You're recording? All right. Welcome everybody. I just want to call this work session meeting of the John Screcy Council order the September 9th at 502 PM. Thank you. Would you lead the pledge? You glad to? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for disbandings to one nation under God and be beautiful, and be under the interests of the soil. Mayor's remarks? None at the same time. Thank you. The first item on the agenda is Creekside Park proposed process for renaming. We have Ms. Mattson for presentation. Good evening. I'm here to solicit feedback and direction on a proposed renaming process for Creekside Park. During the July regular RPAQ meetings, staff discussed several options for how a crowd sourced renaming process might go, including public surveys, charats, and who selects the short list of names that comes back. The R-PAC, sorry, pardon me if I may interrupt. Mayor May I amend the agenda? You can. amend the agenda to add discussion, a third discussion for the budget. And it can be after Kreisler Park. Okay. Council, what's your... I'll say that. Discussion, you wanna say anything? No, I just thought we had more continued discussion before we approved the budget next meeting. Okay. Larry, do you have anything to say? No, I mean, I think there's, I personally feel that it was just a little bit rushed. I think there's some open ended topics still out here. Not rushed, but by any purposeful reason, I think it just feels like there's more open topics that we probably just want to talk about further. Um there has been some, you know, additional savings because of the health care cost and we have to figure out how do we go ahead of that basically. Right. So I mean, some of these items that we've got on the agenda we've been planning for a while. Typically, there's not a work session the day that we typically take it up for passage. I mean, I saw your emails. I don't know that any of those things are not things that we can't talk about from the dias. But I mean, that's where I am. That's up to you. But last year, I think we did have a meeting, a work session meeting before we went and voted on it from the Dias. I think it'd be prudent to go ahead and have a third since we weren't able to. I mean, why don't we just make it a five F and then if we don't get to it, we have it on the agenda tonight. That's a good idea. Thank you. Sure. Bye, Vaz. Is that anybody else? Say everyone, good for that? Sure. Great. Thank you. Thanks for the suggestion. All right. Just get right back on that. All right. I'm right back on it. Okay. Our pack had consensus around an option by which we put out a survey to the public and then got the big list of names that the public comes up with. Then staff would short list those names, bring it back to our pack. They would recommend one to council for final selection. So at this time, the council's pleasure, we can take whatever approach y'all desire most. Thank you, Erica. So I originally brought this forward and I have thought a lot about it and read your memo and thought about that a great deal. I'd like to put a little bit of a different nuance, maybe an option D on the table that we continue to have the public submit whatever name suggestions that they might have. But that there be a process of collaboration between the staff and R pack to narrow that into I don't know maybe five or seven names, they're then sent on to the council for consideration So I think that's important that our pack is heavily involved. I think it's great that we're gonna have the public involved I think ultimately Since this probably our cell phones that will be lit up, if people don't like the name, it might be that the ultimate decision rests with us. That's my take on it. So, they are, sorry, they're sending us only one name for a voting on, ARPAC? ARPAC, that was the recommendation, however, the new option is that to staff together with RPEC, which provide council a list of, say, five to seven names, and then you all would sell the title. Yeah, that may be better, because as he said, there's one name which does, which is the rails of the community that I wouldn't like to go with that. And we're not wanting to hurt anybody's feelings, and I'm confident they're going to have great suggestions, but I've been in that situation before where you're kind of forced to opine on something that maybe you're not super excited about, and that's very awkward. Especially having only one bite in the big choice, this or nothing, that puts this in a bind. So if you get that 5 to 7 names, that's even better. So we are getting it up the third step, but getting the R pack involved in the second step. Is it right? Like once we get the names from the public input, like the staff was going to come back with the five to seven names and then give them two R packs. So what we're right now suggesting is get the R pack involved in bringing that least down to five to seven and then bring it to us. Correct. I'm good with that. Option three. No, it's like, it's a custom. That's an option four. Option one customized. Thank you. Thank you. I love option one customized. Maybe if we could have the top 10 names, that would make it easier for us or harder. I don't know, but 10. There's seven people. Hopefully we don't know all that in for a name. I know, but T-cans still have multiple names. I think the more the mayor here, but that's just a big one. I could say a minimum of five, a maximum of 10. That would be perfect actually. You know, sometimes you're in a situation where you're like, well, I don't know that there are many more than this that are actually good. I don't know that there are many more than this that are actually good. I don't know. I can have fun with it. Thank you. Okay, that's been said. Yeah, I was going to go with option one, but I think the customized version sounds good. I will say, and this is something just anecdotal, one user, so take it with a grain of salt. But one of those, like live polling apps, if you all have been to like a concert or like some type of Q&A, where you can submit something and then upvote other people's submissions. I don't know, it doesn't have to be live polling, but I couldn remember the name of the app I was looking up, but it was very sleek. Good user experience, good data, I imagine too. I'm good with this. Sorry. I agree with the one customized has been proposed. Thanks. Thank you. I'm good with number one or option D, you know, but I do like water works or bilogio less phones out, but I'm good. Do we know it? All right, does that give you enough? Yes, I heard minimum of five, maximum of 10, crowdsourced, and then vetted by staff in our pack and then brought to you all for final decision. Thank you. All decision. Thank you. All right, good deal. Maybe we'll be able to get whatever. If we keep this up, we'll have plenty of time for budget, so that's great. Next time. Thank you. The next item is the annual renewal of employee health and other benefits. We have Director Aubrey for presentation. Good evening, everyone. How are you? Thank you for allowing me the time to present this evening on this fun agenda item. So we originally anticipated a cost increase based on our claims ratio to be a very different discussion. But as you know, with the updated memo, where you're here with a very surprised, competitive proposal from SIGNA, increasing the cost only by 33% from last year, resulting in a possible aggregate savings of approximately 943,000 compared to the draft of the 2025 August work session budget, which assumed a 58.2 percent increase. Of course, this number is going to vary based on the plan selections and enrollment, but this is a very exciting news comparison to what we were looking at originally in worst-case scenario. Now we do realize that although employee costs will still go up and changes nothing that anyone really ever enjoys, there is very minimal disruption with 99.5% providers from Etna still being covered under the new Signup Propose Plan and less than 2% disruption for prescription drugs currently being used for our members. So the plan structure will remain exactly the same except for one deductible that's going higher in the high deductible health plan and that's a requirement by the IRS. So that would have happened under Edna as well. So if approved by council, staff will continue working towards open enrollment in November and working on further developing our wellness programs on the budget approval to continue employee engagement. So with that, I will answer any questions that you may have. You've been busy. We have been busy on all of those. Yes sir. We appreciate everything and I'm very thankful of the fact that we have whittled it down. I think only in government could we call reduce increase a save, that's where we are. Yes. But I am, I felt really positive about the work that you all have been able to achieve the progress. And so I appreciate it. And I know how important it is that overlap between the old and the new plan. It sounds like we couldn't be much more in sync in that regard. So I mean, it seemed like it's a winner to me. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. I know a lot of effort went into this one. So the result. Sometimes we accept the increase to, but in a good way. So this is effective from January 1st, right? Yes, I'm sorry. One question on the cost, monthly cost. Does it include the incentives we are providing? No, the cost would not include those incentives. They would have to participate in the incentives, and then that would be an additional cost to take it off in some capacity. So the traditional savings to the premium that you're showing open yet? Yes, that would be directly provided to the employee in one way or the other. Thank you. Oh, absolutely. Thank you, Liz. Thank you very much. I'm in for answering all my questions today. Sure. Is the coverage going to remain the same, though, based on the other day? That's a great question. So the plan structure is exactly the same. The only difference, and I mean that entirely of what we are being told from our broker, is just that one deductible change. It is the exact same makeup of the plan coverages. Okay, and then the wellness incentive, right? Currently it's maxed $25 per employee, per paycheck. And then with the added package, I guess I would say for spouse, it would could possibly be $15 more. Yep, so we're still looking obviously this is dependent upon the budget approval and then we are looking to look into all of our efforts of planning out what that will entail, but we are waiting on budget approval and all the different things and packages with signal because they have several different options with us So assuming that this was A done deal and that you guys will let us proceed with sigma then they have some options too with us to take away possibly some of the administrative burden of looking at that and so we have some different options that we can look at But we haven't we don't know until everything is approved. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. I'm just, to continue the conversation that you're just having. Sure. I'm fine with you selecting Signum, but can you just tell us the enrollment negotiations? Sure. can you just tell us the enrollment negotiations? So what are the time frame of it? Because this is like moving jelly, this budget because of that. So the way that they will not give us a renewal amount, and we've actually talked about when they're a finalized renewal is until around August, their final numbers. And that's based on when our plan year will begin, and they can only give us those numbers back so many months before they can project that. Now, I will tell you that with our broker, if we have a good broker, then they have an actuary that they can anticipate it based on the claims and how they're going. And they gave us a range this year that we anticipated this is how it's looking based on the claims ratios and the trends that we're seeing. And so that's how we were able to anticipate, although it was on the high end, what happened, what we didn't anticipate is that significant in a little bit lower because they're not the ones necessarily taking the heat right now on those claims, right? But so that's where we typically can pull in that projection is from the actuary. To be able to do what I think that you're referring to, as far as trying to get that data sooner, no provider is going to give us in time of the budget and keep the plan year from the time frame that it is. So we would actually have to do a contract that would go maybe like a year and a half or do a plan that was just six months or something like that along a little crazier. And then get that data. So it would take a little bit to change that if that makes sense. They would not be able to do it for a plan year, the way that our budget works out. And that, that's just specific to our timeframe of how those two. I understand. So that means going forward, we still will be talking about the budgets and the changes in the budgets, did September. If you don't mind, I'd love to pop in with a question. Sure. So what is our visibility out into the future? I know that it was talked about, but can you talk about how you think it's going to progress in the future cost wise? As far as our claims go or where? Well, just like have there been any kind of bumpers put on in terms of how much our future increases can be? So that was in the talks with our broker in negotiating with SIGNA, but it did not make it into the final negotiations. So they were not comfortable moving forward with what they proposed with us and adding those bumpers in. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't be open to it in a future conversation, but I think with the claims ratios and the exposure that we have at this time, they just were not comfortable moving in, but that discussion was definitely part of it, and we definitely were seeking that out. I think we're just pretty, we're, you know, a pretty high number at this point, and I think they're, they're just trying to, um, to see where that goes at this point. But I think it is definitely something that will definitely be continued to be a part of those discussions. I just don't think we have the upper hand at this point. We did not. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Chris? I guess it's so in terms of what we're supposed to pine on, it's just that we're good to proceed with it. It's a tough situation and I'm impressed that you all were able to whittle it down to a digestible impact for both the city and its staff. I have a question though, I'm good with it. It's just, it's unfortunate to increase, but again, impressed and thankful that you all were able to move it from like mid-50s to low- 30s in terms of increased delta. For the wellness initiative, so I was thinking it's going to take many years to start to reap the benefits of that. Question on, is signal going to be advising on some of the wellness initiative portions that we preceded like so I was just thinking seed money for HSA to help get endorsement of the HDHP plan or those types will save us money it's usually I think as an individual investing in your HSA you're setting yourself up for success later. Has there been, would we potentially see a budget amendment like we go with SIGNA a few months down the road? It's like we could use a little seed money in HSAs. So currently, I'll give you a little bit of history to see if that answers it. So I will say two years ago we gave a flat $1,000 match, $1 for dollar for the HSA. Last year we started a plan that I will tell you got a little bit of pushback, but still we had participation where it was $250 per quarter with the health incentive. So going along the lines of pushing preventative care, you had to do either a, yeah, XYZ. And so that promoted more preventative care or health care wellbeing activities. And so that's what we've been doing this year along with, to go along with the HSA program. We're already kind of doing that, yes. But as I mentioned, sometimes our employees don't like the change, but I have worked for employers before, that's a very common thing that you do have to earn it or do something. The activity takes less than an hour per quarter. So this just continues those efforts as we move and progress our well-being program every year. You know, we step it up a notch. And so I don't anticipate that changing, but we have not marked what that looks like for this upcoming year yet, waiting on this budget to see all the things that we can and cannot afford to move forward with. Sounds good. Well, that would just more comment. Yeah, supportive of us. You're moving to sigma as you will have proposed. And thank you for your efforts on this. All right. Thank you, Director Aubrey. I know this has been a time-consuming effort. I'm really grateful for your time on it. I was trying to remember back to in general, there's something that we have to approve as a council. And it's usually November or December. Is it the contract itself? Will that come back to us on an agenda item? Or is this it today? This is it. This is it. Oh, you did? Got it. But in September, we'll come back to the next council meeting for a formal vote. But you're authorizing the signing of all the documents and it is Earlier based on the council's request that we get this as soon as possible for the budgetary impact Okay, and so that was kind of leads into my next question so Open enrollment starts in November it's November and December for January start date It's usually we will try to make it as early in November as possible actually actually, so that all of those processing, especially with changing a provider, that is usually not as fun. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of work as well. I just wondered, in general, most plans, I know, like, all of the marketplace plans start on January 1st. Would it make sense to have a different start date of October November or something that would help then with the budget process? It's really, I will tell you that from an employee standpoint, I think it's easier to go January 1 through December 31. But that is your decision if you would like it to be a different plan you're based on the budget process. I worked in all kinds of different places with different plans, but. What is it that typically mean it's not an extended request? Most, well, I don't want to say most, but I will say a lot of them do. Some of them will start on fiscal year starts, but sometimes those line up. So, I mean, it's really if the council wants to look into what that would look in, what that would look like, we can certainly do that. But that would be from a broker standpoint, I will say just weighing these options, right? From a broker standpoint, you get more attention from a broker if it's not in the middle of that typical November time frame, right? But from an employee standpoint, when they always line up, the calendar year, when you're looking at a deductible is much easier to calculate. It is harder to keep up with if it doesn't match that calendar year. So I'm just telling you that from an employee standpoint, it is much harder. And you're trying to figure out what you have to spend and what you're deductible. Yeah. I'm gonna add to that just historically, we used to have a different health plan year. It's only been within the last three or four that we shifted to a calendar year plan and we did so because for our Employees those that have spouses on other health plans the majority of those fall January 1 so Changing and being able to compare plan to plan was really important for our employee base. So it has been changed. It was changed to make it friendly to our employees, both from retracking, absolutely when you're trying to consider deductibles and what you have to spend as well as if the open enrollments happen around the same time, you truly can do a comparison of whose plan makes more sense to be on. Makes sense. All right. Thank you. Awesome work. Did a great job on this. I know it took, it's taking a lot of work and a lot of time. So really appreciate it. Signed as a fantastic company out there. I had just a couple of questions. I'm all in as far as this particular vote here. The savings as we, over the last few weeks, we stepped down from 70% increases to 54 to now 33. That savings or that lack less spend, if you will, is how much of that is the city's portion? Is the city's portion is a city saved? Money's also, or is that that 943,000 is that city savings? Not spending the money, or is it just the employees or both is a combination? I think he's trying to say is basically the increase, is it being shared in a same portion? One to one, is it shared one to one, or is there a ratio that's being broken out in the back end of this? So when we prepared the original budget with the information from the actuary of an anticipated 73% increase, knowing the impact that would have on the employees, the initial version of the budget anticipated the city taking 100% of that 73% increase. So the employee cost would go up, but their percentage of the load would not change. So like, you're still paying 15% of your health plan cost, but the amount that equates you if the city has 85% and you have 15 Because the overall pie is larger your 15% cost you more, but you're still burdened at 15% Understood but now with the savings with the savings because we Prepared the budget with the city shouldering the increase when you went from 73 to 58.2 we are reducing The plan cost but because we have budgeted all of it to be on the city again all the savings is on the city side Not changing percentages for employees So okay, so the city's Gathering more of that savings than the employee side would. It's not a percent to percent one to one, if you will. It's more savings on a city side versus the employees. Yes, because it was anticipated that looking at what does that mean for an employee that would have been extremely impactful in the worst way for our employees, like an astronomical increase to their per paycheck cost for health insurance. So we wanted to moderate that to the extent possible by maintaining the percentage that each employee was covering. Now, based on past direction of council, one of the things we have to look at between now and open enrollment is what is that distribution of the cost share? That's right. The number, the amount budgeted assumes that the city pays for the overwhelming majority of the 33% increase when you're comparing year to year. But it is tight. Is it pretty good wasn't it? Is it pretty good? No. The amount of the percentage split varies by health plan selection. So if it's just me as an employee or me and my spouse or me and my child, the percentage split by plan is different. I used 85-15 as just an example. So, so we're, where I was going with this and I think Bob, you're leaning towards it, is that as we enjoy the savings, how much of that is, could be attributed back to the employees and with that savings amount, that bucket of $943,000, what percentage can we give back to help in the cola, things like that? Council could certainly give any percentage you would like back in terms of increasing the cola in In terms of increasing the health and wellness preventative care program we have Try to minimize the direct impact in percentage share by having the city shoulder What started as a 2.88 million increase has since been reduced at this point significantly. However, long term looking at the financial sustainability of our healthcare coverage, we need to think seriously about what percentage makes sense for the city to pay of an employee's health or cost. There are some cities that look to have options where the city pays 100% of the cost. We have not done that here, at least not directly. We've done it indirectly to say, hey, if your per paycheck cost is $33 a month for your health plan of employee only high deductible health plan cost. You can earn $25 a paycheck if you do these great preventative well-care activities. See your annual provider, get a biometric screen, healthy choices from a list of things. So rather than straight out make the employee is health care free, we have what we brought to the council was let's incentivize the healthy behaviors that we think will help our overall population, healthy, happy employees or better employees for their families and for us. What, I mean, with your experience here for 15, 16 years and let us your experience, some of that savings that we're seeing this year this year, does any of it make sense to take some portion of that and move it to a fund so that when we negotiate here two and three with SIGNA, that if now they're seeing our claims ratio and now that they could adjust the claims and the amount, We've got a bucket of money aside almost in a cruel fund to help alleviate some of the deviations and increases or decreases. Why don't we be encouraging them to look to make the increase request if they know we've got a bucket of money. So if we were to set aside funds, we may want in a bucket of money. Something I have seen other cities do is you set aside funds with a goal of becoming self-insured. You need a significant amount of funds set aside to make that kind of leap if you're looking at a population like ours. So if you were to set aside more funds to help with cost reduction to the employees or you're trying to set aside money to help in future years, I would accomplish that kind of in two different ways. But yes, because we set up the budget with the city carrying the overwhelming majority of that burden. All of the burden actually when we started, you can program those savings anyway you'd like. We didn't actually take them away from the employees. It was quite the opposite of what we said. Well, this is too big of a lift. Let's have the city shoulder it because together we are stronger. All the great things. I know I'm off topic here, but I'm all in for the SIGTA vote here. I'm just the savings. I love the savings. It's not really savings. It's just not the spend. Thank you. So I mean, it's just, I want to try to, you know, we've already sort of set up the budget for the cost, but now that we're not having to spend those dollars, what's the most fiscal responsible thing to do with these dollars knowing that in year two and three, we're going to negotiate with SIGNA again because they're going to have history with us and we're going to even have a lesser position of strength in a negotiating in year two and three because they've got the data now. We're locked in for two years. We're locked in, yes. Yes. We're not locked in with with sigma on medical per se. Were the vision rates and the dental rates are locked and then we're locked in rates for those medical rates. They would not lock in on It's another big suggestion that if we are good with the topic that's in front of us Then we put that to bed and if we need to have another topic for another day that explores this more fully Used on so what it says in the memo insurance rates are locked in through 2027 But yeah, I think that's for the standard Under recommendations. I'm sorry. So, okay. So, that's for some of the other plans. The standard for short-term disability laundry. Yeah. Okay. Those rates are locked in. And then several of our, the places for dental and vision, we have those rates locked in so they will not increase for two years, I believe. Okay. One more question if I may. What was the split then for the employees on in this graph that we were given? What was that? I have that. Oh, let's see. I have that. So in the chart, you received in the memo that took the current percentage distribution that the city has per plan and Said so that I think the highest is 95% right now of what the city's paying Yeah, the lowest was 84% To to date that says what if we shift it 1% So the city takes the overwhelming majority of the increase the employees take 1% Is what is reflected in your in the chart in the memo Those have not been finalized because we had to ask council the big question first, which is we're recommending shifting health care providers. That's a really big question, but we wanted to give you what we think is the worst case scenario for the employees of a 1% shift, so a sharing of the cost increase, but not a overburdening of the cost increase? Okay, so these costs are clearly what we'll be coming. No, a lot of that is contingent on what gets adopted in the budget for the health care and wellness, health prevention and wellness programming and what is adopted, because really employees to know what the real cost is for them. It's not just what is the cost from the provider, but what are the incentives for us to engage in preventative healthcare and wellness activities because you'd want a couple that in your math calculations. Okay, what is my per paycheck cost? And what can I earn to buy down if I'm willing to take a proactive stance on, go see my annual healthcare provider for an annual appointment. Am I willing to do a biometric screen? Am I willing to sign up for wellness coaching, depending on what council authorizes for the wellness incentives in the budget will tell us what those numbers really are. Okay, and when will that come back to us in a way that we'll know what the split is gonna be? So this is typically the conversation. We bring the big decision to council of, here's our healthcare provider recommendation, and then you adopt a budget, and if you choose to put money aside for wellness and preventative care activities, and then we use that, then on the staff side to implement, we try to maximize it to the benefit of the employees. You're talking about more than beyond the 150 that we previously... Right now I'm just talking about the 150, but nothing is guaranteed until you adopt a budget. Okay, okay. And even that can be amended. Yeah, but in my experience as far as I have been here, there's not been a decision where Council has come in and said we would like the percentage of the city to pay this much versus the employee to pay this much. But I think we understand if that is, and I think that's what Kimberly mentioned earlier, if there is a stance that we have because it's been wavering over where that direction is. But the current percentage is for the POS that I think she was mentioning earlier. So it is 83% split as of this 2024 year, all the way down is what I have the numbers of. And then for the high deductible health plan, it is 89% for family, 90 for child and spouse, and then 94% for employee. And all that represents a 1% increase. No, that's for this year. So then if you looked at those numbers and you added 1% for those, that's what it would shift down, I guess, some percentages. If that makes sense. Okay. For the employer side. I guess. I gave you employer numbers. So the employee is paying the opposite. 17%, 6%, 10%, 11%. I feel like this is a very valuable conversation, but I understand a city manager why he said this is where we would have that discussion, but we're not really having a discussion about what is the right balance of city resources and employee, like that's kind of a different discussion about retention and recruitment and making sure we're providing for our employees. So, and the last several years, I can say definitively that the city, Tinney Mounder chose to have the entire increase shoulder by the city. So the percentage of healthcare that the city was paying increased for the 2024 plan year, for the 2023 plan year, for the 2022 plan year. So the many years ago, council did give a directive, which was they expected us to over time shift the healthcare burden where the city paid 80% and the employee paid 20% and there were some on council that wanted it to be 85-15. This council as a body has not weighed in on that topic but it is not sustainable financially for the city to continue to shoulder 100% of the health care cost increase. If we run this out looking 5, 10, 15 years, and you have asked me to keep that in mind as we move the city forward to understand not just the short term but the long term impacts of our decisions. I would be keen to know how you do the math next year. Meaning the increase will be, base year will be what? Well, and there are, you can find some benchmarks on it, but it's going to be based on the plan. It's going to be based on the deductible percentage. I mean, it's not just a simple formula, right? To put all of that together. And then you want to try to play, you know, you're playing with weights each way. Well, you want to be careful because we haven't done these increases as she stated in the previous years. And then because we're already getting this, even though we didn't increase by a, we're not saying, here, you're going to take on 12%, the increase is actually going up. Then that's not really fair to the employee. So because we're doing this and we haven't done justice to the plan up to this point, what Kimberly is saying, then we've really done an injustice all this time to where you're looking at percentages that might not necessarily literally be in line with how they should be or how you may want them, which is ultimately what we're looking for. I feel like it's a very valuable conversation about one that maybe we need and it's very complex maybe we need to be have set of some meetings with you and talk to you about it. I need to come back as a city council item it could. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to the next item. Just a quick thought. Yes, sorry. It is a complex subject. It really is and I appreciate trying to educate us and understand how the plan is structured on the back end. When, if we're going to go forward, my guess would be. But when would something like this conversation come back to us for a deeper dive into it, what the percentages and all that? Well, if we were going to make these changes, for example, this year, we would need to be able to put them in for enrollment books mid-October. So very soon. In other words, but we can provide the data for you to look at if you wanted to make a decision like that this year very soon and then but there are there's not so many meetings before then. So I'm going to stop talking while she- I'll let Kimberly jump in. Does it look? So it comes down to if council wants to provide direction as a body on what your preferences or stances on health insurance percentages and what you think the city should be paying for our employees. Then I need to know that needs to be a future work session discussion item. For the last, I'm going to guess six or seven years that has not been something council expressed interest in weighing in on. The prior councils have given big picture direction on who the healthcare provider is looking at the data at an aggregate level, then you set a budget and we work within the budget to maximize it to the benefit of the employees. So I agree with you, I guess the reason why I'm just jumping on this a little further is because for the last couple of years, the increases have been significant. And at that point, I would think we'd want to stop and say, what is the long term strategy for the city? So it's viable for the city, but also what are the things that we have to anticipate from our vendors that they will or potentially will not do? And how do we strategically position ourselves? That's why I'm pushing it not because I want to have this on a work session. Trust me. No, but I think we need you. Yeah, I think so. I just. Today was the first time I knew that we are sitting 100% of the increase. Sorry, that was. So. Sorry, that was unclear for you. All right there seems to be consensus that we want to dive into this deeper at a future work session And if that's the case then I think that you know for the most part you're looking at not the council trying to dictate individual plans and pricing but maybe big picture are we looking to shoulder a larger percentage or a lesser percentage? But would it be okay if we were to move on to the next topic? I think we've established that we've made the consensus decision with unanimity on... It's not unanimous. I disagree with this. I think this should be under direct Aubrey and City Manager Greer from HR and City Management perspective. None of us are CHROs implementing different splits to increase engagement, jobs. I just don't think it's our wheelhouse and we're going to get into the weeds beyond what we as a board should focus on. But if you all want to, I would ask that the objectives are identified beforehand so we can have a good solid discussion of what we want to go because I don't want us just spinning our wheels. Yeah, with things that we may not be adequately experienced or educated to provide that guidance. So no offense to anyone here, but I just think that's not under our policy directive. But Chris, that's- I am for the most part right there with you. It does seem like we do need to know kind of where we are going long term and how the best way to do that is that through staff and management or is that us getting involved? I worry a little bit about us getting two in the weeds. I think if we tackle it, we ought to say really high level. I would agree with both of you guys. We're talking about the strategic longer term plan here, not which plan is best and how we're going to structure a percentage. I'm going to lean on Kimberly and Liz to basically figure out that. But if there is history with this increase from last year to this year and the cost of health care, and potentially it will happen next year again. How do we as a council budget for that? How do we budget forward? How do we mitigate any risk out there that could be out there? And we just have a high level conversation, but I think it has to be talked about. And otherwise we're just going, we'll have this conversation again next year. Okay. All right. Are we good to move on? Yeah. Otherwise, we're just going, you know, we'll have this conversation again next year. Okay. All right. Are we good to move on? All right. Next topic. Thank you. The next item is the John Screech Chamber of Commerce Agreement. We have Director Lontz for presentation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. appreciate it. Good evening, Marin Council. Very excited to be here this evening. If there is one word that I've come to appreciate a little bit more since I've joined the city, it is partnerships. So it is only feeding that as my first work session item to you all, I am here to present for your consideration the renewal and formalization of our partnership with the Chamber of Commerce. Since 2021, the CDS partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to provide business support for a community through an MOU, that MOU expired this June. I've worked with the Chamber of Commerce to move from a non-binding MOU to what I call a formal agreement. So what I'm presenting to you all this evening is that agreement. In terms of what is included in the agreement itself, the agreement outlines clear guidelines for funding as well as including performance standards and we've also created a framework for accountability. Really briefly, the agreement spends over three years with an additional option for a year, unless it is terminated or renegotiated. We have also included performance standards, including but not limited to the chamber visiting our businesses as part of our business retention efforts, providing workshops training for our local businesses, as well as creating a local campaign to promote local shopping. And we've also included a framework for them to expand their membership. Our contribution will remain the same at 20,000 annually to the chamber. And finally, as part of our framework for accountability, the chamber will be required to submit quarterly reports to the city manager and an annual report by June 15th of every year. With that being said, I'll be more than happy to take any questions that you may have. I just want to thank you. I know this is something that you really put your shoulder into and I appreciate it. I'll just say just in the interest of time that I think that it's probably overdue as part of the evolution of our relationship with the chamber, hopefully for the benefit of both, and that I support it, and I would encourage everyone unless you have a problem to keep it somewhat brief on this one, so we can have time for the other topics where we may have some discussion. So go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director, Alance. Like it's for the city to be successful, the partner and the partnership matters big time. So, the Chamber has been a great partner and this formal agreement definitely outlines what city is going to be providing and what we expect from the Chamber. And it's a great document and a great work and they will be a great partner. So appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Alonso. My only thing is I agree with you. Partnerships are huge. Have they had a chance their board to review this yet? So as part of our efforts, we've had discussion with the board chair and the president of the chamber while they've reviewed it and agreed in principle with the agreement the board has not reviewed it. So as part of the implementation if you'll approve the agreement then it will go to their board and we're hoping that by the end of this year if both boards approve it then it will be implemented. Okay, but you'll come back to us if there's any problems their board has with this. Absolutely. Thank has with this. Absolutely. Thank you very much. My experience has been slightly different than what my colleague was thinking. Whenever I used to go to their meetings, and I used to see the same person again, and sure enough, when we went to the state of this chamber meeting, they did say they're losing revenue, they're losing revenue, they're losing membership. I hope with the coming of new board president, things will reverse. And definitely, I think all of us is hitting hard on partnership. They should be coming to the city council meetings and work sessions and see what we are doing there and how it affects them. I don't see them any of those folks here because they're the focal point for all the small businesses. They should be at least be telling those people, hey, this is on the city's annual. You need to go and talk to them. Nothing of that sort is happening from their side. Similarly, when we go there, when you look at other Chamber of Commerce, Shugalov and all these people, they welcome people who are people with connections. These folks, they just seem to be, okay, you're a fly on the wall. So that's when I went into spoke to the city manager, saying that these people definitely need to have a good handshake both ways. So, I'm happy what you've fashioned out. My only concern is there are only three employees there. I don't know whether they'll be able to generate all those reports which you're asking them, the other aspect of it. Maybe if you can, for the time being, till they grow a little more, if you can give those reports to us, that'll be even better. Because I think they don't have the bandwidth to support reports and generate small businesses. And we also ask them for lunch and learns many, many criteria view. Put on there. So maybe you'll have to do a lot of heavy lifting, I think. Appreciate the feedback. Thank you. So Council Member Ermerley, I wouldn't worry about the reports. They'll probably, I mean, are you thinking like the performance standards measured, see how, are you thinking like the performance standards measured, see how those are achieved against? So it'll probably be just a workbook input or impute the data as needed. So I can't imagine. You know, why why we actually put there was because the president of the new incoming president or the chairman of the board. He said specifically, we are losing people. We need to stop it. We're losing revenue. You know, if you allow that to slide like that, sooner or later it will be coming to a crisis proportion. That's when we said, okay, if you're giving them funding, we should get some kind of input back just as if we expect from CVB saying what did that's the idea So I think it's important for us to keep in mind that you know Dr. Launc has had conversations with the board chair and the Chamber President They seem like they're on the same page so I want to see disagreement Executed and let's see how it goes. We can always make adjustments later if necessary. But I think we're taking a step in the right direction. I don't want to, I don't want a micromanage. What I'm saying is at this point, they don't have enough bandwidth to go to reporting these things which we are asking. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Is it interesting that you may are going to be super technical. They should be pretty high level, I would think, from a membership, just basic activities. So it's part of the... All right. Aaron, what is your topic? What was your... You have a finish? I haven't finished, but you were about to say something? Yes, I was just going to say that as part of the agreement if you look at the Appendix we created the framework for the reporting So as far as a report that is enough for data for us to take a look at and I would like to say as well that part of A partnership is to work for the benefit of the business community and will continue to collaborate with them to ensure that we're able to help that be our standards. Thank you, that was great. Thank you. Yeah, so I did not see that. And this, I'm very keen. Yeah, I support this. I love it. We're to your point about building the partnerships. We need to support them. They need to support us to ensure all those virtual folks are taking care of. But I think anyone that gets city money also having an agreement in place to show how it's to be utilized, what it's defined for, what are the expectations from the city. The only thing I'm mad about is that I was here three years ago when the non-binding MOU went down. So, not thinking about it until now, but it glied that you all have and really will support this and support the chamber as well. So, there. Yeah, I hope it's a step in the right direction as the mayor said to strengthen the partnership and support our local business. Thank you. Thank you, Director Ellens. I love this. I think it's a fantastic start, but I think it's a start. Because as we start getting closer together, they're going to have needs, soft needs, and some things that the city could make more events easier. I know we were talking a couple of council people who were talking offline and we said permits. When they want to have an event, they're having the property owner pays for the permits and there's only X amount per location. So if they're stepping out and promoting the city and promoting events, I'll just give them the permits. Let it, let it, it's a soft gift from the city to them, to the chamber, and it helps the local businesses promote their, their, their location, their events, they potentially can collaborate and have more vendors together, more restaurants together. This is just a start, I think it's most definitely in the right direction. But it is just a start and I'm looking forward to your magic and to make this a whole lot better for the Chamber. Thank you. And I just want to cap us off and just say that the John's Creek Chamber commerce, they have been an excellent resource for their membership. I think they've been a good partner for the city and with the city. I know that many chambers that are of towns like John's Creek, they are under pressure, not just in John's Creek, but across the nation. And so we want to hopefully help make this a better environment for our business community, for the Chamber, for all concern. And I think that what you're working on is a step in that direction, so I appreciate it. So thank you. Appreciate it. All right, next time. Thank you. The next item is the 2025 retreat locations. We have assistant city manager Bennett for presentation. Good evening, Mayor and Council. For this item, I want to first express my thanks to Olivia Gasta. She did quite a bit of work on the research and contributed to the writing of the memo. So I appreciate her efforts in that regard. As you know, you have a retreat scheduled for this January on the 24th and 26th of January 2025. It's one of your more important, more impactful meetings of the years where you set your strategic priorities. So we as a staff want to have time to put in the effort to prepare for your retreat. So it's very productive for you. When you time obviously to secure lodging, find a place to meet, scout out the city, meet with other city staff, plan them walking tour, align, you know, what the facilitation agenda looks like. So for the past two years we have gone within driving distance, Greenville, South Carolina, and Columbus, Georgia, and based on feedback that's from the council, that's sort of what is a good choice. So we have outlined and described three different locations that are similar to John's Creek, but maybe a little bit of hand in within driving distance. And we also looked at some of the projects, experience and initiatives that you guys have shown interest in and we tried to find cities that have things such as a performing arts center, arts facility, a makerspace, a vibrant nightlife and public investment, prompting private investment. So in your memo, you will see descriptions of three cities that meet those criteria, Asheville, North Carolina, Huntsville, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. And what we are asking for tonight is your direction and selection of a location for the retreat so the staff can begin its preparations for you. With that, happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ron. All right, so I'm going to do Option D custom again. I personally feel like that going out for a big retreat every year is almost more than I'm able to absorb. My cup may run at the over of stimuli. And I would like to think that it might be a rhythm of a new council comes in. There's a bigger retreat that maybe it's, you know, I mean all of these retreats I think it makes sense to be offsite but it might be your bigger tree the first year in the two year cycle of council the following, which is the one we're talking about now, would be more of a smaller check-in type of retreat in which you're kind of seeing kind of progress has been made, kind of fine-tuning some things. That would be my preference for multiple reasons, not Lisa, which is financial. I just, I don't know that I would personally benefit from going on one of these big ones every year, but that's just, that's just me. Well, wait, let me ask you a quick, where would you propose like have one here? Well, in the past, in the past, we've gone to Lakeland here a couple of different times. I think you went to a retreat there. And that's offsite, so you're not like, oh, I'm going to run home. But it's also not where we're going the way I town. On some big, everything doesn't have to be a walking tour. I think part of it is, yeah, I want to move John's Creek forward and for us to grab any low-hing-fruit ideas that would really benefit John's Creek. But I think that going every year, it's like, you know, we're not, we ain't broken, right? So I want to be inspired every couple of years, but I'm not trying to completely reinvent and completely change John's creek in a wholesale fashion. I think that every year is going too far to that extreme. Is my personal thought, so anyone? I'm fun. I'm fun. What can I say? I'm fine. I'm fine. What do you want to say? Again, we have a lot of projects in pipeline and you're trying to activate the town century area. So looking at like the multiple scenarios like if you the performance arts, makerspace, night life and the public-private partnership. So at least maybe while we are in the process of still building it, so I would think at least we can learn from one of these cities. Like, I think Huntsville would be my first preference because it's much bigger than John's Creek, but they have a lot of options that we could at least explore and carry some of that information to John's Creek to at least see what we can do on at least like the Makerspace and Nightlife in the Townsend area and some areas. So my preference would be Hansville, Chattanooga, second, and Asheville number three. Okay, I'm gonna complicate it just like you did, Mayor. So at first, I'm super excited about all of the choices and I now I recommended some of them, but I didn't take into account the time of year and how it's going to be freezing cold and both Asheville and shadow knew got that time of year I like the fourth option of us doing them every other year However, if we do it I mean for me it's easier to be present with you all because I've got to go home and be mom and a million other responsibilities So it's more exhausting and harder to focus if we stay here. But that being said, I don't know if it's necessary every year either. But I'm fine with Huntsville if that's the majority. That would be my first choice based on the weather itself. And if we do go, I would say Huntsville as well. Great. My choice is Huntsville primarily because these guys are very, very tech focused. And we have a makerspace to look at it. And it's big enough and they virtually rose up from ashes. There was nothing but a bad Hicksville in Alabama. Now they are one of the forefront of technology in Alabama. Go see their space center. It's really mind-blowing. I think we will come back and another aspect of this is here we have another budget coming next year and we have to allocate money towards it towards our capital improvement projects and if there's anything we learnt new, so I said I think a cat, the Huntsville should be? Good. All right, Chris. So Mayor, you said you're a fun guy. I'm even more of a part of you. I've been thorn in the side of those one, and even just do off-site retreats. But I was open for the Columbus trip. I be open to staying every other year. I be open to staying every year. It was kind of a compromise on my behalf. It's like, hey, I haven't necessarily done this since 2017. So maybe I rather than being so stubborn. I see value in it, though mine is also a, there is a financial cost for all of us, but also the indirect financial cost because it takes a lot of effort on you guys as parts to plan, coordinate, get everything. Sometimes it's like we got to make ROI from that investment of effort. So would that effort be better spent on the projects that are currently tasked with? That being said, if we were to leave, I would select Asheville of the three, and Deliep, this is, I actually picked it based on population as well, but thinking more. More what's generalizable to John's Creek today. And I recently went to Huntsville and did all the tours. So I'm pretty familiar with what they have to offer like I did exactly what we would be doing at the retreat. But I'm game to stay. If we do want to do an offsite, I will not argue with that if we do look to stay. That would be my vote, but I didn't know. The dollars starting to come around to that. Aaron? Well, you know I'm starting to come around to that. Aaron? Well, you know I'm from Chatter Newcastle. And my sister lives in Asheville, so I know both of the cities very well and love them. I don't know if I could fill that analogous to what we have going on in our city at this moment in time. So I actually support Huntsville if we do you take an off-site retreat, but I'm also supported with the mayor of a local retreat I Think that there's benefit to Just staying home and thinking about what you're doing well instead of looking for inspiration elsewhere I think there's a balance to be found I I think it retreats critical at this level and in leadership in any private or public sector. Because we just need to get away a little bit and have a little bit of time where we can express some of our thoughts, ideas openly and not such a formal setting, if you will. I think it just builds teamwork and relationships. I'm all in for Huntsville. I think that makes a lot of sense from my perspective. Yeah, and that's it. All right, it sounds like we're headed to Huntsville. Huntsville is. All right. To the moon or bust. All right. All right. Thank you. Thanks. I don't know that some people want to stay home, stay a little dull, and maybe next year. And it's not just that. It's also, I think, for me, the fact that, you know, maybe we go somewhere really neat, and you let that kind of wash over you, and you absorb it, and you're really focused on what actually you're going to do with it. Whereas if you're doing something neat every year, you're already planning the next trip. Anyway, next item. Thank you. The next item is the expenditure policy review. We have Director Campbell for presentation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So the expenditure policy was last reviewed in April of 2019. and then it was reviewed administratively with the City Manager's Office in March of 2023 with no recommended changes to be made. So Finance staff has reviewed this document once again as it was asked to be brought to work session. We did that a few months ago to make sure that it was still yet reflective of current process and procedures as well as in line with industry best practices. We did not have any revisions of any suggestions for revision, but at this time, I'm looking for feedback from Council. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any recommendations from your side? Like, if it's working fine for the last few years, so. No recommendations from staff. So one question, like on two C, on page three. I'm fine with the way it is, but just a question on, do we really need that section? Yes. Pretty much everything is being covered in the other sections like the mileage, like the business meals supply, like it is. So this section that you're talking about is the settlement of disputed? No, I'm talking about the qualified expenses. Two C, two C.. No, no, I'm not going to qualify the expenses. Two C. Two C. I'm sorry, skip to 3 C. Is there any of that that is repetitive? We consider not to be necessarily a direct city benefit. No, no. My point, Mary, is like all those expenses are being covered in the other sections, like further down, like in the travel and meal expenditure or like the cellular child, we don't have it. So most of that is pretty much being covered. So it's, like I don't even know what a professional membership for a council member or mayor would be. Usually that's like a partnership that was, I don't know if we really need that one either, but we already have the partnership with the organization. So it's, my point is, do we really need that section? It's elected officials and qualified expenses within our category. He's recommending changing anything, so. No, no, like if it's not serving personally, it's not even, if you don't need it, we can just get rid of that section whole thing. So. Well, I guess the recommendation from staff to not make any changes is because it's working fine the way because it's working fine the way that it's crafted. And I do believe the history of this policy was before I got here, it actually got blended and collapsed into a single policy. So I think there is some history as to why this was specifically laid out this way. And from a staff perspective, it continues to work fine for us, I think, in instances when you had particular questions that might be called out, it was helpful to at least have an illustrative list of things that would be viewed as qualified expenditures for reimbursement, unique to a council member, which is why I would see it being captured within this section, too. Again, some of these travel expenses are being already addressed in the next section, Director. So, if staff, staff things to leave it there, it's fine, but I'm seeing pretty much it's like redundant, like some of those sections. So it's your call. I can leave it there. Not to make it worse or more confusing, but when we do receive reimbursement requests, this is the policy that I look to decide whether or not I should be reimbursing a request as received by a member of the body. So is it on the list? Okay. If it's not in the list, then this is an inclusive list, but it is, These are things that I do not raise questions about when I receive reimbursement request if they follow along this line. Is how we are using it today? And Ronnie was 100% correct. These used to be two separate policies. We put them together for clarity. No, my point was like other than business, meals and mileage, everything else we don't really incur. So those two are being already covered in other travel and meal expenditures. So I just thought like it's been- What does an example of a professional membership? We have from time to time, had council members choose to join professional organizations in the city. And I would count that under professional memberships. Do you have partnership for those organizations, right? We have very few formal partnerships right now that's something I'm working on with a number of staff members helping. For example, Kim, allot, our economic development director and your comments in our recreation and park director are both helping to put together partnership agreements with organizations from the art center and symphony to the two rotaries that serve the city, to the Johns Creek Public Safety Foundation, we have many amazing community organizations. We have facility usage agreements with a few athletic type or recreational agreements, and we have a proposed agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, but outside of that. No, we don't have a lot of agreements in place today. Moving forward and exploring having partnership agreements, I think is a long-term solution to clarify that what should the relationship be between the city and that organization? What benefits to the city make sense? Like are all members of the elected body automatically ex officio members? Does the body need to designate a representative to be sitting on the board of that organization not less tied to them as an individual and more tied to that person and their official role on the council. The benefit to the organization is having a strong partnership with the city as a whole, not so much on the individual members of the body, but- That makes sense. But that's a long process. We just kicked off the discussion of partnership agreements. I know you guys saw that when it went to our pack I shared it with the body as a whole. We have begun that, but we have not completed that yet. So. If stop things strongly, we can just leave it. I'm gonna ask, because I'm a little, what are, who is, like I don't know what the professional membership, I don't know what the professional membership, I don't know what the professional, like I don't think we're not paying for anyone to join the Chamber. No, but we have had rotary membership. I mean, they crafted that. They would have. In 2017, they thought about this. They lifted for the future council's as a playsholder. All right, so what are we paying for? That's what I want to know. We have paid for road rememberships through this qualified expenditure section. It is listed as I considered that a professional membership if that was an error in judgment. I apologize, I'd love some feedback. So I've never, I don't think I've done an expense report. So hypothetically, as do we have city cards? Do you like it? No. Okay. So we use our personal cards. I absolutely do not. Do you do not? I'm at work, okay. So we make a personal expense. We have some type of system that does an expense tracker. That approval goes to you as city manager? Yes, it's typically received by the city clerk's office put in the system and then it comes to me for approval. Then it goes to the finance director. Is how it's functioning right now that can obviously be changed. Director Campbell, thank you. I don't have any questions or changes. My thing is what along with Dilip's pointing out, there's not an exhaustive list actually. You see, like we're talking of GMA training, that doesn't fall in this bracket. Things like that. So I think that this possibly may be a redundant section, but since it's not bothering me, I don't think it bothers anybody here. I'll let it. I don't understand what's the thing, question and question. I just would like to let it be for the future councils to decide if they have any, with their little more imaginative than us. It's not right now. if they have any, they're a little more imaginative than us. I guess. If you don't mind, Chris. Well, I spoke to Council Member Tanki about his proposal originally. He had talked about removing this and I read through it and I'm like, well, we don't really use it but official Relating to the conducting of official business on behalf of the elected position. So I mean to your point earlier We sometimes are ex officio board members like we're actually already ex officio board members of the chamber But in the prior agreement that we had but since I'm a local small business center anytime I attend a chamber thing I actually pay for my ticket because I feel like it's like wearing two hats and you know. But I know I'm in a special place in that regard but so that would be a situation where I would expect we would pay for something but if it's not on behalf of the elected position I guess I would disagree with your assessment and I'm not I'm not trying to call you out I should probably should not call you out. I should probably not call you out publicly, but we're having this discussion. That's where I would feel like, okay, so maybe this is just a redundant section. It isn't necessary, but as an attorney, I guess that's when you delete it. Because when you have extra garbage, that's when you get yourself in trouble. So either, I don't know where we go from here. And the road is a great organization. So, all right. I would cut out professional memberships, educational materials, business meals. I mean, so that's any person having a lunch with a citizen can get that expense? No, like this is a public service job. You get paid 15K, pay for your own damn lunch. So I would get rid of all of it except for office supplies and cell charges, pay for your city cell phone. Even that's just cell phone. No, but Chris, even that he's being covered by the city. Even that he's being covered by the city. So why do we need that? Yeah, so sell charges. Yeah, so I would get it coming out. Because that's right and now we all get text messages from residents on our personal phones. Even though we send out our city phones and so then we could all, all of us could have been expensing all of our private phones even though. Yeah. I guess I didn't see any of this as being such an issue because there's professional memberships. I think there's city staff that are involved in professional memberships. I look at it and say, you know what, if someone could benefit educational wise, if someone could benefit from a professional membership and create contacts and bring people into the city, introduce them to Dr. Kim. It hasn't been a problem in the past, I don't understand why we're focusing on this. The issue that I had with this policy is more of a financial perspective that there are a lot of people that are getting automobile allowances, you know, they're getting a monthly fee that could range up to $506 a month for use of their vehicles. And when they're driving to, let's say just an example, to say make it, Savannah. And then they're turning in miles on top of getting reimbursed for automobile expenses. That to me is almost a double dip. I fundamentally have a hard time with that. So that's the only change that I think is warranted here because I don't know anyone in a private sector that is able to do that. If you get a car allowance, that allowance should be used for X amount of miles. Today the IRS allows you, I think it's point 67 cents per mile. I'm sorry. 67 cents per mile. And if you just take 100 miles, you can do the math, you'll never reach $500. So that's the change I see here. The rest of it, I don't see has been a problem, so why change it? I understand from a contractual perspective if it's redundant, I don't see it redundant, but if it is redundant, legally you want to remove it because it can cause conflicts. I get that. But I say leave it the same, and if we want to talk about the miles reimbursement, I think that's a valid discussion to have because I don't think so much you get a car allowance and then get paid miles on top of the car allowance. That's all I'm going to say about that. So I, sorry, I wasn't saying staff. I was talking about 2C as it relates to us seven. And so I don't- Just for my official. Oh yeah, so I'm for continuing education for staff. That is a smart investment. I'm not for you all getting your MBA on the tax pay or dime. Come on, really? Or MPA, I wouldn't even be for that because we have term limits. By the time you finish finish there's no ROI. So let me be clear that it is to see that I was referencing earlier. And no, it's not a problem because we budget within that, but I guess I was a little bit ignorant that there was not that someone could just go have a stake at pompous with the citizen and say that's a business meal and it's followed by this policy. So I hope we're not abusing or qualified expenditures like that. So that's what's disconcerting to me that there's no control except for self control. Do you support just eliminating it at least? Yeah, I would eliminate everything except for office supplies. But why do we need that? And we can just get them from the sea hall. Yeah, they're not being pretty good. They don't eliminate too sea. We're not getting fringe from the sea hall. Yeah, they're not being pretty. They're not eliminating too sea. We're not getting fringe benefits from this role. Because let me just, I guess, and I agree with you, Chris, to a point. I mean, we're ambassadors to the city. They're ambassadors to other cities. So if you wanna have a cup of coffee with someone, whether you pay for it, or you want to have a cup of coffee with someone, whether you pay for it, or you want to submit a $5 expense, I don't see that an issue either way. I think we're, I think we're, that in itself is a little unprofessional because in the past, has this been a problem with this council? Is it a problem with this council? Is it a problem with this council? Is it a problem with this council? Is it a problem with past councils? Why not and dying and taking people out and submitting expenses? I don't know. We have not had any significant number of meal reimbursements or mileage reimbursements in general. So unless Ronnie sees it differently, I don't know. I'm not seeing the abuse. No. I don't know that I'm calling a piece of evidence of the other emergency. I'm just not wearing that. Thank you. I would not say that it's been abused or that it's been excessive. I think everyone on this council is very conscientious. But it's just about creating a policy. And as the policy is written, doesn't give the city manager discretion. If you can't came to her, she would have to give you a check. And then what is she supposed to do, if she's concerned about it, especially as the policy doesn't even have a monetary limit, like saying up to $500 or up to $100 or whatever. So as written, I think that it's vague, I think it's overly broad. And so as a policy, I mean, I tend to be a little bit closer to Chris where, and this is for me personally, I know every person's situation is different. I feel like our stipend helps cover these costs. Because being on council's allosing propositions far as money, you know. And so, but that my stipend helps cover, you know, when I go have coffees or I have things like that. So, I guess, I'm closer to Christmas policy and I would just eliminate it. Could we get some suggestions? I mean, maybe there's more to this than I thought. And maybe we need some suggestions or. Right. No, Chris, to your point, the mileage has been covered in 3D. They do mention that elected officials can claim it. So my point was, it's already mentioned in the 2C and again, it's mentioned in the 3D. So that's where I was going with the redundant. I think it has to have a pretty good ride. No, I don't see a point in keeping the toll section, but it's up to microphone. Well, that's the other thing. Official relating to the conducting of official business on behalf of the elected position. So then again, we get to like, we all have had residents as, hey, we're looking to meet, you know, to talk about some things that you go meet for coffee. Is that official, is that relating conducting official business on behalf the elected position? I mean, that probably is, but it's not like an official thing like we're attending a banquet or a meeting or something like that or a GMA conference. And look, I want to make sure I'm being full disclosure probably about once a month. I have something where I'm like, I don't see where this meeting where there is a lunch has anything other than just the city right so I had one last week with the head of a very large church in John's Creek that I think we will have a lot to do a future city projects potentially and yeah I think we should I mean people like you should be doing that so you know but I've tried to be very judicious. Yeah. Like I haven't, I haven't built anything for like, like a resident, like a resident wants to talk about something. I don't know. Yeah. To me, it's got to have a very direct, tangible benefit to the city. I agree. Yeah. So I, Council Member G. Viosi, I'm not saying it was a problem, but it just that I was maybe more ignorant that it was just on self-control of politicians. And so, again, nothing offensive to someone that doesn't self-control on, is their business meal, including their family and talking to one. So again, staff has said it's they haven't seen spikes in spending, but I kind of view this philosophically that you are in a volunteer role to a degree and we should not necessarily be collecting fringe benefits. I have an NLP workshop that's $8,000. I think we're doing a pilot AI project. Should I expense that? I mean, it will help. Like it's an AI project and we're looking at AI. So like, what's the line? So it's easy for me to say, I say no. It's not relatable. But is everyone going to make that same decision? Well, one thing that might be somewhat of a separate category is mileage is as far as I can remember is in the charter. But that's by IRS. I understand. We had Tony covered in the next section. We're done three. It's like a child. It's Tony covered in three days. I think you're more an expert. As far as guardrails, I completely agree. There should be caps and meals. There should be, because that's best practices all around. So things like that, that's where I'm going with this. Maybe we uncovered something that we should have more conversation. Maybe staff can give us some little suggestions and maybe put some guardrails around this. I mean, the good thing is there hasn't been a lot of, I don't think there's any abuse on this council. I don't think I've personally ever turned in a receipt. So let's maybe get revisitous. No, but look, just to get back to remind everybody, this council is invited by Roswell and we invited Roswell back. So that was an expense. That was. That was a good expense which we had. I'm sure if you invited blue guys, they probably kick in for the colleague Rick maintenance. You know, I also believe that, you know, we're all elected because of our experience and our judgment. I think, you know, using what you had just said, Mr. Mayor, your judgment to take out some high-level people for lunch. I think that's a very reasonable thing to do. And I think we've got to fall back on, hey, you know, we a little bit of leap of faith and trust among ourselves that we want to do the right thing here. Sure. All right, so where do y'all where are we with this? I'm here and I would say here and everything from take out the entire section to edit the section. I don't mind leaving the way it is. I'm not for that. I don't see a point in keeping it because again, most of the other things are covered in the next section of suites. Do we have the data readily available, like what council mayor trends on? We can certainly pull that. I mean, is it a... It's a limited number of lines that these expenditures hit. So I don't think it would be unreasonable certainly pull that. I mean, is it a limited number of lines that these expenditures hit? So I don't think it would be unreasonable to pull that and share that back with the body. If we start by looking at what have we spent in 2024? So the active. Actives. We don't even have to do line item. I'm just curious of trends over the past few years with different bodies. Like, if we want to get into line items, I just... Sorry, I... Sorry, yeah. It did delete this point of it being redundant. It says business meals as a qualified expenditure, and it has the vague language of incurred by the official relating to the conducting of official business on behalf of the elected position. But then, E, on page five, is non-travel meals. So expenses relate to furnishing a meal, snacks or food should be limited to the following circumstances and it actually has a bobbledged point list with five points. So that is like a lot more detailed meetings hosted by the City Council, City Manager, Assistant City Manager, meeting during regular schedule business hours, a meeting in order to discuss a specific item of city business? Again, this was two policies that the last time I was formally reviewed were put together because there was thought to be some overlap. Well, I mean, I guess to the mayor's point, he was, he didn't want us to get so, so draconian that we're taking out every opportunity to have a business meal that looks like we have defined them on page five. I'm not saying you can't have a business meal and talk about that. Well, if we delete, if we delete to see we would, that's why I think. I think in capital $20 and twice a week or something where it has some semblance that I don't have to trust every single person to do the right thing. Does that make sense? I would love to trust. I would love to. Yes. Since you asked for the lane I'd like to get anything reimbursed. You got to get it by this. You got to get it past this guy and he has no joke. I mean, he checks out mileage and where and with who your department is very good, very thorough in making sure that they go back to the policy. Well, if that's the case then. I don't know. and making sure that they go back to the policy. Well, if that's the case then. There's still not amount though limitations. Okay, so to help this move forward, I think I heard data. Love that. Councilor DiBiasi, suggestions, guardrails, maybe what our limits other cities do, particularly focused on just the council expenditure portion. So not getting into section three, which is travel and meal expenditures for all city employees that go to training and travel and conferences. But we're looking at just at section two. Yes. Okay. Assuming the employee that you all have the recommendation of no recommendations on that don't touch the employees. That was, yes, or where we started. Okay. We were not recommending any changes. Yeah. You know, if my comment regarding travel reimbursement with employee vehicles or personal vehicles, that if that, if that, if this policy touches employees, then I'd like to see that addressed. Because I, again, I don't think double dipping, I don't know, the best word for that is, but I think double dipping is not appropriate. And I think it may be an old policy. Because it seemed like there's, it seemed like in the budget there's a lot of people that have vehicle reimbursements. And I was just- Okay, every department has a vehicle reimbursement or a city vehicle. Yes. Your police and fire chief do not have a city car allowance because they both have take home cars. Understand. But that's, that's, that's, I agree with what he's saying. There's, I think that they've got something that says like only within 50 miles or greater they could submit. And if we're reimbursed, it doesn't matter who take the person out of it. If you're reimbursing $500 a month, which is $6,000 a year, then for that month I've purchased that vehicle use. The city has purchased that use. And if I'm driving it 100 miles for that month, I mean, I don't want, I personally would not approve a miles reimbursement after I give you $500 to drive 100 miles. I think I hear that. I mean, I don't. I'm happy to look into how many department heads submit mileage reimbursement. I can tell you I have not. Well, I'm not as impersonal. I cannot tell you. I think it's. I can't tell you for sure how many department heads have or do on a regular basis. Understand that. We're taking the city council budget, zero base budget, back down to 2023 and we're building it back up and we're talking about $20 meal expenses here. So we're down to save it every penny and every dollar and this is just one of those things I think. It just stands out for me. That's all. I heard you. I just want you to have good data to work with. And I mean I hate to say I'm sorry. I mean not comfortable on the professional memberships. I heard for to take out section 2C or, yeah, but I'm not sure exactly where we landed. But it sounds like there's going to be some cleanup with y'all coming back to us maybe. I'm sorry, I heard requests for this to have continued discussions. So although I agree, I heard for say takeout section 2C, because there is also a request for more than for to continue discussion, I thought that kind of neutralized. Yeah. However. So. Redirect. I would recommend we pull the data that way. Yeah, I always say I need the data, so I'm not making rash decisions. And I would say I got a little bit neater just now without the data. So I would suggest we at least see the degree of important information on the list. I think over 600 bucks annually or something like that. I mean, I don't know. I don't think the numbers very high. And I think we all agree, have said multiple times, we don't think that it's being abused. It's just about the policies of messy policy. It is not very well written. I'm so sorry whoever is listening to the road this. I feel that it could be a lot more clear and have a lot more guardrails so that we just don't even have to talk about it or think about it. That's all. I think, you know, both for city council as well as employees, staff. I think it'll just make sense to have this data in front of us to continue. Sure. All right. All right. I think that's where we land. All right, next item. Thank you., next item. Thank you. The next item is going to be the Town Center pedestrian crossing construction contract. We have mishandles for presentation. Good evening, Mayor and Council. So I'm here tonight to request construction authorization for the pedestrian crossing of Medlock Bridge Road. This project will provide grade separated multimodal access between the west side of State Route 141 and Creekside Park and the Greater Town Center area. This request consists of approving the construction contract with Vertical Earth, a construction engineering inspection, task order with KCI and a 10% contingency. And this total expenditure is roughly $7.6 million and can be fully funded using T-SPLUS 2 funds, as well as by accepting the IGA with full and county. And whether permitting construction is expected to take 12 months. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions? Thank you, Mindy. It's a good project and there's a special mention. The bid was closing on August 27th. It closed on August 27th. And you guys got everything ready to us by Tuesday, three days. Reviewed it and recommendations, so that's the fastest turn of all time, so it's really appreciated. It's like CD is moving fast. Here is a right example for that. Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mendy. One question I have. Is there been any more consideration on parking on the other side? Not within this project. So if I don't know if Chris has any additional information on that but I have not been involved in any discussion on that. Okay. I had a question. There have been no other discussion at this time. Okay. Okay. Thank you both. Now I was looking at the diagram, both me and Councilman, they just had this, is it drawn to scale? It is drawn to scale. The artistic length of the one. No, length. So, this one. Okay. So, the reason why I was thinking you had enough, it's about 30 feet wide actually from wall to wall. It's 42 feet. For it will fit. That's even better. So, in that lamp there is around 10 to 12 feet. What I'm looking at is if this tunnel is someplace where vendors will be standing to market their wares, will there be enough place? Yes. I have verified that there is plenty of places for booths to set up within this, the length of the tunnel. They're basically at, at the trail itself. It is between 10 and 12 feet high. And as you move outward, there is at least 9 feet, 10 feet from either side of the trail. I said that right. So 35 feet, there's at least. Okay. The other tunnel which we have there next to Panera Bread, water pools in the center. Do you have any issues like that here. No, we have designed proper drainage and we've accounted for all of that. And lighting. Lighting there is lighting incorporated into this design. We have more of a pedestrian street lighting. They're kind of shown on that poles, like poll lighting. And that will be continued on into the pre-site park. When there be any, I can't remember that area. I guess the guard rail has to be there regardless. I'm not thinking about no barrier, but I was just wondering if they would like a staccato wall going up that would further help define where it is. I don't know if that's something that's been talked about or not. That has not been accounted for in this design or the bid price, but we could look into it. You've got the highway barrier there, right? It's the highway barrier. Yes, that's 141. So it would have stone wall even be enough from a engineering to keep the, I've learned how you guys think. You're always thinking about keeping the car getting it car out back onto the road. Yeah, so maybe at those speeds, maybe a wall doesn't cut it. Yes. You have walls that are designed to accommodate a side crash like that and would be appropriate for this setting. We'd have to look at the distance right here in this area. It's only, I guess, probably about 60 feet of wall that you would see. I mean, we could continue it on. There's just nothing to connect to from the trail side. I guess it would just... I love this where John was going with this. On both on the dark vertical line on both sides of the arch, I mean, I don't know what it would do to price, but if there was a four foot by four foot column, if you will, that was five feet, maybe six feet high with the light on top to identify where the tunnel is and John's Creek as you're approaching 141 either way. Just as is almost a marker. I don't know if that. But then my other concern is what we're talking about clash with the potential markers that we've talked about doing. Well, is it I mean I thought we've furloughed it all. Well, we can't know we just kind of said we're going to cool our jets temporarily. I didn't know it was going to be like right around the section. I thought maybe the entrance is in the city. Like the Gittes-Ferry was going to be close to this. Yeah, it's pretty close to that. It's not a scrap too. Okay. No, no, it's there in the 5.6 Keppelin Bruin plant. I thought we just, but it's okay. I mean, if we, sorry, I jumped. Then I just like the idea of having a marker, regardless of what the marker is. As long as it's when you're on a medleic bridge, because you're driving and you want to look down to see the tunnel, I can see the brick from the road. I don't think you are. Not only that, it's like you're approaching a town center area. So that makes sense. So everything you're describing is very expensive. Not part of the current budget, not part of the current project. I'm happy to explore it. It would be a significant change order. It would be a significant design change. We can get into all of that. I would take this bit as you have it and then work with the contractor because it's a good bit based on what we received but I don't know I'm hearing different visuals and I'm sure if I show one thing you're gonna say great and you're gonna say wait I just want to say something different I'll show another thing so I need to think about it. I'll work with the guard rail in relation to not only this element, but then if we do the other elements, and I'm having trouble having a holistic view. K. So there's going to be guard rail somewhere in this corridor to protect the fall. And so you can do a barrier on top of that rock faced aesthetic barrier that would be right at the, just like as a bridge, let's say. You go across our bridges and parts of the road, you see the rock and then you have guard rail on each end. We could treat it just like that. That's probably the easiest fix or low cost. Or even like Alfredo, some of their bridges are very artistic and on core. Different places on core parkway, you know, and they've got something this different than guard rail. Right. The square of square is going to be really expensive. So the problem is when you get that close to a 45-minile roadway, it has to hold up the cars hitting it in a certain way. It's going to be crashed. So you've got to put steel, rebar, all the way down in it. It's got to be tied into the design of this wall. So it becomes a significant increase of cost. You go up that. The D.M.E. Georgia D is it, yeah. So, yeah, if it were 25 feet off the road, not as big a deal, because there's no cars likely to hit it. Once you get, and there's the always the element that G dot does have to permit anything we do in change, and we have a permit for what we have. We can get the modifications. I'm concerned of time. How long is this contract valid for? I believe it's 60 days from the bit. So we don't have to award it at the next meeting. We can delay it and award it the next meeting. And we have time to talk to the contractor. We can get into all that. I mean, this is something I think we hope is going to be here for 50 years or whatever. I mean, I'm okay with looking into that, but I can tell you are, I don't know about the rest of y'all. And of course, Kauffman like stainless steel personally, so. I'm fine with this G-DOT approved, just for the tunnel on top of the tunnel, if that's okay, so that it doesn't carry on that aesthetic look towards the marker. The reason is because I am afraid, we need concrete or anything, it'll just damage the car. These guardrails are supposed to put, if you hit it, it's supposed to get you back onto the road correct. Correct. So I think that's a safety angle which I find it very beneficial. At this point, both are supposed to keep the car in the road. They're not going to allow us to do something that's not going to get the car on the road correct. It's a, I'm comparable, you all requesting, but if we want to move this project, or requesting quotes or some idea of the cost of some of those changes, I'll support that. But is it change cheaper to do it before we award the contract? Because once we award the contract, they were locked in. We can have that conversation with them between now and your next meeting for sure. It doesn't sound like we have a huge risk in looking into this a little further. No, I agree with you. Just the question, the guardrail that you brought up, Parsons Road, you know my heart room with that. Right. Okay, so is the guardrail at the street, at the curb? It's at the back of the shoulder. At the back. It's at the back of the shoulder. At the back. Correct. And are these 10 foot wide sidewalks? There is trying to remember. There is a 12 foot shoulder on the west side and a more narrow shoulder on the other side. I don't know. On the west side. On the west side is the 12 foot. On the other side, I don't have that in front of me, but I know it's a little more, more of a, more for like a five foot. I know that Chris has heard it's many times, but I'm part of the road with the bridges. The sidewalk, there's a guard road on the back side, and the sidewalk is maybe three feet. And cars are going on there at 35, 40 miles an hour, and it's dangerous. People don't like to cross the bridge. If that's the same thing here, I suggest we make the sidewalk widen. So right through this area, the trail on the west side, it actually will not constructing another trail on 141. The trail actually goes down on the embankment and hopefully they are welcome through this beautiful tunnel. And on the other side, they are going to enter in through Curek's side park and at John's Creek Parkway. So they will have, there's very little reason why they should have to walk on the road. Okay, so the road goes down the shoulder to this grade level of the bridge, other tunnel. Yes, so there's a trail that kind of comes off the embankment, goes behind this guard that you see and enters. Thank you. So yeah, here is, let me see. Is that what the amber ground holds? Correct. That is, and it's not quite that much of alignment back there, but that is the new trail or it's not quite that much of an alignment back there, but that is the new trail or it's basically relocating existing trail now that the It's been extended to that and it allows a nicer it's a little lower Through the tunnel than it is now so part of that is just to get a nicer a nicer grade To get to that area and then let me see if this thing works Here we go. So from here. There is a trail from Creexide Park to that area. And then let me see this thing works. Here we go. So from here, there is a trail from Quixide Park. It's a boardwalk that goes on this side through the new park. And then on the west side, though, there's an existing trail. And yes, it will be reconstructed just a little farther west. And then they'll be able to the trail. Part of the project. The trail, the limits of the trail are to essentially what you see on the screen. Just the parts that need to be relocated just to get a better grade. And then we get the brown amber color. Yes. And then we're coordinating with the construction of Creekside Park to construct a portion of this part here and some of the drainage features that Go through the tunnel and connect into the parks infrastructure So back can we get to the other photo just so yeah this Because looking at this And then looking at this Is there between this section here and here? Is there going to be, you know, is all concrete? Is there good? Stums. Stums for drainage. Stones on this side? We have, um, we've worked with the landscape architecture. And so right now in the bid, we have a mixture of turf and some like slate chips. So, um, so the turf. Turf under a bridge. I'm sorry. Artificial turf. Oh, I'm sorry. Man, that makes me feel bad. I thought that. And I'm sorry. I'm just going to set up on that. Because, you know, people are going to gather here during a rainstorm, right? They're going to huddle into this. And the vendors are going to be on rocks versus just concrete underneath the bridge. It's something appropriate for a patio, that sort of a chip, not not gravel, not like a rip wrap. It's a very more of a appropriate slate type material. And that's also just what's been priced. And we also have opportunities to look at. Then make walk and trails out of it. I have seen that. I guess my vision was that it was all concrete, wall to wall, bright, white light, maybe the white epoxy, so it's very inviting. You've got the stacking, the 45 feet or 30 feet, wide concrete, so people, vendors, on a nice day, could set up before the tunnel after the tunnel. It becomes that focal point and this just it almost looks like it's just a pass through. Let's get under the bridge, under the tunnel and back in the creek sides quickly as possible. It doesn't look like a focal point. This particular image might be a little deceiving because I guess you're looking at landscaping on the other side. And so you do see some rocks there, But it will be a nice flat surface. I think we're trying to add a little bit of more interest. Both approaches you love flat or slightly gritty. Yeah, both sides will be fairly flat enough to accommodate a vendor or someone to set up there. But it's, there's a little bit more of a aesthetic interest in the path. It's not just two straight lines. There's some curvatures and I'll be happy to show you what's been laid out. Is the artificial turf or the slate chips is that part of the drainage system? It is not. It is just more of we're thinking lines of plants can't grow under there and it, again, adds a little bit of visual interest because it's not just parallel lines of concrete. While at the same time mean a nice surface that you could set. Councillor, what do you want to do? I'd like to just come back with some other suggestions before we sign a contract. I mean, it's too expensive not to have nothing receive what we really want, I guess. Yeah, we only want to do this once really well. Anybody else have an opinion they want to share? Chris, you said three weeks is fine, right? For the contractor to go back and just have a conversation with them. We'll have a conversation with them, yes. When you get it back, can you give us a little more illustrations because you're having a lot of questions because of... So there's only, I mean, anything else I get, she's going to cost money to illustrate. So, I can give you, I have one or two other images I can show, yes. I have an answer. So that we don't have us. I don't know where you're positioning that God really does kind of thing so that we don't ask you questions of what an order can. Okay. We'll get you everything we can share. Fine. Okay. Let me sense. I guess I for as far as from the surface we're looking at wall treatments on the on the road like the say rat 141. From that viewpoint, that's correct. Yes. And on the underneath more clarity on how the materials and the layout. Yeah. That would that be sufficient. Okay. And, you know, if you're doing slate and artificial turf, I mean, what would have cost to throw it on a couple of yards of concrete? What would that do to cost? I just can't. I don't believe the cost would be much different. I do believe it would be a very different aesthetic that may not look as warm as you envision. That's my concern with it. It's not me. It's a bad. I don't know. Yeah. If you can make those a lot of you will send that out tomorrow and let you get to look at. I feel like I can see this. Chris, this is what I was talking about. The lastitions of that so that we can see what we'll get it to as soon as we can. That's fair. Okay. All right. So, so this can come back and we can go ahead and potentially sign it or approve it at the next. So, come back to Council Meeting with the additional information or come back to work session and Council Meeting or what is it? May work session and Council Meeting. Okay. Thank you for the clarity. Same meeting. We can thank you for the clarity. Same meeting we can do with me. Okay, great. But maybe send some pictures everybody beforehand. And just why, so if you have artificial turf, like, again, because I'm thinking about the other bridge, or the other tunnel, you're not gonna have sediment collecting, I guess you're so confident about the way the water is going to shed away. Correct. We will be trapping water. We will, we have a more thoughtful design about trapping water upstream of the bridge, collecting it. And then it would go under or beneath the, beneath the surface, walking surface within the tunnel. And then there are some, some grades in here on the side, some slopes that just kind of naturally, anything that would happen to fall and lead it into the tunnel would have a nice flow. City manager, I seem to recall when we went to Greenville that we were walking along that river walk and we went under a tunnel and it was wide and it was very nice. And I remember it had landscaping. Well, if you could find some photos, I'm trying to find some, I'm not locating them because I was, I remember being surprised to see in a dark place that there was maybe fake landscaping, but still it was very pretty. So, yes, that was part of the inspiration for making sure that it wasn't, that there was design variety and visual interest. If you could find that email that was pleased, I definitely have. If I find it, I'll send it on right. So that tunnel was very high. So that made it very light. There was a main one that we walked through that comes to mind for me. There were some other crossings. But yes, the dimensions were different. It was higher than most of the stuff. It was very, very appealing to get inside. I think there was some drawings also there inside. It's a way to leverage our experience in Greenville for the betterment of the squadron. All right. I don't. ED, 5D. What? Do we have another item 5D? Budget? I mean, I don't know. 5D. What? Do we have another item 5D budget? I mean, I mean, if we can go through the consent agenda at least. Let's see. Seven. I try to hurry all along. Okay. Are we each other? Okay. All right. All right. Are we joy? Yes. Okay. All right. Are we good? All right. See you on the other side in about five minutes.