everyone welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of the city council this is the annual meeting where we approve the budget for the upcoming fiscal year which begins on july one and it's the meeting that happens post tulip time which means that during tulip time we don't have a meeting so there are items that get pushed back into this one so it ends up being a pretty healthy sized meeting and tonight is no different before we begin conducting business we need to ensure that we have a quorum to conduct business and so i would ask the deputy city clerk to please call the thereafter we will have the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states if everyone in chambers would be so kind as to rise and join us in these items we appreciate pray with me our heavenly father we come before you as a humble people thank you for allowing us to live work and play in this wonderful place we call home in michigan we stand in awe the beauty that you allowed us to partake of the beauty that we witnessed last week with the blooming of the flowers and continued throughout the spring the snow has are side receded rece d and the new growth has come where refreshed is this the earth also lowered we asked as we observe national police week and the natural national police officers memorial day tomorrow we ask that you be with those that put their lives on the line for us on a daily basis to protect us we ask that you be with the families that are left behind by those that have given their lives in line of duty we also ask that you be with those excuse me those brave men and women that protect us on foreign soil lord we ask that you just that you gu discussions evening we respect each other's opinions and thoughts and we be patient with each other be with those that are down and out those that are suffering from illness and injury we pr thank you mike there are copies of tonight's agenda located in there and this there were at one point copies of tonight's agenda located in the rack in the rear of the room if you'd like a copy of it you certainly are free to grab one also if you have an electronic device of some sort of i pad or computer or smartphone if you go to the cities website city of holland dot com go to the calendar page today's date you'll see an indicator for this meeting at that place you will find not only a copy of tonight's agenda but also a copy of all the background material that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting for future reference those items typically are put on the website at the early part of a meeting week so you can follow along with what we're doing on a weekly basis and again that is at city of holland dot com if you believe our wife i system in city hall is still password protected if you need some assistance with that password some staff member would happily get that password to you as you look at the agenda you will note that there are a variety of items a bunch of them tonight actually with an asterisk next to them these are items that are on the consent agenda in general terms we believe that these are relatively routine items we believe the council has previously discussed them and our intention is to handle them with one motion one vote collectively regardless of where they show up on the agenda now you might think that it's not quite so routine as we do so what we're going to do is i'm going to first ask the deputy city clerk to read through all of the items that are presently slated to be on the consent agenda after she does that give you an opportunity to have an item removed from the consent of gender but and she takes a walk and deep drink of water to prepare her voice for this long listing with concerned items w to approve the minutes of regular and close such an held april second regular in budget sessions help april sixteenth but budget session held april seventeenth study session held april twenty third and special meeting held april thirtieth two thousand fourteen item eleven eight to accept and file executed oaths of office item fourteen eighty one to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to sign a contract with e r m in the amount of one million seven hundred ninety seven dollars and one million seven hundred ninety seven six zero three with a ten percent contingency for a total of one million nine hundred seventy seven thousand three hundred sixty three dollars for the demolition and management oversight at the new power plant pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen eighty two to accept the bid from richland machine and pump for energy emergency repairs to the water treatment plant and approve a transfer from contingency funds to capital funds the amount of twenty four thousand five hundred thirty eight dollars for this project i know fourteen eighty three to approve a new meter information specialist job classification to replace the existing building chord meter position with a classification of eight wage rate of fifty two thousand two hundred four dollars to sixty seven thousand eight hundred eighty one dollars fourteen eighty four to approve a fiscal year two thousand people team budget amendment increase of two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a total amount of five million three hundred forty four thousand dollars from the how important public works electric utility fund to the city of howland general fund fourteen eighty five to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to sign a contract with franklin how weird company in the amount of eight hundred sixty three thousand seven hundred thirty dollars for improvements to various live stations and some shore drive pending approval s to form by the city attorney also to approve a budget transfer of one hundred sixty three thousand seven hundred thirty dollars from the sewer contingency fund for this project i had in fourteen eighty six to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to sign a three year contract with waste management in the amount of one hundred fifty dollars per load in fiscal year two thousand and fifteen the end up to one hundred sixty five dollars and thirty seven cents per vote in the fiscal year two thousand and seventeen to holland dispose residuals from the wastewater treatment plant is pending pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen a seven to authorize the mayor and deputy clerk to sign a three year contract with grow america in the amount to one million seven hundred sixty four thousand dollars for the holly and land application of liquid bio salads and farm fields for beneficial reuse pending approval as to form by the city attorney i am fourteen eight to authorize a mayor deputy clerk to sign environmental and premises liability insurance in the amount of two hundred thirteen thousand six hundred sixty nine dollars for a ten year term and a nine month term of general liability in the i'm up to twenty seven thousand five dollars for the howland energy park four thousand eight hundred nine to authorize a mayor in deputy clerk to sign an agreement in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars with marsh to provide risk management services for the hauen energy part pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen eight ten to approve an offer of just compensation for a parcel of land located in just in the general area of fifth street in fairbanks in the amount of eighty five thousand one hundred dollars for the new energy park future power plant i don't fourteen a leaven to approve the increase of water and waste water rate effective july one two thousand and fourteen i don't fourteen twelfth to accept and declare various how on board of public works surplus items to be donated auctioned off and or sold to the general public item fourteen d want to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration i am fourteen d two two through the fireworks permit for the fourth of july community celebration submitted by lancer broadcasting corporation item fourteen d c three to approve a new texaco have license for a n s taxi item fourteen d four to approve of to approve various annual city licenses per section seven hundred s seven of the city ordinance and to adopt a resolution for the submittal of pool billiard licenses i am fourteen the one point one to approve and adopt a resolution for the fiscal year two thousand and fifteen c v program which authorized the staff to submit the annual action plan to u s department forty thousand dollars for the development of a master way finding signage program item fourteen easy to point one to approve a catering services agreement with above and beyond catering restaurant hall college catering beechwood in restaurant and catering and the gilmore group catering for the two thousand and fourteen season at windmill island gardens in fourteen need two point two to authorize the resubmission of a grant to the community foundation of the hauen sealing area in the amount of forty thousand dollars for the purchase of five ninety eight grass in support of improvements to the digraph nature center i had in fourteen eat two point three two proven except funding in the amount to twenty two thousand dollars from the fair food network for the double up food bucks program to be utilized at the hauen farmer's market i don't fourteen ether point one two accept the march two thousand and fourteen monthly financial reports as provided by the finance department i did fourteen e's three point two to accept from the finance department the quarterly investment report for the third quarter of fiscal year two thousand and fourteen january through march as required by public act twenty item fourteen the three point three to approve an amendment to the agreement with the community foundation unsealing area to allow investment of donated funds to be allocated for the women island garden speech or fun item fourteen e s three point four two accept the bit of tennis court some limited in the amount of forty four thousand two hundred dollars for the resurfacing a basketball and tennis courts marie anne and how in hades parks to be paid from the municipal capital improvement fund i am fourteen eat three point five two accept a bit of a one a sample asking in the amount of thirty one except the bit of douglas safety systems in the amount to war forty one thousand four hundred sixty two four hundred sixty two dollars and forty cents for twenty one sets of fire fighter protective clothing to be paid from the fiscal year two thousand fourteen in two thousand and fifteen budget and item fourteen e's three point seven two except the bit of air a waste for the long term commercial refuse in the recycling services effective july one two thousand and fourteen through june twenty thirty two thousand and twenty and toss the rise the mayor and deputy clerk to sign ominous the sciri documents pending approval as to form by the city attorney all right thank you and that is what is presently on the con that perhaps you are here to talk about one of those items in particular that at this time i would invite anyone he wishes to remove an item from the consent agenda and then have council take it up in the ordinary spot on the agenda in which it appears i ask you to step forward of the microphone ahead of me and ahead of you and let us know what item you would like remove at this time anyone all right seeing none of what is the pleasure of council with the amended consent agenda i'm sorry concerts that would give me the look yes procedurally i will request it fourteen eleven ok the b p report yes i understood all right so the fourteen eleven the water and sewer rate adjustments is also removed from consent presentations and recognitions by the mayor and or council members tonight we are very pleased to have and to recognize the sort of preemptively but i'm quite certain it will work out fine in the end give us an hour or so volunteers  policing services participants the vip spur to suppress and chief messer or captain dykstra i believe you are going to walk us through this exciting and important item for us tonight it is good evening mayor city council thank you for giving us an opportunity to highlight are newly formed volunteers and policing team volunteers and policing service service was a stablished after former president george w bush through presidential directive created the usa freedom corps in response to the events of nine eleven citizen volunteers were asked to assist our local law enforcement and in cooperation with the international association of chiefs of police was a stablished as a way for citizens to volunteer in their community on behalf of the police department about a year ago i was given the permission by chief minister and city manager brian cotton to explore the feasibility of a stablish seen a vip program volunteer program but with the caveat that there was no budget associated with this idea so i pulled together three key individuals and we started to explore the possibility we establish goals strategies task created policy determine job descriptions created treatment material sought out community partners to assist with logistics needed recruited interviewed and trained volunteers our overall goal was to employ a team of volunteers that displayed excellence integrity and character tonight the chief and i are pleased to announce our own fallen department of public safety volunteers and policing team i want to first take a minute to recognize and think the design team that helped to bring this team to fruition this work could not have been happened without their hard work in it th you community policing sergeant lisa benz ik she was instrumental in being the staff liaison and making sure that things got done and i just want to think lisa's well you then in order to start a volunteer organization a need to incorporate a volunteer right on the get go at first for organizing it and wendell herrick where is she she's right over here he's also part of our team she won't be on the road necessarily but i just want to they feel like a broken record with these these awards because these these organizations and these people are always stopping open up and helping us and in big ways the matter what we what we throw their way they seem to come through for  us in this case there are three awards tonight that i want to hand out there actually the two thousand and fourteen community partnership ward we have these out very rarely but two organizations or individuals that assist us and  kind of group or systems financially or in kind donations or whatever they may do to assist us the first one i want to bring up is paul cook from sound off signal i think p things to sound off signal so without them like the deficit we were really given a budget so through donations we were able to make that carload really sharp's i really appreciate them all so thank you of charge looks very very sharp they're always up up up to the plate i was just over talking to you a few days ago going prepared to strike a few of our vehicles so we really appreciate your help with us so john final one is one of our reserve officers mike are you here mike my mike works for of west michigan uniform and i didn't know this until recently but mike came  people to go on vacation so we checked the security of their home observe and report activities being around schools just being visible and reporting to nine one one anything that they see that's suspicious and then being at community events and helping a set up and be at those types of things so and i want to introduce you to each one of the volunteers all column by name if you'd stand up when i do first off mike boston mike bob sorry he's the undercover volley certain that that would be a pretty quick ordinance amendment to authorize you all to do the work that you volunteered to do and we thank you for it thank you also to your sponsors and i was as i saw specifically the sound off a signal gentleman here it reminded me that that the latest so far as i know at least the latest sound off commercial is going to maybe not show some cars are used to that's the mayor pro tem of the red when there but maybe some background scenery that looks vaguely familiar so some of the latest of their advertisement that go around the world were filmed right here in holland so continued great partnership with sound off we certainly appreciate always say hey if i'm you know sort of a police officer function where's my badge so one very very tiny one shot of my office at one point but i'm in days gone by the city council members would actually get badges and they're supposed to turn them in when  when they leave council but one by one they seem to disappear because council members over the years have kept them so no new badges for us but thank you all for hammer of council right exactly that yeah i'm just saying that as other members have left and we're work and obviously you take it seriously and we're thankful for for your willingness to serve your community in this way so thank you all right we then go to the minor height of the special order of the day it looks so small on the agenda but it is the city budget for the upcoming fiscal year so either feel free to excuse yourselves if you're if you're wanting to leave or get comfortable because this is the one time of year by charter that the city council has to adopt the budget for the upcoming fiscal year which as i mentioned earlier begins on july one of twenty fourteen and runs through the end of june in twenty fifteen this is a process that has been going on in earnest for about five or six five months or so but really it is a process now that is a twelve month process not a meeting goes by where we were not hearing from senior study staff about budget issues and budget thoughts and budget priorities for upcoming years beginning in late december beginning in early january the city department heads city management really work in earnest to begin the preparation for the upcoming budget for the new fiscal year city council in january has the annual coffee with council meeting where we you know spend a saturday morning here and sort of have an open forum for anybody who wants to come and talk with us about thoughts about the city things we should do things that we are doing that we shouldn't do questions concerns all those kinds of things out of that we then have a council retreat to few weeks later i think the your was really february based on the retreat activities certain priorities emerge and the city manager and his team then take those priorities and work them into the budget preparation process and the city manager presents a proposed budget to council in early april and council then spent the better part of a week evaluating that budget proposal looking at specific items agreeing disagreeing talking amongst ourselves agreeing disagreeing with amongst ourselves and ultimately we get to a place where we feel sufficiently comfortable that it gets put onto the agenda for this evening's meeting and by law we also have to have a public hearing on the budget all by way of saying that the document that is going to be discussed in very brief form of the next few minutes by the city manager takes months and months worth of effort by a team of really remarkable and dedicated people and this is not something that gets simply if you took take a look at last year's budget and cut and paste a few numbers and call it good but there are hours upon hours weeks upon weeks months upon months of effort to try to put this together a full and complete copy right ryan do you have a paper copy of the proposed budget with you tonight i thought you did maybe you don't i do ok it just to give you a sense as to the size and volume of the document that we're talking about here and it is available both online at the city's web site but there are also hard copies available of perry district library as well as copies available in the city manager's office and i think the finance office and city hall also so it's certainly something that's that's a available and viewable for the public but you get a sense that this is no small task to put together this substantial document for the city and with that mr cotton city manager i turn the attention of the meeting to you to walk us through some of the salient pieces of the proposed budget for fiscal fifteen thank you mr mayor it is my pleasure to do so so i do so on behalf of many of the discussions you referenced over a half a dozen many of the dozens of discussions and meetings held within this building i want to thank the whole leadership team especially tim violate his finance team think of add an ak and our office also michelle price for their special special devotion to this activity and it's one that we approach with some reverence because it is so meaningful to the community and to the council and to the services that we render following my presentations there will be presentation by the board of public works which falls under the umbrella of the city council in your services to the community in relation to utility services so what you hear from me is everything that is non utility essentially the good news is we have a balance budget we have a small increase in the taxable value that's been made available complements of the economy and our homeowners and our businesses and we have also have an ability to generate some resources for reinvestment this year so i want to focus on some of these things quickly so you have an opportunity to understand the whole picture better this is probably one way to capture everyone's attention  it's really essentially is about services and providing a return for the taxpayer dollar what this chart shows it may not be extremely visible at home but it shows that the bulk of these services are socially with school and we want to thank brian davis who happens to be in the audience tonight for the services rendered both by the state as well as the school districts so one thousand percent relates to schools state education fifteen percent intermediate school district fourteen percent so that leaves value we have a small surplus a fund balance for maintaining at above the fifteen percent level we're actually at sixteen percent fifteen percent is recommended by the auditors some investments and a flat tax rate so some people are interested in it does not keep up with the pace of assessed value and that's due to proposition a in state law and other things that would take a long time but the point is as property improvements happen our revenues do not keep pace this is a projection five years out we always want to give you some insight as to where we're going to end up if we continue on a certain pace this is the fiscal year being recommended with the small surplus and a three point three million fund balance next year at the same tax rate we'll have a slightly larger surplus and a similar fund balance and that's good however we start to lose ground for the next three four years if we continue based on the assumptions that we're making on  were these are not insurmountable numbers we can overcome this via a variety of economies and hopefully some some some other variables that we tended to surmount every year so that we will not end up in a hole it does show you though that we're we're we always we're not flush we need to contain due to be diligent sources from off funds it all combined utilities three million dollars the number of resources that we need to function and the costs are similar to in twenty three million you can see that the bulk of the costs associated with utility services  s dave costs are we'll explain here shortly when you one looks at the the applications a large portion has to do with capital outlay and that's essential to keep our infrastructure in good working condition when looking at the general fund we're looking at in total twenty point six million necessary and forty eight percent is generated by property taxes that's a declining  number as property taxes have declined there have been other resources that have come into play we're grateful this year that there's a hundred thousand dollar increase in the statutory state revenue sharing expenditures are also  shared between different reasons working wages is forty two percent of the of what is associated with our expenditures and twenty five percent relates to fringe benefits which is an ever challenging number to control given health and pension costs by function fifty one percent is public safety and i want to thank especially chief messer and captain dykstra and jerry for their services in the for the volunteer  program and you heard about the budget that they spent it will double that next year and in that way this number will well continue to be contained and appropriately though it's a large it's appropriate that it's large because their services are great i wanted to show you a little bit about tax rates in other communities these are mid size communities and stay in michigan there's thirty six of them total and if you look for holland on this list from thirty six down to one eighteen you will not find it that's because we are lower than that in looking at the total ranking holland ranks eleventh out of those thirty six and so our services are in the lower you want to be lower right i mean correct we want to be in the lowest wondered exactly which is where we are correct all right so to make sure that we understood add it to thirty six thirty six being high we're closer to the bottom at number eleven of mid size communities this is a chart that shows the percentage of operating tax levy compared to the general fund budget so that comparison if it's a high number percentage wise that's that means we're we're getting quite a bit of money from taxes and if it's a low number  taxes there are being used less and less so this year we're at forty six point zero three percent and that's the second lowest that we've been in the last twenty years the only other year is we were tied with one nine seven to scare ninety seven in terms of being cost effective compared to the overall expenditures in relation to taxes our debt milledge has begun to decline this was our high point in its fiscal year two thousand and twelve slight decline the following year and then the city used some resources that were able to be conserved and paid this off in the last fiscal year and we anticipate some study this is milledge two point two  mills remain steady until we can possibly purchase by off pay all the debt by year twenty twenty twenty twenty two now i'm going to talk about the retreat accounts retreat that you mentioned there were a total of i think eighteen priorities and what you see in blue represents something in the budget has been written to address and there will be expenditures and or  cost savings and or services rendered associated with all nine of those high priorities i will not take time tonight to outline them all but i do want to call people's attention to the city's website and the agendas for april sixteenth which are the study sessions there are roughly four hundred maybe a little over five hundred pages worth of detail the next slide a total of eighteen parodies as i mentioned all the ones in blue show significant activities the ones in black show areas that we want more definition on we need more definition before we can make serious progress or in the case of number thirteen regionalization we're we believe that we have done a lot we believe we can do a lot more and have done so with college or township in the last year given the ottaway to agreement yet there's nothing large looming on the horizon so we couldn't claim in this budget we're accomplishing anything more on that although we remain interested there within the budget there are strategies and action plans the action plans outlined how we're going to accomplish the strategies some of the major ones that are new this year are on the slide and i do want to touch on them project clarity is a dollars in there that's associated with like bridge funding from other regional governments in a way that would enable hopefully a positive outcome in a community vote in november how in your connections is  your major effort to mentor and and sponsor opportunities for income producing returns on investment for at risk youth and that's funded to the tune of thirty thousand dollars in this budget to funds outside of the there's a total of one hundred and fifteen thousand now that's available to multiply that program by five so be five times larger than last year home energy retrofits pilot project twenty five thousand from the city twenty five thousand from t and twenty five thousand from some co which is a tremendous accomplishment and i think part of public works for working that out and other costs that have been other revenues that has been retained over time so that we can experiment with that building energy labeling this is all part of the community plan twenty five thousand is in this budget for that part time shared energy manager with the board of public works is in here when milling gardens transition staffing to implement the strategic plan of the window and gardens and the business plan to hopefully partner with a nonprofit to make even better things possible and i just want to pause and say we had a tremendous tulip time so our appreciation to the parks department to have time festival and  are successful financial not last couple of weekends we need to reduce the street lighting causes our single largest to truly expense reduce energy costs citywide rental inspection staffing has been increased you supported that with the adjustments already and we also hope to put in a city hall customer service station in the in this lobby associated with some of the those fee increases so those are some of the more interesting i thought to the community and larger items that are new this year and i'm coming to one of the final slides this represents where we had some loose ends during our last study session and without belaboring  it it does enable these outcomes enable the city to have another canine unit so as police chief is identified those units are extremely if you fact if it will go fifty percent larger from two to three there's an increase in the electric fund dividend associated with the bridge funding and the history trust and the details here are shown some of it relate to what i just said this thirty nine thousand dollars is our communities has already done so and the more availability the more lives then there's increases in a missile capsule improvement fund associated with as i said that the dividend way finding signage trees this amount to fifty thousand dollars worth of tree replacement which is necessary given that twenty five hundred trees that are being removed associated with the ash for disease project supervision addresses some of our facility needs and also some of our civic center needs was safety improvements while we look at long term solutions i'm going to this chart represents the fact that we now have international ations in human relations reporting to the city manager's office directly and once again one of the slides the reinvestment theme street reconstruction resurfacing we are attempting to go from a thirty five year plan to a twenty year plan that plan takes more funding and some of the debt millage that was paid off is being redirected to the streets fund i realized just recently like in the last half hour this number is actually slightly small more than point four or five miles but it's close to the fire station renovation replacement we are redirecting point two five eight five mills towards a fire station debt service fund so that we can address the long term needs for two stations probably moving one station and there might be some land acquisition associated with that and you'll be hearing more about that in the next several months the recreation functions i will be suggesting that unilateral study session that we move long term out of the civic center the recreation center that would be built a new and but that will be based on a study that's funded as part of the bowels pool restoration replacement study shown here and meanwhile take care of some safety issues in the civic center as i mentioned all this is to say that there's a property tax levy that you will be acting on tonight if you choose as proposed or as amended you'll note that the bottom line is fifteen point one zero a five mills and there is no change in that over the last two years so we the third year at that rate there is a change in the midst of a couple of projects that's associated with the the the fire station replacement and a change here in the street improvement projects that also includes the resurfacing of the pathway on thirty second and looters roads and yet there's other adjustments that there is no change in the bottom line that shows you the tax rates over the last ten years and how they've stayed as flat as possible given the economic and other situations we've encountered and that shows our front balance and this is the last slide you can show that we've been able to maintain a steady front balance and have that available for any major problems that might occur and above the auditors recommended minimums be happy to answer questions counsel any questions for the city manager  one piece that's always i think confusing is that michigan the source of municipal budgets city budgets is at least for us three principal areas the largest segment and if you can go back to decades in frankly is now largely governed by proposal a and that's that it goes back to ninety four in large measure and part of it was in trying in the constitution limits the growth in your property tax valuable property tax the value of your of your property for purposes of tax point tongue twisting tonight the growth in your property for purposes of property tax assessment there we go in exchange the the sales tax went up a little bit and that money was supposed to be dedicated to local units of government to make up for that difference part of that was in trying to the constitution in the state as had no ability to mess with it part of it was done through a statutory appropriation by the legislature which was almost immediately violated by the legislature and in lansing and in large measure they have appropriated that money for themselves to handle their own budgetary issues instead of directing it back to local municipalities you're talks about state should revenue that's what that is and for us fortunately in holland we also as owners of the board of public works we eva's owners a dividend payment from the board somewhat because  municipal installations are not taxed consumers energy own power plants and transformers and those sorts of things there would be property taxes paid on those items but there's also the sense that we are putting at risk some of the public's  capital and if the board does well then we ought to as the the owner of the entity receive a dividend from the from the good performance and good management of the utility and you can see that that's also a pretty substantial part of our budget so it really comes from three places the one final thing i'll say about this is that the property tax piece obviously if you will for a couple slides i think we saw in beginning in over four zero five and continuing on for the better part of six years or  so substantial declines in the value of property taxes and this was something that nobody and i mean nobody thought was a reality back when proposal a was put into place so you see all of these  bars that go beneath the zero percent area and in into negative numbers and you have to go back to probably the great depression if not before to see anything like that happen which is bad for one year obviously we see a number of successive years in which the property tax base actually shrunk but under proposal a it's even worse than that because unlike when the state has a bad year with income tax collection if the economy comes roaring back an income tax collection goes through the roof the state sees the immediate benefit of it but because of proposal a now we are always limited to the increase that is a cost of living in essence increase it's capped at a certain amount of the rate of inflation so what we've seen is in essence a permanent resetting of our tax base so though the numbers have gone back up over three percent in some instances this past year i think we were limited to a one point seven percent one point six percent increase in the tax rate so that becomes problematic so even if hypothetically everybody's property values went up twenty percent next year the taxable value from the city standpoint only goes up that rate of inflation now as a homeowner as a property owners a tax payer i like that sort of thing but it causes us some pretty significant stresses in the municipal budget the total dollar amount in this budget is not the general fun piece at least is i think axing and spending at about two thousand and four to two thousand and five that range so clearly the amount of revenues that have come in have been substantially constrained and the only way we've been able to keep the budget balanced is by doing some pretty significant cost savings and for us as you saw in some of the slides the biggest cost that we have as a service business is in people and unfortunately that has meant some substantial downsizing in our employment ranks mostly i'm pleased to say through attrition but our costs are through people in the associated cost with people and we've had to do a lot of things to basically make this organization sustainable it's been hard work it's been tough work but i think at the end of the day it's rewarding work because now as an organization we're on a path that lets us be sustainable into the future and seeing even moderate growth even small growth keeps us in a spot we're able to manage things whereas we continued a path five or ten years ago spending at the levels we were at quite simply we'd be broke by now all the reserves would be spent and we'd be in terrible shape we certainly know of other cities in michigan that have faced those kinds of issues not been fun it's not been easy but it's been important and we're seeing some of the benefits of it now all right any comments from counsel or questions before we hold our public hearing seeing none this is the time of the place for the public hearing on the proposed budget and tax rate for the fiscal year of twenty fifteen which begins july one of twenty fourteen and runs to june thirtieth twenty fifteen if you'd like to comment on tonight open i take that back i'm jumping ahead now here's just a small portion of the salt portion of that i was all excited dave sorry curb your enthusiasm and i will go quickly sure as ryan mentioned earlier the board of public works is owned by the people the city of holland under the control of the city of holland and the general manager of the board dave custer is going to walk us through the proposed budget for the board of public works for fiscal fifteen as well thanks m and think some members city council and to the public tonight it's good to be with you i also want to echo ryan's comments in that this is a process that you know has taken you know quite a bit of time lot of work i want to thank the staff of the w this is a process for us it starts actually back in the fall late in the fall of the prior calendar year we have a charter responsibility to get a budget passed through our board by march march fifteenth and that did we did succeed with that and i want to thank tim hemingway phil miller and the rest of the board tim and phil were aboard the sub committee members that went through the the budget in detail with the staff and so we're very  pleased to be able to run through this tonight as well for you the two thousand and fifteen fiscal year budget for the poem board public works reflects a lot of investments in and in new and better things for the utility going forward including cleaner and more efficient locally sourced power infrastructure improvements in our water distribution and wastewater collection systems as well as improve customer service through advance metering and customer access to their utility information and also by bringing in in house commercial industrial energy efficiency which we already did with residential and as ryan mentioned some of the advanced or expanded energy management roles that the b p w in the city will jointly be funding to provide in our management of the community the energy plan and other initiatives going forward and then also million five hundred fifty eight thousand dollars and a little bit extra there that number is going to go up by two hundred fifty thousand dollars because of the additional transfer that was part of the agenda this evening that will be a transfer from the b b w as part of its dividend payment to the city this year so this chart needs to be reflective of that otherwise if you look at the pie chart year to year the relative percentages on the various expense categories you can see were the use of utility dollars is going by and large that goes to fuel and purchase power what it takes to run the equipment to make electricity or for buying that power from a wholesale market those are expenses that come into wedge of the pie chart as well other areas and such as the wages and benefits is just under sixteen percent that remains consistent with the prior year as well as some of the other categories so really just a general slight movement up in that total expense budget but fairly consistent in words words being used on a run through some highlights the electric utility you know the big thing that's going on there is obviously our investment in our new power generation resource capital budget is quite large this year because of that we prepared for that looked at that for many years studied alternatives and this is the best alternative when we look at a twenty five year time horizon and actually that will benefit us long beyond that but the evaluation that we made over the next twenty five years show this to be by and large the best option for us going forward it will result in better emissions of you know less emissions from this plant it'll and result in increased energy efficiency from its power generation cycle and it will result in additional waste heat you know that can be utilized for the community well in excess of the ten percent requirement for this year i think the number will be closer to thirteen and be growing to a number closer to sixteen percent over the next few years you know we do have to look at our fuel and power price forecasts and we've based those on prices that were in effect early in february there's been slight movement in that but there's been a correction back down after the winter season so right now we still feel that the numbers are fairly reflective of what we'll see over this next year overall revenue adjustments have been planned for already the counsel in the board last year approved three years of rate changes for the much utility to prepare for the bond issue for this new power plant we did successfully sell hundred fifty just over two hundred fifty eight million of bonds and so that is actually in the rate changes that have been put in place will go in effect this for this next year a little over three percent will go into effect for bills issued on or after july one of this year this chart shows what the plan is for those rate changes over the next five years you can see we're averaging about two point eight percent  after the three years of rate changes are complete that have already been approved after twenty sixteen we are forecasting somewhere closer to about two point four percent for those remaining few years of this five year window overall for let you could tell you we have about two hundred fifty six million of capital planned for the next five years vast majority as i said is the power plant we have rate adjustments that have already been approved will allow us to keep pace with where we need to be to service that debt as well as service the operating expenses the electric utility and in doing so we're still be very competitive after those adjustments this chart here shows what our competitiveness is on a residential comparison when compared  to a couple of the other utilities see the legend didn't quite come through here but others include other electric cooperatives and the city of lansing in addition to great consumers energy in grand haven how it is the far left and so we are the lowest of that group also at the commercial rates we're the lowest of the group and a fairly sizable cost effectiveness and thus are a little tighter situation but again where the lowest of the peer group after the rate changes would go into effect in the water utility again we are funding infrastructure replacement reliability again this budget is informed by a number of  different input you know the councils talked about the coffee with council in the study sessions and things like that the board i also has a strategic plan we have customer survey that we send out every year to receive feedback from our customers you know obviously our bo works very closely with our staff as well to set priorities one of the priorities it comes very clearly back from our customers is reliability what regardless of the utility service that's in question water  is you know one of our oldest utilities actually was in effect two we had a water system before electric here in holland so we have an old infrastructure it's very reliable we want to keep it that way and so we have increased our capital plans to make sure that our distribution systems are replaced and kept up to date to avoid issues with the reliability in water and so we are ageing that at a higher rate cash is the problem in the water utility it had been about two little over two years ago we came to the council on the board with a plan to increase revenues to keep up with the capital needs in the water utility we did implement two years of thirteen percent rate adjustments in the plan was at that time is that we'd have three more of those years the good news is that through some of our changes that we've made operationally some things that we've done with that to reinvest refund some of the debt that was ending in a lower interest rate  and some unexpected sales growth that we had from some of the hot summers we were able to have some income improve cash flow and so our current plan is a much reduced from the original plan we're  looking at somewhere in area of around six point seven percent increase in the reduced amounts in the next four years and we'll just that in our rate structure for both the rain is to serve which is a fixed charge as well as the commodity rate so this chart here shows where we were before in our plan versus what our plan is today and so you see that is a much reduced rate adjustment plan to meet our needs and it has helped stabilize the cash flow in the water utility overall for water we're looking at a little over fifteen million unplanned capital expenditures vast majority of that is water main replacement which i spoke to earlier and so the planned revenue adjustments will meet that to maintain our minimum cash and our cash flow obligations for that capital in terms of competitiveness and keep in mind that the two thousand and fourteen chart is what we know today twenty fifteen represents our adjustments would you see far to the left but it  doesn't represent what might happen in those other communities we are not sure what rate adjustments they have planned and so while it shows that we've become a little bit less competitive with the adjustments here all utilities and water and wastewater are facing aging infrastructure and it's likely they'll be some adjustments and some of those other communities as well so i think our competitiveness would still be down at the lower end of that chart and holland has as traditionally been and should continue to be very cost effective  its service for water in waste water one of the big drivers there has to do with not only collection system improvements we do have a lift station of a multi year lift station improvement plan to increase the reliability of that system but also our treatment plant we have aging infrastructure to deal with the biosolids the sludge that gets produced in the waste treatment process to do water that and actually be able to do that reliably the the equipment there is in need of replacement as well as the loadings to the plant have increased to a point where we need to look at some additional treatment capacity of that plant we can do that fairly cost effectively compared to a full blown expansion of the wastewater plant by optimizing the east side of the plant if you know the the plant is has treatment on the west side of river avenue and the east side of river avenue we have a plan in place to put in tree optimization measures in place to convert the oxygen or the air serrations system there to a purity high purity oxygen treatment system on the east side of the plant those two projects between the biosolids in the east side of the plant optimization are about seventeen million dollars which will require a bond so we are planning for that along with the lift stations in the collection system replacement we were looking at a couple years ago we brought the water system issues forward we also were looking at waste water changes in revenue about ten percent per year some of the things we've been able to do on some operational efficiencies at the plant have allowed us to actually lower that amount and so this year it's actually somewhat less but also somewhat in flux in terms of an evaluation on future years i will show that for this year we're looking at somewhere on average around six point three percent i will say that the future years are a little bit less certain and the reason i'm saying that and i pointed that out in our study sessions will have to work out with the treatment plant barge investment that we're making what is going to be the proper responsibility for those investments between the retail area or the sell side and the north side because the townships of holland and park and zealand today zero in township do all use the waste water implant in the usage of that plant from those areas has approached fifty percent where our current indebtedness and responsibility for debt is more of a seventy percent responsibility on the part of the retail area and thirty percent on the townships so what happens in those future years will be based somewhat on discussions this year as we work out the process for preparing for that new debt on the waste water plant so in summary for the waste water utility again when you look at the treatment plant expenditures the sewer main work in total we're at about just under thirty five million over the next five years six million of that is related to just collection system replacement talked about the bond issue of seventeen million that we're planning for later this year and the dish will work that needs to be put in place to determine the appropriate share of that but the targets that we have in place for this year will will meet our needs and as i mentioned before we are back for the future years to talk about what is most appropriate going forward on waste water again these rates reflect twenty fourteen twenty fifteen we've made our adjustment the other communities have not been adjusted but you see that we're down at the lower end of that as well so all three utility areas were very competitive and will remain that way for the electric utility customer these are the rates that have already been approved so you can see the twenty fifteen bill for an average electric customer retail electric customer they're expecting that their bill will go to about seventy one dollars this year after july one and with the rate changes already been uprooted go to seventy three dollars and eighteen cents after july one of two thousand and sixteen in the water utility we're looking at a change of an average customer of a number that would go to about twenty five dollars a month and just under twenty six dollars a month for wastewater so in summary those changes per month represent for electric about two dollars and fourteen cents for weight for water about a dollar sixty seven per month and for wastewater about a dollar sixty nine or collectively for a customer that has all three residential all three b and i'll be happy to answer any questions to are there any questions from counsel for mr c we've spent significant time on this thing david all right now not jumping the gun this time this is the opportunity time in place for the public hearing on this item if you have comments or questions you'd like to raise about the proposed budget for the upcoming year whether in the general city or in the board of public works we would ask that you step forward to the microphone so that everyone in chambers and at home can hear your questions and comments and also rules of council are pretty simple but we do our name and residential address for purposes of the record and also you're limited to five minutes to address council and we have a nice little system so that you know where you stand right below me on the dias there will be a green light that lights up when it gets to yellow that means you're at the four minute mark and when it turns red it means your time has expired so with that i would invite anyone who would wish to make a comment on the proposed budget for the city of holland board of public works to do so at this time the public hearing is right seeing it no one i will close the public hearing at that point mr city attorney we have procedurally a couple of amendments we need to make is that correct or do we just adopt we  discussion going we need to get a motion on the floor please move but for that we supported by birch shall we get right to the the proposed amendments as we've discussed with some of the adjustments from the pros budget do procedurally the proposed budget as presented by the city manager has been just over the past couple of weeks so we've got the original proposed budget on the table right now on the floor rather right now i'm assuming because we asked the city management to me some changes the changes that have been identified by mr cotton need to also then be incorporated into our motion so we need to make a motion then to adopt the now at this particular moment the only thing before us are the amendments themselves not the overall budget so just the items that are before us essentially on this screen that have changed since the proposed budget was placed before us back  april was there any discussion on the amendments themselves seeing it non on the amendments we're going to have a vote on the amendments only and a please call that rol main motion and now is there any discussion on the overall city proposed city budget as amended overall proposed to city budget b p w budget as well as the tax rate as amended discussion among council or comments yeah just a couple quick things i do support this motion it takes a lot of money to run the city and over the last three years i've learned a lot about how much it takes to run a city to run a city at the lowest cost and yet giving so this is the best service that we possibly can as a task that we all look very much aware of certainly also i want to thank all of the citizens and businesses and salaries stagnant or going down people have made real sacrifices and you have to run the city you were over but i think this is a good budget i think it's a fair have appreciate brian's work in all these different departments everybody that has worked so hard to hold the line on spending and as soon as you start to say things are getting a little better than everybody lines up and we all want it to be like it was back in one nine hundred eighty s with i kind of finances that were available but it we those days are probably coming back and so i really appreciate the attitude of the city employees the department with the willingness to say ok this is a new normal i have to do more i get paid not that much more this year for the first time and i'm willing to pull together with other departments figure out ways to do partnerships work with the townships all different ways that every single thing is not business as usual everything is rethought from a new perspective then and that is a great  great modus operandi for it for this organization and and it's very invigorating to be a part of a group like that and i thought about the b p w and this historic occasion with the development of the natural gas plant and and all that is coming for us so soon at june beginning of june they'll start taking down buildings then and things will really we'll be able to see what is happening and that that's an exciting juncture and it really struck me when i noticed information about wichita falls texas where they have had a drought for over three years they have to close their car washes once a week they have if they drain their pool they can't refill it and they have become so desperate that they are going to recycle their waste water to drink  hope and we are you know going up a dollar sixty seven a month or whatever for pure clean water that comes to us in a state surrounded by fresh water twenty percent of the world's fresh water and i don't care where anybody lives eventually everybody is going to want to live here and it is wonderful to have the resources of a city utility to ensure the safety of our drinking water and the sanity sanitary function of our waste water and and great electricity from natural gas and to have that partnership with making decisions that we can have a voice and that we can have such reliable power and it is a real gift to this community and i was struck after two of time by these two ladies that came up when the island gardens i was there for this afterglow party talking to nathan bax's the chair of the board of directors to the time and these two women were so excited they said we can't believe what you have going here in holland michigan really just love being here we just love we can't believe the way everybody gets along so well you guys come together and work on producing as a big celebration like this everybody these school kids these and nathan cydia this persons in banking this person's in government this person is in law that i mean we just decide to come together and make this celebration happen and she's they are just well we can't believe it when it was so worth it coming here from dallas texas and we're going to bring our families next and we would really like to live here actually thinking about living here and we said great look into it we'd love to have you and it reminded me of what it says on our city seal again in unity is our strength god be with us and it really was it's so great to hear it from somebody that crosses the state line to say you know what you have here is special and it's worth protecting and it doesn't come easily  represents a lot of hard work a lot of trusted relationships over a long period of time and the willingness of people is that a sign their own interests to come together to solve problems and that is why it is such an honor for me to serve in this position and to be involved in all the wonderful things that happened in this community and i am very grateful for those who have led in this budget process and also for those in the b b wu and of course tonight we again humbled by the commitment of people behind our public safety department and even the us team of volunteers willing to give up their time to make this place and keep it the safe community that it is so it's exciting  if i can just add also my thanks to ryan and great jim tim and dave and all star city stephanie b w staff for put all the work that they have into this these budgets i really admire and appreciate people who love numbers or who are least enthusiastically tolerate them because i appreciate executive summaries and fly a little higher and giving broader views of things and i put a great deal of trust into these folks in our staff to bring us the correct information could perspectives to have a lot of confidence in it what we're looking at one thing i wanted to mention was a little bit of a change in perspective and attitude this year after a number years of belt tightening and and though it was what was us isms and having to do a lot of things that we had to do out of necessity to keep the city going not necessarily what we wanted to do this year guardedly we're talking about reinvestment looking at the future and what can we do our staff and their vision and the sacrifice of a lot of folks sold thank you to everybody who's been a part of that this year and the impact y twice said my piece already so will briefly echo the thanks and appreciation to greg to ryan to dave and the tim and the dozens of other people who have played a significant roles in putting this massive document together you know i think that the best we all think we pay too much for things and and it's hard to know in the government service side quite often if i want to buy a gallon of milk and one process is benchmarking this city against other cities comparable to us as well as to other utilities and i'm always pleased with where we end up on these things but know that we continue to be vigilant and making sure that the money is spent well and that  we continue to have those good comparables and so the work is not over in fact it begins tonight though it's an important step for the fiscal year to me with that please call the rule peters yes birch to item ten which is adoption of ordinances we have three items before us tonight the first is ten a and amendment to section nine dash six which regress relates to protection of landlord notice of lease and security deposits in the wor this i'm not sure who's introducing this one for us this is something recommended by the board of public works associated with security in relation to their meters and everything associated there with they will be they looked at technology they've looked at effort here i think in looking at being able to bring our staff to be able to cite for theft or tampering of electric meters  we have typically in the past had to include how in public safety involved in that process and so it would be a court nation on that this is actually what it is allowing us to do is make that a civil infraction and allowing essentially the b p w staff to issue the ticket associated with that and so you know as a streamlining of the process here  the new power that you're getting well yeah it'll be it'll be brought to us that we'll be able to do a civil you know try to think of the right word here but it's a citation essentially into the meter and he didn't do it but you're giving him a ticket and is there any due process here that we need to be concerned with well i think there's still due process associated with these municipal infractions oh maybe  doing the enforcement d p s versus the employees that's right or the other questions for staff since this is an amendment to an ordinance that requires a public hearing this is the time and place for it if you'd like to address this particular item just a comment please again step forward to the podium name residential address and you have a five minutes to address the council the microphones again seeing no one we will close the public hearing on this hand it is recommended that we approve this amendment of the ordinance and i would accept the motion at this time so moved by their program supported by truth to any discussion allowing under ordinances indoor archery in and firearm shooting ranges so the planning commission first began well actually it's just started with the city council i believe back around the first of the year council was approached by the bullet hole gun shop who has a store up on the state street in the heights and they asked a city council if council may look into changing or requirements to allow an indoor shooting range that began a process with the planning commission looking at the proposed changes to our zoning ordinance and other sections of the  code planning commission when elton did some field studies that at a shooting range in the city of wyoming held a public hearing and so forth and ultimately some text amendments of who made their way to coun the police department in heard the loudness of a firearm being shot down in the shooting range down there too so this is been a a really rather interesting way of making legislation for the city so sufis it to say i'll jump right to some of the the meat so to say of these proposed ordinances and the planning commission is recommending that you c one the c two in the c four zone districts to specifically allow indoor archery and foreign shooting ranges as a special land use their proposed revisions to section twenty four of the city code in regards to the discharge of firearms in there was also proposed revisions to section seventeen dash one of the code that would add indoor archery discharge a weapon in the line of duty and then lastly there was the the notion of looking at potentially having hours of operation on this indoor archery and shooting range  and the suggestion here is that they could possibly be from seven a m to nine p m in the evening so i'd be glad to take any questions you have mark a question on the c one piece since the  proposed range that is driving much of this discussion is located in the c one district could you give a bit more information on the special use process and some of the should city council approve this language any though in we'll go with your c one district requirement and we'll go with the the applicant that's kind of in front of the council for the planning commission to do you would need then need to make application to the planning commission for a special land use procedure ok and in along with that then state law does require that any special land use also requires  plan review to go along with that so the planning commission will be able to review very specific lay the land use look at the property look at the site plan aspect of the proposal and be able to make or add some conditions on the approval both in regards to the actual use itself and for the development of the property through the site plan and you know an example of that could be additional landscaping requirements of lighting requirements if need be to the special land use procedure the planning commission could start that process and  approves has recommended even the city manager recommendation it is my understanding that it's done that is correct so that what you said which you just said about the planning commission coming in to make other arrangements more restrictive is prohibited or am i correct in that we ask for city attorney  certainly any action by the planning commission would have to be done and in conformance with the state law regulations on this but as a special land uses only to enabling act as the plane commission the ability to look at the standards and determine whether the applicant meets those standards if the applicant meets those standards then it has to be approved if the applicant doesn't meet those standards but could with conditions the planning commission can impose the conditions to make them meet those standards but does it run chance of running opposed to the state laws farmers shooting ranges but what i don't want to happen here is somebody think that we've got one more stop gap whatever that may be and come to find out would be in violation of state law that's that's what we need to find out we don't need to get down the road and say ok well this is pretty cool but we're going to look at it one more time we're going to get really down to the nitty gritty one more time sorry folks you've had your one more time and that was made fourteen of twenty fourteen where are you are pinion is that these conditions are in conformance with state law but secondly you've got to realize that if someone comes in with an application that meets the standards for site plan review in seventeen point thirty nine they're seventeen point two state law says the application has to be granted you can't say oh we don't want to grant it for this location just because we don't feel it's appropriate if it meets the standards it has to be approved if it doesn't meet those standards in our ordinary approach should not be approved i understand that run began got a different thing going on here with the state gun law specifically going toward indoor shooting ranges a nd you're absolutely right and in normal circumstances this would not even be a question this is a special circumstance of them want to make sure that we're doing it right the first time  ron but i think maybe a good example is say you know what with this evening the suspect number six say you go with the noise level of being fifty decibels and that's in the law correct and correct me if i'm wrong right i don't think the planning commission then through a site plan review process could say well we're going to require forty or forty five around the correct design is that meet the standards planning commission decided to change the hours of operation they could that is incorrect if you adopt the ordinance amendment there's no hours of operation now so if you amend this ordinance if it were as you adapt and impose hours of operation the planning commission wouldn't be able to change those hours thank you that's what i wanted to clarify have it was not stated that way and i don't want there to be any misperceptions or misconceptions that yes we might be able to do it later only coun that once we change it now we can't get any tighter we can get loose or whatever is passed tonight i do think you might though that council could in theory put into the ordinance that well you know one of the standards the planning commission can consider as part of a condition for approval is limitations on hours of operation not dictating what those are  specifically provide guidance to the planning commission and other conditions for occupancy in operation for example that the planning commission has to address or an applicant has to abide by now there there's not necessarily black and white kinds of rules because the idea is to give the planning commission some degree of discretion and leeway in looking at a specific site plan for a specific project and then of nothing other questions for mark or the city attorney at this moment all right this is the time in the place for the public hearing on this particular item you find out heard the other the rules of counsel naming residential address for the record up to five minutes and we welcome public comment on the side of the hearing is over i'm bill parr thirteen hard drive my wife and i are members to this community for ten years and we are friends of this splendid community for many decades we love our  sympathy is with the residential people in the vicinity of the bullet hole i won't cite the area there are within about five hundred feet of that retail arms merchant at least twenty houses and there are probably fifty to one hundred houses residential within a quarter mile a thousand feet or so there is a vast difference between archery shooting and firearms shooting a vast difference not merely in the sound seventy five eighty eighty five decibels of a safety issue and the worry of the residential community would would surely have  not allow firing range indoor firing range for weapons anywhere near residential which means avoid letting them be in see one this question outside the city limits of holland and surely a site could be found near the city limits near us thirty one such as the bullet hole to the north to the south to the southeast then you could go to the edge of the holland airport i hope for all of the distinguished counsel will put some kind of limits that will appeal and i think you can find something workable near the city limits of home for this kind of activity but surely keep it away from any residential if at all possible thanks for your consideration thank you outside here where it says that the desire is to have a pleasant place for the residents of holland to live and it goes on it sounds really nice and it is a pleasant place at this time i would like to ask the council members a few questions or present some things one there was a mention of that there was a shooting range that was visited in wyoming halves any of the members of the council is of that range one right for the information that those who get care it's located on the vision ave it is located in a business two location not a business one it needed special approval to be placed there there are no residential dwellings within five hundred feet of  is not a comparable type of neighborhood type of place it's considered pretty much of a commercial heavy commercial area it is not the heights by any means i volunteer with habitat of humanity and we're building a house on seventeenth street where over there today and we saw the truth of the process and i said wow those are ten zero zero trusses that's a ten twelve pitch you don't want that roof i asked the site supervisor why do you have a ten twelve pitch well the city of holland requires us to have a ten twelve pitch so it fits into the character of the neighborhood and they also require special trim around the windows so it fits into the character of the neighborhood why i guess my question is why is the city so concerned about the appearance of a house on a given street that they didn't dictate the slope of the roof the trim around the windows so that they don't it doesn't disturb the character of the neighborhood and yet you're planning to establish the ability to put a shooting range into the heights area which certainly will change the character of the neighborhood why would we even consider that talking about i have a question about house values i purchased a number of houses i've looked at websites i've yet to see a house that said those really great point of this house is this with the walking distance to a shooting range it just doesn't make any sense surely there's other places that a shooting range could be made could be placed if you pass this is c one i think the washington square area there's a see one business you're going to allow shooting range there what just take some time and really consider this it doesn't make a lot of sense in that location there's got to be better locations there just has to be  one is not a place to even consider putting a shooting range thank you good evening hi hi thank you good evening my name is keith jones i live at seven thousand six papar drive right next to patrick and i'm within that five hundred feet of the proposed shooting range i want to make it clear that i'm not opposed to guns and i'm not entirely opposed to an indoor shooting range in holland i see the need for shooting ranges especially since the dealers close the outdoor shooting ranges just north of holland i understand it's a requirement but a supposed requirement for renewing concealed carry permits however i don't believe that it requires proof that the applicant has spent that amount of time in a shooting range i think i believe it's just a checkbox so i'm not sure i'd want to say i'm not sure i don't have solid evidence but i believe that's all that's required is that you say that you've spent that requirement in a shooting range over the last year and i believe no proof is required but it is all that said i am opposed to installing a gun range in such close proximity to housing i i don't think that a gun range fits within the fabric of holland heights and i especially don't want to give people a reason to bring guns into my neighborhood and onto the street where i live and i suspect that there would be a good number of people wanting to discharge their firearms in such a range and  i just don't like the idea of these guns leaving people's houses where i suspect that they're well kept and under lock and key and bringing them into my neighborhood  that that frightens me a little i have guns of my own i've spent a lot of time shooting guns but they stayed in my home and that's where i would like everybody else's guns to stay as well i don't want them brought on to my street thank you thank  you good evening and welcome my name is dennis johnson i am the original founder of the little firearms and then where do i start only have five minutes but i'll take a shot at it i believe if i'm not mistaken and i should point out i'm an n r a certified instructor and i teach the c p l classes as does my other partner david burns at the bullet hole i think you could probably bear me out of this chief there somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand people in  to practice to get better at what they're doing if you look at the facility the facility has designed considerably different than the one that you went to look at number one we have ten inch poured concrete wall  material and it will be sprayed on the inside of the building it's a commercially manufactured bullet trap and system inside the building has baffles on the ceiling this thing is designed like a bunker  our architect has told us with the sound deadening material that we're putting in it he doesn't think you'll be able to hear much of anything on the outside of the building people are coming to our store every day bringing guns buying guns trading guns asking us to sell them it's going on now nothing's going to change if there's a range there were bending over backwards there's about a better than a half a million dollar investment to build this place so this is not something we've done willy nilly the building itself was that designed by an architect shooting range industries of north las vegas designed the inside which is exactly the same company that designed and built the inside a silver bullet  and i am as i have told the council before very familiar with that it works so well over five years so i know how the range works i know how safe it is i know what needs to be done our goal here isn't to disrupt the neighborhood the building will fade in you're not going to notice it the range will be directed from the south with the back of the range facility towards eighth street and it will it trap into the range towards popple there will be nothing discharge in the direction of the neighborhood matter fact directly behind where the bullet trap will be is a parking lot so we're doing everything we can to make this thing safe we don't want to disrupt the neighborhood and i do not think we will invariably want to look at the plans and see what this place is going to look like we would be very glad to show them thank you thank you years and i always preach fair treatment and fair treatment means we treat everybody fair regardless of who you are where you are on what you do regardless of what you wear and that's what we're asking for my clients came to this council and were met with open arms we invested a lot of money i personally had a third of a million dollars of my money that i or i didn't inherit i worked my way through all school paid every dollar myself every dollar i never received one penny of any money never have never will and i don't want charity from anyone i don't want charity from you i wa it is much to ask they came before this council and they were met it tepidly at first but then as you found out what their programme was and what they were doing that they're good people these are f by night people it came from the outside and they're performing a service go down there and spend an hour in their shop and see the kind of people that come in there and the good fellowship that they have i think you're going to get a different picture go to a well run organization and see that there this isn't a baguette a bank any bank it's an occasional general pop pop pop it's smaller than my little finger it's about that long and it's two hundred twenty three thousands thousands diameter we all fear of things that we don't understand we do it pretty evening or welcome thank you my name's heather leaning and i live at eight o five papa drive the bullet holes been a good neighbor so far we haven't had any problems with them and i really feel for the fact that they want to do this however common sense to me says that you wouldn't spend millions of dollars to make something in a residential neighborhood when there is plenty of commercial and industrial area open and available in holland we are a residential neighborhood i have lived in holland heights for twenty four years and they view it as who have all said today we've all made sacrifices we approve milage hikes we want our city to be a good city we want to pay taxes and no we haven't gotten raises this probably is going to lower our property value and it seems to me that there is some confusion among council as to if you pass this today what can be amended i haven't heard anybody say this is the decibel level that we will absolutely allow  nothing over this is my residential neighborhood and you will start losing hearing at ninety i appreciate the fact that people are saying that we won't be able to hear it but i haven't heard anybody say this is the maximum we will allow as a city and if it goes above that we will respect your rights as residents and not allow that to happen also nine p m is late there are at least ten children living in that block we are a very residential family family friendly neighborhood we don't know how loud this is going to be because nobody has set a standard so i guess what i'm asking is respectfully that we actually set down what the rules for this will be before we pass out and that we as a neighborhood be respected that we we are a neighborhood i agree with keith i don't want people running around to shoot guns or driving around to shoot their guns in their neighborhood yes they are going with guns and buying guns at the bullet hole right now but they're not going with the intent of shooting them which does put a different mindset i think we can all agree that there is an adrenaline rush and there is a different mindset when you're shooting a gun it's a residential neighborhood hound's a big city there's lots of other places this could go please ease our minds an apple released set down hard and fast rules before you pass this nine o'clock is too early eighty five decibels is too loud let's let's really think this through and make sure that you're not hurting our neighborhood and our property values thank you thank you and just so you know council has not tonight had the discussion up here so we have the public hearing first then we discuss one of the topics of the discussion is the  saw was that the man in the now that's the second item the first was the picture from the two thousand and seven master plan for the home heights neighborhood page thirteen ok i'll start with in two thousand and seven february the city council adopted a master plan for the home heights neighborhood and in your ordinances section thirty nine ninety five states the  neighborhood commercial district is intended primarily to meet the neighborhood shopping and merchandising needs of residential areas hahn heights neighborhood commercial currently has offices and services h salon auto repair a better nereus office dennis attorneys offices and the bullet hole the updated master plan from two thousand and seven which you can look at in the upper left hand corner is a dream land some of the interesting things about this two thousand and seven document are that eighth street is a two lane east west connector street that provides access into the heart of this neighborhood the heart of this neighborhood at a community focus group help prior to the adoption of this document in a room with standing room only neighbors listed the following assets a good place to live and raise children a quiet neighborhood close to highways holon heights elementary school which this facility will be three point three miles from friendliness people walking and biking sidewalks and open spaces mix uses not much through traffic a mix of old and new and well preserved neighborhoods concerns that they had back in two thousand and seven traffic on a street both speed and volume the need for sidewalks on both sides of eighth street traffic on papad drive excessive speeds and again traffic and i can vouch for that i travel both those roads daily whole nights as a neighborhood with a broad range of land uses from residential to commercial retail thanks and things like meyer restaurants commercial services like the banks the attorneys office as the dentist office the veterinarians office the educational facilities grand valley state university in davenport and holland heights elementary school  public green spaces like fan wrong to farm in the proper preserve industrial sites office spaces and of course many churches i'd like to show you next a map and if you look at this map i'd like you to think this is a map that shows a certain way to zoom in on the map mark yes thank you thank you this is a map of all the shooting ranges in michigan and as you can see as you look at west michigan i'll let you do the math but the driving distance of us i have three questions for the council this evening one is this a community need intended to meet the neighborhood shopping in merchandising needs in holland heights number two traffic and parking a street in poplar drive have been a concern since two thousand and seven how will this shooting range impact the traffic on these two main arteries in my neighborhood and what is the intent of neighborhood commercial sounding that is your responsibility so as a planning commissioner i am responsible for sending the council recommendations to help guide the future development in improvements in the city and i unfortunately was not able to be at the meeting to vote on moving this issue forward i do fully support the small local business owner as my needs and wants directly i shop in e holland michigan i am however opposed to the expansion of the bailout hall and its current location for a shooting range as you see on this map there are already plenty of shooting ranges within a thirty minute drive apollo and michigan i do respect fully request that you do not approve the ordinance changes to section twenty dash for section seventeen and chapter thirty nine allowing for special land use in these districts and the  a neighborhood commercial district thank you thank you since i was a young boy when my father took me to the palmetto pistol club just outside of miami florida where i was raised and one of the great benefits that i received from that experience was that i was taught to greatly respect and carefully treat all firearms my experience since then has been that without exception of those who share my experience are the most responsible careful considerate good citizens that we have in this country and i would not pretend to and magine what the concerns of those living in the immediate area of the proposed shooting range what their emotions might be and what their feelings might be but i was struck by a comment that one of them made and that was putting it in this facility there will change the character of our community to which i would say it most certainly will and what it will do it is it will attract the very kind of people that any good neighborhood would want in their neighborhood this is a good proposal from a financial perspective for the good of the city and yes even for the good of that neighborhood and i can assure those residents that people are not going to be bringing guns to act as cowboys or want to be cops safety is paramount and the kind of people that will be going there to shoot include people like myself i'm a local pastor i have six children i have six grandchildren and again i can assure you that a facility like this will only attract the very kind of people that we want both in our city and in fact in that neighborhood thank you thank you scuse me thank you and i'd like to i'd like to put forth a few of my thoughts i had thought i wouldn't say anything here tonight but i think it's him it's important that i do and we saw a man with all of the the ranges of west michigan and i certainly concur that there are ranges here in west michigan but only two of those in west michigan are indoor ranges what that does is that precludes the use of those ranges during the winter time and and come up whether whether we know one or not now to say that there are people in the city of holland that are discharging firearms in their garages in their basements and even for pest control in your backyard if you're looking for a dangerous situation that certainly is it what we want to provide and as a certified enter a pistol instructor is we want to provide a safe environment for the discharge and the recreational discharge and the professional discharge of firearms within the city limits we've had a lot of visits from the holland police department and their been very very supportive in our quest for a place where the average guy can come and shoot one of the one of the ranges in west michigan happens to be to a city run gun club i was a member there for many years i opened that place every sunday afternoon at one o'clock till thing closed five every other weekend for about five years that range is not open regular hours the range is only open if there are volunteers or volunteer club members to open the doors and run the place the other places the silver bowl in grand rapids and they're good people they've been there for many many years and not there has been not one instance of an escape bullet or an accidental injury by accidental discharge at the backstop since they've been there we're going to be utilizing the same equipment this is silver bullet and it would be my my guess that we will be there for fifteen years and we need will neither have an escape bullet or an accidental injury because of failure of equipment i would also ask this discoun to understand that the outdoor ranges that we have are very quickly being eliminated because of residential encroachment and maybe rightfully so we saw an instance of that up in grand haven where the security team from grand valley was there practicing and a couple of bullets escaped and cause an injury that i don't know the deficit is still open fully today another thing too is that there are literally hundreds of people leaving holland taking their dollars to grand rapids and spending them at the silver bullet it is our goal to make holland a destination not a departure point deficit the bullet hole but when they are done shooting they're going to go to a restaurant they're going to get gas they're going to take advantage of local businesses other local businesses who count on dollars coming in to support their families i think it's really important that we look at this through though the broad scope here let's not be myopic let's take our magnifying glasses off and look at the situation let's make holland a destination let's bring dollars into holland let's not send it  this is going to be a totally safe environment for what we're proposing to do we would ask that the holland city council please please look at the small business and allow us to be a contributor to the tax base in holland michigan and allow us to be helpful in bringing business to holland and not letting it depart thank you very much all retired people there now and can you imagine when you get older here sitting on your deck and listen to that but but but but for a couple of hours when there's  shooting range is actually from an email from the bullet hole i never received anything from the city from the very beginning involving the use owning changes anything that's happening i am happy to say that i have neighbors that are they go door to door in the going out of their way to make sure that myself and other neighbors were informed about this and i appreciate that about this community i want to say that the one grew up kind of hearing gunshots and then you associate that with sporting and that people continue to have guns because that's their constitutional right i've never been in a city and he loss of enjoyment from my own personal property from a legal perspective i don't know where i am but it seems to me like this is just kind of getting pushed through and i  the council here to to hear the residents that are actually living right next door to where this is going i think we should consider some of the other c one neighborhood such as washington square i know that there are a bit billable lots of that would work but we're talking about multiple neighborhoods in our community and i'm i'm in full support of the bullet hole has a gun shop we've in full support of them as having a gun range in the city of holland however in a neighborhood it's just not appropriate thank you  sides of it i don't have any problem with guns i really don't like this turning into a debate about guns i think it's about  basically about the zone and i think it's i think commercial c one residential commercial should preclude something like this and i think that just because somebody made a big investment in one area that shouldn't change the zoning for other areas as well i we want to house but we can't do whatever we want and we can't you result because if we put money into the house and i know that maybe businesses can't maybe they can they came to you with it they said well we got this this is where we are this what we bought as we want to do it so can you make it happen and i don't know i guess i'm a little you the bat whenever somebody from a neighbor comes up and someone else came and was basically like pulling in whatever whatever concerns we have it didn't matter and i guess as we live there ok the people that don't and they don't live there the people of the gentleman from sixteenth street has lived there  i just want to say that there's a more people that live there that really just don't want this and that's really all i say thank discussions on guns and more than discussions and i've also heard a lot tonight and there are also two sides to every question and whoever gets there first is sometimes the one who has the most the one or the vote and so i want you to remember that we are the people that vote and we really care about our ridge our neighborhood and our children and our homes my home is the  hundred sixty eight being a class and right after the civil war so i want to tell you about these differences of opinions here and frankly i don't think much of the constitution as giving us the not their wives it wasn't until one hundred twenty eight that we really fought for things so we've learned to fight i have six children dearly beloved they can shoot but if you're going to worry about shooting here in town and shooting in your backyard and things like that that's for the police to worry about that is first having this building coming up which is going to be having people shooting and now that there is a definite difference and i want to tell you something that happened when i was first at the prison it was all just maybe within six months i received a letter from the rod and gun club i cannot remember for sure but i think it was the red and gold club it was one of those locally and it said something like rushed down to the bank and send up after telling me all about the wonders of the organization of course which may be just fine rush down to the bank and send us a check for membership before the little woman gets down there and empties the bank account so i wrote back and i said i am a little woman and i have a nice bank account that i never empty so keep both sides of a member both sides here the people that wanted me to rush down and be for hot rod goes with a rush down if i had one before the bank is empty by the wife they don't understand my point of view and i hope you look at that point of view also eighty years old i have seen a lot and it's been a lot of fun and my father of course was in world war one and we found his little pistol one day all these things happen but right now are interested in is a building which if we have to have it from what they say it's a bunker we can rent to have something going to happen but other than th hope that you will vote against it thank you thank you family raising in that house we like to sit outside in the evening my concerns are simply that where there is a gun range are sure to be noise the level is obviously unclear but the sound of guns shooting near my house is not acceptable to me that is not something i would enjoy into the ending so the outside and also there where there is shooting there will be lead i don't know how much i don't know details but obviously there will be sun surely some of beating around the area comments now procedurally we have a draft ordinance that was approved in what we call first reading under state law before an ordinance can take effect it has to be go through one reading two readings and this is the second reading so we have an ordinance that has been approved on first reading for our discussion this evening first and foremost on it and we've had some bit of discussion perhaps offline in the end of the pre council meeting about this this decimal level issue and i believe what was approved done first reading was that eighty five in there's been some recommendation by the city manager's office that it dropped or something lower than that really fifty was the number that was picked up again with the idea that under the state law we can always loosen but can i mean i can in the future i don't know if we want to address that issue first of all or if we want to just go into a freeform discussion my own sense is perhaps we should if we're going to offer an amendment or a series of amendments to the to the ordinance the final approval or disapproval perhaps we get the amendment questions first for expediency before we get headlong into the just the meat of the overall or so it seems like an appropriate death process i suppose and offering an amendment would be appropriate at this time but again you're all the ones who can make amendments and motions i i cannot mr truly mind i'd just ask a question light as opposed to taking each one individually i think the open discussion that you had mentioned may be better suited not a place you go type of thing but i know there's going to be some major discussion on certain areas and maybe the overall package would be better suited instead of trying to do these three things  that's one man's opinion whatever you don't want to do so some would like to discuss or offer an amendment to the chair will certainly look for some discussion is in the form of a motion to amend the ordinance before us proposal is their support for that amendment sport all right moved by birch supported by  is actually within a couple hundred feet of the farmer's market and within five hundred feet of residential and if you were standing directly outside of  that shooting range you actually can't even tell that it's there you can't hear it unless you were being told that it was there you wouldn't even assume that there is a shooting range on pine avenue and eighth street  that being said i think eighty five is still is too loud in measured eighty five outside of the doors if you go to the silver bullet as i did and linda did light they have an unfortunate flaw in their design of the building because they have an access door at the far end of their shooting range and you can very clearly hear the pop pop pop right outside that door if you go around to the back of the building where there is no door just concrete and you sit very quietly because it's very quiet there it's like a swamp behind there you through that you can barely hear anything you can't hear any noise there is no pop pop pop and i don't know the number of decibels that they're permitted in the city of wyoming but it is far less than than fifty under their standard so i'm not sure how to frame it but she said possible to suggest that it would not be allowed in a c one district  i'm sure there is a way i'm looking up the section here to amend the proposed ordinance to eliminate the amendment to thirty nine dash ninety five because see what is neighborhood commercial district correct c one is a neighborhood commercial district yes yeah and th planning commission and it did pass there and i understand that the bullet hole people are responsible and hard working individuals that are concerned about people being  safe and trained with guns and that open ranges are not good situation so having an enclosed range is a safer option i understand that but i guess i go back to what is the definition of a neighborhood and why do you want to live in a particular district and i guess all the people that have come forward have said that in many ways but it all boils down to a sense of safety and community trust and and i understand that it may sound great to for it to be a destination place for people to be able to practice shooting but i guess the flipside of that is that it's a hard thing for a neighborhood to think everybody with guns wants to come here point three miles from my school and all of that and i know you know we don't we are closing out door ranges because of residential encroachment and i guess if i were in that neighborhood i would feel that even though it's an enclosed bunker it gives me the feeling of a neighborhood encroachment even if bullets are flying by my had it just doesn't seem to fit my idea of families and children and strollers and playing ball outside  and you know i don't come from a family that has guns and i'm not familiar with the hunting culture even though i know it's an awesome thing and it's great in michigan and i don't mean to say anything against anybody that enjoys hunting and safely protects themselves in their home with a gun i can accept all of that but i just would feel remiss in my position to not be a voice for a neighborhood and i just feel with you people and i would be saying the same things if it were in my neighborhood and since i'm responsible for the city at large it is my neighborhood and i don't mean to do anything against any business and i you know i respect what you're doing i respect though your patience through all of this love all these different levels all these committees all these conversations i can imagine it is a real blood pressure situation trying to go through all of this and all of our wrestling with this and and if i were a business owner in your position that you know i  it would be very very difficult but i guess i go back to the definition of neighborhood commercial is that it is neighborhood focused and i think the neighbors had told us that they are comfortable with ways to fix their cars ways to fix their hair that ways to fix their animals ways to fix their legal problems but they're not not feeling secure with ways to shoot their guns and if we could just put it in different types of districts where we're not right next to homes and schools i would feel more responsible with that decision number of those times rabbit hunting and so i think that the current location fits well for a c one for the gun shot but it fits less well location i think we've really kind of covered the area of decibels and i think i want to compliment brian and his statement there and also write in for fifty i think is a great starting  point but we as a city ask some pretty clear things from residence we want to make a neighborhood a neighborhood of choice we want to make it a great place a nice place a place to purchase a home to raise a family to be friend people to be so we have a lot of work and insist that we require people to do to protect that we say you have to cut your grass at a certain l do workman like repairs don't junk your porch get rid of graffiti shovel your sidewalk control noise limit the number of dogs pay your taxes do inspections so what's the point the point is that the city has ordinances and we have zoning laws and i believe that they are there to protect neighborhoods and i think that's what i would like to see this coun i hope that they will consider voting no on this proposal for c one i think there are other areas that would work well within the city but this is not a good place for  i told mike upstairs of this is one of those things that if we were to be paid big bucks a week before he got this and it comes down to the wire for me i'm on which way to make a decision on this one i'm not sure what to do i try to rely on logic and so i've listened to a lot of the concerns that were voice about to why they how this might affect a neighborhood in if you look at what was proposed in the you know the language and the specifications i would have the lead would have to be captured bullets couldn't escape from from the enclosure that there would have to be proper ventilation so there shouldn't be an effect on the neighborhood from exposure we're talking about now addressing the noise level of the building would have to be built in such a way that it would not be detracting from the neighborhood it would have to be compatible reasonably so at the end of that exercise logic should tell me that that this should be a good thing to do and i believe also that the service that having that would be rendered by having this gun range is absolutely necessary if you look at the number as has been talked about of applications for concealed weapons permits for the number of people that without proper instruction and experience and use so i'm convinced that this is absolutely necessary a facility like this and from the conversations i've had with these gentlemen they would be excellent people to run appreciate you mentioning the master plan when it talks about special lane you say in locations and so forth it says that any project should be compatible in accordance with the goals and objectives  policies of the master plan and i like this part in particular promotes the input or the interest and purpose of the zoning district in which it's proposed to be located in we're talking about c one which and endeavor is that supports a wife and activity of a typical neighborhood and we talk a lot and we put invest a lot of time and effort into strengthening defined and promoting good neighbors are good neighborhoods so i guess after all of that were i find myself on this is that being very supportive of the bullet holes the desire to crea these amendments because i don't know where this is going to wind up and if we do pass it if it does pass i am hoping for the best possible outcome there but i'll not be supporting the simply because i don't think you see one district is the proper hoes my thoughts quite closely as i do think i want to commend the folks from the both for being professional and patient as you've been to get to this kind of discussion where decision actually has to be  that i've not heard anybody say anything other than these guys know what they're doing they're going to do a good job but the other side of the equation is this vision for neighborhood commercial and i'm not too sure we'd ever would have when that when we visually neighborhood commercial this is this would be on that list of preferred experiences the three people that spoke the most passionately about this tonight are the three people that are financially vested one quite of what we had someone else pretty much assures that the only people that are going to come here are people that have the best intentions i have to ask myself the question do i want this across the street from my house what i put in the historic district what i put it into residential i would take i would suggest that the shooting range we have in a we could use your good intentions the apparently his demand for your good intentions i think the only thing that all of these meetings have brought much my mind to is we just picked the wrong  so i really think that one thank everybody for the comments i made because airport you guys are financially invested in this so is the neighborhood and whenever it's my mind it's just not sure that i didn't know i didn't know walk into this building i know what i was going to do and whenever that happens i guess i just have to side on the part of neighborhood neighborhood stability people been there a long time warmer than than other people and neighborhoods is an important part etc i think the the tone of the discussion has been civil and i really appreciate that i do have a couple of and i guess probably looking to mark for that when we talk about see one and this site specifically this this this site is is pretty constrained have we heard in the whole process of it getting through planning about that and the impact as around the surrounding neighborhood if there is in fact this much demand and i know that the the investors are counting on lots the planning commission never really got to really debating this specific site i mean or we were charged with looking at overall regulations that could apply citywide that being said there there was some there was some discussion of the site in it and parking was identified as an issue that probably would need some further discussion if if it gets back to the planning commission and  agree with us also or at the silver bullet the owner there said you know we're really busy you know wildly busy and the one of the major things he says i and him are somebody asked what one thing would you change  if you could and he said oh we'd have more parking you know so we knew right then i think the planning commission is you right then should it get back to them that we would want to have adequate parking is there adequate parking  on their site right now we have not really analyzed fully in depth but going through a site plan review procedure typically the planning commission does look at available on street parking in the area as well as what's on the site believe the applicant or the tensional african indicated there's twenty some spaces that might be available on the site right now maybe ten or twelve  spaces jason streets they could potentially come in if they could get a signed agreement with some co across the street for use of the parking lot on evening and in weekend hours i mean that that could have been something that they could have brought to the to the table also and the net effect may have may have been that a determination would be that they have adequate parking  it does concern me a great deal about the potential growth for this particular business and  i would wish them all the success in the world but if they grow wildly and soon run out of capacity at the current site and find themselves so successful that they need the the need to expand their facility i don't see a lot of area around this neighborhood where they could expand it then they might  look for another site perhaps in another zone district and there we are with you know i respect the fact that they brought this to us because they wanted to be successful but if we wind up allowing it in a c one district for this business and they become more successful than what a c one can handle than we are at least in my opinion correct me if i'm wrong we are stuck with allowing this type of special use in a c one district and that concerns me you know at this point and with e j is at this point i'm not sure how i'm going to vote on this thing right now  know and respect people on both sides of this issue i know and respect members of the audience tonight who have spoken on both sides of the issue and it is just a really really tough decision for me to make so i think having said that i'm going to listen to the discussion some more figure out how i'm going to vote on  my my wife is asked me in the past why has the height seemed to be the center of a lot of controversy issues i say this because people care i appreciate i have had a number of questions posed at me as i have said to everybody that's asked me how i stand on this i stand neutral i have to stand neutral they've started talking about the logic in the common sense and a number of other things i'm going to cut this short bottom line being is what it has come down to me and i've had a number of comments on both sides this one hasn't been as clear cut as some of the issues have been i want to say a little offended by some of the the comments made some of the stereotyping that's been made and i'm glad it was brought down right to this specific ordinance and not the discussion of whether we like guns or not that has that has to be out of the factory we had a discussion a couple of weeks ago about the fear factor that was brought in about the about the fact that we can't regulate perceptions we've heard about potential property values going down we've heard about the potential this and potential that well that's it's exactly what it is it's potential for every argument on one side and  thank you the young lady that was a peer really are for the every there's two sides to every story and i've heard it a number of times you've got to represent me you represent me in the heights oh you know what  every person that says that to me or somebody on the other side of the fence for the same argument so who do i represent bottom line what it boils down to is i have to ask myself the question in this specific case what i want this next to my home i can say without any hesitation at all yes i would now that being said i also have a number of people that i represent up in the heights i understand the concerns the logical concerns i have asked very pointed questions of those who have come to me why is it you don't want this what is it that makes you feel uncomfortable there's been some dancing people have done some soul searching i've had some very excellent answers i've also found out that in the deep discussion that it came down into categories for the most part not every time for the most part i will not generalize i will generalize i will not categorize that it was either a i like guns or i don't like i again that was not in all cases and there are people that have been very honest and open and say i don't care one way or another i just don't feel this which is fine absolutely fine we got a letter tonight from mr davis superintendent of the schools calling a few council members out whether they would want it in their neighborhood one of the questions i had is why bring up the school i don't understand and i really don't as it was said many times the reason one of the reasons for this range is to properly train in the handling of guns a person that has and you can ask the police officers that's why they do training all the time second nature the person that has second nature in handling weapons is going to be far safer and somebody that's reactionary talking to the police we have had more patrol up in the heights specifically in that neighborhood didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night that's not your problem that's mine the problem being is the neighbors that i represent and how i'm going to come down with this you heard two people say that they didn't know which way they were going to come down when they walked in the building i'm going to be the third until the vote comes out of my mouth i'm still stuck on the fence some of you are going to agree with me some are you're not some are going to say i represent you some see you don't i'm sorry i'll say that right up front that's what makes my community college heights a great community because people voice their opinion and i respect that always have and always will but folks there are two sides to every story writes were on the amendments to delete c one from the permitted zone a vote in the affirmative is to vote for the amendment is to have the deletion for too early in the process from the police could i request a description of the districts where it is now allowable if you take out the steve why there are several districts the lead listed that c four district which is essentially the meyers store district and in surrounding areas sixteenth street those are three zone districts so c four is only in the myers area everything from myers on waverly east to i believe like the car their car wash area and then going back south probably a quarter mile or so so it does not extend to the the north of sixty st saw all the south side of sixteenth and east of waverl district is is found all throughout the city also so they're bring it up but it's to zoom in makes you lose a bunch of the cities you can actually see the colors just a question if that if if that recommendation came to us really in relationship to the noise ordinance with the amendment we passed it fifty decibels and we've all done enough decimal study in this process to understand that that's basically converse and that's a level of normal conversation given obviously mine's not at fifty tonight because i have a voice but i'm wondering if that one takes on new meaning in light of the two amendments that just carry in with you that when really serves us well if indeed what we're talking about now has your magic built in fifty decibels and i know that gentry for me the question is this issue of the state law piece and that's the troublesome piece i know some years ago it's a slightly different context but when a national drug store came into town we limited the hours don't know technically whether that still is in place or not but regardless it seems to me that i'm ok with it understanding that if it becomes superfluous if it's something that is unnecessary or is hindering business especially as as you indicated with the zones in which it's now permitted potentially is permitted you know whether it really makes a difference but this is the chance to put it in because if we don't do it now and wish we had later it's too late that's my only seven yes and to no ok all right so we have the motion yet amended further is there additional discussion and or offers of them  and i would just say that like many of you that the c one question was was an interesting one but for me the question comes down alternately regardless of zone district is to the safety question and t the not really nuisance question but the question of extra melanie and i am convinced that whether it is not just this particular person who is he's the one bringing this forth because i think all of us have strong confidence in their ability to be good business owners and act responsibly in fact probably well beyond responsibly the question is always what about the next person the next one who maybe doesn't have the same degree of scruples the same degree of  intention because once it's in it's in i'm comfortable however after many planning commission meetings on this many council meetings on this that the parameters we put in place in this ordinance as far as  that that ultimately if you would be extremely safe and also i'm very comfortable that especially after standing outside the the police department firing range and hearing more noise from the traffic next to me than then you could from anything going on inside the range in fact the first time the chief master fired his gun i was the only one of hear it because mike and i were conversing on a cell phone so we knew when everybody was ready and that's the only way i heard it and it was only the second time after the first shot happened that you're listening really closely perfectly still perfectly silent you could just barely autoblog hear it if the traffic wasn't going past you so i'm convinced regardless of some district that it would be safe and in fact that it would be not have extra maladies that would affect people outside its four walls that being said any final comment is paul the  lengthy meeting tonight on this issue we certainly appreciate your interest in this issue but also your care and concern for the places in which you call home we i think are going to need to take about a five minute break you so we will take five will recess for five minutes and reconvene shortly to go on with the rest of our agenda which the next item i trust will be a much quicker ordinance adoption related to our volunteer public safety personnel well call this meeting back to order please sir right we move on then to item ten c the third of our ordinance adoption this one i trust will be less controversial and less timely this stablish in a volunteer policing services program to assist the department of duties the only part of their duties of talk about is issuance of parking tickets and the technicalities and legalities of that is that if they're going to be doing that per state statute it's under m c l two fifty seven point six seven five section d that we must have specific authorization of the governing body of that local unit of the government to authorize them to issue those citations so the city attorney has drafted  that ordinance it's under section one nash ten point one three years and boy it was added to that section and that states that when authorized by city council resolution volunteers trained by how an apartment a public safety so have the authority to issue citations for parking violations are provided by a law including as provided in c l to fifty seven point six seven five d so that basically gives them the authority to issue there is about six or seven different parking violation those working citations very good questions for the chief can tell the meeting is getting late the ac shuts off at ten which should be an indicator to us but hey we don't believe in such things all right  saying no one will close the public hearing and we have the motion before us don't want to rush through it for the sake of doing so we obviously appreciate the service and the interest and the idea behind this whole thing but this is one of those pretty clear  unfortunately economic times did not allow that happen matt thank you very much for bringing mr jack thank you very much for your department thank you very much a long time needed it's going to be a big help and i believe there is potential for expansion of this other this not only to parking but for some other duties that could be seen in the future to help with those also so congratulations good luck i see you've been broady a retired officer back in  know this is a vision worth pursuing and we're going to try to try to do it and we're going to ask and we're going to bring people together we're going to make it happen and that shows real grit and i really appreciate that leadership and and also all the businesses that are support it's wonderful really says a lot about public private partnership and no wonder it's a safe place thank you thank you going going and gone please call the r five you've been there for nearly three and a half hours we would love to hear from you please step forward of the microphone name and residential address for the record of the typical council rules apply good evening and welcom as i said my name is to show so i'm here to introduce myself as a candidate for state representative for the eightieth district succeeding bob jeannette ski i would like to share a little bit about myself with you but for the past thirteen and a half years i've been elegant township supervisor reelected three times prior to that i ran my own excavating and dragline business i've been married to very twenty six years to my wife sherry and she is a job graduated last year is in teaching it is and is teaching and coaching girls tennis in colorado springs in our youngest will be a senior in the fall the other two daughters are also college graduates i have two grandchildren family is important to me we live on an eighty acre hobby farm where we raise a few belgian draft horses i was born raised in elegant and graduated from western michigan university very active members  community church in allegan where i am an elder i'm one hundred percent pro life and indeed i am one hundred percent allegan county and i sincerely believe that my past has reflected that to my work mailing in township i chaired the kind chapter of the michigan john ship association which was recently expanded from purely a township organization to include cities and villages this is provided an excellent opportunity to network and discuss issues and information concerning allegan county as a whole and also working with blaine cope's and others on the meth eradication task force and the sheriffs community relations board now called the citizen corps council i completed the ten week citizen police academy which i would highly recommend to all residents when i was elected on a write in campaign for supervisor elegant township in the city of allegheny were at each other in the township completely surrounded city in order for our township fire department to respond to a southside fire they had to go right past the city fire station working with the elected officials and allegan city manager rob hillard we successfully merge the two departments into one the allegan fire district we also established a joint planning commission that meets quarterly and a rare bird  anyway and it completed a number of successful four twenty five agreements one which save the local business from going under another state or school district tens of thousands of dollars certainly it is this type of cooperate a working relationship that benefits all are residents and creates financial efficiency for the two to me as a palace this is the influence i intend to bring to lansing i believe a cooperative attitude will bring out our efforts to work on a still struggling economy and attract more jobs and economic development to our county our own cultural industry is strong and a solid manufacturing base here in holland which provides many jobs must be preserved and grown generally speaking in elegant township we have great roads there's always room for improvement though is that anyone who drives knows a sorry state of our highways bridges and streets the next representative the eighth district needs to encourage and work on a long term approach to ensure our state is second to none regarding the condition of our transportation network which supports  our government must live within its means and i believe through aggressive oversight and working to make our government a more cooperative enterprise rather than an os versus them mentality we can and should hold the line on taxes one final thought my wife always reminds her clients all important location location location is in real estate in my opinion for me it is experience experience experience that is the most important as our voters make their choice for the next eight district state representative why because experience matters experience matters for those in our legislature who are making tough decisions and need to work together to make this state the best it can addresses since folks can watch this from afar  good evening and welcome good evening jim story three forty four west thirty fifth in the allegheny county portions of the city of how their members of the council just a brief report of recent events and allegan county as your county commissioner a cover of correctional news so we got some highlights national attention for it and so we continue to get some attention for the adaptive reuse of a former heyworth plant into our new corrections establish a network of or be usage on our county roads we've sent it to a number of our advisory panels our road commission and our economic development commission the tourist council and we also want to bring it to all of our local government units to our townships and cities and we will be bringing it forward for decision in late june or july twenty sixth meeting and i have to observe yesterday morning i noticed two r  ninth street here in the city how and so it's not just confined to county roads that we may be seeing him but the issue came forth because the legislature gave two counties south of the light between base that he and and muskeg and the ability to approve either at all county roads or a portion of county roads the use of or i v s for recreational purposes so we are debating that also to document to the city manager that discusses the pros and cons of that  are also two election villages coming up for proposals coming up in the august election a renewal of our senior milledge which provides services such as wheels and nutrition centers and transportation subsidies  and health care to our seniors it is currently at point two four mills we have voted to put ask voters for point four three six mills because we are not meeting a lot of the demand right now we do have a waiting phones fax machines and other instruments and allegan county taking that to three dollars per month for the next five years which is the state maximum and the reason for this increases that in about forty five years we need to replace our daily one radio system it will have been about twenty years old at that point of course with all electronic technology it's way out of date so if that's a brief report i won't keep you any longer safety for new construction and new officers want you to keep that in mind as we go through this this winter middle of winter  and they found out by simply by chance that i was some pump in my house that discharges into the santeria sewer hooked up to my  against the law what that did in two thousand and one was made many homes that were once compliant now a new construction built compliant now on compliant there's going to be all kinds of homes around the city that are this way this is not a plumbing code that would cover new homes but an ordinance covering every construction young and old and new my home is middle age the new ordinance was not made known to all plumbers i don't believe and it was certainly made to unknown to home inspectors in holland reading and someone like myself could easily buy i'm compliant home and live in it for ten years so by law the homeowner now must change his once compliant plumbing run a one out of his home through the foundation into the storm source of this would mean i would need to replumb my home open a new whole foundation and run underground pipes proximately fifty feet to the storm sewer of the street by along the ordinance lien on my home before i explain to be w that it was the middle of winter and i could do it thirty days because the ground was frozen we have about six feet of snow and after a little while on the phone they agreed to that and  hasn't been done yet so the ordinance which by passing makes me on compliant him by law placing a debt on me possibly  lien but these were not brought to the attention of the homeowners around holland it was just placed on them so the goal of b p w is clear it's good it's not up for review i could explain to  it is but i'm asking you to consider this ordinance there are other paths to getting there that are less onerous on the homeowner and let me know before i start work on my  just so fortunate to have they've koster here tonight still you know i guess as long as i've been around that's been on the books and certainly if it was an ordinance amendment to first did we not have that somehow as a policy before thought we did it yeah you know i have to admit three day of this is predates me a little bit in terms of my involvement with waste water but the two thousand and one is you know some time ago and so that has been you know the ordinance and obviously was recognized as an issue you know that long ago if not before you know the real issue is clean water coming into the the  waste water system and potentially overwhelming it with enough footing drains you know there would be connected it's impactful potentially impactful to other homes if it would overwhelm the system to a point where wastewater would back up you know that would be impactful to other homes in the area as well so it's an effort that we're working on you know and actually we have one of our actions in our strategic plan this year is to you know footing drain disconnect program you know that would you know offer incentives and disincentives but when we find that homes are connected these drains are connected you know this is our practice and our policy is to  follow the ordinance and make those notifications to the homeowner with the timeframes associated with the the ordinance so i know that our staff has been working with more mr horse on this issue has been granted more time as he indicated as well and you know we continue to work on that but that has been you know the practice of the b b w did you know whenever the ordinance was put into effect it went through the same process we just went through with all the ordinance amendments public hearings and those sorts of things to be sure ok thank you for coming tonight  rates for water and wastewater in the wastewater area there are also some of the industrial surcharge rates for for treatment charge as well some of our high strength and dust real customers we're just seeing those as that is  you know responsive to the issue at hand with the wastewater plan and the need for some additional capital there and so looking at the cost of service increases that are expected to ramp up for those high strength customers and we have some adjustments treatment charges you know in summary i had the numbers that were there i don't remember verbatim but just shy of two dollars i think for waste water just shy of a dollar seventy for water per month and that's for the average residential customer again less than what we had planned a few years ago we started this process of building some additional revenue for the capital plans in each of those utilities but you know we are number one goal here is a while maintaining you know cost effective service and i think we're doing that is to make sure we have the cash stream necessary for the reinvestment in the infrastructure for those two utilities questions if we were congress in this for washington the rates that are actually being implemented rate increases that are being implemented were less than what was proposed a couple of years ago so we would say we're actually cutting people's rates is w not but all kidding aside you comparatively again nobody likes to pay more but comparatively our rates are among the lowest if not the lowest and ultimately it's a matter of servicing debt making sure the system works well and it's not a one year thing but a multi year really a decade kind of kind of issue please call perhaps i'll start it i believe their conversation discussion and i'll probably need some additional questions answered from departmental staff here centrally this is a bid process that is done  repeatedly chef container now has the commercial refuse collection bid there are three bids received two of the most competitive chef container an era waste the low bit is  waste there is a cabby at that requires actually preferentially given the bidders proposing pickups that should be made under a single stream process one pickup truck will pick up both refuse recycling the same time  and that's the case in our residential neighborhoods commercial property it we looked at we being myself a department head bogalay who ministers a person policy  looked at the pros and cons most communities who have suffered recycling containers and there are commercial buildings so in this case that's what would happen in the in the city case the city of if the low bit is accepted there are some benefits to that there are some drawbacks to that the benefits are it in some ways my observation is it makes people less aware of what's being consumed and what could be consumed in the first place if you have a single stream in commercial buildings the biggest drawback i believe is that there in two of time there is now a single stream pick up so presumably what's thrown away is all recycled and in this case to make that happen there would be multiple containers needed is my understanding so it's a judgement call it's a close judgement call and on balance recommend the city council accept a low bid for marijuana use for long term commercial refuse recycling services between now and june thirtieth two thousand and twenty and it would be a savings of approximately seven thousand six to seven thousand dollars a year with that being said i encourage anyone in the audience staff as additional information who wants to share please do so and we will entertain your questions all right questions for staff offering double standards the double standards being if it's good enough for a residence one of the biggest reasons i'm sorry let me back up a slate one of the arguments that we had originally to go to single curbside pick up was because of the single past the less intrusive miss in the neighborhoods the less wear and tear on the roads the last exhaust pollution into the year i can go on i can go on i can go on one of the things that ryan failed to mention was also the anticipated three thousand dollars twenty nine hundred dollars and i not let me inflate this but the twenty nine hundred dollars less per wear and tear for the roads which brings the differential in about half i added up all the differentials over the six years the net difference over the six years adding up the differential in the cost and then it putting in the twenty one hundred dollars is about twenty two six or thirty seven hundred dollars a year which is roughly half or as we discussed earlier a third to a half a little inside joke there for us as my bottom line is we've got a lot invested obviously i am passionate about this because of my employment i have absolutely nothing against era waste i think they are a fantastic  company this is not personal this is something that in anybody that knows me it's going to strike them as a very bizarre that i would say we should be spending more money but working in the recycling industry looking at things if you go out and buy recycled paper you go and be sued by recycled this and that it's a little bit more expensive there's a reason for that it's there's a little bit more process to it but it's the right thing to do we are trying and have been trying for a number of years starting back with project pride to say this is the right thing to do now when it gets to be a couple of dollars difference we say well good enough for the residents but it's not good enough for us i don't buy that we had a letter from tulip time that said they were absolutely perfectly happy with the way things came down this time in the report it says there's a difference in the bids because of the different types of service and and i'm going to paraphrase chef gets it we asked specifically in our in our bid package or i'm sorry we stated in there as ryan said preferential to single past way stre folks we have a long way to go one of the things that's going to be on the the agenda tonight or one thing that's on the agenda is or sustainability this is smacking it's the same sustainability all over the place we've got to start practicing we need to continue on the passive positive path that we've been on we've been on this for a long time if we want our residents to truly get behind  and we can always do better we need to practice what we preach as we can see from some of the numbers coming right now are recycling probably isn't where it should be part of that is education i think one of the comments to my e mail today was would have to educate city employees fantastic but what are we going to do in the meantime i think we can offer the same type of program having the separate ways containers for the recycling do with the city waste right now curbside there's got to be a plan that we can work out but the thing that goes one step further is chef has invested and i am i haven't seen that being offered by aero but chef has invested an awful lot into his process so that everything that goes through there in it will continue here in the near future and sean correct me and shut me off over if i'm wrong it will in the e thank you and one just for the record name and address please show on steel with chef container well for eight years now we've been improving our program with you guys through the several contracts in the several entities that we work with and one of the things that we've been working with on the residential side with their recent expansion the last couple years is all of the residential trash goes over a sore line and we're able to measure and give back to the city what else is out there that's not in a yellow baggers not being and taken into and recycle program when we did tulip time this year we measured every pound of trash that was picked up we measured every pound of trash that was recycled and we were able to have a number to go back to tool time to go back to city holland and say we see improvements we can make here we can do this better let's implement this let's let's educate this sector of the business and that goes along with our sustainability goals that we set up when we renew to city hall in residential contract that we had a ten year plan for improvement we also on and still that same plan with the streets and parks department with the fire department with every entity we have i think this is the first time we ever got a letter the city's probably got a letter stating how well the service went for the tulip time season and i believe from everything that i've seen and read this is was one of the most successful tool times we've had in a long time but from my side i haven't seen any of complaints but what i did see this being the third year that we're picking up everything and running over the line for tool time alone we've seen a vast improvement of what the awareness is out on the street so i would hate to send a missed him a message of something different when we're trying to train or trying to educate everybody into one system then all of a sudden say well now you got to do it this way over here i think that be detrimental to the whole program i think it would our efforts would just be exhausted at that point and and expanding out to we just took the next step as far as apartments and multiplexes and so on and so forth we've got to get one hundred percent on the page and on unfortunately fortunately whichever way you want to look at it this just caught me wrong it just caught me as taking a step backwards i'm willing to invest in the long term city holland if you will twenty two thousand dollars right now to look at the reinvestment and the pay back that we're going to get and i truly believe that this is going to this little investment now is going to go to give us greater returns in the future to keep our rates down to keep us a better city to be keep us being a leader which is what we're trying to do me a bit that we would have this expectation or belief that we were are going to have to educate or help one of our service providers or want to provide the kind of service that i would expect would be clearly delineated in the in the form i call it will thank you very much the other thing that that would have been a clear expectation from the get told that era waste would have understood this is what level of service these are the the some of the procedures that they're going to have to follow to go to meet our expectation and what i'm reading here it seems to me that even though there we realize of our cost savings that we're not really sure that we're going to get the same level of of our services obviously we're not going to get the single pass method that we're used to and  i agree with mike that we've put a fair amount of importance on past so can someone give me a sense of from the staff's perspective of why this sentence our purchasing procedures and you know love big guy here and then we have other thoughts so feel free to speak your i'm just just to your specific question that sentence was included because we don't have experience working directly with their waste so we've got great experience working with chef we know they understand the system they teach us things all the time we hope to get into that same motive if you decide to go with a different bit on this well again do this and do it i was excited too when i saw that there was a war better nothing to get you guys but your saving money is not a bad thing but  is it just sort of a fail safe statement that this might happen or is there something out of what you've gleaned from interactions with airways that would lead you to believe that there is not a clear understanding of what the expectation is from the i would say the only thing that has us sort of questioning this is the difference in terms of the tool of time it's on these are significantly different between t and i guess my last comment is i resonate with a lot of what mike you're saying my first as i said my first response was kind of in the second i guess that we have another player in the game i'm not against competition sometimes i can bring about a positive press arm but there are things that have been realized over time  as you and your company have gotten to know you know what holiday is about what our priorities and values are all of that is realized in the kind of service a provide  so i think i'm coming with mike on this that i don't want to preclude anybody from having an opportunity to do business but i am not feeling totally confident with that understanding of the expectation on the part of your fulfill that they have the residence on a consistent basis so i'm glad you brought up that the ministry of team is not necessarily of one mind and kind of curious do to maybe hear about team to do a job and you know i want to i want to talk about preference given do certain things as well but i don't want to do that at the peril of our budget so it's up to you all but you know it feels like we're getting into the policy weeds of something that we typically don't do in a meeting like this but we table to next week's meeting sport right is for reasons that are related to the cost of the service precisely in fact the rate increase has been avoided because of some changes chef was instrumental in that system and some customer service changes that saved funds and made it possible to go another year without a rate increase but that's no longer the case given a sense that i mean historically voice had by by awarding a single contract for residential pick up  we've had rates that are lower than if each person was charged with contracting themselves i assume that still remains the case even with the rate adjustment and cindy back in the back of the room is not in her head when she  if it's collected and we had this discussion about something about if you didn't pay it you got double right away you remember that it doesn't say like a thirty day kind of thing here or any timeline did we would we want to include or is there an interest in and from that department what that really means or i can answer that question  he fifty dollars fee is the administrative fee if after a an account is delinquent six months it has to be placed on the tax rolls and the fee it's part of the cost of pla it on the tax rolls the cost of a case and the cost of notice and the cost of actual employee effort to get that transferred from one system to another system it is the same fee that we charge for transferring charges for long grass that go on paid for for a fake in a band in fees that go on paid and it happens twice a year and there is more than adequate now at it's given to our customers and it's only after six months nonpayment thank you and the other comments please call peter's birch yes van de bussy as white man yes extra yes brief background on this i know we better study sessions of present council with documentation on this but what we do is we have a replacement schedule for all over fire vehicles we have a vehicle for that we put together to replace those vehicles on certain time specific technical questions about the truck he's here to answer them we would dissipate using this truck again for twenty five years and we purchased it would be in our fleet for twenty five years before it removed a justification for this particular truck is that we discuss past the multimission capabilities it's got to hold all the equipment for emergency medical calls fire responses hazardous spills all rescue extrication all of those things all that equipment has to be housed within this vehicle died all it has to be housed at one particular time because of the staffing that we have right now once the fire trucks leave the station if we get call for one call the next we are not able to return back to the station as which vehicles this is a slightly smaller vehicle  purchase as far as of the fire vehicle replacement fun if we were to make this purchase with consider in the budget the just approved after the purchase of this vehicle the number  re the current balance of six hundred forty five thousand five eighty five so we've purchased this vehicle that would to leave us with his number somewhere here about ninety thousand dollars left in that fund so i reckon the recommendation would be to give and it was a fifty percent up front payment option which reduced the cost by about fifteen thousand that it would be made by the amount of three three hundred thousand three hundred thirty one dollars of the time signing the contract which actually has to be signed with the ninety days to see the bid on march twenty five or twenty six so by mid june we'd have to sign a contract with them to stay within the pricing they have an order right now for the remaining amount of two hundred leave here's the balance i would leave the balance of about seventy thousand five hundred five so scratch that ninety thousand is actually seventy thousand five eighty five in the vehicle replacement fund in march of two thousand and fifteen and we would hope to add one hundred thousand of that  as we normally do ninety two hundred thousand a next budget cycle so by the time we get that truck on the road we hope to have about one hundred seventy thousand dollars back into that vehicle replacement fund all right thank you jeff any larger pumping capacity before they take less water to put stuff out now or a lot of the design criteria that went into this was based on some i also calculations city hall is required to have three fire pumpers in a total capacity of thirty five hundred gallons a minute based on that the pump need to have a minimum of a thousand gallons a minute we determine that this is not it's not a detriment of the city and it is that we do have plenty of capacity and still able to maintain three pumpers so according to insurance companies we're still good correct ok other questions for the chief for the captain  just so the public knows we did have some discussion about whether or not again part of the cost of this vehicle is the customized nature of it that having to do lots of different things and and there was some question of whether or not  you know the most cost effective way in the long run and ultimately when you look at the cost of separately staffing different forms of service of the additional cost of a particular vehicle especially over twenty five year period pales in comparison so  it's an expensive piece of equipment but obviously one that's needed and one that will last us a long time we need emotion reproved by looks for us supported by through any further discussion please call received a donation from james alexander in the amount of one hundred dollars public safety fire division received two gives one from van banks and the amount of a thousand dollars and prom can try cities mutual assistance association in the amount of two thousand dollars public safety services fire division from the most high risk fictional training symposium were received from howland center land improvements received the following gives rosemarie hours one thousand dollars how on board a cultural club one thousand dollars house and garden club three thousand dollars  price two hundred hours mary johnson seventy dollars teresa allen one hundred joan allen fifty and melinda five thousand dollars international relations commission for the  office hall and youth connections program to receive furious donations robert dinoire chevrolet two thousand dollars man international one thousand dollars calvary reform church one hundred fifty charisma morial church three thousand one hundred dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation and an expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors here mayor council just so you know i mean i know you know how unbelievable this community is but i have already mayor members of council i will make this brief if you know it began about five years ago and numerous people in the room have played an instrumental role from the suskind to the community energy plan to the task forces that the city council set up to the need to have a forty year process to reduce energy make her more energy sustainability independence billeted to stretch dollars and also prove environmental outcomes so there are seven task forces this is one of them i am the staff liaison to this task force and the intent is to see what is possible relation to home energy retrofits this is something that is been studied by a manager that you approved by the way to create a plan by the name of schneider electric there internationally known in the field and are getting known in this field so what you see tonight will be some very high level slides now you can see all the partnerships involved here the board of public works has been instrumental in recommending this and studying this and their staff will be instrumental in helping to implement it simco energy is a very very willing partner they have done some pilots elsewhere in the state and they very much are interested in doing one with us they travel three hours every time we meet and we meet often so i want to thank  nurtured those relationships and then of course knight or electric as of what's known as our esko energy service company should you go forward so what you have tonight is a contract and a resolution that's that this is for the social good the reasons to implement a forty year community plan consumers can save up to fifty percent on energy consumption and property values can go up possibly up to five  percent based on the building labels that would be involved as well reduce peak electricity demand by the way the labeling is been headed up by assistant city manager greg robinson and bethany backman and his task force were working in concert and together in your budget includes that this helps us meet state energy efficiency targets and we will be more competitive in a contender for the georgetown energy prize which involves five million dollars and change this is a chart that shows the revenues that are involved in this and have been determined and they amount to two hundred thirty six thousand dollars some of which has been accumulated some of issue revolves involves rebates so which involves works works in the city the expenditures are estimated to be less than that one hundred ninety one thousand dollars this could provide a net positive difference of forty five thousand in view that as a contingency or a head start on the next fifty homes up to fifteen thousand dollars average investment and the process the process is to make sure everyone in town has an interest in saving dollars improving their comfort and reducing the environmental impacts would know about this so there is a variety of mailings emailing xeres at two hundred person list already but that can be added to anyone watching tonight is welcome to email our office call or office and get on that list with being on that list a lot of public information will go out and application fees will be needed to stay on the list and we suggest one hundred dollar application fee that is refundable if not chosen for home energy audit however if chosen then it would be used to go towards the cause the audit the audit cost a thousand dollars which is part of the possible retrofit they would begin with only twenty five and then there be a pause so we can receive the results and and then up to fifty the intent is to learn this is a pilot it's  based on science as to who they select the energy financing will be up to the homeowner however part of the dollars you saw an involved buying down the interest rate this is something that michigan saves which is also a partner to state agencies state affiliated since he has done elsewhere in the state in offering here there's a credit union that is willing to reduce their rates as well they've done so for herman miller employees it's a credit union and zealand and they're part of this as well and then schneider would guarantee the savings for the first years of the homeowner can be assured that they would receive the return that they're expecting  so in short it's recommended that you rise with your action tonight trial home energy retrofit program for up to fifty homes that you adopt a resolution that i want to thank our city attorney's office has drafted determining that this is a social good for the reasons i mentioned authorize the agreement which snyder electrican authorized that agreement include formalization of an interest by down program with michigan saves an ac credit union and of course authorize the respective public officials to sign the resolution and then direct the home energy retrofit task force report back by november once again there's individuals in the audience who i want to thank for being part of this and can help answer any questions making it all happen i say this is a big step toward having us become everything mr guard forth and one of us wants us to be we all want to get there thanks to make it a priority right so we do this like thank you it's actually one of your priorities so i didn't have a choice  hear the comments or comes from the workplace and even though we don't have the legislation at the state level that makes retrofitting as smooth as smooth as we would like it i appreciate you finding a way to make it work and at least launch this pilot and maybe we'll continue to get the attention of the state legislators with some success to encourage them to to get this their thing then so let's get very good dykstra yes motion passes solent thank you and thank you again communications from the city manager this evening thank you i have three quick ones o tree planting you proved tonight quite a few more part of the budget is to implement a residential tree planning program in the fall so if people are wanting to pay for half of a tree in their yard that is visible from the street we suggest they start thinking about where and then contacting in the canyon and there were that to before realized in the fall and is something we've talked about in the past second the gifts that have been so generously offered we have there's another way we've been tracking this the fifteen thousand dollars you heard was an anonymous challenge gift so with another fifteen thousand dollars that can actually be used in the meantime it's been sequestered  five thousand dollars for meeting the full fifty thousand challenge so anyone interested in this program that five thousand would then leverage that fifteen i want to mention that the tool poll is planned again this year and last i just want to let you know that we have two project administrators who started this week there are individuals who are gaining experience and related to my office and interested in this form of work aaron they own one and also felicia thompson so when you enter our office there is more assistance to you and to our customers thank you it's a summer program thank you many questions for the city manager right communications from the mayor i guess first and foremost graduations the two of time for next one festival this week obviously the weather has a lot to do with that but certainly there's a lot that goes into planning a festival that most people don't see the parades and what not don't just come together to selves and that's just a small really a small piece of the overall festival so congratulations to tulip time and here's to another great festival in the eighty sixth here next year get to work on that also on a more serious note on a much more that pays tribute to law enforcement officials peace officers who have died in the line of duty it's technically tomorrow on the fifteenth and there's a event in our nation's capital that typically will draw tens of thousands of people to it  you know thankfully we're not directly impacted this year in the recent years but certainly we know of persons and i've heard of persons in our area in this part of michigan who  o have been killed in line of duty one way or another you know there job is to protect us and it's a dangerous job that they willingly take on and we certainly think of those who have lost their and one of the things that i thought that struck out to me that i don't know if there are people out there that feel really strongly about this and would be interested we put ten thousand dollars in to buy to figure later years to put in patrol cars for the police that covers seven cars and we have nineteen it would be really great if we could have a definitive later in every police car because people have heart attacks all over the place and we really nice for the police to be equipped to help them immediately and we did have a case of a woman who is life was saved this past december because there was a di help and so anyway we put ten thousand dollars toward seven of them if we wanted to do the other twelve it would be another twenty four thousand dollars and i'm just putting out there in case somebody feels really hopefully it would move by hoekstra supported by peters and leave it discussion on favre please say i suppose the same right that passes any other motions and resolutions aside from one that one can hardly believe we have yet to make but nonetheless we are and that is a request from the city attorney to go into a closed session for the purposes of the labor negotiations