Heat. [music] [music] Heat. Good evening everyone and welcome. I will call our Bloomington City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, August 17th, 2026. Thanks to everybody watching online. Thanks to everybody joining us here in the city council chambers. Our first order of business tonight is our approval of our agenda council. We haven't had an official uh study meeting in the council chambers in a while. So, this is uh a bit of a different order for us. Uh under our organizational business, we have three items we'll be discussing tonight with uh with no action on them, just discussion and information only. Item 3.1 is our discussion about our preliminary tax levy and budget and a public comment opportunity. Item 3.2 two is a 2026 BCA strategic plan and operations analysis and uh using examples with the proformer for our Bloomington Center for the Arts and item 3.3 is a study item again for our multif family performance standards council. Any questions on that? All right. Uh no adjustments uh no changes, no additions to our um agenda. I will call the I will move the approval of the agenda and noting that we've got uh council member Reebas on line and I believe he's online. Is that correct? He's ready for us. So, uh we will have to do this vo this vote. Our only vote of the evening was a voice vote. So, I'll move approval of the agenda. >> Second >> motion by council member Robertson to approve the agenda. No further council discussion on this. Council member Rivas. >> Council member Rivas, uh, are you there? >> Unmute this real quick. >> That was hit the rear. I'll >> camera and microphone on. >> There it is. >> Can you hear me now? We can indeed. >> We can't We can't see you though. You'll have to turn your camera on. >> It's on. Um something must be >> not working. It is on. >> All right. >> Um >> while you're working on that, we've uh we've got a motion in a second to approve the agenda. And I think your name was first up on the roll call vote. >> I vote yes on it. I >> thank you >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Lman. I >> Robertson. >> I Carter. >> Hi, >> Mayor Busy. >> I motion carries 70 and we have an agenda. And first up on our agenda is item 3.1. This is our preliminary tax levy and budget discussion with our public comment opportunity. We're going to kick it off with Kari Carlson, our deputy finance officer, leading us through the presentation and then we'll open it up to the public comment opportunity. Miss Carlson, good evening. Welcome. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight, we are going to provide an update on where we are in developing the budget. This is still very much a work in progress. Tonight is an opportunity to share where things currently stand, hear from the public, and get direction from the council as we continue working toward the preliminary levy in September and ultimately the final budget and final levy in December. We will start with the current working model for the preliminary tax levy and from there we'll talk about the overall direction guiding the budget and some of the major investments already underway. We'll also identify some areas where there are still choices to be made as well as potential new revenue sources and how we're proposing to use the capital and debt management fund. We'll finish with what we've heard through community engagement and the remaining budget milestones for this year. Then we'll open it up to the public comment and council discussion. So with that context, let's start with where the preliminary levy is currently standing. So this is our current working model. And I want to emphasize the word working because these numbers are not final. The city portion of the levy is currently projected between 100.6 million and 101.5 million, which represents an increase of approximately 6.6 to 7.5% of an overall Bloomington tax levy impact. When the H and port levies are also included, the total preliminary levy would be between 106.6 million and 107.6 6 million or approximately in the range of 6.98 to 7.93% overall. So for context, last year the city's preliminary levy increase was 9.44% and the final adopted increase was 6.96%. And the average preliminary city levy increase over the past 3 years has been 8.77%. So again, tonight we are not asking the council to set the levy. We're showing you where the working model currently stands so we can get direction before the preliminary levy is established in September. As we work through that model, we're trying to make sure the numbers stay aligned with the broader direction for the organization and the budget. Our budget mission really comes down to balancing two things. We want to sustain and enhance the quality of life that residents expect from Bloomington while also recognizing the economic pressures households are experiencing and the changing demographics of our community. Those two objectives need to be considered together as we're making budget decisions. These five points have been guiding our work. We want to finish what we've already started, continue improving how we serve the community, maintain the city's strong financial position, be disciplined when it comes to taxes, and make sure new investments are aligned with the city's strategy. This budget is about prioritizing our existing commitments and making choices. One change this year that you will see is that we're moving toward a two-year budget process. So this year the council will adopt the 2027 budget and levy, but we're also developing a 2028 budget and a target levy. So that gives us a longer planning horizon and helps us identify financial pressures earlier. Then in 2027, the focus can shift more towards performance measures and results with adjustments to the 2028 budget where necessary. So in 2028, we would begin the cycle again for the 2029 and 2030 budget. This next section focuses on some of the significant investments that are shaping the budget. So the first is completing the transition of the fire department and modernizing our fire stations. The second is maintaining public safety through police staffing and technology. Third is successfully opening and operating the community health and wellness center. Fourth is continuing implementation of the park system master plan and then uh an urban forest and fifth is advancing the climate action plan. Uh there's a lot on the slide that I'll talk through. Um fire is one of the most significant long-term investments in this plan. So today there are 46 authorized full-time firefighters and 73 part-time firefighters excluding command and fire prevention personnel. The long-term staffing model calls for 78 full-time and approximately 75 part-time firefighters. So the goal is to staff all six stations in Bloomington around the clock with six engines, four firefighters per engine, and at least one parade paramedic on each engine while working toward reaching 90% of emergency calls within 7 minutes and 30 seconds. There are also future needs in fire prevention and command staffing as Bloomington grows and service demands increase. This is the staffing plan. This slide shows how the plan to phase that transition in over time rather than making the entire investment over at once. Um we are proposing nine firefighter hires in 2027 and then in 2028 the major impact is the transition of the 18 safer grant funded positions into the general fund. Beginning in 2029, the plan adds six firefighters per year until we reach the goal of the 78 full-time firefighters in 2032. And as you know, staffing is only one part of the fire department investment. We also have aging fire stations that need to be addressed. The current capital plan includes station 2 in 2027, station 5 in 2029, station one in 2031, and station 6 in 2033. And this chart brings the staffing and station investments together and shows the projected additional levy impact by year. So you can see that the impact varies significantly depending on where we are in the staffing transition and when the station projects occur. And one important point I want to make is that these amounts on this graph show the impact before using any resources from the fire pension special re revenue fund or the capital and debt management fund. So part of our financial strategy is determining how those resources can be used to lessen the impact on the tax levy. So from um you can see that this has transition has already started but this goes until the end of 2034. We also looked at Bloomington's police staffing and comparison with some peer communities that have similar attributes as Bloomington. So Bloomington currently has 1.44 44 sworn officers per 10,000 residents. And that's compared with an average of 1.48 among the cities that are shown here that are comparable to Bloomington. At the same time, Bloomington handles approximately 715 calls for service per 10,00 residents, which is above the peer average of 637. So, as we think about public safety capacity, we're looking not only at staffing levels, but also at workload and how technology can help our existing staff operate more efficiently. So, this year in 2026, the focus has been on modernizing aging systems and adding technology that improves administrative efficiency. And that represented about 154,000 in an annual expansion. But approximately 148,000 was offset through state uh public safety aid funding. So that meant so that means only 6,500 remains as an ongoing cost in the 2728 budget. So looking ahead, police is proposing additional technology including AI, drone and officer safety tools. And the objective is to reduce administrative workload, improve response capabilities and situal awareness, situational awareness and help existing staff manage growing service demands. The police department is looking at technology as one way to expand capacity without additional staffing. The community health and wellness center is another major investment that is moving from construction into operations in 27. The facility is being designed to expand recreation, wellness, and community connection, provide a new public health facility, and serve residents of all ages and abilities. We've already made the significant capital investment that is happening now. The next step is making sure we successfully open and operate it. That means having the staffing necessary to provide a safe, clean, and high quality experience and building the memberships and programming needed for long-term success. There will be an initial operating investment from the general fund, but the long-term financial goal is to increase cost recovery as participation grows and reach 100% cost recovery by the third year. And then beyond the commitments we've already started already discussed, there are several areas where we are looking for council direction and those include additional climate action plan investments, the home energy loan program, the quiet rail study, the animal shelter, public safety technology, and the urban forestry master plan. So every additional invest in investment will need to be considered within the overall tax levy target. And then of course reducing the levy pressure isn't only about expenditures. We are continuing to identify revenue opportunities that could support city services or offset costs. Those opportunities include charitable gambling revenue, a broadband franchise fee, uh water and sewer rate adjustments, special election cost recovery from the state, a tourism improvement district, and facility naming rights. sponsor rights revenue. So, some of these opportunities are further along than others, but we just wanted the council and the public to see the range of options that are also being evaluated. So, another uh new important part of our financial strategy is the newly renamed capital and debt management fund. So, this came out of direction from the April council retreat and was formally approved on August 3rd. The name change reflects a more defined purpose for the fund. So rather than being a broad strategic priorities fund, these resources will now be focused on capital investments and debt management. And that gives us another tool for managing large capital needs while trying to smooth the impact on taxpayers over time. This slide shows how we're currently planning to use this fund. So, we began in 2026 with approximately 11.2 million of resources available. And after the these planned sources and uses shown on this slide, we're estimating ending 2026 at about 9.5 million. And then the planned source the planned sources and uses um will have the bal the balance is projected to decline to approximately 7.1 million in 2027 and 4.7 million in 2028. Um and that's intentional to bring that down. So we have accumulated these resources that so that they can be used strategically for capital and debt needs and at the same time we're maintaining a uh 2.5 million fund balance goal. So we are not planning to spend the fund down completely. Just some more additional examples. So there are several specific ways we're proposing to use these resources. So, first we can use the fund for debt service. So, reducing the amount that otherwise needs to come from the tax levy. Second, um we're planning to pay off four existing bond issues um early in December. The ice garden bonds would require up to 700,000 um from this fund, but then we can call that bond early and it will no longer be part of the property tax for the ice garden. And third, we can make direct capital contributions that reduce the amount of new debt that we need to issue from this fund. So for 2027, that includes fire station number two. And in 2028, we're looking at some contributions toward the Dwan glo Dwan golf clubhouse and also uh course improvements and also the animal shelter. So the objective is to use these resources strategically to reduce future debt and tax levy pressure. And so now I want to shift to um from the financial model to some other important parts of the process. So the last two things I'll talk about is community engagement and where we're going from here. So similar to recent past years, we've been engaging residents through the process and we found the best way to get out to talk to the most people is to go to where they are. So um along with the let's talk Bloomington that's online um we have we went to four events. So we were at the home fair in April. We were at um the pride festival Junth celebration and a farmers market and we there's also a new mailin questionnaire that we included in the July briefing. So as I said the goal has been to meet residents in a variety of settings and give people different ways to let to tell us what's important to them. And so, um, this next slide, this is a picture of the map that we had at those in-person events, just so you have a sense of the geographic reach of those conversations. So, at our budget tables, we were asking residents to identify where they live in Bloomington. And as you can see, we've heard from people across the community. That doesn't mean that this is a scientific survey, but it does just help demonstrate that the feedback we are receiving isn't coming from just one part of the city. And so the different colors um if you can see those there are representative of the four different events we were at. So for the home fair we had a blue marker. Um at the pride festival we had red. At Junth we had green and at the farmers market we had black. And there are uh different themes that have come u through consistently as we're talking to people. So, first um residents do express a lot of pride in Bloomington and value city services in the direction of the community. At the same time, affordability is definitely a concern. Uh we are hearing concerns about property taxes and particularly the cumul cumulative impact of increases over time and residents also want to see clear value for the taxes that they're paying. They want investments tied to outcomes and fiscal discipline. There is uh support for investments in areas like infrastructure, transportation, housing, community facilities, economic development, public safety, although there isn't always agreement about which one should come first. Um we're also hearing that the city should be willing to reassess programs and infrastructure when circumstances change. And uh finally, residents wants they want us to think long term and they want us to balance the needs of Bloomington's future affordability and financial sustainability. So here is our budget milestones calendar. So tonight's an important point in this process. There's still quite a bit of work ahead. The next major milestone is September 14th, about a month away, when city council will set the preliminary tax levy, and that will establish the maximum levy for 2027. After that, we'll return in October for more detailed discussions of the internal services team and the external services team budgets. There will be another budget study session and opportunity for public comment on November 16th and followed by a truth and taxation hearing with which obviously has a public hearing on December 7th. And then the final budget and tax levy will be uh scheduled to be adopted on December 14th. So there will be several more opportunities for both council discussion and public input before everything is final. And with that, at this point, uh, we'd like to hear from the public. So, um, I'll turn it over to the mayor to start the public comment period. >> Thank you, Miss Carlson. Before we get to that, uh, actually, Council, if you have questions, we can weigh in. We'll have our discussion at the end of the public comment period, but if you have any questions of, uh, clarification. Council member Dallas. [clears throat] >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I had two two specific questions. So, the first uh, question was related to the bond calls. You mentioned that um there's uh up to $700,000 that we could put towards the bond call for the big, right? How does that how does that relate to and or impact the fact that that that product that um project was largely funded through the local option sales tax that voters supported? >> Uh council uh mayor council members uh Delisandro, this is a separate bond issue for the ice garden. So, this was one that was issued in 2019. Oh, here comes Lori. Economy shoulder. Um, so this is not related to the bond, the large bond that was issued. Um, this was a smaller project. Yes. >> Okay, great. I wasn't sure when it said 2019 whether that meant that it was on the books from 2019 or that we had made the purchase in 2019. Great. Thank you. Appreciate the clarification on that. And then secondly, I just wanted to see if I could come up with a [clears throat] number from a sustaining perspective for the fire uh for the fire department. So, if I'm doing the math correctly, give or take, um the the implication of the 78 firefighters versus the 46 I think that we say we have now is about 1 and a4 million more per year in operating dollars that we're going to well beyond 2034. We're just going to need to sustain that as long as we want to maintain and maintain that number of firefighters. Is that approximately correct? Um, council members, uh, mayor or mayor, council members, council member Dellesandra, I don't know if that I have that exact number, but, um, but we can get that for you. >> Um, but the additional cost of the staff at that full-time level, that will be s that's not going to go away. What will go away over time is debt payments when we pay off those bonds. >> Right. Right. So the the capital investment is, you know, paid off through the bonds that we Yes. >> purchase and then and then pay off. Um I'm just Yeah, that would be great to have just as an an ongoing operating operating impact. Um understanding that that can be for the next meeting. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member. Council, additional questions. M. Carlson, if you could explain a little bit more the two-year budget cycle that we're moving into now. So, what will what will this time next year look like? >> Uh, mayor and council members, um, that is to be determined exactly what that will look like, but that will I don't know if um, city manager has any more thoughts about what year two will look like. >> Walker. Yeah, generally speaking, I I would say I mean, still by law, we'll have to have you adopt uh a levy each year. Uh so we'll um go through a similar process to what we've been accustomed to um previously. I I would say the benefit of doing a multi-year budget is we're being more strategic. And so we we'll be presenting you with what kind of our planned revenues and expenses are looking like for um 2028. um which gives us that ability, like I said, to forecast longer term. Um but you'll still have to make the um formal decisions to to set those levy um marks per state statute. >> All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's what I thought, but I wanted to I want a clarification on all of it. Anything else, council? Council member, anything? I don't I can't see you and I can't see your hand up, so you'll have to chime in if you want to speak. >> Um I'll raise my hand now. Can you hear me now? >> I know why you can't. I still have the camera on. I do have a quick question. Uh it it's I'm probably putting the the carriage ahead of the horse, but uh it's the only thing that came up to my head. Um uh if you don't mind, Carrie, uh has the staff uh modeled the comm c commumulative property tax impact on a medium value home in Bloomington under both the low and high ends of the proposed range including the interaction with anticipated school and county levies. Has that been con been considered already uh with the proposed tax at this point? Uh, mayor, council members, council member Revas, we have not pulled that information together, but we could try to get something for September. >> Well, and I think Miss Carlson, I mean, that's they they're as early in the process as we are. So, schools in the county and the watershed district, they won't have a solid number until their proposed levy, which is I'm assuming is due in about a month as well, their preliminary. >> Yes, that is true. Um, but we might have something for the median value homeowner just for our city impact. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, council member. Now, council member, if you could put your hand down so the next time you're ready to talk, I can I can tell it's a new hand. How about that? There you go. Perfect. Perfect. Anything else, council? All right. If not, we will open our public comment opportunity here. Uh, anybody is able to speak? Anybody in the chamber is able to speak on our topic of this evening, which is of course the proposed budget and levy. We'll have two minutes per speaker and you'll be able to see by the shot clock on the wall. And as I typically do in these situations, I'll cut you off at 2 minutes. Not because I'm mean, but because I want to make sure everybody has the same amount of time to speak. Uh this is your opportunity to speak and ask questions and so on. What we'll do is uh collect the questions and answer them at the end of the public comment period. We won't try and answer them shooting from the hip. We'll just uh we'll answer them at the end of the public comment period. Uh what I would appreciate you do as you start your comments if you would introduce yourself and then as you finish up uh the yellow clipboard that is on the table there take that and just kind of move to the side uh maybe have a seat very quickly and let the person behind you begin speaking while you're signing in and just so we can keep track of everybody. So uh with that council uh this is opportunity to listen and uh hear what uh what our residents have to say about the uh the budget process thus far. And at that with that I will open our public comment period. Is there anybody who would like to speak as part of our public comment period this evening? >> Good evening. My name is Delsey Emerson. I'm I'm asking what if you have anything in the budget um in consideration to um making allow um allocating funds to the residents of the Newton neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods that are being directly impacted negatively by the construction of the community health and wellness that is going up with our homes being um suffering damage, structural damage um and uh vibrations daily. Booms and um us being affected financially um up to the tune of $50,000 or more to our structures falling apart, our driveways, our garage doors not being able to close. The vibrations are ridiculous. And um I'm wondering what are you allowing in your budget to make us whole and um resolving our and making restitution. >> Very good. Thank thank you for your comments and as I said we'll we'll answer all the questions as we we wrap up. Thank you. Appreci appreciate it. Anyone else? Please come on up. You can queue up and get in line. >> Good evening. Uh my name is David Freeman. Um and I just wanted to speak a little bit about uh a particular section in the uh presentation where it was talked about using or investing in AI uh to as a proposal to keep the cost down for human bodies um in our city government. And you know, I appreciate um moving forward with technology and modernizing and keeping up with the times and all that, right? But I also support humans doing human work. And I want to be clear about like we need to be extremely careful in how we implement this technology. It's already proven to be both disastrous for privacy and um ecological um situations. And uh I don't want our city levy to be contributing to that. Um, another thing I wanted to talk about briefly is, um, something we've seen in a lot of cities surrounding us, um, or bordering states or whatever is the flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers. I know that they're flock is the current craze, right? But I know there's other ones that go um under the radar sometimes uh so to speak. And I want to be clear that it's not just about flock, but it's about any of these systems that go around and randomly gather people's data theoretically using their license plates, but we know that they're cameras and they're recording our faces. They're recording our cell phone technology where we are, all that stuff. and I don't want our levies to be going towards that uh kind of technology in our city. Uh so thank you very much for having me and um have a good evening. >> Thank you, Mr. Freeman. If you could take the take the step aside and sign in, that'd be great. Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Hi, good evening. I'm Jamie Anthony and I'm a Bloomington resident in District 4. I'm speaking tonight about the vague mention of quote public safety enhanced technology in the budget presentation. Mostly, I'm up here asking for greater precision in language. The brief Bloomington outcries over the Nine Mile Creek restoration work, the construction of the community health and wellness center in the Newton neighborhood, as we just heard about, the athletic fields of Smith Park, which we hear about at every week's listening session, and the BPD engagement with ICE, all demonstrate a strong appetite in our community for accurate, reliable documentation of city intent and plans. Given the vagueness of the language in the documents, I want to ensure that you hear strong opposition to using the city budget for some specific types of quote enhanced technology that are popular in law enforcement these days. First, I want to share my opposition to the use of taxpayer dollars for automatic license plate readers, better known as flot cameras. As David just mentioned, there are too many examples of ALPRs being used improperly or even illegally by local law enforcement all around the country. And they're also a prime target for vandalism and destruction. Please don't spend our taxpayer dollars on something that's bound to be tampered with almost immediately. Second, I want to share opposition to the purchase of the shock gloves that were in the headlines last week. These gloves are designed to help the police subdue a person who the officer perceives to be defiant in some way. Maybe it's better than a gunshot, but it's still another weapon that raises profound concerns. Third, I want to be sure that you hear opposition to the use of drones for BPD work, except when responding to 911 calls, as described in the Bloomington debriefing recently. More precisely, I want to be sure that there are provisions in the budget that prevent the purchase and use of drones for surveillance. Finally, I ask that any budget allocation for quote public safety enhanced technology be accompanied by a budget allocation for engaging with the public to share details about these new technologies and where to expect them in use in Bloomington. Please stop relying on churches to co-host your public outreach events and start investing in relationships that build trust throughout the community. >> Thank you, Anthony. Others this evening. >> Hi evening. Welcome. >> My name is Bill Ewald and I was just Can you hear me? That I was wondering uh an 8% increase in the budget. How many of you that don't work for the city received an 8% increase in in your pay? I don't understand why. I don't understand why it shouldn't be zero. I don't understand. I don't understand why all of a sudden the fire department has become such a big problem that we have to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars to fix it. I guess I apparently I don't know ambulances don't do things anymore. We have we send big fire trucks to every little emergency. I don't know how many um I'd like to know how many fires we actually put out like real fires. An actual fire, not a medical emergency. Um the police, we have plenty of police. I've heard the uh the chief who I I support on the radio several times saying that he has plenty of officers. They don't need any more money. He in fact he has extra more than uh in most other cities. So I didn't understand that graph really. Um, [clears throat] I was wondering how the sales tax is going along if we if that sales tax that we um passed, how's the balance of that? Is that paying for the running costs of and servicing the debt, let's say? Is it is it how you know is there a balance there? Are we do we have more than we expected, less than we expected? How are we doing? And that's all I can think of right now. I wasn't expecting to talk. >> Very good. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Wald. others. >> Good evening, council. >> Welcome. Um, nice presentation. Um, appreciate that. >> It's tough to argue against uh public safety investments. Um however, if you notice the public feedback, um two specifically mentioned um concerns over property taxes, three indirectly talked about co cost increase concerns. Um I'm curious and I'd like to I'm hoping to get an answer on this. why the city has historically spent at double at least of the uh inflation rate consumer price index uh any of the measures you want to look at by the Federal Reserve. We've always spent a minimum since at least 2018. I didn't go back any further, but we've always spent a minimum of twice that. And I realize uh currently we're talking about public safety increases. that's what's pushing this out of whack, but that would seem to imply that we spent more before on the wrong things or something like that. So, I mean, I would just hopefully I'll get an answer on that. And um I think to the point um how many got an 8% increase? The strategic investment fund, we're renaming it, but to me that's just like a slush fund that we spend we spend into the levy to pay it down in a high year and we pay into it in a low year. But the point is why aren't we facing the real costs? the shock factor is is a valuable thing and I think we need to be forecasting better if uh you know if we're going to achieve goals of keeping the city affordable. So thank you for your time. >> Thank you Mr. Seic. >> Evening Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is John Hoopacher. Excuse [clears throat] me. I mean, I've been a resident since 1992 here in Bloomington. I took a look back at some of my property taxes. Since 2020 through 2026, my city portion of property taxes increased almost 57%. Over the same period of time, inflation has gone around 21 22%. So clearly, I have well overpaid into the budget of this city. Clearly, we are just adding services to add services, adding more programs to add more programs. And now is a time for you guys to pay the piper. Time to do some of the things that a lot of us have asked you to do. You have plenty of departments that need to go away. It's an oldie but a goodie. We have an earn sick and safe time department in this city. We do not need. I have told you and asked you to get rid of that before. You don't need it. We have at the state level. You have smoking regulations that we regulate businesses. We have a statewide smoking ban. We don't need those people here. We don't need the regulations. We have a community engagement people. I don't think they're needed either. Miss Carlson talked about where they went to same three places I talked about with you guys last truth and taxation. You go to three places, maybe four, and get the same answers you want all the time. You're not engaging the entire community. You're engaging the community that you want to engage. And by the way, why on the city Facebook page are the comments turned off? Why can we not make comments? Ed, you can make comments, too. Eden Prairie make comments to we can't hear. You paid how many thou what? You pay $30,000 or something to a consultant that told you not to turn off the comments from the public. You're not engaging us. There's no transparency. It's very clear to me and and sewer and water increases. I think they're high enough. Why do we have why do we have a community engagement director or a community health and wellness director? We don't have a building yet, but yet we've been paying them and giving them benefits. You guys are losing your direction and you're way overt taxing us. and you have been for years. >> Others tonight last call. All right. Thank you very much. I will close our public comment period for this evening. Thank you very much for everybody who to everybody who spoke. Uh council, do we want to answer the questions first or or do we want to start our discussion? Should we answer the questions first? Um the ones that uh I heard and we can get a variety of folks talking on this one. Uh is there anything in the budget regarding mitigation for the Newton neighborhood? Mr. Walker. >> Um Mayor, there is not anything in the budget for that. Um I would encourage anybody who um has experienced uh any damages to uh reach out to the city and submit a damage claim form. That's the appropriate mechanism for addressing that. >> We have not. >> Thank you very much. Uh Mr. Freeman asked about uh the use of AI and uh flock cameras and I think it's important to note um the city of Bloomington doesn't have any flock cameras that we use. I know there are a couple associated with a private business in the city of Bloomington, but uh Bloomington itself does not have any flock cameras up. Uh do we have we have license plate readers that have been proven to be very effective uh in terms of uh improving public safety and being able to track people down and and uh actually finding lost people or or people who were had gone missing. So we do use uh different types of cameras and obviously body cameras with on uh all of our police officers. So, uh, beyond that, anything to add on that, Mr. Walker? >> I don't have anything further. >> No, I don't think so. Miss Anthony talked about public safety information and documentation and agreed that we we talked about this last time at our uh, discussion with the NM Creek. We need to be a little bit more intentional, a little bit clearer in terms of our discussion on things. Words do matter and we've got to make sure that we talk about them very clearly. uh the use of enhanced technology, drones and so on there without question and that's a debate nationally about how best to use drone technology. Uh I have seen it in action and it's a very effective as you say for 911 calls and to be able to uh um get to a 911 scene before officers get there and be able to judge what is necessary to go there. So there's definitely use for it. I would agree with you 100% surveillance is not part of that use but uh that would be a a question that we would have to address. is also very expensive and so we'll have to decide if we want to make that jump. And in terms of a shock glove, I do not believe that that is even developed yet or we haven't even talked about that one. Yeah, >> we we don't employ that. >> We don't employ that. Yeah. Um um Mr. Ewald talked about the the level of the increase um and and advocated for the the 0% increase and uh a 0% increase would would equate to a a significant reduction in current services right now. I mean I think we all understand that um and uh the question of why the fire department >> even a zero% increase would require >> there there are ongoing costs like everything else costs are going up whether it's whether it's um the the people that we employ or the pro the programs that we have Mr. Mr. you all. My turn now. Okay. Okay. Asked about why the fire department. Uh we've got an entire city saying why the fire department because we have uh relied on a paid on call system for years and uh it it was inadequate for a city of 91,000. I think we've all agreed on that and this council has made the decision that we are going to move forward with a a full-time fire department because it's the best for the public safety of our of our residents here. Um the uh uh a comment about how many police officers currently we are uh at full staff or above staffing, but I have heard on a number of occasions from our chief that he would like that staffing level to be higher and we saw that graphic how important that might be. And regarding the success of the sales tax, I would look to uh Miss Economy Scherer or Yeah, I'll look to Miss Economy Shoulder, but I believe the sales tax is right where it should be, if not ahead of schedule right now in terms of collections, being able to meet the obligations that we have in place for the three projects that we have outlined, >> mayor and council. Um it is it's coming in generally about 50 to 100,000 greater each month than what was originally scheduled. So um all of that will keep earning interest and our debt service is about 12 million 12.5 million a year and we're the dollars are coming in and what'sever um not spent is [snorts] earning interest and we'll pay debt in the future and if we can mature the debt or call it um at some future date we'll look to do that. >> Very good. Thank you. Uh Mr. Mr. Sebik had questions about costs going up to double the inflation rate and that has been the case. We have seen pretty significant increases over the last few years with the city of Bloomington. We have had that conversation as well that in a lot of cases it's catching up or it's uh catching up to those cans that have been kicked down the road in a lot of cases. The fire department is an example. the uh the the work of the Bloomington Ice Garden, upgrading our parks systems, uh our our public works uh facilities, all the all these things that um for years the the goal I think in Bloomington was to keep the tax levy increase as low as possible. And that's an admirable goal and it worked very well, but at some point we have to pay the piper and and this is what we're looking at and we have been over the past few years. Um and Mr. Hmcker back again. Thank you. It's good to see you again. um the the increases over the years. Uh we will continue the conversations about services and departments and it's all part of I think the conversation that's going on now as part of the two-year budget as part of the the work that we've been doing um whether you know whether and to what level do we need the services that we're having that uh we're doing here in the city of Bloomington. And I think we're that's going to be an important part of this conversation and we'll continue that. And um regarding the Facebook comments, we turned those off because uh in terms of the uh public engagement and the back and forth, it was not at all a um a u positive or workable way of having a conversation. It just it just wasn't. Some of the some of the crap we were hearing, some of the ridiculousness, it just wasn't a constructive part of the conversation and it wasn't worth it. I would much rather people come here and talk to us. Give me a call. Stop me at the farmers market. Talk to any of our council members at any time. It's a much better way of actually engaging with the council and being able to uh to hear what is on the mind of our our residents here in Bloomington. Did I forget any questions? Council, did I miss any there, Council Member Lman? So, just a couple. you did a great job of just about c capturing everything, but there's just a couple of ones that I wanted to just be sure that I'm not going to grab everything that was missed because there's just some things kind of moving to kind of uh questions, but there was the question of um how many folks uh that don't work for the city haven't have experienced an 8% increase in pay. And I think that's a really an important one uh for us to to address. um you know and I think that uh you know I've over the years I've had the opportunity to participate in the Ellers's uh conference and one of the things you got to be careful with when you look at that that 8% increase uh that that uh that we experience year in and year out uh really is that that's not a direct um and maybe I'll let staff handle handle this a little bit better but it's not a direct you can't you can't equate that uh in terms of how that how that impacts folks in terms of their A I think that's a that's a very dangerous way to kind of look at that that levy in terms of how that impact uh impacts different people. There's values. It's a very complex conversation that that we're having with that. And so I think we got to be careful with those types of uh those types of comparisons. But I do think that that is a uh I've heard that many of times when I've been at the doors with people and people have that that concern about, you know, how this and what I really hear them saying when they ask that question is, you know, these increases around this and affordability is impacting me. Um, and they just don't have a way to say that. And so I just want to be sure that we're really clear about what that 8% uh represents. And I I'll throw it to staff. I can throw it to the city manager and mayor if you have a better way of of uh codifying that question. But >> Mr. Parker. >> Uh, thank you, mayor. Um, Council Member Lman, as you said, that is a really technical calculation of how that works. And I'm I'm reluctant to dive into that without more technical information in front of me and doing more harm than good. Um, I would say two things. One, this is our first public bite at the apple tonight with budget. And so as we have more of these conversations and presentations in this chamber, um we'll um make sure we're prepared to dive into that with a better level of specificity. I I think the thing I would want to acknowledge is that kind of conversation around the the 8% and the mayor referenced this too. We see it as staff and we've heard from you as council and the constituents you represent. There was a 15-year period where the average levy increase was 3.64%. In the last five, it's been closer to eight and a half. And the directive that has been given from this council to staff is to work to bring that pendulum back towards the middle. That we we understand the affordability concerns that our residents are facing. The mayor and I hear it when we meet with leaders in the business community. Um the mission and the assignment is well understood and um it would be premature and irresponsible to declare victory tonight, but I hope that the council can see that uh the preliminary increase last year was 9 and a half and we're sitting somewhere between 6 and a half and 7 and a half right now. Um we understand and we'll continue to meet your expectations and those of your constituents to to get this levy into a more palatable place. >> Thank you uh manager and mayor. I think that's a good way to to to to tackle that later on when we have a little more information in front of us. And just just a couple other ones, mayor. Um, and this one definitely I know we've had many different meetings about this. How many fires do we put out? Uh, that was a question that was kind of asked. you know, I mean, we've had meetings where we've shown exactly, you know, the and you know, certainly our chief could speak to that, but uh you know, I think that that's you know, again, I want to talk about today, but you know, but there is a difference in terms of uh what our fire department does has done historically and what they've taken on now. Uh and so I think that uh what I really hear in that question is you know how is the the the fire department different than other uh and we've always had that type of service but just we've uh accomplished it in a different way kind of going forward. So um that was another question that was uh out there and then uh see I had one other one here uh and so then I'll just uh I'll [clears throat] just I'll end on this one here. Um, again, there's other questions out there, but these are the ones that uh I wanted to make sure were addressed. Uh, there was a a a discussion and Mayor, you kind of alluded to it around some of the duplication of services. Um, and there's a number of uh services that we have that are out there that are duplicated for, you know, for for either good reasons or bad reasons. And I I don't want to name them because there's so many of them. Um, and and I think that's a, you know, we have some duplication there. And the question has always been in this city um uh in terms of the quality of the service in the in the primary focus because of you know how our our city has resources and sometimes those services will not be provided to this city uh because of our resources and so we have to think about that duplication whether or not we'll get the same level of of enforcement. So, it's not just the duplication of services, it's also the type of services and the type of expectations that our residents have around some of this duplication, but I do think there's a discussion to be had with some of those things, but I want to be sure that we're not just cherrypicking a few of these things. We really do have a lot of other uh duplicative services and we need to have I want to make sure we're looking all of those at the same time uh and not just picking the the ones that one person doesn't like. So, >> thank you, council member. Okay, council, did I miss any other questions? Let's start with that first. Let's finish that up. I don't think I missed any other step. Staff, did I miss any? All right, council member Carter. >> Uh, thank you, mayor. So, comments, >> please comments. >> Okay. Um, so I guess I just have some maybe general feedback and then I'll save my big speech for the end of the year. I'm not I hope [laughter] we don't do that every I hope we don't do that every single time we have these conversations. So, um, a couple things. Um, I just want to thank staff. I think this is a really great presentation and just really appreciate um the way that you've laid out the priorities and um I just feel like that we've gotten information in this presentation that we haven't necessarily gotten in the past. And so I think it paints a really good picture for um some of the challenges and the opportunities in front of us. Um, I do think in the past when we've gotten the preliminary levy, we've seen kind of I think it's department by department kind that how kind of how that breaks down or we've had it where like this part of it is staff, right? And this part so we can kind of see a little bit more of a breakdown of where that levy increase is coming from. So, for example, I think last year I can't remember it was like 75% or 80% of it, right, was public safety. And so can we have that kind of breakdown again so that people can see like oh 1% is parks and wreck and 90% is I I don't know what it is but so if we could have that breakdown I think would it would be helpful. Um I think it would also be helpful to understand where have we found opportunities to reduce costs. Um so maybe being a little bit more explicit about that. Um, Victor, I mean, council member Rivas brought up at the beginning. I think typically most years we have the impact on the median family value home and so having that included I think would be helpful. Uh, the other thing I think is an important part of the equation that is kind of more complicated and I don't think I didn't ever realize this until I was on council, but the difference between kind of the tax base falling on residential or commercial and what that means for um, homeowners in Bloomington. So, I think maybe a little explanation there and kind of where we're sitting and how that's impacting um taxpayers. And then, um the last two things I would say for the fire department, I really love the slide that lays out 27 through 2034 and the investments that need to be made. I do think after hearing some of the comments tonight, it might be helpful to include from like 2019. Um because I think 2019 was when we had the fire service study. I'm looking at the chief now >> because 2020 I think it was like one of my very first council meetings that we got that report and it basically said you guys are totally and not to not not you guys are failing at responding to fires in time. And it just really demonstrated to council why it was going to be so important for us to make these necessary investments in the fire department. And we didn't just start this, right? This started years ago. We've been building and I think we've been trying to tell the story maybe more successfully than not sometimes. I mean, so we're we're trying to get better at communicating this change to the community, but I think maybe having that historical perspective outlined in the in the slide will also be helpful for people to just understand that this is not new. This is years in the making. It's going to continue for years and it's something that we have to do for our community. Uh and then the last thing is I also would really like more information on the public safety enhanced technology. I think we have had there's just been a lot of headlines lately and a lot of things going on in that space and just AI in general. I think people are really feeling um just cautious and hesitant and skeptical. Um I think we can all see the benefits that these things can provide, but at the same time we're also seeing some things that are really um scary. So would like some more information on that and just transparency with the community. So that's what I got. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member. Council member Nelson, I saw your hand up earlier. >> Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Um, I'd like to thank staff and for everyone that attended tonight and um I'm excited that we have these opportunities for the public to weigh in early in the process. Uh it's very helpful just to get that feedback about the impact that the decision we will ultimately make in a few months uh impacts you. I'd also like to compliment uh John. Uh did he leave? >> He just left. Oh man. Now, he was on uh he was in an article on uh KSTP uh about uh the decline of the commercial base and the impact it's having on people. So, I was going to compliment him on that. So, sorry he missed that. Um, but I think it gets to uh a point that Council Member Carter just brought up that, you know, a lot of the impact or some of the at least some of the impact on on residents has been a um a shift in that uh commercial base over to the residential base in order to have to pay the levy. the levey's a dollar amount and you know if the commercial property isn't doing as well it it puts more burden on all of us that that own homes and or rent homes and it gets built into that price. So um just a couple of other things um there was a question about um why did fire why is it now such an urgency? I I would just point out that it's not now just an urgency. That issue has predated my time on this council. I mean it's a decade or better process and very planful process to develop what uh we're transitioning and it involves fire stations to be able to have fire or firefighters staffed there so they can respond quicker and again council member Carter kind of mentioned I believe that you know the response times just weren't what I think our community should expect. um our leadership from the fire department came and brought that information forward and put a together a plan and you know in all of the iterations of the um council that I've been on is been very well supported. Um and and I think it's worth continuing to do that uh and support that. Um as the chief knows and he's out here in the audience, I've asked questions and had had comments and thoughts. Um but [snorts] uh you know o overall I think that's what we have to do for the community. I mean, we don't we don't want one person showing up on a truck 10 minutes after the call comes in. That's just the bottom line, you know. And so, I think the metric of how many are there is it's fair, but [snorts] it doesn't matter if it's your house. There's only one fire that matters and it's the one that happens at your house and how quickly they show up. I also appreciate the work that they're doing um in terms of training those folks in terms of uh first response and and getting people ready for that ambulance that uh based on a number of reasons may show up later, but they that our uh firefighters can uh stabilize someone and get them ready to to get to the hospital as quick as possible. And we know that every second counts in an emergency. So, [snorts] um, this is something again we've been talking about for a decade and a very planful way that we're going about it. Um, [snorts] in terms of the AL ALPR type stuff, um, I would be interested in, you know, if we have any fixed, um, license plate readers throughout the community, not like the city. I I mean, I know obviously the mall does, obviously, Great Wolf. Um there's probably others that have them out there, but you know, my understanding we have them in our vehicles, which I think is a huge public safety benefit. Um I I've been, you know, traveling with police in in the front seat. Um and [snorts] uh [laughter] so just to clarify, um and you know, I mean, you know, they they know what's going on, but I know they're also not perfect and and so um I think those are fair questions that have been asked on there. Um but overall I think that the message I I think frankly I think we've heard it for several years and and have implemented a number of different strategies uh with the priority based budgeting with the looking at our working capital accounts with our uh other discussions to get to the point where we're really affordability is a huge issue for our community. we've heard it not just today but um for for a number of years and so um I appreciate the community coming and putting that before us again and we we'll keep working on that. It's important and you know uh I I frankly think the city is well managed financially and I I think when you look at our peer cities around us we've we've managed through storms frankly better than than most. >> Thank you. Council member, Council Member Robertson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, [clears throat] excuse me. Um, I also will try and keep this fairly brief, but I can practically guarantee I'll have lots more to say later. Um, but truly just echoing my colleagues comments, I want to thank staff for that presentation and all the work that they've done. Um, it really that was very accessible, I think, both for council members and for residents. And so, I really, really appreciate everyone doing that. Um, and thank you so much to all the residents that are listening and that came out to speak tonight. That's extraordinarily important. um you took the time out of your day to come let us know what we're doing and what how we can improve and the only way we can do better is if you come out and let us know. Um so thank you. Um one thing that we've been hearing and I wanted to touch on um at this meeting and at previous meetings is a greater need for clarity and transparency. Um and that's over a number of different areas and we're hearing it from many different residents um from all walks of life. Right. And that's something that one of our residents had mentioned, a need to engage in more types of folks, different people than the ones that maybe engage with us more frequently. Um, and so we're hearing that from every walk of of life and every side of the aisle. And so it's really really important that we we get on that. Um and then lastly, regarding investments in um technology uh to increase capacity of of law enforcement, um probably will come as no surprise that I do have some pretty big concerns about investing in um and the use of AI, increased surveillance cameras, LAPRs, um the shock gloves that were mentioned, recognizing that Bloomington doesn't currently have those. I don't think I don't know that anyone even has them in their possession yet. Um certainly if that were ever to come before us, I would be extremely strongly opposed. I think everyone can recognize where they are concerned. As a woman, I'm immediately concerned uh for their use um getting into the not only in law enforcement, but getting in the hands of civilians. So that should be an automatic no. Um but all that to say, we are very lucky um to have folks here in Bloomington, both residents and staff, who really want to make sure that everyone gets to lead a happy, healthy life. We got to make sure that we're using our finite dollars appropriately. Um, and we really need to make sure that we're hearing people better and we're giving better transparency because it's just that's the only way we can make things work. So, thanks. >> Thanks, council member. Council member Lman. Thank you, mayor. Um, so I want to thank those who've uh come here and uh uh began this process of uh the dialogue and the question. I think the questions we had from previous uh sessions have been real uh real helpful uh in terms of of trying to get a additional diverse opinions and also check the pulse of where the community is at. And really as I look at this mayor, um I I look at this in terms of, you know, our excellent services and our reputation that we have uh around those excellent services uh uh in our city and the the real dire experience of those residents that are are are trying to deal with affordability uh trying to make uh the ends meet day in and day out. Um and it's it's it's a balancing act uh that uh that they're doing at home. I know that when I grew up in, you know, in Bloomington, I grew up in a single parent family. And so, uh, you know, there was real challenges when it related to what those bills look like. And while we have one portion of that share, uh, that, uh, that we, uh, hand over as the levy, which I want to remind folks that as they're here, uh, that, uh, also there is a cost to eliminating services and getting rid of services as well. And uh those impacts also impact some of our most vulnerable uh residents. And we've seen over the the previous year what that looks like uh when at the federal level we've had those eliminations take place that we uh had to step in uh to help out. And so there's a cost to that. And I want to just be sure that as we're looking at this this budget uh that we kind of keep that in mind. Uh so um you know a former council member and I and differing points of view and perspective in terms of this this point of view always would talk about the uh the level of CPI and how it was double uh but those double that that double CPI uh uh that that has been uh shouldered uh is a good question but uh that goes back to my previous question in terms of that balancing act that uh that we have to do. Um I just want to just make other comments here uh on a couple other things. I do think that engagement is primary uh primarily important. Uh and so having that that engagement uh uh group and continuously having them that group challenged and also our uh our our uh equity and inclusion group uh making sure that they're part of these conversations and and discussions and dialogue I think are critically important for us to be able to make sure that as we look at that balancing act that we're trying to do that we are indeed following our mission of trying to cultivate an enduring and remarkable community where you you know, really everybody wants to be uh which is not not easy. Uh and so as we [clears throat] look uh at this next budget and we look forward, the thing that I'm concerned about, manager and mayor, is the ongoing inflation risks that will come uh towards the end of the year. Um I'm happy to see that we now have a second year. I know every year I've come here asking about what the second year looks like and now I can finally stop asking that question because now we'll have that second year. Uh it only took 10 years or a decade. So for those folks that are in the crowd saying, "Hey, you know, I want you to pay attention to this and that, you know, just, you know, stick around for a while. You might might find that uh to to come to fruition." I want to make sure that we're also uh uh baking in uh the work around the animal shelter. I think we've kind of made a commitment to that. I know I see it in there, but uh I just don't know how these numbers work uh with this low of a preliminary budget. And that makes me nervous. I know that we don't have all the information, the details around that, but that's something I really want to make sure that we're not going to put ourselves in a position where we have increased inflation, other uh externalities uh and risks uh from a political standpoint that would put us in a position where we may not be able to accomplish some of the things that are on our lists. Um so I just want to be careful about that or having to do trade-offs. So, I want to be I'd rather go in with a higher levy and then reduce that. Making sure that we're able to have some cushion to be able to accomplish the things we talked about trying to do. I do think that animal shelter is a critical uh eyesore and it gets to the point of of our excellent services. It just doesn't meet our minimum level of of of service. Uh and if we're going to continue to do that, I think we've got to get that done and get it done right. and I don't want it to be done uh at the expense of of a reduction or some kind of budget crisis. Um, I'm also concerned about the staffing cost and that we track that uh that when we hire new new people and let our older folks uh leave uh that we're tracking how much that costs from an ongoing standpoint and that we're making sure that we're not uh as we reduce some of our internal uh expenses by reducing our internal services to our internal staff that we don't lose uh great employees and continue to rehire folks um and and start burning ing up money that way. And these are the last uh things here that I I'll say here. I want to want to just thank the staff for just phenomenal work. It's there's so much in these uh budgets year in and year out. I'm always surprised at the different vantage points and viewpoints you can kind of bring and I understand why sometimes you don't bring it all because otherwise I mean this this meeting could probably go on for two or three hours and we did in the past used to do this this meeting for a much longer period of time. And so the question that I ask myself here is, you know, yes, I would love to have an affordable levy, but the question I ask myself when I look at the mission is I would like to see Bloomington be a great city. And that means that, you know, you cannot continue to have awards and safety without looking at how many police that you have and making, you know, future plans and making sure that we staff that appropriately. Uh we see the numbers there. Same thing with the fire. We saw that and we're addressing that. We can't wait for the police situation to get like fire. So, we're being proactive. You know, we want awards around water, our communication. Uh so, I I don't look at this levy or this conversation as being a how can we race to our peer cities. I look at Bloomington as a unique shining city on a hill and I want to protect that reputation and the excellent uh service that we have at a reasonable price. So, I don't know what that means, but that means it has to come in a little bit higher. Okay. Thank you, council member. Council members Reebos or Alesandro, do you want any comments for us tonight? >> I will make a com one quick comment, Mr. Mayor. >> Alessandro, >> thank you. Uh yeah, I appreciate the the work of of the team here and I know that um I know that um several of the specific ways that the the data is being uh presented have to do with the fact that you've been listening to us and and getting feedback from us and and trying to to make sure that we can tell the story that we need to tell. So, thank you very much for that. Um I always look at budgets. Um and uh so two quick two things I'll ask for between now and September either offline or online here. Um one one would be um when I think of budgets um I always think of you know the cost of doing business right if what what's the cost of operating the bus you know putting keeping it on the track right whatever that is. And then and then we have these things that we know that we agreed to do over 10 or 15 or 20 years that are strategic investments in the future of the city. Park system master plan, climate action plan, uh fire safety transformation plan. That's what I'm calling it now. I nobody else is calling it that. I just that's just the name I came up with. The fire safety transformation plan. I hope you like it, Chief. Um and um and they're multi-million dollar multi-deade with an an ongoing operational impact style things that we as a council have agreed to do. We have to own that and also tell the right story so people understand what what the expectations are of those things. Why did we say we wanted to do this transformation of the park system master plan? every single time we talk about it, making sure people are grounded in the thought, why did we start doing that? Because many people who are here tonight, maybe this is the first time that they've heard about this and they have no clue. Like I could tell by the the gentleman who asked the questions are on fire that he wasn't here for the last three presentations that Chief Seal did about the the call rates, the response rates, all these things that that have guided our decision-making. That is not a critique. That's because that information isn't isn't something that we keep in front of people on a regular basis. So when it comes to so operating costs, strategic investments, and then the third one is this thing that we get to play with, which is what else do you want to do, right? And that's the I think that's the intent of the of the the the um the one uh slide that talks about, you know, the um what did you guys call it here? the the potential council investment opportunities. Yeah, exactly. Um and and I I would argue that there's a couple on there that maybe shouldn't be on there because they're part of either the m the the park system master plan or part of the climate action plan because I think the climate action plan predates even me. So maybe I would put those in that strategic objective. But then but I can't make the decision about these things because I don't know what they cost. And so the second part of my question so first thing would be like can we make sure we talk about operating costs the strategic multi-deade long investments and the both the capital you know the transitional cost and then the ongoing operating costs and what that has the impact of the city and then thirdly these things that we need to make decisions about what do they cost right now I can't remember what the quiet rail study costs I think it's like 80 grand I don't remember if that's true or not true maybe it's $100,000 maybe it's 200,000 so making sure we have that number so we know what that that rail study is going to cost us so we can make that decision. What's the animal shelter going to cost us? I think I saw 1.3 million, but maybe it's more than that or maybe that was offset by some of these revenue opportunities like so so having a sense for what the the uh levers are that we can play with in these um things we need to make decisions on would be very helpful. But otherwise, I think that we're in a good spot. I I just think um for me the fire safety transformation plan the way that it's defined there's a couple more pieces of information I think would tell the story even better. And I think if we had the same kind of thing for park system master plan and climate action plan knowing that they're multi-million dollar uh and multi-gener or you know multi-deade or multi-year investments. Um, for example, what did we do about composting and solid waste management and the changes we made to the um um uh truth in sales thing for energy, right? All that kind of stuff. By the way, consumer price index uh increase this year in energy alone is 14%. So, you could take the generic 3.4% 4% increase and and have that conversation, but we spend a lot of money on energy as a city, more so than the average consumer. And so that 14% increase in energy costs hits us harder as a city than it does any individual consumer. So it's things like that that also are part of that I think you called it a technical, you know, in kind of um calculation that needs to be done. So uh anyway, uh that's where I'm at. I think uh maybe a little bit more pointed view of those strategic investments, the operating costs, what does it cost to do nothing new or different, but just keep providing those highquality services and then where do you want us to make decisions about investments? I think that would be very helpful. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, council member. Last call. Council member, anything? You're not required to. Just wondering. Okay. All right. >> No comments for my part this this time. >> Thank you. Well, thanks for your comments, uh, council. Thank you to our members of the public who spoke. Thanks to staff for putting the presentation together. I think we're in, uh, a good spot in our discussion here, and this is an ongoing discussion. We're still four months away from a final discussion. Our next big meeting is September 14th where the council will set the preliminary tax levy. That, as we all know, is the level that is the the ceiling. We can't go above it. We can certainly go below it. and the staff, I'm sure, will continue to to refine that number and to bring it back in such a way that I think we're going to have a good conversation about it. And again, I want to appreciate uh all that uh all the perspectives that came forward. I'll just end with the the drum that I continue to beat that um police, fire, public works, community development, and uh uh park and recreation is 85% of our budget. And those are basic those are the core services of a city government. And so um w with the the services that we currently provide in those areas, it is what this community has come to expect and almost require of its city. And if we uh if we try and mess around with that, we hear from it. I don't care. We hear about it from from our our residents. No matter what no matter what lever we pull or where we try and uh bring that down, we hear about it. So, uh, we'll have to keep that in mind as well. We, we provide services that people want and expect in this community and, uh, the conversation continues. So, thank you all. And I will thank you, uh, Council Member Lman for bringing up that we used to spend two and a half hours on this conversation. Well, we did spend an hour and 15 minutes on this conversation. We still have two items left. And so, council, I want to make sure that we are we budget our time appropriately on our last two items. We will go to item 3.2. This is a uh 2026 the Bloomington Center for the Arts strategic plan and operations analysis and we're actually going to see examples of proforma which I think will be a great thing. Ian Brekie is here from our uh center for the arts. Good evening. Welcome. >> Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh good evening, mayor and council. Uh appreciate your time tonight. We are bringing we're staying on topic a bit here and we're bringing uh the next update on the ongoing BCA strategic plan and operations analysis. Duncan Webb of Web Management has rejoined us to present Proforma operating budget scenarios related to BCA for your review and comment. This same presentation did go to park last week on August 12th and prior to that we did actually meet with the city's resident arts organizations and walked them through this same presentation with with some thoughtful discussion afterwards as well. So, with that short introduction, I would like to welcome Duncan up here and we'll turn it over to him. >> Mr. Web, good evening. Welcome back. >> Uh, mayor, members of council, great to be back. Um, I'm going to give you a quick update on where we are. Ian, what which one advances? Is it the go? You try it. We're not getting action. >> Oh, go back one. >> That's the first one. >> Okay. >> All right. Uh, terrific. So, we were last for you in May. Uh, we presented the results of our situation analysis, including the SWAT work and emerging directions. We heard back from you. Uh, keep working with the RAOS. uh let's start thinking more specifically about cost recovery objectives and let's work on the development of mission vision and operating goals. So since that time we have [clears throat] >> y we have done those things. Um uh we we have had two rounds of sessions with the raos including a presentation of the proform to them a couple weeks ago. Uh good progress on mission vision and operating goals and the big work has been this uh developing a proforma operating budget. Uh I want to frame it a different way. These were the nine directions that came out of our situation analysis. And at this point, we're really we're focusing on the four that are orange about optimiz optimizing >> [snorts] >> utilization of BCA spaces. U clarifying and improving um uh cost recovery objectives. uh looking for equitable access to spaces and then sorting out uh policy about city use and inter departmental charges for use of BCA. So uh developing the proforma operating budget was a was a a big job and what we did was took the current budget format and structure and used it to uh march forward um from previous years through the budget years and five years out into the future. Um and it also incorporates your current uh CIP plan. My theory of budgeting is uh if you can get a good sense of how spaces will be used that allows you to make reasonable forecasts of revenue and then expenses associated with them. We have employed uh 3% CPI escalation through all of these years. Uh, and what's complicated about this budget is that it relates both to the operation of BCA, but then there's also the sort of internal charges and expenditures back and forth between the city and BCA. There's the capital projects included and also the arts grant program which is an integral part of your support of the arts community in Bloomington. So, um, here is what we're calling our baseline budget. And I'll just say a couple things about this. I've I've reformatted your budget structure a tiny bit by simply I've moved property tax and the capital outlays below the line because I wanted to isolate the performance of the building itself. So revenues and expenditures up there are just revenues and expenditures associated with the operation of BCA. Then I took the portion of the property tax that is used to pay capital outlay and the cultural arts grants. I took whatever was required to zero that out below the line and that left a portion of the property tax to support operations at BCA. So I feel that this is a little bit clearer way to look at to isolate and look at the performance of BCA as a community serving building. Uh the second thing I'll say is that we have so two years of actuals of forecasted results for 2026 the 2027 budget which has already been proposed and then I've added the five years beyond that. Um and here the other thing I'm talking my way of talking about cost recovery is uh the percentage of of operating expenses that is covered by earned revenue meaning rents and food and ticket sales and all those things that in this case are just not the property tax right that's the contributed income component. So, um, I I should say something about the 2027 budget because you've already made a series of important adjustments in BCA budgeting for the coming budget year, some of which have been influenced by the work that we've been doing with you over the past year and a half. Um, there's been a reduction of internal charges back and forth. There's city fees for BCA use starting uh this next year. There's uh more external rental opportunities being pursued. Uh arts education program registrations are growing and are being encouraged to grow. Uh and we've added a full-time box office position to sort of supplement the needs there. So what that means just for for the coming budget year is an 11% improvement in cost recovery already. Um so that then becomes our baseline for the five years beyond that. So what we decided to to test in this model was was the pursuit of these six different operating goals. Let's see if we can improve box office income. So more ticket sales, more presented events, higher capacity sold. Let's see if we can add some food and beverage revenue. Let's see if we can continue to grow arts education programs. Let's improve space utilization and the optimization of usage. And that's probably the the single most important goal that we're pursuing here. uh pursue other external grant sponsorship, naming rights and other external funding opportunities to sustain operations and then let's consider uh if appropriate increasing the cost of access for BCA spaces. So rather than um do all of that at once, we decided to do three different levels of of proforma. In level one, it's the basic uh level of change where we're trying to optimize spaces and utilization. It's it's refining uh the current model. There are minimal changes to for the aross and the arts partners and it's just sort of fixing and improving things that can be fixed and improved without sort of impacting the current user group. Level two more directly uh increases the cost of access for the RAOS's which comes in two ways. One, it's there's a per ticket user fee that they're charged. It's increasing that and then it's adding uh room rental rates over time for all the secondary spaces that are not that are not being charged rent for now. And level three, the most dramatic is we've said, let's cut back RAO access to the theaters and the other spaces, and let's push and pull in other groups who could theoretically pay higher levels of rent and bring higher levels of revenue into the building. So those are the three levels of proforma we decided to test. Um, so this is level one. So the changes here are there's higher um more uh presented events, more external rentals, higher food and beverage sales, higher arts education registrations. Uh we're pursuing external grants and we've also hired a grant writer to help do that. So it's not a burden on existing staff. And you'll see the the final result uh goes from a 2027 it's 121,000 and it kind of goes up and down depending a little bit on election years versus non-election years because that changes the utilization pattern in various spaces. But the key thing here is that the earned revenue over operating expenses goes from our 39% in 2027 to 48% by 2032. If we go to level two, in this case we have uh we're keeping the level one changes and now we're adding the per higher per ticket user fees to the raos and we're charging the raos's uh rent for use of this secondary spaces and of the main spaces just for rehearsals. uh the the area the per ticket charge increase is about 50% for them and the room uh fees are averaging about 10 to 20 bucks an hour which is still significantly discounted well below what you might consider a market rate for those spaces but it's it's starting to generate some rental income from those. So you see with those increases we get from a a final result in 27 of 121,000 surplus to a final result of 219,000 by 2032 and that earned uh component of the budget goes from 38% up to 53%. So we've we've increased that further. And then in level three, which is the most sort of dramatic impact on the RAOS's, we've basically cut uh their dates of use of the Schneider, the blackbox, and a couple of the secondary spaces down about 30% over a period of years. and we're trying to replace that with external rental activity, combination of some nonprofit and some commercial rent paying. Um, if you do that, you also have to increase staffing and there's additional materials and supplies costs associated with doing that as well. So, in this case, the final result in 2032 hits 250 grand. The earned revenue component hits 57%. That's a lot of information. So let me try and do another sort of way to summarize that. If this is for the final year of the proforma in 2032, sort of our baseline had a sort of a small operating deficit of 21,000 and earned revenue over operating expenses of 40%. Level one takes it to 100 grand to the good and 50% earned. Level two takes it to 200 grand and change in 58% of the good. And level three takes it a few more percentage points higher to 59% and that uh final result is 250 grand. So uh what does that all mean? Essentially the baseline we've already got this 11% increase from 26 to 27 but level one pushes that cost recovery 19% between 26 and 32. Level two pushes it 24% in that same period of time and level three pushes it 28% in that period of time. Um so what did we learn from that exercise? It was a tremendous sort of number crunching uh ordeal for Ian and I, but you now have a live working model that hopefully will be of value to Ian and staff in the future moving forward as a way to sort of project and test various operating assumptions. What did we learn? 2027 changes are significant and very positive. They really do make a significant increase and improvement to your cost recovery already. Level one really making these relatively pain-free adjustments that are doing things like education, registration, food and beverage, pursuing some external grants, optimizing utilization of spaces a little bit that really does yield significant positive results with very little sort of pain uh to the RAOS. Level two is is a bit more uh negative on them with the cost going up uh and it improves your results a little bit but not as dramatically as level one and level three more significant negative impacts on the RAOS's and less significant positive impacts on BCA and the bottom line still positive it's still an improvement but not so dramatic as we had in the earlier two so Um that's the work that we've done and we're now starting to share around. We've had some good feedback from the RAOS on that work so far and we will look forward to connecting with staff again and with members of council to see how you all are feeling about how we've sort of pushed these various policy ideas, how far you think we can push towards achieving higher cost recovery objectives. uh we have additional stakeholder engagement planned looking out in the future uh and and one of the probably the biggest uh piece of work coming is to think about how you make arrangements with raoss now it's this very timeintensive uh bianual lease agreement and we're trying to think of ways to simplify that and also modify it to make it more incentive based and to introduce the idea that for for the ROS and for others having a special status here is something that should be earned uh on an ongoing basis. It should not be treated as a given but there should be criteria that they have to meet in order to earn the um the the the subsidies and the services and the grants that they receive from the city of Bloomington. And the other side of that is that implicit in that is that we're trying to create a point of entry so that other artists and arts organization present in the city of Bloomington do have a way that they can start to access this building and earn that status. So, uh, our final step will be to sort of work through those those agreements, refine the budget, and as a final step, we will develop for you a series of targets and measures so that you can evaluate the progress of BCA relative to your goals for the future of the city. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Webb. That's uh outstanding work. That that's a lot of number crunching and a lot of uh assumptions based on obvious experience and and expertise in the in the field. So, well done. I I really do appreciate that and uh it brings some new light to what has been an ongoing question and issue that we've been talking about for some time here. So, thank you very much for that. Council questions or comments? Understanding we're not making decisions tonight. We're looking for comments uh questions and we're being judicious with our with our time here. Council member Carter. >> Thank you, Mayor. Okay. So, this is coming back to council later in the fall for decision- making. Okay. Um I have just two quick questions. So when we do get to a point of um having net revenue, would that just go into the operating reserves then? >> Council member Cart Carter, Mayor and Council, that is not determined at this time. >> Okay. We uh we've simply put together scenarios that improve the cost recovery of the facility, but we would look to your direction as well as city manager's office on how those >> in theory they could potentially roll over into the next year's budget and reduce the property tax levy and >> Okay. >> I think it's all possible. Okay. In theory. Yep. >> Um Oh, go ahead. >> Mayor, member of council, I just want to add a comment. The other thing in the proforma is that the the only number that we didn't change in the future was that property tax number. So we've kept everything else is escalating at 3% but that property tax number is fixed. It's the same number in 2032 as it is in 2026. So that we wanted to show that we could try and improve performance without any assumptions about additional property tax allocations to the building. best practices in the field is often using operating uh surpluses to fund uh capital reserves here. They're a bit, you know, integrated, but that's still sort of a policy option you have. >> Okay. And I don't remember what ours looks like, but I feel like I remember it being red. [laughter] So, probably a good thing to to fund. So, um, and then if we were to move forward with the level one budget, um, and the hiring of a grant writer, I guess I just is this would this be a full-time position and do we have I feel like we have a city grant writer or would this be an additional grant writing position and is that needed? >> Uh, members of council, I've done it as a part-time or contract position. Okay. >> Not full-time. >> Okay. Awesome. Um, I could probably ask more detailed questions, but I can take those offline. Not important right now. Um, but thank you. This is great. Um, I think I've struggled with the continuously increasing property tax levy request, knowing that this is an important amenity, but then also it's just kind of like the question was like where does it end? Like where does it stop? And I think having an an actual strategy and a plan in place is going to be great. So, thank you. >> Thank you, council member. I see council member Dallas. Council member Lman and then council member Rivas. Council member Delisandro. >> Oh, that's fine. I was going to I think he had his hand up before mine. If you want to ask Mr. Rivas first, but I'm happy to go now. Either way, >> please. >> All right. [clears throat] Uh, a quick quick question. Um, you mentioned that you had had some conversations with the RAOS. What has generally been the feeling or the sentiment of the RAOS in discussion on these items? Um, you know, I don't know if they uh have been reticent. Have they been you said generally positive I don't know what that means if you can give us an understanding of how they reacted to the impacts. So I it's members of council, mayor, members of council, councilwoman. Um it's would be unfair to try and generalize too much, but I think they are they're nervous first and foremost. You know, nonprofit arts organizations are all in a very fragile financial state. So they're very nervous about anything that might impact their sustainability. At the same time they recognize that change is coming here. Uh and they want to be involved to the extent that they can be in in being a part of deciding on what those changes are and how they get rolled out. That the very important thing that Ian has been saying to them in all these meetings is nothing will happen quickly and nothing will happen by surprise. So, so I think we're sort of laying the groundwork for changes that are negotiated, uh, discussed, uh, reviewed, considered, uh, that roll out gradually with lots of warning so that they're fully prepared for what comes. >> Thank you. Um, can you guide me just I guess ground me in when we talk about the availability or the optimization of space? Are we what what space within the BCA are we specifically talking about? I assume it's the Schneider, the blackbox, the galleries, the studios, the rehearsal space, and then the lobby on the north side here. Is that what we're talking about when we talk about optimization of space, or are we talking about other spaces that maybe I don't have top of mind? >> Uh, great question because it's different for each space a little bit. So, for Schneider, the issue is that there there are people in there many days of the year. The thing that we would like to happen is that we would like more days on which there is a performance rather than days when they're loading in, loading out, rehearsing, changeover. So we want to try and approve the essentially the efficiency of that space as a place where the public is invited. the black box is uh has more capacity to add total days but also has a little bit of that same issue that we'd like to get more performances in there relative to the total days of utilization for the other spaces the dance studio uh rehearsal rooms uh and other classrooms they're just not busy enough. So what we're really trying to do there is push utilization uh to find ways through education programs and rental activity that you can improve it. Another optimization issue is and this is Ian and his team have been working on this. So, for example, there's a couple of groups that use Schneider for music. And whenever you do that, you have to put the orchestra shell in place. And it's very inefficient if you have to put the shell in place for one group, take it out for because a theater group's coming in, put it back in because then you've got a coral group coming in. So maybe there's some work that can be done on the calendar to have back-to-back music programs because you effectively lose days and days of changeover because of that inefficiency of having to do it. So that's just an example of optimization. >> Okay, that's helpful. Um, is there any part of the the BCA itself that isn't being utilized at all that you are considering? >> No, it's all being used to some extent. >> So I at least have the inventory of space that you're considering. Correct. Yep. Okay. Great. Okay. Awesome. So, that's very helpful. I'm wondering because I I'm not quite sure what you're talking about when you're talking about food and beverage, and there has been discussion over time with council about uh the installation of something a little bit more permanent as it relates to that. So, I don't know what food and beverage on here means, but maybe you can articulate like some of the ideas that you were thinking of when you were thinking about how to increase food and beverage. >> Uh, two things. One is uh probably not truly permanent but more permanent concessions >> and second is uh better facilities for catering. >> Okay, helpful. Thank you. And then the last I guess this is a a quick comment. Um the level one and level two stuff makes some sense to me. The level three thing does not look like the juice is worth the squeeze there for me. So, if I'm assuming you came to sim similar conclusion based on what you were talking about there, but I personally think we have an incredible opportunity for arts education in these in these uh gallery spaces and in these uh uh studio and and um classroom spaces. And so, um I I think that's for lack of a better way to put it lowanging fruit that we could go after very quickly and and make some real progress on. So, I'm happy to see that on the list. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you, Council Member. Council member Lman. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh in the interest of time, um I've already shot a question to the city manager. We'll we can address that since we're talking about this later on. Um the question I'll I'll put to you today is it looks like uh staffing ends up at roughly the same level regardless of which scenario we choose. Uh if that's the case, the decision isn't really about staffing. It's about how much of the cost we pass on to the reos versus the absorption as a city subsidy. Is that a fair read? Uh yes, Councilman Lman, the the the full-time staff complement, you've only just this last year reached the the three. Next year adds the fourth, and we're sticking with that as the full-time compliment. So there are other increases in contract staff that we've mentioned, but essentially the changes are related to the the sort of the the fees and rental rates being passed on to the external users and the money coming back in from rentals and other programs like that. >> Thanks. That's all I need. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Thank you, council member. Council member Rivas. >> Thank you, Maya. Um I just have a quick question here. Everybody ask uh all the other questions I had. So just one quick one. What pier or regional art centers with similar resin company models has web management use as benchmarks for sustainable cost recovery targets? And how does Bloomington current and projected recovery rates compared to those benchmarks? >> Uh Councilman Rivas, mayor, members of council, Councilman Rivas. So, we've I think in our two presentations ago, we showed a a slide that benchmarked BCA against a series of first we had like eight different benchmarks and then we focused it on uh buildings that had resident organizations like this that were city-owned. That took it down to four. I don't have those those numbers uh top of mind right now, but the cost recovery based on 20 the current year 26 was somewhat lower than in those other buildings. So with this work, we are I think more likely to improve cost recovery to a level that matches or perhaps even exceeds some of those benchmark organizations. Thank you. That's all I have. >> Thank you, council member. Council member Nelson. >> Yeah, thank you. I'll be quick here. Um, one of the things that would be helpful for me is to understand the net impact of some of the various changes like the cafe like on a net basis it adds revenue but I assume there's additional expenses. So, how does that benefit it? uh the education programs better utilization but then you have more cost for running the program are those you know what is the margin on I don't know what the margin on an educational program is um I am concerned about the box office position as you noted uh just a minute ago we added two people last year and I was apprehensive about that and now we're adding another person like is adding a box office person going to bring in another $100,000 of revenue to cover the cost of that position. Um, and I just remind people, I think that one of the other organizations ran that prior to us taking it over. So, what is the cost of us taking that over versus somebody else doing it? Um, have we talked to the city clerk's office in terms of those elections if they're impacting our revenue? I I believe and this is a primary election, not a uh general election, presidential election, but you know, we're running it on the other side of the building currently. you know, is that an opportunity so we we aren't impacting the arts space? Is there a different way to format that so we don't have that negative impact? Um, and I mean, I think that the bottom line for me is it looks like it's going to continue to cost us $ 1.5 million uh in property tax support for for this. And and and you know, I mean, frankly, it cost us a lot of money to have uh you know, softball fields and soccer fields and all sorts of stuff. So, I I don't know that that's wrong or negative or anything. Um, but I I would be interested in in, you know, I appreciate the effort to go and look at that cost recovery. Um, I also someone had, I think it was council member Carter brought up the the cafe. I think that was uh very astute. Um, and I would strongly urge us to look at um, [snorts] you know, outsourcing that and making it, you know, maybe even something that is there outside of show times and things like that. So, you know, something that people could come and uh, you know, sit in our building and have a cup of coffee and meet people and and hang out, a place that staff could have a meeting at that they didn't have to leave and go off site. Um, and and that sort of thing. and and maybe it goes into the evening with a glass of wine or something of that nature with a um you know [snorts] I I don't think I don't think we're going to put a full restaurant in obviously but you know is there a way to do that and we could just get lease revenue off of it and take that off of our shoulders and books and would how would that net out? So I just threw a lot at you. I'll be honest. I don't need you to answer right now if I could just get that information from staff as we go forward. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Anything, Council Member Robertson? No, you're good. Uh, the the only comments, the two comments that I had, the the notion of further rental opportunities, uh, which I couldn't disagree or I couldn't agree with more to to look for different ways that we could get folks in here, understanding of course between the AIM Center and the Hopkins Center for the Arts, we're we're in a right in the middle of a lot of competition. And so I don't know about any more performing arts opportunities but uh business opportunities or event opportunities just as event space. So something to think about from that perspective. And uh and then I will say council I have been racking my brain to kind of to try and come up with a an RAO speedwagon joke and I have not been able to [laughter] and I'm disappointed in myself but it's been a long >> heard it from a friend. >> Um we'll get to that. I promise. >> I can't believe you didn't use that Mr. Mayor. You heard it from a friend. Yep. There. Thank you. [laughter] Thank you. Is there anything else, council? If not, thank you. If not, thank you much. Uh, thanks for the information and the work you put into this. I think, as I said, it's very helpful as a tool going forward. We've got a better opportunity to understand this more clearly now and look forward to continuing this conversation. So, thank you so very much. Well done. >> Thank you. >> Our final item this evening, council, is a final study item. regarding our multif family performance standards and we have Mr. Thomas Ramler Olsen with us this evening to lead us through this. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. Good evening. There we go. Hot mic. Okay. Yes. So, as was briefly mentioned, this is a study item looking at the city's uh multifamily performance standards. Here we go. So, how this is going to go is I'm going to give a brief overview uh touch a little bit on the background. I'm going to go through each performance standard that staff were able to identify that are good candidates for amending and I'm going to briefly talk about the standard and then we can have a conversation. We can I can introduce staff's recommendation and then we'll have a conversation get some feedback from you all for each standard and then we'll just go in that order because there's a lot of information. I don't want to get lost until the end of the presentation. So that's I think the best Well, you all are great at retaining information. So this isn't a this isn't a crisis of of you. This is just actually this was feedback that I got from planning commission. So I don't know. Hopefully it works out right. Okay. So uh [laughter] yeah, exactly. Come on. We're we're all laughing, right? Um but uh okay, down to down to business. Uh so this is um a work plan item. This is a 2026 uh plan commission work plan project. Um some of the standards that staff have identified that um are good candidates for re-evaluation are streetside setbacks uh for multif uh multif family development uh storage units within those uh those types of development and then the usable open space requirements for multif family. So the background for um the multif family performance standards is the last time it was updated was in 2015. So it was a while ago. And um this is also kind of in line of some of the other streamlining projects that we've done. We just want to make things easier uh bring down some of those regulatory barriers that we've identified that can hopefully not gum up the works for uh development projects that make their way to the city. So it's just about making things easier. So it kind of follows in the uh in the vein of some of these other projects that I've highlighted at the bottom of the slide and that I talk about um in the staff report. So for this study item uh there's been uh staff have done multiple things. Uh we've engaged uh uh uh people internally internal to the city. So that includes uh the planning division, port authority, environmental health, uh fire department, and engineering about this topic. And uh yeah, we've gotten some really good feedback and that's what led to identifying some of the standards that I um that I noted a couple slides ago. Um also talked to some developers um to get their feedback. I'll be honest with you, I didn't um uh some of the the issues that that maybe they've encountered with development in the city, they had nothing but glowing things to say. So, they were very positive and I was trying to get some of that. I don't know. It was maybe I was leading them, but I wanted to get some negative reactions just so I could um really get them to think about uh what the city the city could do to improve the um the practice of uh development and proposing development. And um unfortunately, it just didn't work out that well. But nonetheless, it was it was uh nice to meet them and uh to talk to some of the developers that have been uh really active in the city. So, uh very appreciative for that and their time. And uh we also looked at previous u multif family projects and um for some of the projects they deal specifically with the opportunity housing ordinance or some of the incentives related to that ordinance. So you'll see that there's definitely a connection between what we're proposing to amend and uh how they fit within the uh structure of the uh OO. And um just another note at the bottom of that slide, we didn't talk about the multif family district RM15 that was dealt with recently with the missing middle housing uh project. So all the standards related to that um we didn't touch because they were thoroughly vetted earlier this year. Okay. So moving on to uh standard number one, uh street side setbacks. um the commonly known as front yard setbacks, but I'm just um being more specific that it's the street side. Um those are important for ensuring enough room for utilities, drainage, sidewalks, all those necessary infrastructure elements for development. Um they also contribute greatly to the pedestrian experience. you know, if buildings are further away, there's that that conveys a certain tone. Whereas, if they're closer, that there's more activity, uh more transparency on the buildings, hopefully complement the the closer setback. Um and, uh you know, the larger the setback, I mean, uh with regard to what is available on the site, that constrains development. So, the larger the setback, you can't do anything in that front yard. So, that doesn't give many opportunity or many options for the developer. they have to negotiate those larger setbacks and um uh related to those setbacks. Uh there's um uh uh crime prevention through environmental design. Uh analyses have shown like just having buildings close to the sidewalk, having more eyes on the street, having more balconies face the street, that just it not only uh contributes to the vibrancy of uh of that uh of the uh that street face, but it also um adds to the safety because you have more eyes on the street. So um there's something to be said about that. And at the bottom I I detail um the current setbacks for the multif family districts. So um the RM 100 is the closest at 10 ft, but the 24 and 50 are at 40. So with our analysis and talking to staff and and um and uh also uh it was it was important to talk to engineering because of those infrastructure elements that usually uh accommodate development um to see what was a palatable setback and we landed on the number of 20 ft. So halfing it from uh for the uh RM uh 24 and RM50 districts, halfing it from uh 40 ft to 20 ft. Um RM 100 we're not proposing to touch because that's at 10 ft right now and that is an adequate distance. Again, we have a lot of elements that we need to include on site and so the 10T seems to work out pretty well. But for staff's recommendation, we're talking about lowering the 40 foot set back down to 20. And it's it still allows enough room for all those um infrastructure elements on site um including utilities. Um and it also just exhibits a more urban character which is what the intentions are for the RM24 and RM50 districts. And um oh yeah, and it's also noted that uh the fire department is is in favor of those smaller setbacks because it's just easier to attend to those emergencies if the building is closer to the to the street. So that it's important to to mention that. And um planning commission when they were uh examining this uh this recommendation from staff, they actually were interested in setbacks lower than 20 ft. So I want to put that forth to you all as well that we're happy to look further into even a setback lower than 20 feet. And so the question for this particular multif family standard is um does the city support an amendment to reducing the 40ft setback to 20 ft for the RM24 and RM50 or would you or would you even instruct staff to look into something even lower? And I'll just put that to you all. >> Thank you. odds council. Council member Nelson. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. What would the rationale be for not doing it at 10 just like RM 100? I mean, that's going to be the most intense building if that can be at 10 ft. Why can't these others? Is there a reason that I'm not seeing? >> Uh, mayor, council member, there we we um that that uh wasn't really touched upon with um engineering staff. if going smaller than 20 ft. Granted, we do there's evidence that we can accommodate all the all the site elements within the the 10-ft setback for RM 100. Although I'm not the engineer, I don't know if there's something different that I'm missing if qualitatively between an RM 100 environment and the environment for ARM 24 and 50. Uh I know R100 is usually located on uh uh heavier arter arterial streets. So I'm not sure if it's the that right of way that's needed in order to have a smaller setback, but um that's certainly something that we could look into is could the 24 and 50 um work out well with a a 10-ft setback. Um we're we're h but we weren't able or I'm sorry didn't uh bring forth a reason why 10 ft couldn't work. Um but we could look into it. >> Council member Dellesandro. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor. Just to dovetail into council member Nelson's commentary is there is is the is the intent to standardize AC the intent is not to standardize then across the RM district. So we have we have four 15 24 50 and five and 100 right. So but not all of them have setbacks or is that the pro is that the reason that we don't want to just kind of like standardize across setbacks for all the RM districts? I'm just kind of curious if that was something that we thought about at all. >> Uh mayor, council member, the the districts differ by the type of environment they're trying to create. So they, if you can think about it as a gradient, you're getting from the less dense to the more dense and then the the character that comes with a uh a setback that is closer and even closer to the sidewalk. Does it does it reflect what the intentions of that district is? And so um staff's interpretation of the 24 and 50 felt that the 20 ft was adequate. Um, again, we're happy to look at something smaller, but when you get into the RM15 and those lower those are fitted into heavily res into lower density residential environments where perhaps a more generous setback is appropriate. >> Okay, that that's fine. I I just wanted to there was strategically like a reason we would or would not. So, >> purely aesthetics. >> Yeah. And that's fine if you're saying like, "Hey, R14, R4, R15, that's going to get your, you know, you want that to be consistent with the 30 foot setback we have for residential or whatever, then the our these these two >> being 20 and then the 100 being 10. I mean, now you've got this gradient of of density. I'm fine with that. I that works for me. I just wanted to make sure we had thought it through." Yeah. Thanks. >> Other thoughts, council member Lman. So, um, this is more of a question, uh, kind of for the council and for, you know, and I know this is not the same. I know council member Elandre, you were talking about this as well a minute ago, but, uh, you know, I'm I'm kind of reluctant to to do the 20, you know, even get to that point. I mean, I mean, the planner in me says move it down to 10. I mean, I just get it to 10 all it. But, you know, we keep hearing residents kind of say, "Hey, you know, you you're pushing the kids out into the street and it's dangerous." you know and then you know on the other hand you know we look at some not again not this particular but you know you can make this case too that now you can add a little bit on the back end and and you know really squeeze all this stuff you know into that and so you know the concern I have is that you know we set this up we do this we make this change and then this is what the development developer does and brings it back to us and then we say no we don't want that because that's just too crammed it looks crazy on the thing so I don't want to you know uh do that knowing knowing that you I just want to make sure that we're as a council understanding what we're doing when we go ahead and do this. I mean, I'm totally in favor of doing 10, but I recognize what the impact of that is when we go into these neighborhoods and we make this drastic change going from 40 all the way down to 20 or down to 10. And I I don't know what the difference is between going from 20 to 10. >> You know, if you're going to do that, if you're gonna pay the pay the piper, you might as just go all the way down to 10 because it's going to be the same argument that you're gonna have. So, I just want to make sure because that's really really cramming stuff on on on on a on a property. Again, that's what we want to do, density. But, uh, so >> any else? Council member Robinson. >> Um, [clears throat] uh, truly my thoughts and questions have already been asked by my colleagues. Um, but I would say to, um, Council Member Lman's point, I'm kind of up the same persuasion. It's like, well, let's just go down to 10. Let's just make it all right. Let's just call it and just go down to that. Um, but I do think it's really important that we um heed the feedback we've gotten from residents about setbacks. Um, and so yeah, that's where I would be. I I do think I would support a reduction certainly um from 40 to 20 feet or possibly smaller um depending on on what further information we get. So, thanks, >> Council Member Rivas. >> I have a quick question here. Um it's it's uh more like uh if the if this discussion if we would approve the whole thing I guess uh so my question is if the recommended um uh reductions in the street in street side setbacks of the storage unit require the elimination or significant reduction of the storage unit requirement and lowering lowering of usable open space standards are all adopted. What is the staff's best estimate of the average increase in dwelling units per acre and the average reduction in hard construction costs? >> Uh >> I mean I'm only asking this because I changed my question a little bit because uh council member Lman mentioned that the intention of all this is to increase the density, right? So what is really the benefit? Well, how many more units are we going to be able to get if, let's say, the 40t get down to 10 or even 20? >> Uh, mayor, council member, we haven't done that kind of analysis. Uh, that would that would be very intense to do. uh uh trying to find a representative plot or or lot in the in in the city where if we relax some of these standards per staff's recommendations, what would that yield versus a baseline of just keeping the standards the same? We haven't done that kind of analysis. Our thought is if it adds another unit, that's positive. That's that's a good thing. And so um even just the addition of one unit uh through relaxing some of these standards is another is another household created. So that's good. Um but uh as far as the net impact uh we haven't done that kind of analysis. The idea is that you know in in line with some of the other amendments we've put forth in front of council that have been adopted. This is just about easing the pressure on development and just making sure that we're not imposing uh burdensome standards that really don't uh actually uh elevate the quality of life of the areas that are being developed. So I I mean uh um so what is actually the intention to of reducing the the setback the strict side setbacks then just for as you mentioned earlier just for physical appearance just to for cosmetic appearance or is it intentional just to increase the density in the area? I mean the reason I as this is because a lot of the times we were talking earlier about about being transparent about all this and I think that we we would avoid the public or the residents >> uh you know uh having been angry or upset about these decisions that are put before us if we clearly specify why we we want to do these things these changes. uh mayor, council member, the so the thought uh brought forth by staff is that we've encountered these these um uh these barriers before in previous applications. We've provided relief when um applicants have sought the deviation from the 40ft setback to the 20ft setback. And so there's been multiple times where the city has approved um the reduction in that street side setback with you know I I I guess we um these are fairly newer developments. So how successful they are I I can't really sure I can't really say it other than that they've been developed and that people are occupying these spaces. So that's good. Um and so we are identifying a standard where relief has been granted uh by the city and so to reduce the barrier just make just reduce the um the standard to what the the city has normally allowed which has been from 40 ft to 20 ft. Um again that's only for the RM24 and RM50 districts. Um, and we are willing to to look at a a lower setback. And the idea behind easing these setbacks is to give developers the space and the flexibility of the lot that they're developing. So if they're if they have a larger setback that constrains the amount of area that they're allowed to develop and that give doesn't give them much option and it could re result in just um engineering that either reduces a unit count or reduces an amenity space that's valuable to the residents. So we're just wanting to uh reduce the incidence of of those kind of compromises that are being imposed on developers. And it also I'm sorry it also does contribute to a quality and a character that is in line with the intentions of these districts. >> Thank you. This these uh requirements are just being proposed for uh RM20 24 and 50. Correct. >> 24 and 50. Yep. >> So yeah. Um so as as um as I mentioned on this slide, so we have the RM241500 highlighted. Um the again we're not talking about the RM 100 because it's already at 10 ft and that's a pretty small setback already for what is needed on site. Um so we're just looking at those other two districts and the RM15 which is our other multif family district again like that was uh dealt with during the missing middle uh ordinance that was uh reviewed earlier this year. >> Okay. Thank you. I I understand this. I mean, if we concentrate only on RM24 and RM50, which are dedicated to, you know, multiple units, I guess, u I don't have a problem supporting it either. It's it just makes sense. Thank you. >> We'll move on. Council, my two two quick sense here. I think 40T is too much. I think 10 feet is too little. I like 20 feet. Uh No, I'm serious. to to go from to go from the street, a bit of a boulevard, a sidewalk and just a bit of uh landscaping and then the building I think is the appropriate and that's 20 20 ft gets filled up very quickly. I mean it's from me to council member Lman is 10 feet. I mean that's not a lot of room between the h you know a building and the street. So So uh there's your feedback on that. Let's move on to storage units. Got it. Yep. That's right. Okay. Okay. So, storage units um uh current code uh requires uh one storage unit per dwelling unit um at two different volumes. That's depending on whether bike parking is provided on site external to uh the storage unit um or not. And um what what's interesting is that we require bike parking on site or some sort of bike storage facility. So, that's already a requirement. And so technically any development could go for the the lower um storage unit volume that I've highlighted on the slide. Um I will say in discussions with uh the fire department and environmental health they did support the requirement for storage units um in buildings they mentioned that sometimes when the storage unit count is low or for those buildings that have you know relief from storage units um some people will use their parking space to store their object. I don't know how uh I I didn't get a sense for how much of a problem this is, but they did just recount anecdotes that it it has been observed, but from staff's perspect perspective, that might be more of a burden that the property owner needs to share, the property management, and that they need to keep those spots clear of storage. And so, um, that that's something to consider because, uh, storage units are are, as far as Bloomington is concerned, we're we're an outlier in the region. There's not many, um, cities within the region that require storage units as part of multif family development. Um, from what I could tell based on my research is that this is a vestage from older zoning codes. Um, so going back down to uh it was added some, as I mentioned on the slide, it was added sometime between 1962 and 1975. So, um, it didn't appear until or in the zoning code that I saw in 1975 where storage units were required. And at that time, we didn't have other self- storage facilities. So there probably was a requirement that seemed rational at the time of uh 1975 to have these storage unit requirements. But now that we have storage facilities, in fact we have nine in a little under 6,500 storage units um provided by those nine. This is based on a I think a 2018 or 2019 analysis of of self- storage units. We have a lot of self storage in the city and so all that uh taken together oh plus um you know there has been a lot of relief granted to new development to lower the storage unit requirement to um take advantage of the oh uh incentives and have it or you know uh reduce it by 50%. So that's been a common uh uh uh approval given by the city to a lot of multif family development. And so to me what you know staff's concern is that that communicates to us that the onetoone requirement is too much. Uh the the requirement is exceeding the demand and um it it's a it's a burden on developers to have to provide that space where they could be providing another unit to um to a household. So, or they have or maybe they're taking away space from a from an amenity that's desired by a res residence. So, that's also something to consider. And so, um, taking all that in, staff's recommendation, and this is something that, uh, planning commission also concurred with, was eliminating the storage unit requirement altogether for multif family performance standards in both residential and commercial districts. I should mention that this also this discussion does affect commercial districts that allow mixed use that you know they have a multif family component. So I probably should have put that for forth at the beginning but you know we are primarily focusing on those multif family districts like the RM 24 50 and 100. So anyways that's staff's recommendation. Another alternative is to just reduce the um the needed volume for storage units down to 54 cubic feet. That comes from uh 2015 recommendation from staff that was denied back then and um went from 54 to 96 cubic feet. But um anyways uh so there is a chance to maybe just lower the volume the storage unit volume and also the amount necess uh needed uh as part of the development. So eliminating it by half. And um so the question to you is which um option do you do you support? Council member Lman and then council member Dellesandro. >> Rapid fire. >> Go quicker. So thank you mayor. Uh so I remember being uh having this you know come forward many times and voted against elimination. I do think the market really should drive this. Uh and so I think we should eliminate the storage requirement units you know as as staff has put forth. But the thing I'm most concerned about, I I've lived in an apartment building and I think what fire has brought forth in environmental health uh is something that we need to kind of think about. So I would would propose that we think about is there a way to provide some protection uh for those folks who are getting the affordable housing. The idea that uh that the public storage units can be out there. I I think of the times where I was living I couldn't afford to to get the afford you know addition. already paying this amount of money. I'm making this little bit of money. I can't afford to get additional thing. So, I think that's shortsighted for those folks who, you know, we talk about affordability and we talk about this community where everybody wants to be. Well, for those folks who are struggling to make a paycheck, I think that's that's just not reasonable to think that they're going to be able we need to figure out a way to provide that. Now, the masses of people, I agree, they can get it. The market can provide it. You need additional storage, get it out there. And so, uh, but when fire talks about, you know, your gasoline tanks and that kind of thing, you know, you can't put that in your unit, you can't put that in your garage. So, I think there needs to be some type of provision, but I definitely agree we should eliminate the storage uh requirement across the city. I think we're already there. So, um, but I'll I'll I've shot some of that to the the manager and you can have a look at that later on what I'm proposing. So, >> member Disandro. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so the only thing I didn't see in here um is I you mentioned that we use um storage units oftentimes as a as a a functional trading card for lack of a better way to put it in the opportunity housing ordinance and things like that. What does eliminating it do to the potential to use that as a lever around affordable housing in the AOHO? As a first question and the second question related to that, I guess is I appreciate that it prevents people from developing the units, but has anybody told us what the tenants who have those units think about their capacity for storage? because you you say that the market doesn't demand it, but I'm not sure that the market doesn't demand it or the people that are building the places are are in that situation, but the tenants would love to h still have it. And I that's the data I don't have. So, I guess the question is kind of twofold related to the same thing. >> Okay. What? >> Uh yeah, mayor, council member. So its impacts on the OHO through conversations with the the port authority which administers the O there. I think there is a reconceptualization of how the OO should function. This is that's part of a bigger conversation and this was put forth to them this idea of eliminating the storage unit requirement. Um and uh they were fine with it. So um they >> what what I understand is that the city is doing really well on those um so there's like three affordability buckets um AMIs. So the top two we're doing really really well. um it's that less than 30% AMI that is really struggling and so there is a possibility of maintaining uh if if this were to be maintained the the storage unit requirement was is to um only incentivize those units that are 30% or lower AMI. >> Um so removing the um uh the incentive for those top two um uh AMI buckets. >> Okay. if that's the way I've been thinking about it. Okay. But I mean this is just an example there. There are other ways to incentivize affordable housing development and storage units might or um basic feedback I was getting from Port Authority is that's not the golden goose to get affordability units or affordable units developed. And so um eliminating this uh requirement and therefore getting rid of the incentive is um they were fine with that. >> Okay. Um I'm sorry the second question >> uh about whether tenants actually oh yes want the storage facilities. >> My my my apologies. So there there are um this is anecdotal. We're getting this from developers. So I mean have that context in mind but there are units that sit empty and we have received um again through uh through through anecdotes provided to us that they're charging for these storage units and so people are not willing to pay even the money to use the storage units that are provided to them but that they still have to pay for as being tenants as part of this building as part of the building. So, um either you know that's a that's a um a calcula calculation that the developer has made that they feel that they can charge for these storage units and therefore not just give them as give them away as part of the rent or maybe they lower the rent and then people can uh supplement the the amenities that they have in the building by renting these storage units that I'm not sure what the business model is that's driving that consideration but nonetheless they're they to see storage units that are empty and they are coming to the city to have the storage unit uh um count uh reduced by 50% through the OO incentive. And so they're um we we haven't received any other feedback that would tell us that well we're we're really running out of uh storage space for our residents. Uh other than those anecdotes that you know that we do hear from fire about you know maybe just cluttered apartments or you know the uh the random parking space with uh with uh storage or you know personal items stored in those uh parking stalls. We we I don't know how widespread that problem is. Um but again like um based on staff's understanding of of where we stand in the in the region as far as storage unit requirements go and then just knowing noting that we're getting these reports that storage units are sitting empty. we're we're clearly requiring too much and so reducing that amount and even eliminating it and leaving it up to the discretion of the developer was was something that we felt is a is a pal or is a good recommendation. >> Okay. Uh in I like data better than anecdotes, but that's fair. [laughter] >> If it's okay, I just wanted to add one other comment. Um, one of the things that we do see, and often it's in some of the older communities that are having security problems, is that these storage units are actually not being used at all because they don't find them to be secure for people to store them store things in. So, I just wanted to not only do we have developers saying that they're not always being used, we have certain communities that don't even use them at all and choose to lock them up. >> Other thoughts, council? I will say from observation uh storage units are indeed used. They yes some are empty because I think uh building owners charge extra and I think in an era where there's not a lot of room within the unit itself um to provide those as part of the monthly rent would make more sense to be honest. Council member Rivas a quick question because we're getting out of here by 9:15. Mr. Rivas, we are getting out of here >> with that with that promise. Yes. I just want to make a comment. um um without the hard evidence to prove that they the tenants don't want the units. I I you know I'm against eliminating them. I would support reducing them to half uh.5 of a unit per uh uh storage unit per dwelling unit. I will be behind that, but I'm totally against eliminating them completely. That's that's all I got. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member. Council member Nelson. >> Thanks. I' I'd be in favor of eliminating it from our code that they have to be there and allowing the developer to meet the needs of their customers. The fact that we don't require them doesn't mean they won't be built. >> Fair enough. >> If the customers if they believe the customers would use them. >> Fair enough. Right. >> Okay. Uh before we get on to the last one, Mr. Ramler Olson. Uh, council, I'm going to move that we extend our deadline to no later than 9:10 and be out of here by then. >> Second. >> We've got a second by Council Member Robertson. Uh, no further discussion on extending our deadline until 9:10. Priyanka. >> Revas. >> Council member Rivas, we need a affirmative vote on that. >> I did. >> Oh, we didn't hear you. I'm sorry. I >> I >> Nelson. >> Hi, >> Lman. Yes, >> Robertson. >> Hi, >> Carter. >> Hi, >> Mayor Busy. >> I motion carries 70, but Mr. Ramler also, I'm going to challenge you to get us out of here by nine. How about that, >> Mayor? I will try. Uh, but this is the >> Yeah, this is the meat of the discussion, unfortunately. So, Oh, boy. Well, I mean, it it was for planning commission. I'm just going to get through it. Okay. usable open space. Um we consider this to be landscaped or developed area for active or passive recreation. And um there are these minimum dimensions that need to be satisfied in order to count as usable open space 15 by 15 ft although that differs based on um if it's a balcony. I'll get into it gets really complicated unfortunately. So um I have uh the minis uh minimum usable open space per unit um highlighted in the table below. Um, so this is a, you know, staff recognizes that this is an important element to multif family development. You're providing open space for the residents to uh, recreate or enjoy as they as they see fit. Um, but it still imposes costs by a consuming area that could either go to a different type of amenity space or an actual dwelling unit. So we are, you know, those are costs that are being uh, transferred from developing a a dwelling unit to this other amenity. um that is just technically we we don't dictate what goes on in this space. It just has to be usable open space. So we don't say it's a playground. We don't say there's uh benches or you know picnic tables or whatever. It's just whatever is up to the discretion of the developer. And so um and then I have uh you we don't have to pay too much attention to the table at the bottom of this but there is you know there's a sample of developments where we have granted again through the OO some relief from the open space requirements. So um yeah I have that detailed below but let's not get into that. Uh so planning commission when they were reviewing this uh standard um they we we do have kind of a complex open space bonus system technically for private balconies and patios. Um planning commission when they reviewed this was not in favor of that. Um uh they they noted that maybe not all units have a private balcony or a patio and so there's really this imbalance between those who have it and those who don't. and how come you know we're not evenly distributing the uh these open spaces uh equally amongst all the units. So technically more units have more open space than others um because of just the privacy of the amenity. And so from uh planning commission's perspective, they were in support of actually eliminating the uh that bonus structure and then just lowering the overall baseline amount of open space um required on a on a lot. Um and uh so looking at that fourth bullet point um this was an idea that we've pitched um staff pitch was to make use of the current uh existing parks and open spaces that we have in the city and if a development is within a certain loc um proximity of those spaces to to get to let that be a bonus or act um be a credit to the open space amount that uh uh a development has to provide on site. So they could have their entire or they could have their um their the required amount that they have to provide per unit lowered if they are within a certain amount of uh feet of a of an existing park or trail or you know however we defined those publicly accessible open spaces. So um I'm glad we got through that actually pretty quickly. Um sorry. All right. Um 810, right? Or 910. Okay. Um so uh staff's recommendation and planning commission and again this is in line with the planning commission was to lower the baseline minimum area of required open space for uh developments in those multif family districts and then eliminate the bonus structure for private balconies and patios. So um so that now not that they don't contribute to the open space that they contribute to it on a onetoone basis. I'm sorry this gets really technic is this I I didn't write it so I'm just want to absolve my want to absolve myself of that but um so for instance um uh 50 square feet of a private balcony um counts um uh contributes even more open space than that 50 square feet. I I um from what staff could ascertain is that perhaps that was to uh encourage the development of patio or balconies and patios to provide more eyes on the street or just a more active uh um uh I don't know interaction between people from pedestrians and and residents um and yeah so um so they they are a nice amenity but they do come at a cost and again they do impose some equity concern considerations between those units that don't have them and those that do. So, um anyways, there is a bonus structure uh structure for those uh private amenities, but we're proposing to rem remove the bonus element of it and that they just contribute the to the usable open space on a onetoone basis. So, I hope that makes sense. I'm happy to clarify, although we have to get out of here in 910. So, um there are two questions that I have before you. Do you um do you support staff's recommendation? And does um do you all uh um uh support staff investigating that uh that proximity based um structure for um usable open space if if Yeah. So happy to get that feedback. >> Council member Carter. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'll be very fast. Um, yes, I do support staff's recommendation and I do believe that we should um investigate the proximity based option. Um, as I was reading through the packet, I actually had was like thinking about that myself because if there's a, you know, apartment building getting built across the street from a giant park, it feels like there's lots of open space and park space there and why would we require them to have a bunch of additional space? So, I think that that's a great um potential solution for us to look into. >> Council member Dallas, then council member Robertson. >> Um, thank you. Um, I I think I have a bit of a different take on this. I don't think I don't think balconies should count as open space at all. I think they're an amenity that you could use for opportunity housing or ordinance incentive, for example, because I think it's lovely to do, but I think the equity concerns are problematic for me. So, like if only one face of the building gets a balcony and they charge $300 more a unit because it has a balcony and nobody else gets any and then they get to count it. I don't know that that makes any sense to me. So, um this is related to also the to me anyway the setback question because if they're moving forward to the to the site, you know, it's closer to the street, they have technically more room for open space in the back end of the property. And I'm not quite sure why we would then require them to have less. Although I would also say I'm very fine with the notion of proximity based option. I think to council member Carter's point, I think that's a good one. I would actually incentivize in some way them making sure that their residents can safely get to and from it though because again we do not do that. We don't think all the way around the problem space, right? So we do all this work in a park and then we don't make sure that there are crosswalks across major streets where people can get to those parks. And so I have had this we do now. Yes, we did not do that before, right? And so, you know, I have two wonderful crosswalks on 86th Street that I'm going to just say, look what we can do when we think all the way past the problem space, right? So, in my thoughts here, I love the idea of proximity base. I think they should absolutely get credit for that. But what can they do to to help their residents get there safely? Do they invest in a crosswalk? Do they put one of the little lights on that have the crosswalky spaces or whatever that really make sure that it's accessible to those people? to say that it's across the street and then it's a four-lane road like little or something like that and you then you're like good luck, you know, not no sidewalks, no nothing, right? Not super helpful to give them the benefit and not get something out of it. So, I'd love for you guys to think through that problem and and maybe even talk with traffic or parks about it. Thanks. >> Yeah, mayor, council member. Um yeah, this feedback is very helpful because part of investigating this option would be defining those parameters where we would consider the park as um an open space credit. If they don't satisfy it, then they don't get it. So, um I'm I really appreciate this feedback. >> Council member Robertson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um so, uh I with question one, I truthfully I'm right in the middle of both Council Member Carter and Council Member Dlesandro's opinions. Um, I do think it's a good idea, but my knee-jerk reaction is I also have a concern about equity. Um, and then question number two, uh, Council Member Dellesandro took the words right out of my mouth. I think the proximity based option is a great idea. I realize I'm speaking really quickly, but I'm trying to do this fast. Um, but I am concerned about access. Um, like we heard a couple meetings ago or last meeting um about uh housing development in East Bloomington, people were like, "Yeah, it's right by a park, but the kids can't safely get there, so what's the point?" Um and so that would be my biggest concern is I want to make sure that um folks who are if we're using this proximity based option that we take a look um like you said staff is doing at how residents can safely access those spaces. Thank you >> council member Lman. >> Thank you. Number one I think it's a rag and it's not ready yet. That's personally what I think. I think the conversation that that uh staff and the planning committee commission is having really reflects that. I think we should wait a little while till it's more done on that one. Two. love the idea. Uh my two colleagues over here have have brought that up the proximity part. I really think there's something there and I do think the the more you dig into number two, it'll be clearer for one, but I would I would just this whole thing here, I would just punt this off and do the other two things. It's my opinion one Nelson. >> Yeah, thanks Mayor. Um, how does this dovetail with like impervious surface and and how can you help clarify for me what is usable um open space versus not usable open space? Uh, mayor, council member. So, the >> I think >> the only thing I can really uh re or um react to or you know to to uh competently react to your your question is so that it's going back to the definition of how the the code actually looks at usable open space. So, you landscape or developed for active or passive recreation. Um, that could be that that could be just like a lawn or or or a green space or it could be um a patio, a publicly accessible patio. But I imagine if there's landscaping stone or something like that that doesn't actually allow people to use the space, then we wouldn't count that as usable. Um, we wouldn't count a parking lot as usable or um anything like that. We wouldn't u, you know, a drainage ditch or whatever. Um, I don't believe we would here. Maybe I shouldn't speak out of turn. I'll maybe use I don't think are very >> No, thank you. I think the physical dimension is one is the key component of it. Uh, Nick Johnson, planning manager. But yeah, the if an area is only 8t wide and it's along the side of a building, it's really hard to play a game of Frisbee, for example, I'll say. So, it's just not usable. So, the physical dimensionality of it is important part of the definition. >> Yes. So, it's not all Yeah. Yeah. it. So, what what's there already? And then does it meet the def uh the dimensions that we've set for usable open space? >> Um and then my last question is do you know when this was added into the code or has it been there a long time? >> Um uh mayor, council member, I I don't know when the uh usable open space was uh added to code. Um there was some clarification. I u I think there were clarification uh or there was there was enhancements to the um to the storage unit requirement for multif family performance standards back in 2015. It must have been added before that. So it's been around for a while. I'll just say that. >> Okay. >> If that's adequate. And >> I guess the only reason I asked that question is um I mean it's been a while since I've been in an apartment, but I don't ever remember having open space in any apartment I ever lived in. So I I remember there was like the sideyard and had some grass there, but that was about it. Yeah. Okay. I I'll take you up on that. So anyways, thank you. I I appreciate the information. >> Council member Revis. >> Yes. I'll be quick. Uh have you evaluated the prop uh proposed proximity credit for nearby uh public parks, trails? Have you uh you think it could cause in a burdantly concentrate reduced on-site open space in already parkrich areas while leaving park deficient neighborhoods with a full even if lower on-site requirement and that's one thing I I I want to know and also the other is sustainability if we eliminate all green spaces in a building you know there's know uh uh the where is the rain going to go? I mean all of this sustainable stuff that we cover all the time. I wonder um you know when you guys get into this if you take all that into consideration I mean it's I know that it will help the builders and developers. It's I if that is the purpose I guess I would I would actually accept it more readily rather than come with this and offer it as a as an inceptive to make it even for everybody or you know I I think there's a lot behind this. It might be just my my imagination but it I see a lot more than just the proposed uh requirements here. It's, you know, I'm kind of reading [clears throat] between the lines and it's a lot more behind it. So, I would just I I wish I would, you would just come over and tell us this is the intention we have and and all of that. It would be a lot easier for the public as well. So, I have a real hard time supporting any of these things really. Um, you know, I'm I know that I'm in the minority, but that's the way I feel about this whole thing. Um, thank you, mayor. That's all I have. >> Thank you, Council Member. uh mayor, council member. Um so I'll just reiterate, you know, this is about just kind of reducing the um some some of the the burdens that um on developers that we've noticed through development projects that have come forth to the city that you all have agreed to give some um to relax some of the standards u you know looking at open space um storage units and even front yard setbacks. uh two of the two of the three um uh related to opportunity housing ordinance. So again, it's just about um lowering those those uh those those barriers that you know we've all that that we've all reviewed before. So that's that's the big part of that. U we haven't done an analysis of what this usable open state open space standard uh regarding the proximity based idea how that would effectively work because we need to define those parameters. So we when we come to you with a fleshed out ordinance uh we would have those parameters in place u we would um also provide if if it would make it easier to understand what we're proposing to um also provide an analysis of how that might work with the city um as it is you know with the green spaces that we we have identified. So, um, yeah, we haven't done that analysis yet, but we just want to know if there's an I don't know if there's encouragement for us to to look further into it and then we'll have some something more prepared uh later this year uh in the form of an ordinance. So, we're just looking for that kind of support or if if you if you're not in favor of it and you think that it's a waste of time, then we're happy to to pivot and look at something else. There's a lot for us to do. >> Yeah. So, so my thoughts on this, so the um the new multif family uh developments that are being built are on are on freeways or or highways or busy streets. And to then eliminate any open space or possibilities for people to get outside is I think we're then to the point of basically warehousing people. We're just kind of stacking people up and warehousing them in in a spot. And I don't agree with that. And I think to take away open space is also to take away communal space where people get to know their neighbors where you see somebody face to face. You're not just going from the elevator to your room and and into the into the parking garage. So I I think the more open space the better. And I also don't necessarily agree with the idea of this proximity based option to reduce the required open space options because you look at for example the Artor or Riser over on the bluffs. those guys had nothing to do with the bluffs and with the with the um the wildlife refuge and for them to get benefit from that uh it we they should still have a requirement to offer open space within their communities and then the uh everything else around is a benefit to their community. They're able to charge much higher rents for somebody overlooking the wildlife refuge. And again, they had they had nothing to do with it other than they bought that proper piece of property and were able to build on it. So, uh, I think I think the more open space the better. I I don't think we can, uh, overlook the amenities for the people who if they want to live in our community, they don't want to necessarily live overlooking 35W and 494. And I mean, they would enjoy something other than a view of of a parking lot or a freeway or green space is important. That's my thought. So take that for what it's worth as you uh as you consider this and we look forward when would we when would this conversation continue? >> Uh don't have a plan yet but later this year. >> Later this year is good. >> Yeah. So there's yeah there's a lot of work to to uh to be done to collect all this feedback and present something uh that's more fleshed out. >> Very good. >> Anything else? Council, it is 9:10. Yep. Got it done. >> Mr. Mr. Mayor, I'd like the record to show that your comments were the ones that took us over 910. >> No, [laughter] don't think that wasn't planned. Council member, >> with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. Council >> So moved. Second. >> Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member Dallasandro to adjurnn. No further discussion. Priyanka >> Rivas. >> Dallasandro. >> Hi. >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Lman. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. >> Mayor Busy. >> I. Motion carries 70. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much for the conversation tonight. Thanks to staff, thanks to our folks who talked with us this evening. Everybody have a great rest of your week. Thank you. [music] [music] >> [music]