good evening where here the seventeenth of february for our meeting with the city council we're glad that you're here to help us and talk with us in making these decisions this evening we would like to start with roll call an with for decades an opening prayer led by a council member conference followed by the pledge of allegiance if you can stand please  for our dear lord god we are thankful for all gifts received for the gift of life be with those who were ill and grieving for the loss of life and of a loved one council wisdom and insight to make the best decisions we can for the city maybe listen and speak and vote responsible protect this country in the citizens of this city and maybe will be kind and caring people to help others in your name we pray thank you wayne we will now have the presentation of the consent agenda and i will read those items for us and we will handle all of those with one vote however there may be one in the list that she reads that you came here specifically to address during council if that's the case at the end of her reading the list will give you the opportunity to come forward and ask which item you would like to have removed from the consent agenda and then we will handle it in its sequence in the order of the meeting so and i could you read those place i am for b to approve the minutes of the regular council sessions held january twenty and february third two thousand and sixteen for accept and file executed oaths of office from various boards and commissions twelve a one to approve a contract with plumbers environmental services for sanitary sewer cleaning and c c t v inspection and the total amount to fifty four thousand three forty six sixty seven pending approval as to form by the city attorney twelve eighty two to approve per crewman of easement right away his rights to allow the building of the natural gas pipeline and the one thirty eight k v in a connect line in support of the h energy park twelve a three to approve an engineering services agreement with f t c any to perform engineering services for the way really pump station upgrades project for a not to exceed amount of forty thousand three hundred ninety two and a ten percent contingency of four thousand eight hundred thirty nine dollars pending approval asked for by the city attorney item twelve for to approve an extension of the fiscal year two thousand and seventeen budget filing for the how important public works from february fifteenth to march fifteenth two thousand and sixteen twelve a five to approve a master service agreement with links network group providing internet service for the broadband pilot project pending approval as to form by the city attorney item twelve d one to refer to it was filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration twelve to adopt a resolution approving the salary inset hours for the two thousand and sixteen board review march meetings and direct the deputy clerk to publish said here in davis twelve e's three point one two approve the agreement without accounting for the two thousand and sixteen sentence work abatement program funds provided through the parks and cemetaries division budget subject to approval as to form by the city attorney twelve eat three point two two adopt a resolution authorizing the parks and recreation department for the submittal of a grant application in the amount of one hundred sixty five thousand dollars to the michigan department of natural resources trust fund grant for improvements to be made for the digraph nature center entrance area item twelve efore point one to approve the bid submitted by our aristo truck systems in the amount of seventeen thousand three hundred  dollars for the purchase and installation of another room and i'm service body on a ford f three fifty super truck the chasse says to be used by the parks department efore point to declare a surplus of two thousand and four dad strat sign an execute any documents in necessary to facilitate the purchases of thank you have sold out of that list are there any that you came here to address that you would like us to take off the consent agenda if that's the case you can come up to the podium give us your name and address and the item you'd like removed seeing man anyone on council have an item that they would like to remove right looks like we're good is there a motion to accept the consent agenda to move peter's support and we can we have a bird yes yes peters yes birch yes lynne yes white men yes that's true yes conference yes madam mayor yes thank you so we're onto the special order of the day public hearing for the plant rehabilitation ryan is at your presentation thank you madam mayor and members of the city council tonight is the opportunity to review a request by cent to any which has been reviewed by the city's finance department our clerk's office or down town director as well as our community neighborhood services director and also has been the subject of a charette by our own former phil myer and bill johnson so what we have is a request to get it on the screen this is an area on e six street which has been under utilized or unutilized for quite some time and their quest is to make two hundred fifty five thousand dollars worth of improvements mainly to plumbing electrical infrastructure and a way that would not end up with a tax increase and that is to make the project possible and redevelop and repurpose this building accordingly this is called an industrial plant rehabilitation district request it is permitted the city has done this on three occasions once in two thousand and ten and once in two thousand and three and this request has been also supported by the lake shore advantage  e crafts made what are we claimed wood products artisan materials if you will not assembly line not noise and certainly looks according to what we've heard from the neighbors as a good use to what else is going in the neighborhood that he expected problems or deed for any mitigation so it is with that that the city staff recommends approval of this matter the formal recommendation is u thank you right any discussion about this think of this project discussed like just a couple of comments it's nice and i can say that i grew up in this area but i worked right across the street from this area for probably ten years  remember the old compaq specialities remember which i think was in this building and the do well which was in when they were going to be talking about a little bit later it's nice to see this revitalization coming down from this down the street to get some great possibilities anchored with the villages on the corner cross from columbia so things moving toward the downtown things moving toward the water so it's great to see great to see the investment this is kind of gotten street to be nice to see a little bit of life come back to that and i think this is this one project in the one right next door isn't going to do it in the army there so it it's very exciting to have something creative and unique and i see a younger generation investing and growing downtown and going reaching out to the water and doing it  in such a creative way that still honors the history of the building and repurpose is it and then this next project that comes along in the same meeting and in that same context as well as working with the neighborhood and it's a great feeling to have all of that support coming through with such a unique project so it's great can we have a roll call in a true theory yes peters yes birch yes those of you in the audience to come and tell us what you or you have on your mind that is not going to be addressed later in this agenda for the evening if that is your purpose this evening you're welcome to come to the podium and give us your name address and you have five minutes to good evening my name's vern helder my address is in one thousand nine hundred ninety court in michigan i came out tonight because i wanted to introduce myself i'm running for the fifty eight district court position that's opening up in hudsonville so that's judge can post this retiring judge ed post announces retirement and circuit court also but i'm running for the district court position so i want to come out introduce myself i'll give you a little bit of information about myself and then i would also here to collect signatures we need a minimum of a thousand signatures so they say between one and two thousand signatures to file with the state of michigan and that's in april so i'm out collecting signatures also i grew up in wyoming right on the wyoming granville border i went to calvin christian high school in granville and then i graduated also from calvin college and then i after calvin college i went to detroit college of law which is now michigan state university law school after i graduated from law school i worked for the court of appeals as a research attorney for about a year and a half and then i took a position with a litigation firm in grand rapids i was in i was with the litigation firm for about eighteen years and now the last thirteen years nine of the last thirteen years full time i've worked in the court system in the district court as the magistrate for the court system so a lot of what i do is a take i have to have a handle small claims hearings traffic ticket hearings but then i also take some of the workload from the judges we do a district court position and hudsonville and i feel very comfortable with that position and that's why i'm running for district court instead of the circuit court position so i just wanted to come out tonight introduce myself and i thank you for your time  dixon i'm originally from russia and i came to this country twenty years ago and today i came here to think the  living completely broken soviet country with their trying to they were trying to build from cup in a communist capitalised country and nothing was really working at all for educating people like myself and my children it was practically no choice at all else to leave country and look for opportunities i had chance of listen one percent to be able to actually survive or immigrate it took me fifteen years to immigrate and became citizen of the united states and i'm incredibly proud of that and i have another level of my story i worked for adoption agency for twenty years as a social worker and director of international programs and was on to bring here one thousand two hundred children in place with loving american families local families four years ago i made  me it was as i said to everybody it was frankly my second citizenship to the city of holland it was incredibly instilled is incredible acceptance when i came here like a tol and mazing and made my husband here inside that actually and he was from england when we fell in love and made a decision to get married and my two daughters unfortunately lived in the city different and i was incredibly diverse stated with that and we had this terrible economy city so i had another all meetings starting with chamber of commerce i practically kill him and i said what can they do for this community as an artist use donation so right now i am very pleased that i have an or not to work was mayor and do is somewhat of a tional speaking inspiring people but most importantly to express my incredible credit you choose to this city and to this country for incredible opportunities inspire people to do anything we can to make it better i was incredibly hear that on fortunately my daughter came back from north carolina and you are talking about the young generation and what we can do to make our community here more vibrant and i really would like to be if i can with any single related to that because i want my daughter said and i don't have any my family all religion that it stayed at all so i was by myself completely and i said to reach of that he's a work in front of vision company and his going around the world as a consultant and he was for two years as on contract and i said i really don't have anybody so if you need to bring him in whether it's england australia it's really i guess it doesn't matter to me i can go anywhere and he's said to me ok let's sit down then and talk i said down and his said i lived in many countries and i visited every single state of the united states and as we  as we are getting merit kind of formulating and your family has said there is absolutely no place like city of holland anywhere in the world and it's all about community and we developing orchards and gardens and english loans and a little bit of russia and we so thankful and the completely lost my statement two years ago on christmas morning we had fire you introducing to us in red cross people introducing themself to us and all of them saying that they're volunteers and all of them were saying i live here and i live there and i'm your neighbor you know your neighbor we were in complete shock immediately from the state of shock of a disaster and losing we didn't really lose heart was about losing a lot we felt like it's frilly confirmation that we made the right decision to be here and stay here forever so i'm very thankful for your sewing to this community and together if you need me to do anything we would love to do that thank you very much thanks energy conservation our energy conservation bond allotment it's kind of a complicated situation i guess in two thousand and eight the federal government created tax exempt energy conservation and allocated to all of the communities and in michigan we had no particular purpose for them in the state of michigan they asked us to return our allotment to the state so that they could redistribute administration so when people come and visit the city hall they have a chance to pick up one of these the brown photo redevelopment commission has started the i would say the baby steps of developing a vision and plan for cleanup in the kalamazoo county portion of the river we also have some spots that need to be cleaning up but there are dams that the department of natural resources wants to remove a look many many year project but we want to return the river to some recreational uses from you know both the border with kalamazoo all the way out to us i took in douglas area again with the beginning baby steps and then we also have created a task force to investigate where there are lapses in protecting public health and safety with the manufacturing facilities associated with medical marijuana as you may know or remember of december the third we had an explosion manufacturing thing your specters would go through and make sure everything was well connected in accordance with coach they are exempt from that and so we are looking into you know what recommendations we can make to the state government  as to making sure the of that when you have a manufacturing facility that the adequate code inspections are taking place so that people are not injured we barely escaped injury to a young young boy explosion and so that's one thing we're looking into we also have issued a request for proposal for the replacement of our radio system to use me it is over twenty five years old now for our nine one one dispatcher this will be done in late two thousand and seventeen it's a over the course of a couple of years it will be about nine million dollars expenditure but you know the technology has way out dated and so we're working and then as well and then finally we are sad but we are going to be losing our share of coke's earlier this year notes that he would not a fifth four year term mr allen county sheriff and you of course are often there with him because of his previous experience here is a captain in the police department and we wish him well but thank you we certainly have your case in point with the manufacturing facility dontcha yes but that isn't good and i don't know what will yes can allow those kind of things to happen and it is such a hard thing to have the retirement of such a st ice believe we are going down to city manager community neighborhood services with our neighborhood enterprise certificate application ryan and joy dive from the community and neighborhood services development at one twenty four east six treat to help everyone get their bearings you report on the screen is one twenty four six three six three days running left or right on the screen and then columbia avenue is running north or south or up and down just to the left of the screen one twenty forty six street is a one of that a two story building half in the ground and half  the ground and the developer is looking to rehab this building into thirteen market rate apartments with approximately back once like with approximately seventeen parking spaces the site that's on the screen right now shows the building here on the left side of the parcel parking will be located to the right of the parcel that's shown on the screen the neighborhood enterprise zone is a tax abatement program  in comparison to other neighborhoods as we've discussed earlier in the meeting this part of six street is making a comeback this coupled with another project we discussed earlier is you know putting some life into this block rejuvenating this block and it's something that you know the downtown developer you know the d d a is excited about the city planning department is excited about and i think it's something that council also shown some excitement about in previous meetings you have a neighborhood enterprise zone policy that gives guidance on what kind of term the amount the number of years that a neighborhood enterprise zone should be granted tax abatement should be granted this evening and is available for questions from council if needed their request in fifteen years as part of the staff recommendation in the staff report we are supportive of that fifteen years as you know highlighted in the attached resolution fifteen year neighborhood enterprise zone certificate for this parcel and future phases will be reviewed and study that time questions we counsel thank you hugs or supported by whiteman extra whiteman combination  was the rationale for granting additional time this project is not one that's feeding necessarily off the momentum of a number of other projects in the area you know like several other development here is in the city experience this is the sort of pioneering sense an area that we as a city would like to see developed terms of your development but what i've seen of it so far it looks very inviting i think you've thought it out fairly well so i think that that pioneering aspect of your project deserves us additional compensation for the risk you get me involved in that development so that's why i'm willing to go along with this extension so and i wish you well that's it yes and no just echo a lot of what brother hooks trev has shared i think there's been a bit of confusion i think with this particular request because of the this is the policy that we have currently saying we can go to ten but within we council can consider fifteen and what not and so there's a little bit of gray space i guess and  you know the the one we addressed earlier in the agenda at least by my recollection i don't remember us doing any of that type of basement before so that's at least a first while i've been on council but there are a number of these options out there for developers to come into our community and invest in i think it might be worthwhile for us to dedicate a little bit of study time session to freshen up on not just what are our own policies our but what the state says the community can do and i've been an advocate for at least all of my time on council saying that you know it behooves us to be competitive in recessionary times  because other communities have these tools as well and still a voice said we should stay in alignment with what the state says we can do and in the competitive and aggressive with that so to some degree i'm saying bless you i hope this really works out for you and i think we as a council should probably wrap our heads around this a little bit because as the economy recovers my hope and prayer is that we see more of this and that we fully understand it and have policies that are lined up with whatever those maxes are that the states say we can do so that we're capturing projects like this and recovering it quicker rate yes mean i think it's a great project as i like the plans i think six treat certainly could use some beefing up on the other side of the question however when we talked about a ten year we we created a rating system that really said ten years was what this parcel should have and now we're saying fifteen and i think what the little bit of the problem is if we give this group box other people are going to want to have exactly that same kind of thing as a homeowner if you add on to your home so you put a ten thousand dollar addition on you're going to be taxed pretty quickly on that if you sell your home you're going to be pain tax on the new rate as well and so i think this group has to be cognizant of the fact that you're asking other people to pay for police protection and fire protection and all the other city services that are in cumbered property owners and so this is a pretty big pretty big thing the other of the other part that concerns me is parking and i looked today at how one hospital the aquatic center the civic center we've talked about city hall etc and parking is a huge hindu team in this particular part we're talking about giving food thirteen to seventeen spots and when i just look at my block and it's a pretty typical block in say well this is apartments different there's not one person on my block that doesn't have two cars in fact we are not at a mass transit kind of wonderful thing we'd like to be they're going to really want to have a parking place if you have thirteen and you have twenty six cars that's a problem and say well you can park other places or you can take the bus i would hate to have this project in jeopardy as being successful or not because of of lack of of parking and i think that the people who are investing their money on that have to be cognizant of those well so it's a great project it's a great location i think it's got a couple of things on there that do concern me and i think when we look at sixty eight we really want to develop it well not just grab something because it's out there so i do have some concerns about any o well it kind of looks like it takes a village to start a village and you guys have been really keeping it together showing up at all these meetings and working through things and meeting in between our meetings it sounds like according to community and neighborhood services this is not a single person's endeavor and that has great synergy i think i don't feel as though that approving this will set a  precedent because this is a catalyst project according to community neighborhood services this is an area that hasn't been really really addressed like it needs to be and it hasn't been developed from a creative perspective storage in an old building that keeps getting older and is not addressed is not a development so the fact that you have a residential unit and then there's also the industrial going on there and there are plans for additional development coming in that that really feels like a way to grow development and a way to address the difference between downtown and the water and we have been looking for a way to do that so it takes people who are willing to take risks have a big ask keep showing up have good plans and are willing to take it all the way to the mat and we appreciate your tenacity and vision and we'll see what happens with our vote and p madam mayor yes motion passes eight yes one no thank you ok we are and two gifts and could you tell us about that generous people in the community the city manager's office is pleased to report the following gifts transportation services for the street improvement fund for the central and third street to state street improvement project from for one hundred fifty thousand dollars city manager for the city council retreat from an anonymous donation of two thousand one hundred seventy five dollars parks and recreation for the digraph nature center for land improvement project from jarrett and rachel henderson yes henderson for fifty dollars in time thomas for sale he could sell five hundred eighty five dollars and that is for the educational program parks and recreation for the south for a scholarship donation program received an anonymous donation of one dollar parks and recreation for the renewal of when my island gardens in the restoration of the windmill from hayward inc in the amount of twelve thousand five hundred dollars that was for the third installment toward a forty year fifty thousand commitment pledge and parks and recreation for the hauen in bloom from john in judas in the amount to five hundred dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation in the expression of gratitude  forwarded to send donors motion to accept with appreciation support create all in favor please say i oppose same sign that passes what a wonderful list of generous companies and individuals everyone from a dollar to one hundred fifty thousand dollars that's really great thank you and then we have the approval of the city council retreat priorities right thank you mayor or probably any member of this council could give the same introduction that i'm going to give this is a step in the process that begins in january for the annual budget consideration review and hopefully approval with setting a tax rate in may it begins with coffee with counsel in the january which was held at the library followed up by the retreat that was held at new north were these priorities were discussed and subsequent to this you will be having a recommended budget from the city administration after i work with the budget team for me and  mid april i think it's wednesday april fourteenth maybe whatever that day is on wednesday is our first budget study session and that will be followed up by the thursday and then and hopefully approval in the first meeting in may  tax rate so these priorities are very important in terms of the process and i want to encourage listeners to continue to interface with the city council as we proceed if they were unable to go to the coffee come next year but that was achieved that day and there were a number of ties that day we also had a number of categories or revisions to the key call that was expressed and what i did was u the order pretty much from the last time you looked at this and study session and created the top twelve in that order which i understood was your request and then added some language from that explained it better from the detail of these worksheets so i just want to read the top five for the record and also see if there's any adjustment or refinements no pride in authorship here but i did want to try to be clear as clear as possible on what the council was the first one is to create a path to begin to achieve fiber internet access to neighborhoods this is sam's that the pilot program has been successful that the public works is acting on now and that there's a business case that is also recommended to you so this would then be a priority and we would create priorities in terms of extensions and it's been suggested going down pine or extend into the smart  i think i'll just read the top five and then come back the second is to eliminate barriers in the development of redevelopment purview and ways to reduce requirements and in the study session last week we talked a lot of about how the start to district commission guidelines can be viewed as a barrier has been reviewed ever before streamline reviews reduce the number of steps reduce the number of boards and that's certainly the case there is checks and balances that have been set up by ordinance and other practices that could be looked at provide a clear path to success meaning more one stop shopping that's my words not yours but seem to express the sentiment form base code approach is a is a way of kind of pre approval process for the example of projects are right up the alley of what we want to do and turn to our community services and and there are certain things that should not be it in the way the third is a combination of the third and the fifth priorities and it is they're both about taxes so i combined them create the budget to be able within the annual taxable value increases this year it's point zero three percent based on proposal a inflation there be real tax will that that's why you increase spacetime growth that is assumed by myself would be part of that taxable value increases and be mindful reduce the tax rate tax burden over time says me by eliminating the the increases that were implemented several years ago and i had to find them there these are what they were zero point seven mills associated with payment of capital debt and zero point one five combined a couple of those notions from the worksheets number five at a restaurant and indoor slash outdoor concert venue of a mile and gardens and i added as part of the interpretive in landscape plan steps that are noted as expectations from the business plan and those those efforts to budget for those activities as is has been underway since that home became the development director there and and i assume that's still in keeping with what your interests are and and both of those will include looking at those with that restaurant indoor outdoor concert approach so those are the top five and i'll stop there and see if i got it right and be happy to make any adjustments the discussion yet it's way not just to write a quick discussion on number three and we've talked about this one several times now as far as taxes are concerned and how to do budgets etc and i think last year when it came down to the final budget in voting we were pretty much i was pretty frustrated with with that so i'm trying to turn to not have that kind of thing happen again so that there's a fairly clear understanding among city council those to what the program wonders of a budget that we feel comfortable with and i think that we have to drill down and give our treasurer and our city manager etc some clear directionality as to what our thinking is on this one so i think we need to drill down on that one a little bit further it's a priority but i don't think we think we need to have some more discussion for anybody else feels that way if they do i'd like to see them speak up to  s right yeah i agree with your point having some guidelines around that to be helpful for ryan and the team and ball that are looking at the budget and having to add more discussion from us as a council so that you're not surprised you know to expect to get to kind of head off some of the tough discussions that would help make that a reality if that's the decision of this council so i agree with you when more and more discussion around what that means would be a good thing and then another thing i'd like to say about the priorities  in the top hurry about fiber to mobs he a little bit younger than everybody else up here but i think one of the things that's really important as we look to the future in the next ten fifteen twenty years i said just a little  generation in holland i think one of the one of the key things is having infrastructure that you can't get anywhere else and that's really what we have at our kind of the potential fiber something you can't get you can't move somewhere else to get it and developing that is exciting in terms of attracting the next generation to holland and holding that is something that you know we  can scream and yell and be proud of all the great tourism and things you can do here downtown but also the fact that you get some of the fastest internet available if you move to the city of holland and i think that's exciting so i'm i'm proud that as a council we we set that as our top priority i think that's what's going to attract you know the next generation it's a decision that it is going to affect the next ten fifteen twenty thirty years of shaping pilot and that there has been a draft of the business plan that i've not seen yet but here to kind of dive into it by the idea that we could look at access to information  not even just at the high speeds but at all speeds as a public utility in the same way we think of water and roads that information which is really the power of our economy right  now that even you know myself who has the capability the privilege to pay for very high speed but also someone who perhaps cannot afford a very high speed could have access to the information they need to educate themselves to become a better  and more knowledgeable person in our society i think is something that we should uphold and i think we're very close to having that in in the city so i this is i think it's a great priority i think the it i think is a very exciting time it's something that's rare when you look at other cities where you have a single person basically saying this is what i want to do this is what we want to do and that's that's unique i having a language to the city ordinances about allergy beachy non discrimination i'd like to amend that if i could to read add language to the city ordinance policies to protect all g b t community against discrimination in housing employment and accommodation just adding that additional area and not to belabor this but perfectly to you know to hear stories in the sticks and offer tonight so it's very heartwarming that's the way life should be you know in holland and everywhere and to hear  experience her family being held up and accepted as an example to everyone and the unfortunate fact is that's a reality that has not yet realized by everyone in this community that we have still an opportunity to do something to try to make them better so hopefully with a slight change clarifying direction i was grabbing an old fashioned hard copy to get in front of me and to write down get everything you say could i ask to be repeated again against discrimination in housing employment and accommodation so by approving this list we're saying these are topics we lad talk more about this coming year and we're doing something about certainly work on so that the fiber was four years ago right now it's it's really happening this year continue onward it's not expected that these unless you tell me to what necessarily be done next year but will make real progress on all twelve was the intent type you know i think a few a lot of this for some reason this year feels like it needs more chewing on then we had the opportunity to do on our saturday together and so i am way all of these probably more of an ongoing thing and so my comfort level would be to to do it from an action perspective would be to accept this is information in some shape or form whether that's wordsmith or not but as i said up stairs number three being one of the the folks that suggested one of the parts that is now number three i'm not comfortable with them being together the way they are right now because again there's two separate distinct parts of the mathematical equation that ends up being in essence our taxes as they come to us as either residents or business owners in the community and so that that's my comfort level and if that's where the rest of the group is willing to go i would actually make that a new motion but i'm willing to wait until but i've always considered these as a living document because no matter how many times we try to fine tune it before we get to it when we get right down to the nitty gritty of discussing it and putting it into policy it has six seven twelve iterations these are the guidelines this is what is we're giving us direction we're giving to the staff direction as we go down through these just as with the fifty that we gave ryan when he first started here with four some odd years ago i have no problem in approving what we've got here knowing and going into this that there is a living document it's going to change and i think that we're going to get better off and better discussion by taking this and then saying ok now let's get down to the nitty gritty and get the job done and i think i suggested the top twelve last week i don't want to get over done with the whole group because i think we're going to get caught the new should not get anything done if we happen to get past the the top twelve fantastic but these are the ones that we should prioritize on get them taken care of we've got time we've got inclination we can grab a couple of the other ones down the list so much the better we've got to have direction we gave direction this is the direction we found at least eight of us i have no problem with this i understand what you're saying ration i would make though i have something like number three he says one of our priorities is to create a budget within the annual tax specifically around a very specific goal and what i think i'm hearing say is well me rather than be so specific i mean can we just say that we're going to look at the taxable value and make sure that we have a really good solid tax base and a tax rate for that that's fair for the city island not specifically going after eliminating the point seven capital dead point one five dollars station milage increase because i wasn't part of that discussion and i don't know where that's my not that's not worth a bow i mean i don't mean to say that's a bad thing well  that's a little too specific i mean i agree we need to have that conversation but it's some of them are in glittering generalities and some of them are some pretty specific things and of these are priorities i just want some clarity that they're all in the spirit of we're going to talk about  and so what we have now is basically a goal that was further down and still had some some legs behind it but it was more about maintaining the budget in alignment with the tax as it is today that's different that's a very different thing and so the bringing them together i think j i think what you're saying is that the kind of murky set up a little bit and then when we get a specific is saying it's about that capital debt or this fire station the fire station was a transfer from actually when we approved some knowledge to save three fire positions and then those were funded and we shifted the milage to take care of other things and i think if you look at our our militias as they're laid out in the city website you'll see kind of ships in a microwave from year to year trying to put money behind certain things in that little way from other things as we release things my specific goal as it was stated on that saturday was reduce that total burden on taxpayers in the city we've increased it twice at least in the last six years at least the taxable value in my home is the same as it was two thousand and two ok and i know a city finance director would say in there lies the problem that's my largest investment and will be for the rest of my life i've lost thirty thousand years in two successive recessions and for the most part wages in homes in things like that have a pace they have a pace and so your average citizen in this community as has moved along through two successive recessions and also incurred two tax increases at the same time and i understand that the tax bill was a hole is way down but in two thousand and six that same old it seems same home had a six thousand dollars tax bill and so that's  this and in with all due respect to that saturday process it just felt unfinished compared to the previous years where we've stayed where we've spent time in this room or in other places and of finishing out that discussion giving ourselves a little bit more clarity that's why i say i'm less uncomfortable formalizing right it was a vision blue sky focused retreat so it was i don't know focused on getting down to the exact whatever but we got a direction and so at being asked here to approve a direction that we will go back and really wrestle through like the last at the top twelve i have ever as we can get so i have an emotion to that effect i just have two items one i want to say this is away from graduations everyone here who has supported the customer service center and especially to say a clerk at a prowesses helped function have a function like it has been recently there were eight hundred some in vigils city hall last month and that's up from six hundred fifty in its earlier months and we want to think of city hall as a wall coming  building that is provides great services to all and i think that the way it's functioning it is doing that it's also making it easier it's a productivity improvement for departments because some of the activities happen right there when you walk in the door you don't have to go up three flights and further the city hall general mainline three five five thousand nine hundred is now being answered there and that improves efficiency on the second floor and with four elections i think that's probably time they can they can be used so i just wanted to let you know how it's evolving it's not done yet because we have some new technology that would like to to work with our system to the city manager to implement this saturday so people can use or saturday mornings to catch up on that second thing and this is a thank you to just about every one of the building as well there's an effort to knock on every door so she added with  and we are as of this weekend we hope to have a comp the twenty percent mark and i want to a make sure people know that these are folks with orange caps for a purpose and it's a purpose to save people money and save energy we also want to know if people if there's any feedback i would say this is not been done before i think in this kind of fashions of their suggestions of how we can do better we specially want to hear from you i understand the  to make the budget work so these youth can be paid and that is something good for them as well so that's it for me do you have any reports on where we are in our state and things with that georgetown university energy price competition right thank you it's available on the web g u p sensors georgetown university energy prize dot org if you click on the dashboard it'll take you to a site in which there's a big map and it shows cities in green they're doing what they hope to have done and and holland has a green arrow so that's a good thing scroll down and the city of holland fifty communities is now ranked third in the nation and we're tied according to the energy reduction with aspen colorado so we seem to be going in the right direction and i mentioned everyone in this building i need to  public works has made possible a lot the the bags a lots of things that go in the bag so it's it's really something that we have all taken under our weighing in and it can happen without everyone so him so we're in third place but really have the same score as the second place people direct so we're kind of second third so to speak i thought that is exciting because before it was like a love and right correct yeah yeah wonderful thank you thank you for all your huge efforts for such a time as this amazing leadership for that whole program this past tuesday we had a presentation from our civic center group  and what we have developed as a plan a possible plan for the civic center it was in the civic center auditorium how appropriate not always in the best of shape but it still felt good to be in that space and people were very receptive to the presentation and how they are figuring out how to grow the civic center in a minimal way and you utilize the basement and have vision for the roof have  terrace overlooking a family park across in the north west corner of the property where there's that little triangle of grass to kind of grow that area maybe have a little bit of a skating ribbon there in the winter maybe a little wider feature there's just so much exciting stuff you can hardly stand it i in and they will be having another presentation on the seventh of march as it gets closer to a final presentation to the public and then on the sixteenth they plan to present to city council on what their final recommendation is as a design team so we're looking forward to that it's been decades in the making this coming monday will be mayors roundtable that was a an afterthought was started by mayor mcginn and pegged and growl as a way to encourage conversation  generations about significant tactics to help students feel as though they have a voice in government and in the world in general so this monday we will be featuring the four lakeshore forty under forty people one of whom is to my right mr bryan birch and also three others and we also have been from lake shore advantage who has been very instrumental in helping interns get acclimated to the area and hoping that they would like to to stay as well the students will be sent away in groups and with each one with an entrepreneur in order to address the questions that lecture advantage has been asking for the business community how do we develop attract and retain talent in this area we have more jobs and we have skilled workers so how do we address that and what are the activities and amenities of this area that we should celebrate and also develop in order to address those concerns of a new talent base so it'll be interesting to hear with juniors and seniors in high school have to say about those  topics and then we have girlfriends weekend that is exciting and that's the first weekend of march and that is very popular downtown all kinds of women come from all over and they have they right into the downtown development authority they're so excited about it coming in and bringing their friends they have regular groups that come it's a great way to grow the message of downtown in the area and i'm sure many of them return later with their families so i think it does a lot for for tourism around here and the first weekend in march what else are we doing with weather in this area so it was very wise programming on the part of the d d a i think so there are all kinds of great things going on in holland today and throughout this year so stay tuned and  we hope we can do it all together now we have comments from council members anyone have something they would like to add i guess that would be it then so am we don't have any motions or resolutions from council members oh ok thank you i guess there's just one thing we need we don't even have a request to go into close