good evening everyone welcome to not the penultimate andrea but the ultimate meeting of twenty fourteen meaning of course our final meeting for this calendar year it is also the meeting where it feels as though we're on the set of miracle on thirty fourth street that end scene where they bring all the mail forward and they dump it on the judge's desk and you can't see anything we're kind of surrounded by point said he is tonight but it's a fun fun night and we kicked off our cremating tonight with  in if you keep your television set to this channel you probably witnessed a bit of it but surely our technology staff will be putting it on the website as well as well as rebroadcast you know the k public access cable channels so be sure to catch that because they were as  fantastic as ever we have lots of things to accomplish tonight and before we can do any of it we need to make sure we have a quorum to conduct business so our deputy city clerk and i would you please call the rule for us the great sixth ward of the city hall and immediately thereafter will say the pledge of allegiance to our flag so if you are at home we invite you to join us in these things and if you are in chambers we invite you to rise and join us for these items you to pray with me lord we know it gets busy in this advent season of the soul we slow down for a few minutes now to welcome you into our gathering and look forward to your guiding spirit among us it's christmas and there's so much beauty around us to admire so many relationships to affirm our rekindle it's time to enjoy to party to eat and to wonder at your goodness we know too that for many it's not so much fun due to life's circumstances or perhaps the memories of all of loved ones gone as we enjoy the gift of the season may we be aware of opportunities to be a shining light in someone's journey a comfort to those who grieve and we bring the gifts of acceptance david there are copies paper copies of this evening's agenda located in the rack in the rear of the room for here in chambers if you have an electronic device of some sort whether you're in chambers or at home you can also find a copy of the agenda on the city's website which is city of holland dot com go to the calendar page today's date you'll see information about tonight's meeting located there in addition to the agenda if you go on the website you'll look at you can you can if you want look at all of the background material that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting we put all of that information on the website so that the public can see what it is will be taking up and what it is that forms our opinions on those things and that typically is on the website either the friday or monday before our meetings take place so those things are available for your review at your leisure you will note that as you look at the agenda there are a variety of items on it that have an asterix next to them these are items that are presently on our consent agenda which means that we intend at this point to handle all of those items together kind of wrap them up into one big gift with a bow on them yes that was a bit of a sort of bed pan but and that's sort of the plan that we have now in a moment we'll find a way to adjust that consent agenda if anyone in the audience or on council would like to change it but for the moment why don't we find out what is presently scheduled to be on the consent agenda and for that we turn to in a pl to approve the minutes of the regular media how december third two thousand and fourteen item eleven to accept and file executed oaths of office item fourteen a one to approve a lease agreement with ronald in the amount of seven hundred fifty dollars for the green replacement and transition ducting locating located at forty eight street peaking station item fourteen a three to approve an amendment to the wastewater treatment plant peroration contract with allegan and i know what counties townships of fillmore i'm lake town park in zealand i don't fourteen a five to approve a one year energy optimization services agreement with franklin energy in the amount of not to exceed fifty thousand dollars for program design database and technical engineering services pending approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen do you want to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration i don't fourteen eat three point one two accept the broad funded by various donations in the funders fund i am fourteen e's three point four to declare a surplus various recovered bicycles for donation to seventy times seven and property room dot com and item fourteen  two to approve the renewable of the management agreement with but west michigan airport authority for a five year term subject to approval as to form by the city attorney or i thank you and that is what is presently on our consent agenda meaning that we a motion on those items and vote on them all at once now perhaps you think we ought to handle one of these things separately so in a moment i'll ask if you would care to remove an item from the consent agenda in fact i'll do it right now if you want to remove an item from the consent agenda please step forward to the microphone and let us know which item you'd like to have taken in its normal spot on the agenda anyone seeing no one any member of council care to remove an item or more from the consent agenda tonight none i would entertain a motion at this time for the approval of tonight's consent agenda and all of the items behind it some moved by two or three week support supported by divorce attorney can see any comment or discussion on the consent agenda items very much that takes us to special presentations and recognitions tonight and tonight we do have a special presentation of recommendation recognition and at this time i would invite chief messer our city the beauty of a gooseneck is that you can sort of abuse it this way and turn it in the other direction and it still picks up sound it's a pleasure tonight to welcome michael caine us to the council chambers and many of you know  michael and know his family and michael reached out to me part about a week week and a half or so ago and michael will just let you take it from there please well it's my honor to be here and thank you for express gratitude and appreciation for the officers of our holland police force and we recognize that it's in the backdrop of maybe some unrest nationally and we thought that this would be an appropriate time to express that appreciation and we didn't want it to just be a thank you we wanted to have some substance behind it and so we each contributed a small amount of money and have a check here for the city of holland to be used for the purchase of a bullet resistant vests for the patrol officers and then i think there's also a few dollars for some goodies to have it the department of public safety as well so i would like to present this check for twenty five hundred fifty dollars and another that another contributor came in at the last minute for another hundred in there's also some think you cards for patrol officers there  know we michael we appreciate your your generosity and those who contributed just fit in this we certainly are very appreciative of it you know as michael said police officers have certainly been taking it on the chin in the past few weeks and we are pleased and fortunate in our community to have a police force comprised of officers who take very seriously the role in the responsibilities they have and serve us with honor and with dignity and we know that when we call when we need them they show up and this is really a remarkable way for you to recognize that and to express appreciation to them so thank you now we do need to take formal action on that particular item so if i can get to my computer here i would invite a motion to accept with appreciation supported by the board is there any discussion minutes you please it's a difficult age that we live in and it seems like every time you turn on the television there's another horrific story a little worse than the last one and i think many times people feel powerless and victimized by just by the violence and evil that bombards our eyes and ears these days so to have a citizen step forward like this and say i know there's evil in the world but i'm not experiencing it i appreciate those around me i appreciate the community i live in and i know this gentleman has lived all all over the place all over the world and has chosen holland michigan because of the value of being a part of this community and it really strikes me again that  there is a lot of evil in the world the only force strong enough to overcome it is the power of wealth and you just see that in those in those people in their attitude in their the gratitude  t shines from them and such great examples of how to live a victorious life is focusing on the good and appreciating the good around us and saying thank you and appreciating people even sacrificially so it's such a wonderful example for all of us and what a wonderful community to be a part of thank you nancy well said all right with that all in favor of accepting with appreciation please say i pose the same that is accepted and approved thank you again very much that takes us down to item number twelve which is communications from the audience this is the opportunity for members of the public to address the city council on matters that do not otherwise appear on the savings agenda all we ask is you step forward to the microphone so everyone can hear what you have to say state your name and residential address for the record and you have up to five minutes to address council in the way we handle it unless it's invisible because of our point said he a display tonight there will be a little green light that turns on at the four minute mark it turns yellow and when the five minutes have expired  i see the mayor in the city manager taking notes there so that we get passed along to our street department and i want to thank you for being part of national mine out every year it was a privilege to see your picture in the paper i know that you're a regular at that you're a very good support of ways and if and if it's something we can't take care of because it's on their property we will make sure to communicate with c s x about that fact thank you for bringing it to our attention those are the kinds of things that you know it's tough for any one of us to be  one hundred twenty or so miles of sidewalk all throughout the city it's tough for any one of us to sort of be able to understand the condition of each and every square inch of it but when we get you know good residents who use it see problems and let us know that's when we can really take action so thank you again for being here tonight it's great to see you and merry christmas to you thank you anyone else care to address council tonight as part of communications from the audience right seeing none and we will then move down to the report tonight from our finance department know why am i not oh you know what i think i accidently crossed off the b ottawa county road commission will be joining me here shortly to talk about the resolution but just a little bit of background about this project the board public works has been looking at the wastewater treatment plant and loadings you know the polluted pollution loadings coming into the plant from industry and you know all of our users of our waste water collection system it's a reminder that that treatment plant serves not only the city hall and but also serves five other township areas three of those that are considered the northern service area north of lake mack a taua primary areas of park how and and zealand charter township and then on the southern area fillmore in lake town and then again some small part of park township and how and within that zone over the years there has been growth in that loading as industry has expanded there's been a lot of growth in food processing industries in the area and just a general increase in the strength of product coming into the plant and it requires that we're at since we're at a level above ninety percent in a couple of the pollutants of the pleat treatment plant capacity that it's time to look at improvements to the plant to allow for  you know that continued treatment and growth and so there's been some studies done at the plant where we looked at that we also have some equipment associated with our biosolids do watering that as end of life and so we've wrapped that into one project it's presented to in administrative committee that is made up of representatives of all those governmental jurisdictions that sit on that administrative committee to weigh in on their thoughts and  help give direction to staff on improvements and approaches to dealing with that at our waste were true plan and so the project that was presented involves the replacement of some of that aging equipment along with some improvements on the east side of river avenue where we currently have a variation system for treatment converting that to a system very similar to what's on the west side of the street which is a high purity oxygen treatment system that's going to give us about thirty five to forty percent additional capacity for treatment allow us to meet growth into the future and to be in a safe operating condition given the level of pollutants that we have coming into the plant now and so with that the project budget that was developed is around twenty four million dollars and we've also in this process one of the items that was approved on the consent of genda had to do with an amendment to the contract associated with the wastewater treatment plant between all of those jurisdictions and that change will be doing is changing the funding requirement from what was historically a seventy percent requirement for the southern service area and a thirty percent for the northern and more recognizing that today that flow  more evenly split it's about a fifty fifty split and so for this new investment that will be making the administrative committee did vote and approve that contract amendment be presented to each of the jurisdictions that would represent that this new funding be on a fifty fifty basis and so that is the contract amendment that you proved tonight second to that there was a discussion and a subcommittee actually formed to look at the financing alternatives that subcommittee came back and recommended that we look to go to the county for general obligation bonds on behalf of all of the jurisdictions and that is a process similar to what we've done in the past as well and in one thousand nine hundred forty our waste were true plan our last bond issue there which is just recently been exhausted so currently the waste water plant has no long term debt at this point we just exhausted that last bond but that was also done through the county and one of the reasons we do that is the county has a very very high credit rating and established debt rating already of aaa which means that they can offer entities that use that process of very very low interest rate on those bonds our estimate is that over the life of this by by using the county as opposed to offering the revenue bonds or issuing revenue bonds would be saving about three hundred thousand dollars for all participants and so appreciate pat's discovered and his work in helping to prepare those resolutions and documents and i'd ask pat to come up and maybe just walk through some of the elements of the resolution at this time good evening and welcome even thank you i appreciate that summary what we'd members second would be to authorize the mare in the clerk to think you can deliver the contract the third item is to authorize the clerk to publish the notice of intent in the fourth one is to provide a copy of this contract as part of the minutes two for viewing of the public authorized them the mayor to file the necessary treasury applications authorize the clerk to approve the official statement and finally contract states that the rates in charges will pay for the repayment of the bond but if for some reason that doesn't come to fruition then i will county will step in and pay those bonds and as a backstop to that the  contract is in place and in this particular contract it's a city of holland's pledging forty five point six percent of the total of twenty million dollars so if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer those at this time any questions at otherwise a motion please overproof by the mayor pro tem or supported by interest discussion i was just going to say this you know we talk a lot about cooperation in government and getting all these various unity government to figure out how to work better together and you know we're not perfect at it around here by any stretch the imagination is always more that can be done but it's these kinds of things that again demonstrate to me just kind of a leg up that we have and so many other places around the state here we have the county which let's be candid has nothing whatsoever to do with our wastewater treatment facility somehow the connection is made between our local units the b and the county and the county is willing to put its essence its neck on the line for all of us so that we end up saving not an in not an insignificant amount of money over the life of this bond because we can piggyback on their excellent bond rating now understandably their willingness to do so is also dependent in some ways upon our willingness to stand up if you know hypothetically the world falls apart and this this doesn't work the reality of the situation is that we're going to have a much lower cost of servicing the improvements that have to be done at this plant because ottawa county is willing to assist some of its residents in its community by putting its name behind these bonds i can't think of a better way to demonstrate to people within our community and outside of our community the way we do business and the way we work together to achieve efficiencies so thank you all very much and please pass that along to you know your your people at the county are degree of appreciation for it but one final thing on that and it requires all the units that benefit from the waste treatment plant to do likewise so i believe helen township hall and charter township has already that and we've done similar kinds of things in the past but pending our approval tonight we need like town township and park township to step forward and do the same actions we're doing so that collectively we end up saving this money on the repayment so unless there are other comments that come to my parents you know just one question for dave certainly i support this but is there and again this might be a little bit more of an advanced thinking here but as we look at the western gateway of holland we look at the unity bridge we look at windmill island governments etc can you give us an idea of what kind of a footprint this new part of the wastewater treatment plant is going to be a minimal  the area where this treatment process on the eastern part of the river avenue is going to go and there is currently an air ration based on there that is going to be reconfigured to be high purity oxygen contact tank just like we have on the west west side of the river avenue so that structure is basically the same size but just a different process and then our d watering equipment will be at the site where our old equipment is is going away so actually there's no change  footprint there so really it's very minimal impact and that's one of the nice things about this is getting that additional expense treatment capacity but without having to really increase the footprint of the site so excellent thank you thank you time you know it's a time we're we have a lot of great things going on that are going to hopefully put the community in a strong position long term so yeah we appreciate all that vision and responsibility and and the work that all right merry christmas to you as well moving down the week we go from twenty million in bonds down to the audit at the out of the fire out of the frying pan into the fire i'm not quite sure but  to the extent we can be thrilled to have an accounting firm join us in chambers we are very pleased to welcome raymond to raymond for forward for tonight's audit report and i would advice mr wagner leave the director of our finance good evening stephen welcome thank you good evening we passed out hard copy documents to each of you this evening you can see there's an awful lot of information there i calculated if we got through three pages a minute we'd be here for an hour and a half see if i can trim that down just a little bit actually we had a chance to go through this in great detail with a finance committee week or so ago so i'm going to give you just a few quick highlights and i'll be happy to entertain any questions that you have the three documents that were passed out in front of you are also available  already posted on the state of michigan's website and i believe will be on the city's website in final form as well the thickest of those documents as tomorrow it is called the comprehensive and your financial report worth pointing out that the city voluntarily  produces a document of this complexity the state of michigan requires kind of the middle section of this the parts that make this truly comprehensive are a voluntary participation with a national program in the city kind of goes that extra mile in terms of financial transparency to its citizens really the two hundred forty some pages that are in this report there's only a single page that we as your auditors are directly responsible for and it comes right at the very first tab of that printed document it's laid all the independent auditor's report and basically we as your independent auditors have to answer one very simple question is the financial data that's in this comprehensive annual financial report accurate is it reliable is it something you as elected officials can use to make sound financial decisions the auditors opinion is really not an assessment of the city's financial condition it's not anything more or less than saying is the information that management has put together here is something that you can rely on but we certainly do assist management in formatting the information in the format you see here all of the numbers come directly from the city's accounting system and are actually downloaded electronically and put into this this document we have issued yet again very long track record of this a cleaner unmodified opinion on the city's financial statements which indicates we've given you the highest level of assurance that is possible during an external financial audit i am required to remind you want to annual basis that the nature of an audit is such that we don't look at every single transaction it takes the city staff an entire year to account for the operations we're only onsite for a matter of weeks but we have no reason to believe that anything has slipped through or not been detected so that is always a risk with any financial statement on it so a clean unmodified report on the financials very good news there the second document is much thinner is labelled  compliance and this is a document that answers to questions one did any matters come to our attention as we were doing the financial audit about the way the city maintains its books and records sort of looking behind the numbers at the system that drives them and i'm pleased to report that that document which if you're interested in following in the hard copy is noted on page thirteen indicated no findings of any kind does that mean that there's absolutely nothing the city could do to improve its financial operations there's always a way to spend more money to make more internal controls but we believe you have struck the appropriate balance and we didn't see anything from a control perspective that we felt rose to the level of an audit finding this year that needed to be communicated to you i said this document answer to question that was the first of them the second is how the city administered its federal grants during the year and the city had roughly eight hundred thousand dollars of federal grant expenditures during the year ended june thirtieth two thousand and fourteen and we had only two very very insignificant items we actually refer to them as immaterial noncompliance related to the administration of the community development block grant both of which have very easy corrections there details on page fourteen and fifteen you'll see both the recommendation and management's response and corrective action to take care of those minor adjustments in both cases we indicated that the city complied in all material respects with the requirements of that grant and your opinion on the single audit is that you had a clean unmodified opinion on grant compliance and finally we have issued a freestanding letter on the results of the audit how the process went very pleased to indicate there were no issues or problems in dealing with management as always the city was very well prepared for us and the audit process went very smoothly we also have an attachment to that letter we can bring to your attention any comments or recommendations and we had just a single comment that was raised during the audit process and actually corrective action had already taken place before we had a chance to meet with a fine it's going to tell them about it so everything is on i'm good track there as well that's a very brief summary of what's a fairly lengthy process i'm happy to go back and give more detail or answer any questions you have or i can just get out of your hair and let you get on with your business at the risk of asking a question that could lead us down  flip in the hardcopy reports to page one zero two and one of three you'll find two schedules that are actually just outside of the part that the audit directly addresses it's called required of supplementary information i want to disclose as is is the funded status of the city's pension plan that information will not be changed next year but gadsby sixty eight a new standard that will apply to two thousand and fifteen will require this information to come out of the back of the report and actually be integrated into the city's financial results in the front section it won't change how funded you are you were roughly sixty eight percent funded as of june december thirty first two thousand and thirteen that unfunded portion will actually now start to be a liability reflected on the face of the cit balance sheet up in the front of the report you'll still continue to make payments and to actually determine contributions as you do now it really just be a shift in the way that information is disclosed in this report for readers that's really the big change that governments facing in the next year there are other smaller ones but i'd say that's the only one of real consequence right now thank you just for clarity gaspy is the shorthand for the government accounting standards board correct for those who aren't familiar with either government accounting or literary in nature and i think we're talking about a good novel we have members of our audit committee take a look at it and meet with our auditor any comments from you folks who sat through those meetings that we should know about and that's exactly leaping forward to give us comments i suspect that our presentations and i appreciate the presentation and stephen we give you a hard time but we do appreciate the information that comes through those of us the geeks that like the numbers it's it's almost becoming humdrum that we're doing so well and tell you and your crew  deserve a lot of credit for that the city is much better off because of it and the checks and balances that we have with steven and his crew coming in every year i'll take boring  this is the little the little things that we have to find just to keep us on our toes like i said i'll keep hope they'll take the boring so just keep bringing the good news  thanks for that and you're right we do you know it's an occupational hazard you face is that of course people have a good time the expense of accountants but on the other hand lawyers and lawyers  thanks for bringing that i've got but no the the importance of this evening in the reports that you know you give to us tonight it cannot be overstated because in effect you people can disagree about what you know how much money we take in why we take in so much why don't we take in more what are we spending it on is a good is it wise should be doing be doing more in certain areas less in certain areas those are all sort of policy and political decisions but what these documents demonstrate is that regardless of what you think about how when where and into what level this is how the money is being spent and it's being spent as it should be into the policy decisions so we have confidence that there aren't pools of money pots of money that are unaccounted for somewhere or that we don't know where money went or that you know we haven't actually accurate financial picture of what the city of holland's finances are and as mike said we have almost the expectation we have is that these these reports are pretty boring and i suspect there are more than a few communities throughout the state in the country who would who would give appendages to have as boring reports as we've got because they simply can't get a handle on where their finances are at so and for in order for us to make decisions about how and where to spend money we have to know what our fiscal picture is like and this is the document that gives us that information and this is the document that every member of the public can take a look at to see how are we spending it where are we spending it have confidence that we're doing what we should be doing with the money that's interesting to us so thank you again for that for your good work and your your ability to distill many hours as i am sorry motion to adopt the well we have a recommendation and i believe the recommendation is to accept the audit and that is what we are being asked to do tonight so if there's a motion to that effect i would  whiteman any further discussion on it councilman the board please and my favorite i'm not a really numbers person either but the favorite one that you always give is a zero for mistakes and really you have given us an a for just to share a thought that crossed my mind to steve and i think it's a wise person who knows their audience and is perceptive about what that audience is about and i've been listening to you for several years now and  the fact that i think you have been perceptive because every years if least from my perspective it has been a better year than the year before and what you present you give people like me just enough for me to know that you're saying good things when you leave the other stuff to the aforementioned geeks with in whom i have a great job and so on so it's you know your ability to to know what to present and what not to present that does cause me not to have chills when you walk in the room so another way of saying thank you very much for the work that you're done in the service so you're state's version of it or the piece that's on someone else's website like it into ours it will be on our website great let's make sure to promote that reading the home page so people have easy access to find it ok that then means we turn to page two of our digraph nature center one for the education environmental education from cindy kaplan in the amount of two hundred dollars and a second one from the looters family foundation for land improving projects in the amount of one thousand one hundred dollars we also received an anonymous donation to the nov thirteenth reception of fifty two dollars for the georgetown university energy prize and also for the how you connections program a donation from the p r i sisterhood international in the amount of one thousand six hundred sixty five dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation and an expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors what is the pleasure of we generous community all in favor please say i write post same that passes unanimously and enthusiastically we had then to the wastewater treatment the an earlier boat that you had before so in your agenda is a recommendation of course this is to authorize the bonds to finance proven to increase the biosolids handling after my secondary treatment processes and build a new chlorine tank  same footprint as the current existing wastewater treatment plant so your motion tonight should you wish to approve is to authorize contract issue and publish notice the intent of the wastewater utility with the assistance of the county of ottawa thank you very much for allowing me to speak to you for a few minutes and for your consideration of our dues request at sensing power point presentation earlier today i don't know if you have that there in front of you or not yes i just wanted to walk you through a few of the highlights from this past fiscal year we'll start off by one of the core programs of the mack of course is that the m p o side the metropolitan planning organization side of the shop and  we maintain of course that for your program this past fiscal year that ended up being a little over twenty point seven million that was allocated to both projects in the  from that received funding either from state projects was offered or a funding but went to the state system local system or went over to our transit system some of the investments in the city of holland out of that twenty million program or nearly twenty one million program was two hundred sixty thousand in congestion mitigation air quality funding that went to the multiuse pathway going along on an forty there from fortieth down to industrial ave and then a couple of investments within the city on the state trunk lines us thirty one received a little over two point five million that's for the resurfacing of u s thirty one from thirty second street to up eighth street now the funding happened in this scoping work and analysis and if you've been briefed on that a number of times and i'm i'm sure regarding that project of course there is larger expenditures coming forward and for construction of those improvements in upcoming fiscal year so you know a significant investment of that twenty million looks like a little over three million happened within the city on that side as we look at our twenty fourteen to twenty seventeen transportation improvement program that's our four year road bridge transit program i just want to highlight a couple of investments that are happening within the city within that program the biggie is one point two three million that has been allocated to the ninth street project there from washington to the transition back to a street down by de vos field house had started out as a million and some additional about another two hundred thirty one thousand became available and the max policy committee chose to allocated to the one street job  so that's a significant investment it's a continuation of what the mcas started you over the course of the last several years where in some years our program will take our one point five one point six and divide it you know maybe five or six hundred thousand across a couple of different projects but then we tend to pick one project were put a significant number of dollars into every few years we did that on the south washington job that received a little four million dollars back in two thousand and thirteen we're investing in in  street here in this current fiscal year so pleased to be a part of that certainly as a regional project in nature a couple of other smaller jobs have been in the vicinity of sixteenth street between waverly and hoover some prove it's there to and prove the session the policy committee did take a policy position regarding that particular issue and it really had three criteria that are noted there one we want to see the new revenue level hit one point two billion at least that in so doing we want to make sure that the state legislature didn't do it in such a way that hurted that hurt local units of government particularly through revenue sharing and also we wanted to make sure that that legislation occurred  d their new revenue flowed through the existing act fifty one formulas which would ensure that transit got its fair share of those funds which is important certainly to the city and and city residents and when you look at the  max ridership totals you know that city residents are utilizing our public transit service more than any other unit of government that's involved in max so we hope that they do the right thing the conference committee who is who is working on that bill right now has a tall order  because certainly some of the legislation that has been introduced and passed by particularly in the house doesn't follow those three criteria but we're hopeful in the end it well moving on to the other side of the shop  grants totaling three hundred sixty two thousand those went to help our storm order permit tease which the city is one of those and we'll talk a little bit more in just a moment about what's being done with that what's called the saw grant and the other was a grant to how farmers implement agricultural best management practices and these are the types of practices that basically are all designed to keep the dirt in the field whether that be conservation tillage or cover crops or a while which is a physical earthworks type of project whatever it might be i mean there's a number of different ones but they're all in intended to control saddam and keep it where we all want to stay which is on the field and i can into the tributaries and into lake mack to that end there's some expertise necessary to help farmers in that regard and the mack hired an agricultural watershed technician to help out in assist farmers when they're putting together those various management practices to go through the process of doing that we fortunately have a gentleman who is actually a farmer himself he  farms grandfather's field and has done conservation practices and self so when he's talking with farmers he knows about some of the trials and tribulations associated with implementing some of these best management practice so we're very happy to have him on board  pleased to report that two thousand acres in this last fiscal year did come under some form of agricultural best management practice so we continue to to work on that which is a critical component to cleaning up the water together and how local units of government might financially contribute to project clarity and i want to i'm here tonight to say thank you very much for that budget allocation that has been included in your current fiscal year budget you're not alone some of your neighbors of awful also stepped up most recently parked ship committed seventy five thousand towards that efforts or very pleased with the public public sector response to project clarity and of course it's had a huge response on the private sector side as well so that's an exciting project to be part of clean up the watershed is a huge initiative and it's going to take all of us working together to make that happen  trainings to the permits this past year we can help out with some of the reporting requirements with the state certainly are involved in publicly working with residents and other groups trying to educate them on the storm water component of water quality and in particular live permits he's had a state requirement to put together a pollution prevention good housekeeping report and our staff has been working with your various departments  identify their good housekeeping practices and so forth and then we're going to be putting together the required documentation to be submitted to the state so that's been a huge undertaking with the various permits he's thus far and then certainly public education is a major component and i was very pleased we did a watershed survey with a frost center this past fiscal year and indeed we continue to see the public's knowledge of what a watershed is and  definition and some of the problems with the watershed other awareness continues to increase which is very encouraging not only that but the survey also showed that the importance that they place on a clean water should continues to increase so those are very encouraging signs from the watershed project's perspective just one other thing i want to note outside of our core programs and that is the mack is very engaged in the regional prosperity initiative that the governor announced a little over a year ago we have been placed in the west michigan prosperity alliance which is thirteen counties that stretches from allegan in the south to mason in the north and we are very engaged i sit on the steering committee for that effort and continue to advocate for the max areas interests regarding the various programs and projects that group has undertaken as well so that is continuing you'll continue to hear more about that in the upcoming years wow and then lastly i just want to close with you know just again a reminder of the importance of the dues that are paid to the max they help us leverage a significant amount of state and federal resources essential a local do is make up about a quarter of our budget and the two hundred fifty six thousand dollars in dues that come in from you and your neighbors help us leverage a little over eight hundred thousand in state federal resources so we were really appreciate that and we hate to boil everything down to a return on investment but that indeed both the payment of your dues i hope you see that as a as a good way to leverage as well as the else or outside resources that come into the community thank you steve the question for you the the storm water part of our normal assessments is is related to but separate from the project clarity piece correct that is correct yes so a lot of the efforts of project clarity are part and parcel of the mack tar watershed plan so we are responsible for creating and maintaining the legal document and the watershed management plan is that's the document that is filed with the state with the michigan department of environmental quality and in that regard we have various roles and responsibilities related to that storm water is one of those but certainly i mean some of the things some of the problems we have with storm water runoff is runoff from fields runoff from rooftops runoff from our parking lots you're aware of those types of things and clarity helps with those definitely but clarity is it responsible for making sure that all the storm water permit tees file pollution preventive prevention good housekeeping so there is certainly some overlaps reinforcement but there are certainly some clear distinct areas that each effort is address ok thank you and the other questions for mr both types nancy please i just curious how many acres are there agriculturally said we have two thousand that are best management practices for co i don't know the exact acreage but the percent of the overall acreage of the watershed the highest or the most prevalent use is ever culture so yeah the two thousand  good start but we have a ways to go we certainly have to acknowledge that although you know there's a lot of areas and i think one area one facet with that clarity has really helped with in giving us the monitoring data is we now don't have to work  hydrologic models anymore we know what sub watersheds are the ones that we really need to work on in what agricultural areas are the ones that we really need to address first so you know and so just to say a number say if there were you know seventy five thousand acres we know it's that seventy five hundred or fifteen thousand acres that we really need to work on you have and within the sub water shots yeah well it sounds you've definitely structured the program well and have the right person talking to people the first two thousand i'm sure are the hardest that's right well we're a little bit farther into it than that we've had some so this is just the the fourteen total  course we want those producers to continue to do this on an annual basis so that overall total grows it's exciting all right emotion place we've pro a number of items but first i want to say steve and his crew been helpful in our grants that we've been getting for when the island guards one the three hundred thousand that we know and one that is in the offing and we hope to announce soon so thank you st i want to call your attention to some christmas trees over to the left side of the room and i think they're up to judge and they're from your city teams and the winner will be announced at the christmas reception tomorrow so please don't forget that also take a look at your calendars you and your families and let me know about the best ball game and generate thirty first third we have for the first time we are offering opportunities to become  friends of one mil island so people watching there want to check their facebook pages for the city of holland and you can see that becoming a friend gives access to three hundred different gardens nationwide and it's a perfect thing for someone who you don't know what to get for christmas well next i want to thank our team specifically map and i can forward the chairs that have replaced the other chairs here tonight they are exceedingly comfortable and functional and with that speaking of functional and exceedingly capable as well matt has something to show you about a year in review matt s if we can pull that feed up for the viewers at home the c t v group this year produced just over two hundred videos and what i'm about to show you is just a sixty second little clip of kind of what what we've done and what has gone on in the community it's a fun little video  u guys have learned some new talents over the last year and some of those are showcased in the video and you'll see that but i'll go ahead and play that for put up on the screen  and the very nice mats and that's all guys very nice why don't you if there's lawyers you've got control on the screen go to the city's home page and show folks where they can find all sorts of video information about whether it's council meetings or whatnot so if we go to a main page we have want to go directly to the video or you two pages you can do that as well and one sort of unknown feature i think that is not it well lesser know that what it should be is that the government channel you can live stream in you can link to it right from here so wherever you are in the world you can keep current with what's happening on c programming actually both government and public so there you go see how well it's known i didn't even realize that both of them but stuff thanks matt but you need the communications from the city manager this evening no thank you all right thank you then communications from me let's handle the appointments first of all i have a variety of things for your consideration this evening the first is to appoint bryan gra improvement committee for a three year term expiring january thirty twenty eighteen jane mccarthy to an uncompleted term on the h r c human relations commission her term expiring june thirtieth sixteen and alex calder the compensation committee for a seven three year term expiring june thirtieth twenty seventeen point cathy beal to the international relations commission for three year term june one thousand and seventeen and initially she was appointed to a partial term and then under the either ordinance or resolution and not quit quite sure the police community relations commission it comes due every year at the first of the year so all of these persons to be reappointed to the police community relations commission for a one year and sorry two more miss cookie and also kyle rock then i am really regret these next two to resignations you know course we don't like it when anyone our commissions you know we only appoint people who we believe can do good jobs and are willing to put in the time necessary and it really is in many instances thankless but these two persons in particular really have done it with both women so you know woman's service to our community in different capacities and i certainly understand why it is that they they would like to resign or why they feel they need to and they're for very very good reasons but it is a loss and we should really you know in our motion i think express our great appreciation for their service and those two persons are shining garrett's resigning as a member of the human relations commission for personal family reasons as well as tracy hash resigning from the human relations commission as well so with that i would place those before you for your consideration and hopefully approve community relations commissions which she served for many years she will be greatly missed indeed and i think she was an h r c representative and police community relations so with a partner of one also has unfortunately meant th departure of the other but you're exactly right tracy's is fantastic roger and sam actually the police community relations commission representative on the neighborhood neighborhood commission do is to vote or revote all in favor please say i post the same that passes unanimously then just a few comments this evening of course the the typical information about being able to find information about the city of holland at city of holon dot com  website we try to put things there so if you are either on a bill or an interested in communicating via phone or showing up in city hall hopefully you can find what you're looking for by going to the city's website city of holland dot com  addition you'll find information on how to get ahold of all of us phone numbers email addresses those kinds of things and we do appreciate communications from from members of our community can't be everywhere we have issues before us that quite often we don't get a lot of feedback if any feedback on it it's nice to hear from people to let us know what they think about what should happen in their city so please keep in touch with us excuse me one second finishing up that little little cold through the end of the year finally tonight for me this is the last meeting of this year i think it has been a moment this year for us and we saw a sixty second review of some of the highlights image wise from what has taken place in our city and community this past year you know we've been through some pretty trying times over the past decade as as a community economically to be sure and  the effect that that has in family life and community life and you know you kind of that struggles means that there's not as much discretion discretional income in place to donate to charities and it means that at the time when donations go down needs go up and there's kind of an inverse and and unfortunate relationship that happens there and we also understand there are lots of people in our community still struggling and lots of challenges that we still face as a community but it does feel as though twenty fourteen was one of those years where we began to to really break through in a really concerted way some of the things that we've been dealing with over the past decade  we worked hard to organizationally get ourselves in the right position from a sustainability standpoint a small s a sustainability from every aspect certainly environmentally but also fiscally in the operation of this organization in a way that is supportable and sustainable you know it creates a great community for us you think about all the work for example that's being done on some of the hard core infrastructure kinds of things be it streets and sidewalks and the pipes that run underneath  obviously the board of public works activities that are happening will impact their community not just for the next few years but for the next few decades you think about some of the things that are happening in  organizationally leadership changes that have happened this year some retirements some promotions some new additions i am quite confident that when we have had a long time long serving and excellent staff persons from this organization  retire we've been able to put new people in place and we have not missed a beat and i think if someone from the general public would happen to come in to city hall or be part of a meeting where we're talking about some of the planning you wouldn't think we would missed a beat so while we certainly hated to see some of our persons retire after so many great years of service we wish them well and know that the work that's being done continues just with new faces around the table and then we you know look to some of the the other initiatives that have happened over the course of this summer not all of the new but certainly many of them gaining new traction these connections program i think again not new this year but something that really seemed to gain some traction and take off this year and there continues to be momentum as we saw of this evening with the with the acceptance of gifts related to that that program you know some of the efforts that have been underway in talking about building a community that  is successful for everyone who wants to be a part of it you know finding ways to make our housing stock both attractive and affordable and trying to find ways to do both of those things and not picking want to over the other continuing conversations with our schools  public charter private all across the way i think that there's momentum there in ways that there hasn't been for for a long time one little example and it's not that little is the completion of holland public schools major bond and construction project and if you have not stepped set foot in one of the schools and particularly the high school i would encourage you to do so because it really is a remarkable remarkable transformation that matches facilities with the kind of education that's happening on the inside of them and i could keep going for a while but i do believe that this has been a pretty momentous year for us in this community in this city and i think that we're going to keep that momentum moving forward as we look into twenty fifteen and sometimes people ask what's know what's new in the city and it's a little bit you know we're dealing with the elected person it's a little bit like saying hey how are you today so you know what's new and you wherever you're from  d it's sometimes a tough question to answer because i don't necessarily know that we have all sorts of new things happening and in part that's because we have so many good initiatives already underway and i think it's more important that we work those initiatives and work them hard work them good so that we make real progress as opposed to you know going for the shiny new object to be able to grab some headlines and that's the sense i get from all of you and that's the sense i get from city staff too is that really we've got a lot of our plate a lot of really great things on our plate a lot of things that will make our community propel itself forward in ways that i think will really distinguish us in the next few years and beyond so we're going to work hard on those things we're going to i think see some some great strides made over the next year or two and it really is a great privilege speaking one of me to eight other elected members and to the other senior staff members who are either around the di or in chambers tonight it's a privilege to work and serve with all of you and it also is a privilege for those who are watching at home or in chambers tonight a privilege to be able to serve this great community my family moved here about thirteen years ago and a great decision just a tremendously great decision for us and it's sometimes hard to imagine and remember that we frankly haven't been here that long that we live somewhere else this is our home this is where we're from this is where we want to be and just so many wonderful things about it and it's a great community to be a part of and a great opportunity and privilege to be able to serve all of you so with that m january one thousand and seventeen i place those before you in the form of a motion we have the request in motion from our colleague the mayor pro tem on these items is there support for it support supported by truth to eat any discussion on them all in favor please say i oppose the same though those appointments and that motion passes communications seeing none let us send the  supported by peter's all in favor please say i write and he opposed that passes we are joined there christmas happy holidays happy new year