Beyond the headlines. New opioid grant and Addiction Resource Police Officer position, Urban Forestry Special Charge (Tree Tax), continued leaf pick up until the weather prevents them from collecting leaves, year end budget adjustments ($2M to Fire, $1M to Police), Judge Doyle Square agreement (land use application in Jan and should sail through the neighborhood, garage opens 2/1, construction starts 6/1) and Truman Olson developer chosen. About a half a dozen paid lobbyists showed up along with union workers and people seeking affordable housing and other community priorities in the Truman Olson development.
GETTING STARTED
Here’s the agenda.
Here’s the video if you want to follow along:
Roll Call Present: Keith Furman, Rebecca Kemble, Barbara Harrington-McKinney, Donna Moreland, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway
Disclosures/Recusals – No disclosures or recusals.
Consent agenda – No one present separates anything despite multiple promptings from the Mayor.
Mayor excludes #16 (Truman Olson) because Alder Sheri Carter wants to be there for that one.
No one separates anything else, the Mayor takes number 15 (Judge Doyle Square) off the agenda.
McKinney asks for an update on #3 (opioid grant).
Mike Verveer arrives and also separate 8 (Urban Forestry Charge) and 14 (year end budget adjustments.)
Lobbyist Registrations – Mayor says people registered available to answer questions on 5, 6, 7 and 16. No one registered to speak. They have the following registrants:
- #5 (Lease in transportation corridor) Fred Mullins and Sue Springman are in support and available to answer questions (Lobbyists)
- #6 (Affordable Housing Funds for Judge Doyle Square) – Helen Bradbury and Richard Arneson in support and available to answer questions (Lobbyists)
- #7 (Affordable Housing Funds for Salvation Army) Major Andrew Shields in support available to answer questions (Lobbyist)
- #16 (Judge Doyle Square) – Helen Bradbury and Richard Arneson in support and available to answer questions (Lobbyists)
Everything else passes with their recommendaitons on the agenda, 3, 8, 14, 15 and 16 will be discussed.
#3 Amending Police, Fire and Public Health Budgets for Opioid Grant
Mayor asks for a run down on how this fits into their larger efforts.
Only the police department comes to the table. Captain Matt Tye from Community Outreach says that this is a grant that they are excited about. It treats opioid addiction and substance use disorders as a public health problem. It’s a real partnership grant. This is $1.2M that funds not just the police department but also positions in Dane County Human Services, Public Health and the Fire Department. The grant looks at 5 different pathways to get people affected with substance abuse disorder into recovery and treatment. The Madison Police Department has been doing MARI for the past three years. That is an officer intervention pathway. That model takes an opioid related crime, a low level crime, holds it in abeyance as long as someone gets into treatment within 6 months. It doesn’t require absolute sobriety but it does require them to comply with treatment and if they follow through the criminal charges do not go through, that is the officer intervention model. Through this grant we will be looking to take that model not just to Madison but it will be the Madison Area Initiative, it will be county-wide. They will also look at the other pathways. One of the areas is active outreach. It will be a formation of a quick response team that will have a half-time paramedic, a community paramedic with the Fire Department. A full time addiction resource officer with the police department and a recover peer specialist coach that will be contracted through the Dane County Department of Human Services and a case manager clinical assessor also contracted through Dane County Human Services. The team will work out of the Mid-Town station and will be available to respond into the field when there are overdoses and will be able to get information from the police department about others that they believe have substance abuse disorders and they will go out and do outreach to get people into treatment. The other position is a coordinator position in Public Health and there is money in the grant to have an evaluation with UW Population Institute. They are excited because they will be able to look at the statistics and what they do over 3 years and find out if it is an effective way to engage those with substance use disorders. It’s a partnership. The Addiction Resource Officer, which is a new position fully funded over 3 years of the grant.
Alder Barbara McKinney asks about contracts with other service providers that the city has in place, you talked about contractors with the County. Tye says it runs into supplanting issues, this requires that the positions be put out through the county bidding process. Part of the grant is that it has to be new services for referrals. They can provide referrals to places we have relationships with, but it requires a new bid process for those positions.
McKinney asks what happens after 3 years, can we re-submit if it is having a positive impact. Tye says there is not a renewal in the grant, there are always opportunities for additional grants, particularly in this area. That is what they found with the MARI grant, this is an area the federal government seems to understand that local governments have a need for assistance in combatting this problem. The actual officer position will be absorbed into the operating budget.
McKinney asks about performance, accountability and record keeping. When will those reports come back to what body and what is that process so we can go along side of the work this is providing the city. Tye says they are working out who they would report back to. The evaluation position is with the Department of Public Health so that is a nice fit for that position because it is a city-county position outside of the [police] department and the evaluator will be in there, they are still writing a little bit of that job description. They have not posted that position yet. He is working with Sarah Johnson in Public Health and Carrie Simon at Human Services to put the details in there. He thinks that it will be important to have report backs, not just in 3 years but throughout the process. They will have a social media component of this, it will be important not just to report back to elected officials but to get the information out to the community. He likes that this is not a law enforcement problem but a community problem and those report backs will be critical.
McKinney says she doesn’t want them to wait to report in three years but to let the community know the impact, that strengthens that.
Alder Mike Verveer says he got a text from someone in the back of the room and they said the speakers in the back of the room aren’t on. They seem to be aware of the problem. They ask the MCC media time to come across the street and help them.
Verveer asks about the new Addiction Resource Officer Position – is that a closed position? Tye says yes. Verveer asks when they will they will know who the officer is? Tye says the need to work out the details of that position. It will start in the next academy class, the timeline for the grant will – speakers come on! Mike thanks them – they want to be up and running with the quick response team by June 1st. So when they fill that position they still have to think through. They are looking to fill the position with public health a little bit earlier because they will be critical in the communication of the grant.
Verveer asks if the new police officer position would start June 1? Tye says maybe a little bit before that to get cross training with the current MARI folks. he says late spring or early summer.
Verveer says perhaps a current MARI officer is interested? Perhaps Bernie? Tye says that has been discussed. Verveer says he thinks he’d be perfect, “that’s just his editorial comment”
McKinney moves to approve, Verveer seconds, no discussion, passes on a voice vote.
#8 Urban Forestry Special Charge (Tree Tax)
Approve the 2020 Urban Forestry Special Charge.
McKinney moves approval, Verveer seconds.
Leaves
Verveer asks “Charlie” (aka Charlie Romines, Madison Streets Superintendent) asks for something off topic but asks him to talk about leaf collection. Romines says they are still collecting leaves, they ask that people stop bringing them to curb because they don’t know when the weather will prevent them from continuing collection, and they will not be collecting Wednesday through Monday due to the holiday and the double days where its all hands on deck for trash and recycling, but they will collect leaves for a few more weeks if the weather allows, but please don’t bring them to the curb. Verveer says “but we haven’t given up”, Romines says “never give up, never surrender”
Verveer says its not the streets divisions fault that we had an early onset of winter or when gun deer season occurs on the calendar for the employees.
Tree Tax (see Tree Tax Going Up, Up, Up! from over the weekend)
Verveer says that given that they had so much to talk about in the operating budget process and since you are kindly here for this and for the end of the year budget resolution. Could you explain for us the necessity, with finance staff adding as needed, the necessity of the 18.3% increase in the forestry charge? A good part of that is the general employee wage increase and benefits.
Romines says that in round numbers the increase, as he understands it, is that there is 1/3 ongoing staff and fleet charges, COLA increases, cost of benefits, step longevity increases. 1/3 is a move to move operational costs out of the capital budget and into operating. Once they go into operating they can be rightly charged to Urban Forestry Special Charge and then 1/3 is a result of moving Forestry from Parks to Streets and recognizes the 3,000 or more hours of work that they will be doing towards Forestry in the Streets Division, recognizing the charge for that. He says the charge is a little over $5.2M and would encompass the entire cost of the Urban Forest Management/Maintenance for the coming year.
Verveer asks about the final 1/3 part of the costs to transfer the functions from Parks to Streets, with the exception of stump grubbing which you have historically done. Romines says that there are some aspects that the streets division has done for a number of years, that is not included, this is the recognition that in bringing Forestry to Streets and using Streets employees to spend more time super charging the arborists work by taking over a lot of the chipping and brush hauling, but also the locating they do during planting season. That should free them up for somewhere between 3,000 and 3,500 more hours of doing the specialty work that only they can do – pruning, planting, removals, etc. That will be additional work.
No discussion, passes on a voice vote.
#14 Year End Budget Adjustments
McKinney moves adoption, Verveer seconds.
Verveer asks David Schmiedicke the Finance Director for a brief update on how the numbers have changed slightly in some respects from when you and Laura presented at our last meeting, the 3rd quarter budget forecast (see Finance Committee Recap 11/11) to the end of year resolution.
Schmiedicke says its pretty much what they discussed at the last meeting, the resolution does reflect reimbursements that the City received from FEMA and the state related to the emergency declared around the August 20th flooding in 2018. They are able to reflect $300,000 of the reimbursements to benefit the general fund. That helps with meeting the projections. The other primary action is appropriating from Fund Balance up to the maximum amount allowed under the Expenditure Restraint Program. That is $950,000 appropriation. Otherwise we are making transfers and appropriations to meet the projections that we discussed at the last meeting, namely in the police and fire departments as well as streets division. Specifically within streets that will supply enough budget authority for 4 full plows for the remainder of the year. There are some moves from surpluses in certain agencies listed in the resolution to further help address the size of the deficits in police and fire. In the non-general fund areas, they walked through these at the meeting 2 weeks ago, transfers within Public health and the stormwater utility, within water utility there is a shift of capital projects that were going to be funded through reserves but given where their cash position is right now and the fact that they are going to be borrowing next week, they are shifting $1.7M of project to be debt financed rather than financed from reserves and that will help improve significantly the cash position of the water utility has they. complete 2019. (see Which City Departments Stuck with their Budgets? blog)
Verveer says that he noticed that the resolution for a handful of agencies had increased from where they were 2 weeks ago and he’s wondering if there is anything worthy of noting. Police and Streets are slightly higher projected deficits than 2 weeks ago and for Water Utility there are several hundreds of thousands of dollars additional transfer in proposed from debt. Is there anything of note on those three agencies to mention about why the numbers increased.
Schmiedicke says there were some “minor changes” in the projections at year end as we were looking at it more closely. In Fire they had . . . Verveer says that one stayed the same . . . In police there was a change related to some additional payments for an old outstanding pension judgement that we have to pay out. An adjustment was made for that and some more updated information. The water utility he went through is associated with change in funding for the projects. Verveer says that its about $300,000 more. Schmiedicke says that some of it was just minor adjustments.
Verveer asks about the unassigned general fund balance will remain above our targeted 15% of expenditures, could you share by how much we are over 15%? Schmiedicke says they will be under 15.5%, so 15-15.5%.
Verveer says that this is “exceedingly minor” but he asks why they tiniest budget, besides EAP, how did the Common Council have excess revenue and benefits. Do you know why we have so much money in benefits left over knowing that the personnel hasn’t changed in the office. Schmiedicke says that recently the council members became eligible for health insurance and they budgeted as if all of the council would take that benefit, but only one member has done that.
Motion passes with no discussion.
#15 – Judge Doyle Square Developer Agreement
Stalling
They will not go into closed session. McKinney moves approval, Verveer seconds. No questions of staff from alders. Mayor asks George Austin to come up and give a report and she knows there is a desire to be done quickly, but she is stalling in favor of Alder Carter arriving for the next item. Verveer laughs and says “filibustering”. Either Matt Wachter (candidate for Director of Planning and Community and Economic Development) or Kevin Ramakrishna (City Attorney’s office) says “delay is what our team does best”. Verveer volunteers to help by asking a few questions.
Mayor asks George Austin to give an update. Austin says that since November 11th the development agreement was completed and placed in legistar. Ramakrishna is asked to comment, he says he doesn’t have anything to add but says that they finished it up as last presented to this body. The next big step is getting through condominiums documents as they go through the purchase and sale of the negotiation. It will be an ongoing process going into next year, the condominium piece will not come back. That is where they deal with the maintenance and management of the property. There are a few shared areas and they will take care of how those pieces will work.
Mayor asks what is next, this will go to the council on the 3rd?
Austin says yes, this and the affordable housing fund resolution will go to the council on the 3rd, if approved the development agreement could be executed. Stonehouse Development Team expects to file for land use approvals shortly after the first of the year and be on a track to begin construction by June 1st.
Mayor asks if there is new information on when the parking garage will open. They are in the final stages of construction, the early onset of winter didn’t help our project either. The good news is they want to make sure it is all complete before they start using it, sometimes on projects you substantially complete, and move in and are still doing punch list items. They are moving into that stage and by the 1st of February they will be able to open the garage.
Verveer welcomes Alder Sheri Carter and says they were filibustering for her. Verveer still has a question or two. He asks about solar in the project, or they can ask Stonehouse. Austin says that there will be solar panels in the project on the lower roof, at the podium. The original intent was to place those panels on the upper roof but because of the capital view preservation state statute, what can penetrate that plane is very limited and solar panels are not among the allowed exceptions. They will be placing conduit so if that were to change they could be installed in the future. They have done as much as they can and continue to make good faith efforts to include the sustainability items they discussed at the last meeting.
Mayor says her staff are in conversations about how to prevent this from happening again, “it seems obvious, but alas” (audible sigh)
Verveer asks with legislators? Mayor says “no”, they could pursue that angle as well, she is less hopeful about that than their ability to work with developers to not build right up to the capital height limit so their projects could actually accommodate solar, which seems like the easier and more straightforward thing to do.
Verveer says that Stonehouse Development has engaged in welcome engagement with the neighborhood, specifically the neighborhood association and they have had several very positive, productive meetings discussing what the proposal looks like on the exterior and impacts for the greater neighborhood and its all be very positive. Including a large widely publicized neighborhood meeting held in this room last week. From a neighborhood perspective things are very much on track and from his perspective he doesn’t see any issues with proposal receiving land use approvals in due time.
Passes on a voice vote.
#16 Truman Olson (see Truman Olson Development Conditions and Back Up Plan)
Public comment (lobbying)
Tristan Greer in support wishing to speak. Also joined by Andrew Disch. Andrew Disch says he is the Political Director for the carpenters union. They have been consistent since the neighborhood meeting, advocating for two things on the Truman Olson job site. Living wages and real career paths for apprentices to begin their career and obtain the middle class way of life that we want to see for all Wisconsinites. Tonight they will hear from an active union apprentice who is in the middle of his apprenticeship and lives in the neighborhood. They have also been consistent with their position that when public money is used to subsidize the construction of affordable housing, the construction workers that build that house should be able to live there too. It’s not a political issues. Rule Development shares many of these values. He is joined Joe Bah-da-ga-la-waukee ??? and Tristan Greer and they are going to share their experience being a union apprentice. Apprenticeship is not just a buzzword, its a contract between the worker, the state and the employer that that individual will be trained with standards and with outcomes.
Joe (sounded different when he said it) he’s been there before and you’ve heard his story before. He started in construction at 19, as an apprentice could support his family and has for 15 years. He says there’s difference between a job and a career. Before he was an apprentice he worked 40 Horus a week at $16/hr and still was forced to rely on subsidized housing and public assistance to feed his family. Let’s make sure the workers building this project don’t have to do the same. This is about a pathway to a successful career for this project and the future, its about a diverse workforce (race, gender) having an opportunity for advancement. They have 1244 apprentices statewide with 27% being minorities and women. They are not numbers on paper, it stories of apprentices like (See-wah Men-sa) who came to this country with very little and is now almost complete with his apprenticeship or the story of Kate Olson who’s livable wages and benefits gave her the ability to start a family with guaranteed maternity leave and continued health insurance. These stories and many more make up the community in Madison.
Tristin Greer says that if you could think of a product of almost anything, that’s almost me. He started off almost 20 years ago he did an 18 year prison bit for a foolish move he made when he was a kid. Half way into the prison sentence he decided a change was needed, if you think of reformity he is it, he is a product of it. He got out, wants to be a taxpayer, he found out about the Urban League, he took the Urban League route to get into the union, or get into the trades. He originally wanted to be an electrician but my instructor wasn’t going to have that. (laughs). He says rags to riches is him. He can not say he is getting lessons, training, he recently completed safety week, a long exhausting week of classroom hours and part of the was a Pro-10 class that he never heard of prior to being a union member and it taught him professionality. What it means to be professional on the work site, but he has taken it outside the work site and in all levels of his life. He has been recruiting for the union because of what it means to him. The training, the lessons, the financial stability and being able to take care of his household without someone else having to step in. He’s a guy who always wanted his own and he’s getting his own. He loves building stuff. He could possibly build the next city hall. That is how his mind frame is, he doesn’t like to think small and that is the way he is going to do it. In 4 years from now he will probably be doing just that. He says the history lessons he learned about the union- he knows they were there before and they started to sink, but as the baby boomers are leaving, there is a gap opening and the gap is being filled with himself and people from the community he grew up in. He grew up in Milwaukee. A lot of guys don’t want to go this route but he forced their hand a lot or don’t hang around me, because this is the right way. He says opportunities like this don’t come every day for him. He had a chance to get into Stevens or another non-union, but he doesn’t think he would have had that chance if it wasn’t for the apprenticeship. The training is rigorous but awesome. He says job security, he doesn’t have to worry about being laid off or the employer going out of business, he has this job on his resume but he also has all the trainings and certifications and licenses he gets – its invaluable. The job security is . . . he was building bridges and he loves building bridges now, but they got laid off and they were making good money working 12-14 hours out there but he calls his union reps and they are right on it trying to get him work. If he was working for a non-union place he wouldn’t have that. This is everything to him. He hopes they find a way to keep this going and show people they can do everything they want to get done.
There more speakers come up:
Robert Love Jr. from the south side wants to talk about the low income housing, a lot of people can’t afford it because they are on disability, he’s disabled and on disability but he can’t afford to get in an affordable apartment. He’s homeless. He can’t afford it. He keeps trying but it doesn’t work. He is homeless, he had a place to stay, but the landlord moved him out of the building. There were other tenants in the same building that he lived in and they all had the same notice to leave. It was his house, he had a room. He’s come to point where he put him out before anyone else in the building. They still live in the building he got put out of. He pays his rent every month, what he can afford to pay. Wasn’t late for rent, no police contact, or anything. He’s on the streets now, staying outside. He doesn’t work, doesn’t have a job. Ain’t trying to look for it now – sorry about that. He’s struggling, can’t live with his sisters or brothers. He’s just out there trying to survive, that is all he is trying to do. He looks out for himself, he goes to free meal sites, Freedom Inc, they look out for me, they help me. He says if he could find a place that he could afford, that he could pay his rent, he wouldn’t mind to pay that part of the rent, the low income, but if I could find a lower place that would accept me with what I make every month, I wouldn’t mind to give them that money. He is concerned about the grocery, its hard for homeless people to get around and do shopping, he uses the bus to go to the co-op, but there are other people that need cabs to go back and forth to the store. He walks. Other people need to catch the bus or call the cab. There are others out there struggling too.
Monica (?) from the South Side and has been attending the community meetings about the development. They also have been holding their own dinner discussions on the topic and providing spaces where people are not pressured to appear or talk a certain way. Those meetings are not super accessible to people who live on the street. They are white upper class meetings. So they provide dinner, print outs to look at, explain the project and provide space and time to talk about what the community priorities are. What do they want to see in development. What is community led, centered and responsive development? They came up with post cards, like the no cops in schools postcards, so the Elders thought it would be good to make postcards as well with the community priorities.
Community priorities are:
- First and second, low-income housing and housing for the homeless. They want low-income housing that is actually affordable where you don’t have to use more than 25% of your income to live there. Madison has a lot of outlying incomes from young professionals that drive up the median income but a vast majority of us, especially people living on the south side, you are spending 45-50% of your monthly income on low income housing and its supposed to be 25-30%. It’s setting you up for failure and a cycle of being kicked out of housing, being homeless, struggling to find new housing and then being kicked out again. That is something that a lot of their clients are familiar with, that they have tried as advocates to reduce that at Freedom Inc, for the folks they work with it makes a big difference but this needs to be addressed at a systemic level and you have the opportunity to address that as you move forward with the development.
- The third community priority is quality groceries that are available for low income folks that are close by. This is addressing the food apartheid situation happening on the South Side. Where people living on the South Side don’t have access to quality food. By access they mean that they can attain it. Not that it is at a good price, but they can attain it. They have a food pantry at Freedom Inc where people can get some of their needs met, especially folks who can speak Hmong and its a shopping atmosphere instead of something that you are looked down upon as you are trying to get resources. We need that as well in this new development.
- The fourth is city events and spaces made for black folks and people of color. A big thing that she noticed when she moved here as a young black professional is that black culture, music, art isn’t well reflected in Madison and they want this site to be a place they can say, yes there are black people here and we’re a vibrant community and we have spaces and art and culture to share with each other and the rest of the community.
- Gardening and green spaces. This is really important, especially for communities that have experienced trauma and have not had the space (physically, emotionally, financially) to thrive, to have green spaces and gardening spaces that they can take over and grow and produce things on.
Those are the priorities, you will be getting postcards as they canvas and do more community dinners and discussions.
The other person didn’t introduce themselves, but they wanted to talk about affordable housing and the recommended way to budget finances. 25% for housing, he ran the number for 50% low income tax credit off the plans proposed for the Truman Olson lot and a person applying for a 2 bedroom apartment at 50% median income is $26,000 a year. But the rent is around $900. 9 x 2 is $1800. It is 45% of your income that low-income families have to make to qualify for low income housing. You are setting them up for failure. I understand these are federal tax credits and that is how you get development to happen, but we are trying to solve things and not perpetuate the issue of poverty and homelessness. We need to be more innovative than just taking tax credits to make sure something is built. So that the people that Freedom Inc work with won’t be on the streets and they can be housed. On gentrification on the South side – they do a lot of door knocking at Freedom Inc and 10 years ago it used to be much more black, people of color on the south side and a Bram St had more people of color. Now its all white, we stopped knocking doors there, we can talk about stuff but it won’t be applicable to them because we want to access our community and the issues applicable to them. On gentrification, its really apparent.
They continue to speak – the Mayor says they are all way past their time at this point, Monica says one last point – these priorities are the priorities of the community and they should be your priorities as well and if none of the developers or plans are addressing these things or are responsive to the community, you need to go back to the drawing board and find developers who are.
Motion/Questions of Staff/Discussion
McKinney moves approval. No questions of staff.
Sheri Carter says that she wanted to go back 2-2.5 years when the big concern was a gap between Pick-n-Save closing and a new grocery store. That was the battle cry for at least 2 years, what are you going to do about the gap? What are your plans for the gap? She says as she was looking at the proposals that came in, her main concern was the shortest gap possible. There are folks that have vehicles that can go anywhere they want, a gap is not going to affect them, it might be an inconvenience. But for everyone taking a cab, walking, taking the bus, sitting on a bench with the rain pouring on them, all those folks want a grocery store as close as possible. All the seniors in Quaker Housing, Burr Oaks Senior housing, Cypress Village, Park Village, the folks in Romnes depend on this grocery store and they are extremely affected by a gap. She is supporting Rule because that is the shortest gap and she is hearing that as the biggest concerns for residents and neighbors in this area. The believes they learned a lot of things about dealing with proposals and having benchmarks implemented in the proposal so we are not delayed by delays. She wants them to take a step back and think about how you would get to a grocery store without a car.
Tag Evers encourages them to approve and send it to council for a vote. This issue was the number one concern of his when he was running for council. It became clear it was the number one concern and would be the number one priority on any agenda of local issues that he would be working on – what can we do to avoid a gap in grocery services on the south side. He supports the Rule proposal because that is the best bet to avoid the gap. They also have a back up plan in place, which seems to be a prudent way to go, but with the benchmarks that have been identified and the work staff has done in making the recommendation, as alder for the district he supports the recommendation.
McKinney asks the alders about the community engagement. Who is showing up and what are those conversations. Evers says there has been a series of meetings starting back in April, which was controversial at that point. SSM was chairing that meeting and at that point it was clear that avoiding the gap was very much on people’s mind. The attendance has been – there has been an effort to get community engagement – they sent out postcards. South Madison Unite formed in response to keeping the grocery store in place, they helped publicize the meetings. The meetings were held at the Labor Temple and every effort was made to make the meetings accessible, they offered interpreters, they had representatives from District 13 and 14 and other parts of South Madison. Would they like to have more attendance, sure, but they had over 100 folks show up at each of the meetings. City staff helped facilitate breaking up into small groups, giving people an opportunity to address what they were looking for in a grocery store, what their fears might be if they don’t get a grocery store. All those concerns were tabulated and put forth and people could see the responses, there were two follow up meetings. There was a presentation of the 4 different applicants that submitted proposals and an opportunity for question and answer. There has been robust community engagement and participation by those who would be impacted by this decision.
Carter says that the meetings, depending upon which meeting you came to, the reflection of the community was different. At some meetings they had a large contingency of Spanish speakers, some meetings we didn’t and vice versa with African American and Hmong representatives. She thinks that despite the make up of each meeting, the residents felt empowered to give their opinion and they give their opinion. The one thing throughout all 4 meetings was that the gap was the number one issue of all the meetings. Of course there are always other things, but the gap came out loud and clear.
Passes on a voice vote.
ADJOURN
Alder Moreland . . .
