it is december twenty one there are four days from christmas that is exciting to all the children but these christmas season the holiday season can be the best of times and the worst of times it can bring up a lot of memories that are very hard for people who can also be a very sick citing time of a lot of positive memories it's a good time to realize that everyone may not be at the same emotional place and to just really care about each other and ask questions beyond how you doing in a flipping flippant way this time of year so we're glad that you are here and that you're willing to take time out of the busy holiday rush to talk about all things city and are grateful for your presence and your interest and i could just start with a roll call please birthday present  opening prayer led by our colleague mike through each and after that we'll have the pledge of allegiance we appreciate it if you'd stand with us if you're able our heavenly father we come before you as a humble people thank you for allowing us to live in this wonderful community we call on we are bringing a year to a close and we pray that you will be with us and guide us in the year to come we may grumble at times but we appreciate the blanket of white that you have provided as we know that the earth is at rest preparing for the wonder and splendor that you have in store for us in just a few months we pray also that the feelings of givings and for passion that we that are present prevalent this time of the year can and will be carried throughout the coming year lord please be with those that cannot be with us this evening keep them safe please also be with our city employees keep them safe as they carry out the work of the city be with those that keep us safe and secure both near and far keep them under your protective care be with those that are less fortunate ill downtrodden please bring them peace lord we pray for our city for its citizens and visitors you have given us much and for that we are thankful let us also be respectful and mindful of opinions given tonight listening to with open ears and open minds we pray will go to the consent of gender now and that will be a long list of items that we have already talked about and are ready to approve with one motion but however you may have come because you wanted to talk to one of those issues so animal read the list and at the end of that i'll give you an opportunity to come to the podium give us your name and address and tell us which item you would like taken off the consented and then we will handle that in its sequence says written on the agenda you have so ana could you please read the consent agenda excuse me item for you to excuse the absence of council member peters or believed to approve the minutes of the regular meeting hall december seventh in study session minutes held december fourteenth two thousand and sixteen item four seat except in file executed also of fice from various boards and commissions item twelve a one to approve the first amended funding agreement as approved by the approved by the board of public works board for the hauen energy fund in thoughts arise the mayor and deputy clerk to a claim filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item twelve two point one to accept a bid from star in the amount of seven thousand nine hundred fifty six dollars for the demolition of structures located at one thirty two thirty seven st and that the cost for this work be charged for the property owner and if not paid to be placed on the next tax bill i don't twelve three point one to approve the additional funding in the total amount of twenty nine thousand five hundred dollars of which includes a five percent contingency to involve others for needed design scope of the new city green house with funds to be paid from the municipal capital improvement fund pending city attorney approval as form three point two to adopt a joint resolution with talent charter township for the purpose of recognizing the commitment to the michigan department of transportation alternative funds grant in the amount of eight hundred twenty four thousand eight hundred twenty four thousand eight hundred twenty five dollars twelve four point one two accept the two thousand and sixteen fiscal year financial independent audit report as presented by riemannian robson to the hauen energy fund agreement regarding use of a control agreement as recommended by the city attorney item twelve four point four to accept as information the november two thousand and sixteen monthly financial report item two six point two two accept the cancellation of the december twenty eighth study session and item twelve east six point three two approved the third option is a done abide by the walker parking study for the improvement enforcement and education of the downtown parking system by designating thirty short term parking spaces on the street to hire parking ambassadors improve signage redesign parking brochures provide incentive programs to reward encourage positive downtown business employee parking and to accept the remainder of the parking study as information great thank you and i have perhaps one of those items was something you wanted to speak to directly that's the case please come up to the podium give us your name and address and the item you would like pulled from that consent agenda seeing no one will accept what we have and now  item that you would like taken off the consensus agenda brian to remove items twelve three point one and three point two three point here a soldier i know all right thank you for four point one great any other remove all you know how k so do you have motion for the amended consent agenda hearing or not great we will change that order and hear from our esteemed director of the civic center project greg why camp was a long commute has been here paul de long thank you this very room just after thanksgiving last year went through a long extensive process many many meetings hopefully you all i know many of you are part of them but we design consensus in the spring worked very hard over the summer on design and budgeting and programming in october we established a building program to focus on the qualified energy conservation bonds and we've been moving through what we call the schematic design process since that period the schematic is i'm process is a step along the way between here and actual bidding documents that the project will hopefully have to bid this spring and under construction the summer so we want to provide you with an update on the design process to let you all know where we stand we constantly come back to this sort of vision statement here about the entire civic center place i'm not going to read it again tonight but it's the same one we've been using time and again focusing on creating a space that's flexible and usable for the whole community and really maintaining that the need of this place to be one that serves the broadest range of citizens so the overall site plan as you see before you should look very familiar to anybody who's following the process civic center here with the expansion and we'll talk about that on more great detail and then we've expanded green space around the edges created some new circulation spaces to move folks through here in a very flexible central space here some new spaces along the entry with entry configuration which we're going to greater detail improvements to the market of course at this stage we're we're not making any changes to the north side one of the things we need to consider also is market expansion to the east during construction activities this coming summer and possibly into next summer there will be a need to create temporary market expansion east on eighth street because this area around the building will be impacted by construction activities so over time there may be a need to expand that and there may be an opportunity to expand that longer term  idea that the vehicles moving through the front of the building here action a race plane so it creates a safer environment cars move more slowly and then creating the central spine here with that same kind of race plane which allows pedestrians to move from the neighborhood through the park space through the space into the market improving accessibility and flexibility and different programming opportunities throughout the space which will go through in just a minute really key aspects here with consul engage the farmer's market the market vendors to make sure that there are no negative impacts to the way that they operate in fact we're trying to create expansion as you can see here in the central space this is the central space that's currently not marked off for parking now it is used for overfull parking during market days here we're showing the possibility of expanding market activities as we've talked about we want to create opportunities for different types of markets like a thursday night mercado or an asian market or our part when these newer markets come online you want to start with a smaller space so that they feel that they're in an intimate usable space it's also an opportunity maybe for curse mart which is a better space in the winter time so a smaller space that can work as the spaces move into the bigger activities looking at overflow parking on a key overlay if we had to park  everywhere we had to possibly park we create the opportunities to park and an overflow capacity in the green spaces and also in the central spine as well overall the parking counts between existing parking and the and this proposed parking is within about thirty parking spaces so although we have a tremendous amount of new green space we have the potential to maintain significant parking as needed this overlay here shows how things work during market days you can see the large trucks would be set up actually talk to the vendors the vendors themselves would police this so these lines would not be blocked but in this scenario we're actually showing this is additional market space it's possible they would prefer to use that as parking in that time that'll be a market management activity and of course the city's engaging in a more in an updated management of the market structure in the coming weeks so that's a quick overview there as we look at other opportunities that central science by space when the market's not active the space could be converted to we're showing that yoga activities here for example so the idea is we want to extend programming from the civic center interior spaces out into the site and so the opportunity here to do the cabal to do three and three basketball or yoga classes or other activities in that central spine when the park is not needed or the market's not needed and then the winter time it's an opportunity to put in the ice frankly with the warming and do other activities out there that are a way to constantly make use of the space where currently it's mostly empty so again a very flexible space fitting in with the approach we've taken from day one some updated status on what the buildings looking like we have as we talked about in october we're getting all of the things we talked about with the north hall and the east drawing here shows the area that is currently budgeted as of within the consistent budget we're counting on the fundraising efforts to fund the rest of the efforts i just showed you in the parking area but this is the area that's currently within our funded  budget process all accessible points at the at the southeast corner the northeast corner and the northwest corner as well as the back is flush with full access on all the sites we've created some outdoor spaces here that we've programmed as we work with  the building management to make sure that those spaces are functional and of course the market will continue to operate in this area on market days with the opportunity for the market to extend out in here and also for on and peak of events when need be this can become a vehicular drop off so it's a rainy or snowy event with us and looking also at snow melt throughout this entire system here so that we've got a very functional space for the next fifty or sixty years if we come back to the overview we're going to focus more on the building now this is some different  views this is the again what we showed you but more from an aerial one of the thoughts that we're considering is looking at an opportunity for solar in this area will be coming back in the next month with modeling of what that solar might look like and more details on how a third party system  operated by basically at least ten it may or may not benefit the city and will come back and visit back in greater detail but the idea was that that could generate enough energy to provide about thirty percent of the needs of the building at a lower cost of the city so we'll be looking at the pros and cons of that and coming back with a recommendation and the new year from the ground you'd never see it and so that's an interesting part of it because it's relatively low profile but again you get a sense of the of the buildings bases here as we look from the from the northwest this would be the new downtown offices for for them are the principal mark shopping area and city hall or civic center management so view of the great hall of the family room of the east hall the name continues to evolve but when you're out in front of the civic center now that that wall with the civic center text is still going to be there we're going to still have it but it will be inside a room now you'll be able to come in and this is just exploring some ideas about furnishings glass walls into the gym so when you're in here you can watch the activities watch your kids doing their classes or whatever fireplace gathering and so forth same space but looking the other direction this would be concessions again the fireplace and other seating manufacturer to make that work and we'll have more on that in january as we move into the north pole this is the ground floor this is the area that is basically the current north hall is in this space and it's going to be about twice as wide as those of those full site garage doors that would go right out to eight street she lowered the floor about a foot and a half so that the grades are level with with the market space outside and with the ceiling coming up this is going to be a higher space a higher ceiling space than we have by quite a bit which means  folks will be able to really program this a lot of different ways so on saturday mornings and wednesday mornings this may be full of market vendors but during the week it might be recreation activities might be even basketball or other activities in here so a lot of flexibility as in all the spaces quick overview of the floor plan as i realize it's a little tough to see on the screen but basically the east hall the north hall the offices back in here again very flexible all the internal walls and the office space are going to be furniture partition type so if needed if the need arises over time for that to change or be reprogrammed that can be done without actually affecting any structural walls in the building so very flexible the upper level similar activities up here this upper level north hall is going to be level floors overlooking the gym will have audio  s audio separation from the gym and also partitions that break it down to smaller spaces for smaller classes or or events can be wedding receptions and so forth and that's a very quick update on the design status or any questions civic center we appreciate we are very much on track we're on schedule we are the next step here of course is the constant management of the budget now so this will go to the construction measure guys to make sure that we're still on track and we're course correct as necessary to stay within the allocated budget and continue forward back to you next month and probably every month for the next six months thank you greatly thank you so much greg thanks for being here tonight and giving us all an update or thank you thank you all right let's go on out to the public hearing  so staff will tell us about the surplus land right correct before you is something we've looked at in study session peter dances a neighbor to this property at five ninety five west twenty ninth street and i think there's a video visual of it is the next slide that's looking from the street and if you could go to the next slide if you would extend plasmid avenue that's what the maybe original intent was to connect to streets north since that time the west middle school is there and that's no longer anything that's needed and it's the land is basically says useful for drainage and  not really useful for other needs the neighbor property owner has signified he would like to improve drainage from his property by accessing that site by opening it perhaps putting a trailer to end for  simple enjoyment of his family and he would he would take over the maintenance and other responsibilities and would go back on the tax rolls the city council discussed a fair market value and determine the five thousand dollars was a fair number and with along with certain conditions including a requirement for a five hundred dollars deposit that was received then this would be eligible to be declared surplus and for sale after it's been reviewed by transportation public works but it would come with certain cabbie outs that the out of pocket expenses would be borne by the purchase or any other fees that were incurred would be reimbursed at closing that any storm drainage changes and alluded to them but the details would be approved in advance by the city engineer from the neighboring property the city would have the pressure right to purchase back prior to any other should there be some reason in the future no buildings would be constructed and that the cit five nine five west twenty ninth street a surplus land in a proof of purchase agreement subject to approval by the city attorney along with authorization to the mayor and deputy city cortex cute such agreement mr vance is out of the area tonight he did communicate  comment then about this issue so if you came here to talk about this please come up to the podium give us your name and address and what you'd like to tell us about this scene now when we close  yes mayor debord yes motion passes thank you and then we'll move on to public comment so if you came here to speak to anything that is not does not appear on the agenda yet to be covered you are welcome to come up to the podium give us your name and address and you have five minutes to talk to update you on some recent activities in allegheny county unless you like rip van winkle you know it's a time of major transition in government in our country it also is in our county  e yesterday i participated in the swearing in of our new sheriff frank baker of the weyland area on the eastern side of the county and canvas as our new prosecutor he lives in gunplay township which kind of diagonally at the very opposite end of the county from the city house and then of course we will have a new clerk and a register of b s about genetics and i think the fact is that in at least a half a century we have not had this major change in all of the top elected officers in allegheny county yet another factor in that we are going to say farewell to probably is not familiar to many in this part of the county but if you live south of here you would certainly know this man's name is name is bruce culver and he has set some kind of a record because for thirty six years he has served in iraq commission and has done an excellent job so one of our first duties in january for the county commission will be to elect it's one of the few positions we do elect is a new member of the road commission two thousand seven speaking of next year where the projects will be undertaking is a rather massive funding one and it's not in the building but about half a million dollars will be expended while we digitize all of our property records dating actually there is a fund called the automation fund which people have been paying into for the last ten fifteen years as the property transfers a portion of that transfer tax went into the automation fund so that's that's fun another project that we are going to keep our eyes on and try to push forward the agenda of the michigan department of transportation is reconfiguring a very troublesome intersection and forty which of course is the main street of the of the county if you will where it intersects with forty eight street forty eighth street comes at a very kind of nasty angle and it has been the scene of a lot of increasing accidents this is about six miles south of the city limits just north of hamilton so we hope to get that advance and of course as you well know we were leaving but allegheny county allegan city particularly is going to welcome joel di as their city manager i think talking to a number of city officials yesterday at the swearing in i think they're very excited for the training that you have given to mr di and to have him as a manager if i reached out to him and said you know any way we can benefit i think it's really important to you with the history of that city for you know some new blood to the city it is our county seat has actually biggest facilities inside the city boundaries county building and there are a lot for smith center and so i look forward to your helping him as much as we can get going and finally today i'd like to wish you all very merry christmas and thank you for your service and in the county of new buildings and exciting to see the building that you're undertaking next year and wish you a great new year and to tell you again that along with i do a county commissioner we will resume holding office hours that it you may graciously made this room available for the first monday of every month at five thirty and he said it's not either company could come and talk to both of us about any concern they may have so thank you for your time and  be happy to respond to any questions that your direction mr mayor thank you mr storey any other questions or comments from counsel development l l c to rezone a property that they own at one west fifth street that's currently zoned i want industrial district and they would like to have that rezone to the c one central business district and it's noted on your screen right in the middle of the screen that area right there so if the rezoning is approved the planning commission has already approved a site about two thirds of the building that you see right in the middle of your screen there the remaining building would be on the left on the left side who are right in here and they intend to renovate that a parking needs from the the new fourteen apartments also significantly here there's going to be a huge amount of greening along central avenue central avenues right here fist street right of way would be here and fourth street is in this location here but there is a tremendous amount of pavement will basically this site is all pavement and building right now so there will be a lot of greening on the site the introduced should introduce introduction of new sidewalk along central avenue and for street also the planning commission held the republic of the required public hearing for this on november twenty second there was pleased the development was coming to this building he also indicated that he had spoken with several of the other tenants or i guess condo owners in that building there and  they all expressed their support for the rezoning also so the planning commission that subsequently recommended that city council approve this with a unanimous two zero vote so if you have any questions i be happy to answer them thank you mark anyone have a question or comment for him we have the applicant here and we did hear him speak during planning commission but i think it might be worth while they haven't come up to talk about this project because i drove past this project again today and i'm still shocked that they found what they found underneath that is a viable living space i think it's fantastic that this is a building in place that we can have so close to the central business district i think it adds to the character central avenue and really helps develop that into a if viable and growing area for for residential life given the snow melt expansion that goes north you know a couple of us found that a little bit silly at first but now it seems to make a whole lot of of the property and also be the developer of the new project a lot of people say the same thing in fact my partner when i brought it to him and said i think there's an opportunity here he just kind of shook his head i don't see it but at that point he hadn't been inside the building the thing that's really cool is that part that's on the south end is the original structure in the stuff to the north was added later that original structure is a pos beam construction which even when you walk in a made floor you can't see it because it's a drop ceiling and all the posts have been wrapped with paneling but once you peel some of that back it's going to be a really neat project to go in there and sa blast all the beans expose the post we're going to leave all of florida joyce exposed actually the floor that creates the second floor is a tongue and groove floor so when you look at it from underneath you actually see all the tongue and groove boards and we're going to leave that all expose also the second floor which mostly has been used for storage over the years is still the same design it's all post and beam construction our intent there to is to leave that all exposed leave the rafters exposed and we'll be adding insulation insulation on top of the roof that we can leave all the exposed on the inside the building has been wrapped with steel to give you that industrial look the original building was constructed out of like a hollow clay record and it's a brick that actually is baked and has kind of a loss finish to it if you ride past and look at some of it from the transformation and like mark said to him i was at that meeting and i ended up sitting next to the individual that lived at the terrace and he leaned over and he said did i miss that part about the apartment so i said so i am used to coming to these meetings and having people usually only the ones that show up are the ones that want to complain so i thought i'd hit it right off and i told them who i was and wanted to have an opportunity to talk to him but it was really neat to have him express his enthusiasm about seeing the building getting converted he said he sits on his terrace and he says and looks at it knows it's been for sale for a long time so we're excited we're all slow very thankful for all the support that we've gotten so far too thank you thank you dan to be a man of vision and the other comments or question that just to the north of the what was the old max building north of the park's a cemetery office off twenty fourth street during this process we actually have some really exciting we've come across some exciting new technologies that we may be able to use for this project and through that process we are requesting some additional funding for that design and engineering work to take place what we found is there are some really techie new lights out there that can increase  the capacity to grow plants quickly more quickly than we and we can now as well as what were called what's called a vile therm heating system so if you imagine an old boiler the new bio therm system is more like a wall mounted heating unit that a french drains so we may have to have some new storm water lines ran through that that area so i have a couple slides this first one is an over overview of the the greenhouse you can see it and at the top of the screen is the north and it shows the different bays this area of where i'm writing the cursor now is our proposed area for growing the plants from seedlings so this is the area where the bio therm system would be at forward this is what it would look like from the side view so at the very top as the west and the east elevation and then south and north of the other way on the on the bottom so it's turning out to be a really cool project and we're very very excited about the possibilities that we have with it and be happy to answer any questions and we needed this grow house because yeah because as of july one our current location on state street little green house it's over one hundred years old portions of it are over one hundred years old so part of it is historic yeah so they're excited about using it with community connection project there and they're very excited about the capacity  they will now have for additional programming opportunities great so yes david so you're suggesting that through this additional expenditure that process will become more efficient  much better very very yeah it very well could be what we're running into is some additional time needed and some additional design work needed to examine this this new technology  and to explore it our basic numbers when we first went out for bid on this project didn't include such systems we didn't know they existed so as we've gone through this and talk to all the growers around the area many growers they've steered us in this direction to explore and that may have a direct on the cost of growing well ok it absolutely will and it uses now to get real techie but it uses certain wavelengths of light that promote growing all night long instead of just during the daytime hours so  will increase our capacity to grow more plants quicker also and maybe if we get bummed out in the winter we could walk in there for a little while and be happy absolutely right right yeah that the total gro system that you've been talking about and they were referenced in the in the report is a local company and it's unfortunately not a very good like hanging out light because it's a pink wave length yeah it's an odd color that new funds be may have made available for this and i'm trying to understand if you're not requesting new funds and then the recommendation is new funds on the next page could you help reconcile her for us because i'm really the initial engineering was going to cost x and now it's it's going to cost a little bit more and we want to use some of that budget for this additional engineering and we wanted to i wanted to bring it to staff and to bring it to you for approval to have that extra spending nine and this instead of the overall project so more design work is needed at this point so it's not we're not asking for anything out of our budget for this project we're going to stay within our budget but additional funds from that budget for this for this engineering work run has something to and yet just to clarify that the reason why has to come before you for that is because there's a contract that city has for these services that contract actually needs to be amended to incorporate the higher price right i mean they've cut the i mean as the memo states i mean they're clearly saying you're requesting more meetings and more work and it's going to cost you double and i guess that's to me i mean i'm looking at this and this is another project where we didn't plan it out in advance and now we're coming back and saying nope the scope is change of the project in our asking for more money and it's this is like project number three this past year of of things that keep coming up because we keep changing the scope of a project and you know these cuts started be red flags for us at least for me and  you know that i guess i needed to make sure to understand what it meant by not requesting new funds but requesting new funds literally in the same memo so thank you for that rishi had it this way and yet just one and you could you review for us this has been a few months ago that we talked about this before but at this point what are how are we trying to keep this building or the keep more or new greenhouse or are the so the area to the bottom of foot back to that other screen this area right here would have under bench heating this this area right here the rest of it would be heated with overhead heating units which we have now in our current greenhouse but there are there would be more of them and they'd be a venting system that would control an environmental control system that we can also control the heat in the cool air and when it gets too hot and close the vents and turn the heat on when it needs sense for this project so total grow is a local company correct other people have used in the area yes and as you got more into designing the green house the basic regular old grow house idea started to fade and newer technologies kain to emerge tension found correct yes and including a local inventor yes that's exactly right so it's good to look into new opportunities when they present themselves especially when they're local and it can be a better product and we'd want to do that before we put the shovel in the ground correct and eventually at the end of the endgame would be to not only produce quality plants but to grow them very inexpensively as possible and through these systems that would that would help the heating systems really efficient  and apparently works very well and i can't imagine what the comparison is going to be to heating these facilities in a number of square feet to the hundred plus year old little green house we had before it'll be a because you've just taken twelve thirteen thousand dollars away from your five hundred thousand something has to go if you're going to stay within the budget i have a feeling this is not the last we're going to hear of this and there's going to be requests to increase the budget to inhance the new technology well i i certainly hope that doesn't happen that's a possibility but the plan is that we won't i think there's a couple things that we're looking at really could possibly be removed from the projects such as on the drawing which you can't really see very well but then this far corner is as a place where are quite fish that are currently housed in centennial park that happens to be a very big number to have that there and staff is looking at the possibility of having that removed to offset this cost right now that initial estimates just on the green house itself are right around the three hundred thousand dollars mark and then the rest with the balance will be used for construction  our thoughts right now with the designers and the engineers is that we have enough money plenty of enough money to build this project as we would like so what happens the core for mccoy well that's up for debate  may figure out a different way to house them a different place we may ask that they remain in the current green house during the winter months there's a possibility that we could write coiffed for a much lower cost from local local sources for centennial parks pond ultimately would like to have the fish in the pond year round however with the amount of trees and leaves in that park that is causing some difficulties so that's being explored on a staff level as well want to jump back to some numbers you just shared you said three hundred thousand for the green house correct two hundred thousand for construction help me understand the separation of the numbers so the grass that we're looking at building is basically if you think of an erector set well you'll be able to purchase the the house the structure and then have to build it so that's the three hundred k it correctly kit the erector set and includes all the doors the fixtures the benches and if i remember right although we were looking at about thirteen fourteen thousand square feet that right in between there you know roughly that and i'm going back a bit but i think that you know last time i think you and i talked one on one about cost you were it sounds like you were able to you were exploring ideas of kind of driving some costs off of the overall budget specifically i think we talked about different flooring in you know long haul concrete versus maybe some peak ravel and some spaces depending on how you lay out is that still kind of the trajectory for the project or in terms of flooring we're looking at actually we've been talking recently about going straight concrete floor due to of a few factors but one being in control of bacteria on the floor it'll be easily cleaned it will create a much better growing environment where we don't have to worry about  mold and mildew and other things affecting the plant growth which we currently have in our current space now many growers are going that route now just basically because of that it hasn't been totally decided but that's what we're looking at now ok thank you and hear their comments or questions it's been a while since we've built one of these yes and there's more to a grow house than you originally might think it's like every other area has become much mark technological  kinds of potential so i'm glad you're checking it out carefully do we have a motion for this read up the recommendation move by for a portion of the project so eight hundred twenty four thousand eight hundred twenty five dollars we have a grant from the michigan department of transportation to color tap grant as part of this project and part of that project at this point  is we have to have a resolution that is a committal resolution from the city and we thought it appropriate to have a joint resolution even though it's not required but we've thought it was appropriate in talking with staff from holland township to do a joint resolution to show both community support of this particular part of the project and the grant so it's a committal for the funding has well that's for the maintenance and upkeep of the bridge in pathway  from the current entrance to windmill island all the way to the north side near bohr said so that's why we need approval for that and then we get that approval we'll put that into our project and it'll continue to move forward  any questions about that part of it thank you andy i have a question about the update yes we did talk about this upstairs but i think it's  i think it i think it's a question of why are we building a pedestrian bridge for motorized vehicles i mean what is happening here and i understand that and that doesn't know it just it just writes things on paper and says these are the rules and without logic or reason applies those rules and projects and we're asking for money which ties us to those rules but it still doesn't make sense to me and i don't understand why we're still pursuing why we're pursuing this it's going to cost us more for something that we're not asking for that and we don't want em dad doesn't seem to have a problem right now with ambulances getting to the island under existing conditions why do we need a secondary access point what is the purpose behind it well it's my understanding that it's a it's a relatively new requirement for m dot i don't know how long it's been in place  but when these grants are not given tap grants it is a requirement that if there's a bridge like we're having here that it meets certain load standards and those load standards include emergency vehicles that need to have access to that space shouldn't somebody need to see service and if it's a pretty big i don't know how to put this but it's a big it's it's much more robust than it has been in the past so that's my understanding and but that doesn't understand that we already have that access the island already exists and duplicating that is costing us more money and it's unnecessary i mean this is where should stay that way but expanding this scope in this way to me seems foolish and is for it's frustrating to us when as it was brought up during a study  session there are other items on the budget that we need to fix like need in parks in iraq in particular and they're going to a bridge so that an ambulance can or across something that this this is a project that's been going on for a couple of years now and it seems as though this project keeps growing cost wise complexity more regulations and i think i agree with brian i'm really why are we building this bridge to boar's head i don't see a purpose for this we could have ways of getting to the north side to spend this kind of money for hundred thousand dollars of our legacy funds in this particular area seems to be incredibly high when we could be using this for improvement over tennis courts  lakeview school property possible ice rink things at the civic center things that a lot of people would be using and to use those captured dollars for one project because somebody happens to like window and i like when mellon to i think it's a great place i like some of the improvements i think safety for getting to the will is important and nothing against that but a bridge there a bridge to the north side to be packing plant where there really isn't any parking there really isn't much future there i don't see where this is a big big push i don't see where it's going to get us anything and i just think it's a silliest thing that we've done for a long time i couldn't i could there's he thought in us maybe revisiting i know they have their trust fund grants and things like that and each different pot has different caviar strings if you will one that would maybe is there potential for us to sit back down with them dot and say ok you know go back to our original intent you know the original idea of this connector if you will because i think you know some of that frustration lies and you know just iterations different landing spots all these things of that it up into you know various scope creep and and scale and unfortunately finances as well and so i share some of those concerns i've found myself probably as a yes or no at various points over the past couple years on this project originally i actually got kind of excited about the concept just because an island with one entry point is exactly that and the idea of maybe connecting this to some other assets was intriguing to  me however it seems that complexity now has rethinking things so i'm just wondering if there's a way for us to to sit back down with them die and really look at a different pot of money and i the we have a couple of weeks before charter township is going to review this anyway so the only risk is that they may look at or if we're successful they may look a little different numbers than what you have tonight but they would be improving numbers so i'd be happy to to help hopefully that along with andy i do want to say this is this project was four years in the making and and as all projects do they it's part of the non motorized transportation systems that have been talked about including the connection to the possible tunnel that the public works in the mecca tower greenway are investing energies and to the south access course freedom village going back a couple of years fundraise to quote one hundred thousand dollars i think for primarily for the windmill repairs yet also because they wanted a safer way to access the island and this would provide them safe safe routes along the causeway the bridge concept is more of a non motorized component but it does it's what justifies the grat so that the grid the bridge there definitely would not be the eight hundred  twenty four thousand dollars because it's a as he said it's a transportation alternatives project grant so of course the connections are rich part of the strategic plan so there's there's a lot of background that several council so committees several neighbors have been involved in and the bits with what happened in february i think that's that's probably i think we can make that timetable still but that is a risk maybe it would be a later bit if it continues and that later pitted softened higher the closer you get to the construction season having said that would be happy to give it the old college try but i just i ask that question because quite honestly this one is very difficult for me to support as as i see it this way you know indictment on you fellows on that end in the investment that you've made in it but clearly it it's got its own heartbeat continues to grow and can develop new cells and get bigger and bigger and bigger and that's where challenge me most of your own if david i don't understand the difficulty in understanding and trying to discern the correct path on this  particular project of a matter of the british has been kind of a moving target for some time probably since we've even sort of talking about where it's going to go even if it's ever going to exist  cross the river you know who likes it who doesn't there's always been some question related to the bridge and that's probably while it's wise but difficult to nail down  specific cost to it i'm not opposed to having a second look at it to try to see if we can come up with a better scenario in terms of the financials on but i would i would suggest that we not forget our previous discussions and thoughts on this whole project the region the reason that the bridge was suggested as i recall it was indeed and and to also address our ability to work with our neighbors on projects that we beneficial those things at least from my perspective talking about you know being nice to your neighbors and that sort of thing is a little more difficult to come to grass with than something as hard as numbers and budgets  but they are important considerations and the total scope of this project i was i don't know what the undone things are quite frankly what their reasoning with their rational rationale process  but if you think about the fact that if we do build a bridge who knows what additional activities are going to take place on an island how it's going to be developed what happens if we have a let's say a musical event on the island and there's thousands of people there and something should happen some piece of equipment falls and we have a need to get emergency vehicles in place whatever our southern entrance is hampered for some reason the new bridge that we built was good for people but you couldn't drive it and blankets across it what would our conversation be at that point so i would suggest that we don't it does seem reasonable you're always supposed to have two ways to get out of a place you are two ways out of a house two ways out of a room and it's kind of a basic emergency principle because one way can get blacked the something you don't expect and if we do that hope as we do hope to increase the numbers of people coming out there we have a heavier responsibility to  have an ability to handle an emergency and so i can see where that does have some credibility and as you said it's a new requirement in that area of granting so it's something they have decided to add and they have not done in the past so when we have that bridge gives us a perfect five k for all kinds of runs that would go around that circle across the island and over the bridge and back to the island which many people have been very excited about it does make it possible for more people to come to the island to enjoy what it is and hopefully we can work together in better events that involve more people from other places it's really and you know woman from california said to me you know i'm so new here i really thought women island was an island she says it's a peninsula i said yeah you know you're kind of right so making able to drive from one side and be able to drive something from the other side we did have to invest a lot of money in order to bring the crane in and we had to reinforce that bridge whether we liked it or not in order to handle the crane in to fix the windmill all kinds of projects and up with you have to do this because you have that and we go with it to make it happen so i'm with i'm with dave i'm wishing we could go for this at this point after having had a lot of discussion and a lot of things that didn't go exactly as we planned but it is a big effort to commute to connect with the township to connect with the greenway to connect with and to be able to marshal this much grant money and part of why we did get that much support is because we are connecting and that is a high value to the state to the region and therefore they're willing to support what is good model for the amount of grant money that we will be accessing this project with with  just have grant as well as donations and another grant through the trust fund it's it's just north of one point one million dollars and a grandfather ok and how much did this is the city having to pay for the total what's the total project cost the total project cost which is on a sheet i can actually scroll up to this is just over three million dollars and that does include we're going to  replacing the water main that that access is the ion two and that's three hundred seventy thousand dollars of that that amount which we have to do anyway which we have to do concerns of my fellow colleagues here have expressed about reagan that ryan has talked about revisiting some portion of this how does that affect or i would affect our passions resolution should we still pass the resolution might subject incineration would be to table it to allow them to come back with more information at the next meeting i if there's a crime involved it sounds like there is so that would be a better e basically relates to an individual that have died who is our contact if he's not a vacation out of state it would be enough so it is in the in support of that ends our discussion correct correct you need to call for a vote ok without any further discussion and could you please call the white me yes ok so we'll revisit this on the fourth with the information that is gleaned in between ok moving on to the fiscal services and purchasing our finance department was under the microscope can statements some of our findings and recommendations certainly won't put you through that level of detail we'll try to keep it to five or ten minutes here and give you some of the highlights and then open it up to any questions that you might have just from a high  level perspective our job as part of the financial statement audit is really twofold certainly the primary is that we want these financial statements to be useful to be reliable for your decision making process s we test the transaction we test the account balances we spent several weeks on site in the staff out here it is a wonderful job in providing us all of that information at the end of the day though we want to be able to tell you that the financial statements are materially accurate that they're useful for your decision making processes so that's that certainly the first step is part of the audit process the other component is that we look at the internal controls of the city we're trying to make sure one individual is not doing well to pull functions that may open you up to more risks that something may something may go wrong so at the conclusion of our audit we issue certainly the financial statements in a few different pieces there in the first thing i wanted to emphasize is that as a result of our audit process we issued the  unmodified the clean audit opinion that you that you hope to achieve during the audit process that's a fancy way of us saying we feel the financial statements are materially accurate we feel that they're useful reliable for your decision making process s you can't get better than an unmodified or a clean opinion so that's certainly the opinion you hope to achieve as part of the tests that we perform i mentioned looking at the internal controls or also required to report our findings our recommendations as part of the audit process couple of items that i wanted just to read to bring to your attention real briefly as part of the audit we did identify a couple of areas that required audit adjustment it's routine as part of our tests of the valances and the transactions that we do identify a couple of items that that may require adjustment so there were a couple of those items that we identif the refuse in recycling i know the administration of that has been outsourced to a third party that was one area that we struggled a little bit getting some of the information from that third party answers to some of the questions that we had  so we talked about they had a great link at the audit committee meeting also and maybe some ideas or some things that we might be able to do to help facilitate that in the future one other item is that we do recommend that for paid time off that there is a review and approval of that for not only employees but for depart department heads also i know management is already taking action on these recommendations and i'm confident that they'll be addressed a couple items in the financial statements that i just wanted to bring to your attention to you know the full financial statements two hundred sixty four pages this year seems like they grow every every year i recognize the fact that everybody doesn't have the same passion to review those  it is much detail is what tim and i might so two items that i wanted to bring to your attention that are within the financial statements one of them is the transmittal letter you know there's a lot of numbers in the financial statements but this transmit a letter which management drafts is is their opportunity to boast really of all of the accomplishments that that took place story of the year it shows that you're you know you're utilizing the funds responsibly appropriately but then highlights all of the achievements that you accomplished or in the year so i think that's a very important point to refer to the other item is the management's discussion and analysis it's about ten pages of the financial statements which provides a summary not only of the current year activity but also compares it to the prior year also as information one next year so if you want a good high level summary of what happened this year without scrolling through the two hundred sixty four pages that might be a good section to focus on it wouldn't be a not a presentation though without covering at least a few numbers for you the numbers on this slide are the government wide numbers that is the city that's all assets including capital assets all liabilities including the bonds the net pension liability but it also includes the hauen b p w which is obviously a very significant portion of those amounts also so you know the total net position city wise is is four hundred forty two million approximately that is the net difference between the assets and the liabilities certainly a huge component of that is that the b p w in tied up in capital assets the total net position increased about thirty three and a point eight million for the year but again keep in mind that a very significant piece of that related to the to the certainly is down from the prior year given the significant contribution that was made this year then my final couple of slides focused on the general fund in total of the general fund have fun balance of four million six hundred sixty nine thousand at june thirtieth two thousand and sixteen and put you can see there then the breakout would tween the the general funds portion and then the budget stabilization portion  destabilisation is about nine hundred sixty four thousand of that total fund balance the fund balance in total decreased by about three hundred fourteen thousand for the year again you can see the majority of that was was within the main general fund budget stabilization but one item to quito to point out also is that the budget did decrease and fund balance was about eight hundred eighty six thousand so the decrease decrease was well under what was budget d finally just a few different percentage is a lot of groups often like to know now do we have enough in fund balance and in this is just a couple of percentages to let you know what percent of the total expenses for the year are sitting in your fund balance the top section you can see there the breakout between whether you include or do not include the budget stabilisation it's about fifteen percent at the end of the  year if you do include the budget stabilization what i thought also though would be helpful as there was a very significant payment this year for the pension so i thought if i pulled that sum payment out you could see that the percentages there are about twenty one twenty three point one percent if you include the budget stabilization that's about two point eight months of total expenditures and your fund balance that obviously there's a ton of information in the financial statements just a few high level summaries though that i that i wanted to mention thank you any other questions or comments there was no major red flags that we had paul mention a couple things that we do have a pretty good discussion on and stephan already taken measures to address those we will be following up with that  it was a great discussion you got some good numbers and it's always good to get the clean report that's that's the biggest thing tim's been tim and his crew been on board winning for as long as i've been on council and that's to some to long but we're we're awful proud of that team should be proud of that along with the his crew the city is well run financially and it's just time after time after time or seeing that so no major red flags forward she goes and addressing this this is a couple of situations that were brought up todd i would echo that  you know that first bullet point that you had up there clean unmodified that's absolutely what sometimes you can just stop right there because that's what that's that most and then i would just follow that up with and i don't know if it made your power point or not but the you know free of material defect if you will you know those are the two clauses that we should want and we get them each and every time that's a testament to in the  am because those two things basically state these books are presented with integrity and that's absolutely what we want for our stakeholders to mike's point there are  less than material things that we did discuss and in to no surprise i think to my myself or anybody else in that room tim and the team it already been working on ok yes of course because when you deal with that many zeroes there are little things that crop up you can put all the systems in controls in place in both operations and it still something can come up and as mike said there that we're well aware that i would just say that the one thing  paul hit there and i think it should be of interest to us is that the refuse side of things and knowing that that's i'd hesitate to label it is as problematic because it doesn't necessarily do it  a service but that's a contract that's had you know just kind of blips if you will and administrations been very diligent in working through those and those that contract comes back to us i think it's very important that we not just consider the day to day procedural portions of that contract but also some of what has helped us see through this process as well and you know give that some consideration as we look at that contract again because that's a big one for this community and i think in the spirit intended that contract is to kind of have that single contractor that can help with the real important aspect of kind of day to day life here well i appreciate what you guys  every sort of you know super high level description of it that i possibly can but the reports are we get year after year and it's pretty systems that are well run and with a few tweaks here and there so that's a testimony to it or staff the way we do things and appreciate your truly appreciate your your willingness to look at this all for over you and do a good job and i would just if i could act all the you know we had a lot of cities a lot of municipalities our staff genuinely looks forward to coming out to holland because of the quality of the people that they're working with how well prepared they are so i once every five or ten it's like every year and it's an infinite number of accounts they handle and tiny little amounts to huge amounts but everything goes down to tiny details and there are there's no less to city with numbers and money so and but you know that money is really important and it's been entrusted to us from the taxpayers and we want to be good stewards of it and so we appreciate having having this kind of report and we don't want to take it for granted that on a modified clean is a straight a yes that is right  accounting language is different but to the rest of us that's a shining a and a plus most of the fine because we get these awards in are able to put it on display and that is wonderful a wonderful foundation from which as you say we are able to make good decisions because we're well informed with what is really there and they are telling us great things that we need to know so thank you for your work paul and think your team and we really thank him and his huge team for the great work that they do and we're glad that they enjoy coming to holland have them hang around after they evaluate so enjoy the city thank you sir  report parks and recreation for the civic center place improvement project received couple of gifts from jim and irene hearing in the amount of sixty three thousand five hundred dollars as part of a two million thousand five hundred thirty six dollars donation from girard in me and joe cleaver connections program for the fifth year received two donations one from robin williams boy in the amount of  hundred dollars and from magnum years of america in the amount of two thousand dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation in an expression of gratitude  mayor before i make a motion on this i just like to make recognition specifically to frank cry who has been an advocate for a number of years i think we're probably north of twenty thousand dollars with his donation specifically toward an ice rink former assistant city manager we just can't let this go by again without thinking frank from the bottom of our hearts for this he has a real passion and i'm really hoping that we can get this to fruition in the very very near i skate and how and someday we really appreciate if i just kind of looked over all the numbers i came close to an eighty thousand dollar total of people giving to the help of the city be a better place and that is really really inspiring jerry klaver was one of the donors he had his retirement party today at the department of public safety and he is put in thirty seven years running our police reserve services and most people don't even have a career though the last thirty seven years but for all that time he were very hard to a strong system and the former chiefs former chief cried off and messer were there and they said you know anytime we had a need we placed one call jerry we need five people we don't hear and it happened  for thirty seven years it is amazing that he in his leaving after giving so much is also giving to pay for honor guard uniforms they thought they looked a little tattered and he didn't want that to represent our city had events so we really are so grateful for gerry cleaver and of course see that live without him many times when he was doing all these services for for the city and we really want to thank him for his thirty seven years of serving us and i was also a wonderful double donation from patrick and camille thompson at our last meeting we thank them for donating one thousand nine hundred thirty one dollars and eleven cents and this time we are thank you ma'am for a ten thousand dollar donation unsolicited just because they are very supportive and excited about the civic center project and want to see it happen so we're very grateful for their support as well so it is a wonderful thing to have a community that knows the value of giving and realizes that  staff our entire community a very merry christmas do you think you're right and so communications from the mayor we have mayor of re appointments and we're asking that we re appoint each council member to their respective board and commissions that they have been they are enjoying those appointments so brian birch would go to the neighborhood improvement committee and the planning commission quincy byrd was an alternate for the police community relations commission i am on the planning commission and the youth advisory council dave hoekstra is in the international relations commission the sustainability committee and the alternate to the west michigan airport authority wayne conference is on the human relations commission brian lamb is on parks and recreation advisory committee as well as the board of public works j peters to the downtown development authority the historic district commission and the neighborhood improvement committee are on the ca t v commission the mecca tower area express transportation authority and the police community relations commission and tad whiteman is on the brownfield redevelopment authority and the west michigan airport authority and hoff wealth of west michigan airport authority for her first term said term expiring january of twenty twenty and also please accept the or i'm sorry that was a reappointment and also accept the appointment of charles  right same sign that carries thank you and the other motions of resolutions from council members we have the screen at our twenty seventeen coffee with council so with that on your calendar if you'd like to come down and talk with us saturday january fourteenth from nine to eleven will be at the herrick district viber area the first floor there's a conference room with windows showing river avenue in the southeast corner of the building we were there last year we would love to have you come in come on down and talk with us and let us know what your vision is for the city what your concerns are and how you would like us to go into our budget conversations and our retreat about what you think we should do for the city of highland we'd appreciate that also at this time like i said it's a wonderful time of year but the also can be some difficult things and it came to my attention this past week that there may be some people that are calling other people pretending to be somebody they aren't asking for money that doesn't go to a cause they say it will go to and asking for personal information from people please if someone can takes you and says they are from the city ors as they are the mayor or whatever do not believe them please context city hall and don't give them any personal information they are not associated with us and we would hate to have someone good think they're giving to a good cause and really just be swindled out of something they shouldn't be so please always check out those kind of things with the official group that they say they may be associated with so with that we are very grateful that you tuned in today and we are so thankful to live in a country that appreciates these holidays and we hope that you will have a warm and wonderful christmas season and that you will be able to care and give to those around you and share a spirit of the joy and comfort and the season thank you for tuning in man america yes mike before we close a couple of things i'd like to mention first of all  this time of the year with the white blanket that i mentioned in my prayer some things that the citizens have to remember the first of all is that it is a city ordinance that you clean your sidewalks off city plows do go through but it city ordinance that you are responsible for the sidewalk in front of your residence make sure that gets clean second of all as a safety reminder please dig out your hydrants in your block the few seconds of the few minutes that it takes you to do that could save an awful lot of time in the event that you are one of your neighbors has a fire in their house first of all trying to find the hydrant second of all trying to get out  fires spread very very quickly so please make sure you go out there and open those up for the fire department and for your own safety and third of all with the snow was that we've had of late our city plows have been out for long hours please give them the right away please give them some courtesy and please give them a thank you when you see them for the extra work that they've been doing making sure streets are very smooth and clean and dry as much as possible and as the mayor said i'd also like to wish everybody a very merry christmas and a glorious new year and we will see you next year thank you we also have a way for you to contact us on the screen if you need to talk to us or there's a phone number or an e mail address i love to hear from you and we're very grateful for all the hardworking people that call holland home have a wonderful rest of this year and a great new year