good evening we're glad that you are here this evening to join us in a little civic business in between thanksgiving and christmas there are things that still happen in the government buildings we're glad you're here to be a part of it could you start with a roll call more here we have a core american thank you now we will do a couple things that we have done for decades here in the city of holland will start with an opening prayer and after that we'll have the pledge of allegiance we'd appreciate it if you would join us by standing if you're able to lease join me in prayer our heavenly father we thank you for this evening we thank you for the blessings that we enjoyed today that we could come here tonight that you have given us this position this place this time in which to serve you we thank you lord for this wonderful country that we live in you realize that tomorrow is the anniversary of the attack on pearl  harbor we know how that shook our world and how there were so many forces and evil that swept across this world we're grateful lord for those that stood for freedom for those that gave their lives for those the few that are still among us that were a part of that war and for all the wars since we know that we enjoy freedom because it has cost a lot we pray father in this evening we will appreciate those freedoms that we will conduct our business in a way that honors you that we will make decisions that will be for the best of this community and that those who come behind us will find us faithful we pray this in your name and i pledge allegiance to the flag of the l thank you now we are going on to the consent agenda which is a list of items that we will approach with one vote with counsel at the end of that reading but perhaps you came here because you wanted to speak to one of those items if that's the case at the end of the reading of the consented gendall we will open it up and you may come to the podium give us your name and address and tell us which item you would like taken off that consented genda and then it will be as it appears in the sequence of the agenda you picked up in the back of the room so we'll start by reading the consent agenda please tim buckley item four b to approve the minutes of the nov fifteenth regular beating and nov twenty ninth two thousand and seventeen study session item for c to accept and file execute oath of office from various boards and commissions item six f and six g to appoint older of all administrative officials to the planning commission and to appoint the mayor as administrative official to the planning commission item twelve b one and seventeen a to accept in place on first reading the proposed text amendments to the zoning ordinance to streamline the site plan review process for developments within the designated airport protection zones adjacent to the west and regional airport with a final reading in adoption at the december twentieth two thousand seventeenth regular council meeting item twelve d one to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item twelve easy for point one to declare as surplus bicycles acquired by the police division with donations be made to seventy times seven and also listed in the property room dot com and dot com for disposal and sale item twelve a four point two to approve the purchase of four sixty inch toro zero turn mowers from westbrook more at a cost of four thousand seven hundred seventy six dollars including trade ins of four movers declared a surplus and that the centralized vehicle and equipment fund be amended to cover this cost to accept the bureau of justice bulletproof vest partnership grant funds in the amount of five thousand and seventy three dollars and thirty four cents for police services with the following governmental units cities of holland allegan gun lake tribe siegel plain well south haven wayland village of douglas saugatuck in the village of hopkins subject to approval as to form by the city attorney i don't twelve seven point one two approve a contract with hamilton a v design for sound system design services for the holland downtown p a project in the amount of sixty five hundred dollars that this amount be appropriated for the municipal capital improvement fund budget item twelve seven point two two approve a contract with fairly painless advertising for the redesign of the enjoy holland michigan dot com website in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars in this amount to be appropriated from the community and neighborhood services and technology services departments fiscal two thousand and eighteen budget the record seven one was actually the joy holland seven two was the speaker system somehow or another they get mixed up just for the record noted now perhaps one of those items was important to you to be handled in its sequence in the agenda if that's the case please come to the podium give us your name and address and tell us which item you would like taken out of this group because of the consent agenda so you know i in the audience moved to counsel anyone on council want to take any item out of the consent  process should be that you open the floor up for nominations from council to nominate a council member as mayor pro tem once there are enough but once the nominations are made that's not necessarily limited i suppose theoretically there could be nine nominations but once the nominations are in their course then you need to vote on it and it requires a five vote majority for one member to be appointed as mayor pro tem ok thank you well open t could you please call the meetings of the council do you want to begin that gregg well we just have the resolution that's submitted to you can see it's one paragraph here so resolve that you hold your regular meetings on the first and third ones each month so when they occur on a holiday and then reschedule ok so we open that up for public comment from the audience then ron is that appropriate yes it is on the agenda for a public hearing right so as anyone in the audience like to speak to the rules on the resolution for council meetings seeing no one will close that and we need a motion from council to adapt we've got the resolution moved by hoekstra supported by byrd change we're recommending from the rules that you had last year is just a very minor administrative change to how we handle the consent agenda and i think someone had a question regarding one point three that the city attorney can address sure i think the question is whether the provisions at the end of rule one point three would be inconsistent with the provisions at the end of charter section which is second charter section four point six under the charter of course that has to prevail over the rules if it's inconsistent under the charter that section and says with the sentence until such time as the council shall so appoint mayor pro tem the line of succession of persons who shall act mayor in the mayor's absence and then goes on to describe how that's done and it's based on numerical order of of the ward ward one of the first preference to three can't go too far you don't have a quorum but then under the rule the last sentence indicates that not the last sentence it's in the middle in the event of the absence of both the mayor and mayor pro tem the council shall be called to order by the court and the council shall immediately select a member to be acting mayor pro tem so that the charter provision is different than the of the charter provision applies only when there's a vacancy in the office of the mayor pro tem the rule provides for what happens when there's not a vacancy but both the mayor mayor pro tem are absent from a meeting so that efforts look there they're inconsistent but when you read it it really is that they apply to different situations thank you p c for that analysis time ok any other comments or questions from  watching are present here tonight they might gather we're dealing with a series of administrative issues here that we have to do periodically this particular one deals with how we deposit the city funds you have a list of those financial institutions where we do that a resolution doesn't authorize deposit of those funds into those institutions thank you greg so we're open for a public hearing that anyone like to address that issue see no one will close the public hearing do we have a motion yes peters garcia yes lin yes we are to bore yes motion passes nine zero thank you sir now resolution and the planning commission this is to continue the organization of the planning commission whereby the mayor a city council member an administrative officer are appointed to the planning commission and just for clarification of this resolution if you would add that to andy  kenyon who is our parks and recreation director would be the administrative officer appointed to the planning commission ok is a part of the motion here essence yes ok now we have a public hearing with anyone like to speak to the resolution and planning  council about whatever you would like as long as it's not handled later in the agenda but you may talk about what anything else and just come up to the podium give us your name and address and you may speak for five minutes green light means go yellow light means you have one minute left and red means your five minutes are up so would anyone like to address council at this time absolutely amazing performance it is to see the doubt level of dancing and music acting and props it is really amazing to see it in holland any other public comment we will close the public comment back and move on down to planning commission me out a way a county farm land preservation resolution have mark will help us with that as director of community neighborhood services marking a play very good good evening mayor and city council members just real briefly for you this evening the city planning commission recommends that city council adopt a resolution to support the ottawa county farm land preservation program so we had a chance to talk about this a little more in depth that your study session and it appears that a table in motion will be in order but i'm here to answer any questions you  so getting into your three i'm going to properly do this by robert's rule so i'd like to make a motion to postpone to a certain time and based on the conversation upstairs study session next week but then that puts us carries thank you we will move on to the inclusive city update from the human relations commission esther going to present that it's just her here i don't see esther ok i've got these plants right here i can't see quite beyond them but it looks like greg's going to present that so you talk to the study session about a recommendation from the human relations commission that you adopt a resolution declaring the city is an inclusive city and you spent quite a bit of time talking about that the study session and since that time you know several members of council have gotten together prepared a memorandum for you to consider in that regard and and i'm just one of the time yeah i think we will receive a recommendation from the human relations commission last week recommending that we we  take steps to sort of declare ourselves an inclusive city and i think the members of council heard that and said well you know all things considered i don't know if we're ready to declare ourselves an inclusive committee but we sure would like to have an opportunity to talk to heckle of a heck of a lot more about that so a few of us had coffee saturday and scott korb and was kind enough to put some things on paper here where actually coming back with a bit more thought into what that could look like and really charging the human relations commission with with an exercise that would involve the whole community an exercise that would take some time and exercise it could be well executed so that we all together begin to understand when we say we are we want to be an inclusive city where are we in that journey where do you think we'd like to be in that journey collectively so we are making a recommendation for council to consider and i think we may not get a full vote on that tonight or decide that tonight but i think we're heading toward a discussion that might include a plan the actual creation of a of a diversity and inclusion of the inclusive plan it's a bit nebulous because i think that's the job of the human relations commission to figure that out but i do think some kind of mole time month multimedia well well facilitated dialogue among the whole community  comes up with a series of thoughts desires were the want to go how do we benchmark that how will we know when we get somewhere i i think it's it's high time we have that discussion  so i think that is what's in front of us tonight or what we're bringing to city council was to recommend that our colleagues agree with the three of us who had a cup of coffee on saturday and just say you know hey maybe quick here i look back over my lifetime at holland mahal rose forever i look back seventy years when i was in school long full of school everybody was the same there was not any hispanic kids there were not any asian kids there were not any black children we were all the same there are many people in this room in this community have old hurts and scars and wounds were treated unfairly we are not going to fix everything but at least we are starting we need to continue to work harder to accept all  people to get rid of our biases and it's a continual kind of thing it's a continuum i think it's a good start it's a start anyway it's not a fix it quick fix thing but it's at least a good communications going try to come up with a better system than we have which is sort of zero at this point from the city so that's all i have to say thank you wayne any other comments  initiate the investigation and study of cultural diversity plan included would be the memo i think that the three of you came up with which outlines diversity plan and some things that could be incorporated into that the teacher she would do one of their tasks suggested is to outline current realities and determine community derived objectives have so that everyone understands what the reality is not just as we experience it but as the rest of the community experiences of because i can recall a point in my  evolution that it was a rather stark realization for me to understand that members of the community that were different than i was but whom i held in high regard had a completely different experience of life in holland than i did my guess is i'm not alone in that so just to understand each other's points of view in their life stories is a huge stepping stone to any conversation that we have about understanding  knowing that there was some major discussion of stairs before this made this meeting i hope that it's understood that this is a living working document it will never be completed we're giving preliminary charge the policemen are a challenge to the human relations commission and i think it would behoove us to have one more discussion i don't want to table this i would i'm sorry i would not propose tabling this at this moment so that we've got the positive momentum going but i do believe because of this question that we had upstairs it would be prudent to have some more conversation at a very very near study session this is the basic ground rules these are the basic charges that we're looking at here obviously it's going to be refined just ever so slightly as scott set up stairs we have as a collective body here have not given great charge to the human relations commission as to what we're looking for as to a vision that we see for the city that's what we're trying to accomplish here now are we going to capture everything and be all to everybody you know i've said it many times my rule of thumb is treat others as you want to be treated that should be the only rule reality doesn't allow us to do that so with respect to some concerns that we have upstairs i would i would propose that we go ahead with this motion vote on it but knowing full well that at a very near study session that we have some more conversation on this to yes because of the concerns that were out there we get the great promise here it sounds like there needs to be some some more conversation i'm always open to that so if there's some revisions there is if there's not we've got the basic idea something yes i'm going to tell you guys a story i've been telling stories about my life that are pretty interesting is that at least i don't agree with this stated that upstairs  i do not believe you can legislate this type of thing at this level at all i believe this is pure pure purely something that is at a relationship level i do agree that this is something that needs to be communicated and between opposite views and that's how we learn but that's not a relationship level  include everything under that title includes video and soul that is an issue to me as well as shared with council upstairs when i first moved to holland i would see a black person a few times a year three four times a year and here i am twenty years later twenty one years later and whenever i go out i see a black person and i love it i love the diversity that holland has people have stated that holland holland is not inclusive of holland is not so many things but i beg to differ and if you look at council currently you have a black person council you have a mexican and council and we have a woman on a council that shows diversity period at least the start of diversity i believe as i stated before it's all based on relationships and i'm going to tell you an interesting story my son is black my ex wife was black so my son is one hundred percent black my current wife is white and at the time she was approximately seven eight months pregnant and this was a bottle a loving years ago eleven and a half because my daughter who she was pregnant with who was half black and half white is alive and now we were going to a movie my son we were at wal mart and that plaza going to the dollar store to get candy for a movie my son who was one hundred percent black his cousin who was one hundred percent and my wife was one hundred percent white and myself and i don't know if you know both of the boys they crossed across the road area there from the parking spots and my wife was venturing out into the parking spot and a toyota four runner sped up i heard his engine revving up and swerve at my wife who was eight months pregnant instantly i got upset yelled saw him got pulled up a little further jumps out of his car and he says to my wife i said something to him and he says to my wife f ing nigger lover and at this point i told her take the kids into the store so they don't see this and there's no doubt in my mind i'm going to jail and there's no doubt in my mind that i would be the one who police would probably handcuff first and lovable and there was no doubt in my mind he was even going to be able to talk to the cops because i was going to put him as close to death as possible and he never came close enough for that to happen but he stayed his distance he continued to yell racially charged words at me and continued to throw hitler salute or nazi salute now i tell you that story and he ended up with it and we ended up going to the movie and to this day i don't remember what movie we see what i remember is the story i just told very vividly and i understand that some people come to this community and they don't feel welcome but as i stated that's based on the relationships if i took an incident and formed an opinion of the people that lived in holland that are white that's understandable because of what i went through but if i take the opportunity to not look at every individual white person in the community through that lens i have a different perspective and the perspective that i have is that as i stated before holland is an inclusive city holland is a welcoming city i've witnessed that and some of you have heard my story of when we lost everything the people that helped me were from this area and they didn't know me and one of those awesome people is lynn raman she helped form my opinion that holland is a walk a mean inclusive of city without a piece of paper legislating that so once again i don't support this because i believe and i have experienced that a piece of paper does not like that but relationships do and so i will vote against us because that's that's how i feel that's my beliefs else while ago as a part of my journey to this place serving this city i was told that i should stay home in the kitchen  are always things that happen people that say things and probably don't even remember they said it anymore so yeah we all have choices about how to handle things that only ninety eight percent of the people are good people no matter where you go to pursue other people are jerks and when you get to know people it's like oh ok i understand that there was a rap song that a buddy of mine sent me and i can't share the words and all that but the gist of it was there was a guy rap and and there was a white guy talking about black people through those black person's voice and then what the stereotypes and all that and i don't understand and i don't understand then the black guy and his voice was rapping as well to white guys and i don't understand i don't understand and at the end of it it was like if we took the time if we took the time to talk to one another we would understand and it was for me it still goes back to the relationship so and it's not everyone is you know the people who do  here i challenge them to find someone in their sphere and build a relationship because i don't know how many people went through what i went through i'm sure people have but i had ample opportunity to form the opinion that i have and i believe someone who goes through issues like that have ample opportunity to change their perception if they want to if they want to thank you what i guess what i'm wrestling as with is what is the role of city council in this conversation and what is the role of h r c and what direction are we giving them and i think that's part of what this is trying to capture is we need to figure that out and so without needing to make an amendment to it there's a there's a key piece that's in the taxman that i think is important for us to consider before the before we vote here and it's number two letter d which has other plans elements to be determined by council and i think that alludes to might what you were talking about with the future conversation around here what there's clearly concerns on what the scope of this is and then what is resolution what is policy what is recommendation what is kind of some of the nuanced pieces  of that conversation and so i think i think there's a place where we can we can all be right which is a rare occurrence but i think it's a good thing as we seek to kind of work for potential things it doesn't mean all these things are going to happen it doesn't mean every single one of these things is going to be handled perfectly as it's written today and so i think that's where  a huge portion of this discussion and the conversation that's going to follow and should should happen i had a ton of appreciation when for your comment about pollen seventy years ago and what it was like and then reflecting as the junior member on this group and understand all my experience going through and how how different that is and how positive you know the my experience was fifty percent of people didn't look like me at home public schools and i was a great experience and for me and all three of my sisters so i think that's where it's that conversation piece and happening in the setting of h r c leading that i think that's something for us where  we can then define hey what is our role in policy or no policy in resolution or no resolution and then in the verbiage and wording of all those things as we  go but i think a good place for it to the conversation to occur is with the human relations commission i think that's what they're there charged with and that's what they're passionate about in skilled in kind of facilitating that conversation and so i think that if going into it we understand the intent here is as when i think and brother hoekstra talked about kicking off a conversation that says hey what is our plan and what are the things we want to do what do we need to include and what's within our boundaries of responsibility and what isn't because i think that's something we're not everything is under our umbrella to cover but there are things that probably are i think we need definition around that to understand you know what is our role in this conversation and how do we fit in how do we provide the direction to the commission that in a lot of ways that's what they're asking for is what do you want us to do what's the direction and i think we owe them here's what here's what we want you to go do so i can support this wonder  that the commitment of us to continue coming having a conversation around what that looks like and i think that that doesn't require an amendment it's fit perfectly within what you've you've put together your before us because i think we can capture a lot of those things in terms of what what you're questioning in terms of what is the role of this group and at the same side we can get more information and learning an understanding of what are the realities in different settings and what are potential solutions to those things and so on you know for that reason i think collectively we can i really do i think we can all when i think that that's a way for us to all through what's proposed to move forward in a positive direction  would certainly caution us not to you know make that sausage in their place because that's what their job is but i think is they do get into this and develop a conversation and get into the heart of it that you know maybe there are other clarifications i think from us and they can ask this or that i'm glad that we're giving them some direction because we're guilty of not doing that all investigations we let them do their job and bring back to us with the movie and at that point i think that we take that information and we started digesting it and having the conversations maybe that by that time quincy i'll figure out how to address what i disagree with you about that and not only us but the whole hopefully the whole community searching gaging in those conversations and discussions to thank quincy for what he said tonight stating what he's feeling what's happened to him it takes real courage and that's a really good way for myself to understand how to develop those relationships so i know what you've been through and i'm sure others have other stories and one of the wonderful things with h r c is i think i mentioned last time is being able dialogue with people that are different than i am and to hear their stories and develop those relationships it is about developing relationships you cannot do it on paper it totally agree with that but what what you just did tonight was a really great example of how to try to continue to work in a positive way and develop those relationships i think you and also the people who worked on this committee mike and jay and scott in particular police others so thank you for trying to move the ball forward and as dave said we need to work collectively on this thank you very much and so this was brought to us at the last study session and it will it was a clearly defined to me and to others what we were being asked to do i think this is a memorandum this is not a resolution this is a memorandum just kind of pushing back or come pushing back but informing them what we would like to see some more detail we'd like you to to understand what's going on in our community and then formulate a plan to how to how to fix those issues that exist you know those that those exist but then how to measure in the future you know are we making progress so the i just want to make sure the public understand this is a memorandum this is not a resolution this is not an order this is t them how this board was listening and wanting to to to react accordingly by making sure we have the resources and the wherewithal to help and support the jersey so thank you for thank  friend who came into town this earlier this week they actually came came in into town for an interview and i had the opportunity to sit with them we went downtown to eat and one of the questions that that i clear was that in in the entire space we're the only color table where the only only table out of how many thirty with minorities and and we were essentially all minorities but but basically what he said was you know holland holland is no different than other communities i think it's experiencing growing pains and things are changing ive is changing things are happening and people don't know always how to wrestle with that right when things begin to shift and and to change so it's not that i thought that the majority has any ill will right towards the minority or that desires to impose any sort of superiority things are just changing right and how do you how do you deal with that how do you work through that and i think this this recommendation automatically suggests that we we do is we have a desire as a city to engage in that conversation that it is a very real and active reality and and we want we want to have those conversations right and not to ignore it and behave as a whole that is not happening hear to this issue that's right yes i'm sorry when does that fit in right that would fit in at this point right before we vote in time yeah well thank you sir come on forward give us your name and address i'm so sorry to trample over your opportunity i appreciate you know thank you whole bunch of decisions and stuff that have been going on since i last read the paper and went online yesterday to try to make sure i was up on this whole thing and to be perfectly honest with you i don't appreciate it as a citizen of holland i really try to do my homework and suddenly i'm blindsided and the other thing that's not on my paper is counts one bird is stuck in my mind but the  only logical has drawn the only logical conclusion in this issue we're dealing with the way people feel the way people perceive and you cannot change perceptions by resolutions and recommendations the way you change perceptions is by letting the community grow and getting your hands off of it that's not my plan it's here's i want to read so i don't run out of time i'm trying to watch the light the editorial board of the hall and sentinel has expressed disappointment some of the council's members demonstrate a concern about a resolution of inclusion since their concern probably represents the mindset of local liberals i would like to offer clarifications from me a conservative  the campaign for the resolution raises alarm bells for me for several reasons number one the original request was presented by latin americans united for progress which is a decidedly focused interest group and number two the proposed resolution this is far as i know that i and less i've missed something in twenty four hours the proposed resolution was to acknowledge belongingness regardless of status  that statement would include illegal aliens and not simply dock or recipients i know there are other issues involved but this is the way it started and expansion of definition of inclusion has historically been used for i won't read it the way i have it because you guys have actually demonstrated some self control here so far which i'm impressed with but has been used come forward saying they don't feel welcome which is another indicator that this whole thing started as a special interest situation h r c has said that local government has an opportunity to make a statement about integrity enhance a culture of trust well in my mind a pulling the rule of law is fundamental to integrity let alone trust any action by a local government which tests limits of that integrity risks integrity of its own also if an action is going to happen the proposed resolution needs to take it makes me needs to make sure that it doesn't set a precedent and i think from what i could see online somebody on the council maybe a few people brought up the situation of doing something in this council that would set a precedent where every other interest group could come in and say we want our resolution in order for that not to happen welcome and inclusion has to be quantified because if a government agency does something it has to be transparent and accountable the only way it can be accountable is if it quantifies what it does so that the residents the citizens can be able to gauge whether it's going in the direction it needs to be going according to their desires  for integrity sake if the resolution has any potential for broader application then those issues that it might be applied to also have to be listed for the public before they are  approved and i again i don't care whether it's a recommendation or a resolution the public needs to know first finally if there is a letter to be written which apparently has already happened since the council represents the entire city i would say that any such letter also needs to be accompanied by a letter with the opposing viewpoint since we do represent all citizens of h while i'm still got yellow i will say and i didn't get time because i didn't know if i did time but i did have on the top i appreciate the fact that there are some members of the council that from what i could tell before tonight actually did take seriously the need to slow down and not do things in the name of citizens than a mere that's fine before the sorry i heard a voice you know it's our time ok thank you thank you carol meyers one o nine west wall street the mayor and council appreciate quinces comments about relationships we all understand that relationships are so important in forming our attitudes and experiences some of you know that i have been married for a very long time to a social psychologist and there are some understanding's that come from that discipline that apply to this particular situation people always say you have to change hearts and minds that's how you get change that's how culture moves forward that's true but that's not the whole truth actions lead to change in hearts and minds and the social psychological research that was done at the time of the civil rights movement showed that when legislation passed that changed people's behaviors their attitudes changed and so it's important for us has a community to recognize that we need of course to build relationships but we also need to have the legislative framework that encourages people to behave in appropriate ways and that will also lead to our becoming the kind of community that all of us believe we can be thank you thank you  any other public comment to this issue ok but close that mike mary just wanted like to set the record straight because i was afraid this is going to happen last week we had mr ashby i'm sorry we cannot control what the press puts out there all i know was what was you know our packet and that information was in our packet  we dealt with two situations last week and i was afraid this was going to happen that there's going to be a crossover number one being dhaka number two being the inclusion very easy very easy to bring the two together very easy to confuse we've got them separated so some of the examples you gave were from one side of the docket one thing at the  onclusion let your interpretation i'm not going to try to change your mind i'm just trying to point things out here because we had an awful lot of discussion last week some of the points that you made  this was i'm sorry will stop there i was trying to clarify things and we're going to stop there ok thank you thanks mike anyone else like to speak to this issue now just about the timing of it the local match sixty three thousand six fifty nine there are adequate funds and mr kaplan proven fund balance to handle this kind of an expenditure however you have a number of other things that in my view have higher priority at this point that we don't know what your ultimate financial commitment will be to them yet we're going to talk about the washington school green park which i think whatever wherever that comes i think you're going to be able to handle that and in the current mr kaplan proven fun but we have some um knowns like the green house to grow house we have the civic center project of course we have probably about the almost one million dollars  outside improvements to parking lots that we don't know yet how we're going to fund we're hoping that the fundraising committee will be able to raise the funds to fun things like that on the exterior of the civic center but my point is there's a number of unknowns in a capital area at this point so i think the timing is just not the best if you recommend we go forward with us we certainly will find the funds and mr kaplan permit funded match this i have a little concern with things are taken out of sequence when you look at capital projects it's best if you can look at them as a whole and such your priorities and so but it in the other hand things come in mid mid year that are good projects and you make sense before so i'm not recommending that you move forward with the adopting this resolution at this point just because of the timing i wish i had a better grasp of the capital projects you have outstanding now so that i could recommend those so at this point i am not and that's a recommendation from our office thank you greg any comments or emotions yes mr extra i just mention of point that was made upstairs and i say andy about the fact whether or not right make a motion that we accept the city measures recommendation support move by land supported by hook stretch it's a hard thing to give up and i feel for the people that appreciate a t m access and had the ability to get in a kayak and to be able to go downtown and all of that happen but maybe it's just not the time it is you know it's a fifty fifty and it's not in the budget i fifty percent so yes quincy like he was saying this was on the budget earlier in the year and we took it off for that basically the same reasons that you stated  i don't know if this match comes around annually or not but i'd like to look at it again in the near future in the future i will say near future but in the future you know like you so we have a lot of projects going on right now things that we need to take care of versus leisure so it will be a lot easier for the state to decide if it goes to park township in the park  bore yes most passes nine zero thank you so now we're talking about their purchasing of playground equipment from washington school green yes so this one here so this is a budget capital project i'm not sure that you have enough in the budget yet but i i do i don't expect that the bids will come in i think they'll be reasonably close to what you have thought you did but a portion of this is the playground equipment and  you're aware neighbors in the area for raise a significant amount of funds to support this project to the tune of about eighty thousand dollars and they would like portion of those funds to go specifically to the playground certain playground equipment that they would like  and if they if that order is placed before the end of this year there will be a significant discount for that equipment so we do want the playground equipment to be part of the project although we were out for bid right now and the rest of the project we don't have those bids back yet we expect them back i think it's on the twenty first of december so it's too late to wait to make this decision on this and to get this order and secure a spot with the supplier so we are recommending that you move forward with the purchase of this equipment in the amount of forty thousand one hundred eighty dollars that you use the funds that have been raised by the neighborhood group to pay for this and i that's the recommendation thank you greg any other comments or motions yes jane just a thank you to this death and working up with the folks who are in our neighborhood carol lawyers and thank you so much for all your hard work in making this work and working with the neighborhood and this is a very long novel that you have been star players in and but stayed with it the whole way and it'll be a beautiful beautiful area for the community and so close to the civic center in downtown and just a beautiful combination so thank you for all your work and for your fundraising we appreciate that so moving on to dollars parks and recreation future ice rink franklin crawl and i do not have a specified amount but i will say that this gentleman has contributed over the years a large sum of money which has been waiting for this moment for maybe a moment that will come in the days ahead in the parks and recreation they sell as scholarship various anonymous donate donors in the amount of forty four dollars and ten cents it's recommended these donations be accepted with appreciation expression of gratitude be forwarded to said donors thank you tim yeah this is frank cry five thousand dollars again this year seven different years he has donated five thousand dollars for and ice skating rink in highland it's a vision that he has had and we just really appreciate his love for the community and his wanting to share that with everyone and with his reoccurrence of polio it won't be something that he will be able to personally enjoy so he continues to give to that your team and we hope to be able to make that a reality someday and how and so he it's wonderful and there's also four hundred dollars donated by a former mayor dykstra in that fund so it stands at thirty five thousand four hundred now so do we have a motion to accept those wonderful gifts  human resources appointment of a city manager search committee john orme our human resources director will give us a little guidance on that thank all right i'm here behind the flowers so last week's study session we had amy cell from any cell talent she's the executive recruiter makes some recommendations about the proposed timeline and process for the city manager search a big piece of that was the community input survey which was sent out this week earlier this week and we just want to encourage the community to voice their opinions talk about the important attributes skills abilities that are necessary for the next city manager since that's a very important role for our our citizens so you can find that link to the survey on the city's website otherwise  it's gone out to all of the local press and it's on our facebook page as well another important recommendation that amy sell made to city council was the formation of the city manager search committee and that committee  her recommendation was that committee would have no more than four city council members and then have five other community stakeholders business leaders people that could bring value to that conversation into that committee so she is recommended the following people that are on the report city council we have mayor nancy to bore my tour through a mayor pro tem a j peters and quincy byrd so those are the four  city council members that are being recommended for the committee and then the community representatives being represented that would represent the community and the business stakeholders in the community would be fill meyer fill miller jennifer owens lynn ra villareal so those are the names that are being recommended to city council this evening by amy cell talent again the executive recruiter for the city manager search process so at this conversation upstairs that i feel was the appropriate address down here we do have an individual that is not a city resident on this group but that being said the recommendation that comes out of this group ultimately the city manager be hired by city council so the nine of us will be making the decision of who to extend an offer to and so that all alternately will be making the decision and i think that's just important to to address leader to be able to interact with neighboring communities townships in areas and so i just wanted to address that that is we had a conversation upstairs and had dialogue around if there was concern about that and addressed as the city manager search committee support supported by lynn any other comments would you call the roll please tim peters garcia yes lynn yes we go into communications from the city manager here mr craig robinson i do not have anything tonight so we can move right into the appointments oh wait a minute excuse me i'm sorry i was going to defer to matt van dyken tonight and he has some comments for y u so i do just to give you a quick update here on one of the biggest projects we've done in this town a little while that's the civic center so just to run through real quick i don't know how many of you remember this place but  now the buildings progressing along i often get out there and forget that hey we started we started with this and then i became that before the farmer's market and kind of where that was the footprint with the trees up front with a market that we all kind of remember and the floor can see that the walls the temporary walls are up these have been up for a while but we're starting to be put the temporary walls in up to the other upper level and again this will all be replaced with with new modern seating in a new modern facility the old locker rooms the floor has been poured that's been the top coat was removed you can see the old hallway so we went from that we've had the concrete polishers in the last week in the beginning of this week and that's the outcome of the new floor so it's going to look that's actually a picture of the floor and what it's going to look like it's beautiful they've gone from that to polishing to now today in this this week they're putting floor walls back up door frames are going in a lot of progress especially in that green room locker room restroom area it's the facility back in october the drone shot i believe we shared with you before in the farmers market was before any of the roofing was now you can see in this is even a couple days ago but you can see we've got the roof decking on over the lobby area over the this southeast restrooms the are they have both floors both courses of the farmer's market flex space steel up and the facility and the view from what will be the main entrance is now starting to take shape so we're starting to get an idea of how how it's going to look when more were out there and then finally again just a quick slide of the tower and deny the of this the steel that's there you can see the social stair where that will be you can see the restrooms and not least of all you can see like mike a towel in the background so a quick update we're progressing there the trades are river really mobilized in this last two weeks to work on what makes the building function get the electrical up at the age of a c n and we're at a point where a couple of weeks from now leave it that the final steel will be up over the office area and the roof decking will be up over the farmer's market the indoor market in flex area and you'll be able to drive past the civic center and see what the the footprint of the building is going to be really exciting is you know the building's got a lot of glass it's got a lot of interior stuff that's going to be worked on this winter we're going to close it it's going to have plastics so once the plastic goes up and close the buildings that we can completely work inside from the outside from the steel we're going to go several months without really being able to see what's going on inside we're really looking forward to oh some time this spring or early summer being able to remove that and let the community see really what the civic center is going to ultimately look like have a really good idea  i should know that the civic center place board has met now twice we met again this past monday we were able to walk through the civic center here we get into a good idea of what we're facing out there and what the the building is going to be so that group has really hit the ground running we've got you appointed some some really go get our people excited that where you are hopefully in the very near future going to begin to bring new recommendations on how we deal with the civic center has hit the street for management that actually went out the day after their first meeting so we're able to get that rowing that will come back in the next couple of weeks we'll have to have obviously some time to review it and interview folks and then get a recommendation to you for who will actually run the place but we're beginning to get inquiries on renting the place in twenty eighteen so people are aware of it there they see it as a community asset and are really wanted to get in there so it's an exciting time to become when we're out of the ground and now we're really going to begin in earnest building the facility but that's exciting thank you for watching over all those details matt and i love that water there up on the corner and every as many pictures as possible of that is so close to all the development that can happen from downtown to the water so it's such an exciting reality when you're almost going to beat the snow but probably not completely we will one way or another we're going to beat the snow if it comes before we get it close or not we're going to work that particular the snow we know it's schedule this year every year right so thank you thank you for that report it's great to get a little picture of the inside and you wonder what's going on when you just go by there so we appreciate you're giving us periodic reports you're going to continue doing that through the year right well we definitely will you and commissions we have the nomination for the appointment of tierra johnson to the human relations commission for her first full term that's going to expire in june two thousand and twenty to recess  international relations commission for her first full term and that expires in june two thousand and twenty elizabeth carroll to the human relations commission for her first partial term that partial term expires in june twenty eight kinder boss to the west michigan airport authority for his first partial term that partial term expires in june two thousand and twenty so we have a recommendation for tierra johnson through the each or c three place the vacancy left by phil corey and theresa stanek to the international relations commission to replace the vacancy left by ian mackaye and elizabeth carroll to the age or c to replace a vacancy left by jennifer white kiner boss to the west michigan airport authority to replace the vacancy left by former community member scott corbin who is now going to be and instead as a council member so could i have a motion to that effect so move  different boards and commissions quincy byrd as an alternate to the police community relations commission and as an alternate to the west michigan airport authority scott corbin to the brownfield redevelopment authority the planning commission and the west michigan airport authority me to the civic center place aboard the planning commission in youth advisory council as an alternate to the civic center place board in the neighborhood improvement committee and parks and recreation commission and the highland energy fund dave hoekstra to the international relations commission and the west michigan here port authority wayne conference to the human relations commission the sustainability committee and the holland energy fund brian lamb to the board of public works j peters to the downtown development authority the historic district commission and the neighborhood improvement committee and my chris dewey to the area express transportation authority the complete police in favor say aye but oppose same sign that carries as well thank you we appreciate everybody's service and all those different all those different boards and commissions we don't only do what you see here there are a lot of other things that are going on and it's an honor to serve the community in all those various places and if you heard of a commission that sounded interesting to you as you listen to that whole list please go to the city website city of allen dot com and look up there's a volunteer form there you can fill that out and send it into the city and and that is the place for the kind of commission you would like to serve on and we put that on file and when we have a can seize we can call you through the department head that looks sundays already sold out so there's a matinee on saturday and even join set as well so go google search and i encourage you to check it out it's a it's a really really well done performance and so proud alumni moment there so yeah that's great you guys make a great commercial a trio of commercials tonight thank you any other comments all right we'll move on then motions and resolutions from council members we have any of those seeing that we need to go into a closed session to review a legal opinion after this meeting so we will have to do we have to journey from here if we have to do a motion to go zero thank you sir so have a good evening thank you so much for tuning in and for caring about the city take care