good evening everyone welcome to tonight's regularly scheduled meeting of the city council we are pleased that you're tuning in whether in person chambers at home watching on television or somewhere around the world on by means of the internets as some would say  we do need to make sure we have a quorum present the same thing so we will first have an i please call the rol mayor excellent thank you and we begin tonight speeding as we begin all of our meetings with two items first a prayer which this evening will be led by our colleague council member david hoekstra immediately thereafter we will have the pledge of allegiance to the flag if you would my wouldn't mind standing and joining us in these items would greatly appreciate you join in prayer where we greet you at the beginning of this meeting grateful for your blessing guide us in our discussions and give us wisdom and discernment in our decisions we have franks for those who serve his community as employees and volunteers and i ask you keep them safe and energized where there are those in our community who have been affected by the recent arrests not because they're perpetrators but because the friends coworkers or acquaintances we understand and believe that justice requires consequences for actions but justice also calls us to mercy and understanding inspire us to be mindful of that as we ga liberty and justice for all thank you david there are copies of this evening's agenda located in the rack in the rear of the room paper copies if you are either at home or watching via some electronic device you can also go on to the city's website city of holland dot com find a copy of the agenda as well as find all the background materials that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting the simplest way to do so is to go to the home page and either click on the calendar tab or on the agenda and minutes tab and you'll find a link that will get you that information you'll note as you review this agenda for the evening that there are a variety of items that have an asterix next to them and these are the items that are presently on our consent agenda and these our intention is to handle these all with one motion and vote to pen handle them all in one motion and vote not withstanding wherever they appear on the agenda so we think that their routine and we think that it's appropriate to handle in this way you however may not think that it's quite so routine in fact you might be here to talk about one of those items so what we will do is we'll have a listing of tonight's consent agenda items all then give the opportunity for members of the audience to remove an item if you so choose in the course members of council can remove one or more items as well and if you would please tell us what is presently scheduled to be on the consent agenda item five to approve the minutes of the staff council retreat held february one regular session held every six am study session held on feb thirteenth two thousand and thirteen item a la been to accept and file executed oaths of office item fourteen a one to accept the bit of all tell who sent in the total amount including contingency of three hundred forty three thousand nine hundred fifty nine dollars and thirty three cents for service and purchase agreements of metro fiber backbones which is to upgrade the holland board of public works network with the transfer of contingency and pending the city attorney approval asked to for item fourteen be won in one thousand nine hundred eighty two except in place on first reading proposed tax amendments to section thirty nine hundred eighteen of the zoning ordinance regarding a side in rear your yard exception for the c to highway commercial zon district with the final hearing to be scheduled for march sixth two thousand and thirteen fourteen do you want to refer a claim filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item fourteen d two to approve the institute international corporation and development of michigan a solicitation of funds license of which are required documents were reviewed and approved by the city attorney i had in fourteen two point one to adopt a resolution resolution seeking federal transportation improvement program funds from the maca tower area cordoning council for fiscal years two thousand and fifteen through two thousand and seventeen transportation projects item fourteen eat three point one to declare a surplus various bicycles by donation to seventy times seven and also to list on property room dot com item fortini three point two two accept january two thousand and thirteen monthly financial reports as presented item fourteen three report three to adopt the corporation authorization resolution with citizen bank to allow short term investment into authorized appropriate signatures on said documents item fortini five point two to approve an allocation in the amount of eight thousand dollars from the energy sustainability project funds to the commercial institutional taskforce to develop a plan to achieve the short term objective and long term very vision to inspire all commercial and institutional district setting a public hearing of necessity all right thank you that is what is presently on the consent agenda for the c evening would anyone from the audience care to remove an item yes just come to the microphone just tell us which one you'd like remove please so that we can all hear i don't fourteen the two institute for international cooperation and development ok that is remove anyone else from the audience member of council  remove an item all right what's pleasure on the amended consent agenda moved by truth support supported by de boer is there discussion please call the role yes unfinished business we have an item that is on the table related to some proposed parking changes the first thing we need is for someone to move to remove the item from the table and place it back on the floor was moved by hoekstra supported by whiteman all in favor of so doing please say i  pose the same all right it's back on the floor in the motion that is before us is to approve these two parking changes coming to us from the parking committee is there discussion yes we had quite a discussion about this in pre canceled meeting and i do have concerns on both of these and stated that the parking thirty fourth street on the south  side should be one of about five spaces that seem to be highly used and i pick a pass through this week on several different occasions by going to the north side there are cutbacks on both the west and by the car wash and also on the east and it appears that there would be roughly only three places i don't see any really good reason for changing th and speak to the second one downtown if you want stuck about that one too it's about the clarification they're both they're tied together at this point somewhat right move do that later if they'd like talks about putting two spaces on a street  premium i don't care what town you go to and it appears to me that what we have downtown on a street has worked really well people can come for long term or short term and it seems like there's a pretty good natural turn over there is parking behind this building on seventh street which seems to be adequate parking for that banking and as i mentioned earlier i think probably most businesses might appreciate if you're the holland peanut store people running in there or to outpost or to work it might be to pick up some fudge or ice cream or whatever and i think it just of goes back to you know where we were before we had this open concept on town and i think it has worked well i don't see any rationale to dramatically change that so i am not going to support either one of those to any other comments all right so at present we are scheduled to have both of them voted on at one time unless somebody chooses to try something different like place you know i will choose to try something different right that would be to move that we separate the two and have separate  i think that probably this week that's a good enough motion i suspect all right that is the motion that is on the floor whether we want to call it a motion to amend or whatever want to call it is their support for mike's idea support supported by birch all right so let's talk briefly if anyone cares to about the motion to sever separate well all right assuming no loss and we're just going to a voice vote on the motion to separate or sever depending upon your choice of a cavalry all in favor of mike's motion to separate the two items please say i i pose the same all right so we have two separate items before us we do not need any new motions correct mr city attorney right both are on the floor so let's first deal with the motion related to the thirty fourth street yes but then screen thirty four three all right that is the motion at the motion is to approve those parking changes on thirty fourth street any final comments on that my druthers i'd probably be voting against it i haven't made up my mind one hundred percent yes the only thing that's keeping me from voting no on it because i do have some major reservations is the fact that it is coming to us from the people that are actually paying for this parking if they want to try it have a specific period of time although i don't see that that's part of the proposal let me think this through but i'm willing to give it a try they're the ones that are asking for it they're the ones that are paying for it my preference would be to have these sites as they are now in the backlots there was a number of places referenced upstairs a little bit earlier i think they're working very well this is a unique situation in front of this bank but the d d is coming to us the b d a members are paying for it so i'm willing to give it a shot brian convert these back or remove that fifteen minute rule what's the and we've experimented with that i should ask is upstairs but i didn't i don't know that we've done this in the past i'd want to give it a good enough period of time i was just sitting there thinking i think six months would still put us in the summer season so i think i'd rather see go over probably into the fall so maybe october end of october or something like that before christmas shopping season really that i just liked and have staff come back in with some sort of assessment or i think we you know we don't like to see how it's going to work so we can certainly convey that to the police and i think between the d d a the parking board and the enforcement side of it if we can keep track of it for that period of time i think that would be a good thing to do well i think i anything else yes one place well in talking up stairs it seems as though perhaps a larger issue is that downtown employees are parking in this east a street for a long time and locking these places  up and so perhaps looking at another alternative to say ok you cannot exceed parking there for two hours or whatever that magic number might be might give us a better flow of parking than this particular idea but i think that you know there may be other ways to control that pull of parking and make it even better the one else nancy please i druther now that check over every parking place for one to two hours and i think it's really helpful especially since it's in the black with the c v for us to have a quick and quick out accessibility if i'm new to the city and i'm coming to eighth street because that's where everybody says it's happening downtown and i'm not really too familiar with back lots and designated parking or any of that and i see the c b and i there's no place for me to stop a minute i could miss it so i don't think it's only consideration for the bank although i you know they don't have a drive through so i can see where that would be helpful but there are also restaurants right around there that do a lot of takeout business and this could be simple for that and and for the c v b s i just think it's customer friendly and that's why the businesses are requesting it and just as a trial thing and you are only investing maybe nine months in this and it could be very convenient and helpful for a lot of people and maybe we would want to do one or two of these spaces on the other blacks if it really helps people to not just park and stay there for a long long time so i think it's a reasonable request and and as mike says if the people asking for it are paying for it i i think it's nice for us to let them try new things downtown an successful this will be which and i think it will be what will be important is to look at it more comprehensively and develop a policy and strategy to allow every space to be claimed by business are whomever it is i'm sure everyone would like to have a space for their own customer convenience but it is a street that's for everyone in downtown is for everyone and yes the merchants are paying the lion's share of the parking costs but i think it will just be important for us to take a long look at this and develop a policy from a to without tying up the whole street so it's going to be important for us to evaluate it and take the long long walk and he went great and from what dave just said that if it's that important that we may even have to make a policy out of it then i think it's even more germane that we do put a sunset on here or a time period that can be evaluated so that if in fact and we need to have feedback from d d a  i'm almost i'm even inclined to go through the end of the year so we do get the holiday season in there so i would make a motion that we have a review period sunset to the end of two thousand and thirteen to review this situation of these two parking spots and at that time make an evaluation to continue or discontinue so just matter of clarification a sunset or just a mandatory review mandatory review two well for communications from the audience this is the opportunity for members of the audience to address council on any topic that is not otherwise located on this evening's agenda the rules of council are relatively simple all we ask is you step forward to the microphone at the podium so that everyone both in chambers and at home can hear what drastic problem in our communities seeming to have started to be epidemic is accountability of police officers i've encountered the police couple times one this summer i really felt violated when police officers had dogs in my backyard around the summer time i have been in close fence with a gate nobody had asked permission to be in my purse in my yard they just entered had a dog around when i confronted them they decided to tell me they were looking for somebody they never knocked on the door to ask to ask me if i have seen somebody or anything else i later on then decided to look at the newspaper for a complaint see if there was something in my area that had went on nothing had occurred so very made me feel very violated oh well then on january the sixth of two thousand and thirteen i was it was about nine in the morning i was getting shot and i was in the shower getting ready for church when my son came to me and told me that there was somebody at the door i wasn't expecting anybody at that time i was expecting some way about a half hour later and i asked him who it was he said he thought it was the polies while when i decide to come downstairs i had realized the police were knocking at my doorway which was inside and closed normally locked porch which i then felt very violated and i asked then i did was very afraid to even open the door since i had felt that the police had already invaded my privacy by entering the private porch then so i had a big picture window which is two feet by four and a few feet wide which you can see a few view of somebody i decided then to open the curtain ask the police officer how i may help them they then told me they need to speak to me about it incident that had occurred then i was in a bath towel electric razor in my hand i said i have that is very fine i feel i can can talk to you about anything else but my first question is why did you feel you could enter my porch without my permission i have a doorbell on the exit side of it and i have a doorbell within the porch nor doorbell was ever rang each doorbell has a particular chime that means to eat to a certain door which gives me the idea of which door to then go to so then officer decided to not even acknowledge my question and then continued then to ask me again i need to speak to you about an incident that happened that i had heard i had not known of any incident did not know what was going on but still felt felt very violated that this officer decided to not even acknowledge my question and then come to me and then asked the same thing so that i then asked the same question why do you feel you can why are you on my property without my permission and he then knowledge again sa acknowledge my question then saying the same thing saying i'm here to speak to you about this i said as i'm very well i can speak to you as you can see i'm in a towel and a razor i will get dressed and i will come out but for the meantime can you please leave my  get out of my residence until that time is until i come outside he said ok i went to tears started getting changed very fast then i hear another not the same door same officer then i was felt very violated and felt very ignored when i had asked continuously for him to leave that my property well after x of the property i mean after i came out i decided to come out my back door because i felt if i open up my front door they would force themselves sent which i had two children and three children there at that time and i did not want them to see any of this happen so when i went out the back i asked them why they they felt they should they could enter my porch without permission they then said that they were going to ask questions and that i shall not ask questions i should just answer them and be quiet so then when i felt very like they wanted me to be subordinate they'd be little me did not acknowledge anything i had said i then decided to  basically do my rights asked them in my under arrest no you are not wild and i will not speak to you got arrested as soon as i did that they said you are now under arrest the most disturbing part about this is after i was after i had got out of jail that i decided to go complain against these police officers while when i went to go complain to the police department the next that the next day i was then spoke to a  sergeant met sman and he encouraged me that my complaint was not for the police force to be dealt with in court so that i did and went to my attorney and my attorney said that was a blatant disregard misleading me and that that officer should  known better to tell me that and i at that time when i was with that police officer i asked for a formal complaint he was very at that time discouraging me to get this formal complaint i had then had to tell him that i was getting it for a friend that they wanted to do it then he then decided to give me a formal complaint and he told me at that time that he would write my my complaint down and officer would then get back with me and he gave me his card and gave me the complaint number that i was filing and also giving me the sergeant to complain to which i then later found out was the sergeant that i was complaining against so this officer i had gave him the name he had read the police report and decided to tell me to complain to the complaining officer against the crooked to complain to the sergeant about the complaining officer which was very i found out was even more disturbing to me so that i had then decided to file fill out the formal complaint then after two and a half weeks of not hearing from anybody when i decided to fill out my formal complaint and turn it in i just had had a meeting yesterday for it but before that i decided i wanted to go to what is the police relate community relations meeting so i came to my city hall found out the court appoint the time it is scheduled for at this time was scheduled for the first thursday of the month which would be february seventh so i then decided to go attend the february seventh police community relations me board meeting i then went to the police department at four o'clock asked where i could go attend this meeting nobody at first nobody knew no nobody was willing to even look into it until i pulled out my phone and had a picture of the appointment saying is this not eighty nine east east a street is this not where the police committing isn't this february seventh at four p m yes then they finally decide to call a sergeant which then i was then notified that the that the board meetings were are not on the first thursday they are actually the first tuesday of every month which has not been changed to this date today i have checked out there is still the same day you guys have changed other committee board meetings but not this one i complained yesterday to the captain which is on the police committee relations and he gave me a response as of those meetings are not really for the public which is really disturbing to me he tried to tell me they were for organizations which i have been plenty part of and know that the police do send correspondents to like to our street subcommittee meetings and other things but i did say well isn't it for the public isn't it that's why it's at the city hall up there for the people to see then he says nobody  well it's very difficult to intent to a meeting that is informed wrongly and now that it's the set it's the seventh is over twenty eight days which discourages somebody from coming to attend after they have already tried to attend once and the disturbing thing about it is when i made my formal complaint to the police i typed up my paper and everything else when i had the meeting with this captain which is bob's beares mine he decided after i have to diligent time to put mine to put down everything in words to what i have a meeting with him to ask me what i was there for when he had the complaint in front of him then he decided to tell me that police officers do not ringing doorbells because ninety seven percent of them do not work my doorbell works my neighbor doorbell works and my neighbor's neighbor doorbell works so as my three the three houses next to me the only houses in holland i have a doorbell that actually work i think your guys is probably work too so being very misled by the police and them not being accountable not one time did i get out i'm sorry that that was posted wrong we will change that i didn't get sorry maybe we should a rang a doorbell sorry maybe we should have it did not into your enclosed porch which has furniture on it all i have gotten is mis letting information telling me how i should change what i am doing and set of how the police could change what they're doing i feel there should be a lot more accountability on the police force along with the police chief which was here last members not here today and i think and i also asked this captain for the procedure of my complaint what is the procedure after this meeting will i get a respondent's will i get something letting me know what is going to happen next he says i don't know if i find it very disturbing that a captain does not know or the procedure of a complaint or is he just trying to mislead me some more so those are the issues i have bring to the city council a day i felt i have got tried to go through the right connections by complaining and complaining so i have now come to the elected officials that are for me now and i just would please i would appreciate for you guys to maybe talk to these police officers talk to these captains and see the chief of police and see what's really going on because obviously there misinforming the public and it's been a week over about two weeks tomorrow and it has not been changed when it's been brought to their attention and they continue to mislead the people of this community thank you thank you can i ask you one quick question i mean clearly the city manager here will look into this just procedurally the police chief actually reports the city manager so this is the right guy for this stage in the discussion so he ryan will look into it and frankly i suspect that before you step out tonight ryan will give you his card so you can have a direct access to him secondly  as the council liaison of the community police community relations committee i would also encourage you guys to make contact and i'll be happy to make contact with you as well the only question i've got is you said hayes avenue is where your residence is i have a might just point to as far as the meeting goes we were on the first thursday of every month the first of the year we changed so that was the second meeting now unfortunately i don't know why it hasn't been treated at city hall but i guarantee you probably be done tomorrow morning thank you i appreciate that so we apologize for that it was not misleading it was just miscommunicate my brother only problem was when i brought it up to the captain he tried to make it feel like try to basically make me feel like it wasn't open to the public and that was the part that i had a problem with because as i am very educated in my system and that's what the disturbing part is educated and i'm doing these the right routes and i feel like i'm just continuously being disregarded so thank right thank you very much and if course i guess that i can give you a card before you leave tonight or again if you go to city of holland dot com you can find all of our contact info as well as you know so thank you very much the microphone remains open good evening and welcome mr representative thank you mr mayor members of the council bob jeanette's he with the legislative update from lansing if you passed to the exam in january we closed books for the end of the fiscal year that actually end october first roughly ninety four million dollars left over and lapsed funds and i guess you could call it a surplus i suppose a lot of hands already reaching out for that school aid fund is roughly flat at the end of the year and both those numbers are much better than the running deficits at the end of the year so that's a good thing something relative to the city of holland of course a business personal property tax legislation at the end of the year i did vote against replacement i had a lot of concerns my hop that works out fine works out well for the city and other entities throughout allen county but it was handed to us very late at night with not a whole lot of time to study or where to call any of you at midnight to see how you felt about that or thought about that  i do have some long term concerns for how that's going to work out relative to for the people in the use tax and some other pieces moving around so i was careful to vote against adam but again i pray that does work out well for the city recently the governor on rolled his budget a little over fifty billion dollars that's up from last year's state budget was was about forty eight point two billion dollars as voted on and enacted  overall increases roots are references to medicaid expansion and a tax increase on the gas and registration for your vehicle both of those by the way have not been incredibly popular with the other residents about county as i've gone around to to discuss and listen to those but that would represent about a one point two billion dollars increase in funding for transportation if those are successful the governor in addition would like to add about one hundred thirty million dollars in spending toward the great start readiness program that's a pre kindergarten program as some you are familiar with some studies of the governors touting the show that those students that would be able to go through that program but cur aren't able to because of funding would do much better in kindergarten if that were to pass in addition the governor's asked for another class of state troopers to be put through the academy this would be the third in three years as you know far a lot of the budget is being driven as you know by medicaid that is housed in the department of humanity health d c h that budget will be a little over fifteen billion dollars  as the governors proposed medicaid expansion would increase to put about three hundred thousand new michiganders onto the medicaid rolls that would be those that are roughly one hundred thirty three percent above the poverty line act calls for the federal government to pay for the first several years and then in two thousand and seventeen i believe the state would pick up its share and that would wind down to the state covering ten percent and the federal government covering ninety percent  the feds track record on covering all that they've said that they were in the past has not been great so medicaid expansion is being alley debated in lansing right now an issue also close to holland in january i introduced house bill forty one zero six to allow for local municipalities and local authorities to apply the natural resources trust fund for dredging help abundantly aware the lake levels a very low and we are allan's for a tourist season upcoming we are hoping a hearing on house before they want to six in addition today in the house tax policy committee we had officials from allen county come and speak on behalf of house bill forty one forty five that's a bill that would exempt  materials that would go into building a county jail from state sales tax it is retroactive to the beginning of last year so that all the materials that would go into building elegant county jail would be exempt we appreciated the hearing today and we would look for help from those organizations that we are members of so that that four hundred thousand dollars that the county would be paying in state sales tax can come back to allegheny county as opposed to state treasury we did have a little run in with the michigan department of civil rights recently as they decided that they had a study showing that some school mascots were so offensive that they were causing some students to do very poorly in school they took this study and ran to the united states department of education and asked for the new united states department of education to basically develop guidelines for school mascots and develop some sort of force make guidelines from washington d c what that would look like and if i read the complaint properly and i want to make sure i leave this open but if i read the complaint properly it appears as if they are threatening local school districts to have federal funding withheld if those guidelines are not followed we did get thirty six co sponsors in a bipartisan manner to challenge the michigan department of civil rights to keep it local and engage our local school districts when they have issues not the running of the federal government and we have said that if if they do cost a number of local school districts any money we will be going after the partner of civil rights to replace that money finally to all the members of holland my condolences on the loss of former mayor cicle he was a good man and i definitely miss his guns and counsel with that i'll take any questions or concerns you one quick question for you on the or first of all thanks for being here but the question i've got is on the sales tax bill is that just apply to jails it only applies to townie jails and only because county jails are constitutionally mandated it's a state mandate that you have and maintain a jail sheriff doesn't even need to have county road patrols as pristiq constitution but they do have to own run and maintain a jail because i know that and i don't know that we've had a whole lot of discussion but we're going to be doing a fairly large expenditure with the power plant and we want to make sure that we didn't run afoul of the same issues that the county board ran afoul of down in allegheny county that we don't in essence you know pay sales tax and something that is tax exempt and that these are just want to make sure that there will look at the bill but just want to sort of bring that to your attention as well as look at the bill and let's work on some others is no where the taxpayers should be taxed twice on the same thing once when the millage or the property taxes are paid then again when the sales taxes have to pay on the materials that's not very large taxpayers and if it's in essence sort of a loophole but a question of you know who buys it it's clearly going for a public entity and the only question is you know which party is signing for that to me as as this bill recognizes it is but what we learn is very interesting even if the even if the city were to buy the materials and then turn them over to the builder contractor so that the power plant could be built the builder than is supposed to pay the use tax on that because he or she bob i don't know if you're going to be in lansing next wednesday or not i probably will the michigan small ports collaborative is holding their meeting in lansing i believe at the so this i don't think lansing quite understands the challenges that our ports are having right now and i don't think they understand what's going to happen to sales tax revenues if they don't get us some help on the dredging bob thanks very much for coming tonight we appreciate it thank you good to see you again and i'm sure we'll see you very soon thank you the microphone is open still good evening and welcome maggie reverify fifty west twenty third street just a quick some quick comments you know it would be very helpful if the city could look at some of their open meetings act issues that you're having with posting meetings within the eighteen hour i believe it is an eighteen hour timeframe it seems to be not just for the police commission or the community police commission meeting it seems to be for the human relations commission as well some of that may be a last minute changes or communication however the public has a right to know when where and who so as i was listening to the young man share his story with us it really hit home for me because i i imagine that this person not being an english language speaker or somebody who understands english very well in being treated that way if you walk his story out for a young man who can articulate that it's pretty emotional i would imagine it's pretty personal and by coming here it's clear that an individual would feel they need help how are people who are limited in english whether it be spanish coming here  bosnian how are they going to feel comfortable coming to this building to do what this young man was able to do tonight with some of the issues that have come up with the title six l t p rollout plan earlier this week i received an e mail from a local agency that came from a conversation with a city of holland staff member and it was recruiting volunteers to do interpret it in translating my concern with that is when i got it it was a mass e mail to one hundred twenty people and i thought what is this why is this happening is this how the city's building bridges were community is this how this city's building it misguided somebody who's worked in public school systems for over twenty years in when i was allowed to do translation i understand the liability involved in that i understood the confidentiality involved in that i'm not saying that other people don't have those work experiences but my thinking is how is the city going to build that resource i understand that that's part of the title six l e p plan but to receive this e mail this past week was unsettling i've communicated with other individuals about that i've received some positive feedback on the part of the l e p l e p p initiative by our city which is great but my concern still lies with again is this a comprehensive plan doesn't make sense and is it assessable to everybody my last statement is in reference to the story that was shared tonight i hope that the city can look at police accountability and also as we terminate poor performing teachers we should terminate poor performing officers i've brought up brought to the attention of the city council the mayor about hiring police officers during a time when we're not and i understand budget funding resources might or may not be there but are we actually do we have a great strong police officer force that is respectable respectful of our community members so i question that and i bring that to the city as a as something to think about and perhaps  a correct and others thank you maggie by the way has been assisting various points with giving some guidance and feedback and and that's been beneficial since in the interim you know we want to services and have no gap and services so the planned limited english proficiency plan was approved by council december six approved by the state december twelfth in concert with house around who wrote it and i believe he worked at the human relations a list from a proof translators and it's important that translators know what they're doing obviously so this is a good list it looks somewhat dated so i asked staff to make phone calls make sure that should this be needed one a in the morning or something by a police officer that there would be someone who would address the question and translate anyway we found out that some of those services were no longer viable they didn't return phone calls so  which signified we were looking for volunteers and that's not really the case will be needing to pay for these services and will be needing to budget for these services and individuals need to be skilled and properly trained so there's no miss community patients so that we will end up with with trains appropriate translators and if there are local people who are in that category we very much want them on the list  and we're qualifying as to whether someone's available one of them or not so that's how that evolved and i think it was and in the interest of serving the limited english proficiency public as opposed to any definitive outcome it was only by the civil rights but other possible interpreters and translators from the community it's on the michigan interpreter it's called the michigan interpret it interpreters training litigation resource gu and it's very clear about the problems that have come from having interpreters in situations like police stops emergency medical situations so it's a very good resource and i would encourage others to review that at your convenience in your leisure thank you all right thank you mr mayor yes i want to take this opportunity where in cameron someone's watching and paying attention i did not realize that our web site inter translation but the lower right hand corner yes it is relatively new and largely and well i talked with our technology service folks about three months ago and said hey what would it take to put the google translate feature it's not perfect necessarily but at least it allows us to translate the web site into many languages let's just put it that way and it just takes a click and it's we're going to double check that with someone like or her who knows also just wanted to make note that i've seen some correspondence maggie has been in you've been interacting with state agencies dealing with the question of limited english proficiency plan and  you know we still some work to do on and i think what may i'm sorry march one is kind of the deadline for having it in full operation not official it's our unofficial date to kind of marshal our energies and just wanted to note one comment from one of the leaders at the m d e r m d c r who said and i quote while you guys are really doing a fantastic job which is not to say we can't do better but we're taking this seriously and  hopefully will enhance the list that was given to us of the approved translators half of which are some of which you know simply were not available given a phone call to them so we can continue to roll this out and  continue to go through this list and do a better job but we're taking it seriously to be sure thank you mag microphone remains open all right ok then let's move on to the next item on the list which is thirteen a strategic strategic plan for the gardens project one mile island gardens i'd like to buy jodi to the podium who was the staff resource to the planning agency and is very knowledgeable about the whole project through and through you i'm very happy tonight to be here and behalf of the windmill island strategic planning committee which was appointed in september of two thousand and twelve with a fairly broad charge and that was to imagine a fifty year vision for windmill island gardens it's a pleasure to have a document before you tonight that is the final report and that vision statement we discussed this in some detail at the study session last week so i'd just like to review for you and for the community some of the key components of this report the vision for women island as developed by the committee of course focuses and continues to focus on the dutch heritage component we feel that it is important for us to continue to recognise the role that the windmill and that windmill island plays in this community  both as an example of the heritage that we claim for this community and as a working reminder of that heritage the other aspect however of the vision and this is something that has really emerged strongly during the course of our discussions revolves around the physical location of windmill island  attributes as a physical location so the report talks about this particular place as a place of abundant natural resources a place that occupies a central rol and a central location in the larger community and a place that is not only a park in and of itself but is surrounded by other parks and park like features so those are the four key components that are identified in the report as a part of that vision going forward the report then talks about three key proposals that the committee would encourage to go forward as soon as possible again the first is to address the issue of the necessary repairs for the desert does one windmill and some of the associated heritage pieces such as the carousel and the street organ the second project is a project that has had some very interesting and exciting discussion and that revolves around the possibility of there is a lot of excitement about this concept and again it is a concept that not only helps to bridge our two communities physically but also helps the larger community to embrace the entire area in and around windmill island the third proposal is to look at a separate pathway that would lead  a long side the road from the seventh and the lincoln area where you enter the island down to the island itself again to allow for additional non motorized transportation opportunities  people who are seeking to reach the island from the south and i think this visual you know probably captures best that entire concept as you see the location of the  windmill and windmill island gardens the concept of the bridge to the north side the pathway along the south side the connections that could occur a long window on the waterfront the river avenue bridge and the townships pathway system on the north side of the river we look at the river itself running through this area the efforts of the outdoor discovery center mecca tower greenway and everything that has evolved to embrace the entire ecology of this area and then adding to it the heritage dimension just really seems to us to be a very unique an exciting opportunity for us going into the future the remainder of the report deals with some more specific implementation recommendations and i won't cover those in any detail you have the report and we can certainly make the report available for others as well  again we looked at the excess ability issues and certainly that discussion did include some discussion about the gate and the entry fee and how we might deal with that in the future we looked at programming issues and  opportunities we looked at the physical infrastructure and we looked at a whole series of desired amenities for the island i think all of these things represent to some degree or another opportunities for us to work on some could be very simply implemented some are going to require greater thought greater planning and more dollars but all of them again lead to what we see as a very exciting future for windmill of gardens and walkways beauty and creativity exploration and learning a place where family and community gather children and families enjoy recreation and others to read reflect paint or meditate in solitude a place where nature enhanced urban life most of all it will be a fitting setting for residents of the greater holland zealand area and visitors from many places to enjoy our beloved does one as an authentic operating dutch windmill so at this time we would ask that you accept the report we know that our work is just beginning but the committee is very excited about it and thank you for the opportunity to be of service jody one thing i think we definitely need to have the once council officially accept that have that report prominently located on the home page of the website along with many other documents that are being created in time you know people i'm suspecting as many people at least will have an interest in reviewing the work that this committee has put in three months of work so thank you and other questions for jodi at this point it was a motion to accept the report anyone else wants to nancy please go ahead for i know how we can act talk about this awesome report and i know everybody here has been through this several times and so have i but it's just so exciting to have so many people come together spay fully to talk about what we can do with the does one windmill and the windmill island the gardens and realising what it is from a tourist perspective how we can better serve the tourist in coming to this island and also how we can can we encourage the locals to rediscover all that is when the island gardens and so we tried to rethink it from both perspectives and like jodi has said before that it's not only a tourist attraction it's not only a park it's both and we want to use it to its fullest the convention and visitors bureau has a beautiful ad that they're running in different places around the country and has a picture of the does one windmill and it says a world away and that is the feeling that you get when you go to a windmill island gardens it's a world away and it reminds us of our heritage an appreciation for what we have been given  and trusted with and it also helps us realize the delicate balance of ecology and environmental protection long there since it connects with macca tower greenway and its between two urban centers and it's really in a way says for us to treasure and to enjoy and to tell our friends about and to develop as a destination so that we can encourage families to enjoyed their time there to learn their it was voted for the third year the best place to tie the knot for weddings and that that is awesome that goes for the whole western side of michigan when the island gardens was chosen so we have a lot  to be thankful for there and it is a it is a heavy responsibility that we have to take care of and i hope that the community can come together april twentieth is the date to mark on your calendar that is going to be awesome the highland youth advisory council is working with different people in the community we're going to have a rhyme and a walk out there in the morning and in the evening we'll or afternoon they're going to have an auction for ways to raise money for when the island gardens so please preserve april twentieth on your calendar so that we can all come together to enjoy when the island gardens all right thank you they could place is purely coincidental that nancy and i were the two highlight a couple of things that struck me one of the things i think is very important about this plan and the the process that we went through was the partnership that we shared with a number of entities developments and things that affect the city but this one is affecting us as a region and that was particularly interesting and exciting actually for me to be part of that discussion to two other things first of all much much work went into this and i have to think joy for all the after that she put in so many other folks like bill johnson gordon like some other things that we experience in life here in holland this is not a final picture of what windmill island gardens will be it's a framework of what could be and outlines the fact that it is sort of a crossroads between a regional much boston area and that number the character outlined some of the characteristics that it provides for citizens what it looks like in final form i guess is going to be determined by hopefully some of us and probably a number of people who come after us but i what it does is that it accentuates and defines just some degree the importance of the relevance of this particular place to us as a community so i'll leave it comments in addition to the work that has been done here a group of us have been in the background beginning the getting ready the fundraising aspect of this i made some good progress on that this week as well but now with the vision document ready another document for other fundraising piece almost ready we can really begin in earnest with the ducks in a row so to speak please call the rol yes ok thank you that takes us then to the item that was removed from consent which is fourteen d two the institute for international cooperation and development application with the city clerk ryan if you just mi briefly or and somebody might briefly introduce it for us if the deputy attorney could please that we find to thank you anybody but me i guess is my point the applicant has filed an application for approval of a license for charitable or for solicitations under chapter thirty one of the ordinance code the applicants have submitted their articles of incorporation of the state as a nonprofit corporation along with a letter from the i r s indicating that they qualify as a charitable organization they provided some additional information as required by the applications to meet the ordinance requirements  so the standard under the ordinance is section thirty one dash three for counsel's review of the ordinance application as is the request for charitable solicitations the applicant indicates that  the charitable purpose of their solicitation is to fight poverty in africa secondly is the amount of contributions used for administrative purposes under fifteen percent the applicant indicates that it's zero percent and lastly would the solicitation or the purposes of the organization be a fraud on the public those are the three standards for approving it the ordinance says you shall approve the application if they meet those three standards right thank you motion please yes question first could you get your why is this coming before us the the ordinance requires that the application be submitted to the city clerk and if it's for solicitation of contributions on the public streets or public property that the click submit it to council for approval if it was beginning of this i i just came across this today i don't normally read the consent agenda i mean you know the items but for some reason today i took a look at it and this caught my eye so i have i am telling you upfront i have had all of twelve hours of looking at this and having worked for working third shift that that takes out eight hours of sleep so but i found what was going on with this group  and i think needs to be create some real hesitation i'll just read you what i was able to pull off real quick some years ago there was an investigative book written about the organization by a woman who served with them and and then left and conducted some research on the background of it and so forth with a co writer  it turns out that the the i c d is actually a subsidiary of a danish corporation by the name of t v end t v i n d which has been it close gathering operations in the us one to watch ak michigan and they run a volunteer training school which goes to the point of their application that they present themselves this i i cd as a training organization for volunteers to go to third world countries and fight poverty but they have let me see the i c c i see the schools have  elicited numerous complaints from former volunteers with allegations ranging from low standards dire living conditions unreasonable work hours bullying and i didn't know if i was going to i'll go ahead and use this term that i pulled up cult like you know i don't know i haven't had time to check it out but call it like atmosphere according to the two thousand and one case summary by the danish police  bergen and denmark the teachers group which this group apparently the t v end of originally began as a traveling which in europe again apparently is not that unusual kind of a traveling school as a as an alternative to public school and they just grew and grew and grew and they they founded this corporation and denmark the teachers group leaders have been prosecuted for financial crimes to two convictions in zero six and  nine every year and every alleged t v and run charities in the united states and europe and elsewhere are said to receive millions of dollars in private sector funding intended for quote humanitarian programs unquote in africa and elsewhere in the third world danish property prosecutors have claimed that t v and members channel portions of the funds for charitable use in the purchases of property tax havens business investments to the tune of fruit plantations shoe factories sawmills and so forth ships and ship containers so that's what i was able to dig up in all of two or three so i don't know why it's on a consent agenda i know now because it's of your question but i'm not real sure this is something that the city needs to be for lack of a better way of saying at licensing or approving of given that history and i mean just to be clear though we we don't approve of well we have a right but we rely on legitimate filings of articles the i r s designation you know we don't either have the time nor resources to go out and individually investigate each oh i understand so you know so so we rely on those external sort of indicators of legitimacy from both the state and federal government and that's probably why it's on consent is because once those go up essentially as you know it designates to us that this is for purposes of charitable giving and whatnot you know it's legitimate in the eyes of the federal government in the state government  now whether it's you know like any nonprofit or any organization whether it's you know you know something that each one of us want to give to is our own decision but that's the essentially what it is we rely on those extra all things to determine whether or not to grant these kinds of permissions you know and i understand that i guess my my point is with this kind of sordid history you still do have the power to grant or not grant their ability to be on our streets soliciting funds and i and i understand you don't have that that's why i'm standing here i understand you don't have the time to do all this basically you're the structure of what this whole process goes through is pretty automatic you know i'm just trying to i guess call a halt to granting to whatever measure that means in your authority their ability to go to citizens of  were there criminal charges carried forward executed prosecutions cetera yeah and i thank you for bringing me back to do that because that was something i was going to mention the founder of t v and thousand i think i can't find right now but two thousand and one i think he was actually prosecuted in california and received federal time in california sanction them to the point where the reason he was in california is i'm sorry i can't find it right now it's called california something and they do the exact same thing and they're also under t then and salt because of their that organizations activity in california they were able to track this  peterson because obviously his embroil involvement and he was prosecuted for embezzlement and in prison a brief there's an exhaustive description of the organization and its history and all kinds of stuff in relation to the things that he was speaking of  he was in two thousand and one in two thousand and two eight individuals from the teacher's group were charged with embezzlement and tax fraud against a private foundation which had as its purpose to support humanitarian causes and so forth seven  think the mayor is correct in that we base our decisions on certain criteria and from what the city attorney's office is saying that they meet those criteria so you know all right not have any legal reason to deny their access to soliciting funds but you certainly have given the public pause with what you've researched and i'm sure people might be much more wary of people at their do would be coming a little red flag here that concerns me is the name of the local person who's in charge of this lives and to watch act michigan that doesn't seem like a local person to me if you live in second thing that's a little bit of a red flag for me is that it states that zero percent will be used to defray for costs and i think it could be put somewhere be fifteen well there's there's obviously costs when you do something like this on some kind of basis and so you know why would you put zero down there so knowing that this really came up very very suddenly i think it might behoove us to be responsible enough to do a little investigation as to the legitimacy and maybe talk to this person that's making this request or somebody do a little bit more of an in depth interview to find out more about this organization i would feel much more comfortable mike i guess a bigger question ron can we do can we actually do anything well i think there are a couple things you know obviously one you can make a decision and pass it based on the application material secondly i think you could table it and ask for more information both from the applicant and perhaps even refer to say for the police department to work in the safety department to provide input on any information they may have to you because remember one of the standards is that the the purposes in the conduct of the solicitation will not be a fraud on the public and you know they're deceiving the public for what they're using the money for then that would qualify as a fraud on the public yes five point one i will apologize if i see any names incorrectly same managers office is pleased to report the following gifts parks and recreation parks recreation and transportation department received for the digraph nature center twenty donations in various amounts between five again twenty donations totalling six hundred sorry we also received fifteen donations totally nine hundred five dollars for environmental education in memory of dr william horse from randall and mary van the water patricia curlin miss katherine and mr j t katherine and jeff green barbara the da lanter cherry hill abrams and james lee vinci also donations three donations totally in two thousand five hundred dollars were received for the van royalty farm to support the planning efforts for the van right i have one more of my sorry a one hundred dollar donation has been received from mrs jane dikes just to support the repairs to the windmill does want therefore it is recommended that the passes thank you that takes us all the way down then to communications from the city manager i don't fifteen ryan anything to know they have one thing mr mayor and i want you to know that sync about my neck in our office is a fantastic job of putting these power points together week after week with a modest amount of guidance and i think greg would agree that she does a fantastic job so i would be doing her a disservice if i did not show you the next slide that she prepared those of you interested in having a good laugh welcome to join me at this event and as well as others who will be learning firsthand about the water quality and like thank you rumor has it your you'll be in a have contact information as well as a variety of information on the city's website we try to pack as much as we can onto it and that is a good place to look for information about what's happening in the city and how to find out things about what is happening in the city of holland crowd local members of our local african american community have been working hard to plan with the library some events for this so it should be a good day and we're hoping for a good turnout for this important event i have a couple of turn here but i seem to remember seeing an advertisement for a march to i believe saturday breakfast maple syrup pancake breakfast to benefit the graph nature center will be at the civic center from eight until eleven so come on down on the radio about that today the city attorney can correct me if and when i'm wrong i think the rule is if there is no time indicated it is automatically table to the next regularly scheduled business meeting of the council that would be fine but the direction that we're looking for i think was more remiss in the fact that we need to have some discussion i assumed it was understood but i probably should be putting it on the table that we would like to be investigated by the public safety department and report back from them by the next meeting thankyou that acceptable yes i think that yes understood but good to clarify i think you and the other communications motions resolutions all right then all we have left since we are not requested to go