 I'd like to call to order the 25th regular meeting of the 2020-21 Common Council. Would the clerk please read the quote for the day? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If you can't pay it back, pay it forward. Thank you very much. Would the clerk please call the roll? All the person born? Here. All the person failedly? All the person Phillips? All the person Phillips? All the person Decker? Yeah. All the person Sorensen? Here. All the person Felicky Paneski? Here. All the person Mitchell? Here. All the person Savaglio? Present. All the person Ackley? Excused. All the person Donahue? Excused. All the person Phillips? Seven present. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand and join me. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our 24th regular Common Council meeting which was held on March 15th of 2021. All the person Sorensen? Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the minutes for our March 15th meeting. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on those minutes? Seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Next item is Public Forum. City Clerk? There is one person this evening. Deb Yotes? Deb, please step to the podium. Right up here. Thank you. And Deb, when you're ready can you state your name and your address for us please? My name is Deb Yotes. My address is 114 Evans Court, Sheboygan Falls. Okay, you'll have five minutes. Thank you. Hello everyone and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Deb Yotes. I'm a realtor with Cobalt Banker. I'm a landlord and I also live in Sheboygan County. I sent most of you an email with what I wanted to discuss tonight. I recently listed a property in Sheboygan. It's been an eyesore for quite some time. The address is 905 South 14th Street. After taking the listing, my friend Jim Longo had cleaned up the property. Sorry, I'm just so not used to speaking. We cleaned up the property, the yard, and we were even mowing the grass in December. After we cleaned up the property, which has been boarded up for approximately a couple years already, the owner decided just not to be a landlord anymore. It was too much stress. He's had a stroke in 2018 and his property, his properties have stressed him out. We got an accepted offer within two days which was exciting, but however we weren't able to close. My client has had fines on the property and he's made bad decisions along the way with not communicating with the city when he's gotten these citations. As of December, he has paid over $53,000 in citations. To close on the property, he needs another $65,000. He's gotten 98 citations from the city due to bad choices. My client has mental health issues and medical issues and I'm simply trying to be hoped for him to put this in the past and move on. He has admitted his wrong, he has apologized to the assistant city attorney Jim Hosh, only to be a little bit reprimanded due to his behavior in the past. We have reached out, I have reached out to Todd Wolfe, I've reached out to Chad Pelschek, building inspection, and they have been actually fantastic to work with. Also Laura Henning Lorenz with some properties. This isn't the only landlord in Sheboygan that has this problem. There are many, there are many properties who have the same situation going on right now and we really need to have change in the way the process goes to municipal courts and the way the fines are laid out. I have, I know my seller was in the wrong and he admits he is frustrated and I have to be his voice right now because he can't speak for himself so to speak and I'm asking that we can you know put differences aside and work together. We need to let new owners take ownership of these properties that are distressed in the city of Sheboygan. And let new people fix them up, bring life to them and keep them on the tax base. Not let them go to the state of this and get raised and have more city vacant lots because that doesn't make our city beautiful. Our city beautiful is you know taking care of the properties we have. I don't disagree with you know some of the citations. Landlords do need to be held accountable for their actions and I do believe some people need city fines and citations to address that they need to help their properties but we need to make a way and work together all of the departments all of us to make this an easier way to help these people that are in distress. So I hope we can look further into a process in which we can work with these landlords and actually some of them are homeowners that are just over their head and have multiple citations as well. It's not just us landlords. Jim Longo is the president of the Lakeshore apartment association here in Sheboygan and I go to those meetings as well and he has been a strong leader in we've had the city and building inspection and we have police officers that come to our meetings so we can unite as a community so we can make a difference. Excuse me Deb, you're five minutes are up. Okay thank you for your time and I hope we can look forward to working with you. Thank you for your comments. Next we'll go on to a presentation on the affordable housing market study. I'll first turn it over to a planning director Chad Pellecek and he'll present our program. Thank you mayor so and council so back in October of last year the council approved a contract with msa professional services to assist the city in doing an affordable housing study to see what the demand for affordable housing is what those what the number of units are and kind of the findings of the affordable housing pieces. There's a lot of discussion around affordable housing recently. As the mayor said msa consulting professional services out of Madison was the selected consultant. Becky Benz is online with us so she will be presenting the findings of that study in a shortened version. There will be a more elaborate version I would encourage the public and the council to participate in a virtual meeting where we'll present it next Wednesday April 14th at 5 p.m. through a go-to meeting link and answer any questions that the public might have as it relates to that study but for this presentation today she's toned it down a little bit to about a half an hour to try to give you guys the feel for it 25 minutes or so so we'll hope that she can get through it fast but there's a lot of information that I think is good for everybody to hear so with that I'll turn it over to Becky who is online on go-to meeting. All right thanks Chad can everyone hear me okay? Okay good um so tonight thank you for having me here like Chad said we're going to go over the findings and recommendations from the housing study. We're going to start a little bit with the process talk about that and then go into some general findings about the housing market then we'll break that down a little further and talk about findings as far as rental markets and ownership markets separately. Based on that we'll talk about demand projections for number of units and priority types of locations for those units and then we'll talk about some recommendations or strategies to help implement those recommendations for different unit types. So as far as the study process um so like Chad alluded to there's a lot of data in it so we went over a lot a lot of that with staff and the data that we incorporated into the study came from a variety of sources so a lot of it came from the American Community Survey data a lot of it came from the HUD Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy data which just allows us to further digest ACS data by affordability and other issues. We also looked at MLS data which is real-time market data so that's super helpful. We met with staff a few times during the study process to review findings talk about issues and then talk about strategies as well. We also did a handful of interviews with people we view as local housing experts to better understand the housing market and shortcomings of the market in Sheboyga. So we talked to realtors, landlords, builders, lenders and non-profit organizations to learn a little bit more about what they were experiencing day to day. And then we also did a community survey with which we had over 850 responses to to figure out what experiences residents and people living around the community what kind of experiences they were having with the housing market and what their concerns were. So we took all this hard data all this qualitative data and summed it up to make some demand projections like I said about different types of units and number of units and then some strategies to implement those recommendations and address some of the the shortcomings we found during our analysis. So we have this kind of tidy package right now that we presented to staff a couple of weeks ago we're presenting to you next steps like Chad said are to do the public review next week and then hopefully council approval in I think a week or two. So first of all general findings so looking at population in the city the city population has decreased 2% between 2010 and 2020 while the Sheboyga county population grew it actually increased by 1.4% during this time period. If we look a little further out using Wisconsin Department of Administration population projections the city's population is projected to continue to decrease by 3% between 2020 and 2040 while the county's population is projected to increase another 1.4%. Now this isn't human gloom but I guess the point here is with the right housing and amenities we see an opportunity for the city to capture some of this regional growth. A lot of times people can be flexible with where they live if there's the right housing and there's the right amenity. So see this as an opportunity for the city. The second finding of note is looking at age cohorts within the city and the county. So the DOI also does age cohort projections only at the county level but we're anticipating similar changes at the city level. So within the county between 2020 and 2040 they're projecting a 112% increase in those age 85 plus which is roughly 3,000 people. So with a growing senior population and a limited number of senior living options in the city and in the county more units are going to need to be built specifically for seniors and adding these units is going to have the benefit of providing something that the seniors are looking for and also going to have a benefit of freeing up some of those generally more affordable smaller single family homes that seniors are living in. It's going to add some of those to the market which we see is a good thing as well. So we also looked at income that's a big important part of looking at a housing study. So when we looked at Sheboygan's median household and per capita incomes they're generally lower than the county and surrounding communities which signals people have less money to spend on housing. So that's an important point to note. We also looked at employment growth by talking to employers and then we looked at the workforce development boards numbers for North Eastern Wisconsin it's 11 county region and that region is anticipating a 4% growth in employment between 2018 and 2028 which is consistent with what we were hearing from the major employers we talked to their anticipating growth. When looking at salaries for the most in-demand positions projected in the Northeast region the weighted average is about 50,000 but there's a range on those on those occupations from 20,000 all the way up to 100,000. Another thing to note is just what type of homes are in Sheboygan. So 56% of the homes are single family. Now this is both owner occupied and renter occupied. Another thing to note is just the age of housing. So 80% of Sheboygan homes were built prior to 1980 so it's generally an older housing stock which is what we see in a lot of Midwestern communities and while age isn't a direct measure of condition we often see it as an indicator. So older homes tend to have poor energy performance higher maintenance costs and maintenance and upkeep can be challenging or impossible for some home buyers and this is also a theme that we heard in survey results and from doing our our interviews so generally older housing stocks and some concerns about that. Another point of note is just the development trends within the city. So since 2000 residential construction has slowed in Sheboygan which isn't all that dissimilar from other communities. The Great Recession has a lot to do with that but one of Sheboygan's unique factors is that it has limited greenfield space for growth. So we're still seeing pretty low numbers as far as single family development largely due to that limited greenfield space. On the flip side of that there are a lot of infill opportunities in Sheboygan so we've seen a lot of multifamily that apartments and condo development over the the past six years that's primarily where the city's growth has been. Digging into the rental market a little bit further. So 39 percent of the housing stock in the city is rental units. Not surprisingly due to the age of the housing in the city 50 percent of the rental units are considered affordable to a household earning the median income in the city. So that is a good thing. However, 33 percent of renter households in Sheboygan are cost burdened so housing prices are still you know a little too expensive for some people and when we say cost burden we mean households are paying more than 30 percent of their gross income towards housing expenses. I'm going to draw your attention to the top table now the rental unit mismatch. So what this table is showing it's breaking down the number of rental units available at different income levels that are set by HUD and the third column is showing the number of rental households who are actually at that income level. So then our last column is giving us whether we have an over or under supply of units relative between the number of households at income level and the number of units available. So we're generally generally seeing is there's an over supply of units that are generally the lower cost range so affordable to households at 50 percent AMI or lower and we're generally seeing an under supply of housing units that are available to higher price points. Now this this table is not showing us that we need 3,000 higher priced rental units it's just showing us that there might be room for development of some type of these units there might be a need that isn't being addressed. And we are seeing that higher income households have technically been renting down so they're renting homes that are generally or rental units that are generally more affordable to lower income households when they technically could afford to pay more not saying that they would choose that but technically they could. So the figure on the bottom of the slide is is demonstrating that we'll just take for example the bar on the bottom. So this is showing all rental units that are affordable to our lowest incomes 30 percent of the area median income about 40 percent of those units are being consumed by households at that income level but then 60 percent of those units are being consumed by households who technically could afford to consume more. So I think that's that's something worth noting. We also looked at vacancy rate. So a healthy vacancy rate is between 5 and 7 percent the signals a healthy balance between supply and demand. So there's enough units available to offer renters some choice and provide downward pressure on rents and incentive for landlords to be competitive with what they're offering and at what price. So that there is a need to add additional units to increase the vacancy rate. Another statistic of note is the cap rate. So the cap rate is essentially giving you a measure of risk. A lower number is less desirable to developers. So we looked at the cap rate for multifamily in 2020 and that was 7.4 percent which is the lowest it's been in 10 years. So that just signaling to us that multifamily units might not be as attractive to developers at least from financial standpoint as they have been over the past decade. And then finally just noting that construction costs are high and material costs are high. So in building new units subsidies are needed especially for affordable housing development. The next slide I'm going to show just an example to demonstrate what that cost looks like. So this is using a typical one-bed rental construction cost and land cost of about $130,000. This is an average developers are using in southern Wisconsin. So we applied that here crunch the numbers to see what a break-even rent would be on this type of unit. And the break-even rent is $1,300 which is not affordable for a majority of the lower-income households. So that's just demonstrating that point that subsidies are likely needed for affordable housing. All right the ownership market. So a similar to rental units a lot of the owner-occupied stock is aging and this is reflected in the median home values. So median home value in the city is 110,000 which is quite low for the region. On the positive side most owners can comfortably afford their housing. So only 18 percent of owner households in Sheboygan are cost burdened. The majority of the cost burdened owner households are at or below 50 percent AMI. So generally lower-income households. The lower percentage of cost burdened homeowners is what we typically see because there is a barrier to entry in the home ownership market. So generally people have higher savings and higher paying jobs and things like that. So similar to what we did for the rental units we also did an ownership unit mismatch to see how are the units we have at the affordability levels we have matching up with the households who are actually at those income levels. And we're seeing something very similar to what we're seeing in the rental market. So there's generally an oversupply of more affordable owner-occupied units and generally an undersupply of units that are higher priced units that are affordable to those 80 percent or greater AMI. And that isn't surprising we talked about the number the lack of residential construction as far as single family goes. So just not many newer units have come online recently. We did the same kind of ownership unit consumption chart to figure out who's actually living in the homes at the different price points. We're going to look at the bottom bar again. So this is for homes that are affordable to those at 50 percent AMI. Those are being consumed by 20 percent of those are being consumed by households at or below 50 percent of the AMI. So 80 percent are being consumed by households who could technically afford more. Again this isn't saying we need 6,000 new higher priced homes. But just that there is likely a market for some higher priced units that will free up some of the more affordable units for households who are at the lower income levels. So we also looked at that MLS data I said so the real-time market data. So this five single family homes is unsurprisingly tight and this has led to an increase in price. So sale prices have increased 52 percent between 2015 and 2020 in Sheboygan and the average days on market for a single family home dropped from 77 to 29. So very very high demand for single family units. We're seeing something similar for duplex homes and condos. Their prices have increased not quite as dramatically but still an increase and days on market have dropped for those as well. All right the numbers demand projections. So we broke this down into rental units and owner occupied units and then the next slide will go over senior units. So for renter and owner occupied units the the things we took into account. So we looked at the projected number of new households coming to the city and we used a conservative estimate so that's why you're going to see the ranges for the number of units and then we also used a high estimate for those new households. We also took into account demand from existing homeowners who are who are likely to move and likely to look for new construction and then for both types of housing we also took into account what it's going to take to bring the market up to a healthy vacancy level. So that's five percent for rental units and then two percent for owner occupied units. So you can see for rental units we're projecting about 400 to a thousand units by 2030 over the next 10 years. That's 42 about 102 units per year and for owner occupied units 325 to 715 by 2030 or 33 to 72 per year. Then you can see in the right how those have been broken down by different price points and affordability levels. For senior housing we broke this into independent living and assisted living. So for independent living we further broke that down into subsidized and market rate. For these recommendations we didn't take into account existing units. There's no official count on the number of independent living senior options. So the numbers you're seeing are the total number of units needed by 2030 and that's not accounting for existing units. For assisted living units the state does have counts on those so that 196 units by 2030 that's additional senior units needed. And then as far as priority focus. So the first focus area we identified was condo ownership. This is an attached ownership opportunity that is generally more affordable. It acquires less land which is great for a community that's doing a lot of infill development. And it's also going to open up home ownership opportunities for lower income households who maybe can't afford a new detached single family home which is generally more expensive. But the second type of unit is again that senior housing. Both independent and assisted living opportunities. This is going to meet a demand for seniors who are looking for that type of housing. Like I mentioned before it's also going to put out more affordable owner-occupied homes on the market. The third unit is the missing middle housing which you can see a diagram of what we're referring to. So that's kind of the smaller 2-16 attached either condo or rental unit. These types of units address affordability and can be compatible with many neighborhoods as long as they're appropriately placed. So this is a type of housing that we would recommend in certain corridors in the community. The fourth type of housing we would place a priority focus on is 3 plus bedroom rentals. Something that we've heard in Sheboygan and we hear in every community we work with is it's really hard to house lower income families. And if the units are available there is some concern about what the quality of those units are in the condition that people are living in. And then as far as location just a focus on infill development. Like we talked about the city has limited greenfield growth opportunities. So placing a high priority on downtown and along certain corridors seems to make the most sense. And it seems to really work well with the condo type of housing, the senior type of housing, the missing middle types of housing. Those are types that work really well for infill development. Then strategies or recommendations. So how are you going to do all this? So I'm not going to go through every single recommendation but there are a few that I wanted to highlight some that I feel are really important to talk about. So the first and probably the first thing I would recommend to the city is to create a housing committee. Have this committee be in charge of implementation of the plan. Have them drive the housing initiatives possibly administer any new funding programs that are created. And maybe one of the more important pieces is doing public outreach about the housing work that the city is doing and actually why it's needed, why it's important. The second thing I wanted to highlight was developing neighborhood master plans. So I talked about there isn't much opportunity within city limits but looking at the city's future land use map and its comprehensive plan there are two growth areas in its extraterritorial jurisdiction. So we're recommending doing neighborhood plans for these areas because they are identified as planned neighborhoods on the future land use map. We see these areas as opportunities for the city to set the vision for the neighborhoods you want. Make them what people want, make them walkable, include a mix of uses, a variety of housing types at various price points so you can get a variety of people living in the community and people can stay in those neighborhoods as the age or life circumstances change. Provide quality parks and gathering spaces. Just really set the tone for what you want neighborhoods to look like in Sheboygan and this could be you know a model for neighborhoods within the city as they're redeveloped. One thing of note is careful site design is going to be a really important part of the success of these neighborhoods so that's something to pay attention to and I think put a lot of effort into. The next thing I wanted to highlight was allowing multifamily as a permitted use. So right now multifamily is a conditional use in a lot of the residential districts so we're recommending either in one, a few, maybe even all districts making it a permitted use just making it easier for developers to get this type of housing put in place and also signify to the community and to developers that yes we do want this type of housing this is something that we want to happen in Sheboygan. The next thing I wanted to highlight is about a partnership and I'll talk a little bit about major employers but this recommendation gets a setting up maybe an annual working meeting with major employers in the area to talk about what their hiring outlook is going to be what types of wages they're anticipating hiring at and talk about what the city's doing as far as housing initiatives and try and get some of the employers on board. I think we're starting to see that employers realize that having appropriate affordable housing in communities is an important part of their success too. And then finally there's a slew of funding recommendations I just wanted to touch on a few of these so the first being expand the use of the city's neighborhood revitalization fund. So using this as a general affordable housing initiative funding vehicle using this as matching funds for land purchase new construction renovation down payment assistance. We've seen other communities fund these types of funds with TIF funding sale of land general funds private contributions. A lot of communities are setting these up and then they're using these for developers to be more competitive when they're applying for other types of federal and state funding. The second recommendation I want to touch on is going to that that workforce housing piece or partnership with employers. So this is modeled after something that Dane County is doing and something that developers that work statewide are really excited about so what happened in Dane County is a bunch of major employers and investors got together and decided they wanted to have an initiative and improve affordability in Dane County. What's in it for the investors is they get a small to modest return. What's in it for the employers is they're creating affordable homes so in Dane County they're targeting 80 percent AMI anywhere in the county they want to create homes that bring people to the area and keep people in the area. They see having appropriate housing is really important to the work they're doing and to keep their employees in Dane County. And then the third thing I wanted to touch on was utilizing the TIF affordable housing one-year extension. I already mentioned that as a possibility for seeding the Neighborhood Revitalization Fund but the city does have four TIDS closing over the next 10 years so that's a sizable chunk of change that could be used towards affordable housing initiatives and it could be used as as leverage if it was part of a fund like the Neighborhood Revitalization Fund. So there there are those strategies and a lot more in the report take a look but I just wanted to reiterate that partnerships are going to be key to fully meet the city's affordable housing needs. The strategies are going to address a lot of things that are within the city's control but there are a lot of things that are outside of the city's control. So to fully meet the city's housing needs partnerships are going to have to happen with surrounding communities and this is true across the state you know having those conversations people are working in one community and living in another making sure you have the right type of housing. Some communities are on board with providing affordable housing some are not just having those conversations with your neighbors and then of course state and federal policies and programs those are hard to predict but those are those are going to be important in making this happen as well. So generally I think there are a lot of opportunities for the city to capture additional growth. I'm just all the stuff you guys have going on with the redevelopment downtown and the recreation opportunities they're things people want. I also want to mention that what I heard from developers during the study is they really like working with the city you guys are good to work with. So that was good to hear so keep that up but yeah I think just a lot of opportunities for the city. So hopefully this was interesting and you got some good information maybe you have some questions that's the end of my presentation. Are there any questions for Betsy? Council seeing none at this time thank you so much for that presentation and we'll look forward to an in-depth view on April 14th. Thank you. Next we'll move on to Mayor's announcements. Today I have a proclamation whereas the Academy of American Poets established in the month of April as National Poetry Month in 1996 and whereas National Poetry Month seeks to highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets. Introduce Americans to pleasures and benefits of reading poetry bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways and make poetry an important part of our children's education. As National Poetry Month under the leadership and direction of the Academy of American Poets is now the largest literary celebration in the world and whereas poetry is an essential part of the arts and humanities enhances and riches every aspect of life in America today including education the economy community pride and community development and whereas poetry has produced some of the nation's leading creative artists and has inspired other artists in such fields as music, theater, film, dance, and the visual arts. Now therefore I might van der Steen the mayor of the city of Sheboygan do hereby declare April of 2021 is National Poetry Month and call upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all people of Sheboygan to observe this month to celebrate the cultural riches of our community and what it has to offer and to recognize the important role that poetry creates in sustaining this great nation with appropriate ceremonies and activities and programs. I'd like to present this to Lisa V. host our our brand new this year city poet laureate Lisa there you go and you have something to read for us. Can I make a little announcement about something I've been involved in? Okay well thank you mayor van der Steen I'm very honored I love being the poet laureate of Sheboygan it's a wonderful thing and I just want to tell you two things that I'm doing right now with the library and you might want to get connected to this one is that if you go to the library's Facebook page we are offering something called poetry by post and you sign up with your name and address and your age so I know if you're 10 years old or if you're over 60 and I send you a hand written poem and in the package that you get a little instruction sheet that says if you would like you don't have to but if you would like you can add some doodles or stickers or drawings around the border of the poem take a picture of it send it to me and then we the library is offering to do a if people send us enough stuff we would do a little show of these collaborative poem drawing pieces so I'm excited about that I'm also doing something called poetry on air where I interview either poets or just people who love poetry so any one of you could be a guest on my show it's not on the radio yet but it's offered through me community radio which is on their website so we've done we've we've recorded I think four shows so far and we have several more lined up and I'm looking for guests so you can go to my send me an email which is poet laureate sheboygan at gmail.com and talk to me about uh what you what how poetry has moved you in your life and what you how we could talk about it then on the show um all right I'm going to read you a quick poem and then we'll move on but if since it's spring I felt like you needed we needed a poem to honor spring so this is called the coming of spring green blades pushed through at the side of the house waiting to become tulips crocuses awake their yellow hearts sound the alert nevermind a brief snow flurry it's a trick to lure you back inside hibernation is over as march gives way to april relief arrives we are done shoveling snow plows can rest gentle breezes and warm sun cue robins and squirrels everything scurries listen to the tree buds they call to you come out spring is here spring is here at last thank you thank you very much lisa we appreciate all the work you're doing as the poet laureate I have one other proclamation tonight whereas the u.s. department of housing and urban development implemented the community development black rat program in 1974 for the purpose of providing local governments with the financial resources to assist low income and moderate income people and whereas the city of sheboygan has utilized the not-for-profit neighborhood-based organizations to address neighborhood and human needs and whereas the cdbg program has made significant impact in our community through low-income housing and business related loan programs new affordable home construction and renovations parks recreational activities public facilities improvements to streets water sewer and drainage and whereas the city of sheboygan and other local governments have clearly demonstrated the capacity to administer the cdbg program to identify prioritize and resolve pressing local problems and whereas the cdbg program is celebrating its 47th anniversary during which the city of sheboygan has received more than 36 million dollars over the 34 years we participated in the program now therefore i'm like van der steen the mayor of the city of sheboygan do hereby proclaim the week of april 5th through the 9th as national community development week and urge all residents to join in recognizing the department of housing and urban development and the city of sheboygan community black grant program and i'd like to present this to our planning director chad pelichak thank you very much chad um the state share revenue program is one of the largest state programs in terms of total funding level for our city it has declined significantly in relative size to the rest of the state budget over the last 20 years due to large program cuts in the program uh in 2004 10 and 12 and little or no growth in other years during that time the share of revenue for cities villages and towns was cut by 94 million dollars at 12 for percent drop over the same time frame the cost of providing services and communities has steadily increased resulting in a local property taxpayer shouldering a much larger percentage of the cost of local government current annual payments are based on what a community received back in 2013 for over 100 years the shared revenue program has been a key component of wisconsin system of state and local finance it's an important part of the state's efforts to keep the property tax growth under control moreover it's an equitable efficient way to help fund police fire streets and other critical local services yet for this program it has steadily been reduced over the last 20 years the state cannot profess a commitment to holding down property taxes and continue to decrease or hold flat shared revenue it is critical that shared revenue be maintained in the program funded to keep pace with the rising cost of providing these services and other vital services and municipalities shabuigan's 2021 shared revenue payment from the state of wisconsin is ten million five hundred and sixty two dollars sixty two and four hundred and twenty dollars the league is looking to convince our legal municipalities the state legislature to increase the payments to cities by two and a half to three percent if we are successful in achieving a two and a half percent increase the shared revenue payment by the state legislature with this effort would increase shabuigan's payment by two hundred and sixty four thousand dollars so this is item five point one on the agenda for you to consider later on earlier this or last month rather i received a package in the mail and it was a recognition for the city for putting a complete count committee together for the 2020 census our city development department and chad pelichek led the effort to create a complete count committee comprised of a broad spectrum of government and community leaders from education health care and other profit and non-profit organizations the goal of the complete count committee was to assist in the counting of the hard to count population in the right place and only at one time the city's complete count committee included family connections the mead public library the league of women voters lake share cap the safe harbor partners for community development the mayor's office lakeshark community health center shoreline metro senior activity center shabuigan housing authority and habitat for humanity and also activate and i'd like to present chad with the certificate and a t-shirt to recognize him for the work that was done on the proceed then with the consent agenda this is items two point two through two point eight all the person sorenson thank you mayor i move to receive and file all ro's receive all our c's and adopt all resolutions and ordinances second thank you for the motion in support is there any discussion on any of the items on the consent agenda seeing none would the clerk please call the roll eight eyes motion passes item next section is reports of officers items three point one and three point two will be referred to the finance and personnel committee under resolutions item four point one is resolution number 191 of 2021 by all the person sorenson donahue authorizing the appropriate city officials to execute a lease agreement between the city of shabuigan and the elwood h may environmental park association of shabuigan county and the shabuigan area school district all the person sorenson thank you may i ask for a suspension of the rules second thank you is there any objection to suspension seeing none please proceed thank you mayor i move to adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion in support is there any discussion on the motion seeing none would the clerk please call the roll eight eyes motion passes item four point two is resolution number 192 of 2021 by all the persons born approving the release of easements from stonebrook crossing addition number one subdivision all the person born thank you mayor uh i'm going to ask for a suspension of the rules please second is there any objection to suspension seeing none please proceed uh thank you mayor i'll make a motion to adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion in support is there any discussion on the motion uh chat telecheck you'd like to make a comment so this is related to the new subdivision that warner homes is building on the south side they had recently came in for a replat of a cul-de-sac and changed their preliminary and final plots and this is releasing some easements because they they changed the way the cul-de-sac and the lots are being serviced so some of the easements for utility and other things that are happening outside of the roadway needed to be cleared off from the old one and then put on to the new revision so that's why the reason for the suspension because they're working with the state to try to get this approved so they can continue forward thank you for that information chat is there any other discussion seeing none will the clerk please call the roll eight i's motion passes items 4.3 through 4.8 but we referred to various committees mayor yes i'm a person just a point of information on 4.3 um and i may have missed this why is the affordable housing study being referred to the city plan commission that's fine you can make that change i'm not sure it should be changed it's just a question jad would you like to respond to that in the in the past most of the most of the city studies have always gone to the planning commission um based on it being the authorizing body related to the planning but it could be referred to the finance and personnel committee that's the that's the committee that the city development reports to um but we've in the past referred plans and studies to the planning commission because i i i do happen to have the big document in front of me and um the resolution is that the city of shabuigan does hereby receive the study and be it further resolved that staff are encouraged to take action to implement the finding strategies and recommendations of the study i'm just trying to figure out how these are fitting together is is the resolution a separate piece um city attorney could you respond i'm sorry i was responding to a question a different question can you tell me what the question is could you please pose your question so chuck my question is um i understand that a study is is referred to the city plan commission but we do have a resolution dated today that the that we received the the the market study um and that staff are and be it further resolved that staff are encouraged to take action to implement the finding strategies and recommendations of the study and my question is i i just didn't understand how this all fits together in other words if it goes to the plan commission why is there a resolution or will it come back to us from the plan commission to approve the resolution well you would the the resolution would come back to you the study itself was presented to you and now it's going to the plan commission uh there's i'm not you know when i saw that it was going to the plan commission i had no idea why but you know the mayor gets to make that decision um if you want to send it somewhere else so that so that it's sort of to the same committee that's getting the resolution that's fine too there there's no legal reason for any item to go to any particular committee except in very rare cases okay so here's my thinking um number one i really appreciated the presentation it was a little hard for me to read but i did appreciate it and i did have the chance to look at a paper copy of this uh in advance as well and i think it's probably a not probably i think it is a valuable tool for us the resolution is that staff are encouraged to take action and that seems to me to be a very limiting um a very limiting process for something that is so important um and uh so procedurally i'm i'm i'm kind of not exactly sure where to go uh to me this is something that is so important and needs so much work that uh it should probably let me just suggest be referred to a committee of the whole meeting not now but you know sometime in in in june or july just for a more uh extended conversation and um just to see kind of where we're at with it and so that's after all these years i just don't know how to do that well why don't we let it go to the planning commission for now and it can come back and then before you vote on that uh that resolution you could amend it if you still feel that's necessary and then that could be referred to the committee of the whole all right and the only thing i would say on somebody's calendar it should uh there should be a tickler to say has the msa study come back from the city plan commission and just so that we can distract it because that on your schedule sure and i just want to put some closure to the contract with msa i understand that this is a bigger topic and there's a lot more discussion with us but our contract you know has it going through the council to get approval so once it gets proved you know we can continue to have the the discussion so i will do that okay thank you okay appreciate it very good then we'll proceed with reports of committees item 5.1 is rc number 300 of 2021 by the finance and personnel committee who was referred resolution number 186 of 2021 by all the persons down to hue and bohran supporting a strong state and local partnership regarding shared revenue funds funds for critical services all the person down to you uh thank you i move to uh receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion and support is there any discussion on the motion seen none will the clerk please call the roll older phillips here i'm going to need to vote verbally my board docs has not been working for me this evening i vote i thank you that makes nine eyes motion passes item 5.2 is rc number 301 of 2021 by the finance and personnel committee who was referred resolution number 187 of 2021 by all the persons down to hue and bohran authorizing a budget adjustment in the appropriation in the 2021 budget regarding the senior activity center all the person down to you thank you i move to receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion and support is there any discussion on the motion please go ahead barb adjustment um i'm guessing more coming out of the budget did i miss that somewhere older person down to you would you like do you aware that sure it is one through your committee yeah it uh it is my understanding that the when we did the when we made the offer to purchase and the purchase of the old save a lot store for the senior activity center there was quite a bit of movement back and forth between funds with respect to um HUD funding that would allow for a low income a low income low income low interest loan and so it is essentially just a a budget adjustment and appropriation i would defer to Todd who makes a living at this and see what he has to say thank you um again this is as Mary Lynn had alluded to we are we're just making an adjustment basically from the the appropriations during the um the HUD movement of of dollars so it really isn't anything that affects the budget it's just putting things into the right the right categories awesome thank you all right any other discussion seeing none with a clerk please call the roll nine eyes motion passes item 5.3 is item is rc number 302 of 2021 by the public works committee two months referred resolution number 188 of 2021 by older persons decker and sorenson authorizing the appropriate city officials to enter into a contract with vinton construction company incorporated for the construction of the 2021 streets improvements package number one georgia avenue and south 10th street older person decker thank you mayor make a motion to receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion and support older person decker yes i'd like to make a motion to amend the resolution to change the description of the account number 25 zero six one one zero zero dash six three one one zero zero from cd bg to the 250 fund second thank you for that motion or that amendment and support the amendment is up for discussion is there any discussion on that amendment seeing none all those in favor of the amendment please signify by seeing aye aye opposed the amendment passes so now we're voting on the amendment as amended i mean the motion as amended is there any further discussion on the motion seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage nine motion passes item 5.4 is rc number 303 of 2021 by the finance and personnel committee tumors referred direct referral resolution number 190 of 2021 by older persons down to you and born authorizing the appropriate city officials to enter into a professional services agreement with carlson deppman consulting for an assessment of the city's current classification and compensation of employees older person down to you thank you i move to receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution second thank you for that motion and support that motions on the floor is there any discussion go ahead barb i've seen these studies already and i believe if i'm correct that the there are some people that may lose money is that a possibility or is the study for a different reason i know some will go up because they have more on their plate than they should have so of course we want to compensate them but i also understand that usually when we do these studies there are some people that may take a cut in their hourly wage or be frozen until they're where they think it should be appropriate am i correct thank you for that question we'll turn it over to administrator wolf who's been working on this project thank you mayor that is a very good question and what we are looking at is obviously where our our goal is that we balance the the job description to the to the cost benefit for the city and what we are looking at is obviously that we were we will be looking at the 140 job positions and how that are balanced and we will adjust them accordingly but from a wage perspective that'll be under review to see where the gaps are and at the worst case scenario people would be capped until the uh till the cost benefit is actually achieved as as net as net neutral thank you go ahead all their person donnie hill and uh alder feldi i would also say that um an organization that is not paying attention to what people are supposed to do and what they actually do really end up costing a lot of people a lot of money and um this uh assessment this uh assessment i think has been extremely long overdue and make sure that the city so that when we say that worker a does this we can in fact be relatively certain that that in fact is what worker a is doing so um i i from my perspective people are not overpaid here so i don't see that we're looking at dramatic cuts um police fire and transit are protected by union contracts so our non-represented body is um is vulnerable in that respect because it's not unionized but it is a relatively small part of the city structure so from my perspective um this is a pretty reasonable study cost-wise and really just gets us we really need to figure out what's going on in the city and this is kind of a key tool to do that and i understand what they're about i completely understand and i i would like to see something written into that um either they will be assigned duties that they can handle and at at the pay rate they're at rather than have anybody lose wages my my opinion thank you for those comments uh i'll rather our administrator will have some additional things he's like to say thank you mayor i just want to basically uh reiterate to the council that the reason that this is actually so important as alder donahue was alluding to is the fact that the wage benefit perspective has not been looked at um accurately for for many many many years over 10 years um i could do a study myself but we're reaching out with uh with this group because of the fact that they work with municipalities they also work with uh the private sector and what i'm requesting through this is that we understand that we are in a competitive situation not just for um as an example dpw or accounting positions clerk positions clerical positions these these positions are very uh unique to what how the city operates and we owe it to our number one asset which is our employees to make sure that we as a city are providing them with the best benefits and the best wages according to the to the to the workload that they provide what i've seen in the 10 months as of today 10 months um that we have um employees that are um doing extra work and possibly not being compensated accordingly and we have those that are doing um maybe though a workload that could be um expanded and again over the course of years um you know again wages and and benefits uh some positions may be over compensated for the value that the city as a business as i call it um technically can continue to um afford for the position and value that they're providing so again this is really to not take away but balance everybody's positions and value so that we're providing everybody with equitable and affordable um positions for the city to be able to afford into the future thank you thank you is there any other discussion seeing none will the clerk please call the roll eight eyes one no motion passes item uh 5.5 is RC number 304 of 2021 by the finance and personnel committee to whom was referred general ordinance number 41 of 2021 by all the persons donahue and borne amending the municipal code to assign the statutory duties of the comptroller to the city administrator all the person donahue thank you i move to receive the report of the committee and adopt the ordinance second thank you for that motion in support is there any discussion on the motion all the person donahue please proceed um this particular uh proposed ordinance change uh has received a fair amount of attention uh and i wanted to speak to the content of the ordinance and try to put it in perspective uh that makes sense um the when we had a finance director and sadly we have not had one since November of 2020 even though we are moving mountains in order to try to find this most critical position the previous to this the finance director slash treasurer position had also exercised the duties of the controller now there are two specific functions a treasurer is the person who receives the money into the city and accounts for the receipt of that money the controller is the person who reports on the receipt of that money provides with by statute actually should be providing reports to the council uh as to the receipt of the money and and how it has been spent some cities uh it and auditors in the past have been okay with one person uh exercising that role the problem is is that um it um because the treasurer because the controller reviews the activities of the treasurer and the controller and the treasurer are the same people the system of checks and balances that generally accepted accounting principles would be looking for is not net there is not that separation of duties there is not a check and balance um when our city finance director left his position our city administrator took that position over now it is a position that is essentially a reporting position it is a position that uh in the old days we called it a controller it's a person who understands and reports to the body as to how the money that is coming in is being received the statutes uh wisconsin statutes provide pretty clear direction as to what those requirements are and so what we are doing at this point is putting into the ordinance the actual reality of how the city has been operating with respect to both treasurer and controller positions it is a minor change it does not it invests a great deal of responsibility on the sense of the of the city administrator that we're asking to take over but really does not provide him with any power now there seems to be um i have been reading and hearing uh some concern in the community that somehow the powers of the city administrator are being vastly expanded by this particular ordinance provision uh i will just tell you i have looked at it i have looked at the city administrator's job description i have looked at the statutes i have respected the opinion of our city attorney and also understood the necessity of this taking place and i am fully convinced that this is a reasonable and sensible change to make it is not vesting vast new powers in our city administrator along with that there has been a concept that somehow our city administrator has an appointment for life so by vesting in him the powers of the controller that is to report the monies that come in to into the city that somehow um we now have a dictator for life that there is no way that we can get rid of our city administrator and again i just want to point out that that's simply not true again wisconsin statutes require that if a city council or a common council is going to terminate the appointment of an official that they have appointed in the past and remember it is the common council who appoints the city administrator and it is the common council who would terminate the city administrator this is by statute required to be a three-quarters vote three quarters of of the body in our case that would be seven point five percent alters so we round up and it is essentially eight out of ten alters need to agree on the termination of the city administrator for cause and cause is defined as neglect of duty inefficiency malfeasance so in other words if your city administrator is not performing properly state statutes require that eight out of ten in our body would need to approve his termination the reason for this kind of setup as far as i can tell and having lived through three transitions to of city administrators please remember that the city administrator position was not created for quite a long time and was done under the context of a prior mayor even though it had been talked about for years and years city administrators as this particular proposal proves are often subject to criticism or controversy within the community and sometimes that controversy and is very serious and sometimes it's not but a person a professional and please remember our city administrator runs a one hundred eighteen million dollar corporation with more than 450 employees and so if the political wins blow in one fashion or another this is designed to protect the city administrator from one issue terminating employment and throwing a city government and city management into chaos now if people don't like that they can suggest to their legislators that this can be changed but for now it is state law and that's all i can say about it um we live in kind of a crazy time um where civil discourse seems to be um not so okay and we seem to be troubled by what are facts and what aren't facts and i'm not going to get into that because that that is a discussion that apparently these days is just kind of a no win situation but um i've been called a lot of names recently you know i'm almost done and i i frankly had hoped to go out quietly and calmly and that doesn't seem to you know i've been threatened to watch my words i've been called corrupt i've been called dishonest and you know okay i mean that's that's kind of the way it is but let's try to remember that civil discourse is based on facts and so what i would suggest to folks in the community who have real and true concerns about this look at todd wolf's state of the city 2021 address it's on youtube this will provide people with a roadmap as to where the city wants to go why it wants to go there and how we plan to get there and it is pretty fact based and i would suggest that once we get our facts in position we can we can talk to each other in in a in a more civil fashion i personally am very grateful for the people sitting around my the circle here um who have been nothing but civil and polite and respectful um but i just had to say my piece because it's been it's been kind of an unpleasant couple of weeks so uh i i think that this makes complete sense it may well be that once we get um a finance director in and we get our our finance department in shape which it is we're working hard to do that we may be able to move that controller position back to the finance department i can tell you that our city administrator does not need to do a whole lot he's got plenty to do so with that i would urge the the council to approve this change to the ordinance and thank you for letting me rant thank you very much for that thorough discussion of the issue is there any other discussion like Alderperson Sarnson thank you um i'll try to follow Alder Donahue's statement um but i just wanted to make some quick quick points just in terms of of the purpose of this this ordinance as well in terms of of how that this is this is another procedure in terms of how we take care and respect and be a good steward of taxpayers dollars right now our finance department is not functioning at where we want it to be we don't have a finance director right now um the finance team is working as diligently as they can so that we can be more accountable in terms of more accountable and transparent of how we're spending taxpayers dollars um and i see that this is a good opportunity to improve checks and balances in terms of of of how we're managing the finances for the city um other cities do this as well across um wisconsin as well as the united states um so this is this is for me this was an interesting topic of how this got really blown out of proportion um uh in some messaging boards um as well and i've had some folks reached out and asked for clarification on it and happily provided it um but but right now we we need to understand we don't have a treasurer or excuse me we don't have a finance director in our finance department um because it is such a competitive hiring market right now in the surrounding area to find that that top tier talent but as as ulderdone you said that this is a step forward in terms of how we can manage our finances respectfully and ensuring that you know hopefully maybe down the line in the future we can um come back to this as well so i i'm in i'm in favor of this as well i think it's um it makes sense for the situation that one right now thank you thank you for those comments all the person born thank you mayor uh i was really happy to see that see the administrator uh wolf recommended bringing this forward especially the component of the controller having been on the finance committee for many years and seeing audits our yearly audits that are uh given to us by the cpa firm that we hire it was pretty evident uh and i'm surprised that our previous city administrators didn't take the initiative to bring this forward so uh i see nothing but positives in this and having Todd be the controller so i fully support this thank you thank you is there any other discussion seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage nice motion passes next we'll move on to other matters authorized by a law i'll call on city attorney charles adams thank you mayor 7.1 is an arrow by the city clerk submitting various license applications for the period ending june 30 2021 December 31 2021 april 14 2022 and june 30 2022 that'll be referred to licensing's hearing and public safety committee 7.2 is a resolution by elder persons donahue and born approving the fiscal year 2021 one-year annual action plan for the community development block grant program submission that'll be referred to the finance and personnel committee thank you next is a contemplated closed session council plans to adjourn in closed session and uh that would end our our tv broadcast for this evening alder person sorenson thank you mayor i moved to convene closed session under exemption provided in section 19.851 e wisconsin state statutes where competitive and bargaining sessions require a closed session related to a possible sale of the city owned land in the south point enterprise campus and development opportunity at 802 north 15th street thank you for that motion in support would the clerk please call the roll nice nice we'll take a three a minute recess and then reconvene in closed session