 I'm going to call our meeting to order. I'll note that our committee is here in full force. Todd, would you call us who's in the council chambers with you? Yes, I will, Chair. Vicki Schneider, from HR Director. Myself, Chad Pellecek, Carrie Irons, and Scott. Perfect. All right, if you will. She muted. I assume we'll say the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. I pledge 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. Thank you. It's all yours, Chair. Thank you. And I reversed the order there, so my apologies. We're welcoming Daniella in her office and welcome to our meeting, as well as all of the staff who are present in the chambers. I would like going to 2.1, a motion to approve the minutes of our November 23rd meeting. Move to approve. And it's our second. Is there any discussions? Chairman, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Sorry. Chair votes aye. The minutes are approved. Moving on to 3.1, which is a claim from John Weiss regarding damages to his house. Chuck? I need to file this, but this is a claim that the city is paying. We're simply waiting for documentation from the claimant before the check goes out. OK, and I, and Chuck, I missed that. The very beginning, you were a little muffled. You were looking, this claim has been approved? Yeah, we are paying this claim, yes. OK, so you just need a motion to file? Correct. All right. You'd think without a beard, we could understand you better, but oh well. Do we have such a motion to file? It is. Second. All right, any questions? Hearing none, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Motion passes. I don't know why my camera turned off. My apologies. All right, let's move on then to 3.2, which is a claim from Swigard Investments for damages to a house when storms swept through, and a city-owned tree branch broke and damaged the house on Ontario Avenue. Chuck? This is before you for a motion to file, but you know what's happening, we did deny this claim. It was untimely. OK, and Chuck, just so you know, your microphone's not so hot tonight. Usually it's pretty good, and you're kind of fading in and out just so you know. Chuck is looking for a motion to file. Do we have such a motion? Motion to file, Lauren. I'll take the second. All right, is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. 3.2 is a claim, very similar to 3.2, except at 916 Ontario Avenue. Chuck, is this the same circumstance? It is. We're looking to have it filed, and we did deny this as untimely under the notice of claim protection. OK, is there a motion to file? I'll move. Second. I have a question. This is a thing on just a sec, Roberta. Who is the second from? Second from Trey. OK, very good, Trey. Burt, go ahead. What makes it untimely? How many days is there to file a claim? 120 days. Thank you. It's 120 days to provide a notice of a claim. If they don't provide a notice, the claim itself is the notice. OK, thank you. Little municipal law 101. Yeah. 3.4, I'm sorry. Do we have a motion to file? Or did I already have a motion? You have a motion and a second. You just need the ayes for the days. OK, that's right. Burt, you got me off my game. I'm sorry. If there's no further discussion, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Thank you. We will move on then to 3.4, which is a claim from Eric Stroff regarding damages to his basement. Also looking for a we're also looking for a motion to file on this one. This is one we've already denied based on no liability by the city. All right, we have such a motion and a second. Very good. Is there any discussion hearing none? All in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. All right. Well, can you believe it? There's another complaint from Walmart. This is 3.5, submitting a summons and complaint in the matter of Walmart real estate business trust versus the city of Sheboygan. Chuck? Yep, this and we're just submitting it to you so that you know it's out there. You can I think we usually just kind of hold these in committee until they're settled. So proper motion would be to hold. All right. And Chuck, is this related to the attorney hiring at the end of the meeting? Yes. Just the same claim. OK. All right. So we will just hold this pending resolution of the litigation. Does someone want to move to hold the matter? I moved to hold. Second. All right. We have a motion and second. Is there any discussion hearing none? All in favor, state aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Says we need to deal with dark story issues, huh? 3.6 is a claim from Tara Bergen for trip and fall injuries. Chuck? This is another one where we're just looking for a motion to file. This is one we've already denied based on lack of liability by the city. All right. But I have a motion to file this matter. Move to file. Is there a second? Second. All right. We have a motion. I'll take bird as the seconder. Is there any further discussions? Hearing none, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. We are on to 3.7, which is a resolution authorizing a transfer of appropriations in the 2020 budget and authorizing reimbursement for funds expended for the purchase of property at 1807 North 8th Street. Chad, will you be taking this? I sure will. So thank you, Chair. You're right on my credit. What was that? Go ahead. Go ahead. So this is doing a couple of things. This resolution is transferring funds within the budget to allow us to purchase the property in January of 2021. And it's also based on a recommendation from HUD, allowing us to reimburse $500,000 of the purchase price with Section 108 guaranteed loan funds that would close sometime after the middle of January. So you'll recall that the purchase price of the former Save-A-Lot is around $985,000. And with closing costs and title fees and other things, we're estimating around a million is needed. So $500,000 of that is being paid for with some reprogrammed CDBG funds. $500,000 will be paid with city funds. And then when the Section 108 loan closes in a few months, we will reimburse the $500,000 that was paid with city funds. So if you guys so choose to make approval on this document, we would ask that it's amended to include a substitute resolution and changing the address and the first line from 1807 North A Street to 1817 North A Street, which is the actual address of the property. Anyone have questions for Chuck? Madam Chair, I'd make a motion to approve as amended. Second. All right. And so the amendment, just so we're clear, is merely changing the address, the property address. Is there any other discussions? I have a question about Section 108. Is that just generic HUD funding for development? It is not. It's a loan program that's provided to communities that receive funding from HUD. And basically, the guarantee is to advance future CDBG allocations as the payment for the debt. This funding does not go against the city's general obligation borrowing capacity and does not require a Moody's review. And it's secured basically by future allocations from the CDBG program towards the debt service, as well as a first mortgage on the property from HUD. Chair. OK, thank you. Chair? Yes. Thank you. I just want to add to that. I believe we've discussed the 108 HUD loan process. But I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that within approximately the first four years, the city will have the ability to lock it in at, again, a low interest rate. So it's not like it just rides out there. And I believe that when we had talked with them, they were talking about an interest rate of 0.64, if my memory serves me correctly. That's correct. So we would be silly to not take advantage of this opportunity. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? And just so everyone is clear, of course, we're talking about the property for the senior center. Correct. All right. We have a motion and support. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Excuse me, Chair. Chair, can you? Go ahead. We didn't catch who made the second. Jim, for the first. Marcus was number two. Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. Very good. Thank you. All those in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Good. Now, getting back to board docs here, our last resolution is or matter for discussion is 3.8, which is a resolution authorizing retaining outside the legal counsel to represent the city in the Walmart dark store case. We began to speak about number 3.5. Chuck, why don't you kind of fill us in on what your thoughts are here? Sure. So, if any, Ms. Amy Seibel has represented us well on the last several lawsuits involving the Walmart. She's also very inexpensive. She's able to be very inexpensive because her way of sort of dealing with these is by bundling a large number of cases involving Walmart together and dealing with them all at once. We actually, we may be missing one bill for an hour or two of time, but for all of 18 and 19, the entire bill was $1,600 for those other lawsuits. So, I mean, that's ludicrously low. I probably shouldn't say that on a public link, but so and she does good work. So, we're recommending that we continue to use her on this case. Very good. Does anyone have any questions for Chuck? I've got a question. I got a question for Chuck. Chuck, this is Alderman Bourne. My question is this has been going on with this dark store and she's represented us and other municipalities over a period of time. When these were settled previously, wasn't that setting some type of a precedent for Walmart that it was futile to continue to do these or have the majority of these came out in Walmart's favor and that's why they continue to do it? What's the history? Well, no. Futile is a pretty high standard and I think they're perfectly willing to litigate in hopes of getting somewhere even if they're and frankly, they're doing the same thing that Adrian Seibel is doing on our side, which is bundling all sorts of cases. So, it's relatively inexpensive for them to litigate these as well. You know, they did not do well in our most previously case. I mean, the last case is we did settle. So, they got a little bit of money back, but they didn't really do particularly well. I suspect they're probably using this case to try out a few different theories and see where they go, this and other cases. And unfortunately, as long as it becomes, as long as it remains relatively cheap for them to file these losses, I think they're going to continue to do it. It does help that, you know, we've gotten good results and there have been a number of cases getting decent results, but it doesn't end it. There are still theories out there until the legislature fixes this. We're probably going to keep seeing numerous attempts to try to pay as little as possible in taxes. So, if they haven't done particularly well in the previous cases, then with the new cases, are they coming in with another angle to try to see if they're more successful or are they just rehashing the same thing again? So it's early to see exactly what their strategy is because a lot of the strategy is revealed in their experts reports. However, that said, we've talked, and I want to be a little careful again, what I say in our open meeting, but Attorney Seibel and I have had some strategic discussions about these cases. It is clear that they made some strategic decisions in the previous cases that did not turn out in their favor, but that doesn't mean that all potential strategies are completely foreclosed. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Chuck? I have just a simple one. Is Attorney Seibel out of Milwaukee, Chicago, New York? Where's she from? Milwaukee suburbs. Thank you. I was just gonna make a motion to pass the resolution to hire the outside legal counsel for the Walmart matter. And is there a second? Oh, second, Beth. And I really do hope that our legislators, at some point takes a look at this and puts a stop to letting corporations tax our residents at a higher rate because they don't want to pay. It's really a unique strategy if I can just editorialize a little bit is that our legislators appear to be on our side in terms of either drafting legislation or speaking favorably about closing dark store loopholes and then just ensuring that nothing happens, that bills die, that, so there literally are no solutions from the legislature to date. I'm not encouraged that there will be. And it's hard when you have so many cases, Chuck, and I'm interested in whatever new legal theories might be coming forward. But if there are new theories, then litigating something to the Supreme Court is not necessarily helpful. You may settle one issue, but then there's a different theory or a different issue. So I just wish that it were possible that we could let taxpayers know just how much they are suffering as a result of Walmart's insistence on not paying its fair share. So I will get down off my soapbox now, but I can't tell you, I know there are many things that irritate me, but this one is just way high up on the list. And so, and I'm so glad that attorney Seibel, who did a very interesting article in the municipality a month ago about different theories and about not settling. I thought it was a very interesting article, and I think we're in very good hands with her. And so, and then someday, Chuck, you and Thomas will know everything there is to know. And you'll be able, of course, for $1,600, you know, it's kind of hard. Yeah, the cost to benefit analysis is a little hard on that one, but in any event, so we're very good that we have attorney Seibel in our court as it were. And if there's no other pontifications or discussions, all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Aye. Any, Trey, Roberta, did I miss? That was an aye. Okay, it was an aye, I was muted. Sorry. And there are no negative votes in that respect, so the chair votes aye, and the motion passes. All right, let me just get back to my agenda. So our next regular meeting is December 28th. Chuck, would you help us to have a meeting? I don't know what time to talk to her agenda. It depends on what ends up coming on the agenda. You may be able to cancel for this meeting. I think it's fairly common for FNP to get canceled, really the only one that often meets between Christmas and New Year's, unfortunately for you, licensing hearings and public safety. Chair. I'm trying to take the week off. Chair. Yeah, Todd. Thank you. There may be a need for a very quick FNP. We may need to make an adjustment to having the funds taken from General Fund and put into capital for those. Okay. Okay. Let me just check to make sure that we have a quorum. I guess none of us is really traveling very much, but is December 28th okay with everyone? Should it be necessary? Okay with me. I can make it. Okay. All right. Very good. And so I will ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second? Second. Hearing no discussion, all in favor, state aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Terrific folks. Thank you. Take care. Bye.