evening everyone welcome to the night's regularly scheduled meeting of the holland city council we are pleased to have you with us tonight whether you're watching on your television or on some computer at some point or whether of course you're in chambers to begin tonight's meeting we start  with first a roll call vote then we will have a prayer led this evening by our city attorney and mulder followed immediately by the pledge of allegiance and it would you please call the roll people are here for your leaders here f glorious beauty that how and has to offer and what awaits us the like the people and the spirit of this community are truly your gifts to us tonight we have shared blessings on the and its deliberations to consider the best interests of the city of how and give them your grace and direction but also tonight we remember the sick the lonely those who do not have someone to care or even remember them in some measure may our lives and energies be devoted to make these your people a part of your community yes this and i name a thank you andy i'm always hesitant to critique a lawyer but something about the we observe the wonders of springtime happening outside have you been outside lately an the emerging there you go very very there are copies of this evening's agenda located in the rack in the rear of rear of the room paper copies that is and if you have some sort of electronic device we have wireless signal inside the council chambers and you're invited to join that and on line you can then find not only a copy of tonight's agenda but also a copy of all the background material councils looked at in preparation for this evening's meeting the easiest way to do so is go to city of holland dot com go to the calendar page look on tonight's to today's date you'll see an indication for this evening's meeting as you look at the agenda you'll note that there are a variety of items listed there that have an asterix next to them and these are items that we have currently placed on the consent agenda meaning that we will take them all with one motion and one vote regardless of where they show up on the agenda and we do this because we think that they're relatively routine or have been previously discussed by council now you may not think that any one of those items or one of those items is terribly routine and in fact you may have come here this evening to specifically talk about one of those items if that is the case here's what will do the clerk will read for us the items that are presently on consent then i will invite anyone from the audience to come forward and remove an item from the consent agenda and of course members of council can remove one or more items from consent as well to begin this process and it would you please list for us what is presently on tonight's consent item five to approve the minutes of the regular session held march sixth and study session held march thirteenth two thousand and thirteen item a law into accepting file executed oaths of office item fourteen a one to prove and he's been with the city of zealand for underground fiber lines connection point twenty nine west main street pending approval asked a form by the city attorney item fourteen eighty two to approve an easement for precision trenching for underground fiber lines on greenway drive as approved as to form by the city attorney item fourteen eighty three to approve the bid for the purchase and installation of two new rooftop back units from pier bolts in the i'm up to twenty six i was then eight hundred  sixteen dollars was set amount to be transferred from contingency to capital fund item fourteen a fourth to approve an energy services agreement with m p p a and to appoint the general manager or his dozen me as a member authorized representative to sign documents pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen a five to approve a twenty year wind power purchase agreement between m p p a and the holland board of public works for power generated at the b one b development pending approval as to form by the city attorney i am fourteen do you want to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item fourteen d two to approve the two thousand and waste agreement with shock container to provide billion in customer service functions and to adopt a resolution establishing designated staff authorization depository with chemical bank item fourteen two point one two approve the two thousand and thirteen america and balloon competition entry and that the steering committee provide periodic updates regarding the plants in preparation for the judges visit item fourteen two point two to approve an agreement with  inc also known as reliable sport and mecca tower area express for a bicycle rental program to be located at the panels transportation center item fourteen two point three two accept the bid of d construction in the amount of twenty one thousand and fifty dollars for the azealia drain dredging project and that a total budget amount of thirty five thousand be approved including a ten thousand dollar contingency to be used as needed funded from the streets capital projects one item fourteen two point four two adapted for the resolution to end that for the annual update of act fifty one mapped for the addition of your gearing all of art as a public street and to authorize the city manager as street as ministry it or to sign the map on behalf of the city i had important to point six to approve the environmental monitoring management also known as the r m proposal submitted in the amount of sixteen thousand dollars to prepare the environmental close out materials for the former st department site funded from the centralized vehicle equipment on item fourteen e two point seven to approve a contract with or by went by windmill design and construction b v of the netbook the other lines in the amount of one hundred five point seven eighty three year olds and to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to execute the documents subject to approval as to form by the city attorney and should dollars be required for the payments prior before they are available as a result of the fund raising campaign the monies will be temporary allocated from the municipal capital projects fun item fourteen e three point one to declare a surplus bicycles and other items acquired by the police division with donations to be made seventy times seven and also listed on property room dot com website for disposal and sale i'd importing e's three point two to approve her participation with the state of michigan joint purchasing program for ro salt for the two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fourteen season item fourteen eat three point three two accept and file the feb two thousand and thirteen monthly financial reports as presented item fourteen eve four point two and nineteen a two except in place on first reading proposed ordinance amendment existing provisions of the city code regarding fireworks for a new section of the law and they are seventeen in noise violations section one thousand five and six and to schedule final adoption for the april seventeenth two thousand and thirteen council meeting import five point three two adopt a resolution setting in a public hearing of necessity for the hiawatha water main project from wednesday march twentieth to wednesday april seventeenth two thousand and thirteen at seven p m in the council chambers of city hall in that the deputy city clerk notify the property owners of this hearing item fourteen five point four two approve the fiscal year two thousand and four city budget calendar dates as follows monday april eighth at five thirty in the training room special meeting to accept the fiscal year two thousand and fourteen proposed budget following special meeting budget review wednesday april tenth and eight and thursday april eleventh two thousand and thirteen at five thirty in the training center to review the fiscal year two thousand and fourteen budget item fourteen five point five two except the april revised council meeting dates with the cancellation of april third of the april third meeting into schedule and the schedule the following meetings wednesday april ten f i p thirty in the training center as for a study session when state april seventeenth at seven p m council chambers for a regular meeting and supervision have been added to the position all right thank you and that is what is presently on consent would anyone from the audience care to remove an item all we ask is you step forward to the podium in the microphone more importantly and give us the item number if you to remove one or more items might work to the max rental so that the that's the one ok all right ported by burch is there any discussion please call that role yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you that takes us then down to item eight we have no special presentations today so takes us to item eight which is the first i a day the non renewal of annual liquor license is time for a public hearing on that particular matter would we get a brief introduction of that from perhaps the assistant city manager or the deputy clerk that annually you  look at table top licenses liquor licenses in the city staff we send those out to the various departments and ask for their recommendations certain things like utilities being paid taxes being paid those are requirements according to your liquor license policy so we have done all of that your proof have been received in those instances where there may be a denial being recommended by staff then the policy requires that the applicant be provided the opportunity to for a public hearing that is not the case in this particular situation recommending that all of them be approved in there is no need to schedule a public hearing and i believe you have a resolution your packet to recommence approval of the renewal of the liquor licenses or any questions for staff i take it we had some late breaking items that were tak care of sort of removing the necessity but that will hold that public hearing anyway just for fun or because it's on the agenda anybody care to address this particular item time now is the time for the public hearing we just ask you step for the podium in the microphone and please state your name and residential address for the record and council rules permit up to five minutes to address counsel on the site of the public hearing is open and the public hearing is now closed all right so we we have any resolution or action way which is located in the heather wood plat which of course everyone knows precisely where that is gregg are you going to introduce this one are actually still meyer the director of community neighborhood services department is coming forward to the microphone and will give us a brief introduction of this item which comes to us from the planning commission thank you this is a and i don't coming from the planning commission it is a recommendation to city council that you hold a public hearing tonight and then make a decision on the vacating of laurel lane it's a portion it's actually a paper street that is accessed off of heather drive  it's located between thirteen forty four and thirteen fifty four heather drive the property dimensions are sixty six feet by two hundred feet this came to the city's attention  petition signed by eight of the head of heather dr property owners requesting that this property be vacated as i said it's a paper street it is basically a garden and lawn area maintained by the adjacent property owners  this is how the dr running across across the top of the slide here this is old orchard running here this is the piece of heather drive that is the area that is proposed to be vacated as i said this came to the planning commission in the city council initially by property owners along heather drive looking to vacate this property the planning commission received the petition and in the process of beginning to look at this they then heard from the property owner mr arnold inc for the major props the large property to the south of this and it's as you can see from the sl mr arnold inc at the time this petition came in was beginning a process to look at the development of this property and he was requesting that the development that the decision on laurel laura lane  be postponed until he was able to submit a plan for this development that plan has since been submitted has been approved by the planning commission some variances were approved by city council that project will involve the construction of a private street coming in off of old orchard and then a hammerhead turnaround with with eight residential lots developable lots around that that piece his interest in trying to delay the vacating of this was the possibility that he might want to look at that as an access point either for vehicles and that that idea went away fairly quickly and then possibly a pedestrian connection through that property to his to his parcel as as the property has been divided here one of the lot lines runs the centrally from the corner of of the laurel lane area  runs down here there is no accommodation made on within his development for any sort of pedestrian connection to this area as the planning commission reviewed the project they were comfortable after after the approvals were in hand the planning commission then took this up again held public hearing and has recommended to city council that this b v be vacated the only condition on that big cation is that that a sixty six foot easement be retained  for utility easements through this area they also in their recommendation to city council indicated that city council may want to consider a charge or a fee for or for the land  during this vacation process i will stop there and answer any questions great thank you phil are there any questions for staff mike please feel what is the width of the with the sixty six feet we were vacating and we were still holding it open for utilities many of us saying with that's correct and one other thing there was a letter that we all received requesting tabling this do you see any detriments to tabling this action for thirty days or so i do not this process has been slow moving because of development issues and i don't think there's any urgency on  vacation thank you all right other questions for staff right seeing now and then this is the time and place for a public hearing on this item to vacate this right of way of the vacation of the right of way of laura lane i will declare the public hearing open on this and we ask again that you step forward to the podium of the microphone name and residential address for the record in council rules give you up to five minutes to address us discussion or other stuff rather dave question clarification regarding this request to table before we even get there my understanding is that the desire to wait on that vacation no in terms of the new development there really is no connection between this piece of property and whatever might happen new development so i might stand by i believe that's accurate  i have not spoken with mr arnold inc so i'm not certain of his motivation other than the way he expressed in the letter i'm anticipating his caution through this whole process has been he wants to make sure he has all approvals in hand i think he wants to make sure the projects under construction and moving forward as it's been approved and and with his fallback potential is if this developer were not to proceed with the project that subsequent developer might come in with a different plan and might reopen the issue that that's that's my guesstimate of probably wise looking at this and i thank you yeah i just for clarification i did speak with mr arnold and yesterday and that is pretty much that the rationale has less to do with the  excess issue or any sort of thing it's just an until the the new private road is in until the bulldozers have moved the dirt and everything is set i think there's just that sort of abundance of caution that if there is an access point  and everything happens to go haywire on the on the development he can no longer access and use me through all the richard he'd like to at least have the the paper fall back in case he needs to come forward excuse me one second considering the possibility of a table emotion tonight in your packet there is a recommendation valuation from the city assessor's office relating to a essentially a charge for the vacating of the the process under state law that the city would be going through tonight if and when you adapt your resolution i believe the recommendation of the city assessor was  that there was a valuation of one hundred eighty dollars per front foot which would be then a charge of five thousand nine hundred forty dollars to each of the budding property owners i bring that up tonight just so that that issue is before councils so for those at the site on the seventeenth of april that that issue is before you if council would decide that that was an appropriate charge to be made and i believe that that recommendation is coming bowles from the assessor's office and the city managers office and we would want to make sure that your resolution is adopted would include that proviso and that there would be a charge of i think that one of the issues that we have brought up with the planning office and this has been something historically the case is that councils action tonight isn't that it's it terminates the public interest in this right of way the sixty six foot right of way but under state law when you create a road in a plat you create two separate interests you create a public interest in any public street that you dedicate but there is also a private easement to each of the twenty three lots that were in the other word plat councils action tonight or if you do adapt the resolution to vacate does that affect those private interests those are something that those property owners have to deal with independently but the practice of charging for vacation has certainly been something that has been a policy that the city has pursued we've done it with graves and hope college many of the streets that were vacated for purposes of property exchanges were done on that basis the hospital when it built its addition to its current facility there were streets that were vacated and the hospital was charged for that of vacation so we do have a historic precedent for right with the the comments and the opinion of the advice of the city attorney david i believe it was your motion is your motion consistent with the idea that the policy in charging policy would be in effect absolutely right and i forget who seconded the motion they are not any other comments or discussions from counsel and emotions or anything just out of curiosity you know i was just wondering if anybody had any comments that i'd like to make a motion to table this until the april seventeenth with the proviso is that were stated all right we have a motion to table to the seventeenth of april or next regular meeting is there a second to that effect support all right it has been moved in supported to tabled april seventeenth a table in motion has no further discussion so all in favor of tabling this matter table seventeen please say i oppose our tabling motion passes and it will and it is table till april seventeenth ok that takes us then down to item twelve communications from the audience this is the opportunity for members of the audience to address counsel on matters that do not otherwise appear on counsel's agenda let's night we invite you to the microphone into the podium and counsel rules are relatively simple name and residential address for the record and council rules permit up to five minutes to address council but we have first of all some city staff here tonight who would like to address council so we welcome you this evening and you can thank you mr mair announce members my name is sue herder and i live at eight twenty two birch drive in the city of holland i'm also employed by the of holland community and neighborhood services department with me at the podium here to their officer john weatherwax and rebecca for hazlitt who are both members of our local national night out organizing committee on behalf of our organizing committee i am pleased to report that holland was selected as a national ward winner for the outstanding participation in the two thousand and twelve ashley laid out national night out is a national celebration of police community partnerships and holland michigan has a long history of excellent police community relations along with the traditional outside and front porch vigils most cities in town celebrate w special citywide and neighborhood events such as block parties cookouts parades festivals safety fairs exciter a national night out has been celebrated in this community for twenty one years it's the thirtieth year for the program nationwide steering kids towards positive activities and away from crime is one of the key components of our national night out of event thirty youth and community service organizations attend our night out to promote their programs organizations such as l e u p the boy scouts ready for school and the very popular holland park in a public safety use junior police academy we couldn't do this without the more than dozen volunteers on our organization committee they represent businesses in the community such as target america taua bank nonprofit and service groups such as the holland american legion band maria west corps neighbors good samaritan ministries holiday area veterans and boy scouts and of course law enforcement police and fire departments and the ottawa county sheriff's department over fifty volunteers to help us put on the national night out of vent that's over three hundred volunteer hours and we appreciate that so greatly i'd like to read just a couple of notes from the letter that we got from the national association of town  watch i behalf of the national association of town watch i'm pleased to inform you that holland has been selected as a national award winner for its outstanding participation in the twenty ninth annual national night out this year's event involved thirty seven point five million people in fifteen thousand seven hundred communities from all fifty states u s territories and military bases worldwide we extend our congratulations to you job well done and mr mayor i trust you'll find an appropriate invisible place here at city hall to display the award and we invite everyone to join us for this year's national night out of bennett college park august seventh thank you in fact we might initially do is pass this down or we can set it on the podium we'll turn the document camera on so everyone at home can see what the award looks like but we will either put it here in council chambers or up in the mayor manager's area for for the public to take a look at but thank you to used to to wax the whole committee everyone who puts on such a great event that's incredibly popular and also as we now understand recognized as being an excellent event not just in our community but beyond try that slightly new technology there it is all right oh about two thousand and eight until two thousand and eleven i had a couple of bee hives at my house one up on my back deck one in my backyard and sometime i think it was in the fall of two thousand and eleven i got a letter from  community services i don't know if it was won or cindy or trisha i've got rental property so i know these people got good relationships with them and for me that beekeeping in holland was not allowed  and you know it was it was a hard thing for me i had had i had had these highs for a long time i'd actually got about two hundred pounds of honey out of one of those hives and they told me that they had to be you know i had to get rid of them so i had to basically euthanize eighty thousand bees it was very sad for me but i'm here tonight really did request that specific changes be made to our city ordinance that would allow beekeeping within the city limits maybe just a little bit of history when europeans first moved here in the eighteenth and nineteenth century there were a lot of prohibitions against beekeeping and i'm not going to go into all the boring details as to why they the  g the wise a lot of it had to do with the way that bees were managed back then and a lot of those prescriptions were sort of uncritically adopted as people came here to the united states suffice to say that over the years these of largely been overcome and beekeeping is about as gentle a hobby as you can imagine in recent years many municipalities of started to recognize and appreciate the ecological benefits to the environment and subject subsequently there are hundreds of municipalities that have recently revised their previous bans on beekeeping in an active ordinances to allow it and i'm just going to list a few of them oh park  illinois aurora colorado sarasota florida santa monica california norfolk virginia several boroughs in bergen county new jersey louisville kentucky san diego california idaho know and for me really the the coup de gras is the borough of manhattan in new york city in two thousand and eight i've worked there for many years i still maintain an apartment and it's interesting to me that there are a lot of things you probably can imagine you can't do in new york city you're not allowed to wash your car on the street or on your property you can own a handgun basically and if the mayor gets his way you're not going to be able to buy a big gulp at the local seven eleven pretty quick but i am allowed to have a beehive on the top of my high rise if i so choose there are objections sometimes as with any public policy and there are bound as be some objections to keeping bees in residential areas and these are relatively few and i think each one could be addressed through a carefully constructed ordinance and i'll just mention a couple of them some people feel that beehives create an eyesore and make residential neighborhoods look like junkyards but limiting the number in placement of hives in residential lots largely obviates that objection another question is whether bees might tend to congregate around swimming pools and water fountains in hot weather and this is actually true and it's not because the bees are thirsty but because they bring water to their hives and then they sort of flap their wings as an air conditioning unit inside to keep keep their their queen cool the solution in this case is to require beekeepers a lot of cities cities have done to keep a fresh supply of water typically a bird bath or a shallow wading pool within thirty five or forty feet of the hives another objection is that bees are aggressive and honey bees generally honestly are very tame and in fact i handle all my bees with my bare hands  except in the fall when i'm trying to harvest their honey when they'll often get a little bit aggressive with me when i'm trying to take some of their food most complaints in fact about honey bees usually come in the fall when people who are not familiar with bees confuse yellowjackets with honey bees you can and thirty seconds ok thirty seconds thank you and i'm sure that that's what happened to me two years ago in short i think any few objections are easily offset by the positive effects of keeping bees not the least of which is their incredible efficiency to pollinate flowers and vegetables i would like to ask the ceiling for the city to take the necessary steps to remove the current ban on beekeeping and implement a sensible be friendly policy and as a long time beekeeper i'd also like to offer my years of experience and expertise to work with the city in crafting a new ordinance thank you very much thank you very much that's one of the remarkable things about these positions that we hold is that and residents can come to us with things that frankly we've never thought about before and it's fascinating and insightful and i would propose at least that  notice of it and will certainly take you up i think in the offer of expertise thank you all right microphone is still open for anyone who would care to address coun ok with that we will then move on down to the item that was removed from the consent agenda fourteen a fourteen a five which is the b b farm power purchase agreement and we welcome to the  d contract this is goes back quite some time the bore of the council member back in december there was a set of staff recommendations coming out of our sustainable return on investment analysis looking at future electric supply and that resolution and recommendations there were several and two of those recommendations dealt with adding additional renewable energy to our portfolio of resources and pleased to announce that the first of those which was a when contracted tenure agreement for some wind in a farm in indiana which qualifies yet as a michigan renewable resource has been operating in we are contracted for ten years with that source has been operating since late january so we've had that our portfolio the second wind resource that we are pursuing at that in needed to finalize and arrangement was somewhat contingent upon the continuation of production tax credits and also can contingent upon finalizing the agreement we have that for your consideration this evening is a development in michigan it's an addition to an existing farm near if michigan that is developed by b b and they are a wind developer who has been working with holland along with some other municipal zz and so what actually is for your consideration tonight is an agreement for twenty years for wind supply between the holland b p w and michigan public power agency and the reason that agreement exists between holland and michigan play power agency is because michigan probably powered seer m p a will be the entity that will contract with the developer for the supply and then they will be selling it not only to holland but also to about four other municipal zoo that have an interest in power from this farm and so our amount that we are looking at is approximately seven thousand megawatts and it is a very attractive  when proposal renewable proposal this power contract would start off in the mid to upper four cents per kilowatt hour and escalates at approximately two and a half percent per year which when you compare to previous wind agreements that were being entered into just two to three years ago this is about half of the cost of some other agreements that investor owned utilities have entered into including from this particular development that's being added on to so we think this is a very attractive offer for for us in a very competitive way of increasing our renewable supply and our portfolio just to give a little context on this when you consider this wind and the previous wind agreement combined with the landfill gas contracts that we have and a contract for some supply from a biomass source  over the next few years will be growing into a percentage of about sixteen percent of our supply will come from a new resources and if the council remember michigan did pass a law back in two thousand and eight public act two ninety five which requires that by two thousand and fifteen you know all electric suppliers including mina simples in the state of michigan would have ten percent of the sales volume met through renewable resources and with the sixteen percent number we obviously will be well past that be among leaders in michigan and it's not only being responsive to that law but it's also being responsive to our customer demand where we've  had surveys from our customers that expressed an interest in this product and so what we are planning to do as well or ever have the board is already taken action on and council be considering in the next couple months is a rate that will be an elective rate a rider to residential commercial or industrial rates were customers can elect percentage of additional renewables to come from earth to tional supply to come from renewable resources and this will be a source that will allow them to meet their objectives as well and so we think we have a very good product for your consideration all again the recommendation is to approve the wind purchase power agreement between michigan public power agency in the holland city hall and for power generated at this b b one b development pending approval as to form by the city attorney so there is a little bit of just small finalization work to do there but we expect that to be resolved in the next few weeks all right thank you david and other questions that anyone has for dave at this point thanks to mayor may i just just so that council understands kind of the  structure that this is taking your agenda item fourteen a four was an energy services agreement between the city and  so that can tract is really the the the structure under which this b b contract is being administered so what the council is really approving tonight with the b can tract is entering into the agreement with m p p a under the energy services agreement which we are having sixty three point six four percent of the energy from that development  you know there's been a lot of discussion a lot of movement toward intergovernmental cooperation i think davis cited to the fact that the b p w and other member municipalities are doing essentially a joint venture he through m p p a utilizing their expertise and advice and administering the power in their ability to access the the mysel in the r t o marketplace more effectively than they can do individually  saw that the great point you know the energy services agreement is a centrally an umbrella agreement an agreement in which we will be able to transact with michigan public power agency for a variety of transactions and this is a particular transaction that will be entered into underneath the you know that master agreement so to speak any other questions comments nancy please so besides the rate payers the deb you being able to benefit from a no profit margin organization with a b p w we also can get we also got prices that were half he said of what private companies had to pay for the same thing right you know investor owned utilities do have to publish you know their contracts at the public service commission and so we do know for similar farms and actually for the the farm that this is an addition to  purchase power agreements were roughly double the price of what this was just a few years ago so it's great to have our own little b t w isn't it thank you things other questions for day otherwise emotion would be certainly welcome at this point we've moved by the mayor pro tem support supported by de boer is there  generation source would cost like whether it's the young i know it varies somewhat it very actually in terms of the current coal cars for de young it's not too different you know coal cost right now is about three and a half dollars per million b to use when you look at the heat rate you know the fission c of that young you know it's very similar type of pricing structure to that obviously that varies with different fuel costs from time to time and so it is part now one of the things to mention is though that wind is an intermittent resource and we don't control when the wind blows so we have to supplement this in with other resources that we can control to make sure that we can manage the grid and manage our supply to our customers  but you know overall when you look at paying for the energy that actually is being produced from that source it's very competitive right now with current fuel costs so often it seems like that in the debate if you will between  conventional sources of energy traditional sources and renewable sources there's the tradeoff between that sort of efficient in terms of cost aspect in the long term benefit in terms of the environmental aspects but the beauty of this contract is really there is this to us and i'm quite sure there's the attic we endorse it right now it's called a real is the beginning studies of the district energy idea again you know significant issues in the community regarding energy and and looking at trying to do things better in the future and  one of those task force is involved with district heating or district energy and that task force has been meeting and thinking about how to move forward and has come to a conclusion and  staff the b p w support of this is that really we need to understand the details associated with the technical and business case evaluation for district heating to things that does obviously allows us to continue to understand the prospects for that being a real value for the community and for potential customers in our community going forward but it also will help inform our design process for the new electric generating unit as obviously a good potential source of waste heat for that system would be the electric generating unit in so that task force the citizen leaders of that task force a request for proposal the staff interface with the international district energy association to understand firms that are versed in this sort of analysis and  from that we're able to come up with a list of eleven firms that we sent this request to i am would be remiss if i didn't say i was somewhat disappointed we only received one response but that being said i think the response that we did receive was a very good response in that the firm that the firm or firms that we got to respond to the r p are just excellent both in terms of the engineering capabilities but also the practical operational experience with these kind of systems the response that we did get was three of those eleven firms actually got together and decided to put a proposal together those firms being byrne's and power in that they've actually designed large power plants as well as you know worked on district energy systems they're currently going to be working on the crystal city district energy system in the arlington virginia area and so a lot of experience that burns mcdonald but then m e p an evergreen come from the minnesota area rochester and then is m e p and then  evergreen is actually operating the st paul minneapolis system so you know i think that that's a very good cross section of firms and capabilities that are coming together for this  this study again what we're asking for here is both a technical review of the different options and the options that will be looking at will be anything from steam to hot water to a low temperature solution where you use geothermal type applications a heat pumps to do both heating and cooling and they're also going to be charged with doing a business case evaluation as well which will require some understanding of the needs of the potential customers in terms of hook ups and what is the business case for each of them and where is the competitive advantage that we'd be able to provide them in being able to offer a different type of heating and cooling solution and so this proposal is a lump sum proposal of one hundred thousand dollars and it does we're asking for approval of this professional services agreement with burns mcdonald will be the lead entity on this four hundred thousand dollars with a ten percent contract continued c and because we hadn't previously budgeted this in this fiscal year we are asking for a transfer of one hundred ten thousand dollars from contingency to cover the cost of this contract this will be funded from the electric utility in the fact that number one this will be something we believe has the potential to lower our fact of cost of electricity in the long run by be able to provide additional value from the waste heat source from this unit but also at some point if this is successful it may launch an opportunity for a another enterprise potentially so that at least far as a study goes i would be funded from the electric utility all right thank you dave questions for dave on this side i'm seeing none have a motion movie approved by de boer support supported by whiteman is there any discussion on it or comments from the audience think there's a number of communities that have small areas that are addressed but like a community wide type of thing not not a lot the minneapolis st paul is one of the largest i think in the in north america actually and that's the one that evergreen is operating but you know so they are around in some of the metropolitan areas but you know it's it's usually somewhat of addressing maybe a campus or a smaller subset of a community would be pretty innovative for a country well i think i think any of our i think so and you know one of the things that you know i think matt ward who was here on march sixth wanted to point out as well is that from a national perspective you know obama heads has said that or did pass an executive directive calling for more incentive and more research towards combined heat and power as is really a community country priority so i think this is a growing area and certainly we're out in front of that in part peter fourth recommended it because it's been successful in europe is that right well yeah what he had proposed and recommended was that you know really we find every way possible to use the waste heat you know the energy that is available don't just waste it and you know this is something you know hot water systems are used in europe you cited some cases there were it's use and that will be one of the one of the types of heating systems that we will evaluate in this process i like the way you're looking into a heating and cooling possibility too with one of your choices so that's exciting also well one of things that i think unique about holland is that  we're going to see how it bears out on the technical and business case evaluation but we have you know snow melt system that is a wonderful system and looking at growing that as well and you know that could provide an opportunity with a lower temperature water solution for driving pumps even more efficiently than just using ground water and you know so that that could be you know that also could provide both a heating and cooling situation so we're going to look at look at everything and make sure that we do the right thing for the right application it's right well we certainly believe in snow melt and this has a lot of similar principles so it's definitely worth the the report thank you thank you nancy anyone else care to make any comments on this site i'm no is i think a very important item obviously if this is a path that i think we all know we're going down at this point we again as part of the recommendations back in december talked about when we talked about  you know what to do with the dion units and we talked about new electric generation in the spirit of again our community energy plan and trying to do things as efficiently as possible our next generation resource that we've evaluated both from a cyst on a sustainable return on investment both considering the financial return and the return from an overall societal benefit the the option that included natural gas combined cycle as the   developing and ultimately constructing a natural gas combined cycle unit approximately one hundred fourteen megawatts in size part of that process you know early in there just this  last council meeting we took a recommendation to hire an owners engineer we have had a kickoff meeting with h d r in moving forward towards the process of alternately issuing requests for bids on  major piece of equipment starting the process of developing specifications ultimately for design and build contractors to actually do the construction of a plant and you know when you have that  you want to make sure that you're able to ultimately recover some of those expenditures ultimately through through the bonds and we will be issuing bonds for this project that was always the intent is that we'd be issuing revenue bonds from the electric utility and the funding for this project would likely be a combination of revenue bonds and drawdown of some of our cash reserves of the electric utility and so part of the process of preparing for that is that the council would issue a notice of intent to issue electric bonds and that resolution is in your  define what the project is and the project in this particular resolution is defined as the acquisition construction improvement in installation of a natural gas combined cycle power plant with an approximate nominal rating of one hundred fourteen megawatts and associate facilities and equipment bypass discharge infrastructure and any site acquisition improvements the idea there is that we will have some connection points with snow melt with district heating with make up water and things like that and we want to make sure that this project definition is broad enough that if it's desired to use some of the funds from the bond proceeds on those issues that it could encompass that we expect that the maximum principal amount of the allegations would not exceed one hundred ninety five million dollars which obviously is no small number but the project if you other debt service reserve funding requirements so the latest analysis that was done by speer financial called for about one hundred ninety two million of use fund usage for this  project we think that this sort of amount given the fact that we are going to use some cash reserves is sufficient to be able to cover what is the you know a range of possible outcomes as we define the project a little bit further  and it also by issuing this notice of intent it starts a clock it starts a forty five day clock where if there is an interest among the elected or electors in the community  interested parties that opportunity so that is what we have before you tonight again what it does allow us to do is we continue to expend some of this money towards the design and things like that of the plant we can then recover that if needed so that's main reason that we have it in front of you tonight so ask for adoption of the resolution that's attached to your package ok questions for dave on this one the electric utility waned is to give you some numbers right now there's about one hundred ten million in the electric utility in terms of our capital reserves right now and so you know our intent would be probably did to use maybe approximately forty five to fifty million of those reserves towards the capital for this plant that will still leave a significant amount of reserves in the electric utility and those are for operating reserves and for we've built up a capital reserve for future infrastructure replacement including maintenance issues where a bond issue wouldn't make sense for example we just did a finishing a substation on the north side of town to support lo growth in that area and that was we use cash reserves for that so those are that's the reason we have some of those cash reserves on hand other questions or comments i guess just we have  motion we don't and i think the troops all right move by someone move by the mayor pro tem supported by whiteman is there any discussion further ok thank you thank you dave good evening we then moved down to fourteen one point one from community neighborhood services the residential solid waste program modifications in ryan or how it will like to begin person this is thank you this is a multimillion to effort to try to streamline the solid waste billing and customer service process to go from what i call a three way system involving the city  the in the provider chef through to a system involving chefs doing the billing and the city doing the monitoring so there are advantages to this saves fifty six thousand dollars as well as streamline and gets the customer more direct services the difference to it is that there's a billing that would go out from chef and that would be a quarterly billing and that would come so there would be three times larger than a monthly billing however the payment options are such that individual can have their payments simulate a monthly billing and there are a number of options so i think we can answer questions in less than he would like to a anything brett he has so many questions you want to have all right thank you any questions for us that please we had a few of them up stairs and i guess the most immediate i can think of two the first is  every july first the past two years because of the savings that we've seen if we have not had to do that and will be able to do it again this year until i won so the rates to the customer will not change just that the source of the bill is so pretty substantial savings i haven't seen in the final question i've got is just you know some of us were talking before we had the meeting tonight and we're yard waste customers of chef we've already got gotten a letter in a bill from chef for the yard waste what can we expect communication wise either from chef or the city about the new program and how i mean how are people going to be notified aside from watching a council meeting for the yard waste you'll see very little difference if you have been a previous chef participant in their yard waste program the bill will be lower that's the main difference that you'll see with the yard waste program with the refuse in recycling again you'll just be charged the split monthly rate that's in our fee schedule you'll just have the opportunity to pay three months at a time should save time and effort on the part of the customer  assured us that they will accept partial payments if somebody does prefer to make a monthly payment it's not a problem and we will be able to hold the line still you'll be paying the same amount as you have previously and i understand they'll be a letter or something there will be a lot are from the city along with your first bill from schaaf that will be prorated from the date that the b p w terminates the billing so your first invoice will be a strange amount of weeks as we make the transition then they will be staggered every third month so you will get refuse bill four times a year instead of twelve times there are other questions for st said that there would be realized savings of but over fifty thousand something like that i'm assuming you're going to maintain i'm sorry i'm assuming those savings are going to be there to hold the rates as you said earlier  might be best to explain where the savings are being realized from i believe the best way to describe that is rather than having two persons handle every customer service question it will go direct to one person who can handle it and they won't have to spend time on the phone with two different people scuse me for example if i have a customer service issue i need a new container of five a broken container i have to call the b p w n b b w customer service is just fine there's no problem with their customer service except that they're not the person who is empowered to make something happen and the customer service representative  at shuff will be in direct contact with the drivers and be able to resolve problems immediately rather than have them transferred around to different departments and other questions for if they are gone for more than thirty consecutive days they will not pay for that month and that's the current policy that's the current policy and the future policy on that the only difference is that the customer on the street will see  their same pick up their same everything will be the same except the bill will come in a different any other questions then a motion would be appreciated at this time moved by weitzman support support email to want to one or two of you and you know answer back but i couldn't with this one in two words to get an answer to this the first time i've done this somewhat reading last night on the waste program and found out city code that says the city shall levy and collect the monthly charge you know i know you can farm things out and have a chopped up but doesn't it take more than an amendment to a contract to do something like this doesn't there have to be a vote of council to have somebody else actually doing the building not just modifying a contract second one i looked at the savings thank you where is it going there's a savings but where is it going is it is it meant just to keep prices i think number six has been changed since i was working on this at midnight last night might my point six year old number six were talked about no change in the lean fallback i sense since i was working on this at midnight last night somewhere here in city hall it was decided to look at that bank account and see if there really can be a lien done and something being collected by a nine city energy because the way the ordinance is written here it appears to me at least that it's a debt owed to the city we're in this case of it's being built by an outside next one hundred five point one and what's in front of you tonight eighty contect contractors still charge the following residential service user rates there's no rates listed there only rates i can find of the rates that are in the old program on the city website and that leads me into the next one we're currently the city of holland offers and i just printed this off the website last night or this morning offers a thirty two gallon sixty five gallon a ninety young container that's what's what's listed the ordinance i'm sorry the offering in front of you says that there will be a thirty to sixty five and ninety six gallon offering aware of the ordinance says nothing over ninety operating in ninety gallon so perhaps need in ord c under five point one something's crossed out that makes me believe that if i choose yard way service is going to be billed to the city at least the portion of its crossed out where it says it shall be made directly between the contractor in the residential service user but it says if a leg did then the contractor should build a city for such services whose building who and who's paying for what there's the question there  and then my last one spoke to bob i was wondering how the people the city were going to find out about it if according to this it's already started on the fifteenth of march before it got here so i have just a few questions of implementing this program this is not the final draft of the document that you have before you this was a specimen copy that was put together i think earlier it might have even been last summer when there was a discussion about having chef do the customer service component but not the the billing component so we should have probably given that council that the the the actual memet that you have in the packet the c evening is still being refined because of working out the logistics of the the account that the money will be deposited into  what i would like to address those this issue of the city levene the fee in this case the city will continue to levy that the only thing that shaft is doing is acting as an agent of the city for purposes of billing and collecting as soon as those monies are collected and deposited they will be put into an account that will only be accessible by the holland it will not be accessible by schaff they will be paid monthly for the units of collection that they do under the current program so that nothing is really going to change in chef's relationship with the city with the exception that they are going to be doing the billing and the collection component but as soon as the cash comes in it will go into a city of holland account that will be accessible only by the city of holland and by the finance office and as your report tonight includes there's a request that the finance office be authorized to establish this account with chemical bank for that specific purpose we really don't expect the lien status to be affected at all as a result of the way this program has been devised and the way the contract amendment has been devised because again chef will be acting as a agent on behalf of the city for billing if there are delinquencies that occur we will go through the same process that we currently go through with the b p w where they will be placed as a tax lien that's authorized by state statute so again from that standpoint we don't see a change in the legal status of the lane that will be affected here there will certainly perhaps be a difference if we can coordinate the publishing that we go through with the b p w where they publish their water sewer weans each year council goes through that process but again we will be coordinating that as much as possible with the b p w to have that be done at the same meeting so i think  again cindy has been working closely with someone in our office and the development of the contract language i don't know if there are any other comments that you need to make just that every time there was an issue raised about we would let the city would like more security or the city would like more control sufis been very amenable to make those changes to the contract and we will continue to look for efficiencies and improvement in customer service comments mike and i'm sorry i'm not a lawyer and i don't play one on t v and i'm a little slow i guess scott brought up a good point i don't understand if the bill is coming from chef we may call them an agent but the city's name is not on that bill it will be on the bill as it will be and it will make payments to the city of holland right there just administering correct that's a detail that was brought up thank you and as far as the rates go they're not in this package because they're part of our rate resolution that we do usually in january the big rate book that's where those rates are found well then one other thing should we have a little clean up then if in fact part of our ordinance is maximum ninety but we've got a ninety six so i want to so are they i mean i think when the ordinance was originally drafted the container sizes were smaller and now the there they will invoice the city every month for every pick up they do at the rates that are in the contract know let me make sure that's understood one of the reasons why we're offering the rate that we do which i believe for a ninety gallon container or ninety six gallon container is fifteen dollars is because we have removed from shaft the the problem of collection that is an obligation of the city under the contract so this will continue chef is chef charges on a monthly basis based upon a unit basis of how many how much it picks up and they are paid whether or not we get paid now why was it constructed that way it was constructed that way because alternately we have a lean right that allows greater certainty in collecting that money than a private holiday does who doesn't have a lien right so that will continue all of the financial relationship between the city and chef will continue the city will continue to pay them on a per unit basis they will pick up and build the city on a per unit basis and we will collect the money through a billing system where chef will be our agent for that purpose it will be a city of holland bill it will be deposited into a city of hound account chef will not have access to the the account they can't deduct their monthly payment out of that account they have to submit an invoice to the city the city will then build them in the same manner that they are bil the present time so really the the major change for the customer will be instead of receiving this as a part of the b p w bill they will be receiving a bill a study of how an bill that will be so we are doing this for better customer service and to save money the correct chef is doing this because it wants to please the city and if it does the billing we will  sure that they get paid even though they're doing well and they're making one hundred thirty six thousand dollars more each year so what we're paying for the service i mean there i think cindy is absolutely right chef has done a very good job with this contract but you know they will be paid for providing customer service and they will be paid for doing the billing and collection function as an agent for the city just like enter jack remember if someone is just tuning in the net reduction in cost however the whole thing is fifty six thousand dollars and we're doing this because that will help the customer have a quicker system more simple system to get help and we'll save money doing it and chef has proved itself trustworthy in taking over all the collection of the city in this way there's only one hauler doing the yard waste there's less different companies coming through different days so it also be a cleaner simpler city right and safer and safer right anyone else then just briefly one thing you know obviously we're as nancy indicated we're doing this for a couple of reasons one is to streamline so that hopefully customer complaints and issues can be resolved more quickly and more efficiently to hold the line on costs and as was indicated earlier these dollars go into a segregated fund that only covers garbage and recycling costs that's it doesn't go to the general fund doesn't go in anything except for that and th allows us to hold the rate that the garbage rates hopefully this will be nearly seamless for our residents and customers but the thing that's over look here and i don't want to over look at especially with dave sitting here is that this is not because of a dissatisfaction with the job the board of public works was doing for us there's a lot of merit in having the board do it streamlined rather than getting you know a bill from city hall that it's streamlined and the difficulty with having the board of public works do it is that who do you call when you have problems you call the of this process which hopefully streamline some of the b p w after another you know they certainly enjoyed that revenue also but this is nothing to do with dissatisfaction with the board of public works and i think and i know dave knows that but i want to make that crystal clear as hauler based on reaction to complaints or number of complaints how are we going to be assured that we're going to see the complaints then if they're going to regulate a show i mean obviously if people have a real  problem going to come to either you or marion correct which is always the option not saying that chef would try to put anything under the carpet or anything like that however how are we going to be assured that we're going to know what the complaints are do they log them and give them back to you or how does that process and b and in the amendment we do require them to give us a weekly report on all complaints and service orders that they receive and we will follow up with the customers to see if they were satisfied with the resolution well also have direct access to their database that we can look at their communications with the resident and service orders if they were performed in a timely way will be able to know that so very similar to what we did with the b p w we had access to their database and at the same thing right just brought to mind a question here as i'm pulling up my i phone quickly is there garbage complaints one of the city sourced complaint options on our city app i do not know the answer to that really there are a look at it as we're doing some other things and report room all right thanks us down to the other item removed from consent this evening which is fourteen easy to point to the max pilot bike rental partnership program jodie welcome you all go to getting organized it is on the city source  trash bin broken trash removal etc all right thank you and that just brings up another little advertisement if you have not if you have a smartphone of any sort and if not download this app do it tonight it's really a fantastic way to submit complaints and issues and gets to where it needs to go and and it tracks and you can see that it's been resolved in all sorts of good stuff so it's really a fantastic app good evening jodi welcome thank you this recommendation comes to you from the area express board of directors i think you may recall that the city leases the panels transportation cent depot to max and as a part of that lease they are totally responsible for the upkeep of the facility both outdoors and indoors one of the sections of that agreement does require the city to approve any uses that may be proposed for that facility that are not directly related to max amtrak or the inner city bus has been talking with reliable sports reliable has a program where they have been leasing electric battery powered bicycles at a couple of different locations and they indicated an as a compatible use either for people who might be taking max to the downtown area and then perhaps wanting to take a bike from that point or who may want to rent one of the bikes at the depot put it on a bus and take it to a point for their out of town so they're talking about entering into a pilot program with reliable sports for this it would be a seasonal program from april fifteenth to september fifteen and you know they have some interest in seeing how that program  operate so the agreement that's been drafted is a three part agreement because of the city is the owner of the facility we would also be a party to the agreement along with max and reliable sports so we're recommending your recommend recognizes the council member from the first ward oh boy thanks yes we did have quite a link the discussion on this particular item one of the major concerns was the city has a very beautiful depot there and we wanted to make sure that it maintained that character the participant with a reliable has assured us that that will happen the signage will be well within the city ordinance he is working very hard in a bike  rack there will be to the best of my knowledge there will be no max or city personnel involved in this at all there was some questions and because of those questions this will be a one year trial period or one summer trial period i guess it sounds like he's been very successful up in grand haven and on a saga tuck but we'll see how it goes here in holland to a major item on the savings agenda as well which is fourteen he four point one the public safety services delivery report and we welcome to the to the dyess public safety director thanks the chief well handle this one substantially i'm going to fill in a little bit i just want to say this is the completion of a four year process related to cost efficiencies and i can say that the public safety department has done that very nicely recommendations i think that was part of why we did this report just to kind of extend the par report an e m s report that all of you read this report talks about both of those reports within it and hopefully will finalize both those reports the group itself went to there was eight of us eight members command staff from the police and fire divisions finance director and city management personnel are members  that group study group that went to a different say visits throughout the state of michigan we wanted to take a closer look at what other cities do as far as their police and fire services  i think they can speak for ryan as well as we really didn't have any idea what we were going to find we went out there we didn't know what how they perform these duties how they how much they used to perform these duties out of the general fund some of those questions i think we found that once we asked a lot of our questions they also asked us questions and were i think fairly impressed on how we were able to deliver some of our services in the city as well so it was kind of a a learning for both sides but throughout this process was successful months we create a fifty page document which all of you have with additional tasks in the back of that document to some of the key points the highlights that i think that are important for everyone to know is that we did look very heavily into the regional fire district in which we think could be potentially as something that we move into down the road could save money that was looked at and i think that's something that will continue to try to work closely with allan township have several meetings with alan township and we're starting to model a lot of weight agreements with them training and training some kind of training program that we're going to put together with our full time and part paid so i think that's something that will work toward that regionalization process the second thing is the joint public safety administration we can by the administration of police and fire about two and a half years ago i think it's been very successful we've done very well we've i think brought both the police and fire musical divisions we've kind of put them closer together now we call them services we brought them closer together the communication peace between the two  departments is has improved so we think that's a positive and we certainly would recommend keeping that in place and also is a significant savings toward the budget back when we brought one chief and reduced a couple kathleen positions and there was around three hundred thousand dollars or so savings with that with combining the mr asian were also recommend keeping the police and fire services separate we looked at that very heavily when we went to places like kalamazoo grand haven that have public safety in place and we we analyzed that and we felt that our services that we provided were very similar to the way they provided services we also looked at it was there any savings that were going to be recognized if we did cross train all of our staff and become a full fledged public safety organization and we found that there's probably minimal savings if any and we also looked at some of the fairly substantial start up costs and training costs that would be associated with that cross training so those are also in the report i think are important to look at as far as if our goal is to save money one of our mingles was to save money i don't think that's something that would save us a sta amount of money over and above what we already are as far as the budget target we currently expendable fifty percent of our general fund for police and fire are our target five year target we're looking at forty eight to forty nine percent so we're trying to reduce that by one or two percent we looked at some of the other departments and the norm goes all the way from the mid thirty's in grand haven to fifty percent some of the other communities we found that the norm that we looked at is somewhere between fifty four and fifty percent some of the other communities so us being at forty eight to fifty percent we think is pretty good  we met in community we met west mission for some a team or drug team in our gang team and community in our community police policing efforts efforts which are a huge part of what we do in the city we thought were were very important and we should try to keep those intact and  fund them as best as we can but i'm staffing levels we looked at other communities and our call volumes and those kind of things and we call for the numbers of fifty seven sworn police personnel eight hundred full time firefighters with an additional fire marshal and a fire captain so for a total of twenty i think that we can maintain those most africans will continue to provide the service that we can personally do the services provided by the fire staff continue to expand as far as fire hydrant maiden's inspections those kind of things which is increasing our revenue so i think that's a positive and like i said before i think the biggest thing we want to do is compare ourselves to other communities just to justify our own minds that we do the job here don't we do a good job here and based on what we saw in other communities a lot of there's a lot of good things that we've learned from other communities but the comparison we think we do a very very good job compared to them the final that because it really runs right along the same lines as some of our recommendations so we had a recommendation set to go we were ready to give them a prior to this survey coming back with the survey really a force in our mind that we were doing the right team for this report and all of the collaboration that went into it the only thing that mentioned are some of the the things that we're doing all over our and relation to our departments and that's looking at energy conservation and every  time in terms of any efficiencies we're constantly looking at and trying to do that we can be striving to meet that goal you see there excellent any questions for staff with a long discussion on this last week at the study session the way up to this there's been a lot of questions a lot of answers and i think we've got i knew we had the best product before but this just confirms it so congratulations and i'm glad we're able to put this aside for a few years and but you guys do the job that you do so well thank you went please yeah quickly i think for a great job on that thing i guess that i still we need to understand we are talking about two of us firefighters than what we have currently or what we had last year and i'm just thinking we've had fires at crown point in our privilege and i think we had an arson kind of thing that happened just saturday and  our people have been able to get on top of those very quickly in a way that maybe we've been lucky but we've got a good people there i just hate to see us go to minimum this this is important it's been important for holland for a lot anyone else here to make any comments musically like mike said this has been a long journey was that just let's look at this for a week or so kind of thank you it's really b a type of birthing process in going back to the very beginning of how do you do police and fire services what's the very best way to do it and how can you save money while still saving lives and protecting your communities so it's not a charge that we took lightly but we felt with the retirement of both the police chief and the fire chief the same day that if you were ever going to address this kind of issue this now is the time and so in hiring alex weiss is a national consultant and bringing him in to really look at how everything is done and why we do it the way we do it and giving us ideas on how to maybe vamp things and rear assign people and all of that and thinking of all that because so carefully with the committees that we had and all the people involved i really so grew in my appreciation for all the professionals that we have in those departments for all those people to sit so calmly around the table as we discuss their life's work and i don't know for me it would have felt like heart surgery with everybody watching and it was my heart  but they they carry themselves so so professionally and really are in their jobs to serve the people and do that the best they can and i just my respect  grew for everyone involved as we went through this year by year and then with alex weiss is recommendations and the discussion after that we didn't just say oh he's an expert let's just flip everything to w says as much as i respect him he's not lived in holland and doesn't understand how in situations so it was really good that we went the next step to study in mass services and brought in everyone  from the region to talk about it and once again this community really needs to realize how responsible and ethical and collaborative the public safety professionals are in this area to take so much of their time to really discuss how can we do ambulance services how can we serve people with fires and with the emergency services and everything was on the table huge work all kinds of details statistics discussion and again the bottom line to all of that was we're doing it very well and we don't want to mess it up but we can just say that we had to really study it and wrestle with it to come to that conclusion and then to say ok we've talked to the experts and we've looked at our own region but let's go elsewhere as well and then to have a finance people management people and our public safety professionals travel throughout michigan and talk to the real people with boots on the ground about how do you do it and what are your problems and can you talk to me in the back room about how it's working out and not just the front office and really get the feedback and we don't want to make mistakes we want to know from your mistakes how to do this best in our area in our city and i just think that was an amazingly profitable process as well because it brought the administrative group together for the city we have a new city manager and he was able to work with these get to know the hearts of the people involved in leadership here and i just think it was again a real service to the city into the citizens and and the fire department the way that they have stepped up in working in reworking how they do their job has been mazing how much they're doing with inspections and taking care of their own places and emergency medical services  d today's fireman is not the guy from ten years ago there's it's an amazingly different profession and they have really stepped up to take on all these other kind of things and still maintain the level of safety for our city i can't talk enough about these people so but anyway i'm just so grateful for how well it's been handled and how well our service our city has been served and i am very grateful that the conclusion of this is that we are still maintaining the fire department and a police department because i really in my heart of hearts that was the hardest thing for me to give up and that's why i really volunteered for every single committee that came along for this because i thought in order for me to accept the decision of one person doing everything i had to believe that that was the best way to protect the safety of this community and i could not go there and every time we had another meeting it confirmed it even more in my heart and so i am so thankful for this final conclusion that we are going to let fire people do their fire job and police people do their police job and the bottom line for all of that is i think we're safer of the post script to all of that is i would really like a report in a year about how these numbers are functioning with eighteen in fire and fifty seven in police if we could have a report about how well that works and i know it's we're trying to get it is low as possible because of financial things and we're trying to keep things in the right parameters financially but i also want to  examples i had some personal notions of how i thought things might work and i have to echo many of the things that nancy has expressed and express them very very well we always have to be open to new and that wife and ways of doing things but i think the example that we have before us of the recommendation is probably the best that we can experience we have people doing the things that they have a passion for and that's not to say that you know we couldn't adopt a different model or things people couldn't adapt to different situations but i think is  expressed before people choose vocations and endeavors in life in the best scenario because they have a passion for it and they have a desire to do it and i think in those kinds of situations we get a better you know product or service and in this case service when brings up a good point we took some specific action last year to ensure that our staffing levels would be adequate fire department particularly i think as a group here we've established what the priorities are for this personally i am relying heavily on our staff to advise us in terms of staffing the messages that i've been hearing lately are that our current staffing is adequate and so i'm it's felt that our staffing levels are getting too low to provide them with the kind of service that our citizens require and the level of safety that those providing the services also require and deserve that you'll let us know that so i'm happy with what we're getting evening happy first day of spring spirit if not with what's in the air my name is wendell herrick i live at one one six cypress avenue in the city of holland and i've been following the process of exploring options for a consolidating police and fire services i was curious about how city would go about making a decision like that and to be honest my intuitive and completely uninformed personal opinion was that partial integration of fire and police services in my mind made a certain amount of sense but the idea of complete cross training and jumping into the deep end of the pool didn't really make sense to me and so i was curious to see if there was a case that could be made that would prove that my opinion was nec correct so i visited the city website recently and i reviewed the report and the topic  interest in forming a more informed decision and having an open mind that maybe there might be something that i might have overlooked and i recognize that this is a really complex issue with many aspects that had to be considered and i was impressed with the depth and the breadth of the fact finding and the research that went before the actual recommendation of what would be best for our city and of course i thought it was wonderful that the decision seemed to concur with the one i had made with absolutely no research that was very affirming for me personally and so i'd like to say that i really i really support the recommendations of the report with perhaps one exception  it seemed to me that the report was really trying to get staffing for police and fire services to the bare bones minimum and i would feel a little more comfortable if it wasn't quite so bare bones what that would look like exactly i'm not sure but if we could find a way to maintain fire and police services slightly higher level than bare bones minimum i would as a citizen support that  that effort i would also like to add that i want to express i guess a deep respect and appreciation  for the leadership and staff of our public safety operations that has been formed over the twelve years that i have lived in the city as well as the additional years when i lived on the north side of holland and through  community collaboration initiatives that i've been involved with i've had the opportunity to come to know and work with several people from both branches of public safety and both leaders in that area and the boots on the ground people and i have found in every single case of the people i've come to know that they are dedicated and knowledgeable and they're hardworking and they really care about the community and the people in the community and their have a professional and i just wanted to take the opportunity to say that because i think we're really fortunate to have public servants of that caliber and i have deep respect for them and i appreciate the safety and security that they provide for me personally and for our community so i hope in some way those thoughts will be helpful as you make a decision thank you thank you all right any final comments so i would just say on this one question of sort of you know your phrase ology not picking on you with  bones and i know you know this having read the report but it's always important to keep in mind that the way we provide police service in particular in the greater holland area is shared only by the city of zealand which has its own police force everyone else relies on the county sheriff and the way we provide fire service in the city of holland is unlike anyone else in the holiday area everyone else relies on volunteers essentially part paid persons who are not located at the fire station so we've gone from what six in the station to five that's still five times more fire protection in the station and anyone else in the holland area so i think that we are well served with folks very good folks in the stations who then are supplemented by part paid people who come to the fires when their calls went when they're made so i am very tough with this report i certainly appreciate all the work that you matt did and the members of council who took lots of road trips and said in a lots of meetings job well done please call the rol point one some gifts and and i we turn to you for that you know the city manager's office is pleased to report the following guests parks recreation and transportation department received donations  for the restoration of the carousel at when my island gardens from national carousel association in the amount of three thousand dollars and the lon foundation in the amount of two thousand five hundred dollars donations have all has also been received in support of repairs to the windmill from anonymous donor in the amount of nine thousand nine hundred dollars donations in memory of george leave insee were received from and sidney and virginia rosen donations to the digraph nature center at at the for the first annual pancake breakfasts previously held in the civic center on march second were in the mount of five hundred ninety five commission received a total amount of three hundred fifty dollars from docs firehouse dogs and milagros six inc also known as mcdonalds for the support of the upcoming international relations commission multicultural festival festival it is recommended that said donations be accepted with appreciation in an expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors and what would be the pleasure of counsel m support supported by de boer any discussion all in favor of please say i posed the same that passes and passes gratefully takes us then down to item fifteen communications from the city manager this evening ryan what do you have airbags i only have one thing and that's to underscore what was part of the consent agenda item as evidence by the very thorough and educated and and well thought out comment tonight from ms herrick on the report that is very valuable to city staff so as we prepare our budget we always look forward to hearing from people and then you will have an opportunity on april eighth tenth and eleventh five thirty start time upstairs to review the details that we're working on now and i am hopeful that the community will will be interested and participate in that as well that's our next meeting isn't it i will be meeting on the twenty seventh and study session and there will be a special meeting on the twenty seventh regarding emergency management plan but our next regular meeting won't be till april seven hundred so this is our last sort of televised i don't know that i'm technically executive though that the parent lea and the emergency management plan it is a question open for debate but i'm going to make an executive decision that we have some refreshments at the first budget session meeting hopefully as an enticement to invite well not invite but encourage many of our residents to come and sort of look at the budget for the first time as we look at it and be introduced to it so let's plan on having refreshment refreshments maybe we'll have it in this room we'll see but it'll be in city hall somewhere but there will be food there will be coffee and we would love to see many people present to hear about what is being proposed for the upcoming fiscal app for mobile devices i put on the home page of the city's website city of holland dot com sort of reap from promoted the particular page that looks at  all this app and how you can download it to your i phone or android or whatever it may be and so it's on the web page home page easy to find go there if you want to download this app if you haven't done so already that reminds me of course that the city of holland's web page is a great spot to find all sorts of information about what's happening in the city of holland and ways to contact each of us in and we encourage you to do that in to to let us know what is on your mind as ridiculous as it sounds given the weather over the past couple of days the spring cleanup is almost upon us and again you can find information about that on the home page of the city's web page at city of holon dot com but in essence you can bring yard waste not you know crazy yard waste dumps and those kinds of things but leaves brush all sorts sticks all those sorts of things bring those things to your curb and they will be picked up it's a wonderful service that helps really brighten up the community for the springtime and we encourage our residents to make use of that and then finally and on somewhat of a light note mike well you're going to appreciate this i have been in some ways converted to the question of the value of public access television for years you know you and i had a running debate about whether this is you know yesterday's technology and those sorts of things i am continually reminded that we have many people who my understanding is that mrs valcke noticed a couple of weeks ago that i was wearing glasses and that was brought to to her grandson's attention who is a friend of mine so mrs valcke i wanted to let you know that i forgot my glasses tonight but  coming back with that communications from members of council please nancy which april twenty fifth and your calendar we're going to have the run of the mill for everybody to run around the island and window on the waterfront and you get a t shirt for fifteen dollars and or you can walk around the windmill and that would be great too that's five dollars oh and here's the ad it's so exciting anyway and in the evening there will be an auction with different people are donating things so that we can make money to save our windmill and all or a little historic things out on windmill island garden so cli's support the youth these this is going to be run by the hauen youth advisory council the high school students that have is supporting them in running all of this but we would love this to be an annual thing we would love it to be a huge success and bringing the community together and appreciating being outside and enjoying all that is windmill island garden so please say april twenty or right excellent other communications from council this evening motions are resolutions please seeing none we have no close session tonight which for which we are very pleased and i would encourage a motion at this point to a