good evening everyone welcome to the regular scheduled meeting tonight of the whole city council we're glad that you are here whether in chambers tonight watching at home on cable television or at some point watching on an electronic device somewhere around the world we have a decently sized agenda tonight with a few interesting items on it but before we do that we need to make sure we have a quorum to conduct business this evening and to do that we'll ask anna to call the r as we do all of our meetings with two items first i will be lead in a prayer this evening by our colleague council member one compounds then after that we'll mediately go into the pledge of allegiance to the flag i would invite everyone in chambers to stand and join us in these two items your god grant the city state and nation your blessing and direction help us not to be selfish and self centered helpless council to seek answers that are fair and honorable and right for this community help each citizen to seek positive relationships and live in harmony with their neighbors teach this community to always strive to be with a caring heart and working for equal opportunity for all thank you wayne there are copies paper copies of the agenda in the rack in the rear of the room if you're in chambers this evening if you happen to have a i pad or some other electronic device you can also get a copy of the  that councils looked at for tonight's meeting by logging into the system here if you don't know the password and want to get it if you're not around i'm sure someone will be able to get that password if you're interested in having it that sort of information and that brings me to a point that  we always put the council packet information on to the city's website and it contains not only the agenda but also the background material that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting usually a substantial amount of that information will be put out by friday afternoon and then casually a supplement or earlier in the week before the council meeting but by the time the council meeting happens ordinarily the package is pretty well up to date as far as what counts we'll be talking about that particular evening you'll note on the agenda that there are a variety of items that have an asterisk next to them and these are what we call the consent agenda our intention tonight is to handle each one of these items with one motion and one vote all together rather than handling them separately on the agenda because we think that these are relatively speaking routine and have been previously discussed by members of council in study sessions or other sorts of things just because we think that they're relatively routine may not correspond with your views on them and you may think they're not so or not not so routine and you'd like us to handle it in its ordinary spot on the agenda so what we will do is we'll have our clerk read for us the the what's currently on tonight's consent agenda then i'll open up the microphone to allow anyone in the audience to remove an item from that consent agenda and put it back in its normal spot and of course members of council can remove one or more items from the consent agenda as well then we'll do the vote then we'll have the rest of the agenda items so before we do anything further and if you could let us know what is presently file executed of office item fourteen a one to approve the assignment of the current call contract with the coal services to see reese coal company item fourteen b one to approve an agreement with sprint for the use of a temporary cell tower at three forty five collin park drive for additional system capacity during the tulip time festival of subjective terms of the item fourteen c one to approve a lease agreement with grand valley state university for four vehicles to be utilized in connection with the grand valley state university police academy and their grand valley pay the city four thousand six hundred sixty four dollars as ron said vehicles subject to approval asked a form by the city attorney item fourteen do you want to refer a claim filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item fourteen d two to adopt a resolution to schedule a public hearing for march twentieth two thousand and thirteen seven m in the city council chambers or classy licensees currently not in compliance with the city's liquor policy and that the deputy city clerk be instructed to notify the licensees of the public hearing item fourteen one point one to review and discuss the proposed request for proposals and approve the advertising and distribution of this request to solicit development for the western machine tool works property redevelopment project  two adopt the recreation civic center division co sponsorship policy as directed or in directed co sponsors as described in the report item fourteen five point two to approve an agreement with the syllabi dude utility track plus for utility tracking and monitoring system to establish our baseline energy management information and a dashboard management approach to the city's utility use and the cost and that the scope of the work be reviewed near the end of the first year in order to determine the number of meters to be monitored with cost determination for the second year item fortini five point three two approval revokable license agreement with orange leaf for installation of an awning at one hundred eighty four south directed to notify property owners of such of this hearing item fortini five point six two a point the anti lady building inspectors own and ministry her as the interim american disabilities act officer effective february one two thousand and thirteen and fourteen five point seven to approve a revokable license agreement with the west michigan bike in fitness for a projecting sign at two fifteen central avenue a yes yes motion passes with amendment all right thank you takes us to item nine which is unfinished business we have this request in the institute for international cooperation and development for the solicitation indeed there is a motion to approve this request is there any further discussion on it that anyone would care to have mr mayor i've been trying new york in as a sheet for additional information and we do not have all the information yet we're close but we they haven't been able to submit all of it so we'd recommend you table this and definitely we think we'll be ready by the twentieth unless you don't feel you need any additional information but we have asked them for additional information about their organization and questions for greg get on staff what's a pleasure of council to do one of two things i guess we can act on the motion that's before us or of someone want to read table that we could i suppose do that as well if it gets a majority of discussion all in favor of tabling indefinitely please say i i pose the same it is stable all right let's go then to item ten a which is adoption of ordinances we have before us proposed well as the youngest member of our staff in the overalls i for one will allen gardens so we welcome you and invite you to  and we have planned an event for as the recreation committee and we have called it the run of the mill and it is a fun brown five k and also a walk that we have partnered with  sports to do you so it is i will discover some of and details it is saturday april twentieth the run starts at nine thirty and the walk starts at ten thirty  and then the prices are just fifteen dollars a person fifty dollars for a family of four and five dollars per walk so we're going to have vicky talk a little bit about the map so what we wanted to do was to highlight windmill island could you go to the microphone so folks at home can hear you ok thank you what we wanted to do was highlight window island and also window on the waterfront kind of highlighting some underused areas in the city and trying to showcase those so we'll start picture right in front of windmill island we will walk around the windmill and the island come up that whole street then kind of go back behind freedom village take window on the waterfront almost to where it turns by the sewage plant and then come back so it's what we call an out and back i think it at that point in time of the year it should be really pretty and we will get a great turnout and raise funds to try to restore the wind so why did we plan a fun run so our committee wanted to play it around since the beginning of the year just none of the days that we had planned were working out so we wanted to do something in the spring and but we also wanted to do a fundraiser for something in the community that we value and so like she said the windmill and window on the waterfront are not as well known or they're well known but they're underused so we wanted to do something to benefit them so the special events committee is also doing an auction in the same day as iran so that kind of worked out wonderfully there auction will also benefit the windmill and we also hope to partner with a downtown restaurant to get a lunch discount for all of the running participants wearing short first of all i just want to say how absolutely pleased and sincerely touched to my heart that the youth of our community have chosen to do this as a fundraiser for the one oh so if i may i just want to give them round  applause the representatives for that for their i think it's brilliant and it's been a real joy to work with them thus far the finishing touch for the run as they mentioned will be some cookies made from the flour that i ground at the w we've partnered with the nice folks at career line tech and they have the students take this on as a project to produce cookies that will be served at the end of the run and perhaps also appear that evening at the auction under special bid but we're very very pleased they've taken this and we're hopeful that will raise quite a few dollars to help restore the windmill and again i'm just delighted with the next generation of leadership that is emerging from this community and the fact that they've scuse me value the windmill as much as some of us do so thank you great thank you so if someone wants more information about how to sign up for the run or all  sorts of things we just got the logo i will have the online registration ready by the end of the week and we hope to have paper registrations out by the beginning of next week and we're going to post as a representative because all sports i just want to say we're very excited to include this run it happened at a great time it's going to be the end of our grand reopening celebration that week so we're looking forward to having a great time with families with the seniors and raise a lot of money for a good cause excellent will that will be sure choose one of the other crawling option we'll get to the finish line to get all right thank you very much and look forward for more information about that in the city's web page and it's all sports dot com as well and posters around town so we're hoping for a good event at least i'm also there and i read that that's the opening day of the island as well two district brought to us for the from the planning commission we turn to fill myer the director of community neighborhood services for an introduction of this item tonight phil welcome you following the denial at the zoning board of appeals of a request for a variance that would allow the construction of an addition to century lanes bowling facility that would be closer to the railroad right of way that runs along the back of that property the believe the the reason for the denial was that it was a recurring situation with c two zoning occurring on thirty different parcels that abut the railroad right of way so the planning commission took this up planning commission looked at the at the language in the ordinance that currently allows it allows for utilizing a portion of that railroad right of way as an exception to rear and side yard setbacks in the i want and i to zone and which are in this particular site which are immediately adjacent to that property and felt that there was no real good reason that this didn't also apply to the c two highway commercials on so the proposal from the planning commission is to adopt some language for the c two zone that is already in the i want and i to it is a bit briefer than what is in the i want and i to the they have alleys and other areas that are also part of that provision  for modifying the rear yard and side yard exceptions but the planning commission wanted to focus on the railroad right away piece of this and the exception read side and we're yard exceptions where railroad right of way abuts or side or rear yard sorry about the side or rear property line half the width of such space may be counted as part of the required yard in the c two highways on the rear and side yard requirements are twenty five feet typically although not uniformly typically a railroad right away is one hundred feet so half of that hundred is the fifty feet so up to fifty feet of that can be counted towards the required setback so they would in effect be able to put the building at the property line in this particular case and probably in most cases they are pulling away from the property line some degree so that they can maintain the exterior of the building so there will be some setback there the planning commission is recommending this this amendment right thank you phil any questions for staff for the public hearing all right very good this is the time in place then for a public hearing in this proposed amendment of the ordinance if you are here to address this i don't tonight i'll be asking you step forward the microphone so everyone in chambers as well as at home  can hear what you have to say state your name and residential address for the record and the council rules permit up to five minutes to talk with my name i'll still have an eye on century lanes at four thirty five century lane i'll just speak about the  payroll side of this by allowing us to add more space to our facility obviously we can add more customers but we can also add more employees this is going to allow me to add probably close to two hundred thousand dollars my payroll most of my people are part time workers but you can figure a forty thousand dollars a year salary that's that's five that's five full time employees so i'll let the other people speak about the other variance for the group or for the new building i think i got the chance to know phil as a neighbor and as a as a business owner in our business roundtable group as well and i think that if he says he's going to build a fine family fun center for the community  probably will and it'll probably be a great asset to the city and i assume a good boost to the economic activity of our neighborhood and of city measure cotton speak about the importance of developing that thirty one corridor or several times this year it i good evening and i think most of you know me my name is jerry teenie and i live at two forty four west ninth street i am the vice chair of the planning commission and i just want to say that we work very hard to bring these types of ordinance changes to the council for approval vote yes thank you thank you jer anyone else care to address council decide all right i'll close the public hearing then and we have the recommendation before us from the planning commission to approve this ordinance amendment is there a motion please so move move by whiteman support supported by birch is there any discussion i guess i will only say that i suspect that this is one of those things that you know we're pleased to do and assess it is the mother of invention as the old saying goes and that the zoning board was unwilling to or unable to work through this given the recurring nature of this event so it's a planning issue and the planning commission looked at it studied it hard and came up with this good recommendation i see no reason for us to not approve it as well and a please call the r ok that then takes us to item twelve communications from the audience this is the time for anyone in the audience to address council on things that do not otherwise appear on the agenda this evening the opportunity to speak with council is governed by the rules that were mentioned earlier name and residential address for the record please and then also five minutes or less for those comments we will open up t  just the camera so it shows up all the insight and all the help mr cotton really helped me get along with getting my meeting with the police come the chief of police and everything so i really like to thank everybody from the city council and like when i came to come speak about that it was something that was really dear to my heart actually i have started a nonprofit organization and that one thing was something that i was addressing maybe i didn't make it a little clear  the nonprofits called simple living incorporated paperworks kind of their we motto is helping others make life simple so others can simply live i'm trying to make people have help people get off section eight any kind of housing low income housing there's a program through section eight where if you own a home or have a job for two years they will help you purchase a home so we work with low income families on doing that we also do which would kind of be today's volunteer ing and getting people involved in their communities that was one reason i have kind of been coming to the meetings i came to a couple before i spoke  because there's a need in this city for the people being heard and i've been you know approached by many people in the community that you know frustrated not just by the police but just by how to get involved on how to become part of their government how to be involved in the city council meetings basically getting people to basically encounter their community and become becoming part of it we also deal with a mentoring program for use in middle school high school kids it's called the movement we work out of the bread of life church monday through thursday so i basically here today just to protest the city council about the position of human resources i mean human relations position being the human relations position that it was being  that retired and i don't know if you guys spoke about making it a part time or continuing it as a full time i just would like to emphasize that you guys consider having it be a full time position  because you know i'm here today because i'm speaking for people you know i've brought a couple people with me but i've also had some people that were going to come some people feel frayed you know if they come talk about the police be on t v i've been already approached a couple times myself people saying we saw you on t v what's going on do you not feel targeted by speaking out stuff like that and so i also read a comment on facebook about a person just this week that was felt they were being harassed by the same cat getting pulled over for no particular reason and just basically feeling like they're being harassed so i think that there's a really need for the human that human relations position because of what's going on as it is today that you know you're getting community involvement by other organizations feeling that this is an important need you know so i just like the city council to kind of sit  on think about it you know we're here simple living is here to help out in any way i'm pretty sure you'll get some e mails so fight that just like to for you guys also be able to be a part of our community just like we want to be a part of your guys community thank you all right thank you item fourteen point five at that point i know we have a presentation that will be coming to us but are there other comments that people would like to bring to the city council tonight for items that are not on the agenda with that we welcome at ward who comes to us from snowy washington d was sort of fun to say that snowy washington yes i left my wife and family back home and washington i had to come to lake shore michigan to be able to avoid snow and it that is ironic but i really appreciate mayor dykstra and ladies and gentlemen of the council and ladies and gentlemen of the committee of holland i am glad to be here my name is matt ward i'm with a consulting firm called sustainable strategies d c and i am here to give the council an overview report of a project that i've been doing under retainer for the holland board of public works which is to help identify resources that can be brought to the holland community energy strategy to help bring your recommendations about how holland can position itself to be successful in obtaining grants and incentives and other resources to be able to implement the wonderful and a tious energy strategy that you have to be able to transform the way energy is produced in the way energy is used here in holland and so i'm going to give an overview you have tonight some detailed  report and recommendations that are part of the public record and that the council has before them and i'll make some references to that tonight i will say i mention my wife and children back home my highest not credibility as i mentioned to the council earlier today is that my wife went to hope college so we're down in washington d c but i as a boyfriend of that young lady used to visit here and it's good to be back and also tell you i visited from american university in washington d c where senior vice president don treason burge helped run the american university when i was a young lad and he was a younger lad so it's good to be back working with people in holland so ok i'm going to make sure i know how to use the clicker so this is a presentation on a resources strategy for the holland community energy strategy that i'm presenting tonight let me go here and give you a quick overview of the presentation what i'd like to do is tell you the purpose of what my firm was hired to do in creating this resource strategy and and second i'll tell you that i don't have quite the peepers i used to when i was a young man american university so i have trouble seeing the screen but i'll say that going to give you an overview of that i'm going to talk about ways that holland community can position itself to be successful in obtaining grants and other resources to be able to  do the things that you have identified as priorities for transforming your energy use i'm going to talk about some specific resources that you can pursue ways that you can advocate for those resources and what our next steps are going to be and what we recommend that the council and others think about doing in the coming weeks months and years as you implement this plan i'll tell you it's been a pleasure to work with the holland community an energy plan steering committee with the holland board of public works with city manager ron cotton and others to be able to do this so let's first talk about the purpose of the of the resources report that i gave you i'll let you know that i've worked with the holland board of public works for about fifteen years now doing clean air act work energy work and other environmental work as an environmental lawyer and consultant so i feel like i've come to know where holland is banned and where holland seeks to go and so i think that's a good basis for how i've been able to work here thus far the purpose of the report was to take the good work that's being done by the energy plan steering committee task forces and folks like you and find ways that you can resource this how you can take things like the district energy  combined heat and power snow melt plan that we're talking about things like the residential energy retrofit the commercial in an institutional energy retrofit the building labeling programs and the other ideas that your exploring right now and bring resources and and and funding to be able to supplement what you might do here at the community level and so we have a set of recommendations about that we've identified twenty seven sources of grant funding incentives technical assistance and sources a partnership that could be used to implement the energy strategies that you're considering now and let me tell you that your timing couldn't be better because energy has always been an important issue for communities across this nation and for this nation but right now we have governor rick snyder gave a major address on energy and environment and as open a process to invite input from citizens and businesses and communities all across michigan to talk about just what you're doing energy efficiency retrofits cleaner energy resources and other innovations  the president of the united states gave a state of the union address that fee a prominent role for energy efficiency and other clean energy sources and has announced that there will be resources made available for just the very thing that you're looking at so there's a lot going on and you organizing yourselves as a community now to be strategic and successful and smart about what you're doing couldn't be a better time let's talk about some of the specific things that we do in the overview of the findings and recommendations that first of all it is you could not be more timely in my experience working from portland oregon to broward county florida with communities and between represent lansing and why and done work for detroit on community energy strategies i can really tell you that the holland community energy strategy is a well founded common sense  plan and vision for moving forward and that the timing is right and so i think courage you that you're doing the right thing in moving forward but in order for you to move forward on what could be initiatives there costs not just millions but tens of millions or perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars when you look at the gas plant in the district energy system being mixed and you really have to establish yourself in a way that is smart and sustainable that you're going to be able to carry out the vision that you have and so we have recommendations in the report about that we very much encourage the city the mayor and the council to continue to be and the city manager to continue to be leaders and spokespeople and being able to advocate for holland as a major energy player both in the state and in the nation in moving forward on the community energy strategy but but we also recognize that the holland board of public works in business i think one hundred thirteen hundred  fifteen years in energy is uniquely suited to be able to carry out some of the specifics not only on the generation obviously the power plant in the district energy system but also on the customer side energy efficiency work and so  we urge you to be able to better define what your structure will be for employment ng the community energy strategy on a going forward basis and then the other thing i want to tell you is that there are some grants and funds that you can get from the federal or state level that are just easy one off efforts where you apply for the grant you get some money back and you can get a new police car you can get a perhaps a transportation project funded or partially funded something as major as transforming the entire way that your community uses and and saves energy there are no easy grant programs there what you really need to do is raise your profile as a community get the attention of the michigan energy office the u s department of energy which named a new secretary of energy on monday who is intent on promoting resources for for energy efficiency raise your profile in a way that you can gain attention for what you're doing and be able to attract resource and i'll just give one example i represent a coalition a national coalition called the mayor's auto coalition or the mack that was working with mayors in michigan and across the nation that were afraid about what was going to happen in the restructuring of the auto industry and the city manager of wyoming curtis holt joined them the mayors out a coalition said we're going to lose a g m plant and we want to press washington to create a federal fund to help us clean up the environmental issues that general motors plants and redevelop these back into industry and things again curtis holtz idea in wyoming turned into an eight hundred million dollars federal trust fund for the clean up and and revitalization of ninety general motors sites sixty of which are here i'm sorry fifty of which are here in michigan so the ideas that came forward by people being proactive lead to real resources and and so i  you to be an energy player which i think you're well on track to doing so that's that's an overview on the structure i mentioned that the city council the mayor and the city manager have a clear role to play but that the  is uniquely situated touches every electricity customer every month of every year has established relationships with energy customers can play a unique role in the implementation of the efficiency retrofit another idea is that you have and i also urge you to look at the ideas of working with third party service providers that are experts in this area and in particular there is a organization called michigan saves that was established with about thirty million dollars in federal funding and in the michigan public service commission added additional money to it to do exactly what you're looking at which is energy efficiency retrofits and homes and businesses and institutional buildings the governor mentioned michigan saves in the opening lines of his major energy address and michigan saved is not really operating in met western michigan it's operating in detroit in ann arbor and other places dan nally of the board of public works and i talked with the people running issue michigan safe today i've worked with them in the past they're very excited about bringing some of their resources to holland to help you not to avoid reinventing the wheel in terms of starting but these programs and so when schneider electric which has been hired by your community to look at the residential retrofit program begins to implement that we're going to look at third party service providers like michigan saved to be able to help boost your efforts and make them successful so some of the findings are recommendations on structuring your program are in this report i'm sorry i should mention that the council has in the public has available a nearly fifty page report with detailed recommendations  on all of these matters and then to two pagers to two pages one that summarizes the best resources for bringing in to the community energy strategy and one that summarizes t key actions that we think your task forces and your steering committee and the city should be taking ok key partnerships and want to tell you that that you will be more successful in attracting resources if you are aligned with and partnered with key other stakeholders and i'll just mention that that the michigan energy office has a lot of experience in working with communities the governor has opened up this this period in which he'd like to find ways for the michigan energy office to do more with communities you clearly have to align yourself with the michigan energy office you should be aligning yourself with with the u s department of energy which is also going to be bringing resources sout  organizations like michigan save there are other organizations mentioned in the report that are looking for partnerships one that i would mention is the premier organization in the united states working on combined heat and power district energy worked with them to be able to set up the request for proposals that is leading to professional firms coming in to look at designing the district energy system i d e a has been chosen by the u s department of energy as the key partner to help implement these programs and idea is already seeking to work and holland there's a large section of the report talking about partnerships like with the state energy office michigan saves i d e a and others that can help you advance your goals and so you can review those calls for partnership partnerships lead to success partnerships lead to resources coming into a community ok the michigan energy office what i just want to highlight here is in the state of the union address the president said why don't we set a goal of having our house homes and buildings fifty percent more efficient by the year two thousand and thirty dave koster sent me an e mail saying they stole the hollands goal  holland is looking at homes being fifty percent more efficient within the next forty years and the president said i am going to work with the most proactive states and give them funding to reach that goal and so i know from working with communities all across michigan including this one that there's an opportunity here for the michigan energy office to be a conduit of federal funding that the president announced that he would like to put into place for just what you're doing and so there's a big recommendation and my report about partnering with the michigan energy office working together with people like your mayor and city manager to talk about how we can bring resources into michigan some of which can go into essentially supporting and in funding what you want to do here so so that's that's a key partnership michigan saves there's a lot of the report about this i don't think it's the proper time for me to get into heavy detail about our recommendations of working with michigan saves other than to say they have an infrastructure an architecture already established to do retrofits they have a lot of resources already there they would like to work with holland they would like to work with local banks we had another meeting today with local banks from america tala bank in the fifth third bank in the huntington bank and others talk about how they can be sources of capital to help do these community energy projects and michigan saves would like to work with the city the board of public works the local banks in the local businesses to be able to move in efficiency model into holland that in detail in the report we talk about why it might work well  for this community we talk about partnerships with the international district energy association the president signed it a presidential executive order in august two thousand and twelve calling for a doubling of combined heat and power out in america and naming it as a key energy strategy he has picked the he hasn't picked but the u s department of energy is putting resources into the international district energy association idea already working with alan to be a partner for finding those projects that work we recommend that you work with groups like id like the midwest center for clean energy applications out of chicago that is pushing district energy systems with groups like argonne national laboratory already a presence in your community to make your snow melt and district energy system one of the nation's models that can attract resources to get it done ok  to be competitive for resources you need to partner with folks you need to put together compelling briefing materials you need to identify how you're going to put skin in the game in terms of matches and resources so you're not just going for a handout but you are like holland has always been a self reliant community that can put together its programs on its own with support you need to be able to position yourself to be more competitive  kansas city or folsom california or beaverton oregon or any community that are also competing for these resources so there's a section of the report that talks about how you can raise your profile and your competitive advantages for being able to get resources so talk a lot about that then once you have your partnerships established you have established you structure that can implement a successful and sustainable program you've thought about how you can raise your competitive advantage is to stand out for resources then frankly it helps to advocate fred upton is th the house of representatives energy committee senator debbie stabenow is the third most important senator on the senate energy committee you have the ability to get partners as they have been in many other ways to be able to support the grant applications you have to the u s environmental protection agency and the department of energy and the department of commerce to resource your community energy plan and so advocacy just means making sure people understand about what you're doing and how they can be partners and bringing benefits back to the community which your elected representatives will will want to do so there's a section in here about how you can advocate for resources to come to your community ok so there is a chart at the back of the forty seven page report that list twenty seven different resources grants loans technical assistance programs other incentives that that certainly we're not going to look at tonight this power point list just some of the lower hanging fruit some of the more important fruit there are detailed recommendations in the report about how you can go after these and once holland starts to decide what its program is and what its emphasis is i think certainly available and others will be available to help pursue these funds to be able to make sure that you can  resource out your community energy strategy there are some lending resources and there are some others i'll note that in your packets on this the first i think forty eight pages or the report pages forty nine in fifty or a summary of key actions that really the community should take pages fifty one and fifty two are a summary of the key resources so if you don't want to read forty seven pages read those two to pagers that will sum up some of the key recommendations that we make and i'm not going to go through these here but but we have a whole set of recommendations for how you establish yourself well build your partnerships find resources to leverage work together with the state energy office the u s department of energy put together the advocacy strategies to be able to bring resources and these are some of the keys here and i am going to end with a with a little anecdote that actually it's a fable that is in the report that talks about why the process of moving through a strategy of transforming the way you use energy why the process of going through the steps we recommend in working with your your energy your energy steering committee the process itself fields its own fruit it's not just that golden day when dykstra gets a call hey you got a million dollar grant to help implement that this program that those are good days but but also the process yields his own fruit and it's an ace up fable and they stop fable is the farmer and his sons  so a farmer was near the point of death and he called his sons around him and said sun's out in one of my vineyards there is a great treasure that's buried you may have it after i'm gone and soon after the death of the father the sons went out and they started digging up all of the vineyards with their spades and their hoes trying their best to find that treasure and they found no specific treasure but all the work that they had done in the process yielded most abundant crops that they had ever had in all of the vineyards and so there's always a moral to the story in the moral to that one is there is no treasure without toil but i'm going to change a sops model a little bit and say there's a lot of treasure that comes from the the effort of moving through a process of making yourself well established strategic and attractive to bring resources into your community so over the  next few weeks i'm going to be working with your energy steering committee and your city manager and the holland board of public works to figure out which of these resources really make the most sense for you to potentially pursue and how it could help boost the most important parts of your housing community energy strategy i welcome any input that you would want to give me through the city manager otherwise i would be happy to answer any questions tonight and i very much appreciate your time thank you matthew very much we certainly appreciate you taking the time and giving us this sort of information i trust that these slides will be available if we can stick them on a on our web site part of the reason we wanted to have you give this presentation tonight is so that folks at home could hear directly what you are saying and will record it and put it out there for people to watch and then having the slides as a companion to that will be helpful as well as the report itself will be certainly really helpful so you know we launch into this again and boy it's going to be a lot of work but it's go matt the microphone is still open on item twelve anyone would care to address council on items not otherwise on the agenda right seeing we will then move to item fourteen  the board public works has an item on the regular agenda tonight dealing with the retention of services for owner owner engineering services in association with the development and construction of the new natural gas combined cycle unit i think as the council remember back in when the staff was making its recommendations coming out of sustainable return on investment analysis and we talked about the recommendation to  begin the work of developing and building a combined cycle plant that one of the first steps in that process was to retain services for an owners engineer and an owners engineer is essentially a firm that will act as an owner's representative and also act as an extension of the hauen board of public works staff public works i was not a large firm this is a large endeavor not one that we do every day and having the kind of expertise that the owners engineering firm can provide is essential as we move through the process of developing specifications for major equipment reviewing and system with the permitting work that's necessary for getting the  unit built as well as being the owner's interface with the design and construction contractor who will be involved in actually building the plant whether that's reviewing drawings or being present on site periodic lee to ensure that the contract specifications and the interests of the owner are being represented to do this work or to reach the conclusion where we're at tonight  on selecting a firm we sent out a request for qualifications to seven different firms three of those firms did respond with a proposal and a set of qualifications and  staff spent considerable time reviewing the details of those proposals we looked at the into spaded man hours associated with the various tasks and there were about eight specific categories of tasks that we had looked at  evaluated the strength of the team that was being proposed evaluated things like how each of the firms responded to the various items of the requests for qualifications and the scope of work document that we had provided just to test their understanding we looked at the strength of the firm in terms of its experience with the type of project that we're dealing with and overall  the staff evaluated those proposals also the council is aware one of our members of our board paul is very involved in very versed in the construction industry and understands this type of work very well paul spent time with those proposals as well the staff made a recommendation to our board this past monday and has recommended that we retain h d r as the firm to help with the owner's engineering services that would be done on a time and material basis and the estimated level of effort over the next four or so years that we're building this plant is around looking at a contract of roughly two and a half million dollars again that is you know a little over one percent of the into spaded project cost so to put it in perspective it is a significant amount of money but in all of your owners engineer is very important up front in terms of the defining of the project to avoid issues that could come up later in construction or in you know throughout the project and as well as finding opportunities to make the project  effective and as efficient as possible which sort of course will affect not only the construction cost but the lifecycle cost of the unit itself so i stand here with a lot of confidence that h d r will do an  outstanding outstanding work for us and represent how and well as its owners engineer and so that is the recommendation tonight to the council is that we prove a professional services agree with h d r for the owner engineering services associated with dollars that is a general fund of the city or no this is a this these funds will be you will use electric reserves at this point and then you know a normal capital expenditure out of the h p p w's electric utility and discussion that we might have and the purple loosestrife so in short this is the final year of that multi year step i think a three year and it's suggested that the outdoor discovery center thirty three hundred dollars the city of holland match be three thousand dollars and the holland charter township match be three thousand dollars so with your action tonight that african get underway the controlled burn can happen in april in the loosestrife beetles can be released later in the year it will be supervised by our fire department and involve do notice to all the neighbors and is a necessary combination to the spring that happened several years ago nancy i was at the meeting last yesterday for the parks and recreation department and he talked about about this effort which is a good idea since we killed all the fragmented these but they're all standing there dead and brown so we do need to do something to get rid of them on this third step and we don't want that invasive species and i guess the beatles are doing a great job on the purple loosestrife so good for them but this is the third year of a three year project and it's a professional organization that they've hired to do this and it's quite a large project over two hundred acres and but it's in the marsh and as ryan said people will be notified and they can't give an exact date because it has to be they have to go by weather and wind and all of those other variables before they can really make this happen but it should be dramatic anyone else  parks recreation and transportation department received a donation of fifty dollars from jane a dykstra in memory of little ian dolman it is the donors desire that this donation be used in support of the south pres youth our ship fun donation totally nine eleven dollars has been received in support of the cell president scholarship foundation from stacy barr tells hillary hoping doll part two from julie smith a seven hundred dollars donation has been received from in support of the hauen america in bloom contest donations totaling one hundred twenty five dollars has been received for environmental indication in memory of dr william burns horse from paul in jill adams and robert and eleanor kiper and we have one more here donations totalling four hundred dollars to windmill does one in honor of george leave in sea from robert and carol  five point five then the approval of an alternative alternative at mr plan for the human relations position ryan we will turn to you initially for an introduction of this item and then we'll take it from there  mr mayor i have about ten minutes worth of remarks and then be happy to answer any questions this began in my world when the city council identified last year that we had a number of senior staff who were retiring and that i needed to think through some succession planning about four years ago we had a tough recession hit and the city councils grappled with that through the reduction of staff i think you're up to forty three positions that have not been replaced wow directing staff to maintain services it is my goal to continue to make the ends meet and maintain services and when possible to improve services and i believe possible when there are opportunities that come together in a way that are thoughtfully planned through and and and input is sought so the best idea governs the city council is involved in this discussion it's not a purely administrative decision because under the charter you need to approve any administrative plan that involves restructuring so tonight the hope after to follow up on the study session you had a week ago and the three months of intensive work that staff has put into this is that we will have a consensus that will grow as to how to continue these services to the human relations commission the international relations commission and to the community which benefits from those services and has since one thousand nine hundred sixty six i'd like to call the attention to members of the public there are summaries of this fifty page report in the audience available on the rack there were some on chairs as well which summarizes four options there's a chart the lines  full time equivalents of each option and then a survey of twenty some communities in michigan as see how they provide for these services and at what level of staff support but that i'd like to use the flip chart paralysis our entire department head team and a multicultural ad hoc group of city employees that came together to review these options when the process began it began with the two commissions and seeking information on goals what has happened in the past what what how things have changed and evolved over the years and of course meeting with mr serrano who had occupied that position for some time and also with two other staff members who had occupied that position before mr serrano who's are still in the community putting all these thoughts together there are then two presentations both to the international ations commission and human rights relations commission and this flip chart you see on the screen represents represents what i view as the givens it's important that at this time we look for regional partners more we could have greater flexibility in staff time reaching out to the community in ways that has not been possible in the past different times different days of the week have increased authority demonstrated from the manager's office for improved outcomes and increased involvement from each department basically export the d n a so that there are many people working on these matters rather than just one individual where the burden falls it's important or participation in the hiring process so we find the right match it's important have measurable goals so we know if we're succeeding or for not and regard the need to be a comprehensive one year review obviously if something isn't working we wouldn't wait a year but certainly one year make sure we understand what has worked and improve upon that there is need for improvement this chart shows the city employees who number of think my sixty three there but it's been declining over time as have all of our city employees been declining so what does it look like on a percentage basis and this shows you that  basically in our community we have around thirty percent plus or minus non caucasian and you can see by this chart that we have around six hundred seventy percent of employees that are not caucasian so there is room for improvement and that's why this is an important administrate a plan to think through human relations commission is engaged in a multimedia effort to refine their goals for the coming year especially given  the new staff that will they will be working with one way or another their next meeting hopefully will get to the details this just happens to be something that i've observed i think there's a need for recruitment of more multicultural positions in the city as noted just in the last slide there's a need for gang prevention efforts with the gang arrests it's an opportune time to try to turn that around in a way where there's more effort on gang prevention than we've been able to do in the there's need to recruit bicultural members to boards and commissions in the city our membership there is similar to what i said it's somewhat less than the total percentage of non caucasian in the community and there's a need for homeowner creation retention in some of our core neighborhoods and in the region and also needs for mentoring and internships for youth summer employment other employment in the region so what are our alternatives the first one is we can continue to operate like we have before that would be one full time position one point zero f t e position would be located most likely on the second floor in the human relations office and would function as before i want to say for a minute that it wouldn't be exactly like before because some of the responsibilities  being shared were fortunate that sue harder in our community ever had services serving as the interim landlord tenant officer for the city and this is something we anticipate that she would continue she did so proficiency kickoff has been done by our office for the last for last month and we continue on an interim basis until it might make more sense after a year to transfer back  so in those ways we are exporting some of the d n a second option is to use the community neighborhood services department on the third floor to to assist the human relations commission and the international relations commission how would this work i mentioned sue harder earlier she is bilingual she's knowledge well known in the community and would continue those landlord tenant relations and also serve those commissions as well as the other duties  a quarter of her time plus a half time person or point seven five full time equivalent towards the effort and double check total point seven five yes option three would use the existing location in the city clerk's office on the second floor where mr serrano used to be and hire two individuals for point nine full time equivalent so one tenth less than before but with that came capability of hiring two we would once again get individuals who are multicultural preferred and bi lingual and also focused on the two commissions with different skill sets than has been possible in the past it's very likely that someone might have a skill set that's more interested in global relations international affairs and would be of great service internation commission where whereas someone else twenty four hour position would be better at the boots on the ground kind of local community policymaking community relations that the human relations commission needs so that's one of the advantages there and the fourth option would be to take our time and create a regional effort and have some sort of regional office for human relations and international relations in a way that supports and  helps the entire area resolve some of these problems this is a slide showing the historic location at least for the last twenty some years the second floor this is probably too small for you to seek clearly but use your imagination  and this is the third option that is diagrammed the two staff new staff would be interfacing with the city clerk's office working under the authority of the city manager's office that's what this  third option if you wanted these two to one of the staff to be located in the community or it services you know would simply put the box over here and i believe that's the community neighborhood services department depicted there these are the stats as to what the office has addressed in the last ten years and it does seem like we had a high point couple years ago and somewhat less a little bit less here lately but i don't think that's determinative i think it's important that we try to seek an approach that enables us to address all those problems that i mentioned and even better so in summary cons page eleven of your hard copy page one thirty four they are trying to copy listing the benefits of the first option as it as we did before we placed in the full time position  there would be some ease of transition symbolically it would feel right the turnover would be unlikely pop probability the least chance of burdening other city offices  all matters would be sent to that one person i call that being a solo operator or one stop shopping and the cost is seventy seven thousand dollars although since it would be an entry the higher the step plan might be  five to ten thousand dollars less than that initially and later grow as the person moved up the pay scale the benefits of locating in the community neighborhood services option two would be increased coordination between housing  single family and rental activities as well as tenant landlord improve work flow with responsibilities given the neighborhood functions one stop shopping in relation to human relations issues as well you would go to that one office and sue harder in particular she would then work with that have time person as it would be seamless connectedness with others in the apartment would mean nobody to a level of service potential it has the greatest continuity of any options since it's harder is known to the community it would have the greatest number of bilingual staff able there's five located on the third floor it was the option supported by the employee focus group on a three to one anonymous preference survey flexible hours more flexible hours for more access and double the communication actions by three bilingual individuals his paralysis deputy clerk is bilingual more overall assistance to the t commissions given the higher visibility impact and availability greater flexibility in work hours suggested that even some saturday morning outreach at the farmers market or the library proximity to the manager office and more involvement of the manager's office the ability to improve consistent front desk bilingual coverage for any walking gas throughout the year as well as near election times for that assistance and voter registration and elections expanding them or people who can assist and into exploiting the knowledge d n a into the community the more faces you have making these kinds of  thoughts known to others the more it catches on and we we get more cross pollination and more training this was the option supported by the apartment had seen a seven to one anonymous preference survey and we expect degree of coordination with the your services offices kim who was here earlier given that they're located on the second floor as well lastly the benefits of finding a way to regionally fund the human relations is  actually by taking this extra time maybe the vision could be better refined there would be larger savings by the way the cost of option three is forty three thousand for thirty some thousand dollars savings number for potentially larger savings we're not sure it would have to be figured out and other funding partners that would make our whole area more inclusive and that greater good is possible given the pooling of the extra resources with that i just close by being willing to answer questions and signify there has been no gap of services sense mr serrano retired and every one given the interim designations limited english proficiency plan as it rolled out and is fully operational and the training is has been held for all the key staff and we're reaching out into the in this option mrs harter is would be assigned to address housing issues and complaints that came in city hall that's i have that correct  correct i'm also correct in believing or reading that option three was harder would still be addressing those same issues and devoting a relatively same amount of time to those concerns as she would in scenario two no landlord tenant relations yes in both options two and three is  harder would be doing that an option to her duties which would also include plus the have time person that she would have involvement with the international relations commission and answering all the calls for service that that you see or did see on the screen other questions day for you i'm done ok for the time being ok other questions like please brian no matter what's decided tonight have you formed a  hypothesis or whichever way you want to go with this of combining some of the items and number four no matter which if we go one two or three should not components of number four be at the the forefront of any discussion or any any way we go forward i think you're absolutely correct we have a mac a towel area coordinating council service delivery team that was kicked off that two years ago i've been part of the last year and it is on our list to have a regional human relations conversation as part of what we call a staffing and succession plan for collaboration so that is already there we talked about it this morning there's other bigger things for trying to collaborate collaborate on so it did not get a lot of airtime this morning but i believe that we will have an opportunity to study it further as we go forward right ok well let's see if this point we can do a variety of things ordinarily our process would be to put a motion on the floor then see if there's coming from the public given sort of the that the nature of the sort of fo option process i'm not sure that's the real appropriate way to do it tonight so what do we do this before we have any sort of motion put forward by counsel let's open up this item for public comment for anyone who'd care to address counsel on this item not be the time to do it again typical rules of counsel please come to the microphone serve one can hear what you have to say naven residential address for the record in then to five minutes to talk with us on it so the microphone is now open  the question is will this be the time when comments are allowed yes this way the time well the procedure is i mean if you'd prefer that we have a motion on the floor for one of the four options we can do that that there are ordinary process would be to have a motion of one of the four options then we'd open up for public comment and then counsel would choose to do it what you know what it comes forward to do my thought is given that ordinarily when we have something before us it comes with a specific recommendation from management of one sort or another and so usually what happens is the council will adopt that as the motion to have discussion upon but here there is no preferred option set forward by staff there for frankly four options before us so before we put a motion out there my thought is it may be better served for to hear  comments from the audience and take it that way but that's the only reason i alter the thing because we don't have a specific recommendation now if you frankly would prefer that we put a recommendation out there in the form of a motion you know we can do that and  then you can have public comment at that well it is a change in process because a change in process for the reason that just out late in that is because ordinarily we have before us a specific recommendation which usually forms the basis of the motion in this case we do not therefore options before us and i suspect there's going to be some wide diver opinion widely divergent opinions and my thought was rather than sort of suggest that one is the preferred option going forward why not have the discussion first of all and then put a motion forward but saying that that is suggested to  be an difference i think the point i would before we open the public comment then i would encourage a motion if anyone would care to make emotion as to set forward one of these four options as the one that would be the motion of course just because it is the current motion at the time does not mean right that does not have support for second so it fails for lack of a second as anyone else care to make a motion to peter's well it feels like we're treading dangerously in decision making that is typically assigned to the purview of the city manager so i just say that with mike going into this i mean  you know after spending probably of a lot more time on that we spent a lot of time on this and it's definitely a worthwhile thing it's come down to for various alternatives  i think after speaking with the city managers and some city staff and and and just trying to figure out what is the best what have i learned on city council that i that i've seen ryan bring to the table and others bring to the table with things we've done it we've always done it the same way and i got tired been impressed by forcing us to look at things differently and as i consider this i really like the idea of forcing us to have more of a regional discussion i like the idea of getting more staff involved instead of me be just having that one person sit in that desk  like we've done it all the time it's not a reflection on anybody's past performance but i would say we need to do better and i'm not sure doing better is do it the way we've always done it  i kind of like the idea of getting two new individuals involved some fresh blood skill sets better aligned to the objectives that we've laid out as what we want to see happen here  i think item or option three is certainly not the cheapest on the table but it does provide us i think a pretty solid approach for one year  to do something differently and i would expect and i hope that we have better results and we've had in the way we've approached this in the last twenty years or so i like the fact that we could bring in some fresh blood with some fresh thinking i mean all the people we've talked we're talking about when we it's like some of our ordinance is you know only just been here for so long something you just assume all that's the way we have to do it and i think i've come around to the idea that there's another way to maybe look at this and i think it is in line with the re other broader responsibility we have a financial situation that we might be able to do this have better outcomes and still end up with a positive impact on our overall financial situation i like the fact that have supported by some of the department heads but i do think it will be critical that certainly in one year if not some kind of interim report somewhere along the line that we don't make sure that we are addressing this issue in a manner that needs to be addressed because what the human relations department does is extremely important and i just at the tell you i've gotten comfortable with the idea trying something different but if it doesn't work i think i would be one of the first ones to say i don't think this is working and we'll need to step back and take a look at it but intel then based on all the reading of the research and stuff and people we've talked to i would be inclined and i would like to make a motion that we support essentially the work it's listed there around that's what we're calling tonight option three and i will say that rights we have this motion for option three which is too bad but the hiring of two part time persons to be located in  good evening again good morning i mean good evening names james davis jr three ninety hayes we're kind of go over the four options that you guys have and kind of give my consideration and my remarks phil as a full time position operate as before fratto was here relations director cord later that he did play a good job i think that also gives warrant for somebody to actually have that one time spent to dedicate themselves to the heem human relations which i think is very important for this community mr peters i heard you say that you spoke about you spoke to see the city manager and people of the city  the city offices did you maybe happened speak to the people in the city the people of the city maybe side of city hall because i also believe that's what the human relations person is really an advocate of is the city and that's a big reason why people have showed out today to try to emphasize that they don't feel the city has been being heard at this time part two is designated hollowing corps nater to oversee these duties in the community neighborhood service department with the help of five per half time permanent time part time bilingual person twenty dollars an hour this i do have very i have quite experience and  served on our street subcommittee of our street also was a participant of our street program and if i remember correctly about six years ago when i was a participant also went through the holland leadership program which our street our street corner also deals with which is also any sense of job but when i first encountered our street our street was on the at on fifteenth street the fifth third avenue church a advocate of the community assisting sue harder and also a part time secretary bilingual all three positions one greg lance position was terminated never refilled bionics retired position never refilled eventually this receptionist job was also let go so you then then sue sue harder i think is a great woman that does a do you know i think she does a lot with her time i know that she also spends forty hours through city hall a week also is part of holland police community relations program also part of the our street subcommittee also part of the our street committee which seems like that's very overloading actually giving her the job of the human relations and just giving her a part time job which you know  was getting had about three three other systems that were helping her so i think she's already filling for people's jobs so giving her another job i think is really overbearing her and also not giving the necessity to the community that it needs number three hiring two staff members i also with the bilingual two but it sounds also like it was going to be assisting su harder which you know i i don't mind think that this lady needs a lot of help as it is but i think that what it is is that you know what this sounds like from the people as they want somebody that's a bilingual and also  icultural and with those two causes you're still saying that suharto would be a lead of these these two people so which would not change actually in your mr peters in your reference would not change the leadership it would be underneath it would just change a different person city would still which suharto has been part of the city for over ten years now so it really wouldn't i don't think would mix things up it would just have to go to other last one the fourth one is i think that's just trying to basically let go of everything your responsibilities give it on to the community and you know i am a person of the community i will be involved no matter what decision it is i'm here to help i just want to help i just would appreciate if the city would listen to you know the residents and keep this position thanks thank you for point of clarification suze role would be drastically different an option three compared option two so it would not it would be materially much less option three i just want to make that clear whereas deputy city clerk's paralysis role would would be greatly increased in option three working with these two individuals which would provide point nine f t of service very close to what we've had in the last year  between the city leadership and the constituency in our city most specifically people of color in l g b t q citizens of holland your decision tonight to change the historical imprint of our city's human relations or civil rights or human rights office services and programs because of lack of money or it's just a different thing to try has a cost in and of itself specifically a cost to people of color l g b t q in holland i will now reference three sources of data that i also referenced and mayor you had to leave the study session last week i did reference three sources of data to appeal to all here tonight and to those at home to seriously consider the ramifications of prioritizing finance problems ahead of community safety in outreach national gang violence and hate crimes are on the rise disproportionately crimes against people of color  the michigan civil rights commission report results on discrimination in michigan has an economical cost to the entire state of michigan including holland and finally the euro frost center citizen survey results were favorable of city services and being a more inclusive an open community these data sources all point in the direction to maintain the human relations department in a ministry of latter position as is yet your decision to change the administrative role of said department is blatantly counter culture to people of color in l g b t q maybe this is happening because of last year's protected classes inclusion recommendation from h r c failed because of the mayor's tie breaking vote against the change maybe this is happening because the city's leadership in management has changed with the hiring of ryan cotton and his leadership style maybe not the only cost here is at the expense of people of color cotton and this report is absolutely excellent i've gone over it obviously you guys have done a lot of work this is not justified by night and i would also respectfully submit that it's also not revenge or anything like that we we as near as i can tell from this report and i can be corrected if i'm wrong but every single function of the human relations commission if it isn't already being subsidised by other departments it will be in this position so there really is no loss of function as near as i can tell with the human relations issues  some of the issues also for instance like gang violence in my opinion are less in the purview of human relations anyway and it doesn't need to be part of that that thing i'm going to tell you that option three i think i agree is about the best way to go from what i can tell you're not losing any function you're distributing a little bit of influence and authority throughout the departments i have always been bothered i'll be quite frank with the influence of the present set up i i would disagree respectfully disagree that that set up did not represent holland  basically a center right community like the rest of the nation and the way the commission was being run was decidedly leftist and so i personally had a problem with that and its function was not particularly objective as well we found that out earlier this year so i would say that option three is is a good way to go i don't think there's any loss of anything and i would thank the city council in the city manager for being courageous enough to come up with this and to spend the time and so forth to get it done am phil corey two fourteen west fifteenth street i'm chairman of the human relations commission i've been on or on a committee for the last sixteen years and work with if this gentleman thinks that al ran things he was under false pretense false understanding is my understanding that department heads when they have worked with the commission they don't give directions if they have a volunteer commission they guide they coordinate but it's the commission the makes the decision so it is not mr serrano who is leftist it is the people of the commission who hopefully have studied the u s constitution and have interpreted it and are trying to help you and force it i would disagree with the previous speaker on that i agree with wayne i would like as i wrote a letter to you this week a person go to person it's nice to have charts and things and it's a lot of work that ryan has done but to have a human being whose sole concentration is on a few areas of human relations civil rights as you may call it who is not have to be dealing with a lot of other things and other departments of the city can concentrate on human relations and on the human relations commission and on the international relations commission thank you thank you microphone remains good evening and welcome mr mayor and city council my name is hardwell or i live at eighty seven west fourteenth street i have been a member of the international relations commission for i think about thirteen years  d as a member of that commission i kind of like proposal three because it proposes to increase the amount of time devoted to international relations however i am concerned about proposal for proposal three for a number of reasons obviously one of the principal motivations behind all of this is saving money and i'm questioning the legitimacy of that because what you're proposing to do is to experiment and i don't know that city should be doing that particularly you're you're reducing the significance of that particular job you're spreading it amongst a number of people  and i think it it sends the wrong message to the community you're fraction wising the the way people are going to be able to access city hall for a variety of services and i'm concerned about that i think the city has to has to make a very positive statement to the community that that the city is interested in serving everybody in the community regardless of what their race what their ethnic background is what their economic level is and so forth and so i i encourage the city to to go with proposal one thank you thank you some recommendations so i would ask that the board consider option four along with option three to look at the end game because yet otherwise if you don't look at the long game you're going to be back in this position again because you  commit to one year so the things that it's a little background myself on the president of the federal union for federal employees so i was spent a lot of time or not was equal straighten trying to keep our jobs how do we keep resources services going to the public when we're losing money w things not only locally regionally but nationally so part of what i did the military was crisis management so i look at a look at reports like this and i find weaknesses in the report for example the dollar savings you're talking about are invalid because as you said the person was are about ten thousand dollars less so the savings are about ten thousand dollars less for every example you gave the data set they used for the survey are invalid because you're using cities that are not the comparison there also with the e o part because part of my union sponsibility is i do e o cases on a federal level i do mediation i drop or trace and i do labor relations negotiations so that comes to here is i find weaknesses in the process to see what's what is wrong with the process and for this i feel that the city's kind of expose itself to some legal issues down the road for example if you take the ila duties and you put them down three or four levels down in your organizational chart if you're setting a bad example that the individual has a responsibility i mean that be able to make a fair judgment because they may have to give a bad decision to their boss through a few months later has to give the appraisal for that person for promotions or what have you you're setting yourself up mostly your duties are set as an individual who's outside the chain of command to advise the mayor or whatever leadership is involved when you bury that kind of do you down below you're setting yourself up for for issues and therefore the process is a failure it's not going to be evaluating people fairly so i bring these up as weaknesses in your report it's a great analysis of what internally you want to do it again alison what your goals are going to be but  get to see anything that you've gone out of the culture here to compare it to apples to apples or you've had a third party audit of the plan so unless i'm missing something from the the reports on the website and i was part of the study the meeting is held last week i didn't hear any of that brought up so i bring those as concerns issues things to look down the road that's why i request that you look at option four to be patched together with option three so you have something a year from now to look at a set of reinventing the wheel and we're back here again doing as you say some time energy and hours thank you thank you we have first and foremost we have to consider the perception of community and people about harlem and to mean to replace complain has been reported you know but the fact is if you get involved and listening to their pain and suffering you know do much much more than what is on the surface of it you know oreo asian store it in fly you know but the hispanic community not knowing us at all came to us knocking on the door on our door and begging us concerned who really care about them you know otherwise you know you don't know you will not hear it you know because day perception already people are not going to listen to them you know so it's not the money issue we have to see what the perception of the city will look like when we eliminate our surrounding us saying that we are just a warm body all with multiple bodies that people don't know anymore who to talk to you know so we i mean there consular staff i have one concern and that is that i also like option three you know i'm pretty good about going into option that we were just a single entity but housed in the human's relations office at the time now with this set it is my hope that we still maintain our sea within the city limits and if there is a study on that as far as documents reach and commission that's fine on regional basis but i really like to head that boat identities separated we are not there for mission arms identical or not the same icons we can live with these are two i can say we could care for your generation instead somehow the latino community has some kind of representation something to fall back on heritage to be proud of just like a thought heritage but then be clear try and separate the sister city relation from the human's relations like i said it's a different identity difference mission and basically that's what i had to say and now as far as the human relations commission you noticed it's just a sad thing if people still don't know how to behave behave and treat each other like humans we still see a lot of laws broken and to come out here and try and make excuses that just to me it's still ok bearable that we just don't seem to get along together at times out there is what i say t are human relations commission played a very key role maybe it's time to address changes but make sure that these changes that are being made with the humans relations commission just rolls on civil rights still happening out there i mean as far as discrimination i don't think we'll ever hoping there's one time in my life that i would say wrong that we're just no exist in the dictionary relations position is very critical make sure what the reaction we go there's still a lot of discrimination out there housing we know a lot of numbers come up from the township not in numbers come up but very good right that's what i say is that option for should be looked into but not in the way it is going to good evening and welcome thank you james davis sr you heard my son now is that in the air is they all of these options are viable but human relations deals with how we relate to one another and if you have a whole bunch of people trying to run the program where's their countability that's what is needed accountability we have to relate to each other like the man said you know when people come in to him asking him to carry the food that nobody else would do so you've got to have somebody with a compassionate heart you've got to have somebody who cares you've got to have somebody who understands what's going on in the community so if you have one person and they are accountable to the commission and to everybody else then things will get done but when you piecemeal it out to different organizations then everybody plays the blame game just like in the bible adam blame god for given the woman who was saying and and we still doing that today we're blaming each other and nobody wants to take responsibility for what goes on in the community nobody wants to stand up and be a advocate because they figure they'll be targeted well i came up in a time when we had activist and things got accomplished and nobody blamed anybody else because they organized one person you've got to have one person who's accountable to do the human relations they've got to have a compassionate heart they got to have understanding for the job i worked twenty years in the prison system and i became hard because that's what it took but then now that i'm working in a retirement village and stand that it's more than just being hired as more it's about being compassionate as of minister i have to be compassionate to the people who come to have counseling the people who are going through things how can i know what it's like to be hungry if i never went without a meal how can i know how it feels to have no clothes if i've always been had a closet full of clothes when i went to africa had a mission trip it broke my heart because we take things for granted in this country that they would love to have electricity that works all the time water that runs all the time food to eat every day three meals a day they're lucky to get one so if we have one person who's responsible and accountable and have and compassionate we would have to deal with that money is not the issue it's about building up our neighborhoods building up our community so that everybody has what is needed the bare necessities at least thank you you thank you clerk paralysing and city manager cotton for their support of the international relations commission over the last couple months as we have transitioned it's been a time where we're planning for the upcoming festival in may and  the chair right now with a great group of commissioners i know that we need additional staff support i stand here also a little bit conflicted because i certainly agree with many of the comments that have already been made in regards to the human relations coordinator and the position i certainly recognize that we need to have a strong advocacy in the city for those citizens in our community those who are hurting those who need assistance osu perhaps don't have a voice and perhaps who may not see themselves necessarily reflected right here in the city council so somebody that they can trust and come into conversation where so that they can have the type of that all of us want to have in this community but again i also come specifically as the chair of the international relations commission knowing that five percent of human relations coordinator is simply not enough and when aaron was not replaced it went from eight point three position down to five percent point zero five and to maintain a very exciting sister relationship that we have with the the city oh again i want to encourage you to think about that as well as that we need additional staffing assistance for the international relationships commission thank you you thank  i don't think there's anybody in the room who doesn't think that civil rights is a critical thing that our community shouldn't be supportive of and i myself have been critical about  this community saying you know i don't think we are as welcoming as we could be in arbor our eva our latest survey would demonstrate that people want holland to be more opening and accepting i'm conflicted too  but we had a way of doing it el serrano was the guy he said in that office and we did it a way has certain way and we've been doing it for a long time and our results to me are not acceptable our numbers of our employees are not representative of what the community the number of people who sit on our commissions and board is not acceptable to me so i guess i'm in the tough position of having to say you know what if that's not good enough why in the world would i go back and keep doing the same thing if we're not getting the results we need and i do think if you really give this a fair chance forget about the point seven a point whatever let's get some fresh blood in here with some perspective that can be very talented to these two very important commissions we have and see if you within twenty five within twelve months we don't in fact have something that's better than we have right now how will we know if we don't try all i know is i don't like what we got with the way we've been doing it so to to put a point out and i think you know that with the regional thing i would agree with you i believe i'm a big believer in regional approaches to everything because you cross streets you know you cross the street you're in a completely different jurisdiction with completely different rules and completely different way of thinking and all the numbers change but i think having some kind of effort that continues to have a regional dialogue around how can we be more regionally active in approaching this thing is a very important thing to do but to just say let's just go completely in that direction i think would be foolhardy because it's not going to be the number one thing on a regional agenda and i think ho can lead the way here and i want to lead i don't want to get better and i do think in my heart of hearts this third this approach to ryan and the staff and others in the all the people i've talked with everything i read i do believe it's a better approach please well i really appreciate all the people who spoke up tonight and thank you for coming i know that's not an easy thing to do so and graduations i think you know  jay i do question mr serrano was not the one who puts people on committees he is not the one who hires minorities or not minorities if i understand correctly and help me if i'm wrong the l g t thing was given to the human relations commission as a mandate to study it was not something that they said let's go ahead and do it correct them i still think that's correct that went that direction i'm really surprised that no one was willing to step forward to second my motion but so be it this past saturday the h r c met for three and a half hours on saturday staff members present were sue her and joel dime it was an excellent meeting and i think everybody is pretty pretty honest the h r c is still in need of more time to establish its goals they need to work on that yet and i think that they have some new exciting ideas that they would like to try and if we talk about a true paradine shift as i see it that's exactly what the h r c would like to do with a new coordinator certainly continue to working on equal housing and education poignant but to branch out in part of the mission statement that probably hasn't been developed over the past is the part that says to do improve relationships among the citizens of the city  governor and with each other and it was very very clear we did not have we had one asian american person there we had one hispanic person we had no african american person there but basically what they said this is the amount of mistrust that these minority people have or fear they have of their own government and their own police department it's real and we need to close that particular gap yeah is it going to cost us some bucks to have a one time person yeah exactly but what's wrong with that why shouldn't they have a decent salary why shouldn't they be allowed to have some benefits a lot of people have benefits the part time is a good kind of thing and you're trimming trees or you're plowing snow or something like that but this is a high level positions this is a person who needs to really understand what's happening they need to have opportunity leadership whatever your job is now the next person taking your job is going to do it differently and i taught for thirty six years in the city of holland the next person that took that job did a lot different and hopefully maybe a lot better than i did we've got new blood coming into the system and just because we've done it over the last twenty seven years in one way doesn't indicate exactly the same as it was i would expect it to moving these to other city employees i see it this way i see that our city employees in city hall are pretty overworked the way it is we keep having a plate we could put mashed potatoes and chicken and we put veggies on their their plate is pretty full and now we're asking them to do something else what are we going to take off their plate so they're going to be able to do this other job at what point are they going to say you know what i can't do all this stuff and they're not going to be able to do it effectively nobody can and i think that's a real kind of thing i think we have to look at the human relations issue from a business standpoint i think that by having a strong person in that particular area using human and human people as resources is a good reason to want to come have a business in holland to come here to start a business to continue their business i see it as a very positive thing not a negative thing you know we have big red we have windmills we have fountains why shouldn't we you know why should we put capital in people this is what it's all about it's about people now is it more fun to buy snowplows than to buy you know hardware police cars and all those kinds of things they're great tangible things they're funded by but we're buying what's good for people in this community and i think we really have to rethink this thing through and if we are not clear than maybe we need to you know spend more time studying it but i just would be really disappointed that if we quickly made a decision and said you know wow regional basis that would be great but i don't think it's going to happen i think we really have to think about this really carefully from   pretty fair history with the human relations commission and the international relations commission before i got into any of this council member business i served on the h r c for a number of years was privileged to be its chairperson  as on which i'm very happy about because he's a good guy all that's kind of a shameless qualification hopefully to help you understand and many have spoken tonight and i've listened to them advocates for replacing mr serrano with another person to fill that position and i do appreciate when you're you're making that motion although i didn't support it for reasons so hopefully they'll become clear in a moment or two but in listening to those voices i've tried to understand what is it that those who are advocating for replacing that position with one person what is it that they're hoping to achieve as opposed to some of the other recommendations that were before us if i heard correctly and i could be wrong if i heard correctly i think what was being looked for was a visible identifiable contact within city hall assurance of be received and recognized with confidence and safety by people who are not part of the majority that being white people primarily white male people that's a bit ironic really that the position that we're talking about in the entities that we're talking about have a mission to alleviate that very thing that very reality that a lot of our citizens face when they think about city hall or they walk in here it can be a scary place to be it is for me sometimes them mr davis i appreciate the comments of both senior and junior here but mr davis sr talked about accountability and just as a very important point i'm glad you made that point that confidence that someone who walks into this boeing should have hopefully would have been being heard and understood and whose issues would be a to listen to in addressed that confidence i question whether it's best vested in one person or if it's better vested in an organization this is a lousy analogy but it's best i come up with while standing in the shower  remember just rinse my hair is i'm not sure but if you consider working whether you work in an office or you work in a shop or are you know department store wherever you are if you're working within a group of people or you know an o zation like city government if you're working with an a a group of people and you have to accomplish a task you have to live your life within that context would you prefer to have one person that you could trust or would you prefer to have a group of people would you prefer to have the culture of that entity within which you're working be a trustworthy culture and other words you want to have that trust vested in one person concentrating on one person you know you can go to that person and be safe with or would it be better to be able to be truly safe with a larger group and i ask you to think about that and that's kind of the the context that i'm approaching this decision the fact that we're talking about this here and not left to ryan's discretion i think also highlights the importance that we place on this and the importance that the human relations department and director and commission are responsible for and have carried out or many many years the international relations commission though their role is a slightly different it's also very important and connected to the welfare and the well being of citizens in this community and beyond so i guess you know it changes i've seen it before changes a little scary sometimes and if we take a different approach at this juncture you know there's no guarantee i can't guarantee to you that it's going to work i don't know that for sure and that's why we're talking in terms of evaluating this certainly after a year but as we go along you know we can look at it and say is this working are our people's needs being met and you know are we cultivating a culture within the organization of the city government where everyone who is working within it is absorbing and identifying and living out the very things that i also run over and his office  did and were tasked to do and in my estimation and i've seen this addressed and attempted to be lived out in other organizations as well not taken seriously if they're viewed as a real person as a citizen of value like anybody else in this town if we can if we can achieve that i think we're i think rationally living into the things that we've created commissions and positions to try to deal with so i guess that's come a long way of saying growing up in the sixty's and seventy's and you know dealing with i'm a man but i'm not i'm not willing to just dismiss change because it's change life is change if we don't embrace it all find ourselves organizationally dead and we won't make progress so i guess i'm willing to take a risk and emotions but as i thought about it i did appreciate having that fresh voice of ryan patton having that been here for a long history and coming with experience from a bunch of different places and i do think that that helps in his being unemotional in the process of analysts ation of the whole of the situation and i appreciate that and i also think as dave said that change is a hard thing but it really is the foundation for so much of how we live today and it would be really nice if we could just stay in our a little house and live the way we've always lived in every day was to say we never had anything different but that's not the way our culture is that's not the way our industry is run that's not the way our government is is working and so we have to figure out the principles that are most important in how we run an organization and then as each issue comes up we have to remodel around those principles that we think are very important and i do agree with dave in his saying that we used to think of human relations as a one person one office responsibility but that's not true human relations is everybody's responsibility and if we say oh that's his problem he's got an office for that go there were saying i don't have to deal with it it doesn't matter to me because i do x and y z and so i really do think in shifting this paradigm we're saying this is not a little add on thing in our city this is a value that is deep enough that we're going to integrate it throughout the staff and we're also locating it and a level of authority that is above department had a lot of times when you run into a problem we have we can solve it different ways we can say we don't like this problem so we're always going to do it the way we've done it before because it's familiar we always did it that way and nobody to get upset because it's the same as if something's the same it must be ok but everybody's not ok with it so and we have the variables  of financial constraints it's caused forty three less people on our staff but just to say it's only about money really short changes the creativity and the ingenuity of the people  involved in tackling this problem they don't just say we don't have enough money to bad we're not going to do it anymore you know it with every single thing that has come up we say yeah it's not as easy as it was before we don't have exactly the same number of people we can't put the same amount of money to it we can't do it the way we did it before but it is so important and we're going to find a better way to do it we're going to find a different way to configure this department or the way it's done or the type of equipment we use or the partnerships we develop or whatever because this is so worth it we're going to figure out a better way so i really think that this approach has a lot of good to it people that come in here and want help and want to be someone to listen and talk through an issue can with this third proposal go to the same place they're used to going to that office and a lot of people don't know all the other stuff that's going on in city hall we sometimes think everyone hears everything but a lot of times people don't hear anything but they do know where city hall is and they do know the second floor says human relations above the door and that's where they went before or maybe one of their relatives went there before so i think that's a familiar path for people and if we can have people at the front desk who are bilingual and open to welcoming them as they come in and they don't face an empty desk i think that's a positive thing and if we can also hire part time people that really care about a specialized area like the c or human relations i think each of them will be better served and a lot of times when you hire a part time person with a passion they put in a few more hours than their part time just because it's a passion and they love what they do and they will serve with their heart and they'll care about those people that come in in the have the time to do a better job in that particular area i would h i also think integrating in the system is going to be helpful for everybody because nobody can say it's his problem he can deal with it so it's not easy and it may read bad to some people but really the motivation for this is a change and wanting to try something different hoping that it'll be a way of really opening things up in a better way and it will be a piece of the fabric of the culture of ho so i hope people understand that and can come to respect it and will look back on this day and say you know it wasn't easy but there were some really good things about that and i see some changes that i like and it's not that we're saying this is it forever it's a one year thing and let's come back and look at it again and i do think we need to think regionally because discrimination doesn't stop at the border just like everything else it is a regional thing but we can't do regional right now we'll have to sell it to a bigger group so let's try this and work hard at it and them we appreciate the city managers authority involved in helping with it as well to make sure that we are attentive to the process and to the people let me start out by saying that you know in this particular case which is going to be very strange to some people money was not the major motivator in my decision here this is far too important over and above the money level second thing you better mark this on the calendar because i've agreed with jay more tonight i think than i ever have  he brought some some good clarity we have been asked to have an open mind that goes both ways there are conflicts there are opinions i appreciated whether i agreed with them or not i appreciated every comment that was made tonight and i take it to heart that's what human relations is all about again we may not agree but we better agree to at least listen to each other and be civil about our opinions we have been challenged as a city council city manager both so worn and ryan for our last few years to be creative in the way the city does business for a number of reasons i don't know why this would be any different i believe phil it was you that said that it wasn't the man that made the commission it was the commission that made the commission e better assess ability because you have the potential of three people being there all three people being gone is going to be very unlikely mr serrano was here for a number of years anybody else hired is going to be here for a number of years they're going to be ill they're going to have occasions we have a better chance of having at least one person here that is accountable to the commission and i know the commission is very strong just to just to try something to try something is not a good thing this is a gamble much you know what going back to one person is also a gamble there's no guarantee that that's going to work either i think the potential that we have here specifically because this is not a city only issue this is a regional issue and i believe mr avira will agree with that one hundred percent i hope she does i think this may lend itself to addressing the problem regionally a little bit quicker that's my hope and hope and that's why i brought it up that we should be packaging components of of number four in whatever we decide on this the question right now is whether it's part of part of item number three or opposed on number three whichever alternative three excuse me we have been asked to keep open minds and i'm hoping the community will also keep their open minds whatever decision is made to do the best that we can for the city of holland and for me this is about pragmatism it's not about anything else it's budgets people it's putting the best people in the right people in the right positions and serving the people who need to be served issues that they have when they come in the door not malice toward the h r c or the r c the committees who do their jobs and do their jobs very well volunteer committees are there for a reason and they do an excellent job and they will be served by city staff will be served by city staff with someone who has a specialist or a specialized purpose within the city to solve problems when someone comes into the door with a housing problem they will go see someone who is a specialist or knows how to resolve housing issues if there's an employment problem they will come into the door and they will see someone who is a specialist with capable of solving the problems that i have that is what the residents of this city should be expecting from the staff and it's the pragmatism of this council to figure out a way in the city managers opposite figure out a way to help that happen so that's right think we're doing here tonight we're going to have more of these issues moving forward as we've had in the past as retirements happen and other people leave we have people on the city staff directors who are doing three people's jobs already and they do a really great job she's there's one sitting right over there still i don't know what she's doing here so late but she's here  it's pragmatism it's something that the city does inherently well and i think we're going to keep doing it moving forward i really appreciate the passion of the people who came out here to speak tonight and it speaks the importance of this issue every person on this council as jay said it is as mike said nancy wayne and everyone else has mentioned already this is a very important issue and we should be investing in our residents and their issues and what they need in their needs and will be doing so with people on staff or best capable of serving their needs perspective on this issue do i wish that he could put a single floor full time person back into this position yes i do do i wish we could go back to what we did previously when we had a full time person plus support yes i do for the last several years we haven't had that option and this organization has continued to become leaner and more efficient and i think the quality of the services that we have seen despite the having fewer people to do them is the testimony to the staff that we have from the city manager to department heads all the way down to every part time be that or part time a that works for the organization and i'm confident that whoever is hi these positions first will be vetted thoroughly to be sure they're qualified it's not going to be just another warm body to put in the places as somebody said these people are going to be vet and analyzed for their skills and they will work to the best of their ability to continue to provide quality services all of the people of this city alecto many of the comments that were made already this evening and won't belabor them by by repeating them i will just note that  ultimately i think especially in light of council member us goes comment about the differentiation perhaps between i r c and h r c i think number four would be the best direction for us to go ultimately but it takes dancing partners to make that happen and until that happens or until there's a full discussion on that you know we we can hope for four but frankly can't can't do this particular point in already multiple persons who spoke tonight gave addresses that are not within the corporate limits of the city of holland and that i think underscores the fact that the issues that have been raised this evening in the issues that these commissions in this office deals with are not merely city issues but the regional issues and in fact one of our neighbors in this area you know has a higher percentage of non caucasian residents than does the city of holland so i think that long term that is the best way for us to go we've done it in other areas and it's worked out quite well  think we do economic development better because we do it regionally and i think we could provide these services better alternately regionally as well but again those are choices that nine people up here get to make unilaterally ryan could you flip over a head  so i was giving some thought to this and sort of analyzing the issues say i put three slides together that i think hopefully will give us give some indication as to sort of my my thoughts on this you want to go to the second one right away ryan  i looked at and it was mentioned earlier tonight that you know there was some argument that perhaps we weren't looking at comparison like cities and i just picked ones that were that we did some research on and the parenthese behind are the non caucasian populations in those particular cities and hollins is about thirty three percent you'll note that places like flint in lansing and kalamazoo in other others are slightly higher most are right within the range and these are cities that are either have a higher percentage of non caucasian residents than we do or are larger cities than we do and i will tell you that our analysis has revealed that as pertains to many of these cities don't even have human relations commission types of commissions as to the cities that do few if any of these cities have staffing anywhere close to what we're talking about through option three option two tonight now grand rapids for example and flint have full time persons through as part of their role is is this sort of area however keep in mind that flint's population is one hundred  two thousand so three times larger than holland's in grand rapids is one hundred eighty eight thousand people so in terms of like sized cities no one has done anything close to what we have done and no one is doing anything close to what we're proposing tonight so that to me suggests that there is a great interest among ryan in the senior management and among members of council to demonstrate that in fact this is something we do care about and care about deeply in fact we do put our money where our mouth is in this area much more so than any of our compatriots cities across the state of michigan of any sort of like size to us you're vance the slide please and i would also note that this isn't the first time that we have looked at these kinds of issues in fact over the past at least five years it's been mentioned already we've you know our workforce is down about twenty percent over what it was at its peak and we've done been able to do that primarily through attrition so anytime there is a retirement or someone leaving a position we go through a process not unlike this where we look at who is in who was in the role and are the better ways to do it are there ways to reduce costs while still providing excellent service if not better service and i pulled out our organizational chart from fiscal year two thousand and eight which is highlighted in the upper right hand corner it might be a little bit difficult to see but i'll walk through it just to demonstrate my point click forward ryan thank you you'll note there that we have it in two thousand and eight and you can click forward one more we have transportation services and leisure  services will those two positions are no longer separate and the department head for leisure and cultural services that position was not reduced to part time it was not reduced to half time it was outright eliminated and now those two departments fall under one person and that person is jody science so we've done it before if you click forward again please ryan and one more time you note in this organizational chart we have a police department and we have a fire department each of them with independent departments with chiefs of both now we don't have that anymore we haven't reduced the fire chiefs position to part time we haven't reduced at the half time we've eliminated the fire chiefs position now does that mean that  a city we don't value streets or we don't value parks or we don't value recreation or we don't value police services or fire services of course not it means that when opportunities through attrition arise we look at it and see if there are ways we can provide sandt similar or better services at reduced cost and that is what we're trying to do here and this is not something that's only occurred in the past couple of years ago one more forward please ryan this is the last slide this goes back to two thousand and three and one more quick at that point we had a department head level person who was our technology services person that person was eliminated when he retired many years ago now does that mean that we don't value tech services as an organization we don't value computers and and electronic information and becoming of course we do the point is that this is not an unusual occurrence for this city or this council or this management to look at these kinds of issues when these opportunities arise and what we're doing here tonight frankly is not unusual and not unprecedented with what we've done in other circumstances so based upon all of that review based upon the fact that you know frankly three quarters of every dollar that is spent in the general fund is on people costs it's incumbent upon us when our tax base is down some twenty percent from its peak that we need to provide better services at more affordable and when opportunities arise we look at them here tonight we look at this issue previous years before we've looked at this issue in different contexts and the results sometimes move in one direction sometimes move another and sometimes they change based upon trial and error so because what we're doing tonight doesn't necessarily mean that it's locked in stone carved in stone it simply means that for right now we're going to give it a try and see how it works and with that we understand the motion before us the option three motion in a place called the end of a sea yes white man yes look strong yes all right thank you thank you everyone who came and spoke and wrote e mails in those sorts of things on this issue that takes us down then to item fifteen tonight in communications from the city manager i just like to call people's attention to the fact that now is the time for people to look for seasonal work or and also potential opportunities in the city of holland so there are some seasonal positions other positions part time available and i wanted to call people's attention to that city of pollen jobs if you google that the first thing that comes up is  the city of holland's jobs the ones i just mentioned i also want to thank you and it's right here  was just mentioned some of the changes that took place in parks recreation translation services including quite a few changes that address in the snowplowing and i think the sentinel for this very nice article that represents  of what took place want to think jodi if she's still here who supervised and ministered some of these changes this the season and i think that we can be very grateful for the intuition the insight the innovation that has right sixteen communications from the mayor tonight ordinary stuff of you please contact us city hall and dot com is probably the easiest way to do it you can find phone numbers and e mail addresses and those sorts of things and we try to push as much as we can on to the city's website so that you don't actually if you don't want to have to speak with someone in city hall you can find most of the information online and hopefully that is helpful to you in hopefully you can find the information you're looking for we have a couple of appointments tonight that i would propose to you first of all appointing a couple of council member liaisons to the neighborhood improvement committee j teen court board expiring january thirty one twenty fourteen brett converse of the out of a kind of sheriff's department a teen court board with the same expiration date cindy vendor pile to the court board from a county circuit court same expiration date joined baker from holland christian holland christian liaison of the teen court board expect expiration date of january thirty one of two thousand and fifteen mark guy star of the holland highly azan of the teen court board thirty one twenty fifteen and lena de reale member at large the teen court board commission to expire january thirty one of twenty fifteen and i would place those before you for your consideration we prove moved by whiteman support supported by the mayor pro tem all in favor please say i post the same likely shame with ever doesn't might as well know ok speaking of our cultural celebrations in september september two long saturday march sixteenth at twelve noon starting at the civic center in the marketplace the st patrick's day parade which has become an annual tradition in downtown holland come one come all where your green will be will be starting at noon going the wrong way on the street which is always a good fun thing to do the animals will be handouts they'll be this that and the other sixteenth noon high starting at the civic center the st patrick's day parade for twenty thirty all right other communications with counsel motions or resolutions right  do have the request to go into closed session tonight right you further request from the city attorney to go to a closed session for property acquisition discussion is there a motion to do so so moved by white