well good evening everyone welcome to the first meeting of twenty fourteen its regular scheduled meeting of the city council it is good to have you in chambers tonight good to have you watching from at home or from wherever you are watching tonight thereafter we will say the pledge of allegiance to the flag i would invite everyone in chambers to rise and join us in these lord of all we pause before this meeting to give you thanks and to seek your blessing at our meeting and on our community we thank you for the many resources that you have given to us help us to be mindful that to those whom much is given much is expected instill in us this spirit of compassion and generosity we thank you for those who faithfully protect and serve us that patrol our neighborhoods that stand ready to aid emergency that provide that the provider utilities that maintain in clear our streets we thank you that they are we ask that you continue to keep them safe in their work help us in our deliberations tonight and our interactions throughout our lives to seek common good before individual ga all right thank you bob that takes us then to the consent agenda the consent agenda is indicated on the agenda with an asterisk items with an asterisk next to them there are paper copies of this evening's agenda in chambers  additionally we have a wireless internet service in city hall so if you have a i pad a laptop or mobile phone of some sort you can go to the cities website and download not only the the agenda for tonight but also the background material that council has reviewed and preparations for this evening's meeting can do that city of holland dot com if you go to the calendar page go to this evening's meeting in your go to today's date you'll find information about the next meeting there are these items with that asterix on them our intention is to handle them all with one motion and one vote because we think they're relatively routine now i will ask the clerk to read us those items of them i will provide further instruction as to what we might do and how you might interact with that agenda in place to approve the minutes of the special closed and regular sessions held december eighteenth two thousand and thirteen item eleven eight to accept in fire executed oaths of office item fourteen the one to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration i'd importing the two to approve a new business license submitted by kelly ross of proper disposal i'll see to conduct rubbish collection within the city limits i fourteen easy to point one to adopt the michigan department of transportation performance resolution for governmental agencies and authorized the city manager interim transportation director hauen board of public works general manager utility services director water wastewater services superintendent and electric transmission and distribution superintendent to apply for necessary permits to work within the state highway wrecked state highway right away for two thousand and fourteen i'm fourteen two point two to approve the agreement without accounting for the provision of the two thousand and fourteen cents work abatement program funded through the parks and cemetery division budget subject to approval asked to form by the city four thousand two hundred ninety six dollars and eighty one cents to be funded as presented in the city managers report item for team five point three to authorize and approved the city managers appointment assistant city manager robinson for the manager position of the energy and sustainability committee and to amend the agenda by adding an additional item for the consideration of adoption for the new city logo as item fourteen be five point fo all right thank you and we now would invite anyone from the chamber from in chambers here who would like to remove an item from the consent agenda because you maybe don't think it's quite as routine as we did i'm going to put the agenda together to come up to the microphone and tell us which item you would like for moved and then we'll take it in its ordinary course members of council may also remove one or more item from the consent agenda brotherhood i would request that we else five point four fourteen five point four right the new item correct if it if it wasn't consented no longer is the that's the belt and suspenders approach anyone us to item and number twelve which is communications from the audience this is the opportunity for anyone in chambers to address council on items that do not otherwise appear on this evening's agenda we have a relatively  in chambers this evening not to you know answer pick sides here will bring fans using a different meaning of the word but if anyone care to address council would invite you to do so at this time seeing it now and we will from as more trust in honor of seymour pad no say two thousand dollars trance manic in the amount of ten thousand dollars an anonymous donation in the amount of five thousand dollars in mary ran the water in the amount of three been coughing in support of the win my island is one repair project digraph nature center received donations from steve in nancy beery for land improvements in the amount of fifty dollars nancy in douglas shrank for land improvements in the amount of five hundred dollars and from danny de young for environmental education in the amount of two hundred dollars digraph nature center adopt an animal program received the following donations from ziggy lara sebastian do those men syrup came home nancy scott the ford family brady davidson eric and meghan heller henry jonah jeannette ski jean coast boys and girls club of greater holland janet luthiers and adopt an animal in sales of seven dollars and ninety two cent cell press collar should receive the connections program received a thirty five dollars anonymous donation it is requested it is recommended that the said donations be accepted with appreciation in expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors before we get that motion typo but it should say thirty five thousand dollars so with that we have thirty five youth sponsored for a summer thank you and had her hands full tonight with plenty of is there any discussion nancy please i just think it's awesome coming out of this season of giving that so many people have chosen to give back to their community  in response to the gifts that they've been given in their lives and for people to care about this one and it's repair and we have companies and individuals and individuals who have passed his family's trust that's that's amazing and for people to care about the graphic nature center and its education and its future development is awesome and for people to care about children that are unable to afford recreational activities to be a part of teams and get to know other students that way in a casual community centered recreational program that they can have scholarships through the  foundation that's awesome and then those donations many of those came through actual city staff that's awesome and of course that amazing angel with a thirty five thousand  donation to help high school students find the value of work and the dignity and respect of that and have hope for their future in learning how to how to work as a group and how to give back and how to have pride in their community i just think there are so many dimensions to celebrate in that list of people who have given back to the community so it's very inspiring thank you thank you nancy indeed i think then takes us down to the first item removed from the consent agenda which is item fifty fourteen the five point two the meccans how area coordinating council and we are pleased and privileged tonight to have the executive director president executive director executive director of the of the mac with us tonight the city of holland resident steve steve we are pleased to have you here and welcome to the chambers well thank you very much appreciate the opportunity to share with you some of the highlights from this past year as the functions around the metropolitan planning organization the short answer or the short explanation of what the m p o is we are the entity that keeps the area eligible jump through the hoops takes care of all the strings that are tied to federal transportation funding and their primarily surface transportation funding in dollars we make sure we do what is necessary to keep the area eligible and watershed project simply put is afeard a collaborative effort among the units of government in the mac to try to improve the quality of the water both in lachman and so those are the two programs as we're going to focus most of my remarks which i will try to keep brief here so you can get out at reason the first slide that's up there is a little overview of what happened with the m p o side of the business in two thousand and thirteen we have a four year program called the transportation improvement program for those of you who don't get the privilege of or policy committees very often that is a program that's a four year document this past year it was a thirty one point eight million dollars program now keep in mind that that is funding that goes for state trunkline projects indeed about over a third of that thirty one point eight million was the funds are obligated to the construction that's going to be happening this summer found one ninety six that includes new interchange loop and forty and so forth so that's a good chunk of it a lot of state work is represented that thirty one point million but you're probably more interested in what those dollars flowed to city of how on projects and that's what the two items underneath that figure indicate three hundred thousand and federal funding from the surface transportation program went to the lincoln avenue project that was the second installment of a promise that was made by the mack to help the city undertake that rather ambitious project there was three hundred thousand that came through in two thousand and thirteen in total as the slide indicates the federal importer the max investment in that project was one point five five million and then secondly the south washington project received one point one has calendar y in that regard we are pleased to be able to help you achieve some major objectives on regionally significant roadways in lincoln avenue and so i just mentioned the tip of the transportation improvement program in new tip that covers the four year period of twenty fourteen to twenty seventeen was adopted by the policy committee back in july this is the largest tip the mac has ever undertaken it has a little over one hundred million dollars in projects that is due in large part to significant investment in the state trunk line system most trunk lines in the mack area whether they be one ninety six b l one ninety six u s thirty one and forty are being touched over the course of the next four years and so if you can portion of that hundred four million dollars investment is going to the state trunk line but there are certainly a number of local roadways that are receiving funding as well again you're probably most interested in road so those are the investments that have been adopted or included in the next tip so certainly we're pleased to be part of those projects here in the city also a significant achievement this past years and that had some fun balance that they decided they finally wanted to spend down and provide an opportunity for those who are able to access that additional funding and get some well projects done that ended up for the mac area being three quarters of a million dollars and a portion of that i believe two hundred ninety three thousand of that seven hundred seventy five thousand was allocated to the south washington so that was rolled into that one point one million one of my goals as the director is to keep the mac agile and flexible enough to be able to avail ourselves of opportunity such as this one that when someone stops up and says because they didn't give us much time to do those and your staff does a great job as do all the road agencies and transportation agencies in the mack of season an opportunity opportunity like that and moving quickly so that we can access and get those dollars because agile communities in areas that were able to get those so i'm very pleased and proud that we were able to get our fair share of that additional speaking of resources and i think was a significant accomplishment last year was the continued advocacy that the mac is doing to try to increase state transportation revenues jodi scions did a great job prior to her retirement and helping me understand the challenges facing your organization in terms of trying to keep up with your resurfacing program and operational needs of the transportation system here those are coupled with other instances an avid ends and the max policy committee did adopt a resolution seeking what governor snyder is requests of the state legislation legislature an additional one point two billion dollars in state revenue to help not only the state transportation agencies but local  transportation agencies and meeting you know mounting needs from a resource base that has been stagnant for far too long so we continue to beat that drum at a regional level and worse we're hopeful that at some point will be able to increase you know state revenues those which will certainly you know help the city as well as other entities in the all right i just wanted to touch on a few highlights from the watershed project than one of the things we're always doing and one of the real benefits of the local do is that we received for the watershed project is it allows us to go out and seek state and federal grants and we've been very successful in doing that last year i reported we received great lakes restoration initiative grant we're still working on that one we were just able to secure another grant from the great lakes basin program another federally funded program and very much like the g r i grant the one that i talked about last year this finding the hundred eleven thousand that you see there is to help implement best management  practices in agricultural areas in the mac we know that in terms of point sources in terms of what is flowing into the watershed a lot of that is coming from agricultural areas and the mac watershed staff is absolutely convinced that we need to work with our agricultural producers if we are going to improve water quality in lake mack a talent one way to do that is to help provide incentives to help them change their farming practices and this money will help achieve that objective so please be able to get that and again it was the ability in this particular case to put in some local match show the federal and state reviewers that we were putting skin in the helping to facilitate and coordinate with the public sector response might be in terms of funding for project clarity so that's an ongoing conversation that is happening in our organization we're very pleased to be partnering on that opportunity that we have certainly the the city is a a miss for a stormwater permit and the stormwater portion of the dues that you provide help us to put on education types of activities or the web in our in our office just yesterday related stormwater we help the permit fees with their reporting requirements with the state license and permit that they have there are public education requirements that every storm order permit  as to fulfill do that in a collaborative nature through the watershed project and stormwater efforts and certainly all permits go through an audit process with the state department of environmental quality at some point we help with the audit preparation for things of that nature and again while you all have your own separate permits we have found that addressing and working collaboratively so when we do an educational training for amazed in my role that i'm in now i get a lot more opportunity to engage with the public regarding like my guitar and how many is sections are out there regarding it so we have a lot to do in terms of helping people understand  greenway postcard there are a number of different entities hope came in and played a role that is well again reaching out to the public in a coordinated fashion and we did that over a window on the waterfront then lastly i just want to touch on a couple other things i'd talk a little bit last year about the service delivery committee the last time i was in front of you is when that committee had finished its final report and you accepted that and  certainly want to express appreciation to ryan who has been a very active participant in the service delivery committee the standing committee that we have that ryan and his peers from the mack sit on and i really appreciate all his efforts and he brought a lot of his to that group certainly appreciate that we now have these twenty different initiatives that are moving forward with and trying to make some headway and some are  pretty low hanging fruit some of them are pretty aspirational so we're just going to add them one at a time and well actually several at a time and we'll continue to just try to work through that list in t ideas when finish those more should float to the surface and that will be in england and then lastly just one of that last point on the slide i want to point out is your dues are extremely important our budget this year is about a million dollars the dunes both the general dues as well as the watershed dues account for about two hundred sixty thousand of that so about twenty six percent the other seventy four percent of our budget comes from grants we're very much a grant funded organization but the reality is we cannot get one of those grants we get now if we don't have either match or the capacity staffing and so forth  certainly i mean i you look and say ok we got one point four million and back to the city last year transportation project for instance and i certainly hope you don't always just use that calculus that you understand the importance it was actually this organization and elaboration with your neighbors to make a better future said in his prayer for the common good so that regard you were certainly very progressive organization and helping the whole area get together and that other questions or comments forms to both types well i will then just echo some of nancy's comments and also thank you for being here tonight and know that certainly this organization this body strongly supports the effort mac as an organization but also the efforts of the mek represents regional collaboration working together trying to bring in our fair share perhaps even more than our fair share of resources from the state government and federal government and know that  certainly appreciate not just the the role of the mack plays but the leadership role that you play you've been with the organization now for eighteen years and about what for as executive director yeah yeah it's one of those things that higgins your predecessor was was very good but it seems like you've been there for much longer than four because you've taken the organization and sort of you made it your own in the best sense of the phrase so thanks steve it's great to have you with us tonight and look forward to  continuing the discussion on a whole host of issues that still remain to happen some of the aspirational ones and we have to work at those i suppose we must have to what's the old saying we have to deal with perspiration to get to the aspiration or something like that you and ryan and others in the management ranks of all the local governments are certainly working hard in those things so thank you very much all right first of all we need a motion never like to either take my place as the voting member in the organization for a meeting i'd be certainly happy to appoint you for that or if you'd like to attend a meeting i think it's a you'd be i think have a a feeling for the way that we cooperate in this part of the state of michigan and here's another one of those instances where we again are our model for what i think the governor is hoping or areas of the state will do that is the cooperate of efforts that we've seen  yes motion passes all right great thank you and thanks again five point three the item that was removed from the appointment of a new city of holiday energy and sustainability sustainability easy for me to say sustainability manager speaking of managers the city manager mr patten please thank you this is a something that we almost don't need in the fact that we have so many leaders in the area of sustainability from our standard a commission in the chairperson to our steering committee for the community energy plan and the leadership on their own specialism citizens involving don trees and bird greg hokum as well as some staff members in addition to leadership on council a number of council members have taken a very active role in our san ability venters so however technically we applied for a grant to create a possible hope college city of holland sustainability institute and that grant requires that we formalize sustainability director or manager so that is what this recommendation is that we make great robinson his capacit city manager and also chair of a internal committee here have to do with energy and and efficiencies and and conservation as well as his role on the steering committee for the community energy plan his uniquely suited to perform that function and that role i lease until such time as we work collaboratively with the board of public works and perhaps fund a separate entity a separate person i should say depending on future budgets and goals have some important step was ryan said it's very true that there are many many many folks voluntary time and effort to bring forward to a lot of work to help us realize the end results of the community play as well as our sustainability framework and the whole idea of looking at our future in a more holistic way i think this is  an important step in the probably one that we're going to have to talk about beyond robinson days sometime in the near future as well as we look to  any one person so anyway another opportunity to let the humanity know what's happening and an opportunity to well wish greg good things we continue to add duties to our staff at every level and we need to thank them for lead with there's a point where you want to burn the value there and to really be sensitive to the not only answer to that but it can easily happen we just post be very grateful that they're willing to take on these responsibilities with this one thank you anyone point four dealing with city branding and logo matter we have good we're going to have a sort of in tandem presentation this evening we're pleased to wind initially have the first part of this item introduced by our colleague house member merge from the third ward and he will  so the mayor and myself and several others on council have been talking about a new visual identity for the city of home for the past probably almost four years and we've kind of kicked around some ideas from the as done by a professional something that's done for crowd sourced or crowd developed we've done some of these things to varying degrees of well you know well being and what we decided to do is kind of work with a designer to create something new but first we want to look at why we were doing this and so we're starting out here with the the seal itself and while the seal itself is very good it is a very official document itself inspired by the authoritative it's not in itself entirely welcoming so we wanted to look at a few other things and before realizing all of that we want to talk about why cities are doing this and this quote from bruce malas is particularly relevant  today every city is now in the business of not only making itself building itself cities build roads and infrastructure but we're also marketing ourselves and we're doing that not only to bring people in but we're doing it because the landscape is so much more competitive than it ever was before not only regionally in our media region but statewide and nationally that cities have to be places of  distinction if you want to follow there have a conversation a place making we can get into that at a later date but that's really a derivative of that so if you walk around the city of holland and you're looking at official documents or things authorized by the city whether it's signage or documents or anything else you'll see whole lot of different things used here's a plaque that uses this script if typeface to work with as well something again that isn't very welcoming again here you have our website in current use and uses the seal as well as this lowercase typeface that actually had these commonly used by the c b i just saw that on the door this morning we have a nice to look on our street signs again here's does wine on our cars here's some letterhead a memo that uses and at the bottom it would say where it's tulip time in may and while we say that with kind of a smirk and it is a factual statement to the times is its own a separate organization of the city hall and then we want to be representative of the entire city not just one organization here's an example of a particular signage usage not to condemn the individual who made this but it's instances like this can be done better here it's a derivative of that script the font type face again it can be done better so that's what we looked at when we are trying to build something new that's not just fresh and modern it evokes tradition it evokes our cultural diversity and our heritage but also can be unifying and be used on a consistent platform and so i'm going to introduce adam wyler who is the owner of amber studio he's a homeowner in the city and he's a designer and he's a business owner and he's awesome guy and he's going to talk about the new logo and how we got to the new whatever it is that you're making is going to operate and we started off just thinking regionally who are we who are competing against who are neighbors and what are the things that differentiate our community from the there were a couple of themes that we really wanted to communicate with this market being open accessible and welcoming a general spirit of hospitality being innovative forward thinking creative and not only being able to to think about making new things but we have an incredible manufacturing base to be able to put things to market our being in a in a government role we want to convey authority trust in a competency at the same time in our in our historical context there's a strong tradition that we want to honor but at the same time there is a tremendous amount of cultural diversity that we want to honor with the mark as well static a couple that i want to draw your attention to is this theme of the inside of heraldry that was often used to denote a windmill in the contemporary brand for the city of of amsterdam there are three and then just iconic shapes trying to pair silhouettes and looking at interesting combinations we ended up with about twenty four marks that we thought were viable from those we put them in  essential tournaments of sorts in from there we selected the one that we felt had the most traction to a wide variety of audience but the same time communicated those things that we knew it needed to so without further ado i want to present to you the mark that was developed there is an icon on the left paired with a word mark on the right the type the was informed by dutch type traditions and specifically focus on the icon on the left there were three things that we really wanted to celebrate with this mark the first if we look at the top third what we want to focus on is the the abstract windmill  it's simplified pared down not to be realistic with what but more the concept of one male in this idea of a rooted structure that leverage is changing environmental conditions to create energy to to use that change into a positive force and in holland being in a place that's continually making and remaking technology advances chemical advances and we really wanted to celebrate our ability to make things in the middle quadrant what we want to focus on wanted to celebrate his hospitality we looked at mission style architecture we looked at flemish architecture i'm sorry woman yeah dr one of the other in this overall career creating a place for people to gather for people to bring their best and contribute in the middle of the architectural element there is a what i'll call a bow tie it's a straight that shows up on information architecture but then it's also interesting during the underground railroad  there were codes in both were used to kind of represent that there's an advocate here and to convey messages to those on the underground railroad the final thing that we wanted to convey and celebrate with the mark was leisure  hollins location geographically rooted is just a wonderful thing to celebrate what it does to enrich our community in our industry and overall those three things industry hospitality and leisure i think are are one of the key things are the three things kings the three things that differentiate our community from from those in our surroundings as far as implementation goes what we want to do is is have some consistent centralized pieces that we develop and get off the ground right away as well as a library of assets that we're able to empower different members in order to create their own products and so on screen you'll see right now example of  a letterhead business card and envelope and at the same time what we as we as we implement those things now we want to have a long term view of what it looks like to develop a unified brand across all of our different departments and so you'll see an example of what a potential piece of literature would look like that's coming from the management and administrative services department and so there's a variety of marks that have been developed we have an asset library in the works that's where you distributed and i want to stay here for a minute but is there any questions we're happy to answer adam can talk about effectively to the design process and i can probably answer questions about why the heck we're doing this then we explain it this this architectural motif in one of the interesting things that i think that that a lot of us realize as we began looking at that middle piece in the hospitality aspect of it was that the architectural style evokes images from the netherlands sure but it also evokes images that come to us from south of the border of spanish and hispanic images from mexico and that wasn't something i necessarily expected when i thought about when i first you know would look at an image like that but the more you look at it the more you realize that you know there are striking similarities between some of the generalized styles between those two cultures both of which of course are represented in major ways in our community so you know i i suspect that much of this was intentional but a great pulling together of those two cultural aspects of our community as well into the market in particular  think yes it is it's a combination of the friesian the friesian style architecture and the mission style architecture of the south so it's a nice hat tip to our history but then also new members of our community creating safe place for for both of those groups and more that are not present  questions comments for adam for brian woman abort please i know adam i think when the first times i met you you handed me your business card which was a piece of  thought man this guy thinks differently that is such a great way to promote a design business and then you told me about your dream of helping students learn after school how to develop an industry and h to do business and how to how to make money and have a stable place in society and that that was a vision of yours that you were doing with students after school and and working hard to give them create a new vision  for their lives and also helping them with the tools that they wouldn't have to depend on other people and that they could discover their own gifts and i thought wow that is really that is really an awesome vision and and then you moved into that space on river avenue and i thought of all the people to have a creative space like that it would be you and your endeavors and i thought how cool the blessing of growth and more opportunities for people and then as we were trying to define to live time and i thought oh i know who that was behind that and then we had the run of the mill effort last year for getting money to the hop how and youth advisory council kids got together and they wanted a way to to tell the community we got to get behind this does one repair project and oh how do you get that thing done and and i heard something about ambros again and so i'm not surprised when i saw you in the mayor's office with a presentation on this topic and i'm very thrilled that  a person of your caliber and motivation to help build a better community and to set a vision for a positive future and to give back to future generations could be behind the analysis and development of something so creative that that expresses a vision based in celebrating what we've done right in our history and building on that in order to make a better future i love the the way it is clean and clear that it's kind of our the whole element of communication from a virtual network and we've talked before this meeting about how we're going to communicate with the public in more of a virtual way and that's kind of our gateway to the world as a community we don't just wait till people get here now people come here in a virtual sense and they need to have a consistent branding for who are we and what do we do here and what are we all about and their impressions of us start way before their first step within the city limits and i think our branding on our stationery and our signs on every communication should should be consistent and of the quality that we want to present to the world so i just am so excited that it includes the windmill in such a classy way that it has that element of welcoming and hospitality because holland has learned how to welcome people from the start of to look time and i'm sure before that many people joined the the settlers from the netherlands from america and we had a great like a third of our community was were people that came here from that were americans that joined the dutch and so we've had a history of being a welcoming and it's so good to celebrate that and continue to focus on that and i love the water at the bottom because sometimes we forget that we are such a waterfront community and that we need to celebrate the that and use it in the whole thing looks like a tulip which is very cool but it's not you know the girly tulip look it's an authoritative to live look and that's the look of government so i just really celebrate the whole thing i love the colors and the way it's going to communicate what we want to say as as a city so thank you so much thank you to the whole committee and everyone that was involved in the process of deliberating on this i know it hasn't been a short process but it has been a quality process and and the birthing of this was well worth the wait thank you of the collateral materials in advance so that we can really get things moving relatively quickly i think in pending approval tonight i think you'll see a very quick change over on our website and on our social don't know how many times i had to swipe down city manager right in cotton who was begging me because he was getting requests for new letterhead the city is effectively run out of the old water mark does one script type face where it's tool time and made stuff and we're now basically just printing stuff from a color printer as needed and what we will be doing moving forward is getting a  specific group of documents approved by the city manager each department will have a letterhead business cards will be basically designed in customize for each staff member  and then we'll start seeing all of those things and are unveiled in the public with the goal of hopefully having that type of stuff at least out to print by the end of the month in terms of other things  such as gets more physical materials like signage in city parks or the applications to city vehicles those will basically come up on an replacement basis the cost of going through in unilaterally changing everything is pretty insurmountable for an organization of our scale and so the the secondary strategy that most organizations take in that i've implemented in  when something needs be replaced like a vehicle a truck you have to put application on that anyway you just have to have a brand standards manual that's been created and that will be applied to the city manager or the department head could hear to those design standards to place this new identity on whatever whatever application is deemed to fit so hopefully it's a a lower dictated by the city manager the city manager and his communications or her authorizes are going to really have a most of the control over this with hopefully city council really stepping out of the process beyond approving what this design path really ends up being excellent thank you start nancy if there were an area a company interested in design in the promotion of a brand for this city that would really embrace this effort who would want to donate toward the proliferation of that brand in a quicker way would that be possible brian anything is possible i would leave that kind of designation of funds or accepting a funds to the city manager office and those requests can probably go and i want to speak for you but you're right it's evident by the gift report tonight we we are welcoming to those who want to contribute to the good of the public and our services so we will definitely make that possible right excellent well adam again thank you very much and we'll look for the quick application of the new logo assuming all goes well with the vote and probably beginning as soon as tomorrow things will begin to change especially in some of the electronic platforms that the city uses so with that could i get a motion please motion we don't move by birch supported by weitzman is there any further discussion yes all right thank you all very much again adam thank you very much all right that's takes us then to page two which is not much of a page yet we still a couple more things to attend to and first i communications from the city manager thank you mayor members of the city council of six items one takes of minute or two and that's to thank the snow fighters in our community the nation services staff our parks and staff and everyone on the fire department police department any other crew that's had to fight their way around the town to do their job and into the buildings to function so i want to i'm very grateful to them  specially have a shout out for the chance to services and the parks department who during this holiday period basically starting thanksgiving has not spent a solid day at home every holiday i should say every holiday they've spent part of their time in the cab of a vehicle serving the members of the community in the public and for that we're grateful to them and to their families they have been out sixteen times and in fact every day straight s e the weekend before new years so even today despite the fact there was a snow coming down they were hauling snow which is very much needed so we can really tame parking places downtown and elsewhere so it doesn't stop at this time of year and we want to support them any way we can salt is past the midway point i think are a herd seventy percent we still have plenty left for now  however we did have to use quite a bit during that ice storm just before christmas and of course to keep things up now as the weather warms will be using some more ice doesn't form too greatly we also  schools are open today the superintendent came in yesterday and thanked us for everything we had done and explained what his plans were and our crews certainly made sure that they did everything they could make that a smooth opening with that i also want people to know about hydrants they're getting snowed in and kept in tinny fire captain has indicated that anyone wants to adopt a hydrant is more than welcome and he's advised me he's trained me that basically they need to be able to get to the hydrant from the street so roughly a three foot diameter around the hydrant makes that possible out to the street but also this is what i didn't know how to the sidewalk and the reason is typically sidewalks within a couple feet of the hydrant and they use a ranch that's long that needs to swing in a circular motion so what happens if that snow isn't moved as it gets so crusty and tight in the pack down that it can delay opening that hydrant and that can cost lives and property damage so we want to thank people to look for that hydrant in their neighborhood i also want to encourage people despite the fact that we get our cyber plows out there they focus on the areas of highest need and cannot be everywhere all the time yet we have many people who have mobility impairments and i know that comes from whiteman is very knowledgeable about this we started a program last year of educating the public about their responsibilities as a homeowner to clear the snow and went to all of the folks in the holland heights neighborhood and were picking a quadrant every year this year it's going to be in the college  south of the college neighborhood in those will go out next week but we're also putting on facebook twitter and these these types of platforms it's amazing how much walkability makes for quality of life but it's also a necessity for some and i'll  institute which is one of the goals of the education outreach committee task force of the community energy plan if you followed all that the next thing it involves you directly that if we receive that award it would be paired with contributions equal from the board of public works in the city of holland most of this money is budgeted however there may be a small adjustment needed depending we would have until april before we know for sure we are grateful tonight to as i mentioned city employees to add in that context our finance department specifically  price who are responsible for receiving the distinguished budget presentation award for our budget last year and i provided copies of this press release to the press and i'll pass this around have not received a word yet when we do we will bring it in just just defiantly earned last there is an effort to look at all irish signage in conjunction with the new logo and the communications plan and i want to thank council member birch is going to serve on that taskforce or others that will be serving and i'm looking for a community member with might be interested in this kind of thing many neighborhood promotion institutional promotion way finding around the community presenting ourselves well on the highway events anyone is interested in that type of thing we would like to have a member of the community serve on our ad hoc task force which will be looking at  proposals and working on these signs over time thank you thank you unlove city's home page right now there is a more information about adopting that hydrant request from the fire division of the public department public safety in fact there's a nice photo on the web page that gives you a general idea of how you ought to shuffle around these things if you would be so kind or expose you could take your snowblower do that too so in any event excellent thank you ryan  then that takes us to communications for me this evening and i have a few items aside from the typical announcements that go to city of holland dot com for information about the city of holland information on how to get in touch with members of council senior city staff information about property taxes and forms and what's going on the record programs and street construction upcoming and all sorts of things that i can't think of off the top of my head i forget the amount of data or pages that exist on the city's website but it is substantial we try to keep keep it updated as best we can but also to put information there so that members of the public whether near or far can find out information about what is happening in this city and be able to do so from the comfort of their home their business or wherever they are around the world have soft as well i want to express my appreciation for so many of our staff obviously the street crews the sidewalk cr deserve special mention the public safety folks the b p w workers wait a nice bit of correspondence that i was copied on between captain tinney as well as members of the board of public works area there was one fire in one of our south side neighborhoods over the past couple of days and the captain to me was expressing his appreciation for b p w s efforts to be right on scene a partner for one helping to both extinguish that fire and make sure that the scene is in good shape whether it's turning off water cutting power to the building and those kinds of things so it's the kind of cooperative effort that i think we've become accustomed to around here but probably is a bit unique to too many communities across the state and we should not let it pass without making notice of it because it is a good thing that makes the quality of life excellent in our community also we had we kept city hall in the other city installations open during the heart of the  storm so my also thanks to ryan for making that call and consultation with greg and i was in a couple of phone calls with them as well it was i think the right thing to do we had a few staff members who couldn't safely make it in and senior staff was  very understanding and let anyone take time off that they needed to or wanted to because of the weather conditions but a real credit to our staff that i was by and large most showed up and showed up ready to work and we didn't have a lot of complaints to my knowledge about plowing issues which i think is a testament both to the work that's done here and the expectations and the good spirit ness that we have in this community so a bit of an update there on our most recent substantial blizzard vortex or whatever it was called such as it was i don't believe we had any power outages either i don't know that yeah i don't know that we had any moves certainly no major power outages we may not have any have had any which again is a testament to the good work of the deli and things that i think many of us take for granted and as my wife can attest it was a wonderful time to defrost the freezer things did not thaw so worked out well all right we do have a couple of appointments and and one resignation to deal with this evening first the re appointments marvin martin to the planning commission for a three year term with that expiring january thirty one of twenty seventeen and then a couple of neighborhood him to take that back three neighborhood improvement committee re appointments david to block ranch job as an eric davis with their terms expiring january thirty one of twenty seventeen and then the resignation of jerry to anything the planning commission his term  will be expiring in january thirty one of twenty fourteen he has been a member of our planning commission since twenty eight and a bunch of us are currently serving the planning commission and we know that that is a substantial time commitment so hats off to gerry and thank you jerry for your service to this city and the broader community so i place those before you for your consideration and hopeful approval when we prove moved by weitzman support of supported by the mayor pro tem is there any discussion all in favor please say i write and post the same that passes communications from members of council this evening yeah i won't belabor this i just wanted to add on to what ryan started down there and again just kind of make the same courage when i did earlier this week to the community to be mindful of their neighbors the inner aging population and those with mobility issues whether it's a neighbor with a walker a wheelchair or you know even those that would endeavor a storm such as that and say lucky him bike or something like that but just be mindful again it's our responsibility to to clear those walkways in front of our properties by and large we do it very very well and we are a conscientious community so i just want to put that out there one more time because when are certainly not over  todd councilwoman the board also this weekend is our national ice sculpting contest downtown very think have fifteen students from all over the midwest that are coming to compete and that should be a lot of fun saturday  friday night from six to eight there carving out of one hundred black ice and they have designated things are supposed to make and at the end of friday night they move that to the other side of the street and then on saturday they start on three hundred pound box of ice and they can create then whatever they want and that all the competition and they also be i think a large jeep like thing carved out of ice you can get your picture taken with your family in that ice jeep over by i think elf and rose that would be a fine new thing this year and saturday runs from i think twelve thirty till four so that's great and you can drive down eighth street to see if it's too cold for you to get out and i think most people have cabin fever and it's going to feel balmy at thirty six degrees this weekend so enjoy the goodness of winter and the better temperatures and also coffee with council is going to be on january eighteenth saturday from nine to eleven so please come on down to council chambers and talk to us about whatever it is you are happy about what you're concerned about whatever you would like to share we would love to hear from you nancy other communications from members of council tonight about motions and resolutions about one final motion that would be to adjourn i believe we have nothing else to accomplish get this evening so all we have left to do is