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I'm going to go to the next room. the in one minute. Good evening. Thank you for being here. We will begin our committee of the whole multifamily consolidated request for proposals for the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. Thank you. Thank you, President Tumonik. Thank you, Councillors, for having me tonight. My name is Lena Fancook. I am a housing planner with the Planning and Economic Development Department here at the city. And tonight, yes, I'm going to be talking to you about the multifamily consolidated request for proposals, a program by Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, and HFA. This is one of Minnesota housing's biggest annual funding opportunities for affordable housing and the way that this presentation will go tonight is I'm going to give you an overview of the program then I will give you an overview of this year's applicants, local applicants for this program and then there'll be some space for questions. All right, this will be a very high, or fairly high level, but hopefully it will provide some context to the importance of supporting our local applicants in this process. So what is MHFA, multifamily consolidated RFP? It's an annual RFP for qualified, affordable, residential rental projects. MHFA likes to call it a one-stop shop for funding as it combines multiple funding sources for multifamily projects throughout the state into one application process. This includes the low income housing tax credits as well as bonds and deferred loans. In this context, MHFA defines affordable as rents that are affordable to households at or below 50% area median income. So a little bit about the application process. The application process is governed by the state of Minnesota's qualified allocation plan. This is a plan that lays out how low income housing tax credits are distributed to multifamily projects. It includes project requirements, eligibility criteria, and state housing priorities. The process itself is a very competitive process with funding requests being four to five times the amount of funding resources that the state has. Thus applicants need to put together a really strong application in order to be considered by the state and to receive this funding. Thus preference is given to projects serving the lowest income tenants for the longest periods. Over here in the green boxes, it shows what the eligible housing types are. This includes general occupancy rental housing, as well as senior housing and permanent supportive housing. Some examples of scoring criteria laid out by the qualified allocation plan include Plan include the transit and walkability access of the project, whether it's in a qualified census tract, if it includes workforce housing, senior housing, permanent supportive housing, and whether it includes innovative construction techniques, those are just to name a few. So since this is a state funded process, you might be asking what is the city's role in this. The state likes to see when projects are supported by their local entities and organizations, specifically their local governments. So the city's role in our housing teams role in this is to facilitate this local support process for applications. For a strong application, Duluth applicants seek local project support from the following entities. They look for a resolution of support from U City Council. They look for support as well as often pre-commitment HUD funding from community development committee. They look for support from the affordable housing coalition and the heading home advisory council as well as if they are seeking supportive housing support they will look to St. Louis County and if they are seeking section 8 rental subsidy support they will look to the HRA. So where we are at in this process you can see here high level timeline. In April, we presented to three of these entities. Both applicants received formal support from the Affordable Housing Coalition, as well as the Head and Home Advisory Council. And they also received funding as well as funding or sorry they received support as well as the heading home advisory council. And they also received funding as well as funding, or sorry, they received support as well as funding pre-commitment from the community development committee. Today brings us to May 12th, the committee of the whole where I present to you. And then on May 27th, resolutions of support will come to council to be voted on at that council meeting to support the two applications that are going through this year's cycle of funding. Finally on July 10th, MHFA application deadline arrives and then not until December will the MHFA board make those final funding recommendations. So, I'm sure many of you, all of you are familiar with the affordable housing demand that we see throughout the city of Duluth and you've probably seen these numbers before But just as a refresher The 2019 Maxfield research study found that Duluth could absorb 3500 additional units of affordable housing by this past year 2024 Within that same time frame between 2019 and 2024 Only about 330 affordable units were added to the city of Duluth. That obviously leaves a large discrepancy of between the demand for affordable units and the actual supply that was added to our city during that time. There's a new housing study that is currently underway and wrapping up here shortly, and that has confirmed as well that these demands will remain high through the next five and 10 years that even have reported that the rental vacancy rate The emergency rate for affordable housing is at 1.1% where a healthy rental vacancy rate is around 5%. So that's drastically lower. The demand remains very high for affordable housing. So that leads us to why this funding tonight supporting this funding is so important. You can see on the screen here there's a table that shows past projects in the city of Duluth that have received this MHFA funding. I'm sure many, if not all of these projects, are very familiar to you. Many of the prominent and successful affordable and supportive housing projects that have come online in Duluth in the recent years were able to happen because of this MHFA funding. If you look at the total development cost column as well as the award column, the award column is what these projects received from MHFA and if you compare that to what those total development costs for those projects are, you can see that the majority of the funding that made these projects happen, happened, came from MHFA funding. And by leveraging just a few hundred thousand dollars of local investment, all of these projects were able to receive millions of dollars in state support. That's why tonight it's essential to support these local support affordable housing project applications so that they too can harness this vital funding opportunity from the state. With that, I will transition into talking about the two applicants that we have this year for the MHFA funding. The first is Decker 2. This is proposed by OneRoof Community Housing. If you can see, I know it's kind of small, but the map on the right there shows that the location of this project is right off of Decker Road, just south of Millar Hill Mall and the target area. It's also directly adjacent to Decker dwellings, the first phase in this Decker development by OneRoof. Decker 2 will be a new affordable apartment development of 40 to 50 units. The units will be comprised of one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom apartments, with most of those being two and three bedrooms, which will cater more towards families. All of the units have rent and income restrictions below 60% AMI for 50 years, but most of them have income restrictions at 30% and 50%. At least four units are designated for high priority homeless individuals as well as five units are designated for families with disability. One roof is working with family rise together to provide the services for those nine units. As I alluded to before, this project requested $400,000 of... for those nine units. As I alluded to before, this project requested $400,000 of community or of HUD pre-commitment funding from the Community Development Committee, and they did get that pre-commitment from the Community Development Committee last month. It's estimated that the total development cost of this project will be $20 million and a few of the other local support in this project includes that HRA pre-committed 20 units of project-based rental assistance through their Bring It Home program. St. Louis County is supporting them with housing supports for the four high priority homeless units and one roof will be providing their own land for this project. On to the next. So our second application in this year's cycle is the Mission Heights Housing Project by Union Gospel Mission. This project is located, will be located on West Second Street and North Third Avenue West. There's existing surface parking lot right now. It's across the street from the government services building. In this project would consist of 40 units of permanent supportive housing for single adults experiencing or at risk of homelessness. It will be in the same building as the future UGM engagement center, where the engagement center and the dining hall will be on that first floor of the future building with the second and third floor being the mission heights housing project. They too requested $400,000 of pre-commitment HUD funds from the community development committee and they went through with that. the local development cost they estimate to be just above $16 million for this. And they have also received support from the HRA for $250,000 of home ARP funding and Dita has supported with a land contribution. That wraps up my presentation for you here. Now I'll open it up for questions about the process itself, or if you do have questions on the two projects, I believe we have two representatives from the applicants that can probably answer those questions a little more detailed than myself. Thank you for your presentation. We'll start with Councillor Randolph. Thank you so much, President Tamanik. Thank you, Manager, a fan cook for the presentation. I have a question for you on the project for Union Gospel Mission. The $16 million project for 40 efficiency apartments. They're overall engagement center. I think is somewhere maybe south of 30 million. If they don't get the additional funding for that engagement center, does this project, is this project at risk for this particular funding or is that decoupled? Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Caleb Anderson. I work for the Duluth HRA. We're serving as the developer on this project alongside Union Gospel Mission. And yeah, we are hoping to show 50% commitment for the engagement center within our application of Minnesota housing in order to have a strong application. That's not going, things aren't going so smoothly down at the legislature to get that commitment, but we'll proceed with an application of Minnesota housing in any case this year. Sometimes it takes more than than one year to seek those funds. Thank you Councillor Randolph. Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Tomaneck. I have a question regarding the home funding and any other funding coming from our community development. That's usually federal funding. So could you let me know if that funding is for this fiscal year or you're still applying? So will any of the changes at the federal government impact this project? That President Tamanik, Councillor Kennedy, thank you for that question. That is a great question. And I think that's beyond the scope of my knowledge of how the federal funding will impact our 2026 funding allocations. But to be clear, this would be for the 2026 HUD allocations, and it would be pre-commitment funding. Maybe manager, Hobbs. Yeah, do you have any more information on how the money would flow in or anyone as far as the projects and the funding? How, when you're going to be applying, I know there's always unknowns, but it's more unknown this time around. How would these projects be impacted? The federal government should say no. President Tamanik, Councillor Kennedy, that's a conundrum that we come up to every year when we look at pre-committing these funds. Fiscal year 2026, those funds will likely not be approved until this coming fall. We are an entitlement community, so CDBG and HUD funds come to us every year and every year for the last 50 years. And we are hopeful, and it's one of the reasons we are constantly advocating for the importance of these funds and what they do in our community. But yes, you are right. It does need to be approved at the federal level and we expect that not to come until the fall, but we are hopeful that we will get the same allocation that we have or similar allocation we have in the last couple of years. Thank you, Director Van Tassel. Thank you, Manager Hobbs. I did not see Director Van Tassel back there. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, Director Van Tassel. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Tamanik. Thank you for the presentation. I think we have a couple of really good applicants this year. My question is, so there were only two applicants this year. Does that make our proposal for M-HFA stronger with fewer applicants? And then secondly, did any of the applicants from last year knowing there weren't any awards on that list from 2024? Did they reapply or either of those that were seeing in front of us today, applicants that came in 2023 or 2024 I should say President Tamanik Councillor Mayo To answer your second question the Application that went through last year. I believe there was one and That is not represented it represented in the two applicants that we see this year They you're correct. They did not receive funding in 2024. The 2024 cycle. And your first question about whether was it increased their odds of- Their odds if there's fewer applicants. I would say if there are fewer applicants statewide than yes, I don't know how they select by, if it's by region or if it's purely by application versus application, I can look into that though. Sounds good. remind can you remind me if you remember, or Tom, Mr. Church, if you remember the applicant from last year that didn't get funded? Yeah, President Tomonic and Councillor Mayrote, last year's application was Faith Haven Apartment. It was for a rehab of that facility. And they're estimating I think the total development cost around $30 million. They had applied. That was their second application that was unsuccessful and I know we've got a representative one roof here who can speak more to that. But my understanding is that now one roof will be seeking other alternative funding for that project. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Concerts any other questions? Thank you for the presentation. Any final words for us? Just a reminder that these resolutions will come before you next meeting at May 27th. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. We have a little time left in the morning. So, things we can get out of here. Thank you. We will reconvene at 6 o'clock for our regularly scheduled City Council meeting. I'm sure a lot of water can't be used in water. Yeah. I think it's in the pond. You know, it's to just see a manual. Yeah, you can see it. I ain't got anything. I don't know. Yeah I'm always nervous about crashing these to Yeah. the I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to see to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. 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Like I said, I'm going to have to the next floor. to the the I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. the I I know it's a big family of our families. It's much of a family of our families. We're all out today to stay close to our friends. We're here to thank our friends. We're here to thank our friends. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to have to go. to Yeah. to Yeah. Yeah. Well, now I'm going to point to the training. I'm going to point to the training. I'll just run really well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure if I can do that right now. to I'm going to go to the next slide. Yeah. I I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next slide. The the the I'm going to go a speaker. I'll be a speaker. I'll be a speaker. All the other people's that go to the I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a The Good evening. We will begin our meeting in one minute. If you are here to speak during public comment, please remember to sign up near the clerk's desk and you will have three minutes to speak. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the Duluth City Council will now come to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. Councilor All. Councilor Derwakter. Councilor Forzman. Councilor Randor. Councilor Kennedy. Councilor Mayo. Councilor Swenson. Vice President Neffu. Here. President Tamanik. Here. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. A pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The agenda for this evening's meeting is posted on the bulletin board at the back and copies are available at the rear of the chambers. For those watching on public access TV, the agenda for this meeting is available on the city's website at www.duluthmn.gov. Livestreaming can also be found on our website under City Council media. Citizens in the audience, I said this, who are wishing to speak, please sign up at the sheet located near the clerks. Please turn off your cell phones while you're in the council chambers. In memory and honor of past President René Vanette, I will read the tools of civility. The Duluth City Council promotes the use and adherence of the tools of civility in conducting the business of civility. The Duluth City Council promotes the use and adherence of the tools of civility in conducting the business of the council. The tools of civility provide increased opportunities for civil discourse, leading depositive resolutions for the issues that face our city. We know that when we have civility we get civic engagement. And because we can't make each other civil and we can only work on ourselves, we state that today I will pay attention, listen, be inclusive, not gossip, show respect, seek common ground, repair damaged relationships, use constructive language, and take responsibility. And next, we will look for a motion to approve the minutes. I'm sorry. We'll move that. Councillor Aul moved that. Second. Second by Councillor Kennedy. Opposed? Sam sign. Prove it the minutes passes 90-0. Next we have a public hearing for the assessment roll for sanitary sewer extension for first street. We'll open that hearing now. If there is anyone that would like to speak on the assessment roll for sanitary sewer extension for first street, please come forward. Second call if there is anyone who would like to speak for assessment role for sanitary sewer extension for first street please come forward. Third call. If there is anyone who would like to speak for the assessment role for sanitary sewer extension for first street please come forward. Hearing none that hearing is closed. Next we have reports from the administration. Mr. Staling. the meeting, Council President Tamanik, members hearing is closed. Next, we have reports from the administration. Mr. Staling. Good evening, Council President Tamanik. Members of the Council, I have nothing to report this evening. Thank you. Next, we have opportunities for citizens to be heard. Clicked in them, do you want to call the first person, please? First speaker, Justin Vogel. Good evening, you have three minutes to speak and I will tell you when you have thirty seconds left. Thank you, Justin Vogel. Thank you very much. I'm Justin Vogel. I was before you two weeks ago regarding an interviews permit. I'm hoping you guys can reconsider, which is allowed by Rule 10 in the city council standing rules. I feel that our discussion last week, the appeal, the Nile failed to contain pre-1958 findings on non-conforming use. I had presented a grandfathered in discussion analysis from my attorney Bradley Sheppie, former minitone, minitone for city council member. And the findings failed to comment on address or find that information inconclusive. The Louis City Council has options in its reviews. It doesn't even just vote up or down. It can make determinations that themes appropriate per code. So I'm hoping one of you will make a motion to reconsider, not make an immediate decision. But based on new evidence submitted by staff at the time regarding their aerial photography and since I've met which weren't shared in advance are allowed to be debated. I've since searched arioles and now believed that evidence showing a driveway and cars in the front yard prior to 1959 and the 1977 construction. So it's my hope that you City Council will motion to send this back to planning commission so that they can review the of it all evidence stated provided by staff provided by me and re-decided on this. and any issue with a extension and a deadline I formally request the extension to be allowed as the applicant. Thank you. During this three minutes we don't answer any questions we just allow you to speak. Okay. I mean last thing I guess going further into non-conforming use. The city code pre-1958 does include some extensive details on addressing non-conforming use and its existence. So it's not a weird thing. And that is a items just may not be modified or expanded pre-1958. And that's me. Thank you. Next clerk denim. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Janet Crowe. I'm retired from the U.S. EPA dilute laboratory where I served for 16 years as Associate Director for Science. This evening you will be considering a resolution to support the EPA Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division, staff, and their mission. And I urge you to do so. The EPA National Administrator has announced plans to reorganize the research arm of the EPA and significantly reduce the staff and funding that will impact the Duluth staff, their mission, funding and facility. Duluth has many several very important industries that include medical housing, clearly shipping, retail, tourism, education, and others. Freshwater Science is also an important industry in our city as well. Freshwater Science is conducted by the University of Minnesota Swenson College, the Large Lakes Observatory, the NRI, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, DNR, NOAA Coastal Management Division, and Sea Grant, and of course, the EPA Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division. I would say that of all these freshwater programs, EPA program has the largest level of staffing and funding and impact to our city. The EPA lab brings in about $14.5 million into the economy of the city through staff salaries, student stipends, facility contracts for both maintenance and improvements. The staff are spending their paychecks here and the division is hiring local businesses for its contracting work. But more than that, the EPA division is the only dedicated freshwater research support for the U.S. EPA and staff conduct research highly relevant to protecting lakes of purier, the estuary, and freshwater supplies throughout the U.S. The toxicology program is world famous and has done ground breaking work on endocrine disruptors, PFAS, mercury, and other contaminants in freshwater to help us understand the effects on aquatic life and in many respects human health as it's informed by the effects on fish and frogs. The EPA staff actively partner with other loose science organizations and actively fund a training program to grow the next generation of freshwater experts. And most of these budding scientists want jobs in Duluth because they love living here. The EPA staff are all public-minded professionals and when they get off work, they volunteer in their churches and sports in the parks, various civic organizations. The local science organizations do not have the funding or capacity to absorb these folks if they get fired. And many will leave the dilute area. This would not only be a brain drain, but a drain of smart people helping our community. You have 30 seconds. The resolution before you will send a strong message to our Minnesota State and national elected officials and will give morale support to the many staff and students who work at the lab. It's not too late to make a difference in keeping this robust program in Duluth. Let's keep this important program and all its science benefits working for our community. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you for your comments. And would you mind stating your address or your zip code? 5503. Thank you. Thank you for your comments and would you mind stating your address or your zip code? 5503. Thank you Clicked denim next speaker next speaker is Ann Murray Edwards Good evening counselors I'm Ann Marie Edwards and my husband and I live at 210 Waddena Street and are opposed to the rezoning at 2732 Woodland Avenue. My parents bought that home there 57 years ago because of the quiet residential street and the woods behind it. And all four generations of my family have been exploring those woods behind us. We are concerned about access into out of those condos, especially for those that would be living there. The woodland curve can be very dangerous with the amount of traffic when people are going to and from work and there has been a bad accident at that curve in the past. At that planning meeting it was mentioned about a survey with the amount of cars using woodland at certain times. My question would be when was that study done? Before when woodland was four lanes or after construction last year, when it was two lanes and a bike lane. There is no turning lane when you head up woodland avenue at the entrance to those condos. And drivers shouldn't be in the bike lane to turn into those those condos. I think that backup of traffic is real when talking to Woodland Avenue residents. The price quoted for the one-to-two bedroom condos are very high and they're for not affordable for many people. We are empty nesters, but we won't be selling our home to move into those condos because it's not affordable to us. We are concerned about what will happen their property value in taxes. The initial meeting about the condos was on a Monday at noon with little chance of working citizens to attend it. Also, there was confusion about dates for that meeting and we were notified with the flyer in our mailbox. Apparently not everyone in the neighborhoods were notified about that meeting. And there's also confusion as to the address of the property. The planning committee has the address of 2732 Woodland Avenue, but titanium has the address of 5130 Woodland on the documents that they've distributed in the past. There are concerns about the number of very old oak trees that affects the tissue or creek in the recent fish kill and the light pollution that will happen. There will probably be rock blasting so we're concerned about the effects on our houses, foundation and walls. And there's been an online petition which has about 1400 citizens who signed it because they are opposed to the rezoning. All of the neighbors who hold around this area are residential, family homes and this should tell us that these citizens would like to keep it that way. Thank you for your concern. Thank you. Next we have Kelly Higgins. Good evening. Good evening. Hello members of the Delus city Council. My name is Kelly Higgins and I'm a physician assistant at Ascensha Health. These are my colleagues, Caitlin John Campbell and Eleanor Jones. We're here today to make sure the City Council is aware of a serious issue that's happening at Ascensha and ask for your support. Nearly a year ago, advanced practice providers voted to unionize at Ascension. Our union includes over 400 APPs. That's PA's nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and clinical nurse specialists. Ascension didn't want us to be unionized, and so they fought us in court. We had a hearing with the NLRB in which the NLRB determined that our bargaining unit was in fact valid and allowed us to proceed forward with forming a union. We were certified with M&A as our representatives in August of 2024. And following that election, Ascent appealed to the National NLRB to reverse the decision of the Regional NLRB. This is a process they realize will take several years and currently the National NLRB is incapacitated by the recent federal changes that leaves us in limbo. During this time that the appeal is pending, the NLRB has made it clear that it it is essentially legal obligation to bargain with the APPs and to refrain from making unilateral changes to our employment. Specifically, I'll share a quote from the NLRB's notice of bargaining obligation. This states that even in light of the pending NLRB review requested by the employer, the bargaining obligation is so, even if the employer files objections to the election, pursuant to Section 102.69 of the rules and regulations of the National Labor Relations Board. If the objections are later overruled, and the Labor Organization is certified as the employee's collective bargaining representative, the employer's obligation to refrain from making unilateral changes to bargaining unit employees' terms and conditions of employment begins on the date of election, not on the date of the subsequent decision by the Board of the Court. Our concern is that Ascente is refusing to bargain with APPs or provide any of the information requested for bargaining. We have no recourse at this time as the national NLRB is defunct and we are asking for community support. Again, as a reminder, Ascente's actions are currently in direct violation of labor law and they go against instruction they've received since the time of our election from the NLRB indicating instruction to bargain with us. We as healthcare providers at Ascente Health provide care to our community. We live here, we work here, and we want to stay in this community. We need your help in standing up to our employer right now. Ascente asks a lot of this council and is the end of the people of Duluth. Minnesotans and Duluthians provide taxpayer support to Ascensha as a health care. 30 sections. Our ask of you respected council members is to say no to Ascensha when they come to you requesting taxpayer support. No until they meet with the APPs at the bargaining table. We deserve to have our employer respect the law and respect our rights. Thank you for hearing us and for representing us in the community. Good evening. My name is Jessica Thiel. And thank you for allowing me the chance to speak tonight. I'm here speaking on behalf of myself and many of my neighbors on Lindsey Road and Howard Ganeson Road next to and near Binyard Church. I live on Lindsey Road with my husband and two young children. I'm here to comment on the proposed homeless interim outdoor living site to be held in the rear parking lot of Binyard Church. Myself and my neighbors have many concerns about the proposed plan. This permit is going before the Planning Commission tomorrow to be approved or denied. I'm here to talk about our biggest concern at the moment, which is the need for a dense urban screen between vineyard property and adjacent residential use. Many neighbors live next door to the vineyard church and have houses and backyards that look out directly on the rear parking lot less than 80 yards away. The distance between the back parking lot and private property is about 20 feet. There's little vegetation on the north, east, south, and most of the west property lines of the Vineyard Church property. The sparse and spaced out trees and vegetation on adjacent property do not meet the city requirements for a denserbens screen. The applicant is refusing to provide a denser dense urban screen as required to protect the privacy and city planning staff empowered the applicant to believe that they did not have to provide one. Without a dense urban screen there will be no buffer and no screening of the noise, car headlights, potential trespassing issues and many other negative impacts that would instead be mitigated if a dense urban screen was installed. This This outdoor living site will allow up to 50 people and their pets to stay, sleep, and live outside in the parking lot from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. every day for six months of the year. Chum themselves state that unless it extends the entire property line, privacy fencing presents security and logistical problems for a program that depend on clear sight lines. The city requirements state a dense urban screen must be provided along the shared lot line with the residential use. A dense urban screen along the lot lines would accomplish security and logistical goals for the Safe Bay program, as well as the required city code. Safe Bay program operators openly admit that it would be safer to have a fence around the entire property like the ordinance requires. However, they admit that they will not provide the record fencing or screening because it's not financially feasible. Alacab funds is not an appropriate reason to forego City Codes just like other applications for other projects cannot refuse to follow codes and standards for financial reasons. These images of brought for you to see are taken by homeowners from a variety of vantage points from the northeast to the northwest of property lines, backyards, and views from homes. As you can see, there is no dense urban screening from these scattered mature trees. And you can see in one photo there's the four foot temporary snow fencing that the church is using to delineate property lines. It's already fallen down in the few days that it's been up. This is not an appropriate substitute for proper screening. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Madam, do we have other speakers? Yes. Next we have Dawn Buck. Good evening. Good evening, Councillors. Thank you so much for taking the time to read the letter that I crafted with my neighbor's past turner who is the leader of Minnesota 0.50 and my neighbor Paul Troyer who is a program committee director of our Minnesota 0.50. We are park pointers where passionate about the water and the land and we have been working for decades to preserve its waters and we really need good science to make really good decisions. So our request tonight is that you support the resolution. For many of the reasons, the previous speaker stated that we cannot make good decisions without good science. I guess is what I'm trying to say. We recently formed a nonprofit called Minnesota Point 50 and we're doing a strategic plan which will make Park Point resilient into the future. And we want to honor the scientists who have been working for years at that lab by supporting them now. We have a lot of messes yet to clean up up the river and we have a lot of unknowns moving forward. And without good science, without good data, we will not be able to make good decisions. So thank you for supporting the resolution we felt strongly about this. We wanted all come in person to tell you how important it is to support the EPA lab in Duluth, Minnesota at this time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next't. That's okay. If you can hear me okay. Yes. Okay. That's great. All right. My name is Robin Manila and I live at 121 West Red Wings Creek and in Duluth, Minnesota 55803. I wish to bring to your attention an email that was sent to the Duluth City Council by Woodland resident Matt Patterson around 2 a.m. this morning. Based on the arguments further outlined in that letter, I urge you to reject the proposed zoning and redevelopment plan for 2732 Woodland Avenue from residential R1 to residential plan RP. based on clear violations of current city zoning code to summarize. Both R1 and RP zones permit only three main types of residential housing, single family homes, duplexes and town homes. Per city code 50-20.1 B5, town homes are explicitly limited to a maximum of eight units in any zone. However, the RP proposal calls for 230 unit condo buildings. While there are many compelling reasons that this proposal should not be permitted, there are three critical issues that automatically disqualify the plan. One, first, it's a zoning violation Third, unit dwellings do not qualify as single family duplex or townhome developments under our zoning definitions. Number two, if they're not single family duplex or townhome, what are they? These buildings are effectively multi-family dwellings. A classification associated with apartment buildings in our code, but not permitted in R1 or RP zones. Common sense tells you that a 30 unit building is a multi-family dwelling regardless of whether the people living in it are renters or owners or a mix of both. The proposal conflicts with scale and character requirements. The RP zone explicitly requires developments to be compatible in scale and character with the surrounding neighborhood. These 30 unit buildings would be surrounded by hundreds of single family homes with the nearest department style building located a mile away. The planning Commission appears to have ignored these zoning requirements and not only approving this proposal but in fact requesting it from titanium partners. As was reported this morning in an online article by Minnesota Public Radio. Approving this rezoning would not only violate city ordinance but could expose both the city and and developer to costly legal challenges. Our community with last count 1,418 signatures opposes this plan is not against development. Many of us with welcomed development that aligns with existing zoning laws and our neighborhood's character. If the City Council instead chooses to approve this plan- You have 30 seconds. They choose to potentially violate City law. I respectfully ask that you uphold our City's zoning laws and reject this proposal. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is Claire Moirey. Good evening. Good evening. Hello. My name is Claire Mowry. I live in the Lakeside neighborhood 55804. I wanted to start by thanking Council President Tamanik for inviting me to speak and the whole Council for your time this evening. I am a member of Duluth Tennis, and I'm here to talk about Duluth right to repair. Duluth Tennis has spent the past two years talking to Duluthians. We knocked on just over 3,000 doors and made over 40,000 calls. While we were having conversations across the city are our meetings grew from five of us at our first meeting in 2023 to over 150 members at our public launch this past October. Talking to thousands of our neighbors, we've heard story after story after story. From renters who are living with holes in their ceiling, leaky faucets and back doors that don't lock. We believe all diluteheans deserve safe, dignified homes, so it was clear to us what our first campaign must be, dilute right to repair. Dilute right to repair is a simple policy, and similar policies already exist in over 30 cities and states across the US. Here's how it works. This policy makes it possible for tenants to get a set of specific repairs such as doors, door knob, shower heads, fans, faucets, poles, and other quality of life repairs completed in their homes within a cost limit if the repairs are not completed by the landlord in a designated time period. Right to repair acknowledges and dignifies the shared responsibility that tenants and landlords feel towards caring for and repairing their homes. And we need it. The reality is existing tools are important, but they're not enough to make sure repairs get done in a timely manner. For example, we know life safety staff do incredible work, but data from the city shows it takes on average 473 days to open and close a case regarding rental inspections. Even when life safety does get around to your unit, further action through court may be required to ensure the repair actually happens. No one should have to wait that long for a quick fix, especially one that would meaningfully improve their daily quality of life. And we've heard over and over from renters about small issues that later became dangerous and much more difficult and costly to address, such as small leaks that turned into mold problems. When we talk to renters, homeowners, and responsible landlords about deluth right to repair, the most common response we get is, that's common sense. And they're right. It is common sense that all of us deserve safe and dignified homes. In fact, it's so common sense that in the past four weeks our all-volunteer team of members has collected 3,598 signatures in support of Duluth right to repair. I'm here tonight to ask you to join us in passing right to repair and to invite members of the council to follow up and discuss this policy with our team. We're looking forward to working with you. Thank you. Next speaker, Natalie Chin. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Natalie and I am a renter in District 4. I moved to Duluth in 2019 for a new job and rented an apartment in Central Hillside. At first my rental experience was okay but in the middle of one night in May 2022 I woke up to water dripping on my head through a crack in the ceiling. I dutifully moved my bed out of the way, put out a bucket in towels to catch the water, and took some photos so I could report the problem to my property manager the next day. After reporting the issue, they responded quickly, and seemed to be working on a fix, at least through July. At the end of September, however, after several weeks of no communication, I contacted life safety and the hope that it would motivate some action. A city inspector came out to investigate and issued a citation, but the leak continued through the end of the year with no explanation for how or when my property manager planned to finally fix it. Instead, they canceled my maintenance request without notice or reason in December. As I waited many months for a repair, my bedroom remained only half usable, as water was still coming into the apartment. Moles grew and the walls decayed, increasing amounts of water came in through the ceiling and windows, and eventually pieces of the ceiling started to fall down. In March, with spring melt and during my bedroom, I reached back out to life safety to request a copy of their citation letter so I could start a rent escrow case. In the following weeks, life safety issued two additional citations, but there was still no action. I filed my case in April, hoping up until that day, that I wouldn't need to sue to be able to live in a safe and dignified home. At my hearing in May, I was shocked when my property manager didn't bother to show up for court, but I presented the case that I had spent days preparing. The judge issued a ruling in my favor, but it really didn't feel like justice after a year of suffering. Sowing did finally inspire action, but that meant that I had to live with repair work for the next two months. During some of the time I could see outside through my bedroom walls. This became a major repair due to the year of neglect. And yes, I got my apartment fixed, but it is unacceptable that it took more than a year. With Duluth's right to repair, I could have gone the league fixed within a month, not 12. With Duluth's right to repair, I would never have had to worry about mold in my apartment. With Duluth's right to repair, it would have cost less for the landlord and meant that I got to live in a safe and dignified home. I wish my story was unique, but when I talked to other renters at Duluth Tenant's meetings and while canvassing, I hear story after story about how our current system is failing us. I wish my story was unique, but when I talked to other renters at Duluth's tenants meetings and while canvassing, I hear story after story about how our current system is failing us. Duluthians and our aging housing stock deserve the common sense tool of Duluth right to repair. Thank you. Next speaker is Will Chappell. Maybe. Here is Will Chappell. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, Councillor, for my name. I'm a resident on Wadina Street. I came to the Planning Commission genuinely undecided on how I felt about the proposed development going on. And I have to say I left there feeling disenchanted. I did not receive communication from the developer that there was going to be a meeting prior to the Planning Commission. describing the rendering. I I lived very close, just on the north side of Wooddena to the proposed change. And I want it to be known that I'm not at all opposed to development going on there. I know that housing is a big issue in Duluth. I'm a first-time homeowner, and I'm very grateful for that. I know it's very difficult for many people in Duluth to own their own home. And I hope that we are providing opportunities for homeowners to be able to purchase these things. And I don't think that this proposed development is reasonably meeting the needs of our community. It proposal with the floor of $500,450,000 anecdotally does not seem to be meeting many of what is lacking in our community. It seems that changing this proposal this zoning would not benefit our community in the way that could, I think that the proposal also claims to request increased connectivity, which is already exists between Minneapolis Street and the Duluth Trippers and I believe on a NOCA. And I think that this proposal is lacking in its ability to optimize the amount of good that it can do and also really significantly diminish this sense of balance that Duluth has had of providing housing and also keeping this essence and spirit of woodland and nature and what really draws so many people to Duluth. So I think that there are other proposals that could honor that balance and spirit. And as noted in the UDC of 2035 as well, that it would be unreasonably changing this land use. So I would ask that you consider not confirming this, not in the name of having no development going there, but in the name that we can find a better solution, that balances the needs of our community, as well as this resource that is not renewable and the essence and spirit of the leaf. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next speaker is Lisa Leetam. I live or just bought a home on Minneapolis Avenue in Woodland. I want to thank you for your time speaking tonight. I also would love to urge the Council to vote against the change to the Woodland Unified Development Chapter or the UDC. The Council must consider four criteria to make this decision and the factors involved indicate this project does not meet that criteria. The first criteria for the proposed rezoning requires adherence to the comprehensive land use plan. The land use plan, Duluth 2035, calls for the area to be used as a mixture of open space and traditional neighborhood and is zoned R1. Further, the Land Use Plan specifies areas to be considered for further development and rezoning, and this particular area is not included. Therefore, this proposed project is inconsistent with the land use plan. Additionally, the proposed rezoning is not related to the previous land uses, existing land uses, or intended future land uses. The foremost objective of the UDC is to protect the integrity of the comprehensive land use plan. This rezoning request ignores the precedence set by the previous RP zones and risks undermining the utility of the comprehensive land use plan as a guiding document. The council must also consider whether the proposed rezoning is reasonably related to the overall needs of the community, to existing land use or to the plan for further land use. As the council is well aware, affordable housing is at the crisis point in Duluth. And many market rate houses are unaffordable to many residents looking to purchase a home. There is not a shortage of market rate housing in Duluth as is evident by the city's own commission study. For example, the Maxfield housing study shows that the market rate housing goals have not only been achieved, but surpassed. Additionally, there are approximately 3,000 additional units of market rate housing in the building or planning stages. In the market rate housing, Duluth surpasses its target by 392%. Objectively, there is no need to further market rate developments at this time. What we lack is affordable housing. An idea that homeowners are moving into a $500,000 condo will sell their home and suddenly have affordable prices is wishful thinking. The RP zone has typically been granted to projects affording affordable housing and not to high end properties. Historically, RP has been zoning mechanisms used to ensure small scale affordability developments is attractive and feasible. Granting RP status is unnecessary. luxury developments removes one more policy tool to encourage affordable housing developments. Thank you. That's your time. Thank you. Next speaker will Daniels. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. My name is Will Daniels. I'm also starting next week going to be a resident in the Woodland neighborhood. And I'm here to oppose this proposed rezoning. But I don't want to speak just on my first fact that I'm moving there, but what are the issues more generally? And I think we should consider what kind of criteria must be met to consider rezoning Because it should be required by either public necessity convenience general welfare or just good zoning practice Is this proposal meeting those criteria? I think it does not. In this case, no public necessity for this project has been indicated. Housing targets in the $450,000 to $700,000 range have already been exceeded by considerable margin citywide. The project does not offer any new conveniences, not already provided by the R1 designation. The project also offers no general welfare to the public, because those who are fortunate enough to afford luxury housing have many opportunities to find available high-end condos, apartments, or houses in desirable areas of the city. Rather, the project will worsen the affordability crisis by raising living costs for residents of the neighborhood and the city. Worsening the affordability crisis through zoning is poor zoning practice. Additionally, the proposed condos are incompatible in either scale or character with the surrounding neighborhood. They risk unnecessary light pollution in Hartley Park and damaged to Tisha Creek. Because the proposed rezoning is not required by public necessity, convenience, general welfare, or good zoning practice, the council should be required to vote no on the project. The fourth factor the council must consider is whether the proposed rezoning will create material adverse impacts on nearby properties. The proposed rezoning will create material adverse impacts by causing light shading, privacy issues, blocked views, light pollution, potential foundation damage of surrounding houses, and unreasonable property tax increases beyond market conditions. In particular, the heightened proximity of buildings will cause privacy issues for nearby properties. For example, an R1 house cannot look down into a bedroom window. However, a three-story condo would be able to do that. There could be foundation damage on nearby properties from rock blasting during the construction phase for underground parking, especially since some of the houses in the neighborhood are more than 100 years old. This is not an unreasonable concern as many older homes on the central hillside have sustained damage from similar rock blasting. Lastly, the condos are priced hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than most homes in the Woodland neighborhood. Thank you. The price, hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than most homes in the Woodland neighborhood, which would result in unreasonable property tax increases beyond market conditions as painfully experienced by those in other neighborhoods such as London Road and Park Point. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Margie Frems. Good evening. Hi, I'm Margie Proyce. I live on Columbus Avenue and I'm going to agree with Priva speaker and a little bit more on the zoning issues with condo development on Woodland. Council is required to consider the purpose of RP zones and the proposed project does not meet the purpose of RP zones for six reasons. First, the project does not offer any pedestrian or bike connectivity that doesn't already exist by a shorter and faster route. The proposed sidewalk is the only public amenity offered by the developer and it offers a longer, more secutive route to anywhere someone would want to walk. Secondly, the neighborhood already has a variety of the housing which we've heard about. Third, the developer has offered no unique on-site amenities, all amenities in the public proposal are off-site amenities. Fourth, there is little conservation of natural features. The developer has issued misleading statements about the extent of clearing the mature hardwood forest for the project. The development area includes close to three acres of forest. Much of the forest will have to be removed for parking lot and driveway. I served a number of years on the Duluth Tree Commission and we submitted recommendations for removal of trees for development and the City Council adopted those resolutions. However, observing recent and not-so-rescent developments, I only wonder what happened to these standards because they are clearly not being observed or enforced. And so too, it would seem that would happen here, where a piece of property is denuded of trees, which we were, on the tree commission, we were trying very hard to prevent that. And not just trees, but vegetation, it seems. Fifth, the site design does not meet RP intentions for density of space, 5.3 acres for two buildings, and cannot be considered creative. Other RP projects have achieved similar densities in a smaller footprint. Six, there is no public benefit to this project other than the offered sidewalk where woodland trail now exists. Finally, the project is incompatible in scaling character with this rounding neighborhood. The tree buffer as required by RP is insufficient to consider this project not in the neighborhood. The height of the buildings, coupled with their position on the hill, means that the condo shall be 100 feet above St. Paul Avenue street level and 55 to 65 feet above Minneapolis Avenue. I live not terribly far from the Bluestone development and I can speak to the light pollution issue there where we once had Stari Skies we could go out and even see seconds northern lights. Now we have a big light blur and need to have shades in our bedroom to keep the light away. So I would hope that you would consider that as well when discussing this matter. Thank you. And next speaker is Pasha Khan. Good evening, Councillors. My name is Pasha Khan. I live on Minneapolis Avenue and I agree with the previous speaker. As stated, the proposed rezoning does not meet the criteria of the land use plan or the UDC's criteria for an RP district. The council should not feel impeded by the plan commission's recommendations that are based on a variety of misjudgments from pedestrian connectivity to the preservation of resources to the effects on adjacent houses and an unusual interpretation of neighborhood scale and character. This proposed rezoning ignores the precedent set by previous RP projects in terms of the precedent was favoring affordable housing projects with small footprints or on entirely reused sites. It would be a very unusual RPE project. If the council votes for the proposed rezoning, it would set a precedent for any area of the city currently zoned R1 to easily be rezoned as RPE. The council has no real recourse once an area has been re-zoned. There's no stipulation that a developer could not sell the land with the new zoning or development in a different way from that which has been presented. Therefore, I would urge the council to also carefully consider all possible future uses under RP, including generous provisions for vacation rentals. Upholding the zoning codes is also a matter of trust between the city government and its residents. Homeowners purchase property with an expectation and belief in the validity of zoning ordinances. This trust is eroded by insufficient notice and dialogue between the developer and residents. Residents deserve a fair and objective process in rezoning cases, and the burden of proof should be on the developer and out of the neighborhood to prove that findings are incorrect, misleading or false. Good governance requires fair process. This, the proposed project will worsen our affordable housing crisis by creating luxury housing only a few Available only to a few which will result in negative collateral consequences for everyone else I urge the council to vote against the proposed rezoning to protect the validity of our guiding documents Zoning codes Objecting housing measures and the integrity and character of our neighborhood in Hartley Park Thanks Thanks for your time and consideration. Thank you. All right, next speaker is Cheryl Fosterick. Good evening. Good evening, Councillors. I'm gonna encourage us all to do better here. I would like to encourage the council to encourage the planning department to do better. There are models that do not exceed 30 feet as in R1. There are models that are high density, low rise models that have many European standards that value outside space and inside space equally, that have as other values oversight of neighborly activities, that have as other values durability of materials. And, you know, it's a sad thing, but affordability these days to first home professional young people whose families are growing is in fact a 300 to 450,000 dollar house. It's unfortunate we've gone 42% above the cost of cost per square foot of building since prior to COVID and this is a fact. So I don't see this project that we're talking about as anything in particular exotic, or I do find it to be really poor quality when it comes to space making, when it comes to the humanity of living. It's still a little bit of an American dream to own your own home. And besides thinking about ways to build homes differently and to organize place differently, place making differently, we also have to think about new ways of financing. I think we have to consider cooperative financing. I think we have to consider board management, board management by people who are not members of the homeowners. I think we have to look at completely utterly different models for serving this community with housing. That people can't afford, that they can live in and expect durability out of. And in communities like this and our one communities where we have a lot of topographical change, I can tell you absolutely certainly a small footprint can negotiate that topography. In a very very agile manner with very little movement of soils with probably no blasting on this site at all and if you talk about a walkable community you can consolidate parking and you can give order to these communities through walkways by consolidating parking you have less drive zone you less movement space. There are an infinite number of improvements that can be made to a project like this. But you have to start with an idea about what's good, not an idea about what's RP and what's R1. And are we making RP and R1? I say, let's go back to the planning and zoning and ask them to really learn about high density low rise housing. We don't have it here and we should. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is David Shinfroth. Good evening. Good evening, counselors. My name is David Schaffroth and I live in Zipco, 558.07. I'm co-lead of NSY, a local nonprofit which advocates for housing abundance in the region. The Duluth of today is not the Duluth or 1971 or 1982. Thanks to the efforts of elected leadership in Duluth, the work of the legislature and especially the work of Duluthians whose everyday lives contribute so much to the greatness of our city, Duluth has become an extremely desirable place to live. Being a desirable place to live is not without trade-offs. There is a greater demand to live in Duluth than a supply of homes where the city of Duluth will permit individuals to live. Just like purchasing a vehicle, new homes tend to have a price premium over used homes. The quality of homes depreciates over time. Roof's need repairs, windows need replacing, your washers rubber gasket wears out. Because most families own one home at a time, when you permit more new homes you create more used homes. These used homes come with a price discount versus new homes. This price discount makes used homes more accessible to individuals earning a wider range of incomes. When a family moves from an apartment home to their first used home, that family frees up their previous apartment home for a new family to move into. These chains of moving mean that more new homes create more used homes, which in turn creates more apartment homes of higher quality available for rent at a lower price. These benefits disproportionately accrue to renters in the bottom quartile of income, individuals who make too much for public housing, but not enough to purchase a used home. For supply constrained, desirable city like Duluth, the flow of homes, the rate at which new homes are permitted as a percentage of total existing housing stock, is the primary determinant of the cost and quality of all housing units available, especially the lower priced units that individuals earning lower incomes live in. A healthy home market with increasing home quality and decreasing home cost has a flow of homes above 4%. At a flow below 2%, a market will see increasing prices and decreasing quality in its four-sale and apartment homes. According to the data of the City of Duluth's most recent housing indicator report, the flow of homes in Duluth is 0.83%. As a renter in Duluth, I urge this council to make my rent more affordable by saying yes to the proposed new homes in Woodland. As a co-lead of NSY, I urge this council to examine what reforms it can adopt so that it could have said yes to this woodland project over a year ago. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Our last speaker is Tony the next floor. Good evening. Hi. My name is Tony Guerrero. I live on 1514 Lindsey Road. I am speaking to you all tonight in regards to the proposal. Proposed safe pay homeless outdoor living site at 1533, West Arrowhead Road at the venue church. I believe that standards and codes keep communities safe. They hold individuals, organizations, and government entities accountable. Legally, it is unwise for the city to proceed with granting this interim use permit due to descriptions between operators planned and the ordinance. The operators application states no alcohol, cannabis, or drug use on the vineyard property within two blocks of vineyard property. Driving while in Taekski and you will not be tolerated and no weapons, no violence And no threats of violence. Has the city reviewed their policies and their plan to implement these? Trump's Safe Bay frequently asked question sheet alluded that they may not carry out the policy because, quote, everyone has bad days. Again, what is the city's plan to enforce the permit and to make sure there's an alignment and accountability to what is stated in the application? As for onsite staff, the applicant noted two members of Chum Staff or one member of Chum Staff and one or more trained vetted volunteers will be present during all hours of operation. If monitoring all activities of people up to 50, enforcing quiet hours, drug and alcohol policies and non-violence policies are responsibilities being managed by volunteers, has the city scrutinize the operators volunteer vetting and training process. It is the city comfortable with the level of liability on volunteers. There is a description between the application in which the operator states the hours will be from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. Public statements in which they say it will be maybe 9 a.m. Legally if they intend to stay open until 9 a.m. the permit application must be amended. How will the city enforce a permit now that misinformation about operating hours has been diseminented to the public? If their evidence of residents staying longer in 8 a.m., will the city pull the permit for the operators' failure to comply with the code? Has the city analyzed the operator's plan to enforce quiet hours? Here are some additional questions just to consider please. One, the applicant mentions developing plans for an exterior and interior security cameras. Has the applicant communicated when those will be installed? The Safe Bay frequently asked question states that 5-20.1 permit We're designed to be reviewed annually to allow for feedback 30 seconds feedback from the program participants law enforcement and neighbors as the city done their due diligence and gathering Or in reviewing feedback from the neighbors by which method of these these feedbacks ascertain three people experiencing homelessness are significantly more likely to be victims of crimes and under perpetrators of crimes according to safe base frequently asked questions the police department has already been experiencing staffing shortages will safe base spread already already then shortages even further and for if the site is located directly and that is your time. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening. And that concludes our public comment. We will move on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? moved by nephew seconded by Kennedy any discussion all those in those in favour? All right. Opposed? Same sign? Consent agenda passes. 9-0. We move now to resolutions that are up for consideration at this time. Councilloranger, will you read in and under purchasing and licensing please? Portette at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the Federal Administration preserve the Duluth Minnesota Office of Research and Development and its freshwater mission. And if I may. Are you making a motion? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. One second. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Moved by Director's seconded by Randolph. Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to give my explanation that I gave at the agenda session seeing is how we now have all of the council here. My reason for bringing this forward was that this research building is located in my district. And I was receiving a lot of pressure from people that work there or have been retired from working there and other folks in the community as well as mostly in my district. And so that is why I decided to bring this forward. I would recognize that we have many government entities that are at threat of being cut, but this was to get the ball rolling on being able to express strong support for this institution. There is no institution like this particular lab anywhere in the world, It's my understanding, especially at least for certain in this country. There are studies on freshwater being that we are the headwaters of the largest freshwater deposit on Earth. Makes this lab inspired to do research that hasn't been done elsewhere. And so I just want to express my strong support for voting yes on this resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dure-Walker. Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Tamanik and thank you, Councillor Dure-Walker. I am planning to support this, but I do think we might have a little discussion on it. So it's a respectful for the folks who are here for the zoning request since that's the majority of people. I'm going to make a motion to move this to the end of our agenda. Is there a second? Moved by Forzman, seconded by Swenson to move this. Do we need to on this we do we do all right all those in favor say aye I opposed same sign okay we will move this to the end of agenda moving on to Councillor male can you read in for public works Yes. That's my mic on. There we go. Thank you, President Tamanic. Item 13, resolution 400 is accepting permanent easement for street and utility purposes from the regions of the University of Minnesota, over under and across certain real property in the Chester Park, UMD neighborhood at no cost to the city. And if I may, yes. President Tamanic, I will be abstaining from this resolution due to my employment with the university. Is there someone that would move this in? Councillor Awele, seconded by Councillor Kennedy. Any discussion? Councillor Forzmann, did you have,? Okay. And Councillor Mayo, you're done also? Okay. Then seeing no more discussion, we'll bring this to the vote. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. The motion passes eight with one abstention. Next resolution, please. Item 14 resolution 401 accepting permitting easement for utility and drainage purposes from the regions of the University of Minnesota over under and across certain real property in the Chester Park, UMD neighborhood, at no cost to the city. And I'll also be abstaining from this one. Is there someone that will move this in? Move. Moved by Kennedy, seconded by. Second. Randolph, discussion. Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Same, oppose, same sign. The resolution passes eight with one abstention. We will next move to ordinances to be read for this second time and vice president Nefu. Thank you. Item 15 ordinance eight in ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of Duluth to reclassify the parcel described as 010-4680-01265 from residential traditional R1 to residential planned RP so moved. 0 second. Moved by nephew seconded by Swenson. Discussion? Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll take. Go ahead. Councillor Swanson. Thank you, President Somani. Sorry. So, thank you to the speakers that came to night to speak. There's been a lot of public engagement on the matter, so we do appreciate that, and it just shows the value of making good decisions in our community. So with it, I feel that the zoning change isn't strong alignment with the cities, future land use. And I feel like they've done thoughtful steps in really addressing our shortage of housing in our community. So I greatly appreciate that. and Woodland was listed as a core investment area on a comp plan in 2018. So I think it's really important to evaluate that and where we are putting our efforts in our research. So the public necessity to me is clear and that we need more housing. And so the rezoning also supports general welfare of our housing stock increasing our tax base, which is important in our community, and it's also limiting environmental impacts in my opinion with the compact development. So the neighborhood connectivity has been addressed, so I would support rezoning the project. Thank you, Councillor Spence and Councillor Derr-Walker. Thank you, President Tamanik. I also want to thank all of our speakers today. I want to thank the seemingly, what seems like hundreds of emails I've received from all the people in my district, as well as people from around the community. I want to appreciate all the people that have called very passionately and left voicemails as well. I am opposed to this rezoning. I recognize Woodland is a in the core investment part of the planning of the I, the imagine 2035. However, Woodland is a very large neighborhood and that does not mean that we need to rezone this particular small parcel for this particular project. I have studied the map, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan map for the Imagine 2035 extensively. This portion is not discussed as being anything different than R1. I recognize you can put an RP over that, but additionally, there is a discrepancy in the UDC as to whether an RP zone may have multi-family units of this scope. There is one place where there's a little chart that says you may with approval. There is in the definition of residential planned, it only lists single family and duplexes and townhomes. So condos of this scope are not allowed. So that's very troubling. I know it was brought up by Commissioner Eckenberg at the Planning Commission meeting. People chose to go forward with their decision. I am in disagreement with that decision. I think we should be very clear. So that is another reason I am voting this down. Another reason is that this does not fit seamlessly into the neighborhood. This building of 75 units is very obviously different than single family homes. It's a very small portion of that neighborhood. The entire surrounding neighborhood is all single family homes. And so in my opinion, it's alarming to even consider rezoning for this. Also looking at a map, I forget what it's called, but the map where you can see the values of the homes in the neighborhood, they are all much lower priced than 450 to 600,000. And so I am very concerned that this rezoning will harm those property values, the property taxes, and so it will cause harm to the community surrounding it. So those are my three very important reasons. I'm also very concerned that this could become a precedent for rezoning wooded areas in Duluth, while we have a lot of space available in other parts of town that have blight and empty buildings that would be perfectly suitable for dense housing. And I must mention that I support dense housing very much. I think it's a very good thing for the community and for the environment. I personally enjoy living in dense housing. Not that that matters, but I don't feel it fits into this particular part of the community. And I'm concerned that this will set a precedent. It's, the speakers today mentioned a lot of really important facts. Like RP has never really been used for a project of this scope historically. There were a lot of, you all heard the comments, so I'm not going to repeat them, but I found them all to be very valuable, and I urged the council to listen. I'm concerned that the planning department has been putting out decisions that are compromising the community's trust. I'm hearing this around the community, not just in district one, but everywhere. And if we vote yes to this rezoning, it will further erode the public's trust in our planning department. And with that, I will yield. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derwockter. Councillor Neffue. Thank you, President Tamanik. So, I'll just address some of the home sale information, obviously with my professional career, I have some access to the Lake Superior Association of Real Tourist Statistics. So currently in Duluth, we have 75 homes for sale with the average price of 435,000. When we break down the zip codes of 55804, 55803, 55802, which are the zip codes that surround this development. You're looking at a median price, a $757,000 for a sale price. Also, currently we have average five days on the market for home sales, which we are running very long inventory. 75 homes isn't enough for us to have a meaningful supply. So then to break down some condo units. It was hard to even find stuff that has been for sale in the last year. But like developments, when you look downtown, you're looking at 486 to 735,000 for sale prices. You can look at Maple Ridge, which might be somewhat comparable, and you're looking at about 625,000 Lester River, which would be about 520,000 to buy a condo. So I'd actually argue these aren't crazy in price When you really break down that side of town as far as what's available So when we break down the houses that you could build there Planning had said that they average about 48 homes per acre, which brings it to 32 to 64 single family housing units. But I would remind people under R1, you can also do duplexes, which would actually be 64 to 128 units that you could actually do up there. And I think this development is proposing 66. Just to give you some basic numbers on the housing data that's there. So if you look at the National Association of Realtors, the average age of a home buyer right now is 38 years old, which is the highest it's ever been and is basically because people can't achieve that goal. The average age of a home seller is 63 and statistically those are seniors and when you look at ARP and their statistics for senior housing 51% of all seniors want to stay in their community and their number one need is accessibility So that means making sure that lawn and snow removal is being done by someone else So we need those types of things the truth is within the housing market people leave one property that was the first time home buyer home, move to the move up buyer, and then move to senior housing. And that's the nature of it. So those are just some fun housing statistics that I can provide. But let's go to the traffic part of it. Currently you have eight to 9,000 cars going down Woodland Avenue and they built that road along with the traffic calming measures as was shared at agenda session a couple weeks ago for 15 to 20,000 cars. So it was actually designed for that. When we talk about Parkland, this is one of my fun facts I got from Mr. Philby Williams, for Duluth, Minnesota, per 1,000 people in the population, we have 105.7 acres of parkland. We're like communities like Bend, Oregon, 31.8, St. Claude, Minnesota is at 16.4, Fayetteville, Arkansas is at 48.9, Boseman, Montana is 10.6. So we have lots of parkland in town and so we really need to be thoughtful about our development. RP is meant to have a public benefit. I recently found out my son's been using the trail through there. I apologize for the honor. So people are using that and the truth is it's private land. It's not for us to use and but an RP does actually make it for us to use it. It gives the public benefit. So they're putting the trail through there which I think is pretty great and generous. Just kind of break it down. So when I look at these different things, I do think that this is a good development. I think it's something we can support. Statistically it's going to end up being a lot of seniors that will go there which will free up some single family homes in the area for other folks to move to. And the price point is not off. We are saving the trees in the sense that you're making dense area in there. And I think this is a great development. I think it's something that we need to help free up some other units for some other folks. So I encourage you all to support that. Thanks. Thank you, Vice President Nephew. Councilor Forzman. Thank you, President Smodak. First, thank you for everybody who came tonight. I don't live in the Woodland neighborhood, but I do coach my son's baseball team that uses the fields up there and my parents used the pickle ball courts in the summer too. So we spend a fair amount of time up there. So I'm familiar and know some of the challenges that that area up on the hill has. I think for some grounding, it was mentioned by some speakers, but I just really want to cover quickly how we are supposed to make decisions based on requests like this. And so we get legal guidance on how we're supposed to review zoning code changes. And our guidance that we receive is that we shall approve an application or approve it with modifications. If it's determined that number one, it's consistent with the COT plan use plan. Number two is reasonably related to the overall needs of the community to existing land use or to a plan for future land use. Number three is required by public necessity, convenience or general welfare or good zoning practice. And number four will not create material adverse impacts on nearby properties or if material adverse impacts may be created they will be mitigated to the extent reasonably possible. And then if we determine that all four of those criteria are met, the council is then bounded to adopt the recommendation of the planning commission to approve it with the conditions that were set forth. So with that said, I just want to roll really quickly through some of the common themes I heard as I read through the packet that we're given to consider what's on the public record. So number one is around the comprehensive land use plan, which I know we heard a little bit about tonight, and I won't repeat everything my colleague said, but number eight on the planning commission review and discussion item section, which is on, I think, the third page, see the second page, gets into exactly that, and it talks about how the future land use was an area of open space and traditional neighborhood that it is the interpretation that this meets that. And I think the core investment area piece is really interesting too because the first principle of the core investment area information in the comprehensive plan imagined with 2035 calls for increasing density in and around the designated core investment areas. So I, I read that and I say that that criteria is met, which is what the planning commission decided to. Number two, that it's reasonably related to the overall needs of the community. We know that we have a need for housing, so I, I will spare you the rest of my comments, but that is met. Number three, required by public necessity convenience or general welfare or good zoning practice. Density is called out many times in our comprehensive land use plan as a public benefit with a lower impact on the land. Now there is a by-right development that this property owner could do as we know with the R1 zoning, and that in the comp plan calls for a goal of four to eight units per acre. This is a 9.2 unit per acre, so you could argue that it's slightly higher, but I do think there's an argument to be made that that is offset by all of the other criteria in our comp plan calling for density, especially across corridors like Woodland. And then number four is that it won't create material adverse impacts on nearby properties. And that is the squishiest, I'll be honest, because you look at, you know, that's kind of an eye of the beholder. But I think we already heard the traffic impact, which, you you're going to do an R1 development you have at least potentially 64 more units there so you're really looking at a delta of not too many for a slight increase here. For the utilities we know that we have enough capacity for water and sewer because our public works folks confirm that. The tree plan will be under the tree preservation requirements, and this will actually protect more trees as we know than if it was an R1 stormwater requirements will have to be met as well as the shoreline setbacks so we should be okay there. For the neighborhood access, I, that one was one that I was thinking about a lot and what I appreciated about this is that there's no connection to Allen Dale. And if there was, I think we'd have a problem there, but since it's direct access off of Woodland and there is a buffer to other properties, I think it's compelling based on how the staff did their reports and what the Planning Commission decided that that is also met. There's preservation of open space. There's 30% required in an RP. We're hitting 34%. The permitted uses was brought up. And that is specifically attached to how we are voting on this tonight. So the only permitted uses that can go forward are single family, two family, townhouse, or multi-family. There's a regulating plan that comes after an RP is approved. That regulating plan does not come back to the council, but just for public knowledge and input, that can be appealed. And that regulating plan appeal would then go to planning commission and or the city council. So there is line of sight on governance if for some reason something got out of whack but the uses are baked into what we pass here. And then if I step back and I just you know look at the situation I know these are hard zoning changes. This is the hardest type of vote the council takes up and I do think there's there's ways of thinking about this differently in the future But we have to vote under the code that we have today when we consider this. And I would just say that I've never received as much communication supporting a development as I have on this one. We've certainly received our fair share of folks who have weighed in with concerns, and I understand and appreciate that. But I've never seen the volume of emails that have come to council actually asking for a development to go forward and quite a few of those were folks who live in that neighborhood. And I know that they didn't necessarily want to be here tonight, but that is something that we have on our public record to consider too. So for all of that and more, I'm going to be supporting this tonight and I recognize that that's not what everybody likes to hear tonight but it is important that we make decisions based on how it's laid out for us by our attorneys and we can't just make decisions based on emotion. We have to consider all the facts and all the facts would point me to an approval tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forzmann. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Tumannick. I'd like to also thank everyone for coming today and speaking for reaching out about this. I think the volume of emails and outreach has been astounding overall and folks are really passionate in our community about housing of all types. This is when I personally gave a lot of that to have really struggled with the components of it, but I think it's also important to frame the council's decision tonight as a quasi-judicial, more of a legal does it meet these and check these boxes decision. As councilor Forstment outlined, there are some questions that we have to answer and he went through those. I certainly think that from my perspective, we do need to be focusing a lot on affordability. I think that's something that is a really big theme for us as a city. What is also important to note with this particular development is we're not here today to vote on public subsidies. Actually, this development won't be receiving any tip for public subsidy from the city, but we're here to vote on the zoning and doesn't meet these qualifications set forth here. One thing that did strongly influence me as well was vibrant streets Duluth did give this development a B plus grade. There were some things such as affordability and some other connections that did not score as well for this development. As Ms. Fostick mentioned earlier, I think as a city moving forward especially we can do better. We can build in different ways and I think that needs to be a conversation of how do we do this in a smart way? How do we build dense housing that fits with these neighborhoods? But we're, again, we're not here to decide that tonight, but we're here to decide based on existing code and regulation. I did have questions that kind of aligned with some of the neighbors about storm water management. I did get follow up from our city staff kind of with the different components of storm water regulation that will go along with this. Obviously as the development has not moved past this stage yet, they haven't formalized what exactly that will be, but there are good solid plans of two types of storm water management to protect the creek and the stream here. Traffic volume was another concern. I did share those concerns as well as left turns out of that that lot or that area where the Development will go but in reading the materials we were provided as well as what was provided at our agenda session It sounds like there will be adequate a room to make left turns left turn lane out of that development as well as Curb cuts that were made for that development when they redeveloped the. St. Louis County did recently. Tree preservation was another theme that was brought up several times. And it's important to note that if there's not room or the developer can't feasibly find a way to replant that tree there, they also have contribution to the tree fund. Obviously, as was brought up before, I think it's a really important natural forest in this area and I ideally would like to see that remain there, but there are ways that the developer has to comply with that under the regulating plan and under city regulations. And finally, as was mentioned previously in Councillor Comments, this multifamily development would be accompanied by a regulating plan that regulating plan as mentioned again can be appealed and there are methods to looking at that regulating plan in more depth. It has not been developed yet as we make our decision tonight but that's something that does accompany these. And I would like to thank Councillor Dure-Wakter in particular knowing this is your district of all of the research you have done on this. And I really respect where you're coming from on this. For me, I see that this does check those boxes, but I'm really respectful of your decision to vote no on this rezoning as well. I think it's really important that we have this discussion as a community to start. I think that's why we're here today and we've received so much public outreach on both sides of this issue. But density is really important and as we look towards the future of our city and these core investment areas and building new housing, this type of development is going to be really important. But I also agree that we can do it better moving forward. So with that, based on the qualifications and the criteria set before us, I will be supporting this tonight. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. I will now offer a few words. I want to thank first of all the people that came to speak to this issue. We appreciate the amount of work that you have done and your concern. I also want to thank everyone who emailed us. We received many emails on both sides of this issue. But I especially want to thank my fellow councillors who did so much work on this and answered almost all of the questions that I could have asked. So now there's one thing that I feel hasn't been brought up and that's my reason for supporting this, change in the zoning map. And that is the issue of reasonable need for the community. As I've often said, I am a city councilor at large, and I try to represent everyone in this community. But I have a special place in my heart for seniors. And there are so many senior citizens who are wanting to move out of their house. It has become too much for them. And they don't want to move from one house with maintenance issues to another house with maintenance issues. Well, built or not, new or not. They want to move into something where that work is done for them and a condominium fits this beautifully. So we could talk about that this will have less impervious surfaces than building single residences that the trees will be maintained. We've talked about that all, but what I see is a real need to support our seniors in this community who like Vice President Neff you said, want to stay with them, there's a code. They want to stand to lose. And we have to provide those housing opportunities for the seniors to be able to do so. Open up their homes for sale so that young people can buy a home. We're looking for homes for professionals and working class people to move into. And this development fits the bill. I see we have another comment. Councillor Derwockter. Go ahead. Are you finished? I am. Okay. Thank you, President Tumannick. I do want to just address the issue of the regulating plan. I feel that if we're going to be making rezoning decisions based off of the fact that there's a regulating plan, we should see the regulating plan in the rezoning proposal. Voting without it seems to be a blind vote in my opinion. And I know you can appeal if you don't like the regulating plan, but appealing is very tedious, time consuming, and very pricey. And I just want to express that. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Dereuacter. Any other comments, questions before we take a vote, Councillors? Seeing none, we'll take a vote. All those in favour? This was moved by nephew's seconded by Swenson. All those in favour aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. So the resolution 8 passes 8 to 1. Thank you. Vice President nephew will you read in resolution number 5? Yes, thank you President Tamanik. Item number 16, ordinance number 5, and ordinance authorizing an electric line.ement to Minnesota power a division of elite Inc. upon over under and across real property in the Kenwood neighborhood for normal consideration so moved Move by nephew is there a second Second by Flenson Any discussion counselors Councilor Borsman. Thank you President Smonic. I will be abstaining from ordinance 5 due to the nature of my appointment with no so power. All right. Any other questions? Councillor Neffio? No. Okay. We'll call for the vote. All those in favor of ordinance number 5, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed same sign? The ordinance passes eight with one abstention. Next, ordinance number six, please. Ordnance number six and ordinance authorizing an electrical line. Isment, the Minnesota Power Division of the Elite Inc. Upon over under and cross role property in the Kenwood neighborhood for nominal consideration so moved. Moved by nephew seconded by second. Brand off. Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Monick. Same song and dance for ordinances six and seven will be abstaining due to the nature of my employment with Minnesota power. Thank you. Any other discussion? Call for the vote. All those in favor of resolution six, please signify by saying aye. Opposed, same sign. The ordinance six passes eight with one abstention. Moving on to ordinance number seven, please. Item number 18, ordinance seven, ordinance authorizing electrical line easement to Minnesota power, division of elite ink, a pawn over under and a cross-roll property in the Duluth Heights neighborhood for nominal consideration, so moved. And I'll second, moved by nephew, seconded by Tumonic, any discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Ayes. Thank you. We will go back now to resolution 41. And I believe we've already read it in and had it seconded. It was moved by der Wachter's seconded by Randolph. Councillors, questions? Comments? Councillor Forzman. Thank you. Press the following. And thank you for the procedural motion. I just wanted to have a little discussion on this. And as I mentioned, I am planning on supporting this tonight. And thank you to the folks who came and spoke about the EPA. I know a little bit more about the, some of the freshwater work through UMD than I do the EPA lab, but just knowing how important that work is and some of the things that would be lost without it, as well as the employees who would be lost, absolutely in favor of advocating for our EPA office remaining right where it is in Duluth and all of those FTs being preserved. I think one of the challenges when we get into these discussions at the Council through a resolution is that it leaves other like groups out potentially. And there's been a lot of discussion about other departments and agencies that are facing reductions, some of which are very local. And so, you know, we all get to choose the tactics which we advocate for as counselors. And I've certainly usually chosen to write letters and stop short of bringing forward formal resolutions. And so I had a thought on principle to vote against this tonight, but that would send the message I'm not trying to send. It's more about process and it is about intent. But I do think because this resolution is on our agenda, it opens up the conversation around who else should be included. And so I think a few of us have some amendments tonight along those lines. Would you like to offer your amendment now or do you want your other? All right then. Thank you. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Monick. I just wanted to speak in support of this tonight. I also share the opinion that I think there are a lot of federal impacts being felt locally. The EPA is certainly one of the largest ones in Duluth. There are 136 jobs, as was mentioned, and $14.5 million economic impact, one of our speakers mentioned today. And it's so important to our city and how it studies freshwater. And not only our city, but you also think about nationwide across the country, other freshwater communities that are relying on the research and the study that goes on at the EPA. I have several friends who work at the EPA or have worked at the EPA and knowing what happens there and the research that literally saves millions of dollars in helping preserve and protect waterways like the St. Louis River, like Lake Superior, as development happens. And I really see the EPA as being supportive of development in our region because it's helping make sure that it can be done safely and right to protect the ecology of the lake, to protect the fish, to protect the toxicology of everything. And as we look at the number of organizations that are being impacted, obviously, I think locally there might be amendments offered to this effect tonight, but obviously there's Forest Service AmeriCorps HUD, CDBG, the TSA out of the Duluth Airport, the National Weather Service, NIH funding within my district at the two college campuses, and DEI-related funding that's being threatened right now for many organizations. And when you speak about the City of Duluth in particular too, as an entity, as a city, we are facing many impacts from losing our AmeriCorps VISTAs to some of our grants that are kind of up in the air to other sources of funding that we've previously relied on and has been pretty consistent from the federal government is up in the air. But certainly very supportive and thankful for Councillor Dure-Walker for bringing this forward tonight and being that it's your district. It does make sense with the EPA here. But also just speaking to the number of federal agencies being impacted and the great work that they do for our city. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. And in response to the list of people that you listed, I would like to offer the first amendment. If we don't, I want to talk about the EPA first. If we don't protect our lake, then what have we got into loath? It's really important. Many of us were at the protests to protect our EPA workers to protest the possible loss of those jobs. We've written letters, but I also was at the protest for the letter carriers. And having been a letter carrier myself, I offer this amendment. Whereas the letter carriers of Duluth maintain the highest level of professionalism in their duties to deliver their mail in a timely and professional manner. And whereas the letter carriers of our city go above and and beyond in their duties by caring for all the residents of Duluth, having shown their generosity of heart by participating in the Stampout Hunger Campaign to collect food and funds to support our local food shelf. And whereas our letter carriers are also part of what makes this city a caring community by reporting concerns of distress for a resident to their supervisor or local postal authorities. Therefore, it is resolved that the Duluth City Council stands in solidarity with the National Federation of Letter carriers and their members, and strongly opposes any effort to reduce their numbers or privatize the USPS. So, and I would move that amendment. And Councillor Mayo's second. Discussion on the amendment? I have a discussion point that I would like to make if I could. Absolutely. Go ahead, Councillor Randolph. I'm still on that same vein and topic, so I'll just use my time for that. I just want to make it like I absolutely go ahead and come around. I'm still on that same vein and topic so I'll just use my time for that. I just want to say I'm proud to take a stand on this issue of the EPA. The downsizing of the 136 EPA workers right here in Duluth, I see that not as distant headlines but they are a direct blow. our local economy, our environment, and our future health of our people. In fact, a 2018 study by UMD estimated the lab's economic impact is 24 million per year considering the salaries, the contracts, they're spending their vital contributors to our local economy, our neighbors and our friends. The lab's work is integral to maintaining the health of Lake Superior and the Great Lakes region, the research on fresh water toxicology, including studies on the PFAS, the forever chemicals, the toxic algal blooms is critical. And it's crucial the early detection work that they're doing, the mitigation to ensure clean water. They are really at a baseline protecting our public health. Their work ensures clean water in our taps, safe air for our children. They protect and support both our tourism and our industry. So the passage of this resolution, I think, sends a clear message that Duluth values its workers, its environment, its economic stability. Local government is not powerless. We are the first line of defense when our community is under threat. Join me in voting yes and let's protect those who protect us. Thank you, Councillor Randolph. I'm gonna ask the attorney or the clerk a question. Are we limiting our discussion to the amendment before we go back to the resolution? President Randolph, it's my understanding that there may be more than one motion to amend and so you would want to take up each of those motions to amend before you decide the underlying resolution. All right. Yes. Pardon me? Right. So if there was someone that would like to speak on the amendment, we have many people with their hands up and some of those might be on the resolution. Is there someone that would like to speak on the amendment? Yes, I'm sorry? Yes. Councillor Aul. Thank you, President Tamanic. Thank you, Councillor Jorocque, for your work on bringing this forward and highlighting. You know, and really protecting your district and advocating for your district, given the EPA is in your district. Completely understand why your focus was bringing this forward. I know you, myself and Councillor Mayo, had countless discussions on also the impacts that we're feeling city-wide with AmeriCorps VISTAs being all of a sudden that's almost like, I'm not remembering the exact numbers but between 30 and 35 AmeriCorps American visitors across multiple different agencies have just been laid off terminated loss funding. And that impact is gonna be felt. I've heard from leaders at Dovetail, at Equilibrium 3, at the city of Duluth, at UMD, at just like nonprofits like CHUM as well. And so I was initially intending to also bring a resolution forward after hearing from so many folks about the loss of research, loss of funding for our VISTAs, for UMD, for our round equity. But what I'm struggling with is Councillor D'Aroctor brought forward something that very much so highlights the EPA lab and the really the impact of our community. The language in here is very specific to the EPA. And I feel like us adding to it is not going to do justice to the other organizations that need to be highlighted on its own as well. Because like I said, I was planning on bringing forward a resolution for American VISTAs and research funding and equity as well alongside Councilor Mayo. But I'm kind of getting worried if we do amend this resolution, are we changing the nature of what this is in front of us? And are we doing due justice to the organizations that we do need to highlight highlight potentially bring something forward that is kind of expansive but also highlights each organization. So I'm kind of feeling uncomfortable at the idea of potentially adding to this, you know, because I hadn't seen and the reason I didn't bring my amendment forward, because again struggling to want change the language of this when it's so heavily EPA-based as well. So I guess I don't know if I am in favor. I'm still pondering of adding amendments to this and was wondering if we should just write, like this is on our table, this is what we need a vote for, but should we consider an alternative resolution that really highlights the federal impacts, not just to, and do some digging into what other federal impacts, what are the agencies we're leaving out? My worry is we're going to add things to this right now, and there will be additional organizations or people impacted that we're going to leave out of the conversation, and I don't want that to happen either. So I guess that's where I'm struggling with supporting or adding amendments to this. Thank you Councillor O. Is there someone that would like to speak on this amendment? Yes, Councillor Derracter. It's on the amendment but it's the overall. I support the amendment. That is a lot of language that you added and it's wonderful language I supported. However, if every amendment has that amount of language, it feels unfair to the city attorney and the clerk to have to write all of this language on the fly as well as to the public. It feels unfair to the public because they should be able to read the majority of the language coming toward them in the legislature. And it's unfortunate, you know, we had an agenda session and none of these things got brought up at this agenda session. And now at the very last minute, we are putting these on the public and the entities I just mentioned and as Councillor Owl did mention it doesn't seem to do justice to all the organizations brought forward. Additionally I do know on this resolution, we have in 2005, the 148th Fighter Wing had a resolution brought forward very similarly to this resolution by Councillor Stobber and Reiner, actually, and one other who I'm not familiar with his name. And so there is a precedent for having resolutions of this nature already brought forward in the past. And so I will support amendments because in the end I'm going to support whatever happens to this resolution. But I highly recommend that we bring forward the resolutions as individuals at the next meeting perhaps. The reason I was urgent on this one is because I've learned that the EPA has already received threatening letters that are strongly encouraging them to take a retirement package. There's a lot of convoluted conversations going on because they're all scared to talk about what's happening. But from what I'm hearing from the inside is the writing is on the wall and that was where my urgency was. I personally didn't have a lot of time to be organizing a press conference and bringing this forward. The Woodland issue was very time consuming, but that was the urgency there. Anyway, I will support amendments, but I hope people will consider those things. Thank you. Councillor Derebrock. Are there other Councillors who want to speak to this amendment? Councillor Mayo? Thank you, President Tumonik. I just like to echo my colleagues' comments. I am very supportive of this amendment and would be curious what it might look like to bring forward. Separate resolutions or what it might look like if it's all combined. It's obviously a process or procedural thing, but I wanted to speak more to the amendment itself as a son of a retired letter carrier and just the importance of what's happening right now at the federal level with the postal workers in particular is that they just appointed a new postmaster general who used to work at FedEx and there's's a movement to privatize the postal service that's very real and is gaining steam every day. And as you mentioned in many of your whereas statements, the number of services that the postal service and letter carriers provide us are numerous and countless. And you don't really think about it until you realize it's a universal service that's funded completely by stamp sales and no taxpayer dollars. It's an incredible service that's provided at every edge of our community and it's at threat right now. So I just wanted to speak to that and support that really briefly tight. Thank you. Are there any other concerts that would want to speak to this issue? If not, I will say a few words. And that is, my concern of passing the resolution without amendments might say to the public, this is the only group whose federal positions are important to us. We want people to know that there are many, many groups that are affected by the federal cuts. And therefore, that's why I brought forth this resolution. If anyone would like clerk denim to read the amendment again, she has a copy of that. When anybody would like to hear it again, Councillor Forzman. I guess. Nope. One second. There you go. Thank you, President Smite. I just wanted to agree with Councillor Wall. I think you're highlighting the struggle that some folks have on voting on any resolutions related to these topics with some of the concerns you elaborate on with the amendment process. And so it is messy when we get into introducing resolutions like this in the formal chambers and it has nothing to do with the content because I'm sure you support the letter carriers just as you support EPA lab, just as I do. But we are going to be here all year if we spend every meeting doing resolutions on something happening at the federal level. And that doesn't mean that we can't advocate and use our voice however we choose. There are some that you're going to see tonight that I wrote letters four or five months ago. But if we're going to open this door, it is going to get messy and I'm going to support the amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forson. Any other comments? And does anyone need the amendment? Read again? Seeing none? Yes? Okay. Clerk Dunham, do you read the amendment? Or I will. It's up to you. as the letter carriers of Duluth maintain the highest level of professionalism in their duties to deliver the mail in a timely and professional manner. And whereas letter carriers of our city go above and beyond in their duties by carrying for all the residents of Duluth, having shown their generosity of heart by participating in the stamp out hunger campaign to collect food and funds to support our local food shelf. And whereas our letter carriers are also a part of what makes the city of caring community by reporting concerns of distress for residents, their supervisor or local postal authorities. for it be it resolved that Duluth City Council stands in solidarity with the National Federation of Letter Car carriers and their members and strongly opposes any effort to reduce their numbers or privatize the USPS. Thank you, Clerk Dennell. Councillor Randolph. Thank you so much, President Tumonik. And were you taking final comments on this? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much Councillor Elf for bringing up the importance of focusing on this particular issue. I hear Councillor Forzman in how much time it would take to address these one after another. I get that. I do want to thank Councillor Derracter for bringing this resolution, the public attention that needed, the press conference that the energy she put into that. I really want to appreciate that. I do wish that we bring forward amendments a little sooner so that we're not amending on the fly like we are tonight. It would have been nice to be able to read this text. Obviously, it was prepared. It would have been nice to have been either on Friday or even Monday morning so we can look at there's an amendment and I can read it and I can think about it. So it did feel a little bit on the fly, which takes me a little bit off my heels. I do want the extra attention on the EPA. I believe so much in this. I do believe in the postal carriers. I do think it muddies the water a bit. Part of me wants to say, I'm gonna say no to the amendment because it came too late. But in lieu of time and in lieu of the spirit of working with everybody, I will say yes to that amendment. But in my heart, I'm really wishing that EPA piece was the big focus. Thank you, Councillor Randolph. Any other comments on the amendment? Yes, Councillor O'Hour. I guess I had a question for the council. If I were to bring forward amendments, and I'm, so the reason I didn't bring forward is because I'm still hearing from multiple nonprofits and VISTAs who've lost their positions and really wanting to comprehend, like, like, bring forward something comprehensive. So I was going to either suggest I bring forward a letter that council could sign or a potential amendment if folks or a resolution that is more comprehensive of all federal cuts in one go. If we're doing amendments like this, I don't feel comfortable adding my VISTAs in here without the due diligence that you did or what Councillor Dure-Wockter did to this resolution. So my question is, is the council prepared for us bringing a, for me, myself to bring a, along with other Councillors to bring an additional resolution with those amendments, with those addresses, or is the council preference to just continue to add amendments to this? I think was to you by the vote tonight. Any other discussion? Councilor Mayo. Thank you, President Swanek. I just had a friendly amendment possibly to the where-ass text. I think it said the National Federation of Letter Careers, was it? It's National Association of Letter Careers. Thank you. I would accept that amendment. Great. Thanks. Councillor Dure-Walker. Thank you, President Tumannock. I have a question for clerk Denham. Did you receive a written copy of this amendment? Or did you just write down what you heard, President Tumannick? Read. I received a type to copy before the council meeting. Just at the beginning of the meeting. Okay, thank you. Not at the beginning of the meeting, I send it to her this afternoon. Does it have any questions? Yes, you may. Not as at the beginning of the meeting, I send it toward this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Could you give us the process for which amendments can be brought forward by counselors? There's no time frame. There's no, I mean, there's a best practice, but they can be brought forward today. President Tamanik, concert kind of the, yes, the counselors can make a motion to amend during the council meeting as they have tonight. I hear and what echo the comments from those who have said it's hard to follow along if there's lots of motions to amend made and it's more helpful to the public and I think those en chambers if they can get a copy of the motions to amend and writing ahead of the council meeting but the rules rules do permit the motions to amend to be made during the proceedings. Thank you, Jackson. Thank you, Jackson. I know that I was not here Thursday and so I was ill and I was ill all weekend. I do have an amendment that would speak to some of what Councillor Allell was discussing. Thank you. Councillor, are we ready for a vote? All those in favour of the amendment please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The amendment passes 9-0. All right. We're going to try and go back to the queue. Councillor Swenson. Thank you, President Tamanic. Good discussion on the process of it. So with the resolution being brought forward independently by Councillor DeWakter, we are engaging in federal matters which we've now realized and we've learned is a really slippery slope. It requires care and consistency. And so I think it's important that we stand up for our local jobs and the institutions at our at risk. We must also be mindful of not selectively engaging in ways that leave out other key groups, individuals and member of our working class community who are equally impacted by the federal decisions. With that, I'd like to make an amendment to include the federal prison. Whereas, federal prison camps in Duluth have long been recognized as a model institution, operating with integrity, professionalism, and a strong commitment to its mission. It not only upholds the standard of bureau of prisons, but also provides stable, meaningful employment to nearly 90 dedicated individuals who work to to work to improve our regional economy and community well-being. The abrupt closure of the federal prison of Duluth would be a far reaching and devastating consequence, not only for the employees and their families but also the broader Duluth. With which benefits greatly impact the facilities present and economic impact. Now therefore, the city of the Duluth City Council stands firmly in solidarity with the hardworking members of the American Federation of Government Employees, local 3935 and all of the employees of the federal prison. It continued, it continued, present is not only a matter of economic stability, but a matter of our community strength and fairness. Some moved. Thank you, Councillor Erick, and you're moving in that amendment. Is there a second? The amendment is made by Swenson's seconded by Forzman discussion. Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Tamanik. This is the cause that I mentioned earlier that I helped organize a letter for back in January and did not offer a council resolution because I was trying to live what I preach on not bringing resolutions that get into these things but now that we're doing this, I'm happy to support it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. Councillor Neffu. Thank you, President Tamanic. I as well signed on to that letter some months ago for the federal prison in support of keeping it here and supporting those employees and their families. I along with Councillor Forzaun agree that it is slippery slope here today, but if we are out talking about some of our last federal funding I think this is important one. It's an important piece of our economy here locally. So thank you vice president nephew. Anyone else want to speak on this amendment? Seeing none we'll call for a vote. This was the amendment was offered by Councillor Ms. Swenson, seconded by force, and all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign? Okay. I think Councillor Neff you, I think you're next. Thank you, President T to Monica. I would also like to offer an amendment to the resolution Again, I know this is messy, but we have to remember there's a lot of important groups that are getting laid off in town Those who support our economy locally When we are looking for the National Park Service and the layoffs there there along with the hiring hiring freezes. Specifically, it relates to the Lake Superior Maritime Museum. That's a huge support of our local tourism economy. That is down in the canal park area that provides safety, bathrooms, and just general service down in that area. So what I'd like to add is, whereas National Park Service layoffs in the Duluth area could lead to reduced park services longer wait times and potentially shuttered facilities impacting local economic tourism activity in the Duluth area. The City Council urges reconsideration. So moved. Okay, is there a second? Second moved by nephew for this amendment seconded by Kennedy discussion. Seeing none will take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. That amendment passes 9 to 0. Okay, let me see where I am. Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Timonick. Earlier today we had a presentation that discussed some housing developments. And part of that program is receives federal funding. So the City of Duluth receives annual funding for community development block grants, home investment partnership programs, emergency solutions grant programming. These are supporting community-based organizations working to meet the needs of our individuals in our community. There are also small, medium, and large-sized federally funded CBOs community-based organizations in Duluth serving our community that are doing important work improving overall health impacts that shortens life expectancies. In relationship to the social detrivers of health, this includes economic stability. So I'm also going to be offering an amendment. Before I read that amendment, we heard about an organization already, families rise together. That's just one. I'm going to read to you another larger federally funded organization, which is the Lake Superior Community Health Center. A lot of their funding comes from the feds. For over 50 years, they've served our community, providing integrated family medicine for adults and children, dentistry, behavioral health services, and chiropractic care. Collectively, the organization provides care for nearly 11,000 patients from across this region. This is actively in West Duluth, that this is this facility. Over 50% of patients served in 2024 have hulsled incomes below 100% of the federally poverty level. 66% of the Medicare recipients and 6% have no source of health care. They accept all insurances and for those without insurance, with insurance or without insurance, a sliding fee discount are available based on income and households. No one has ever turned away for an ability not to pay. This is a worthy organization, is important to health for all of our community. So I do have an amendment that I will read in now. Whereas the City of Duluth receives annual funding sources for the community development block grant, home investment partnership program, and emergency solutions grant programming, supporting community-based organizations working to to meet the needs of individuals in our community. Whereas there are many small, medium, and large sites, readily funded CBOs in the Duluth area, serving our community that are doing important work, improving overall health impacts, that shortens life expectancies. This is in relation to the social drivers of health, which includes economic stability. Therefore be it resolved that the federal government preserve federal funding to the city of Duluth and Oblac grant, home ESG and preserve funding for other local CBOs doing important work here in our community. I ask for support and move that. Thank you Councillor Councillor Kennedy. Is there a second? Second. Okay. This amendment has been moved by Kennedy's seconded by nephew. Is there a discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favour? Say aye. Opposed? Same sign. The amendment passes 9-0. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Councillor Forrestment. Thank you, President Tamanik. Another important federal agency that has an office in our community that is facing potential layoffs as the U.S. Forest Service. Their office is in Councillor Kennedy's district out in the fifth. So I will offer another amendment. Whereas plans for layoffs affecting the U.S. Forest Service has implications for managing local wildfire risk, impact on public lands and recreation, impact on the economic use of forest lands for vital industries like forest harvest for manufacturing, and local employment, the city council urges reconsideration. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Move by foursmen, seconded by Swenson. Is there a discussion on this amendment? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. That amendment passes 9-0. Councillor Thank you, President Sumanic, in the spirit of continuing with some of those organizations I had mentioned. I do have one in particular that's in my district or a couple in particular that are in my district that being college campuses and their federal funding from education and NIH. and so supporting that. Whereas Duluth depends on strong public education and medical research to ensure healthy skilled and prosperous community and whereas federal funding through the Department of Education and NIH directly supports local school students and research at institutions like UMD. Therefore be it resolved the city of Duluth or just continued to increase federal investment in education and NIH programs and be it further resolved that this resolution be shared with Duluth's national or congressional delegation to affirm our support. Thanks. Okay, that's moved by Mayor's seconded by all. Any discussion on this? Yes, Councillor Kennedy. Just a little clarification. My CBOs include hospitals in schools but that's okay because they are federally funded and they are considered nonprofits. But yes. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Any other discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of the amendment proposed by Councillor Mayo, seconded seconded by owl. Say aye. Opposed? Same sign. That amendment passes 9-0. Are there any other comments? If not, we'll go back to the vote on the resolution. And that is we're voting on resolution 41. I will read that again. I'm sorry. As amended several times. Resolution requesting that the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA and the Federal Administration preserve the Duluth Minnesota Office of Research and Development and its freshwater mission amended. Clerk, how many times? Including six amendments. I believe the contact calls are just the way. Yep, I'm going to call her now. Councillor O'Hall. I had an amendment too. Go ahead. Thank you, President Tomane. I don't know how all of you did that on the fly. It was very impressive. I hope the clerks were taking note, and I'm glad that this is recorded, so I can go back and listen to it. So I'm going to do my diligence. This is going to be nowhere near beautiful and well put as y'all. Whereas for more than 30 years, America has been a powerful driver of national public services, engaging all multigenerational, multiethnic, multiracial groups to public service in our communities, whereas this federally funded program was launched in 1993 under President Bill Clinton, with the simple but powerful idea that people of all ages and backgrounds could serve their communities. This is directly from them. And since then hundreds and thousands of people have joined AmeriCorps as Tutuiter students, support seniors, clean up parks, rivers, assessed with research, assessed with disaster and strengthening communities, assist with food deserts, assisting different community organizations do their work. Whereas in the last week, almost 32,000 VISTAs were cut nationwide, more than or funding stopped and whereas and the city of Duluth facing more than 30 plus VISTAs across multiple different organizations. Need some support here. Let it, let it, where you know the council affirms our support. Let it be resolved, council affirms our support for the AmeriCorps VISTA programs and all of our amazing VISTAs and AmeriCorps members who support our community. I'll second that. The amendment was proposed by all seconded by Tamanik. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. That amendment passes 90-0. Now we go back to the resolution which I recently read with seven amendments. And that was moved by der Wachter's seconded by Randolph. All those in favor say aye. I'm going to discuss. Is there a discussion? Yes. attended by Randolph. All those in favor say aye. I do want to thank Councillor Durwakter for bringing this forward and the comprehensive understanding of how our community is being affected and each one of us bringing a piece of that to this amendment and resolution. I don't feel that it's going to water down anything with the EPA. The EPA is at the very top of the discussion and all of these are sort of an umbrella of our whole community. So I appreciate you bringing it forward. It really pushed us to make sure that we're supporting some of the important issues and organizations and people in our community. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Councillor Derr-Wockter. Thank you, President Tomaneck. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy for that as well. And I just want to thank the Council for strongly supporting taking a stand against the harmful decisions being made at the federal level of the administration. So thank you all. Thank you, Councillor Drew Wocker. Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Tumonic. I think point made, right? We could do this all night, but we don't need to. We're all going to have differences of opinion sometimes on what should be resolution and in front of the body and what shouldn't be. I just think tonight highlights the challenge of trying to pick one thing, even if it seems like a great cause, which EPA is absolutely a great cause. And so I appreciate that we have a chance to advocate for it. I will support this tonight. I would struggle to support more just because we have so much work to do in our community. Housing was the perfect example of how can we spend our time trying to work on increasing housing access in the community. So I'll support this and it opens up a broader conversation that we can continue later. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Forzman. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Simoneck. and I just wanted to thank again, Councillor Dore Wocker for spearheading this conversation, and I think that the EPA, again, I think at the top of this resolution as Councillor Kennedy was saying, it's such an important organization and employees so many people in our community. These impacts are being felt locally. These federal decisions are having real local impacts and I've been talking about it during some of our council meetings and I've written letters as well and it is hard to watch this happen and to see things that we have relied so heavily on to help spur affordable housing development to help do environmental mitigation to provide necessary services to the people of our community, just all of a sudden vanish or be up in question. And we're very thankful to live in a state where we have a strong attorney general that's questioning and challenging those things for us. And so we do have a congressional delegation for somewhat that is advocating for those things and I would encourage particularly our Congressperson to continue to advocate for our community and for these services in our community because we have so many things that every day Duluthians rely on that are at risk and we need our congressional representatives to be standing up for that too. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Seeing no further questions, no further Councillors in the queue. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of resolution number 41, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. That resolution passes 9-0. And I think Councillor, if Vice President, nephew, we go back to you for ordinance reading. No, we did them all. We did them all? Yeah. All right then. All right. Councillor questions and comments. Yes. Councillor Director. Thank you, President Tamanik. I have a procedural question. I am interested in making a motion from the floor. Is this the time when I would do that? Yes, you may. OK. Thank you. In light of receiving a couple emails today from Mr. Vogel requesting that we reconsider his video based off some new information that had been presented at the meeting by the Planning Department and also some information he had submitted that didn't make it to the legislature. I know that the attorney has mentioned that the deadline was April 30th to make a decision and we made our decision. However, my understanding is if he has submitted in writing like he has to waive the timeline for himself the deadline we may possibly reconsider the information and because in my opinion what's come to light is the process was faulty I'm making a motion that we reconsider. Thanks. I think our attorney wants to weigh in. Attorney, Laura, please. Thank you, President Tomonic. The request to reconsider the council's decision is timely under the council's standing rules. The council can make a motion to reconsider under the rules. However, such a motion would not be timely under the state's status, which governs this particular matter. The city needed to make its final decision on or before April 30th of 2025. since we are past that date, a motion to reconsider would be time borrowed at this point. Thank you. Any other questions or comments by councillors? Councillor Allo, did you have your hand up? If I may just on the topic of rid of. What is confusing to me is that my understanding is that in the statute there is additional time that can be given if he has read. So I guess is there my question to Attorney Lerror is there is that not true? Is there not additional time that can be given before you answer? Is there a second to the resolution so we can have discussion? Second the resolution. Okay. It's been moved and seconded and you had a question for Attorney Ler. Yes my understanding is that in that same statute there's language that says if a council member at the next meeting requests a reconsideration and I'm not saying that he's right. I mean, maybe we'll stand by our decision. But if we, if he has submitted, my understanding is that the deadline is there to protect him from the city sitting on the topic and not making a decision. And he has now written to the city claiming he waives his right to that deadline, which my understanding is that that would give us within reason, necessarily even the next meeting, you know, maybe a month, maybe in the next month we just... Within reason, not necessarily even the next meeting, maybe a month, maybe in the next month, we just reconsider the information with all the information intact. The photos that the Planning Department claim they had, also the information he had submitted that never made it to the legislature. President Tamanik, concert director. The statute does allow the parties to extend the timeline and often the city planning staff will work with applicants to extend those timelines by mutual agreement. I don't know if the full amount of the timeline had been extended in this particular case, but I do know that the deadline for the city to act was April 30, 2025. If the applicant had made his request to the council prior to the April 30 deadline, we could have looked at the statute to see whether or not there was any additional time left, where it could have been extended but we had a hard time, we had a hard deadline of April 30 of 2025. That time has already expired and so we can not at this point now entertain our request to extend the deadline. Thank you Attorney Blair. Councillor, nope. Councillor Forrestment. I didn't have anything on this topic. Councillor Mayo. Thank you. I was just curious, attorney, may be you could answer this or maybe Mr. Staling, if that's not allowed is the, what are the options for the applicant or obviously they can't seek it through the city processes kind of concluded at this point is that my understanding so it have to go to a higher organization than us is that correct. President Tomane, Councillor Mayo that is correct the process through the city has been completed and so the applicant will have to talk to his attorney to decide what legal avenue they may have available is the next step. Okay, thanks for the clarification. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Thank you, Attorney Leroy. Councillor Aul. Given that we thank you, President Tamanik. Thank you, Attorney Leroy, for your explanation. Thank you, Councillor D Councillor Derrhoctor, for being proactive with constituent. Um, hearing, I've seen the constituents email and heard firm, um, we've all heard from him today. But given the deadline has passed, do we, are we, can we drop the, I was wondering if you were wanting to take back the resolution or do you want to proceed with the vote? Present to Monica there was a motion by Councillor Dura Wackter to reconsider the call for decision and there was a second. So there is a motion with the second on the table. Got it. Thank you. All right. We'll take... I'll just say that based on the comment. We know how we potentially should be voting. And so let's just move with the vote. Got it. Thank you. All those in favor of the resolution proposed by Councillor Dure-Wakters say aye All opposed same sign resolution pass resolution failed zero to nine Councillor forksman Thank you president samana two things first of all I Appreciate the comment from this positive tonight. I think there are ways we could be improving our city code into that end. I am working on a resolution that would either come at the next meeting or the meeting after related to updating and modernizing our housing code. And our peas are an area I think we should cover. They are always a slog and difficult for the neighborhoods, and they don't really put anybody in a position to win, because they are so controversial. So that's one topic, I think another topic, and gets into my second comment here is looking at, I know Councillor Kennedy, you brought up V to use informed districts, and I think we could look at those sorts of things too, but I bring that up because our planning department spends a lot of their time answering questions related to these really high profile considerations and proposals and also VDUs specifically. And I know that they are doing the very best with the resources they have, and so I wanna give a shout out to our planning department staff because I know they work very hard and are actively working with them on bringing this resolution for. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Forzman. Councilor Vice President, nephew. Thank you, President Tamanik. So I do want to thank Councilor Forzman for taking that initiative with the planning and stuff that we have been in conversation. I agree there's lots of changes that need to be made and cleaning up some stuff in our planning might make it easier for folks to understand some of the different stuff. I'm excited to see the Woodland project move forward. We do need to think about having people be able to stay in their neighborhoods and seniors so thank you, President Tamanik, for your comments on that. It's 100% true of our housing market is locked on that. So I'm excited to see that go forward. I'm looking forward to seeing some different changes within the planning department. Our planners are amazing. And I think they know that the code is not perfect. So thank you. Thank you, Vice President. nephew. Any other questions or questions or comments? Seeing none, Councillor's preview of upcoming business. Seeing none, I'll accept a motion to adjourn. Moved by Swanson, seconded by...