follow and learn from him and also i want to say city of holland they were kind of difficult days because we were losing money and and everyone was in difficult economic state but he was willing to run for the position of mayor and he approached it in a steady purposeful imust manner and he has used his unique abilities  his tech accu men in this courage to tackle difficult issues but through it all he has been teachable and patient and you don't always see that in someone of his giftedness so i did sincerely want to be here tonight in order to be here for his last public meeting in serving the city of holland has its mayor we thank you on the half the citizens for your faithful service with the city charter and his letter of resignation the clerk will publish and post notice that the fourth ward seat will be vacant as of july one t fifteen and that written applications for the appointment to be vacated to the vacated fourth ward seat will be accepted until july fifteen twenty fifteen and i would move that we accept the resignation with regret deep appreciation and good wishes and i will is grand occur when you first came on this council back when you just a little bored guy i started to even though you're a lawyer starting to gain some respect for y seriously what nancy said with your wisdom your calm you brought a lot of solidarity to this council you were very approachable and very well spoken and just a heck of a go around this is not a funeral you're not dying i'm sorry nancy it's bedtime for joe but i have appreciated you both as a council member and as the mayor for and you did it very well raise the raise the bar even that much more and i appreciate your wisdom appreciate your counsel appreciate your thoughts and nothing but the best to you and the girls and your wife i know you're going do a great college ahead tonight for a nephew and niece i graduated from there and can't say enough about it so keep up the new addition and please don't be a stranger let me say something that i don't think he's such a bad guy i have to admit i too was maybe perhaps a bit leery that having a lawyer you know nothing lawyers are bad  necessary wordage so that all can understand that you help people like me who sort of get caught in that every once in a while to come out of that morass and to have a brighter understanding of what's going on so you've given great leadership you've been wrong a few times but that's all right some of us have a propensity for that  but i've seen our young fellow who step up to a challenge and your proceed it with a sense of seriousness to the property gree into that lived into the culture of this council who enhanced it you know i think we're all better off for it so we wish you well i don't know what be the college presidents going to be like for you but ok after this ga you a piece of cake great we wish you well whatever roads you travel i'm sure it will be better for you having passed by so thank you for your service for the great fun and  i have served under no other mayor just like as i was growing up i didn't know any other pope for a long time shocking not crazy i know of no other mayor i know of no other appreciate everything you've done the past couple years in especially to welcome a skinny punk from twentieth street who had no idea what he was we will all miss you and wish you the best you showed great leadership you are a good listener and when you're here you know how to take charge and then move the move the organization forward and you have moved from your lawyer job to your bank and i got this one hope that you have found a niche that you that you will like for some time and i'm going to guess that you're probably going to find other well it's been interesting ten years i recall that when you came out it was through the appointment process and  you were not the only person being considered for appointment it came down to a choice between you and one nancy de bo and it wasn't a unanimous decision when we made it i actually supported nancy for the appointment and  i think it's a great credit to you that you don't hold that against me and when you nancy came aboard she  became a great asset as well and we all have managed to work together and at least my opinion do good things for the city hall and for the last ten just remind the public that there will be an open house here june twenty ninth from three to five in the afternoon to for the public to come in and to give their good wishes to kurt and his family it and would encourage everyone to come in and do that and look forward to that time as well so ok well thank you everyone i know the hour is late and there's a lot you could say and a lot that won't be said but let me just say a few things because that's the way we roll right  but first of all to to the to the six of you here tonight as well as to todd and to jay i can't really imagine a group of people that i would rather tackle me tackle tough issues in the sense of like brain surgery kinds of issues we tackle foreign issues sometimes many times it's routine stuff boring stuff even but there are times when we tackle thorny things and things that there's no clear consensus and i've always been impressed especially with this group of nine how we're able to get things done without getting on each other to get them done one of the great things i think that that that we've established as a culture and i certainly didn't start it came before me and probably even more than a couple mayors before i was this idea that you know what when when you have a vote here you take it seriously and you vote your conscience and sort of really small indicator of the fact that we really do have a collegial council and i remember when i first joined up and bob i had no recollection of voted against me but all i remember about that night really at the end of the day was there was the ceremonial unanimous vote at the end and i remember there were a couple of votes ahead of time that you know first time around i think there was no clear winner then maybe second or third time but i really remember that night the fact that at the end of the day once i got the five votes then after that there was kind of a ceremonial unanimous decision and and i took that as you know a good sign that regardless of how the vote had happened earlier this is the way we're going to be moving forward you know in addition to all of  you think about a ten and a half years or so with lightly compensated relatively high demand kinds of things that we have to do as members of council we've only of also served with sean so that really rounds out the entirety of the members of council and mayors that i serve with which really isn't that not that big a number when you think about it and i think that's also a testament to the fact that we have had pretty good success as a city of picking good people to be on this body and i have no doubt that that tradition will continue you know dave you said it i think best and i've sort of phrased it slightly differently with the same theme and we take it seriously but not too seriously  we understand that we do important work in serious work but at the end at the end of the day were hired to be members of a council and not to be persons doing the day to day operation that in recent years tough to imagine three better managers c e o s of the organization it was the old joke there two kinds of city managers those who have been fired and those who have yet to be fired  and yet with our three i can think of no real way that we would ever want to see them depart from us they provided good creative steady leadership and you know many of us came into this role or certainly served in this role during some pretty tough times and i think we have merged strongly in part because of things we did ultimate decisions but in part because we were given good information good suggestion and i think good guidance from our senior staff so great city managers great department heads and you think of the turnover that's happened there and just some remarkable people who've retired and some remarkable people have come into the organization so i guess i'm trying to say in a long winded way winding way is that the city is certainly more than one person and we've been blessed in this place to have really really good leadership for a long time and i am confident that that is going to continue then a word to you at home in the audience watching wherever and i'll try and look at the camera that's kind of a weird angle to do so it feels kind of odd especially since the monitor is right below so i want to kind of dark down and look at yourself in the t v monitor but let me just first and foremost say a sincere thank you to you for in trusting me for more than ten years first on the on the council as the fifth ward member and then after that as mayor i know for a fact that for many of you you've disagreed with me on some issues and probably some pretty vehemently and yet for the most part people don't take it personally just like we're able to function well i think that people in this community by and large believe that we can trust the members of council to to govern and they may not always be right but at least i think most people understand that we come at it from from a goodwill and we try to do our best it's been a privilege to be here we've you know done some pretty great things in it's community and i've been fortunate and privileged to really have been along for some of that ride you know a couple of visits from a president building a power plant boy the list can go on and on and for me i think one of the most satisfying things is figuring out a way to make this place sustainable  long run it's not exciting it's not going to have any sort of plaque on it that will last into time immemorial but at the end of the day we know that we do not going to have an emergency financial manager we know we're not going to file bankruptcy we know that really we have made the tough choices to get this place to get the organization to a place where we think we can be sustainable in the long run no small feat and i think overall we've done it pretty well in a way that the general public probably doesn't really realize all the changes that have been done which to me is that the probably the best sign of of the good leadership that we've been given by senior staff and some of the good decisions we've made as a council so we're leaving and you know little by little there's been  you know last parade last tulip time last this last that and this was one of those that i really was not looking forward to going to leave the last meeting it's always been fun to most of the time been fun to to be here  council meetings and to spend time with all of you and to try and provide good decisions for the people of the city and so here we are at the end of it so thank you very much and one final thing that i'll say and those  you listening in life who are who are married and those you know those of us up here who have the privilege of being married i understand that the kinds of things that we do here are not done alone sure our names on the ballot in our votes on the line and we're the ones whose you know names get plastered on television or you tube or wherever but there's always that somebody at home who also has to bear some of the brunt of what it is that we do and some of the brunt of us bearing what it is that we do and so for for leah in particular and for julie and i and for emma a very hearty and sincere thanks to them they certainly know that i love them dearly but i want them also to know that clearly this would not have been something that i could have done or would have done absent their support throughout the past decade so bob i don't really ever use it but come july one this baby's yours so we'll just keep it right in the right in the little little holder here i know many people even know that we have actually have a gavel and it's actually got a little name plate on it says city of holland so we'll not actually since you're calvin guy you might understand grand rapids but that's neither here nor there thank you everyone for your kind words tonight for sure but also more importantly for your friendship and really just the great partnership that we've been able to develop over these years  facing the issues that we face i appreciate it very much we do have to  yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you everyone we have one thing left to do most of america yes smith i'm going to be asked to bend robert's rules just a little bit