if there is going to be a warm day in the month of october it's going to be on wednesday night so thanks for taking time out of your enjoyable things to do to come to a meeting tonight which hopefully will at least be bearable if not enjoyable let's find out if we can conduct business tonight make we do have a core mr mayor all right thank you this evening our prayer will be led by the agenda says it'll be led by the deputy clerk and a paralysis however she is under the weather so instead our assistant city manager greg robinson will lead us in tonight's prayer immediately thereafter we will have the pledge of allegiance to the flag i did vote everyone in chambers here today to join us and both of these items  r our holy father we have so much to be thankful for the love of our families and friends michigan seasons beautiful community and most of all your presence in our lives we spend much of our day rushing through whatever seems so important the moment help us to slow down so as to search for it appreciate those moments where your presence is evident help us to recognize those around us who are struggling perhaps in this very room thank you greg there are paper copies of this evening's agenda located in the rack in the rear of the room if you're in chambers with us if you have a tablet or some sort of electronic device you can also find not only the agenda for tonight's meeting but also the background materials that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting or if you're watching this meeting at home or at some future point on the internet you can also download those items as well as can be found at city of holland dot com the easiest way to access them is to go to the calendar that is on the city's web page go to today's date and you'll see all that material for you you'll note that as you look at the agenda there are a variety of items that have an asterisk next to them these are what are currently on tonight's consent agenda and the plan is at this point to have a motion and vote on all of these items taken together regardless of where they show up in the agenda to handle mall with one motion one  vote we think that they're relatively routine or been previously discussed by counsel however we recognize that perhaps some in chambers might not find them so routine in fact you might be here specifically for one of those items so what we will do before we take  is i will ask our assistant city manager to read for us the items that are on the consent agenda after that i'll invite anyone from the audience to come forward the microphone and remove an item from the consent agenda and then we'd handle it as a norm or members of council can also remove one or more items from the agenda as well so with that greg if you might kindly let us all know what is presently scheduled to be on the consent i don't number five to approve the minutes of the regular session  applications submitted by magna mirrors of america and paramount tool company fourteen a one to approve a contract with corporal companies in the amount of eighty seven thousand two hundred fifty seven dollars including a ten percent contingency pending approval as deformed by the city attorney fourteen a two to prove the service contract with siemens to perform maintenance on three power circuit breakers at a cost of fifty four thousand and fifty one dollars pending city attorney approval of the terms and conditions fourteen a three to enter in a professional services purchase order with environmental resources management to provide demolition management services for the atmosphere processing plant at one ten fairbanks ave the amount of fifty thousand nine hundred dollars fourteen a four to approve a contract with a turban technology services corporation the lowest evaluated better to replace the turban and generator control systems on combustion turbaned generating units seven and eight for an amount of one million three hundred thirty five thousand and twenty dollars and fifty eight cents to approve a contract contingency in the amount of one hundred eleven thousand two hundred eighty nine dollars and forty cents to approve a purchase order in the amount of sixty five thousand eight hundred eight dollars and thirty eight cents for durbin technology services for procurement of spare parts for the new control system all of these pending city attorney approval is to for fourteen eighty five to approve offers of just compensation for the purchase of several parcels of land located in the area of the new proposed power plant and authorized the mayor and deputy city clerk to sign each offer is prepared by the city attorney fourteen be one in one thousand in a to accept and placed on first reading the propose owning ordinance amendment to rezone fifty one and sixty one country club road from the r one one family residential district to the p r d planned residential development district with the final reading to be held at the october sixteenth two thousand and thirteen city council regular meeting fourteen d two or excuse me d one three for a claim filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration fourteen one point one one point two and one point three to adopt a resolution scheduling public hearings for wednesday october sixteenth two thousand and thirteen for the downtown parking operations and maintenance assessment downtown principal shopping district assessment and the downtown snow melt operations assessment that the deputy city clerk instructed to publish and mail the required notices fourteen one point four to approve a bid submitted by holland with those services for the printing and mailing of the two thousand and fourteen city calendar at a cost of six thousand seven hundred seventy eight dollars and fifteen cents plus the estimated postage cost of two thousand seven hundred twenty dollars and at this cost be paid from the solid waste fortini one point five to approve the proposed fee schedule for the calendar year two thousand and fourteen rental housing program fee adjustments as discussed the city council study session on september twenty five fourteen eat three point one to accept the bid received from blue water technologies in the amount of eighteen thousand five hundred eighty four dollars and fifty five cents for public television equipment to be funded through the public access t v fund fourteen eat three point two toward the parking lot resurfacing project for city hall and here at district library to the little better black gold transport him out of seventy eight thousand and thirty nine dollars and thirty five cents the mayor and deputy city clerk be authorized to execute the necessary documents at city council approv budget and funding sources as described in the reply fourteen three point three to accept the august two thousand and thirteen monthly financial reports as presented and in fourteen eat five point two five point three and five point four to schedule public hearings for three hundred ninety eight tax abatement applications one for bueller prints at six seventy one crest drive another for mirrors of america at four one for east fortieth and one for paramount tool at one thirty six west sixty four st those hearings will be scheduled for wednesday oct sixteenth two thousand and thirteen and also the motion passes all right thank you but take suspend item twelve which is communications from the audience that is the opportunity in this meeting for anyone from the audience to address council on matters that do not otherwise show up on the agenda so if you're here to talk about something that's later on in the agenda hold off on those comments till that point will give you the chance to do so if you'd like to address council and anything else here's your chance to do so the rules of council relatively simple we ask that you step for the microphone so everyone here at home can hear what you have to say  state your name and residential address for the record and you have up to five minutes to address council and we have a nice little light indicator system a green light for the first four minutes yellow light for the last and red light when your time  council good evening and welcome good evening my name is mary white furred seventy two fifty eight beverly drive south haven michigan so my name is mary white furred i'm running as a republican for the open seat in the eightieth just strict next august i grew up surrounded by cornfields i was the oldest of four and my parents taught us the importance of hard work faith and family i earned my nursing degree in one thousand nine hundred six and worked at a pediatric hospital first in the neurosurgical department and then in the emergency department i love taking care of children and teaching their parents how to take care of them as i gained experience and knowledge i taught new nurses wrote policies and took on charge nurse responsibilities i met my husband kevin while we were in college we married after graduation and are celebrating our twenty seventh anniversary in december early in our marriage we decided that the best thing for our family was to have our own business as an inspiration a few months before kevin actually quit his job to start the business i found a template on my computer with the corporate structure so i put kevin as the president myself as the vice president scott is the treasurer only so as the secretary and bay buchanan was a board member soon after we started the business in one thousand nine hundred seven ten year old scott came up to me and asked when was he going to get the treasure i had forgotten about the corporate structure so he reminded me about that sheet of paper hanging up in the computer room so now he was wondering where that treasure was hard work faith and family this is how we run our business and i'm proud to say that scott graduated with a finance degree and then recently this summer he graduated from law school last month he chose to live in michigan and he joined our company elisa is taking after me she's twenty two and she's going to be a paramedic my youngest is ken he's a senior at holland christian high school considering accounting our nephew tom has moved here he moved here this summer and he joined the business as summer also kevin and i have worked hard billing our financial services business we have built several offices as well as our home we understand that we like other small business owners want to follow the rules and regulations we want to pay our fair share of taxes or biggest frustration is when the rules and regulations are not clear and we spend far too much time navigating the system in pursuit of a consistent answer we would much rather have spent that time doing what we do best running our business i understand that other small business owners from farmers to grocery store owners share and our concerns i understand that my neighbors and my friends as employees want our district and our state to thrive we want a place where each person has the opportunity to use their skills to earn a living so that they can care for their family support their church and help in their community as your state representative i will work for clearly stated common sense regulations that decrease the tax burden and encourage business growth i will push for a fiscally conservative government i want all of our children to have the opportunity to stay here in michigan to live and work like my son and scott i ask for your vote next august please don't hesitate to call me or email me with program and i believe ryan i'll turn to you the city manager to give us an introduction on this i thank you mayor dykstra members of the city council this item follows up on some of the discussions that the neighborhood improvement committee the city of  neighborhoods one activity is to ensure that we are up to speed on our rental inspection program in a way that does not produce delay for the landlord or a tenant and also increases the comprehensiveness of our ability to ensure that the codes life safety codes are all being met with us tonight phil meyer is the director of the community or it services will die  a specialist in this area philip will be joining us in progress joel is here now he has a power point to outline how we can get back to being where we need to be and once we're on our panel inspection program in terms of tim there is a cost consequences associated with a timeline as and given that there is a deadline for making changes to those revenue that user fee that's why it's before you tonight i want to have  hear from joel understand the pros and cons and all the facts associated with this recommendation that we just the fees that we can pay for additional services needed and then answer any question good evening for those in the audience and those who are home watching t v let me introduce myself my name is george i am the community development quarter nater for the city of holland as part of my job i staff the neighborhood improve the neighborhood improvement committee is a committee of thirteen residents and two city council representatives that have been appointed by city council to implement the neighborhood improvement strategy and advice city council on various policies that help make the neighborhoods a more you know livable place a more welcoming place to you know people who you know are looking at an urban lifestyle is a place they want to live as city manager cotton mentioned a few seconds ago last  week the neighborhood improvement committee presented the holland advantage to city council the how in the village is a document that has several dozen recommendations into it and it recommendations are really grouped into five  welcome new neighbors reward current residents encourage investment protect investment and promote the city i want to take a second here and just highlight there looking to encourage investment and protect investment and courage investment by owner occupied homes and then protect that investment of the owner occupied homes it's the goal of the neighborhood improvement committee the holland becomes the premier place along the lake shore for people to live west michigan's is a wonderful region we want holland to be elevated and be the place where people are kicking in the front door and buying homes here raising families and calling holland home the map that's on the screen now in front of you as our starting point this evening what you see is that a map that shows all the residential property that's in the city of holland and all the properties that are rental properties the city of how it can be divided into five or six main residential neighborhoods over here in the northeast side of the city we have holland heights as you can see along sixteenth street which runs east and west as indicated by the red arrow we have some apartment complexes this is the stratford abbey oxer court area we have apartment complex right across from meyers and then up along waverly we have waverly meadows down here on the south and then you're see throughout the residential area we have a handful of rental units in the residential neighborhood but there are sparse and they're spread out down here in the maplewood neighborhood again you see a large you know yellow section showing a residential neighborhood some of these parcels are indeed rental units and there are single family owner occupied neighborhood with some rentals you have some large apartment complexes along south washington including crown point of view the other one is metal lanes and then one right be o ver here on the west side of the town you know we have our weston area which again primarily single family owner occupied homes with some rental units in that area then we have our montell park neighborhood we see a little bit higher concentration of rental units and in our central neighborhoods where we have a significant amount or significant concentration of rental units some areas we want to identify as this white area up here is primarily owned by hope college so one can make the assumption that yes we would see a higher concentration of rental units around hope college that's primarily student housing that's showing up on the map and the strip of red right here is the eight street so the apartments that are above the storefronts down downtown st those are showing on the map protecting investment oversight this is a statement that we generated this morning in our office and it's really something it's a theme it's a common theme on how we approach our work on the third floor in the planning department we are aggressively looking for ways to ensure more livable neighborhoods that effort is going to begin in part with assuring that housing stock is being properly maintained and safe in the city of holland one component we have for maintaining for ensuring that the housing stock is properly maintained and safe is our rental inspection program this program began in one thousand nine hundred six at that time there are about twenty nine hundred rental units ten percent of them were in compliance that's easy to understand the program just started and had to ramp up it was our first time getting into the houses and comparing them to our basic property maintenance codes at the time we had one and a half full time inspectors and a half clerical support in one thousand nine hundred four eight years later we're up to over four thousand rental units in the city of holland seventy three percent were in compliance at that time we had two point seven full time inspectors and one full time clerical support in two thousand and three were just shy under four thousand rental units in the city however with the program being in existence for close to twenty years we're at ninety three percent in compliance this was done with two and a half full time inspectors dedicated solely to the rental inspection program and one full time clerical support in two thousand and thirteen we've seen you know a bigger increase in rental units in the city of holland where forty four hundred right now we're down to fifty percent compliance with only one point three full time inspectors that ikeda to do mental inspection program and a clerical support of the point three full time free program how recharge this program that is a service that we provide so it's a fee for service that we receive and one nine hundred eighty six it was a ten dollars registration fee and a thirty five dollars fee for each inspection and two thousand and three it was a thirty dollar annual registration fee and an additional twenty dollars for each rental unit at this time we want to way from charging per inspection and we created what was called a comprehensive annual rental registration permit fee with that meant as each year when you would pay when the landlord to pay that fee that would include an initial inspection and every inspection any inspections after that reinspection would receive what's called an inspection fee or a late fee in two thousand and five it was increased to forty dollars for that annual registration fee and for the for each additional unit was twenty two dollars in two thousand and twelve it was increased to fifty five for each additional unit at thirty dollars and then in two thousand and thirteen what we are it is seventy five dollars and each additional unit is thirty this seventy five dollars was approved last year by council it will be going out with two thousand and thirteen bells which is what we're in the process of preparing you right now however prior to sending that invoice out the neighborhood improvement committee and the third floor wanted to come back to city council and say let's revisit this annual red rental registration fee the reason we want to revisit it is right now we're fifty percent compliance we have one point three full time inspectors and only point three full time clerical support if city council wants the rental inspection program to be ninety to one hundred percent compliant if you want to fully administer it then we're going to have to change some stuff on you know on how we collect the fees up stairs in two thousand and three just to repeat what we said earlier we were ninety three percent compliant two point and we had two point five full time equivalent inspectors dedicated to this program they had a one full time equivalent clerical support they're averaging fourteen hundred inspections a year in two thousand and thirteen where we are now in the presence of fab four to me today we have forty five hundred rental units if we were to inspect these units every three years then we're going to average fifteen hundred inspections a year and the early two thousand when we were over ninety percent compliant were inspected anywhere from twelve hundred to four hundred units a year we had two and a half full time inspectors one full time clerical support our stance that we need to get back to the two thousand and three staffing the compliance level the average cost today for an employee that is a rental inspector this includes benefits retirement etc as sixty nine thousand the average cost for clerical support including all the fringe benefit the six thousand reallocate thirty thousand dollars of our department head and our assistant director who oversees the rental program at thirty thousand dollars of their salaries are allocated to this program and then we have approximate overhead costs of thirty five thousand this is heat like computer support transportation those kind of cost in two thousand and twelve we generated one hundred seventy three thousand dollars in rental fees our inspector costs were one hundred twelve thousand clerical support was seventeen thousand and ministration with thirty thousand overhead costs was thirty five that's a total of one hundred ninety four thousand dollars in cost to run this program we brought in one hundred seventy three thousand that year one thing to keep in mind when you look at this rental fee number this includes late fees and reinspection fees that are added to the bill late fees and reinspection fees are unpredictable two years ago there are about four thousand dollars for late fees and four thousand dollars for reinspection fees last year they're almost double that so there's no way for us to fully predict what that cost what that revenue streams going to be for a case in point a skier thirteen rental fees we generated two hundred fourteen thousand dollars in rental fees our salary went up a little bit with the cost of living that was approved you know this past summer for a total expenditure of one ninety seven so this previous year we did have a little bump by get you could say however if we want to get back to the two thousand and three staffing levels where we were able to be ninety percent you know about ninety percent compliant with only four thousand units right now we have forty five hundred units so we have five hundred additional units on line than we did you know ten years ago if we want to go back to the two thousand three staffing levels we're looking at a total budget of two hundred ninety six thousand dollars roughly two hundred ninety six thousand dollars the current fee that we are prepared to mail out later this month at seventy five dollars per unit and thirty dollars for each additional unit is going to generate about two hundred in one hundred thousand if we make this kind of an increase of  hundred fifteen dollars per unit and thirty dollars for every additional unit will be able to fully fund our program at two and a half full time inspectors one full time clerical support and  ministration and overhead costs us that there's a bit of confusion that we need to just iron out real quick and a staff report that went out last week that was on the city web site the number one hundred fifty dollars per unit was in that memo the reason that was one fifty last week is because we started at the point of we want to hire a brand new inspector we want to hire another part time clerical support for it that come o no we are not a full time carer support those two combined gets a few about one hundred ten to one hundred twenty thousand dollars is what we're looking at that we had to generate so we looked at what we wanted and then we backtrack to what the number would be where the third floor phone our e mails we've heard a lot from landlords councils heard from some landlords so this morning we sat down and we said ok let's look our twenty year history when it was a time when we thought we were doing good and we go back to that two thousand and three year when we had over ninety percent compliance two and a half full time rental inspectors and a full time clerical support and we said ok based on today's dollar figures on what it cost to employ a rental inspector and clerical support and knowing what our overhead cost of administration costs are what's it going to take for us what's that total budget going to be that total budget is two hundred ninety six thousand two hundred  thirty nine we then ran a report this morning of all the certified your entries in my certified we just your rentals that we're going to be sending bills to and we started playing with some numbers and they're figuring out what will it take to get that number certificate we're going to stay out of their hair we weren't able to process quick enough what that kind of incentive would be for their six year certificates but we do you envision a program where we can have reduced annual fee for them or just six years at the effect sort of like a reward for the good you know for the ones that take less time and are you know pretty much the example of you know the example of a landlord we want to have in the city for that that's our presentation for the evening i can respond to your questions or comments from counsel i do know we have several people here that probably want to speak in the guards to this but our recommendation for this evening is dollars every additional unit i think we all understand what you we mean by the every additional unit but can you just clarify that for us you turned your mike off i think you thank you if you're single plus thirty dollars so your total and this scenario would be one hundred forty five dollars if you're a tri plex would be one fifteen plus sixty so your total would be one hundred seventy and so on the importance of this additional fee really gets into play when we're talking about crown point meddling those larger ones that have one hundred eighty or one hundred sixty and their annual fees upwards of joe you mentioned two thousand and three kind as the year that you're you and the team are are working off of were we covering program costs entirely with fees in two thousand and three when we had the two and a half  and one full clerical unit unfortunately that's not in question i can answer right now i don't know that information off the top of my head i don't believe i see phil or sandy in the audience cell that is something we'd have to respond back to you in looking back in previous budgets my understanding is that phil is potentially going to be here yet this evening yes he's in trance a prior engagement  will hold a question for phil and i asked welcome to the meeting david place i know we're not at the point of having emotion here yet but given the fact that i qualify as a landlord in the city of holland in order to avoid we are not fully in agreement on you know what that process is going to look at we're still reviewing our administrative plan on how that would be staffed we have addition we do have staff upstairs where you can move stuff around we're you're writing the check list out which ones come up because it just comes up as and it's specs and that are with some violations as opposed to when we go out for an ops or weeds we send one letter because you have an inoperable vehicle we send a second letter if you're we do too long etc so there's no way for us to pull out which part of the housing code might be violated the most insiders are until we just know the whole house in general is not up to the basic property level other questions from joel nancy please the numbers of fire calls and problems with destruction of property have gone down because of the inspections that were started my back line right other questions for jol before we  alright well before we open up the microphone for public comment on this item why don't we get a motion on the floor to have something to comment on is there motion all right the mayor pro tem has moved the recommendation as presented by staff is there support for that motion supported by burch ok ladies and gentlemen if you're here to talk on this particular item again the same rules apply as we talked about earlier please step forward  microphone so everyone in the room and at home can hear what you have to say state your name and residential address for the record and you have up to five minutes to address council we certainly invite comments and invite you to do so at this time the microphone  evening and welcome good evening i'm david vanderslice i live in lake town township and i own two rental units in the city of holland and i am appalled at what i'm hearing tonight these are some of the most discriminatory statements i have ever heard coming from a neighborhood improvement committee that we do not want rental units anymore there are three thousand approximately renters in the city of holland that just got slammed tonight i would have a hard time telling go into my rental units where there is a sixty year old retired guy in a forty year old single guy and telling them they are not the desired people the city of holland wants in their neighborhoods they cannot be good neighbors that's just what i heard tonight and for years the city of holland has been trying to get rid of rental hall suits and it i have no idea why landlords like me provide a good service my rental houses are the best looking places on the block and i provide a good service and my renters do not ever want to own a house and we have a good match go on and just for the city of holland to have a goal of reducing the number of rent a house is is wrong and it's something that needs to be addressed and i think the rental program that the city of holland has right now is very adequate whenever there's a problem the environment a healthy people are on it immediately and i in fact had a complaint against me i had a phone call from our miss carl and cindy within an hour to address the issue and anytime there's a problem they are on it immediately and i don't see a problem with letting some of the rental inspections goal past their due date because a lot of times and city inspectors come by in they find nothing wrong and i believe it's a financially sound program right now because i as a landlord i have a rental units that had a six year certificate and already is three years passat so i paid approximately eighty dollars fee for eight years now and have had no inspections that's eight hundred dollars that i have contributed to the program and have not taken anything out of it and i just would have a hard time telling my renters and i think that's something that should be addressed these fees do not go to landlords they go to the  renters to play between ten and twelve dollars an hour and they are the end customer in this debate and if i would ask any one of my renters hey is that are right if i raise the rent on you so the city of holland can come and inspect more they would all say absolutely not and i just think haha we could have somebody stand up here tonight say they are from the neighborhood improvement committee and say they want to get rid of runners in the city of holland i think that's something that really ought to be addressed and i know a lot of these people are on the committee are also on the fair housing board and it's really contradictory how they can be on a fair housing board and t renters you're not welcome in the city of holland anymore and i even have a problem with using police reports to scan renters because a lot of renters do a police reports domestic abuse complaints or whatever and the microphone rains opening that evening to eighty four and a half fairbanks ave and i support the last speaker and i think he was very correct i don't see any mistakes that he made or anything that he said that was wrong i was a landlord in the one nine hundred eighty s and i was also a landlord in the two thousand is i'm a renter now according to our basic laws we have to allow for everything in our cities we have to allow for industry we have to allow for churches we have to allow for liquor stores we have to allow for renters it's discriminatory to say that we don't get out of here don't come in here you're not as nice as the rest of us the proposed increase as the person said before me is not going to be paid by the landlord the renters are going to pay that what i figured out just top of my head here the last few minutes is going to be about ten dollars a month increased in  generally the lower economic class of the city and maybe that's why some people don't like it i think that's pretty sad you're supposed to help your neighbor they're going to be paying an increase for what you're trying to do tonight you have to think about that if the need is to have more inspectors at what was said i would say that that should come out of the general funding the tax base that all the property owners of the city should pay for not just discriminatory towards the lower class citizens who happen to be in a situation where they're renters i wonder if some of the cost increases that we've seen in these charts are from all slumlords where more inspections are needed that's where maybe more time is needed where we can address those with the rules that we already have we don't have to increase fees on the renters by increasing the annual rental fee we can do it by penalties on the slumlords and that was addressed we can do that with increased maybe a second inspection third inspection or extra if there's some substantial complaints fine found i can support that stuff but i recommend not not supporting this raising of this fee that was proposed tonight and possibly tabling it if i'm not turning it down and discuss the issues of myself and this person before me that spoke and maybe someone after to i'm look at the discriminatory issues that are being brought up local agencies and churches say that there's an all time high of families and people seeking relief help financial aid of all types and how and they asked the winners to pay double inspection fees or now it's not proposed to be doubled but increased and action fees and is robin salt in your wounds you're saying that they're poor so we're going to charge you more because landlords are not going to pay for this i when i was a landlord i passed that right on to the renter you have to that's good business practice you have to do it to stay in business run slumlords out of business by charging them for their for their lack of keeping things up to code and good good good owners in there that are going to keep the properties up that's the solution to the problem it's not to pass a fee on to the lower class citizen and that's  that's that's not a good thing to do council people that's not the right thing to do anyone else care to address counsel good evening and welcome eric davis six twenty one was thirty second street i have a unique history here i am actually the missing person from the two thousand and three equation and i am also a landlord on many properties in this i mean here today because i was i looked at the figures of doubling the rate just couldn't figure out how that was possible how a program could run for twenty six five dollars currently for a single family house so by the time the inspector gets there i've paid two hundred twenty five dollars towards this sort of thing and inspectors at my property for about twenty minutes sends me a letter either of compliance or of violations and then comes back for another ten i have used less than two hours inspectors time for two hundred twenty five dollars anyone else all right closed public hearing that technically was won but nonetheless we have a motion before us comments from counsel discussion you you know our discussion upstairs there were a lot of questions i think there continue to be a lot of questions that we we don't necessarily have the firmest of answers i wouldn't say that the focus of the neighborhood improvement committee is to annihilate ranters really i think they're they are just trying to recommend a healthy balance throughout the city that it's not going to be totally totally mentors nothing wrong with mentors and a lot of people are like you have said they can afford a house now can't buy a house appreciate being in a neighborhood and having a home like situation by renting we understand that but we do have to work to be good name of whatever our situation is and we were just presented with this last wednesday and i hadn't really thought about it so we're trying to be quick studies something we haven't thought about very much so i do think it probably is a good idea for us to take a little longer to think about it and talk about it and maybe make a decision a little later would be my recommendation at this point but i really appreciate the work that the neighborhood improvement committee has done we've taken several committees and put them together and they have worked hard to think of positive ways to build neighborhoods it's not only about fees and i think a lot of times when we get in a discussion like this we forget about all the positives that the same committee has been working and we want to welcome people when they move in that we want to reward people who are continuing to stay that we want to encourage investment in the city and we want to protect investment in the city those are good goals to have so the totality of their work i think has been very helpful and is continuing to be helpful and it will be even better as we roll out some of these more positive programs it's kind of hard because everybody focuses in on the fees and we forget the rest of the whole package that i really think will be in the best interests of the neighborhoods and neighborhoods don't automatically get better we have to work at keeping neighborhoods good and improving them and building into people and encouraging neighborly behavior we don't automatically do good stuff so it helps us all to have positive goals  the work together and have some level of accountability so i do think there are good things about this proposal i think i can see where it's pretty shaky feeling to have been told that the fee is going up to seventy five dollars a month and have that accepted for thinking that it's going to be this october and then all of a sudden they haven't even paid maybe the seventy five yet and all of a sudden it flips out to one hundred fifty which kind of feels like if i looked at my watch is it going to go to something else i don't know it just kind of shakes your foundation in understanding the usual way government functions which is slowly and carefully and i can understand that so we have to have awfully good reasons to do this this quickly and i think i'd like to think about a little longer personally  sounds a bit harsh sitting here talking about the rental trying to get rid of renters and not wanting lower income folks in the neighborhood and this being a way to eliminate that i can assure you that's not the case i think that in the last two years for sure when one city council gets together for a day or a weekend actually and says what are some of the most pressing things that we need to stay on top of  sure we know what we're talking about what we will make sure we try and improve for the last couple years it's been around housing it's been around our central city housing and i think there's a pretty good awareness around the people appear that know that the land use laws in the state of michigan do a pretty good job of concentrating more minority folks in the central cities because that's where the oldest housing stock is it's very simple to move out to the township and build other houses and i suspect there's a lot of reasons why there's people who live in the township that owns properties in the city to rent is because they are more affordable as they are they they can charge lower rates so there's reasons why this is happening but i think if you start talking about thirty five to forty percent in some blocks or areas hire where that rental percentage gets out of whack to a point that any urban planner or any any city council would step back and say that is not healthy i think we have an obligation to look at that and be serious about it and that was the whole purpose of the neighborhood improvement committee these are some pretty bright caring people who are coming together trying to figure out how do we make sure that our central city doesn't look like flint to name a city in michigan that has a really great urban core downtown the doesn't have far more problems and we we are not immune to that downtown grand rapids flint that harbor there's a lot of cities who i don't think we want to we want to go down that path so i think nancy 's absolutely right this was this is a fairly quick thing that's been thrown on the plate and we need to we need to get it right there are some landlords and i appreciate you being here tonight that probably do a great job but i know there are some landlords in this town that don't and i don't know how we get at punishing them and rewarding the good ones and make sure we end up with a proper percentage where people still want to have owner occupied homes and have a healthy balance of those and not get eighty or ninety percent rental units all in one block because we know that's not sustainable and it's going to take us to a bad place so we're into a i think a pretty complicated discussion here that requires probably more time frankly than we've had to deal with this  sensing that we're going to talk about this again next week but the whole sense that this is rental units and we don't like renters you know that's that's far from the caseys or the neighborhood improvement committee or a lot of very bright caring people who just want to get it right you know the rock committed to getting so in full favor of taking this we still have another week or two to talk about this and get some more input from some very thoughtful people here tonight i would be in favor other comments brian plate i sit on the neighborhood ribbon committee so i guess i've been working with this for a while or at least talking about not just this but a whole slew of things involving rentals and again echo rentals aren't bad but creating an environment where too much of the same exists is bad we want to create a diverse community and it's rental units next to owner occupied and when we shift that balance too far that's when we have problems and that is what we want to somehow accomplish here that we have growing communities growing neighborhoods property values that are increasing for everyone owner occupied and run with units owners so i've been in favor of this increase because i think it provides the level of oversight that the city is is needed and i don't think it was an overnight like suddenly we needed to fund this we were getting by with the one point six inspectors and we were getting by for as long as we could it wasn't because just something we just decided this we have been other under extreme budget distress for a number of years and that's just it's the right time to do it and there's a lot of things that are coming through the neighborhood improvement committee and this is only one of them so i've been in favor of this i think we should be addressing the gap in this budget and doing what we can to push it forward other comments you know well you know i just i sort of echo some of what brian has said i don't sit on that particular committee but the idea that this is somehow new and unusual and has not been previously talked about a little device here i'm trying to show some slides and go this is back in two thousand and eight a report that led to the creation of the neighborhood improvement committee now there was a statement made that somehow we're trying to expel all renters from the city of holland or son or something along those lines that is categorically false what is going on here is we have a growing issue of rental units in some of our most delicate neighborhoods and partially it's driven by the economy partially it's driven by the fact that once there is a preponderance of rentals in a particular area that's what tends to continue and when we look at why do we care about this it's for the slides i'm about to show you if you look at from back in two thousand and eight and if we pull today's stats they would be i have no doubt very very similar the darker the color the higher concentration of calls for weed violations in that  first of all brian could you slide back to the the map that that was on the screen that showed kind of the markings of the city that relate to rental units all right now you'll note as you look at this area that the central part of the city has the highest concentration highest property numbers that tend to have rental units associated with them i think that comes is not a surprise to any of us because frankly we all understand that these are the oldest houses in town the oldest houses in the area the cheapest houses in the area and quite frankly they're the the spots where it's easier to buy and easier to find the ability to to rent them so now if we go then back to the things i want to show you noticed some striking similarities where do we have the highest density density of weed violations in this that same area with the highest amount of rental units where do we have the highest numbers of an operable vehicle complains the same part of the city where do we have the highest density of complaints regarding garbage violations in that same part of the city where we have the highest amount of  complaints about density of housing code violations that same part of the city in essence where do we have all sorts of service calls happening in high concentrations the red when there's a police station by the way so that that is a pretty good indication as to why that's red but it's again in that similar part of the city so the point i'm trying to make is not that we're saying renters are of necessity bad or rentals are of necessity bad but what we have here in our context in our particular setting is a situation where a high concentration of rental units tends to statistically have other adverse things that accompany it now if this was midtown manhattan and we had a high concentration of rentals guess what we wouldn't you know we would expect to have a high concentration of rentals but in west michigan in the holland area in our context the two tend to cause the two tend to come together so that is why we're trying to address some of these issues is it because the people in this room who happen to be landlords are don't do a good job no is it because the people in this room perhaps don't take better care of properties then the owner occupied neighbors in their neighborhoods not at all in fact the fact that you are here tonight demonstrates probably that you have a higher degree of interest and care about your properties than what some of your neighbors may who actually live in them but i can't escape the fact that we find as a statistical as a graphical representation the same patterns recurring over and over and that's what we're trying to address so i guess i do take some exception with the idea that somehow this has been sprung upon us with you know not a lot of time to talk about him in the report came out we've been talking about these things for at least four or five years since then but that being said i understand that you know perhaps we want to refine the nuances a bit and do a little sanding on it perhaps and get a better hand and hand around a grip on some of the  by all in favor of the tabling motion please stay and raise because after a table in motion we can have no discussion so you'll sorry mr city manager you can be ruled out of order on this particular one is they're all in favor of the motion please say i all opposed the same no all right the matter is table now for the viewing public and folks in the in chambers tonight we will have this on our study session agenda one week from tonight we will not act on it or study session we just basically talk about the matters study session and this will be back on the agenda at our next regular business meeting which is two weeks from this evening am i correct on my general dates now mr city manager place thank you mr mayor and it was not about the motion so no problem with that obviously i do want to make sure that there's three things that people leave here with that are just knowledge and were roughly twice as many r all right thank you that concludes our discussion of this particular matter tonight dano there are a fair number of folks in chambers who are here for it so thank you for attending and again you're invited to be here next week for this discussion again no vote next week and then the matter would back on a business agenda yes the city council has been engaged with the planning group for a year which segue it into a fund raising effort to accomplish the necessary funds to provide for three  things gardens one was restoration of the swan when fifty or fifty years nearly that it's been here over two hundred fifty years that it's been in existence and getting the windmill turning again has been one of the goals of thirty second goal is to establish walkways that are safe to the wind mill from the downtown area and the other sidewalks and walkways within the community and the third goal is to connect  the and gardens to the rest of the region as a central park a central place for recreation and enjoyment and celebration of our culture and our community together that will cost two point one million dollars the fund raising has been very successful efforts that have been made this council and committees and principally their dykstra has been very successful in relation to state support and we've when his work is complete to do so there's been some discussion and study session and for tonight we have identified a number of six hundred thousand here as an amount that would be shared by municipal funds from capital grants available from the holland charter township and holland city township should you build that into your funding in terms of your six year capital plans probably fiscal year  fifteen we've had that conversation with our neighbors township isn't part of every meeting associated with one island gardens and this these projects to not only restore the windmill but also safely connect the island to the rest of the community vietnam motorized paths and by the way the organ restoration and the carousel restoration is also part of this so we can basically ask you for tonight you to accept this report as information with the understanding that in your next budget we will come back to you with a funding formula to share that number and ask and that the fund raiser have a target of seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars to go with the help of the philanthropic individuals in the community and everyone else that we hope to encourage to make a little contribution to the island via getting their name on a plaque or breck and we're working on that type of program which will unveil here in about a month or so so that's really the long and short of it the city share we think of this six hundred thousand would be based on a formula whereby each community shares the cost of the bridge fifty percent and a portion of the pathways in the other community twenty five seventy five depending on which community the path was and connecting pathways our share  nine percent is the formula which is three hundred fifty seven dollars fifty seven thousand dollars so that will all be a part of future budgets in future conversations but we need a target now and if you are comfortable with this  your what this means is that in our five year it's six year plan technically there would appear an item of three hundred fifty seven thousand dollars associated with legacy funds for the purpose of funding this three part program mill island gardens that won't be till fiscal year fifteen what's good and so that's essentially a target it's a it's where we think we need to be now successful those than those numbers could go down on the other hand if you want to be in the community for some reason we had an economic situation where that didn't occur those numbers could go up but it would only go up or down subject to future council actions and votes association associated with budgets and grants and metals and grant acceptance documents and obviously the number and it being one that the community  not support then we would we could also forestall that timing and go back to certain wells again and make it a fiscally or sixteen project or fiscal year seventeen project to build the bridge so there's many  communities need to know what to put on our five six year plans and i rode past college park today before i came to this meeting there were thirty cars in the parking lot with people doing all kinds of things i rode past a windmill island yesterday and perhaps it was closed  would this is a somewhat confusing project because there are many moving pieces to it and if it were a larger capital campaign at a university you could say ok that's  science building many budget and that's the cafeteria many budget and that's the new residence hall many budget here everything seems to get blended together and we saw this in a recent letter to the editor and i thought this was perhaps the best chart that helps explain where we're at where we're going and what still needs to be done on this is on page one hundred four of the packet that is that it's available on the website but the piece the only piece that is really undergoing activity right now is this piece right here it is the and it's even only a part of that piece actually it's the just the windmill restoration of peace and the fundraising is close on that one and that frankly is the one where we've had most of the private donation go toward that has happened this is not anything to do with holland townships bike path milledge this is not anything along those lines at all this is simply the only thing that has so far been committed to have happen and it is currently under way the other two pieces listed here the pathways to does one from the south as well as the bridge and paths across the markets how river is part of what ryan is talking about this target budget if you will for future fiscal years that before any of that money could be expended there need to be engineering drawings bidding that takes place and ultimately approval of contracts before any of that could happen and as these numbers demonstrate were shy on these particular matters and they won't happen until they're funded so we have some potential granting sources from the state government and others in play we have still some some large scale and small scale gifts i'm sure requests to be made on the private side but ultimately these other pieces aren't going to happen until such time as they're funded and they're not funded yet we're not going to do them yet so that i guess that i ask the question why are we then talking about this the evening and part of it quite frankly is this this remains a city park it has been for nearly fifty years and when we go  to the private sector when we go out to potential grant sources they say ok it's a city park what are you putting into this park what is the investment that the public that the city is putting into one of its city parks for improvement purposes and so far what we've been able to say is well i'm sure we're going to put something in and we've been talking in the neighborhood of you know three to four hundred thousand dollars without any documentation to back that up and we have run into a bit of a roadblock with potential donors as well as on some of the grant applications that we need to put more more flesh on to those bones and and that's why we're dealing with this at this particular time plus we have the added benefit of course that we have not just one jurisdiction looking at some funding on this matter but also two jurisdictions a cooperative effort in this age where collaboration and cooperation is very much a buzzword in the way we operate local government here is a prime example of an effort to do so does this mean that we're absolutely committing right now tonight to spend three hundred whatever thousand dollars on this matter no we're not you know again it will come to us probably at least once if not twice more before we have signed documents to expand those resources but what it does do is it gives for us the opportunity and the ability to demonstrate to those for whom we are seeking donations both public and other granting sources the fact that yes indeed there is going to be public money invested in this public park so the request from staff is to basically accept this as a matter of information some apprehensions and questions a couple of weeks ago that ryan asked the biggest one was what percentage were looking at i didn't feel the legacy funds or whatever funds we came up with should be such an ambiguous number out there i wanted some hard facts to and he gave me the answer before using this as leverage money as good faith money whatever you want to call it this is our legacy i don't disagree with you mr compromise that we should have defined we have should have a definition of those funds if there ever was a definition of legacy funds this is that the fact that we're going to have chances to talk about this look at it even the potential of not even having to pay it depending on where the fund funding comes in i'm willing to put that money up there right now or at least our faith in that ok we're forty two thousand dollars away from the initial  what we're trying to do here and that's get the windmill up and running we have some money toward some other things that we know needs to be done i'm hoping and praying that as i've said in the past that the perpetual funds will also come as any product that we have to make sure that we can maintain this park as with every other park or every other piece of public property that we purchase now i hope we seriously think about  funds before we accept or designate or whatever we do so under this particular case i'm more than happy although cautiously more than happy to put my endorsement behind this i think we need to move forward we need to take a stand right now we will have checks and balances a number of occasions before the money has actually spent but we need to say we believe in the project we believe in the for crying out loud we believe in our parks that's what we're doing ri is clear that it is a central park it is a destination and we need to balance that in a way that is financially viable as well as expounding on on our culture and our programming so  some of you are engaged in that effort some of the parks board is engaged that effort it's an intensive effort the next started in august and it will be completed in november and city council be part of the solutions that we come up with any other comments nancy please also john nielsen from the henry ford and greenfield village said that you know there are all kinds of lighthouses there's only one when male it is two hundred fifty two years old it was brought to the from the netherlands to stay here no one else has one it really works and that's why we're fixing it so it can keep working and we believe in einar eying the heritage that we have in holland from those who came from the netherlands we have people that come from all over the world to experience what it is what does it mean to have a dutch heritage what what is a wind mill how does it work what what's the life of a wind mill or like and what else do you have to show me that's dutch and i don't think we've done a good job of answering all those questions for tourists i don't think we've done a good job of all of us getting out there to learn about it and to enjoy the island i think it's been beautifully maintained with the people that we have out there they have worked really hard they are so dedicated and knowledgeable and wonderful people but we do need to figure out what our strategic plan is what our interpretive plan is for how we're going to take care of that island how we're going to use that property and how we can invite people out there for events have a place for them to eat and really do justice to the surroundings of that windmill not just the wind mill so i we are really at an exciting crossroads and we've had consultants in this week that were gave us advice and consideration on monday and tuesday of this week we're going to meet subcommittees to talk about the finances and to talk about a management plan and interpretive plan that will help to define what that island is and how we're going to develop it what kind of events we want to have out there what kind of staffing we need and so we're not just saying we took the top off the windmill we're fixing a couple be and then we're just going to walk away we can't do that we're going to do the total package and work really hard at it so it sounds like a lot of money and it is a lot of money but as a city we've got to step up to say we're part of the process all these private citizens it's amazing the amount of generosity and backing we have from people in the community that care so much about this asset and about using that island in a better way and it would be so important for us to partner with them and to show that we are together wanting to see this project forward so it's an exciting time it's it's we're making you work tonight greg here with city managers office is pleased to report receipt of the following gifts we have won to the public safety services department fifty four dollars and forty six cents has been received from exit seventy six corporation in support of the community kickback program and for parks and rec we have donations resulting from the two thousand and thirteen softball tournament in support of the  close out cash of three hundred forty three dollars and seventy five cents anonymous contribution of fourteen dollars wings nineteen inc contribute two hundred fifty dollars to that scholarship fund and a couple of in kind donations one from superior sports or two plaques valued at seventy dollars one buffalo wild wings to get certificates amounting to fifty dollars and actually the net proceeds to the  fund one thousand six hundred fifty one dollars so it's recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation credit to the appropriate accounts an expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors right what's the takes us then down to communications from the city manager this evening thank you i have two items one on the study session next week there are a number of  also now on there i think i might be for on the broadband if there's no objection to that a later time the second item i want to mention is has for many years at least during the participating the way that they like so i don't know if there's any objection on a part of council not sure why it's the city managers make this decision but i would like to suggest if there's no objection  right any questions for the city manager all right communications from me this evening the usual stuff but the important stuff on the last we all of our contact information is at the city's website city of holland dot com we enjoy hearing from people who have opinions on what we are focusing on what we should be focusing on and perhaps what we shouldn't be focusing on the city of holland dot com you can find information about members of council who represents you as well as you can find lots of information about the of holland generally everything from property in tax records to meeting minutes an agenda to forms of all sorts and sizes and it's exciting things like that so i invite you to take a look at city of holland dot com we are actually one week away from bob you probably may be the only one on council who would know the date october nine eight hundred seventy one know yes indeed it was the great holland fire but i just bring it up there were actually three major fires that day most of the city of holland burned down actually on that particular day pillar church is one of the few spots in town that remains standing but most of the town burned down it was apparently an incredibly hot and dry year and the two other fires for which there are probably one for sure is much more famous that happened on the same day one of course is the g chicago fire happened on that day and there's some local lore that embers crossed across flew all the way across like michigan and started our fire i think this is a leary had had a cousin now her cow had a cousin who was in our part of the world and there was a second fire actually on their third fire on that particular day in the state of wisconsin which was located where the one in whatever fashion ago which was actually the three fires the one that had the most loss of life one of the most deadly fires in american history so have spent the past not two and a half weeks two weeks in grand rapids most of every day been there but this past two weeks has been for our prize and there are twenty six artists from holland participating in our prize two thousand and thirteen and they're all across the city fortunately none of them are in the top ten however you can actually find a couple of  those the city hall and a couple of of videos have them on my laptop and you can go on there and you can learn a little bit more they're short two or three minute videos very well done by our staff and you can learn a little bit more about the culture that holland is exporting to grand rapids and a lot of these artists are being seen by literally hundreds of thousands of people so i really applaud them and their efforts and taking some risks in putting their work out in front of all these people during our prize it's almost over and for those who don't know mr burch is the communications director for our price so busy few weeks the life of the birch family other communications council this evening the place well since i have this penchant for loud noisy things and you brought up the fire apropos this coming friday october for which is a switch from years past but the fire truck parade october is fire prevention month and this is something we've done every year to kick it off typically on saturday but it's being changed to friday evening this year october for the parade starts at seven pm in columbia and we'll go to the civic center instead of all the way to the college works fire station there will be some trucks set up demonstrations i believe at the civic center that evening from seven thirty tell nine o'clock i believe and then also believing that the following weekend as they have done in the past there will be some demonstrations at the mall parking lot i believe we do have to double check on that but anyway you want a good time you want some loud noises you want to see some pretty trucks come to one is that our own ryan cotton and i believe you will be the parade marshals for this event and the second thing is that it's no coincidence that i bring up the great holland chicago fires and that you bring up national nancy it really strikes you again how much those who have come before us have gone through for us to be able to enjoy this amazing community that that type of devastation that happened with that fire th people coming together the way they did the stories that have come out of how people helped each other and saved people and shared things and worked hard to rebuild community that they had really quite recently established and that that wasn't easy there there's so many qualities that those who have settled here that we really need to hang on to and continue to encourage in our people that we are hardworking resourceful caring that we come together to solve problems that we're here for the long haul and that we want to really  people that look to the future and aren't overwhelmed by adversity and a day to day basis and i hope that those who come behind us will say the same things about us