right good evening of all come everyone to this regularly scheduled meeting of the whole city council we actually did go into session in our pre concert meeting as we went into a closed session for a few purposes and mr city attorney if you might just publicly while the cameras are running let the public know what we were in closed session about upstairs in the pre concert meeting and appreciate the motion that was made by city council to go on to closer show the session was for two purposes one is to review two items of pending litigation and the other was to review a legal opinion with the city attorney which is an exempt communication under the freedom of information act and therefore allows meeting in a closed session under the open meetings act i think you will be going into another closed session at the conclusion of this open meeting as well for national purposes and we'll get to that a little bit later that then takes us to item two and three which we handle together and we will open o come before you as we are strength of us with the power of your spirit that our attitude and outlook may develop and our way of looking may become more like yours hope us to remain positive courage ing in appreciating one another looking upon people in the same way that you do as leaders give us a vision that builds community and provides opportunity of inclusion for all bless and keep whole those who serve us in so many right thank you david there are copies of this evening's agenda located in the rear of the room in the rack in the rear of the room if you're in chambers if you are either following along at home on television or at some point on a computer you can also find the information about our agenda as well as all the background materials at the city of holland's website city of holland dot com easiest way to find it is to go to the calendar page go to today's date you'll find all that material in in on that web page if you're in chambers we do have wireless in the room as well and you can follow along that way also but you'll note as you review the agenda there are a variety of items marked with an asterisk and these are items that are consent agenda items meaning we deem them to be relatively routine are things we've talked about before  intention at this point is to handle all of those items with one motion and one vote at this particular point regardless of where it shows up on the agenda some of the audience may not find these items quite as routine as we do in fact you might be here to specifically speak to one of these items and what we will then do once we hear what's on consent give an opportunity for audience members to remove an item and also for members of council to remove one or more items so before we get to that removal part if it happens and it would you please indicate us what is on the consent agenda tonight item five to prove the minutes of the special and study sessions held august twenty second and close in regular session meeting minutes held september five two thousand and twelve item six to excuse absence of council member burch item eleven eight to accept and file executing those of office item eleven be to accept as information a lot of support regarding the city's commitment in the development of the hauen community energy plan item fourteen a one to approve or transfer from contingency in the amount of thirty one thousand five hundred dollars for the installation of the james de young arc flash mitigation scheme for the how on board of public works item fourteen b one and i hundred eighty two except in place on first reading ordinances a proposed only ordinance amendment to rezone the municipal stadium property from the r t r in known as a traditional residential neighborhood district to the education district item fourteen d two to adapt the michigan liquor laws resolution approving a new micro blue license for our brewing company located at seventy six east eighth street item fourteen one point one one thousand b to accept and place on for first reading ordinance amendments to chapter twenty seven in regards to the refuse and garbage concerning collection of yard waste item fourteen one point two two approve the lease renewal for parking lot seven c of the downtown area as recommended by the downtown parking and development authority boards and to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to sign such agreement item fourteen one point three to approve the lease renewal for parking lot seven g and parking deck as presented to authorize said agreement item fourteen eat two point one two adopt a resolution scheduling a public hearing for assessment roll peavy three ten for the lincoln avenue sixteenth to twenty four st improvement project on wednesday october seventeenth two thousand and twelve and t instruct the deputy clerk to publish an email notice of said here in item fourteen each three point one two except as information the july and august two thousand and twelve financials as submitted by the finance department item fourteen eat three point two two accept the bi submitted by us construction equipment and the net amount of fifty seven thousand five hundred dollars for the replacement two thousand and six john deere backhoe and dick to declare that as also a surplus for the parks  department item fourteen eat three point three to declare a surplus bicycles by donating a donating to seventy times seven a list of bicycles the need to prepare for the needy recipients in the area and the remainder of the list of bicycles to be picked up by property room dot com to be placed on their website for sale with profits to be split between the city and property room dot com and item fourteen three point four to approve the bid from quote communications at the cost of thirty seven thirty thousand seven hundred sixty three dollars and thirty two cents for narrowband radio equipment for the fire division services and that the said cost be paid from the centralized vehicle equipment fund all right that is what is now on the consent agenda would anybody from the audience care to remove an item from it and the members of council want to remove one or more items from consent mr mayor attorney molders signified that as we discussed in the pre  meeting review item fourteen one point one the refuse ordinance regarding yard waste first meeting tonight is possible that it would be have to be non consent so you could signify the second reading would not be until october seven special presentations and recognitions we have two items tonight and we'll start with one matt if you want to start working your way up here but we're going to start with tonight is something we just found out today and i'd like to read something that was received by greg robinson our assistant city manager and here is what it says and a paralysis c m c of city of holland has earned the designation of certified municipal clerk c m c which is awarded by the international institute of municipal clerks inc it grants that does ignition only to those municipal clerks who complete demanding educational requirements and who have a record of significant contributions to their local government their community and state this organization which was founded in one thousand nine hundred seven has ten thousand three hundred members throughout the us canada and fifteen other countries in the mission of this global nonprofit corporation is to enhance the educational opportunities and professional development of its diverse membership in light of the speed and drastic nature of change these days lifelong learning is not only desirable it is necessary for all in local government to keep pace with growing demands and changing needs of the citizens we serve your city our city can take immense pride in and its educational accomplishments and achievements of this milestone on behalf of the organizational board of organizations board of directors i am honored to of the city of holland we share your pride in this achievement and we applaud your support of the role and of plays in our city signed sincerely brenda curtain with the mc and regulations that wonderful this was a lot of work on anice parks and she's justifiably pleased with this award today this recognition and we're very thrilled to be able to be able to do this on a wednesday night for the cameras with everybody watching so congratulations thank you guys excellent thank you ok for a number of years now we've talked about implementing a city of holland i phone app or smartphone app and we are here to do that tonight we're going to run through  can see we're just to give us an idea of how big it is to do we decided to go with a citizen engagement system where we are going to allow our citizens to actually actively identify problems in our citizen city and get that information to us and more and most importantly allow us to give feedback back to them so we are pretty excited about that and i will run through how this all works so for folks at home we just want to let them know to grab their smartphone and they can actually file the installation right now that's correct i see everybody on councils got their i pad or i phone out and or  that further ado will run through the at the main idea behind the app like i said was to citizens to identify problems submit those to the city get a response back and follow the problem through to resolution so we'll just click the submit a report  we're actually going to use a stock image clip that i have here but if you are a user in the field you'd be able to take your own image of whatever the problem ads get a pothole long grass tree down a band vehicle  bicycle or whatever that would be we're going to use actually in a band bicycle here the app integrates with the g p s within the mobile device this in this case and i pad you can see here that we've we've  located where we are this is city hall if the reporter decides that they've gotten back home hey we want to report this in not in the location they're currently at we can actually move these crossers around and report the  issue wherever we feel like it we have a list of of stock issues that we can go through will pull something that we know isn't hopefully happening yet in holland but maybe in very near so we say the mailbox is gone the first time the user enters a request they need to enter their name and email address in the application definition will then hold that so they don't enter it each time we do need to do that at this point  never had to try to type this fast with people looking at pressure of holland but you know we'll go with what we've got so we've created our incident and it was that fast i think that took maybe thirty seconds to a minute we've got an image of what the problem is description and who actually is submitting the issue now the other thing this app does is it gives our people that go out in the field and idea of the problem they're facing before they get the e if if it's a pothole issue they'll physically actually have a picture of the pothole before they get out so instead of sending a crew out with all the or no equipment they know exactly what they need to fix the issue before they get there so it helps the citizen eye for example under other under other or if there's a transportation related issue such as a pothole jodi's phone we'll start going crazy in the back here the way this is set up is  the the different types of troubles go to different people so all issues that would relate to the police department go to chief mess or whoever he does ignatz parks issues would go to and you can in the parks department it just gets routed to the correct place so people also aren't getting routed all to the clerk's office in the clerk's office has to decide who it goes to we can actually set that up it's fully customizable we can add people we can remove people as we go along so if you see we've got here the  people the user on the other side they get a notification a pop up thank you reports been received if they are the technology integrates with g p s and g i s technology so we've actually submitted what's called  our city limits if a person is outside of the holland city limits and tries to actually log a trouble call they'll get a notification they'll get in over cation just like this that pops up and says thank you for submitting your trouble however you are not located within the city of holland we do everything we can to try to forward your issue to the appropriate people but it's not in essence a city ok so that easy sight of me talking we've actually created that report it's been sent to the appropriate people i can see a list of all of the issues that i have created here you can see the ones with the yellow those are ones that i have not actually submitted at this point and then this one that i have submitted we can go in and we can see ok this is of us of the different one but we can see all the correspondence between the reporter and the city and they have this right on their smartphone so it creates an accountability to our citizens that we are going to resolve this problem and these are the steps we've taken to actually resolve it in addition i can use the other tabs within the application home to my reports and the my city and in the my city area i can actually see other issues that other people have reported within the city  this is pretty powerful in that you are not going to get as many repeat notifications of issues people can come in they can actually zoom in on the issue click on it and again see all the history with that issue when it was taken everything that was going on we do have just another quick feature that we have in our ability to pull in  feed of news currently we're looking at the city calendar as r s s feed we will probably change this over to twitter shortly and that will be the information that we put down the twitter updates so you can see within the app i actually get to the appropriate information on our city web page and that was the main feature of the app now we also know that not everyone in the world has a smartphone so an additional feature of the package that we purchased is the ability to actually do the same thing on our website so if someone doesn't have a smartphone doesn't have the ability to do this but they want to log calls they want to be able to interact with their government they can do so through a web browser we can do the same functionality here or we can come in and view different troubles click on those troubles and get the appropriate information via the internet on what's going on at that location in addition we scr further down the page we can actually log our own trouble calls within this application we can search for an address it will look at that address on the map if we're not comfortable finding it and we can create a trouble to that so this is obviously to seventy river it's city hall and we can  create the patrol call through the same series of steps where on the web page i find the city's web page do i find it will be pinned on the front page ok so it's not quite there yet but it will be tomorrow morning we'll put on that we don't want to put it on the website before we actually had a chance to present  past again google play i tunes windows mobile blackberry whatever your phone of choice is we think we've got the bases covered so that everybody that we serve can utilize this app right questions for mat are and also that we can address things and so that frankly our residents have the ability to communicate better and with us and also have the ability to make sure that we're following through on things so everything's tracked it's fantastic thank you ok so if we see jodi's blackberry or i phone going crazy we know that people are using it she's got two of them so she's really excited for this math she thanks you very very much that you've gone through  and phil meyers going to it summarises force ok good evening phil good evening tonight is the public hearing for a proposed masterplan amendment this comes out of  well as a result of all the process that the city and has been going through with hope college to convey the property the municipal stadium property from the city to hope  college there were all kinds of different issues or hurdles to get over in that process this i believe is one of the last hurdles that is out there the property a small number of stadium sits within small and bird park the stadium property itself is currently indicated in our two thousand and ten parks and community recreation plan as a public park so there is an amendment to th community parks and recreation plan that is part of this motion as well as then an adoption of parks and rec that amended parks and recreation planned as a part of the city's master plan  so there are many months both to the parks and recreation plan and to the master plan document itself that essentially deletes small and bird i'm sorry not smaller parks deletes the municipal stadium from the master plan this is a recommendation that went through the leisure and cultural services commission and the planning commission and comes to you with a recommendation to approve the amendment any questions we've kind of seems like step eighty five in this process that we've been working on for a while other questions for phil related to this particular sort of semi last hurdle in this year's race samir i would just note you noticed tonight's kind interesting out when this stadium was constructed you step forward to the microphone so that everyone in chambers and listening at home can hear you name and residential address for the record and you have up to five minutes to address counsel i will declare the public hearing open and this particular item at this time will close the public hearing and then we have a recommendation for what to approve the change alteration the master plan to record their motion to that effect or to move whiteman supported by the mayor pro te takes us to the next three items which are all related public areas as well related to downtown additional assessments and essentially additional taxes paid the first is a public airing of necessity related to the downtown parking operations and maintenance and i'm not quite sure who is going to introduce this one such as a city manager robinson also summarize this excellent thank you as you mention the annual downtown parking operations and maintenance assessment this is the hearing of necessity of the sea evening and subsequent to this if you do adopt a resolution tonight approving the necessity in october we'll move through the actual hearing on the assessment so basically this is an assessment the downtown properties that are within four hundred feet of a public parking lot the sussman is based on a building square footage so there is a you take the square footage of the first level that becomes the base rate and then depending on how the upper level is used there's another percentage of that base rate that's added again depending on how that upper levels use whether it's used for office is a retailer or a number of different uses this year the downtown development authority is recommending as they have for the past number of years that that assessment be increased by three percent and the intent there is to avoid having a significant increase above that three percent every few years as c increase so they've been doing this for a number of years now where they recommend an increase of three percent each year the total susman this year is one hundred eighty one thousand two hundred forty eight dollars and fifty one cents and there are one hundred forty six our party he's involved in this district patty fitzpatrick from the d d a is here this evening if you have any questions but the recommendation is that you adopt a resolution approving the newest necessity of the annual downtown parking operations and meet and assessment write any questions for greg all right then a public hearing on this item as well i will declare the public hearing to be open and if you'd like to address the site and please step forward  the hearing of necessity on the principal shopping district assessment greg again we turn to the principal shopping district the b s d has been in place since one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and they are responsible for many of the activities that we enjoy downtown whether be street performers or the live mannequins i think is coming up this friday and a whole host of other activities this is an assessment that's placed on the properties within this district it's largely the downtown development authority district however it is smaller as you can see on the map there are a number of colors and a number of properties that are within this district there are two areas within the p s t district one's referred to as the core area the other it is the edge area and this is sussman is based on building square footage as well the rate within the corps zone is twenty two cents per square foot the rate for the edge is fourteen cents per square foot in an all upper levels that qualify based on a different criteria noted in the policy have an assessment of eight cents per square foot there are one hundred seventy seven properties within this district and the assessment this year would generate one hundred eighty one thousand one hundred seventy seven dollars in ninety five cents and again the recommendation is that you adopt a resolution determining that assess a t of this assessment for the principal shopping district any questions for greg then we will have a public hearing on this item as well here to address the side of the public hearing is opened yes please all we ask is the nam eastern edge of the edge he's free and we are paying currently fifteen hundred dollars a year and that is sure a lot more than a lot of the businesses and court does for pay and reason we stay so much benefits of having us nearby but we do not participate in any of the promotions that they do because we are not considered part of them and we are considered outside of downtown by most people's in most people's minds and so we feel that the amount we pay is more than what we are getting as far as benefits go so we are suggesting possibility of not only lowering of the amount per square foot by having a ceiling put on the amount that particular business has to pay i'm suggesting like about five hundred hours i think we'd be willing to pay about five hundred dollars for for what we receive because right now for example just an example we aren't even on the map and the map that people get when they hand out maps of the downtown district with all the shops we are not on that map we don't even close in on that map we are listed as a business we are not on the map so just as an example of the perception that people have all of us where we are located in the downtown so we would like we'd like to have a review of how this is all this assessment is figured if that would be a possibility and let's see here i could go and give you more reasons also but  hearing tonight's meeting is to establish the necessity and we'll look at the assessment amounts and i know that there are a couple of downtown people here who are listening and we're listening and we'll have opportunity to look at the kinds of things you talked about  at a meeting in mid october will be the final date when when the assessment role is set i can tell you that there will be some conversations about what you talked about but we'll probably pass this this necessity issue tonight but please don't read that as we're not listening to what you say we're not going to consider what you say but in mid october i think the seventeenth is when this will finally be on the agenda for approval the actual amounts will also have the opportunity to look at this then ok thank you all right any motion please we don't have motion the floor yet we move by whiteman supported by peters is there further discussion enjoy snow melt in the winter time works very well it's worked well since it's been installed and largely the property owners adjacent to the system pay the annual operating costs and are several different formulas set up to spread those costs because there are several different situations one there are properties adjacent to streets and sidewalks with snow melt or other properties adjacent only to sidewalks with snow melt there are other properties that have sidewalks with snow melt along two sides of their properties and we also have some properties that are assessed they're considered public areas that are assessed on a square footage basis otherwise are on a front footage basis so the the base structure the base formula is set for those properties adjacent to streets and sidewalks that have snow melt and one third of that c applied to those properties that are jason to only sidewalks was snow melt so the total assessment to be raised is one hundred four thousand three hundred ten dollars  nine cents and there is also a three percent increase built into this formula and there are one hundred thirty five properties within this district that's identified on the map so the recommendation is that you d resolution approving the necessity of the annual downtown snow melt operations assessment ok questions for staff a public hearing on this item as well if you were to address this item please step forward the microphone public hearing is open and i will close the public hearing all right emotion please so much move buttress that we support supported by de boer all right is there any discussion i would just make one observation that this year perhaps more than other years we are all in this community a bit more familiar with the additional costs of doing business in downtown holland some of the attractive things that are in downtown come with the cost and these are where these costs are paid and these are where we get the free parking and clear streets in the winter times and all the events like the the live manikin thing this weekend and other sorts of events come out of these funds not general fund tax dollars with additional funds additional assessments that these businesses and property owners pay to make these things happen and to increase the vibrancy of our downtown area please call the roll parents yes  yes peter yes the intimacy is whiteman yes extra yes mayor day yes motion passes thank you item eight eve which is a tax abatement public hearing for a public act one ninety eight and three twenty eight for challenge manufacturing of thirteen forty seven washington avenue greg thank you mr mayor in this location is down near the west michigan regional airport challenge manufacturing you know i'm not sure exactly would do it representative here from challenger sealing to remind us just how long they have been in holland but i can tell you they have made addition after in addition to this structure that is near the airport and this is another edition of the structure of about forty seven thousand six hundred square feet so they have almost five hundred thousand square feet there now they are an automatic stamping an assembly plant they employ i think around nine hundred people and they hope to add forty new full time jobs as a result of this project to abatements in front of you this evening ones a p a one ninety eight which is a fifty percent tax abatement and that's on improvements to what we call the real property that's land in building improvements and they're investing over five million dollars with this project in land and building improvements the other abatement is a ph three twenty eight which is a one hundred percent abatement on taxes for machinery and equipment and challenges investing over nineteen million dollars in machinery and equipment as part of this project so that's a total investment over twenty four million dollars for this project now with the p a three twenty eight with the policy you have there are several tiers depending on the number of jobs created in the square footage involved with what then relay into the number of years that they can receive the  tax appeasement for the longest period of the twelve years the shortest is six years in the policy you have for a six year abatement that thirty new full time jobs must be created and fifty thousand square foot or feet must be involved in the project they have just under fifty thousand square feet but they're looking at forty new full time jobs so we're recommending to you with the ph three three twenty eight that that be for six years the p a one ninety eight we're recommending that be twelve years from the state tax commission approval date questions for staff all right i will declare the public hearing open on this particular item and we invite certainly anyone from the audience to address this i know we do have a representative of change manufacturing here and we certainly invite you to the microphone as well good evening evening your honor also members and city officials thank you for this opportunity to me this evening my name is andrew washburn a service treasurer of challenge manufacturing company i've been there for twenty eight years my address three zero seven one three mile road northwest michigan for ninety five  challenge purchased a building in and south side of holland in october of two thousand and three at that time it had one hundred ninety eight thousand square feet and had been idle for a while since then including  the current construction project we've had six expansions there taking as well over five hundred thousand square feet we are a stamp or an assembler of metal parts for primarily for the automotive industry began with this is our sixth expansion and we certainly appreciate the cooperation a consideration that we've received from the city of holland thank you very much i was trying to remember whether you've had more expansion projects or years in the city and i think up you know a year and a half for expansion perhaps of pretty good ratio so you can keep that up we'd be you know we'd be happy i'm sure you'd be happy with that too so any questions for mr washburn thank you very much for being here tonight we've got a sheet that michael the public hearing is still open on the side of alright we closed the public hearing and we have a recommendation as indicated by the assistant city manager is there a motion by truth that we supported by weitzman is there discussion let me just reiterate you know the appreciation that we have challenge coming to town and from day one really jumping in with both feet and you know we we tend to see you here every so often and we're always pleased to do so and we wish you much much success as a company and hope to see you motion passes right thank you that event takes us to i was going to their last public hearing with not quite i don't f which is a tax abatement public act one ninety eight for herman miller for eleven west forty eighth street gregg sure this is for the design yard on forty eighth street i think you're over familiar with what herman miller does so i won't get into an explanation of that but this is a significant investment as is well this is over two million dollars are actually over two point two million dollars three hundred fifty thousand of that is in building improvements the remainder is in machinery and equipment so again over two point two million dollar investment there are no new jobs projected to be created as part of this project but they are looking to for project to help retain the three hundred forty two jobs that are presently at this location so staffers review this and the recommendation is that you adopt a resolution approving this tax abatement for twelve years from the state tax commission approval date any questions for staff right then a public hearing on this will declared open if you are to address this item now is the time to step forward please good evening and welcome hundred eighty we worked very differently than what we do today technology has evolved how we use our spaces has evolved and our customers want us to see that in a different way so this application will help support that process we're going to go through and renovate we're going to make our work spaces smarter our technology better and we're going to improve our prison tesh presentation abilities to our customers showing them new product launches along with the classics and how that can fit into their new spaces if you have any questions that i can address i'd be more than happy to do that we really appreciate the support of counsel that we've received in the past and questions well i mean that the last time i was at the design years was a couple of months ago when the holland bloom or american bloom folks were in town and you know your company hosted a very nice reception for them and launch and i'm always just  tickled when i get to be in that space because it is even though it is eighty eight this is sort of surprising but even though it you know is a little from one thousand nine hundred it still feels incredibly fresh but the beauty of what herman miller does is you don't really need to build showrooms in many ways your office space is your showroom and a living working environment so it's completely understandable that you know you need to continually continually be fresh and and the cutting edge because your products certainly are that and products displayed in that sort of environment can only create win win situations for the company and consequentially for consequently for our community as well so thank you very much thank you microphone is still open this item all right am the community development coordinator for the city of holland tonight we need to hold a public hearing to receive comments in regard to our consolidated annual performance and evaluation report that we need to submit to the department of housing and urban development as part of our community development block grant every year the city of holland receives in a certain amount of funds from the federal government we tell the federal government this is how are we going to spend that they say ok spend it we go about spending that money and then they say tell us what you did with it and this is our report that goes out every year some of the accomplishments we want to highlight in front of counsel and for the audience and those at home watching as we spent over three hundred forty seven thousand dollars this year of the three hundred forty seven thousand dollars and some change over eighty three percent went to activities that benefited low to moderate income people specifically one hundred sixty six thousand dollars went to help sixty homeowners make repairs to their houses of those sixty projects sixty eight percent of them went to make the home more energy efficient by installing new roofs windows furnaces and insulation five thousand dollars went to help one household achieve home ownership forty three thousand dollars went to public services such as case management life skills training counseling family services and neighborhood activities this benefited over four hundred forty eight individuals and nine households these public services and forty four thousand dollars and some odd chains was used to remove the old ferris building and the deadlock but they did restroom building that small park and restore that you know asphalt area to grass and expand grass area around small park again this is a public hearing comments that are received tonight well before to the community development committee which meets tomorrow morning at seven a m and we just include those comments into our report that and it's up to her to tell us if we need to address them or not you know further down the road and questions for joel you had the right idea are you right a public hearing is required for this item as well here to address this item the public hearing is open all right will close the public hearing and we are seeking motion to receive that report or is that what we're after yes i'm getting the thumbs up in the back of the room so we have a motion hopefully it in about five seconds to receive that report to move by the mayor pro tem supported by truth is there any discussion please call the rule peters ordinance amendment for licensing recycling material haulers i've been involved in local government for what about six or seven years now i can't remember ever being asked to remove something from the table and then basically withdraw it generally from consideration but that's we're being asked to do tonight after further review staff has to be centrally decided that you know maybe this isn't the right path to go down so that's the request before so first of all why don't we have a motion the ultimate request of just two motion to withdraw the ordinance amendment request or what are we supposed to be doing i i mean there are two ways you could do it you could move haps because of policy considerations that may occur in the future what i would recommend is that you have a motion to withdraw the ordinance and refer back to staff ok for the  is with recycling years who do not recycle the stuff but stockpile it in their driveways or their streets or their private private property or whatever and i'm hoping that they can find a way a resolution to solve that particular problem and some other kind of creative way without hurting non profits and other people who have small things and they want to really get them so we're not discouraging recycling so i'm sure there's a way to do that you know i think we just have to look at some give them time to come up with creative ideas you know and eliminate the real problem thank you like we had someone over here first right and then we'll turn to what staff intends to do i just want to use this is an opportunity to say the value of public input i thought this this idea came to staff as a result of the public hearing and the concerns that were voiced about what about non profits and how this would affect you know cub scouts curbside recycling or picking up or whatever and there really was not a satisfactory legislative answer to that so you  brought this to our attention before it was too late so thank you any other comments on this particular item we have a motion to withdraw this is referred back to staff dykstra yes motion passes thank you then we go down to item ten adoption of ordinances section twenty dash three eighteen relating to a begging ordinance from all your conversations in study sessions and in previous council meetings to make sure that the ordinance we have associated with begging is constitutional and then modeled after other examples so i will leave it at that unless there is anything additional our other experts would like to add well maybe we ought to taken opportunity to just sort of refresh the public's knowledge of what is being proposed  tonight currently what the city of holland has under its disorderly section is they what we often call in criminal law a status ordinance that basically says that you are a disorderly person if you conduct the act of begging that of course is a potentially a status offense meaning that the mere fact that you are doing a an act such as begging could be criminally prosecuted as a misdemeanor our office prior to the opinion that was rendered by judge jacker in the western district of michigan had discuss this issue with the police department and had indicated that we believe that there were constitutional defects in the ordinance and that we ought to amend the ordinance code and then of course judge yonkers opinion came down dealing with the city of grand rapids ordinance which was very similar to the city of holland ordinance so we had a very localized opinion that indicated that we needed to amend the ordinance code now what council has before tonight this has been commonly characterized as a aggressive begging ordinance and other words more than just the mere act of requesting money from someone has to be done to create a violation under this ordinance there has to be such way other types of disruptive behavior the ordinance that the council has before it has thirteen sections that would constitute that additional extra behavior that would go beyond a status offense and put this in the category of a form of disorderly conduct now i know that there's been discussion about how prevalent this activity is and whether nab we ought to it rises to the level of that ordinance that should be adopted by the city i think the situation that we're in tonight is this we have a un cuts to tional ordinance that's currently on the books we have two options either we eliminate the current ordinance and adopt nothing or we do something that has what we believe are constitutional corrections to the ordinance so the council and the police department has the tool that if it must enforce it has so under what we believe would be a constitutional ordinance tonight i think with the kind of economic setbacks that every community has had since two thousand and eight this is something where you probably have your heart in one direction and you're headed in the other direction but realize that what council's looking at tonight is not just a status offense of banking but it would be activity that causes someone to feel that they're being threatened or that there may be some other kind of aggressive activity that may or are in response to this so our recommendation to the council tonight would be to adopt the urgency as drafted for final reading and passage all right let's have first any questions for the city attorney or your staff have a public hearing on the side and we would invite anyone who is here to address this item to step forward the microphone at this time or proposed amendment thirteen instances or examples of instances where someone would be prohibited from beginning and they seem to cover quite a variety of of opportunities here and all of our seem to be fairly specific with the exception of a number eleven which says which states a prohibited situation b in a manner that appears likely to cause a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities to feel intimidated threatened or harassed and i say that it's fully expecting a reasonable explanation but  know the reason i ask the question is that it seems to have been sort of a extraordinarily subjective sense to it were especially these days as i watch the life i'm not sure what a reasonable person ordinary sensibility actually is where i could perceive a situation where you know i see chief masseur and he looks like he's go beg me for something again and so i don't know if i'm being unreasonable or have a new ordinance of civility so would you explain why first why that language is there and what it actually means while going to meet one of the one of the advantages of being an attorney as mayor dykstra knows is that it allows you to spend hypotheticals in various types of situations and this language in paragraph eleven lends itself to that let me give you an example of something that would really be beyond the scope of what we currently have specified let's say that someone  walking down the street and someone rushes up to them and says you know i'm i'm poor i need five dollars for  to get a meal the seething that activity of approaching someone in a aggressive manner would typically hypothetically fit within the definition that we have and that would be that a person would under those types of circumstances would feel intimidated threatened or harassed again and what you get into in drafting an ordinance like this is that there is an effort to try to make it a catch all category of offenses where you can't preconceive in advance what all of the circumstances might be but generally the courts have allowed this kind of language because what it allows a district judge to do in the form of a misdemeanor hearing or a challenge is made to the ordinance is really to number one review the contest conduct of the person that's been charged and also whether or not there would be something that would be ordinarily disruptive we have the problem today that when you start dealing with a term like ordinary sense abilities as you've indicated that becomes a potentially subjective definition but a district court judge would review that at the time of the offense so there would categories to it it doesn't have any definition to it but this language has been approved in in cases dealing not only with banking behavior but other disorderly behavior as being would test under freedom of speech issues but i would agree with you that reading item number eleven in using terms like ordinary sense abilities to feel intimidated threatened or harassed is going to call on a district judge to examine the conduct to see whether that atypical person would feel harassed intimidated or threatened by that kind of activity explanation you know david i might also not trying to give legal advice in this instance but the phrase ology of you know reasonable ness and those kinds of things are fairly familiar in the legal landscape you know police have to have reasonable suspicion to do certain things and have to have probable cause for other kinds of things and and the point that the city attorney made very well is that ultimately those judgments to the extent the police officers utilize those judgments and act upon them are reviewed at a later point by a judge and so it's not just simply you know left to one man's one person's decision but ultimately it does  like lawyers to live to be lawyers the right through the valley of arbitration i go i appreciate and that clarification is important i think because it's not inconceivable for in a certain situation a certain demographic or or group of people to be sorted out or separated out for for on equal abuse or  criticism under this act i don't think that would happen here in the explanation that you've both given kind of assuages that that possibility but i just wanted to bring that up in case there was concern in anybody's ponder these issues and i had initially agreed with was really upset with number eleven and as i talk to people over the last several weeks they've explained it to me that they have been in situations where they were frightened that suffer and so it kind of really helping to clear understand that and so i will support this you know and i sort of have an idea that i think the city of holland has a legitimate duty to protect the rights of its citizens to be left alone from those who knowingly would infringe on their personal space and therefore their personal safety and i think that's what we are attempting to do here is the press protect the citizens and yet within the constitution of the freedom of speech first of all it's pretty much what ann arbor has and i think it's something that's good other discussion i don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to conduct themselves with a level of courtesy and gentleness and understanding personal space just like the  use student who was approached by a couple teenagers asking directions was attacked and just arrested yesterday and like all that was was you know a question of directions  it's not unreasonable to to be a little wary of a person you don't know who comes at you even if it's for you know that they're in a very distressed but situation and they're begging or whatever you just never know and you don't want people to claim to be bagging who really have other motives and they're in there by be exonerated from their responsibility so i do think it's been thought through well and i think it it  helps the person who begs to know how to do this in a reasonable fashion in a civilized society and it protects those other people that don't really understand why this unknown person is coming toward them dykstra yes motion passes thank you that takes us to item twelve communications from the audience this is the opportunity for members of the public to address council on topics that don't otherwise show up on councils agenda if something is on the agenda you may address it at that particular point but if you have something that doesn't show up here we'd love to hear from you typical rules apply name in residential address up to five minutes and we have the microphone open at this time county resident and i am a candidate for elegant county clerk register of deeds and conversations that i have had with the mayor and with you're acting clerk i understand that the city of holland has particular needs because it is located across the county boundary this shows up in elections as ballots are produced and tabulated it is an issue when results are posted the fact that some of your residents are allegan county residents and more are out of a county residents matters and needs to be constructively addressed so that you can do your work efficiently and effectively as you interface with county government i would like to be the kind of county clerk that collaborates with you to address these needs we all want government to be cost efficient customer friendly effective and the source of good clear communication because i have served two terms in casco township as clerk located in another extreme coroner of allegheny county i know what it's like to experience a shortage of county services solely because of geography i'm here to let you know that my campaign to be the next county clerk it's due to a conviction that government can and should be far more responsive to far more of its citizens no matter their political party or their address the county government is here to serve all residents not just those centrally or conveniently located if elected to be allegan county's next clerk i am interested in exploring the feasibility and possibility of more on line services perhaps establishing satellite offices open even a half day a week so that your allegan county residents can enjoy county services conveniently delivered thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself because my recent work is elections i'd like to remind all voters that republicans who vote straight ticket can also blacken the dot in front of my name on the front side of a very crowded ballot and this is called a split ticket it is permitted by election law and c l one sixty eight point seven three six c and it had nuff residents do just that we might see improvement in county services to benefit us all because that is my pledge is julie cow we see o w i can't get it for county clerk thank you thank you  a resident of casco township she's also a patron of the federal district library and having recently been involved in an election for the library in on one side you should come to the microphone the so otherwise folks at home can't hear what you're saying i just want to thank god for that comment it's been a delight to work with the fund the library and see the military newt i don't any other questions or comments for me  insights that you would have me keep in mind as i think about improving services theory will be possible for five i don't know they've ever had five allegan county residents in the city council in holland but we've got four which in my ten years is as large a group as we've had so we're not often thought of as being a part of allegan county  large segments of the holland area are now city of holland like down fillmore township of course so thanks for being here tonight introduce yourself to us and  write the microphone remains open an item twelve communications from the audience ok we will then move on to the fourteen one point one the refu ordinance issue we took that off of consent and ryan if you might quickly give us a brief introduction of this issue thank you mayor this is first creating of an ordinance we commonly call it the single holler yard waste ordinance and what this ordnance would do would be to limit refuse hauling to one haul or it's on the agenda for first reading as i mentioned this change was recommended by this is stand ability committee and there was a study session held on it about a year ago with no major object to what is recommended as implementation timeline of january first two thousand and thirteen in summary the single yard waste hauler ordinance is recommended because fewer yard waste trucks would be on the road to create less stress thereby and less maintenance less emissions and would allow for potentially curbside composting which will involve kitchen composting potentially so with that we have to answer any questions i think you may have just misspoke in that the intend to have this show up at a meeting on october seventeenth not october twenty seventh excuse me correct right so i have a study session before that but then ultimately would it would act on it assuming it passes first reading i don't regularly meeting on october seventeenth any questions for staff is there a motion to that effect so move but your point supported by de boer any discussion in amongst the other benefits potentially of such an ordinance we're also pretty confident that that the cost would be a whole lot less for that type of service as opposed to basically when you buy in bulk you can typically get a better deal and that probably would come into play in this instance also please call services related to windmill island and a bridge issue i will be addressing this one also here that this is the first concrete step towards getting the windmill running again turning again there is a bridge that's used for a ride a vehicles to windmill island and it is thought to be capable of handling large loads but not for certain whether it can handle tens of tons of a crane necessary to remove the cap from the windmill for repair purposes so it is recommended that there be an engineering firm noted here that we've used for other bridges you ations to be hired to valuate the structure and ensure that it can handle the load or recommend ways to make it handle the load or replace the bridge as as needed there are also funds here recommended for the soil testing and other tests necessary to ensure that the loads will be handled in ten is to move forward in a way that the bridge will sustain the crane in early spring and the work could thereby be done at a later point avoiding tulip time during  two thousand and thirteen the total cost is four thousand three hundred fifty for the evaluations and up to five thousand dollars for the geotechnical investigation and testing work the funds are budgeted for  purposes at this time so with this action we will be repurchasing and deferring some of those other purposes and use them for these means these for these needs instead questions for st in your discussion and this is one of those things that if only it were so simple to replace a beam right to get the beam you have to take half off when you take the cap off in a crane we need a crane need a bridge to get a crane over there and then as long as you get cap off my eyes will replace the shingles and you know this is where the cost of this project keeps escalating and simple act of replacing a beam turns into something a bit more complex but as long as you're going through these steps it makes sense to do it right and do it the first manager's office is pleased to report the following gives a donation in the amount of one hundred thirty one dollars has been received from j and concession in support of the two thousand and twelve national night out previously held august sixth two thousand and twelve  donation in the amount of one hundred dollars has been received from thomas and c i castle from four public program expenses at the digraph nature center two hundred three dollars has been received and supported repairs to the wind windmill does one from an anonymous donor it is recommended that the said donations be accepted with appreciation and expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors but the pleasure of counsel motion supported by de boer any discussion at all in favor say aye opposed the same that passes thank you communications tonight from the city manager the only thing mr mayor is to remind members of the public and council that the annual  of the various construction projects will take place next wednesday rather than the study session that will be that will depart from city hall at four pm and we will be returning roughly a little bit after eight there are fourteen sites on the tour to visit and we look forward to that opportunity to get council reaction and answer your questions on those projects and those sites and questions for the city manager right i'm sixteen community i'm sorry yes sixteen communications for me tonight a few items of course our usual reminder that we try to pump as much information as we can on to the website city of holland dot com including ways to contact us e mail telephone numbers those kinds of things all sorts of information about what happens in city hall forms reports all that kind of stuff we try to get it on the web as much as possible so that you can look at that home as opposed to having to come into city hall and of course now you can also look at it on your mobile device and report things and communicate with us that is good news and we hope that jodi keeps busy with with that particular app a couple of other items upcoming things of note of course friday night we've briefly touched on it there's the one of the large downtown events that's quite popular as the live manikin event saturday afternoon at two o'clock at the civic center is the blue star memorial highway  rededicate memorial dedication and that will be a very good service hall american legion band is going to be playing friday of veterans groups will be there two o'clock civic center a good place to be additionally we've talked a lot about the hope college project in the stadium project over the course of the past few months this coming saturday the one o'clock football game before they want to talk football games will be a dedication of the new turf and hope completion of the transition of the stadium so that will be before the hope game and then later that evening hope is going to have a dedication for the new tennis facility if you haven't seen the facility especially if you like tennis and haven't seen the facility take it take a peek behind  the stadium location and you'll see quite a quite a facility that my understanding is already drawn the attention of some of the n c doubly folks are looking at doing some fairly major tournaments there which would be good for the entire community those are communications for me this evening is their communications f council are there communications for members of council lancy we had a meeting of the parks and recreation committee this past week and it was really heartwarming to me to hear all the different donations that had come into to help kids and families in this area at farmer's market the abt program that we started this year in the double box program we have a nine thousand dollars for that and it was supposed to last right through august and it did and then they sent us another check for ten thousand dollars which led us to a total of thirty eight thousand dollars of investment with the lower income people being able to access fresh food at farmer market which is an awesome thing for all of us and bow school was great this summer and with all our triple digit heat and everything even though balls pool is not exactly a limp equality we have gotten two different donations from families in the area which gave a sixty five hundred dollars in order to support children coming to bow school to swim for free and we ended up making that last through the entire swim season because ago a little cold there for about a week and they made it just perfectly so we had nineteen thousand patrons at little balls pool this summer so i'm sure that that helped children all through the middle of the city so that's awesome and pres youth scholarship fund that supports children to be a part of the recreation program in the city we do the labor day boardwalk as a city and people have a pancake breakfast at the pavilion and windmill island gardens and we received one thousand four hundred fifty dollars with donations from people coming to that pancake breakfast and another in anonymous individual donated five hundred dollars so that gives us  hundred fifty dollars to help support children in this coming year to access the recreation program however last year we had we used up forty five hundred dollars which represents about two hundred children being able to have reduced fee they still pay something but they get a reduced fee to be a part of the recreation program so hoping to get a few more donations to help those children but that money goes right to the child so that they can experience the fun of being on a team and being out doing things besides you know video games and all that stuff and also this weekend we have the civil war reenactment on saturday and sunday which is awesome and i understand we have about triple the rian actors coming here so they love than reality farm it is so cool they even planted corn in order to make it look like the authentic battle that we're going to reenact which is quite quite the massive battle i guess it was the most bloody battle of the civil war so that'll be really interesting and it's got authentic corn that even made it through the triple digit heat of the summer so we're hoping for awesome weather this weekend sounds like it will be and we also have civil war musicians performing on friday night downtown with their authentic music and pass doing and so that will be an awesome celebration also of the heritage of this area so there's so many fun things to do and learn from and great people in the community supporting those that are going through hard times and especially children that need a little help all right that is separate and that does bring me the moment of saying there are a variety of boards and commission appointments that are available and if you're interested in serving on them please let us know if for example council member hooks and i are taking a look at some of the  applicants for sustainability committee and i hope to have some things to place for you and we've got some new committees we're still trying to fill and hopefully have got some good people that we're just waiting to get that answer back from so we'll have a bunch of appointments for to come before you in the next few weeks david you want to say something place yes if i may add one more activity all the fine things happening this saturday just to let folks know about the saturday at  o'clock recovery fest will be taking place i will be delivering a proclamation on behalf of marriage i strive for claiming the month of september is national recovery month so will be a variety of activities promotions and resolution as mr mayor pro tem mr mayor our next regularly scheduled business meeting will fall on wednesday october three in the present conflict as a couple of us will be out of town attending the michigan municipal league conference this year so i would like to move that we change the date and time of  normal first business meeting in october to october to which is tuesday five p m and i make this form of a motion for the motion from the mayor pro tem as their support for it or support no discussion all in favor of that motion please say i pose the same that passes the meeting is moved thank you any other motions or resolutions we do have then a the item on first reading the refu a closed session to review some legal opinions of the city attorney we do anticipate coming back out of that closed session for further action not quite sure how long will be in closed session but we will come back into this room will adjourn up stairs into into a closed session come back into this room to act further on the items that were just going to discuss in closed session so if the public wants to stay here they certainly may do so have i stated it sufficiently for motion if you have a extra yes clam parents may or dykstra yes motion passes may are all right we're in close we will go upstairs to close session and will come back down when we are completed with it right it's only ten o'clock know many more things all right while the city attorney is handing out some draft documents we have been both bored and council in a closed session for what about an hour or so and come council as well and we have at the podium the general manager of the board of public works dave koster dave we turn it over to you thank you mr mair member city council members of the board  tonight were here before the council on board with some recommendations on actions related to franchises electric franchises we give you a little bit of background on this issue before we get to the actual recommendations  the board of public works is the utility provider for the city holland and also has franchise a survey electric in the surrounding townships a park holland fillmore and lake town if you look at the distribution of the service currently about forty percent of our sales on an annual basis go to the townships were sixty percent goes to the city hall and specifically how  township is the largest user of that at about thirty five percent of our demand followed by park township at four percent and then lake town at around point six percent and no more rounding out the remaining couple tenths of a percent of our sales we have in order to allow air to allow us to conduct business in the townships we have a franchise that franchise does a couple of things one it allows us to conduct business in those townships but it also gives us use of the right a way to bring our infrastructure into the township franchise is intended to give us that but also it's intended to provide the township with reasonable control of the so there was much interest in and in the townships and having the b p go to provide that service and i would say over the last thirty years the term of the franchises that we've had since one thousand nine hundred two i think the customers there have come to realize an exceptional value both in terms of the riot reliability of the service but also in terms of the cost just for comparative purposes if you look at the average consumption of electric on a monthly basis  for the residents in each of these townships on average that's just under eight hundred kilowatt hours per month which represents about a and if you apply the rate structure of the home b p w compared to the competitor consumers energy investor on utility bills customers are seeing a twenty one percent better rate than twenty one percent lower rate than consumers energy for the equivalent service and are they not for the so we are here today to talk about the the granting of new franchises the centrally renewing of those franchises and in doing so it's important for us to try to put in place long term franchises why was the last one thirty years why were they are revokable well simply the board of public works is in a position of having to put in investments in electric whether those investments are in the distribution system including smart grid technology such as we are deploying in areas of our system where there are you know considerable trees and a number of outages more troubled circuits or just the extension of service to new subdivisions that come in you know we see the those franchises not only a right but an obligation to provide our service to those townships and so in doing so though we need to know that there is going to be a revenue stream and a customer relationship over a long period of time so that we are able to recover the investments that we're making in those townships so when we seek township or franchise  on a thirty year basis if a township were to pass an ordinance that would grant a franchise on a thirty year basis that would be a revokable franchise until those franchises are again placed in front of the voters of that township in order to try to make those your revokable we started a process months ago many months ago and actually started having discussions even a year or two ago about the need to  renew these franchises in each of these townships we spent a considerable mind to conserve amount of time talking with all four townships on this issue having discussions with them hearing their concerns hearing their interests preparing language associated with the draft of this renewal franchise and you know want to report on the status of those things  hearing the comments we heard one of the things we heard from the townships was you know as the as the load continues to grow as our demand grows outside the city you know there was some interest in some form of involvement o representation collectively from from the townships involved in activities in the board and in discussions you know over the months what the board public works has proposed  to the townships is that as part of the granting of renewal of a franchise that one ex officio member to be a non voting member from among all four townships of those that pass ordinances and make them irrevocably all that any any township that has done that among the four that collectively among that group they could propose one ex official member that would go through the normal process of the mayor appointing to the board upon advice and consent of the city council and ex official member to sit on the board and deliberate and have  who again is thirty five percent of the demand of the hauen board public works has taken that through two readings there ordinance there are two readings that there township and has passed an ordinance to the language that we had propose d they have also put a resolution forward to put ballot language on the november sixth election which would put in front of the voters a question about taking that that franchise and making it your vocal so very happy to see that that is happening and so we do have an action that i would take the board and council to in a moment related to acceptance of  and lake town has proposed ordinance that is not conforming to the language that we had proposed and not conforming to the language that how and township proposed really in two ways one there is the provision for an ex officio member but not being among the collective for townships but rather late town is proposing that the southern two townships fill more lake town have collectively among those two townships a second ex officio member of centrally is what that would mean also different in the language though is that it would be different from what the council has in terms of the power to nominate and to with the advice and consent of council the appointment for of that ex officio member would really be from the township directly  without a lot of involvement from the city in terms of the actual appointment process or remove or potential for removal process that is consistent with all boards that the city governs  so that those two things are that that is one thing that makes it different the other is that lake town is proposing in their ordinance language of their franchise language that there be a provision that if any  will call it consideration or compensation for a to a put another township many considerations be given to another township such as a franchise fee or something like that anything related to the granting of a franchise electric franchise that essentially that provision that gets placed in the other township would be immediately enjoyed then by by late town township so you know that something that would be out there in that as well and that does not conform to the language that we had presented to holland township or to all the townships rather and not conforming to what holland tunnel japan has passed now my concern personally with that kind of language is that not only is it something that is inconsistent and uniformity is very important but it also is something that i think when you look at governance of the board adding x official members while they are not voting members it does change the dynamic can change the dynamic and you know we're stepping into this process with with one next official member collectively among all the four townships but there is a concern about you know just how big of a step you make in that direction and so you know what the board had recommended really was limiting that to one next official member and you know so we'll have a recommendation on an answer to the lake town township as part of the overall package as well i would report on fillmore that we have received indication that fillmore has passed language identical to lake town ok one thing to add about lake town whoever that's different from fillmore is that lake towns proposal we had received early enough that the board of public works has already taken  action to actually reject the language from the lake town proposal the board has not taken action yet on the fillmore franchise but it is the same language identical to the lake town and finally park park is approximately four percent of our sales we do not have proposed language from park at this time we understand that  their next meeting is october eleventh and so we are working hard to continue to work with park to get language again our hope is to get language that is consistent and agree  in a consistent with the language that we are proposing consistent with the language of how an township is passed but we do not have anything tonight to consider with respect to park township so with all of that said you do have in front of you resolutions tonight and let me just walk through the resolutions for you again going back first and i think maybe we'll take these in in order if it's the desire board and counsel to do so independently would be advisable yes so the first recommendation that i'd like to review with city council in the board is a resolution that would essentially except the electric franchise ordinance of holon charter township and in your packet you will see there is a resolution for both the city council and for the  board associated with those and i don't know mary would you like me to read those are like the clerk or just don't need to read under those we don't need to read them ok there will be available online at some point in time and people can download a copy of them if they would like so of course they can do it the old fashioned way and contact the city or or the board of public works and get a copy as well so i think probably protocol would be that you know actions are first done by the board of public works and then those actions are presented to the city council so i would place before the board tonight the resolution of the board of directors of the board of directors to accept the electric franchise ordinance of holland charter township and that is staffed recommendation tonight to do just that i move we accept that recommendation of support court for motion and support i mean for the discussion if not all those in favor indicate by saying i this is you know and so with that approval then that is the recommendation now coming from the board of public works to the city council of holland for adoption thank you so any questions for the general manager on this particular item the home township  franchise approval for helen charter township franchise approval if not for the recommendation just passed unanimously by the board of directors the public works and what is the pleasure of council emotional good recommendation all right we're going to say move dexter yes motion passes thank you david we turn back to you next item that we would be dealing with again to make sure that we prepare all these things for council action from the board first that we have taken action already at the board on the lake town proposal the steps recommendation to the board of public works tonight would be to adopt a resolution rejecting the electric franchise ordinance of fillmore township really for the same reasons that the board in terms of why staff recommendation on the lake town ordinance that was taken up earlier so we have a resolution prepared for the board to adopt the resolution rejecting the electric franchise and so with that action then prepared for city council tonight based upon now that fillmore has ordinance has been responded to and lake town at a previous date we have a resolution prepared for the the the resolution dealing with the the actual therefore be it resolved so if we go through the resolution we're resolving that one that the how and  let me express first in terms of the resolution on the board's rejection of fillmore township and that will build into the the city council's recommended action and that is that the board is rejecting the fillmore township franchise for the reason stated in the recitals to the resolution and for the reason set forth in the h p p w report dated august twenty seventh a copy of which is attached as exhibit c to the public works recommends to the hound city council at the lake town township and fillmore township franchise ordinance be rejected for the reason state in the resolution and three that the hauen board of public works will attempt to obtain from lake town township and fillmore township acceptable franchise ordinances in the format adopted by holland charter township which is exhibit b on or before october one and that if accept a franchise or not obtain from lake town township in fillmore township prior to october one that this matter we shall be reviewed by the here and use i'm using you over there too for whatever reason we seem to have be be missing number three would you read that over again please yeah number three the board's  resolution was that the h p p w attempt to obtain and so that is actually number two on the council's resolution attempt to obtain from lake town township and fillmore township acceptable franchise ordinances in the format adopted by hauen charter township on or before october one two thousand and two the only thing that's really different in the council's resolution to the board is that number two under the board resolution is actually recommending to city council that these township  ordinances be rejected so that's an additional thing that they needed to submit to you or numbering sequence just got off yes ok thank you right thanks for pointing that out mike other questions for either the board or for dave as it relates to this particular issue or at this particular moment to the questions for staff or for the board all right before we get into discussion  i know there are others in the audience and i want to give the opportunity for any one of the audience and i see specifically the supervisor from like down township in the audience and thank you for i know you've been here for the whole meeting see you killed or not being in the city hall brings back all the memories i suspect terry meyer is here so terry if you want to address council we certainly want to give you that opportunity to do so and we just ask you come to the microphone so that folks at home can hear what you have to say thank you we've had a long series of meetings on something that is obviously important and that is speaking to a were you all over franchise for the city of holland and more particularly board of public works we have no problem renewing that and in fact i was unbelievably surprised that it didn't move through everybody i think expected it it did back some thirty years ago and really had no interests a patient of it happening now when we discussed it all of a sudden other townships are saying perhaps we should be looking at a franchise fee you know i can take a look at the number of customers or serving in the like town that is in consequential to us it won't it wouldn't amount to anything over a period of time one of the other townships said well maybe we should be taking a look at having a provision for payment in lieu of taxes you know there are facilities located in townships other than like town we don't happen to have any it's really kind of consequential to us as well but i was well the city is asking for something maybe we should ask for something in return and knowing that everybody wants to cooperate everybody wants to work together everybody wants to stay in communication and stay well informed or simple thought was we got a township representative and that was a big step i believe for the board of public works to actually move ahead to have a township represented representative sitting in there as an ex of official i thought very frankly was the two townships on the south side of holland are very different from the two townships on the north side of holland and our thought was everybody's cooperating this is a non issue it's an consequential doesn't make a bit of difference to any of us one way or another why not have a second person as a non voting ex official member we thought it was unbelievably simple and we're really i think almost astounded by the reaction that came back with no reason other than well we we think one is plenty i think fell's said it's a great first step and i agree it is having a person and it's a great first step and even better second step would say why not have the second one on there doesn't make any difference you know i had made the comment at the board meeting when they're talking about it they're talking about their expansion or their improvement project at their offices that i think was one point two million in my suggestion was for a few bucks more add one more chair to the count to the table and will be glad to sit in there to us it was a non issue i don't know why it's escalated up to this point everybody seems to be digging in their heels i'm really not sure having taken a look at this for the first time it obviously not going into a close fashion and i suspect that the results coming out of that may not be what you were looking for so the action that i'm assuming you're going to end up taking it's not did do a modest little college paper for state and local government class that really pointed out the disasters that we had with annexations and trying to work with townships back in us fifty's and sixty's my real concern really was getting into it again over nothing is going to drop us for another generation of trying to get people to work together when there are such simple ways forced to do it i take it to see is take that kind of a backward step i guess a final thing i know  township is not going to be meeting and tell the eleventh and i don't know what they're going to end up proposing in terms of a franchise i have i have some ideas i believe they're going to be doing it  i don't know i noticed we're on four october one unfortunately i won't be around to to have any input on that and i will be in italy we will be leaving on wednesday and will not be coming back and i think it's october seventh but i'm sure that town township board can take what action they feel is needed and necessary without me sitting around there but if nothing else if you'd move it to the eleventh like it appears you're going to be doing with our township that would be fine but if that's your choice so be it i can live with that a modest procedural question and then i will sit down and you can take your vote i know the court of public works matt just before the meeting i wandered around the building i couldn't find a notice of the meeting i'm assuming that's posted over on your offices are did you convene and your legal meeting your consideration for if nothing else at least one thing the date but if you can't do that that's fine i understand and it's always a pleasure to work with everybody  know almost all of us some of you much better than others but no matter how it goes i still keep smile and i face thanks but i think it's very when i first saw terry here tonight i said it's like coming back to the you know coming back home in some ways but then i realized when terry was city manager here that this specific building this piece of the building was not yet constructed so we could go sit in a different spot if you'd  right is there any other comment from the audience i guess the other parts of the audience are city staff in one form or another as well as nettie all right here yes just for clarification koster mentioned on or before october one two thousand and two twice and i just want clarification it is two thousand and twelve correct council to begin the discussion or does anybody want to go first let's go that way instead all right well then i'll say a few words and i think it's appreciated inappropriate that terry is here tonight and he and i have had some e mail correspondence as as you know he mentioned his comments when i'm not going to divulge the nature of those comments if anybody really wants them they can for you i guess but and he and i have met a least one occasion to sort of discuss some of these issues and of course members of the township terry and others from lake town township have met repeatedly with representatives of the board as well and they've koster so i think that you know the issues that that are before us are pretty well laid out and whatever action happens tonight i don't think needs to i don't think it will be and i don't think it needs to be for sure the final word in this discussion and i would only mention one thing on roman numeral no number four which is actually the third therefore with the october first date it it does say at the end that this matter shall be reviewed by the city council at its meeting scheduled for october two so you know if there is progress that is being made nothing requires council to take any final or even formal action on the second only that it would review the matter on the second and again even so that date may not necessarily be the point at which you know since terry's going to be gone and if there's a work being done before then it seems to be advancing the ball i don't think  well i'll speak for myself i don't think i'd be in a position to say you know what october two is the drop dead date if we're close we can continue to move forward the bigger issue it seems to me is is the substance of what stands between for example the holland township ordinance franchise ordinance and the fillmore lake town township proposed ordinances and largely it is twofold as dave koster mentioned one it is this question of a second ex officio member which doesn't exist in the home township one which is set for the ballot so i already have some would have some inconsistency if it were approved and the second is this issue of who appoints who you know in theory if one of these gentlemen acts in ways that is contrary to the interest of the board of public works not that they would council has the ability to deal with those kinds of issues as proposed in the lake town fillmore option that you know city councils hands are bound even though you know that the city of holland is the owner of the utility those two things are problematic now i hear and i understand and i appreciate what and i think that where we are today is a whole lot better than where we were ten years ago and certainly a whole lot better than where we were twenty or twenty five years ago we're not perfect yet at this point but the issue we have here it seems  aside from the the nature of needing consistency between all the various franchises is also the issue of running one hundred million dollar business and i think that there is a recognition from boarding council that it is appropriate when you have a sizable as a utility that is owned by a municipality and as a community asset there is some benefit that wouldn't necessarily be in place with a private utility for us to have input from customers who happen to reside outside of our jurisdictional boundaries so therefore i think the most if not all of council and all the board i thought it was a wise idea to add an extra fisher member considering that we've got roughly forty percent of our customer base for electricity that's outside our limits going from one to two on the surface might not seem as though it is the most major of issues but it adds a new dynamic to the board and what it essentially does is it creates a second x official position for you no less than one percent of the customer base representation i'm not sure that is in keeping with the spirit that the holland township ordinance was passed under secondly  we in the city of holland have a lot of franchise ordinances as well you know we provide water sewer and electricity to our residents through the board of public works but we don't provide cable television and we don't provide gas natural gas services  and we don't provide telephone services all those are done through other entities that use our right of ways and we grant them franchises long term franchises and in exchange for those franchises you know we do not either demand or frankly expect to have board representation on the comcast border on the same co board or on the board because frankly you know it wouldn't be all that workable and b i understand that essentially what we're doing is allowing the public right of way to be used as a service for our for our residents through these utilities that come in so to me franchise doesn't necessarily have to equal representation the third thing i would say on this is that i think that you know if you specially as i look at you know the three members of the board or here tonight and i think of the other members of the board public works board who are not here this evening i don't see them as being people who see their job stopping at the corporate limits of the city of holland i think for example of of you paul and the work that you have done in the castle park area in like town township related to water and water service and some of the engineering issues and i don't know if that's the right word because i wasn't all that involved them but i know you were deeply involved in them and and you know the board of public works assumed a water system in lake town township at castle park really you know a sense of good will for doing so and i know you're deeply involved in that and very much a strong advocate of doing that even though your residency happens to be in the city of holland you viewed lake town township as part of the greater holland community as i think we all do and so i guess my point is that i think that part of the benefit of having service from the board of public works whether you live in park township whether you live in holland township whether you live in fillmore lake town township or the city of holland is that there is tremendous accessibility for the governance structures and the people who are in governance positions at the b p w that simply isn't present with the consumers or assembly or in any other outside utility i think dave i suspect is accessible to people who live in the service area at virtually a moment's notice sometimes he doesn't pick up my call but usually he does and if he doesn't it's probably a pretty good reason for not doing it so i guess the issue of franchise from board representation is another one and then finally i would just say this a s it particularly relates to fillmore and that is that the alternative if this all goes incredibly south and again i am hopeful and i am optimistic that it will not that this is merely one action of a great many the alternative is that it is not that these people will will these residents of the of the townships will be without power it is that they will be served by other utilities and that probably means consumers energy and for for those residents that then means they will pay more for service that is less reliable for which they will have not nearly the kind of access to the government structure that would be a pretty disappointing thing i think for all of us and by all of us i include you know obviously terry and others maybe who are watching on television matter know what our reaction to what they have passed is and for example dave received a letter that ryan patton and i were copied on from mr mesh in the manager of lake town township dated september five and the letter is you know it's a substantial letter but the final paragraph notes and i'll just read at one point not mention during this process is that the electric franchise in question was granted by lake town township to the city of holland not to its board of public works we have not yet received a response from the city on the franchise approved by like town township on aug twenty two thus i'm sending a copy of this letter to the mayor and city manager so  essence we've been invited as council to give our response to what lake town and then fillmore have passed and that frankly is part of the reason we're acting tonight is because we've been invited to respond and here's how we see the response at this particular point and my hope is in my expectation is that this again does not slam the door shut on having the continuation of service into linked on a film or township but that it is part of the negotiation and part of the discussion process that as we think about ourselves as one community and as we think about the greater area we find ways to work together though that relationship in that specific structure might not always be the same in all sorts of circumstances let me just briefly say well tell you what i'll stop there and then i may make a comment on the park township situation immediately thereafter but there are other comments that members of council have specifically as it relates to the motion before us which is the lake town fillmore proposed franchise and recommendation all right seeing no other comments we know that the proposed motion is to adopt the resolution which rejects the lexicon of fillmore  proposed franchise ordinances and we can handle those with one motion correct right to single resolution are ready to vote and it would you please call the rule peters and see yes white comments on park township because they have not of the four townships whose franchises expire in early november we have not done anything with with park township this evening and that is somewhat intentional in large measure because we have not received anything formal or concrete from park township you know we have not received a an ordinance that they have passed like we received from holland charter feel more like town so we're not able to sell it or react to it i can tell you that we have as much as i have been talking with terri and as much as dave and others from the board have been talking with representatives from fillmore lake town township we've been having similar kinds of conversations with representatives from park township and again my hope is that in the coming few weeks you know the time is getting close but in the coming few weeks we will be able to find a resolution that will work for everyone and will continue to provide  park township residents who are served by the board of public works electricity those advantages that i mentioned previously as we looked at lake town and fillmore it's going to require a lot of work and a lot of effort there's some fairly substantial  are still standing between us but i think that people of goodwill on both sides all of the conversations even if we don't always agree on specific points never have the conversations with park township nor with lake town township in particular never have they been disagreeable conversations people have honestly held differences of opinion and we quarrel if you say that word  friends and and we do so in a in a good spirit but i want everyone to understand that we are in negotiations and discussions with park township we just don't have anything formal from them to bring to boarding council at this particular point for us to act upon and my hope is that dave and others from the board of public works and ryan and i to the extent we can be helpful can continue to push those negate negotiations through because as we all know come early november we're in a position where we simply are unable to enter into the public right of way in those spaces and you know that that is a point i don't think any of us want to get to all