 I'd like to call to order the first regular meeting of the Common Council for 2017-2018. Like to ask the clerk to please read the quote for the day. Thank you, Mayor. I hope our achievements in life shall be these, that we will have fought for what was right and fair, that we will have risked for that which mattered, that we will have given help to those who were in need, that we will have left the earth a better place for what we've done and who we've been. Thank you very much. Would the clerk please call the roll? There are 16 present tonight. Thank you very much. Next is the presentation of the National Colors by the Sheboygan Police Department's Honor Guard. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Shoulder. Next I'd like to call up Generations Portet for some patriotic songs. While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance to a land that's free. Let us all be grateful for a land so fairly raised, our land to the prairies, to the oceans, might the fall to the oceans, might the fall, we're so glad our stars back. We're the Generations Quartet for that gift of music at our meeting tonight. Next I'd like to call up Pastor Greg Welton from St. John's United Church of Christ for our invocation. Before I ask you to stand, I bring greetings to you from the people of St. John's. And tonight I'm dressed as chaplain of Elks Lodge number 299 here in Sheboygan. And I bring greetings and God's blessings to all of you from all the members of the Elks also. So I would invite you all to rise for a moment of prayer. Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you tonight for all these who have committed themselves, their time, their gifts, and their talents to serve in government. We pray that you be with them and help us all to remember that we have a great gift. We have our city, its river, its shoreline, communities, industry, businesses, families, schools, people. We pray tonight that you bless all these men and women throughout not just this evening but throughout their term of office with wisdom, courage, vision, and a willingness to step forward and lead throughout your spirit of strength upon them and bless this city with indeed your spirit on the lake. In your name, we ask it. Amen. Thank you all. Thank you very much, Greg. Next item on the agenda is sparing into the mayor elect. And I'd like to ask my wife, Julie, to come up to the front, please. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I'm Michael Van der Steen. I swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of mayor to the best of my ability. So help me God. Congratulations. Next, we'll ask the newly elected older persons to come up to the front, and Sue will swear you in next. Would you all raise your right hand and repeat after me? I, please state your name. I, your name is William. I swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States. I swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Wisconsin and the Constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of all your persons to the best of my ability. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. The next item on the agenda is adopting the rules of the common council. All the person down here. Thank you, Mayor. I move to adopt the rules of the common council. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the council rules? Seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Next we'll move on to the election of the president and vice president of the common council. Turn it over to our city clerk for your directions. Thank you, Mayor. We will be doing the president first. It will be a closed ballot. So you will get a paper ballot. The attorney will hand them out and you will write after the nominations are put on the floor. You will write who you want to vote for. President, sign it so I can read it. And we'll count them out and it is a closed ballot. All the person down here. Thank you, Mayor. I move that nominations be received from the floor voting to be done by closed ballot. And if more than two candidates are nominated, the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be dropped from the list and balloting to continue until one candidate receives a majority. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. The nominations are received from the floor. Who would like to make the first nomination? All the person holds you. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to nominate John Bellinger for president of the council. Second. We have a motion and a second. Do you accept the nomination? All the person Bellinger. I do. Thank you. All the person Sorenson. I would like to nominate all the person Todd Wolf. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. And Mr. All the person Wolfe, do you accept the nomination? Yes, I do. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Okay, then we will hand out ballots. We should have the quartet stay a little bit longer. Come on, the kid's doing great. You almost need a game show music. We could play Mike's song. As far as your seat assignments, we put up something temporarily today and then after the elections are done, we'll be rearranging the desk. So where you're sitting this time may not be where you end up for the rest of the term. And then our city department of public works, hind staff will come in and put new labels on all the desks. Our new council president is Todd Wolfe. Todd, congratulations. Next, we'll move on to the election of vice president of the council. All the person down to you. Thank you, mayor. I move that nominations be received from the floor, voting to be done by closed ballot. And if more than two candidates are nominated, the candidate with the lowest number of votes be dropped from the list and balloting to continue until one candidate receives a majority. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. We'll now receive nominations from the floor. All the person Lee Wendalski. I would like to nominate Jim Bourne for vice president. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Okay, Jim, would you accept that? I accept. Thank you. All the person Nelson. No. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? All the person Halshu. I'd like to. Is there a second? Second. All the person drawn, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Okay. And are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? All the person Donahue. I move to close nominations. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. We'll hand out your ballots. That's all good. I see a future in all the person, 235. Yeah. He's waiting for a motion to approve. Some of your second, then. Well, our new common council vice president is all person Roman drawn. Congratulations. Next, we'll go on to elect the representative to serve on the city planning commission. All the person Donahue. Thank you, mayor. I move that nominations be received from the floor voting to be done by open ballot. And if more than two candidates are nominated, the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be dropped from the list and balloting to continue until one candidate receives a majority. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Are there any nominations for the city planning commission position? All the person Halshew. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to nominate John Bellinger for the city planning commission. Second. That was all the person Bitters. You accept all the person Bellinger? Yes, I do. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? All the person Donahue. I move to close nominations and direct the city clerk to cast a unanimous ballot for Alder, John Bellinger. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Congratulations, all the person Bellinger. Next we'll go on to the Board of Contract Examiners. All the person Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move that nominations be received from the floor, voting to be done by open ballot, and if more than two candidates are nominated, the candidate with the lowest number of votes be dropped from the list, and balloting to continue until one candidate receives a majority. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Accepting nominations. All the person Bellinger. I would like to nominate Alderman Suzy Olschew. Second. Thank you for that nomination. Alder, person Olschew, do you accept? Very good. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Alder, person Donahue. I move to close nominations and direct the city clerk to cast a unanimous ballot for Alder, Susan Olschew. Second. Thanks for that motion and support. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Congratulations, Alder, person Olschew. The next item is to elect two representatives to serve on the Capital Improvements Commission. Alder, person Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move that nominations be received from the floor, voting to be done by open ballot, and if more than two candidates are nominated, hmm, for each position, the candidate with the lowest number of votes be dropped from the list, and balloting to continue until one candidate receives a majority. Second. Are there any nominations for representative on the Capital Improvements Commission? Alder, person Damro. Nominated, Brian Bitters. Second. Thank you for that nomination. Do you accept Alder, person Bitters? Yes, I do. Okay. Any other nominations? Alder, person Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. This would be, my nomination would be for the second position. And in that respect, I would nominate Andy Ross. Second. Thank you for that nomination. Alder, person Ross, do you accept? Yes, I do. Okay. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Alder, person Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move to close nominations and direct the city clerk to cast a unanimous ballot for the two candidates. Second. We have a motion on the floor. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Well, congratulations to both of you. Thank you very much. Okay, next is a recess of our common council to elect the committee of the whole chairman. I'd ask President Wolfe to come up to the podium and take over the chair. Okay, I'm looking for nominations for committee of the whole. I'd like to nominate Mary Lynn Donahue. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Any additional nominees? Anybody else? Any additional nominees for committee of the whole? Any additional nominees? Yes, Suzy. I'd like to nominate Rosemary Truster. Rosemary Truster. Second. Okay, we have Rosemary and we have, that was Mary Lynn from. More nominees yet. Any additional nominees? Any additional nominees? Any additional nominees? Seeing none, we will cast a vote for the two nominees. Brindasky's vote is for Truster. We can hear. It's an open ballot. Oh. Holschu's vote is for Truster. Sorenson's vote is for Donahue. Schneider's vote is for Truster. John's vote is for Donahue. Renfleisch's vote is for Donahue. We'll read it again. Renfleisch. Brass's vote is for Donahue. Okay. Truster's vote is for Truster. Nelson's vote is for Donahue. Wolf's vote is for Donahue. Cevalia's vote is for Donahue. And then his vote is for Truster. Warren's vote is for Donahue. Melanchor's vote is for Truster. Litter's vote is for Donahue. Donahue's vote is for Donahue. Okay, the candidate that has won this election for committee of the whole, Chairman, is Mary Lynn Donahue. Congratulations. Well, my congratulations to all the candidates who ran for leadership positions today. Next item is on the agenda is a message from the President of the Council. Todd Wolf, the podium is yours. The Lord is down. Well, thank you, Alders, for the continued support and my family, of course. Tonight is another example of change and that we need to move forward in a continued fiscal and responsible decision-making for our great city and constituents. Henry Ford best said it as, coming together is the beginning. Keeping it together is progress. Working together is success. This is a position that is very important. This position is very important, not only for myself, but also for our fellow Alders. My goals are the same as that we would all want in any candidate taking this position, but are not limited to this as we work together to achieve success. This position is to assist in a better and clear understanding of information to be reviewed and decided upon. We need to assist our new members, new member Elders as we review some of the rules in city government moving forward. We need to work together better in respecting our fellow Elders in and outside this council as a team and not as an individual. We need to help our citizens understand the full picture and carrying the needs of the city and its entire city to bear. We continue to be fiscally responsible in addressing the needs that were overlooked in the past, which we're all continually working on. We continue to work to increase our city's economics and promote that we are open for business. Last year was a stellar year for economic growth in the city and I challenge our council and the many other groups in raising the bar this coming year. Again, as we've heard from many, a rising tide lifts all boats. In closing, thanks to you all for this honor and please feel free to call me and review these and discuss topics of concern. I have always said that we can agree to disagree and this is good for each other to better understand how we can see the problems. Together we can strive for a better tomorrow with the path we are all looking forward to traveling on. Thank you. Is the message from the committee of the whole chairperson, all the person down here. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just gonna stand right here because this is gonna be very short. I just wanna, first of all, thank you for your support, I appreciate it. Our committee of the whole meetings are really great places for us to have wide ranging discussions and I will work to make sure that our meetings are focused, open, and helpful. And as an added benefit, as you may or may not know, the chair of the committee of the whole is really not supposed to talk very much. It's only supposed to run the meetings so this is a way that you have gotten me to talk less and I, so you can applaud yourselves as well as me. Thank you. Thank you for those thoughts. Next is the mayor's message. City council members, friends, family, and city residents, welcome to the 2017 Sheboygan State of the City address. I'd like to start by giving a very special thank you to my wife Julie without her support and that of my family. I would not be where I am today. I also wanna thank the voters who reelected me to serve as Sheboygan mayor for a next term. I also, I appreciate the support of my candidacy and the city initiatives implemented during the last term. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the candidates that ran spirited campaigns for office. Since the last term, we have now five new members that have joined our city council. I'm looking forward to working with all of you to keep building a better Sheboygan. We have now completed one year with administrator Daryl Hoffland. What a difference having this new perspective, taking a look at the way that we function as a city. Daryl introduced IFCs, items for considerations, now accompany all actionable items on agendas of our standing committees. This gives the older persons and the public a better understanding of the item up for a vote. Our new budget format was implemented and the annual budget that now gives residents far more information on the operation of city departments. In December, we've completed and approved the Sheboygan strategic plan. This was adopted and we have two years of action items to work on in six priority areas. So this is gonna be a plan that doesn't sit on a shelf. It's already being implemented with greats address. Both I and the city department heads appreciate administrator Daryl Hoffland's suggestions to change and improve our systems and practices. Tonight we're going to remember some of the accomplishments from the past term and look forward to opportunities for the next council year. The city of Sheboygan continues to grow each and every day. During the last year, Sheboygan experienced an unemployment rate of 3.5%, which was one of the lowest in the state. There are currently over 3,000 open jobs in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County and USA Today Money cited us that the city of Sheboygan was one of the top 10 factory towns in the United States and the factory town with the lowest unemployment, quite an achievement and we have to give all the credit to the businesses in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County. Workforce development has been a priority for Sheboygan. The someplace better campaign is a collaborative effort to help our businesses attract workers and sell Sheboygan and Sheboygan County as a great place to live, work and play. The Sheboygan area school district also opened up their Red Raider manufacturing program to create student pathways to careers in manufacturing. Sheboygan took steps to address the shortfall and market rate housing and soon there will be 260 new apartment units available or under construction to allow more housing in Sheboygan in our downtown. Sheboygan also supported the Founders Club as they developed dormitory style housing in the former Sheboygan retirement home for interns and hospitality employees employed by Sheboygan businesses. Sheboygan was the 11th city to join the Green Tier communities of Wisconsin. The 2016 city of Sheboygan's sustainability annual report detailed a number of accomplishments that have been achieved. The Sheboygan, sustainable Sheboygan task force has focused on four major goals. Number one, to provide recycling education to elementary students, to make rain barrels available to residents, to promote composting, to remove food waste from the garbage stream and to upgrade the sustainable Sheboygan task force website. Sheboygan also continued to change municipal LED bulbs and we were awarded a Focus on Energy grant recently to upgrade all the lighting along the Sheboygan River. In 2016, Sheboygan recycling achieved a rate of 28.3% of its curbside garbage was recycled. We still have some work to do as we want to reach our goal of recycling 40% of curbside waste. When you live in Sheboygan, you're living in a great city, in a great neighborhood. We now have five neighborhood associations that are managed by the mayor's neighborhood leadership cabinet. I wanna thank the members of Sheboygan Neighborhood Pride for their work to develop the new neighborhood associations. We further leverage their neighborhood revitalization efforts by adding a second code enforcement officer and they will follow up on properties to keep our neighborhoods clean and maintained and clutter free. In addition to our quality neighborhoods, Sheboygan's businesses are growing and investing in industrial, commercial and residential projects. There's approximately $160 million of new construction that is underway or will be completed in 2017. The assessments for this new construction should increase tax-based collections by about $1.9 million in 2017 and it's expected to increase an additional $7.6 million in 2018. Funding the resurfacing of our city streets is a priority and the Sheboygan Department of Public Works is ready to start one of the most aggressive street resurfacing programs in the last decade. In the past 10 years, we averaged about two miles of streets that were resurfaced per year and with the new sources of revenue that were approved by this council, we will be able to resurface 5.5 miles of streets in 2017. In addition, we purchased a new paving machine and a heavy-duty roller so that the DPW staff can repave the streets and provide proper quality or similar or better to what a contractor could provide. With this new paving equipment and the purchase of asphalt from Sheboygan County Highway Department, we can extend the dollars that we have available for street resurfacing. And our police department continues to bring a strong focus on community policing. This strategy has produced another 9% decrease in part one crimes in 2016. The department will also add a second beat cop to strengthen our northside neighborhoods. Last year, we completed the conversion to county dispatch for all 911 emergency calls and this eliminated the transfer of cell calls that came in on 911 from one dispatch center to another and consolidated all dispatch operations in the Sheboygan County Law Enforcement Center. The city dispatch will remain available to be used as a backup location for the dispatchers. The Harbor Center master plan was a collaborative effort with the Sheboygan squared businesses. We continue to use this document to guide and accomplish the implementation steps. This year, the businesses will partner with the city to conduct a parking study. This work has already begun on the development and performance of the performance space south of the Encore Apartments and it's under construction. This area will be known as the city green. 11 amp concerts will continue to be held on the John Michael Kohler grounds until grass turf is established. The Sheboygan squared business district will see the addition of 257 new market rate apartments with projects announced in the former Boston store, St. Cyril site and the inner lots of south pier. And then with another 246 additional dormitory units in the former Sheboygan retirement home, that'll give us a total of 700 additional residents living in downtown and south pier when these current projects are finished and occupied. The building use committee recommendation to focus on the remodeling of the current city hall which was adopted last night by the city council, we will enter the next steps in the coming weeks and be asking the city council to approve funds to hire an architect and draw up plans for this project. The summer construction will begin on a new skate park at Kiwanis Park. The planning meetings have drawn large groups of residents and this will replace a skate park that was removed over two years ago. The new Taylor Drive bike trail was finished last November. This Sheboygan County non-motorized project gives us a bike trail improvement to benefit the residents of the south and west sides of Sheboygan. And another goal of Sheboygan this year will to become a certified as a bike friendly community. I would like to thank all the city employees for their hard work each and every day. I'm also so appreciative of the work that you do and for your service to this city. Without all of you, we would not be the wonderful city that we are today. Earlier this year, we launched a monthly city newsletter, the Sheboygan Insider. This e-newsletter allows us to highlight the accomplishments of city staff and increase communication with our residents. And also thank you to the volunteers who serve on our city committees and participate in our community in many different ways. It's your contributions that make the city great. It's my honor and privilege to serve the people of Sheboygan. And I'm very proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the past. And I look forward to this upcoming year. May God bless you and may God bless the city of Sheboygan. Thank you. Next on our resolutions and I'm 2.1 is resolution number one dash 1718 by all the person down here requesting that the mayor reactivate various special committees for the 2017-2018 council year. All the person down here. Thank you, mayor. I move to pass the resolution. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. The committee appointments are coming around pursuant to section 277 of the municipal code. Standing committee assignments are made by the mayor on April 18th and subject to confirmation by the full council on April 24th. The code further states that it's the mayor's responsibility to make assignments that will best serve the interests of the city of Sheboygan. To assist me in this process, I asked all of you to fill out an appointment preference sheet on your committees. I made every effort to take these preferences into consideration and the standing committee appointments. I've also shared the data from all of your choices in the packet that's being presented. Under the municipal code, each older person shall be appointed at least one committee and not more than two standing committees. Because of the recent changes that we made in the number of standing committees from four down to five, there were five less second appointments available to give out this term. In addition to the list of appointments for the standing committees, I shared the committee preference spreadsheet with the rankings of all the older persons. I'm happy to report that 13 of the 16 older persons received their first choice in a committee appointment and three of the 16 older persons have received a second choice in their committee appointment. With regard to the older persons that have been appointed to a second committee, all have appointed to a committee that was their second choice. I trust that you as common council members will agree that these assignments in the elections held tonight position the city of Sheboygan for a successful 2017-2018 council year. Those committee appointments will lie over until our meeting next Monday. Older person Wolf? Thank you, Mayor. I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. All those in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you very much for your time.