good evening and welcome to the october fourth meeting of the holland city council all those that are in the audience and all those that are out in t v land we welcome you before we get started you know would you call the roll please pray with me please i haven't a father we thank you for the beautiful wonderful place that we call home in michigan we thank you also for the changing seasons as we transition from the very warm summer that we've had to the cool autumn with your paint brushes that peeped that the foliage we ask you to be with those victims also lord in the families of those affected by the tragedy in las vegas bring comfort to those who are grieving and injured lord be with those that are in our community that are hurting you know and have lost their way bless them with your comfort lord we all fall so ask you to be with all the city employees keep them safe in their daily work look after those who keep us safe both near and far not be with us tonight as we go about the business of the city there are discussions and deliberations be civil maybe listen to each other with courteous understanding we pray this in your name amen the first item that we have is the consent agenda the city clerk will read those items that are on there in a couple minutes you will have a chance to take one of those off as that's what you're here tonight these items have already been discussed in previous meetings and anna item four eight to excuse the absence of mierda before item fo b to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held september twenty amp study session help september twenty seventh two thousand and seventeen for seek to accept and file executed oaths of office from various boards and commissions eight eight two except for study and report a tax abatement application submitted by l g chem michigan inc eight seventy five east forty st twelve d one to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier in city attorney for consideration twelve d two to adopt a local resolution for a charitable gaming license as required by the michigan lottery recognize and grant me hope as a nonprofit organization operating in the city of holland twelve one point one two accept a bid from camming and robet inc in the amount of one hundred thirteen thousand two hundred fifty two dollars and sixty nine cents for the college avenue snow melt improvement project point two two accept the been submitted by brenner excavating inc in the amount of fifteen thousand four hundred two dollars and fifty cents for the fifteenth street in cologne we have the new improvements authorized staff to issue a purchase order for this the existing asphalt pathway along the north side of thirty second street adjacent to seven twenty seven way really road at no cost to the city twelve eat two point one twelve eat two point two and twelve  two point three to adapt resolutions to schedule public hearings for the downtown parking operations and maintenance assessment downtowns normal operations and me minutes assessment in the downtown principal shopping district assessment to the october eighteenth two thousand and seventeen regular council meeting item twelve four point one to approve a three year proposal from chips under greg brown cover to purchase and install lighting at a total cost of seventy thousand four hundred eighty dollars for the downtown trees to be paid for by donations in the dva budget and i need a twelve efore point to approve the been submitted by twin lakes nursery at a cost of to council about one of these items you may request that it be removed and it will be discussed in its normal rotation anybody care to address anything that's been just read is consent seeing no movement is there anyone on council that would like like to remove an item down to item nine which is public comment if you're here tonight to address council and any item that is not on the agenda you are free to do so you have up to five minutes there are three lights in front of me one green one yellow one red the green is go the yellow is you have one minute the red you and a discussion anybody care to adjust council and any item we need your name and address for the record dougan i live downtown twenty nine he six three condo two or three downtown place i've made a bunch of notes but i have as i walked over here i think i'll just kind of speak from my mind on this  i read an article in a sentinel i guess was yesterday which was a result of the beating at to the new energy center on monday i think which was a grand opening and i soon most of you if not all of you were part of  that i thought if the grand opening was october the tenth because i talked to michele gibbs about tickets because you're so tough and so i'll try to get you to i said that's great so she mails it back said i was able to squeeze out two i thought you know if you remember john full of water over the years so my point is that when i was watching or was i read the article the word invision that they have been awarded an and vision award i think for the first time if i'm not mistaken and what that did is it sort of got me thinking right away and in fact a kind of pissed me off at one point because when i look back at the work that john and i had done more than ten years ago and our slogan was no coal no hole and when you think of just take the word vision for two local citizens eleven years ago or so raise the issue of no coal we came here with p w board we wrote articles in the paper we had the letters to the editor we started getting involved with people to lansing that were trying to figure out what the hell's going on in holland for energy going forward and we spent a lot of time with that john and i and we actually cracked the idea of where both boys and girls club volunteers and we've been that way for years i saw the north side money through thursday afternoons three to five thirty doing homework with first and fourth graders so we like boys and girls club but when john i were there back twelve years ago or so when the kids were done we'd sit around talk about something  came up with this issue because that's about the time that the word was on the street that young would be cleaned up changed and hold a cell for forty to fifty years and we both looked at each other and said how in the world would want more coal well this is a little bit you know twenty twelve years goes a little bit early to be talking about coal you know we talked about it recently but that it was it is not a minute no i'm sorry thank you so he and i have talked about no call we decided we got to do something about it because we didn't want to take on the issue of let's let's refresh the young let's take on maybe even expansion with more coal as the appetite for that facility and it was going to be maybe in a forty year kind of plan and we said there's no way so we started doing things ourselves a lot of the letter here as i mentioned and then we actually started five people in the community that were in the same page but didn't want you had more to talk about it and we kind of grew into a pretty pretty good organization and but we kept john i kept on the verse no coal with little word in between no and cold but i'll bite my tongue on that one and we really tr to get more people involved in it but to do something to stop this process and in fact after a couple years of battling and a general manager leaving the per the woman who was leading the chamber there consul left advocate i think at one point in fine with coal but i think he's come around so what i heard the word invision i thought well that was kind of cool but i said if you just use the word vision john and i had a vision twelve years ago when it was too early people were coal nobody was talking much about coal and even we were told that much bucko here is going to expand the facility use it and it was our bitching and moan is in this session last night which was a grand opening arsed money to win this award was given i thought great but i thought john and i should be recognised that some point i thought maybe at the grand opening that asked us to come and give us a little bit of applause when none of that's happened and i just wanted you to know that you have to still look many people in the downtown have wanted some different restaurant every day you have two local people who work there buns off with a new idea took a lot of heat for it yet here we are today in fact the earthing is that water edge of lake mack at some point becomes available for all kinds of different investments so it's got a bunch of which is irish for cheers good evening pro tem and city council members you have in front of you tonight the proposed second reading of ordinance adoption for pope proposed text amendments to the i to industrial district  this proposal comes to from the planning commission and specifically it is a request or a recommendation to change the required front yard area in the i two industrial district from minimum of seventy five feet down to twenty five feet and that twenty five feet would also align then with the front yard requirements in our i won industrial district  additional aim of the proposed language of road retain a seventy five foot front yard requirement for all to zoned properties that abut or look or are located across the street from a residential a zoned or used property so council you had your a first reading on this proposed text amendment back on september twenty and your poised to potentially take a vote on it tonight so i'd be happy to ask and answer peter's and birch and me for the discussion yes motion passes union mislead thank you it was for her views the second page we are on to one point four traffic committee recommendation which i september or excuse me october eighteenth meeting that is a formal motion is there a second to that motion picture a bird combination you need discussion on the amendment for the template i'm sorry the table in motion once we vote on the table emotion that will be the end of all carries that will be on the agenda for october eighteenth that brings us down to five point one public safety services proposed to reach asses and thousand and seven fire popper that was involved in an accident back in june twenty eighth the we review this is study session we believe this is the best thing to do with this apparatus at this time staff has reviewed  number of proposals including replacement of this vehicle with a new truck also looked at this what is your what are the repairs to get us right now this truck israel bought it it's fifty percent of lifespan this is an opportunity for us to improve the overall health of the fleet and maintain it within the constraints that we have with the fire vehicle replacement fund this vehicle for all types of purposes will be a new vehicle once it's completed which should service for at least fifteen years  will improve again like i said the overall health of the apparatus fleet and also allow for us to create other budgetary opportunities to improve the fire vehicle replacement fun in the next three to five years we're recommending that  nticipate there may be some contingencies after the fact but we spoke with the city manager on that and we believe we can accommodate those within what he's authorized to do and just for a point of clarification given to the a month that you registered does include the thirty nine thousand three hundred eighteen dollars which was awarded to us by the insurance company for the damage that is correct it also includes the total mouth project cost would include trade and other correct chassis for a mo twenty thousand very good any questions comments concerns about this item from coun we approve the recommendation proud of yourselves as i know the nine of us will the eight of us right now and i can speak for the mayor are very proud of you for coming up with something like this so thinking thank you for taking the initiative in finding an opportunity and and making the theory yes motion passes right thank you for that we are moving on to item six point one which are gifts and would you be so kind as to tell us about because the city managers office is pleased to report the following gifts community human relations commission received this year from the hauen use connections from an anonymous stone donation of one thousand dollars parks and recreation for the heart of the community campaign received in kind donations from voice communications management i'll see for communications services valued at a thousand dollars and fifty two years one thousand fifty two and how a little printing service is valued get eight hundred dollars parts and recreation for the graphic nature center received cash donations in the amount of one hundred and seven dollars fifty cents it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation and an expression of gratitude be forwarded to said don't you know there's a number of people champing at the bit to make a motion on this we have a motion so move passes thank you bill to all the donors all right just one little little project that we've had on the burner for a number of years taking another giant step the civic center place proposed organization and management structure mr robinson i believe that you were going to leave so that your last meeting you approved a you said a firm budget for this project you directed us to make sure that the bid package number two was revised to fall within that budget we have done that and we have a project as you see on this drawing or this concept on the screen the project that we will be constructing we are constructing will be very much along those lines the functions after we've made those revisions to the building will remain as you had hoped and intended when the building was started so i think we've kept to a large extent both the function of the building and in a lot of the design that you had set out to accomplish so you can you prove that the last meaning as a value engineering team as we call it we've taken care of that in the meantime and  now as we talked about the study session last week we talked about how to manage the facility what is the best structure for that i know if it conversations about that and off in the past we also talked about operating revenues in expenses so what we're what we're talking about now and what we're proposing to you is that this building has additional square footage about fifty percent more square footage and what it's had the past there are many more opportunities to use this space in ways that we haven't been able to use we haven't had that kind of space in the community in the past so i think there are a number of benefits to the community only from maintaining a lot of the activities we've had in the past but providing new  activities that we hope to be there maybe there are a number of activities we haven't thought of yet i'm sure there are those that will ultimately use the building so we think it needs a different way of thinking from we we thought about this building for the last fifty or sixty years and the way to do that is to establish a city civic center police board that can have their sole focus on making this facility successful so because there are a number of entities in a downtown that need to work together whether it be civic center whether it be a windmill island whether be downtown development authority the principal shopping district the farmer's market we want to make sure that they are working together that they're building upon the synergy of of them working together so w the civic center place board we're proposing a seven member board with one representative from the d d a board one from the p t s d board and in five representatives from we'll say the business last community and then the next official member from city council so you know we've outlined we talk with you last week about the responsibilities of city council of course like a lot of other boards and committees and commissions that the you oversee this board will report to you you would have alternate responsibility for approving a number of the things that the board is involved with like setting booking policies or entering into contracts those types of things but the board would be responsible for oversight of the facility itself of any contracts that you approve overseeing implementing a booking policy and making sure or working with other downtown it to seize on cordoning activities so th extremely important to the initial success of the civic center and i think it's going to take several years or so for this all to to work out before we can feel comfortable in exactly what that building is going to be so  i think the benefits of this board will be very important to again to a success and then as i mentioned the some of the advantages to all of the downtown and today's working together we're proposing an internal organizational structure where the staff of those entities principal shopping district d d a civic center windmill island farmer's market would all report to the city managers office  it's shown in this diagram there is a new position created system city manager that is not filled yet we don't anticipate that being filled until you hire a new city manager but they in the in term we would do something else in our office perhaps have those staff report to the assistant to the city manager but we're not sure if that should start tomorrow or a couple of months down the road we want to watch that but we think it probably needs to begin that cornish and he need to begin sooner rather than later so we're proposing this internal organizational structure as you can see at the top of the new civic center board would report directly to city council and again they do oversee any contracts that you entered into to operate the civic center or anything else dealing with the civic center so the recommendation for you this evening is to to adopt a resolution establishing a civic center place board and that we move forward with appointing those board members as soon as possible i think our city attorney is going to want to comment here and just exactly how that's done by ordinance because in the resolution we've included language record and recommended by the city attorney that ultimately you do esta ordinance and i'll leave it to him to explain just how you have to do this the recommendation is also that the proposed city organizational changes be approved now we can recommend a revision to that based on some of the conversation at the pre cancer meeting i would offer this to see if it makes sense you can leave it just as written here that the proposed organizational changes be approved or you can add to that for the interim with the staff of the downtown entities reporting to the interim city manager or does it need and at the organizational structure would be reviewed again after the appointment of a new city manager you could have that to take another look at it and have that new city manager look at this again once that person is in place which i think makes a lot of sense so i'd offer that recommendation to in that organization structure that the final recommendation is that it should be adapted as part of an ordinance is chapter two of our ordinance code includes provisions for many different types of commissions and authorities we would include it in that and submit a draft of the ordinance to you at your next meeting for a first reading and then adoption a meeting after that under the charter course city council is in charge of of administering city property and charter indicates in section two point two that that the city council carries out that power by ordinance or by state law and there's no state law on the subject so the proper process would upstairs i look at this chart and i find some clarity but i also find some additional confusion as to the roles or responsibilities of contractors or the roles and responsibilities of things that move potentially should be in house do we have enough people do we have the right people do we have the right reporting structure so even though you know i'm a phone call in favor of this i still have a lot of concerns i think need to be worked out in this and  some additional attention so they're just like we talked about last week with regards to expenses i think that was last week right yeah you know it was a close number having no idea anymore that it was i think we underestimate kind of the what we're getting into with this and when we look at expenses and where we are with that we look at this i still think we're kind of underestimating quite a bit with e having but only the tail end of this upstairs first and foremost thanks greg you if you are consistently bringing us more elements of structure for this  strong recommendations from appreciative of that not discounting anything you just said brian you know i share that perspective i think we all share a strong desire to to to make sure that we give this the proper or is ational structure governance of leadership that it needs you know my only thought on this is is i'm certainly comfortable with what you've presented knowing that there's still a lot of locks a lot of everything down there and so my my only hope is that even with an ordinance that there's a gelati whether it's twelve months from now or thirty six months from now that it to make it the most functional because the last thing we need in in this community is an authority that that really we can't undo because it's not functioning properly and i know this is not an authority i want to be sensitive there knowing that we're not allowed by state law to just kind of willingly form an authority but i think we are being intentional about giving this governance and i'm i'm thankful for that here i think you're correct in that it's going to take some time for us to fully understand how this is going to work i think the thinking going into it is sound and the direction of the vision is  based on good thinking in terms of the internal structure  have acknowledged i think as a group our desire to have that position the assistant city manager position him place as a result of studies and discussion and so  that you know before we've completed the search process of having a person place you know the temporary designation can be made the city manager's office and i think we also allow enough leeway there for the new city manager whoever that might be to have their employees as well so long story short i feel good about that language in terms of the internal structure so that's all good think you did in the other discussion on this i was a procedural thing also is to run upstairs i am not by any way shape or form a proponent of emergency word and says but in light of the fact that we we know that we need to start looking we need that we need to give the committee in order our first reading of this would be at the f o preteen meeting the second reading would be the first meeting in november which i believe is the first and at that point we have two choices we either make an emergency which is effective immediately or we wait the twenty one days i think the recommendation once the city matter once the city attorney drafts the language is probably going to be toward the emergency words or that will be a recommendation from us or a motion from us to do so i just i don't want to catch anybody off guard but that's probably going to be happening sometime in the very very near future anything else seeing no other questions may i have a motion for the proposed resolution that bring us down to item number thirteen communications from the interim city manager just just a few things for you here one regarding the civic center for some reason i just keep coming back and if you think about what you have done over the last two weeks you know who is setting you know the firm budget for this project for the package number two approving that and moving forward on that for talking about the operating revenues and expenses and tonight setting forth the you know good he's on the right path with a management structure and organizational changes that is a lot that you've accomplished in a two week period so you know i'd like to think about that you tackle these items head on and i think that's quite a bit to do in a couple of week period so i hand it to you for doing that and and also a big part of the big package too in the direct if you gave to us and he sent us back  to make some more changes i just want to make sure that that we think some of those who are involved and hopefully i'm not missing anybody here but what we call that value value engineering team that met numerous times and looked at all sorts of spreadsheets and went down over one hundred some line items and over thirty subcontractors to try to bring this to the budget that you set dustin hems with  judy kaye construction management team was critical all of us great way camp of course with edgewater and then with g m be they had a number of people what it was david alex bethany dan all involved and in work in this and how can we do this differently or or do that differently and of course matt van dyken who helped coordinate all of that for us so a lot of appreciation goes to all of them for doing that work over the last couple of weeks and  i thank them certainly for that and then lastly as mentioned at the at the pre canceled meeting a friend of the city you know a person who really has worked with us over the years on different nord passed away and he did a lot of property appraisal work for the city and for others in this community and he really put his mark i think on a number of things that have happened in this community  because of his initial work with those up property appraisals and in his counsel in that regard and i really appreciated working with cal over the years when i had those opportunities and he was always available when i called him and mexico which is totally funded by the national endowment for the arts she and seven other mayors will be meeting with the national caliber urban planners each mayor will describe his or her own his or her city situation in the full group will discuss ideas about public process and development usually this is an invitation only for larger cities we were lucky enough because of the j d why process to be able to attend  so we're wishing her luck and hoping there are some great ideas that come back for a city then we have some may or real appointments made oral appointments you get back to my we go all right first of all we have please accept the appointment of a shell of voice human relations commission for her first term said term expiring june of twenty twenty and i'm going to massacre this name knives historic district commission for her first term said term ending in june twenty twenty and a gentleman very well known to this council quick rich to the compensation committee for his first full term first full term expiring in june two thousand and twenty and then we will also except the resignation i can't talk tonight resignation of allison from the historic we can have a voice vote that all those in favor say aye all those opposing motion passes just a couple of little things i just wanted to say that we  as mr doogan referred to a little bit earlier i believe all of us were at the presence of the grand opening of a long awaited energy park monday evening because it is a city utility because i is a utility excuse me a restriction was restriction entry was restricted as was the j d y plant it is a beautiful plant they will be opening two hours to groups and school groups starting this fall so contact the b p w about setting up those two hours the visitor center which i was lucky enough and a couple of the council members were lucky enough to have a party is absolutely gorgeous if it is going to be an award winning center interactive school kids of every age are going to absolutely be engaged to be able to see how the b b w operates not only from the electric production but the water production in the sewer collection transmission distribution zone and so forth so they did an excellent job there the plant is first rate also as mr  for us to get that and we should be very proud of that so look for some some more openings coming up this is also public power we believe you have public power week and that's why it was open this week hall in the city hall and with a fire trip or a downtown at seven p m come down and and that will be terminating then at the civic center in the parking lot like they have done and in the past and we'll have some demonstrations out there i don't know the extent of those but please come down and support all the fire departments all your public service public safety employees it's pretty impressive watching all these lights and big red green and yellow trucks going down the road and then having them all come together at the civic center that will start at seven o'clock believe it's eight in columbia and going down toward the civic center terminating their seven o'clock this coming friday and then something that has been very dear and near to my heart for a number of years because it was a mandate i guess is the best where i can call it from the city council is the window on the waterfront to a planning i have been participating in that for probably every one of the last ten years i encourage my colleagues to come out get your hands dirty but a couple of tulip bulbs and you can't get it wrong don't come in the hole that will be taking place a week from saturday october fourteenth and this is become a popular event and i'll tell you why there was two shifts the first shift from eight to ten the second sure to attend a new the ten to noon is already booked so there are a few spots open for the eight to ten ship i know this early riser for a lot of people but come out commune with nature it's going to be beautiful weather matter what it's still beautiful weather and the best thing about if you come back in the spring it's your handiwork  shelley to greece and that crew puts puts an awful lot of work in designing the beds and watching people giving the training on how to put the tools in and there's an awful lot of work that goes with that there's if i remember correctly about four hundred fifty thousand that we have to put in i'm sorry not that many forty five though i put too many zeros on it but a lot of hands make light work and and we get it done in that every day so i hope to see a number of people out there what you do is you go tool time look at the volunteer opportunities and sign yourself up there that is it from the mayor communications from council members and know that we have a resolution which would come  national disability employment awareness month and so if it pleases you i'll read this proclamation which is signed by you in thank you for allowing me to do that the city of holland michigan proclamation whereas national disability employment awareness month is a seventy year tradition during which we set aside the month of october to recognize the contributions and potential of disabled americans in the workforce and where as today one in five american adults live with a disability visible or non visible and whereas the people people with disabilities represent over twenty percent of americans american workers today and are employed in segments all over the workforce and where as despite the wealth of skills they have to offer the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is double the unemployment rate for people without disabilities and where as workplace is welcoming of the talents of all peoples including people with disabilities are a critical part of our efforts to build an inclusive community in a strong economy and where as the city of holland joins other communities across the nation and recognizing national disability awareness month to raise awareness about disability employment issues and celebrate the many and varied contributions of people with disabilities now therefore i mayor pro tem myron mike after three and our allan city council do hereby proclaim october as national disability employment awareness month in doing so i call upon employers schools and other community organizations in the city of holland to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities in to advance it's important message that every day people with disabilities can and do make important contributions to america's businesses they have the requisite drive to succeed in employment in the skills and talent necessary to deliver on the job council colleagues but more importantly the audience at home we take this month a step further and i want to make an invitation to the community on october twenty fourth we host our seventh annual ability award has become a premier event on the lake shore where we recognize disability advocates throughout auto analogy counties but what i think taking it a step further this year we have a fantastic keynote speaker nashik the national level a gentleman named randy lewis authored a book no greatness without goodness and the book really details his efforts as a supply chain executive for walgreens and employing a great number of people with disabilities throughout their supply not just their supply chain portion of their business but at the retail level and throughout their corporate office we're really really excited because as west michigan does  yes we talk and we raise awareness but we're much better at doing and so our hope is that you'll come join us take in that keynote address and then go back to your organizations in the places that  call your vocation and encourage them to explore plans on how your organization can increase the number people have disabilities that make up your workforce too so that's october twenty fourth  d gave a lot of accolades to people who did a lot of work on that and he didn't want to miss anyone but he did not mention a self so i would like to thank you personally for all the work that you put in a lot of hours as you guys spoke of up stairs that you put into the sand after we gave you the budget and going back line item after line item after line item so thank you very much as well  reminiscing a bit about some history with the efforts in our energy production and with the ribbon cutting of the new facility this week it john it makes me remain as a little bit myself i can  vision for the future to all of which challenged us as a community to look beyond our current usage and dream of it and look at possibilities i've lived here all around forty some years now  and you know how it takes a rap off for being a rather conservative community yeah i guess for good reason in some instances but since that time if you look back at what we've accomplished you know we we came up with a community energy plan as a forty year vision on how to utilize energy efficiently what to do what not to do  we have a brand new energy plant we have a number of strategies in place on how to handle our future and if you what i don't know of many human whether we like thirty three thousand people somewhere that they would know how many cities of that size have that kind of vision and i know you know people were conservative but i dare i say we are in many many ways very very progressive  prudently progressive let's put it that way so everybody's cool and those again you know nervous i would just like to make that observation that as a community we've accomplished a great great things and if you're you know able to do it should reach around pat yourself on the back and say where to go because this is an incredible community with a lot of incredible people in it you know marty spoke of about his efforts i can think of dozens of other people who are advocates for not just a community energy plan but for at least thinking through what our potential was going forward and i think without those ambassadors and champions for that i don't i'm not sure that we would be where we are today so it's just a that brings us down to number seventeen one final motion do i have one to w