 We'll be starting momentarily. We'll call the special meeting of the Common Council to order. Paul Adams, would you please call the roll? Manny? Here. Eberg? Here. Thelman? Here. Kittleson? Here. Deberg? Here. Graf? Here. Stefan? Here. Meyer? Here. Montemayor? Here. Vanderwealy? Excuse. Radke? Here. Serta? Excuse. Sagali? Here. Davis? Here. Susha? Excuse. And Van Akron. Quarms present. We will proceed. Tonight, we have a special council meeting. The meeting is also being televised for the benefit of the public. We have a presentation by, let me pronounce it correctly, Vandewal, Vandewal and Associates. And this is with respect to the Shaboygan Development Corporation's project and idea about spaceport Shaboygan. It's a wonderful project. It's a wonderful idea. You will be just fascinated by the presentation tonight. At this time, I would ask that Mr. Mike Muth lead us with the presentation first. Mr. Mike Muth is a member of the Shaboygan Development Corporation, has been very instrumental in our community with many, many projects. This is one of the very many projects that he's helped the city of Shaboygan with. And we are very grateful, Mr. Muth. Please proceed. Good evening. Good evening, Council. Mayor and Paulette, I appreciate the opportunity for the STC to come in and share information with you. As I appreciate the mayor's enthusiasm for this, because we've got a group on the STC that feels that this could be a wonderful opportunity for the city of Shaboygan. I'll start off by just giving a little background of how we got to this point. And then I'll introduce James Tessweed. He'll give you a little bit of background further on Rockets for Schools. And then the Vandewal representatives will give their presentation. Our chairman, Dennis Ladwick, couldn't be with us tonight. He's out of town on a family matter. And I'm speaking for Dennis. I'm vice chair of the STC and Dennis's chair. And I'm also on the committee to study Space Port Shaboygan, the possibility, the opportunity, but what are all the parameters for this project. We want to make it real clear from the outset that the city of Shaboygan, that this is your project. This is not our project. And but for your support and the armory as a possible location for this consideration of that, this project cannot happen. We've studied the numbers, and it just is not possible. And thus, we can start with a facility. It turns out that thanks to the vision of the city of Shaboygan that the army is in very good shape. We can use it pretty much as is, but we will be investing millions of dollars in addition to it. But the entire building, as you see it now, will stay intact, and it will be recognized as the army has always been. And I think that's a positive thing for the city. Originally, about two years ago, James Testweed, who's with us tonight, and is now also a member of the STC and of the Space Port Committee, approached us and said that as a segue from rockets to schools, he wanted us to listen to a presentation from a representative from NASA, which had to do with the portal that Shaboygan has into space that exists right over Lake Michigan and is unique for the sites in the United States for which you can launch a rocket. And I'm sure you're aware of all this. But this whole thing just started coming together from rockets to schools and the interest that NASA had in that. And then James also had in the rockets for school bringing that into the STC. What we're really talking about is a center for studying space, science, and it's an education center. So we want to emphasize the word education. This is what we're building it around, the concept that we're building it around. So we're talking about how it affects Shaboygan. It affects our tourism. It'll affect our economic development through the basis of education. So James, if you'd like to please give us your background. Thanks, Mike. Good evening, everybody. I'm Jim Testweed, and I've been involved with the rockets for schools program for eight or nine years. Well, probably 10 or 11 years. It's only been an existence for eight or nine, but I was involved in getting it started and bringing it to Shaboygan. One of the reasons it's in Shaboygan is, as Mike said, we have the opportunity to launch two outer space from Shaboygan. You can't do that anywhere else in the Midwest. So that brought rockets for schools here, because we could do that. As it built and grew over the years, I've seen lots of opportunities of things that we could do with the connections we've gotten to Shaboygan with the different astronauts that have come and presented this year. We had Mark Lee, who is a native of Wisconsin astronaut. He's been in outer space. He was the first person to do an untethered space walk. Spectacular, gentlemen. He gave a great talk to the kids. He's expressed a huge interest as we started talking about the Space and Science Center to helping us. Winston Scott, first person to actually retrieve wayward satellite and outer space with his hands. He did that a number of years ago. He's been up here presenting to the kids. Loves the concept I presented to us. So we've got a lot of backing inside and outside NASA, inside and outside the space community. There's quite a bit of space research and space construction done in Wisconsin. And so as we started to look at this and what happened at the South Pier, one thing led to another, and we kept piling things together and saying, jeez, this would work. This would work. We've got the synergies. We've got the spot. And as we looked around, we really didn't start with any concept of utilizing the armory. Actually, as we got Van Der Waal involved, they looked around and said, this is a perfect building. And it really is what we're looking for, a big, high space so we can have a display center. And so that brought me to the SDC, and they invited me to join the SDC and start researching the concept of building a Space and Science Center here in Sheboygan. Obviously, it has to cash flow. Obviously, it can't be a burden on either the community. We have no intention of having the city involved from that point of view. But it can't be something that we keep piling money into every year to make it work. It's got to bring people in. It'll pay to go in there. And that's where we use the experts from Van Der Waal to take a look at it and see if, is this feasible? Am I nuts? My wife thinks so, but hopefully the rest of you don't. And I certainly don't. And apparently, now Van Der Waal doesn't. And I think it's a fantastic opportunity for the city of Sheboygan to utilize a resource that nobody really thinks about. Incidentally, one of the reasons the fellow came to talk to the SDC was not about a Space and Science Center, but was about a real space port offshore Sheboygan where they could launch and have access to outer space and bring back. I've had the military up for rockets for schools, people that live underground in Nebraska and move satellites around for other people that they don't know and where to look at stuff. And they'd love to launch satellites from this latitude. They don't have the ability to do that. We're not talking rockets anymore. We're talking space planes. They're not great big noisy things. But with all that coming together, and I don't know if that's going to happen, and that's not what we're really here to talk about, but the possibilities there. And so to put those pieces together really seemed to be a natural fit for Sheboygan. I know most of us are sitting here going space and Sheboygan, you know, spacey and Sheboygan, but not space. But yeah, I mean, you think of California and Arizona, but it's happening in Wisconsin. And they're building parts for every space shuttle launch in Wisconsin. And it's here, and we're ready to embrace it. And I think we've got just the opportunity of, 20, 30 years is looking us right in the space, face with all kinds of things coming together. If you listen during the last space shuttle launch, the big return to space, which was covered quite a bit. You heard NASA official after NASA officials say, well, this is our first step to getting back to the moon and going on to Mars. The federal government and NASA are committed to get back to the moon. There are numerous reasons to go to the moon, not the least of which is it's probably the easiest and most attainable source of energy for the next couple hundred years. So I mean, there are reasons the Department of Energy wants to go there. There's reasons NASA wants to go there, not just to go and walk around on the moon. And they've got to educate our kids to figure out how to do it. They've got to educate us to realize why we have to get there. And there's an awful lot of willpower right now to do something like this nationally. And I think we're in the crosshairs. And if you talk to scientists in Ohio, space people in California, and if they're involved in the space world, and you mentioned space parts, Sheboygan, they all chuckle and say, you know, they're doing stuff out there. They know exactly what you're talking about. And I've had that happen. And I thought I was talking to somebody that had never heard of Sheboygan. The only thing the guy I talked to knew that was in Cleveland, Ohio, about Sheboygan is you guys shoot really big rockets there every year, don't you? I was floored when I was talking to a fellow two years ago with the size of the rocket. How do you do that? And I proceeded to tell him. So I mean, we've got a national reputation and very typical. You don't know what's happening in your own community all the time, but it's happening. With that, I think I'll turn it over to Van Dwell, who's really done a great job of studying this. Dean and Jolina, if you want to tell him what you've come up with, thank you. Actually, you know what, is there a mic right here? This is fine too, right? To make sure everyone, yeah, thank you, thank you, Mayor. To make sure everyone can hear me, I'll speak in the microphone. And maybe we could turn down the lights a little bit. Okay, thank you very much. Just like that, thank you. Well, Jolina's getting that set and maybe we need the right side of the screen there too. We need the right side of the screen. The projector, no, it's all the image isn't on the screen. I think it's being blocked. Just try advancing it one, maybe, Jolina. It's what the projector is projecting. It's what's coming out of the projector. Well, while she's working on that, I'll say thank you for the opportunity to present tonight to all of you on the council and to the mayor. Our firm has been involved in the city for quite a few years and it's wonderful to come back here and see all the success and to work with the SDC and to work with the city again on this exciting project. And it's a fun project as well. What I'm going to do tonight is take about 10 minutes or so to present the concept that we've come up with for taking all the exciting ideas that you've just heard about and to try to envision them for you to see how they would, what would this look like? What would it feel like? How well does it fit with the armory? And so I'm going to take about 10 minutes and show some images, talk a little bit about education centers and what they're like, talk about the armory a little bit and how good of a fit it is between the idea of a space and science education center and the armory. And we'll have some sketches and some images and a site plan and a floor plan to share with you. We've talked a little bit about what we're building on here. You have a lot of visible success on the lakefront and the riverfront. You've heard a little bit about the assets that were just spoken about, the Rockets for Schools program. The state of Wisconsin has, what is it, nine astronauts of its own. At the national level, there's a science education initiative and all these forces kind of line up to point towards the opportunity of an education center here. The benefits, why are we doing this? That was alluded to as well by Mike, but creating a high quality destination for the city of Sheboygan to add to the success that you've already had that will attract visitors from the outside. It'll attract prospective employers and employees, aerospace businesses, all in the name of economic development for the city of Sheboygan. I'm just gonna talk a little bit about education centers and science centers and kind of build that as a background before we talk about the armory in Sheboygan. You know, we're all familiar with some landmarks. This is, of course, in Chicago, the Adler Planetarium. It's right on the lakefront, so it's just down the shore of Lake Michigan from here. So it has that in common. But the idea of a landmark building on the waterfront, I think, is a real powerful idea. There's obviously the interest lately in the private investment in going to space and returning. The fact that there's a space portal just a few miles off your shoreline here is kind of an exciting idea. And, of course, the recent interest in the space shuttle launch and returning to space. There are several nationally renowned space and science education centers that are being built and have been built recently in the United States. The Air and Space Museum being built in Washington, D.C., on the left, and the Rose Center, which is in New York City at the Museum of Natural History. But it illustrates the interest that is occurring and kind of the excitement of the architecture and the educational aspects. So we ask ourselves, what are the characteristics of a successful space and science center? And a few of those qualities are its location. The idea that it becomes an icon, that it becomes an image in people's minds that they would associate with Sheboygan and come here for and come back for. The quality of interior spaces as the image you see in the lower left-hand corner, the idea of an inspiring space. And then the size, we did some research as to what size these facilities have been built in. And the size of this space and science center in Sheboygan would fall within the range at the national level. There are some centers that are smaller and, of course, some that are larger. This is a list of some examples of those. Of course, we've all heard of some of the national level larger-sized facilities at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, just the public space alone is 120,000 square feet. At the lower end, we found a number of centers that were successful, that were in the 20 to 30,000 square foot range with 10 to 20,000 square foot of exhibit space. So I just wanted to put this up here and to show you that the space and science center in Sheboygan would fall within that range, the total of which would be about, after an addition, without the storage area, it would be about 52,000 square feet with about 15,000 to 20,000 square foot of exhibit space and educational space. So let's begin to look at the lakefront and the armory. I'm just gonna put a short list of the assets that you have, the activity that you already have on the lakefront and the riverfront. And really, the armory sits right in the middle of those. You know, the obvious, the Blue Harbor Resort, the whole South Pier area, riverfront, Sheboygan. Downtown is not very far away at all. The county campus, you know, over to the left here. There's of course the marina, the yacht club, the youth boating center, and of course Lake Michigan, which I think we might all agree that if you look out into Lake Michigan, how inspiring that can be and how it can kind of bring us to imagine possibilities. And I think that's an appropriate location for an education center. And of course, the close proximity of the space portal just a few miles off your shore. So looking now at the armory itself, this is the site as a seagull might see it. It does have a lakefront location. It has a riverfront location. It's a prominent civic structure already. People, of course, have, you know, associate memories with this, the basketball games and the other community events. It's currently about 42,000 square feet, including the storage level and the lower level. And as you can see in the air photo, while this is very much an historic site and building that on the west side of the site, there is potential for expansion. And on the interior, these are some neat drawings from 1941 when the building was built, but showing a section, but it does have, you know, the volume and the quality of that space is pretty neat in my mind. It kind of reminded me of an airplane hanger, but it was the idea of that whole volume and the light that was coming into the building was kind of exciting. But it also has enclosed spaces underneath the bleachers. You know, there are existing classrooms that in the future can be used for offices and classrooms. So it's this combination of this large volume of space in the center and the old drill hall with the enclosed tighter spaces underneath and in the offices that an education center needs both of those kinds of spaces and the armory has it. So our first task was to take this inspiration of this is our astronaut Mark Lee floating above our earth and to develop an experience to try to describe what the center would be about, what it would feel like, what the subject matter would be. And the center would be welcoming, it would be fun, it would be an adventure, it would be larger than life. Some of the topics that were covered, you know, what would it be like to simulate mission control? It would be the topic of Wisconsin astronauts, robotics, how could we simulate a launch experience for kids? Okay. So we took that experience to developing, you know, a physical plan and a physical concept then for the use of the armory site and the building itself. So I'm sure you're all familiar with this area, but I quickly orient everyone. This is Pennsylvania Avenue and this is Broughton Drive, obviously the lake front and river front. So this shows, you know, the close connection with the activity that's already occurring in the area, the close proximity to the marina, the possible connections to the river front, and maybe very importantly, this design concept actually creates a new image and a new face to the armory which faces towards Pennsylvania Avenue and towards downtown. So this is a closer look at that same sketch, but to describe kind of the design concept, it includes on the site the important principle of keeping this part of the site intact as it was historically designed to create kind of a perhaps a site exhibit at this corner which would announce the center to the world. I think it's important to kind of, these site exhibits could add a lot of visual excitement, you know, to the lake front and to the river front. It could communicate the idea that there's fun stuff going on inside the building, that something's going on here. So the site includes a number of site exhibits, site signage that would announce the center to people arriving from the downtown side. An entryway, additional parking on Pennsylvania using fully using the right-of-way of Pennsylvania Avenue to increase the amount of parking. Utilizing this old sheet of asphalt here, of course, and making efficient and design parking area on this side. So the east side of the armory and the south side would be preserved as is, but the concept takes advantage of this west side which is kind of the utility side of the armory, not the most attractive side. And this is where we would propose building an addition which accomplishes the other needs of the center. An entry area where visitors would be greeted, a retail component, and a big component which would be a theater and planetarium at this point. Okay. So this is the site plan and floor plan. I'll just talk briefly about this and then talk a little bit about what would happen inside. This kind of shows the same components that I just mentioned. So it would turn a positive face to Broughton Drive into the lakefront, keep the facade towards the Pennsylvania Avenue and riverfront. This is the entry and these pathways could connect to the riverfront, it could connect to overflow parking over towards the marina. This is the new parking lot and new face that would be facing towards downtown. This is the original floor plan, the floor plate of the existing armory right here. So this piece and this piece are new additions. So you would enter and park or get dropped off by a bus here. You would enter into a sunlit space that would, maybe we could go back one more image, don't think I could show this better. So this would be the entry walkway. I kind of picture the design of this component here as being maybe it could be white steel and glass with an exciting mural behind it and it could be up lit at night. So it would be exciting visually. Now the theater could have banners on it that advertise the coming movies that are gonna be shown and planetarium shows that are gonna be shown. So I think from the outside, it could add a lot of excitement to the area. So once you entered into the lobby, you could access then the theater and planetarium. The retail is here for people at Christmas time, this could be open late at night and these two areas could be secured. This area could be secured and the theater could just be used. So it would be very flexible. It'd be used in a lot of different ways. And then the third option of actually entering then into the larger existing armory in those spaces which is where the administration would occur here on the north side and on the south side underneath the bleachers in area are the classrooms and labs with the center space, of course, being the large exhibits and activity spaces with the idea of a cafe on the front that could look out towards the lake where people visiting the center could take time to rest and look out towards the lake and be refreshed. So just get a feel on the interior spaces. The entryway could be light like this, the planetarium and theater space. But in the main, this is where the action happens. This is the existing armory. This is where the educational labs and classrooms would occur as well as the larger exhibit spaces. Some of the images show that educational aspect, the fact that children could come and learn in the classrooms and the labs that visitors could come to the larger space here and visit educational exhibits and also some experiential. We believe that we feel that it would be exciting if a lot of the exhibits and activities were very interactive. So this is kind of a list of potential exhibit topics. We've talked about the potential of simulating a mission control, honoring the Wisconsin astronauts, the idea of learning about robotics, maybe learning about robotics in a classroom, building a robot in the lab and then moving out into the open space to maybe test your robot on terrain. So all that could happen in these spaces in the armory. It would also accommodate traveling exhibits. It has enough height that we could try some things could be simulated like a launch experience or if you wanted to simulate weightlessness, try kind of a bungee kind of set up, there's enough space to do a lot of interactive and fun kind of things. So that kind of summarizes what I believe is a real opportunity to create a space and science education center that's a high quality destination that in the name of economic development it really could really attract visitors and employers and employees and businesses and built on the success that you've already had and on these assets and opportunities that are here right now in this time and place. I wanted to emphasize that the NASA's interest in this project extends to... Mike, Mike, could you speak into the... Big part. Mike, speak into the mic. Thanks. Am I key? Am I... I wanted to emphasize the interest that NASA has in this program, which Jim had mentioned to the degree that the University of Wisconsin Green Bay is currently the site of a library, a NASA library that exists and in the event that we go ahead with Spaceport, they would consider moving that library, which is really a distribution center for information, which would be housed here and would have a part-time librarian be part of this thing. For that, we get to put the NASA meatball on the side of the building. Okay, so now as people are traveling from Chicago to Door County or from Door County down to Chicago, whatever it is, there's a signage out on I-43 that announces a NASA facility as a space and education center and we think that has tremendous draw. So our credibility of who we are gets reinforced by the fact that this is a NASA endorsed facility. The films that'll be shown in the IMAX Theater could be films that are not shown, NASA films that are not shown anywhere else that you can't get your hands on of actual landings and footage that they have taken. So depending on how deeply they get involved with this thing, it takes on a complexion that is far greater than Sheboygan, Wisconsin. This is not about Sheboygan, Wisconsin. This is about the Midwest. The survey that was done in here suggests that within 250 miles, there's 28 million people that that's our potential market. They could come here and visit this facility. 500,000 people within an hour's drive from here. So we're talking about something that is special, not to Sheboygan, not Sheboygan County, not to the state of Wisconsin, but to the Midwest. And when we go to raise money for this, it's our job to see if we can't put together the money to do this. And we're looking to raise $10.5 million from the federal government in a form of grants and subsidies for this. And we think we can also raise $3.5 million throughout the Midwest from foundations and businesses. For example, one of those activities that's in that building could be sponsored by Boeing, McDonnell Douglas. I mean, they could be buying those and putting those things in. We haven't talked to them, of course, but we can create a list. We think that people will be enthusiastic about donating to this to have their name on this venue of what's to be done. At this point, what I'd like to do is just open it up for any questions that you may have, either about the presentation by the vendor wallet and associates or about the SDC people or what's in this booklet. Because the object of the exercise here tonight is knowledge. Alderman, does anybody have any questions? Just hit your buttons. First is Alderman Segale. Segale. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Must be, would you like us to stand? That is fine. I guess my only comment is, if I may direct it to the gentleman, please. I would like to thank you for bringing something like this to our fine city. In this age of doom and gloom looking at our budget, we have some bad days looking ahead of us. And this is such a bright spot. I mean, I can't tell you how excited I am concerning this and I have told the people to watch tonight to make sure that they see this also because this is something tremendous that's gonna happen to Sheboygan and is what is known as tourism. I thank you. Thanks for your comment. Alderman Berg, this will be seven days a week or is there gonna be a one day closer? We're not that far yet, but if we can keep it open seven, we're certainly gonna do it, yeah. Then on this page here where US space locations, what's the difference between the cream colored and the blue? US between the cream and the blue? The cream color, yeah, it says, one says US federal spaceport and then. The federally, excuse me, designated are actually more used for defense or only used by federal launch facilities. A lot of times the blue is connected to the yellow as in Florida. They have a commercial side and it's also the federal. So what we'd be looking at here, I believe is the commercial. Correct, yeah. It's been proposed. It's been proposed, but that's separate from the center. Thank you. Other questions? I could add to that, Alderman, that the city of Sheboygan has already applied for a spaceport, that happened about four years ago and we're in the applicator. As far as we could possibly get at this point, it doesn't happen overnight. The FAA does has our South Pier designated as one of these spaceports. That's on the books in Washington. And I don't know if any of you did, but I certainly did read the lease that the city of Sheboygan has with the Army Corps of Engineers for the South Pier, but it's leased for two purposes, the people of the city of Sheboygan using it for fishing and as a spaceport facility. And that's written in that lease. So this is something that's been slowly progressing towards over the last five or six years with the city. Now the space and science center is something different, a little different twist. But the city of Sheboygan certainly been moving towards at least leaving the opportunity and keeping the door open for a spaceport at some point in the future. And so we've done some of the things that we have to do and there's some things in Madison that we're waiting for, such as a Wisconsin space authority being created. That is, I think it'll be put in front of the house and Senate in this next session. I've read it a number of times. I think it's in its final draft form. And that's designed for spaceport Sheboygan. There's no other spaceport thought of in the state of Wisconsin. Hold on that key. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of questions for you. First off, you're talking about different foundations and things, will you be working with things like the Mercury Seven Foundation or the Challenger Memorial people as far as getting some of their exhibits that they've put together? And like the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the Smithsonian and some of the other NASA exhibits will be working toward bringing some of those to either permanent or temporary display here in Sheboygan and working with those groups hand in hand. The vision is that the activities would be a rolling kind of a thing. And that we would solicit support from many different places. The idea is to keep it fresh all the time and something that for six months and it's out or it's in for a year and it's gone depending on how it's received by the public. But people in Sheboygan are gonna wanna go and see the same thing every time. And we want this to be a place that they come back to. But I can't just segue off that a bit. Astronaut Mark Lee who lives in Madison is extremely excited about this project and he is willing to help us go out and raise funds. So we will have hopefully Alicia and him and if in fact the city of Sheboygan decides that they wanna proceed with this, what we are gonna do is load up an airplane and go out to Washington and try to raise their money. We'll put together a group that'll go out there and hopefully over a period of time be able to raise 10 and a half million dollars for this. And we believe private money kind of gets public money and public money gets private money. The fact that the city of Sheboygan is willing to come up with basically the first 10% of this, a million and a half dollars if you will. That's the value of that building. We're not asking that you give it to us. We're asking that you lease it to us for 99 years for a buck. And as soon as we start to cash flow, we intend to pay back to the city of Sheboygan a fee that we can afford to pay in this thing that would reflect the value of what is going on there. So this is not intended to be a free forever kind of thing, but the city maintains the ownership of the building to maintain the ownership of the land, it lease it to a spaceport Sheboygan and then it will be hopefully when the thing is cash flowing that they'll be able to either charge a tax on the admission to the planetarium or the IMAX or to the exhibits or whatever. Thank you, Mike. Alderman, Stefan? Thank you, Your Honor. I don't know if they made it real clear and I heard a previous presentation. So I wanted to emphasize that, they've spent a lot of their time at Sheboygan Development Corporation obviously preparing us as well as their money to get this report done. And I guess I just wanted a better explanation of what do you want the council, what are you asking us for now other than our support. What we need from you is a, your endorsement of this program, we need to have a commitment from the city of Sheboygan that we have access to that land and that building. We can't go out and raise money if we haven't got a building. We can't have a building. If we, you know, if we, we got to take step, step one was getting that survey done, you know, $25,000 to get the information, okay. It appears that we've got a wonderful opportunity here. That's just the first step. And there's a, there's a timing diagram and that's got a bunch of steps in it. It's a very complicated process, but it's a one, two, three, if you've done programs like this before when you've built things and that's what we're trying to do here. It's perceived that the Sheboygan Development Corporation will act as a bridge, if you will, between time zero and the time that this building is done and ready to go into business. And that the day or very soon thereafter or when it does go into business, the SDC will turn this over to a group that will run it. It will have its own board of directors. The SDC will not be involved anymore. It'll be basically be a board of directors, hopefully with some astronauts on it and you know, some, some people who will have national recognition in this thing. So we're really just acting as a bridge to get us from here, here to there. If I answer that. Okay. Hold on a minute. I was going to say what we're asking for is the commitment from the city so that we can go out and raise the next, go to the next step because we can't really ask anyone for money to even do the next level of work with Van Der Waal to design it and do formal business plans, which the SDC is committed, if we get the armory to come up with the money and then go out to Washington to try to get the big money. But we can't really ask for it unless the city's committed basically, I think there's a letter of commitment in front of you to allow us the armory if we go forward. Paul McGrath. Thank you, Your Honor. Regarding the in-kind donation from the city of Sheboygan, the in-kind donation is strictly the armory building and the land and we, the city of Sheboygan would not have any other contribution necessary other than that in-kind and like all maintenance of the building and things would be taken care of through your organization and so forth. I just wanna make that clear because somebody's gonna come and say, well, it's gonna cost the city one and a half million dollars to do this, how can they afford that? Especially after the mayor's speech the other night and I know we can't and I know it's not gonna cost us that but I just wanna make sure that's repeated enough time so that everybody believes that. Very good question. Yeah, all we're looking for is the ability to utilize that in the manner that we think it's best fit going forward. We're not looking for any other monetary commitment from the city. We're not looking for any long-term commitment from the city. Frankly, the long-term commitment is if we, at some point, 50 years, 30 years, three years it doesn't work, you guys still own it. You've still got it. So the downside is you end up with taking care of it again. But I don't think that's gonna happen but I'm just saying, we're looking to be able to fix the armory, take the expenses from you. Looking at your timeline, it's too bad you can't do things faster than three years because I think there's a lot of people up here that are very excited about this and want to see it started as quickly as possible. If you can get us the 13 and a half million, man, go do it any time you're ready. I can't do that. Okay, Alderman Ratke is next. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess this question would be directed to Tom Holtman. What does it cost us a year to maintain that armory currently because there's some more good news that comes off the tax payers backs? It's about $120,000, $130,000 for this year. And that would be taken over by the SDC at that point when they would take the armory over and they would maintain it so we wouldn't have to do that again. Oh, then we have one employee down there probably come back down to the service building of the park somewhere. So it's a win-win for the DPW then? Yes. It's basically a cost-neutral relationship, removing the liability and expanding our economic growth and tourism development and promotion in a nutshell. Alderman D. Bird, next, please. Well, that's what I was gonna ask about the taking over of the maintenance and everything. So outside of that, just why don't you guys just charter a plane tomorrow and go get the fucks and start. Sign of favor. Alderman E. Bird. Thank you, Your Honor. I think this is the hook that we've been looking for to get people off of the highway and traveling east of the city. And I think it's a lot more exciting than a submarine and a coal-fired car ferry. I think that this really establishes a mark for the city. I think that being said, I just a question. I'm assuming that the nonprofit corporation will be formed by the SDC, but you'll be bringing this forward. And... Correct. We are a 5013C now, okay? So we can operate this way. And then the organization that will be formed will also be a 5013C tax-free. However, we're making the commitment up front that while we don't know how much it's going to be, we expect to pay a fee to the city as we go forward, assuming this thing cash flows. Basically, whatever money that we make on the organization, we'll get plowed back into this organization for refreshing all the exhibits and keeping it. This has to be something that absolutely lights up people when they come in. It's one great story that they have a facility in Florida. Mark Lee, the astronaut told us about this where they have basically a small area and they had 30 people that paid $300 a day for the privilege of coming in and going through a day-long experience of what an astronaut's life is. And this is basically what it took to become an astronaut, what happens when you are an astronaut, that all the training to go through, and this is like an eight-hour experience, but people were paying $300 in class was sold out in doing this. It's gonna cost eight bucks to get in the front door or something like that, but we're talking about something that we believe is actually gonna draw on other businesses as well into this. So we think that it's gonna have a certain dignity. That would be very important. That being said, I would then move to authorize the appropriate city officials to draft a development agreement between the city and the SDC regarding the future use of the armory. Second. There's a motion and a second. I'm gonna ask you to call the role play. Is there any further discussion? Allureman-Sagali. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to ask Tom Holton, do we have any spaces rented out at the armory now? I mean, do people, do they have a lease or anything that I'm assuming once we give this permission that it is off limits to anybody else that? I would take not until a little further on. Okay. We've got a couple of years or a year to have a look at this. I don't think you take commitments that far out. No, we don't. We go a year out, some of them aren't, but we do have, however, on every lease we have that the city upon 90 days notice can cancel a lease. And we did that knowing that eventually the armory probably will be off our books. Okay. I just wanted to make that note, too. Thank you. Thank you. Attorney McLean. Thank you, Your Honor. Colin Berg had a suggestion rather than authorize creating some development agreement that may or may not ever happen. I think the SDC has presented a letter of intent that's more basic, but you know, I think that's been a lot of threat in the development agreement for basically what's in here. All they're looking for is some indication, I think, in council that they can go forward with some idea that the city has some interest in doing this and it saved me a lot of work. And I think the, well, no, but the agreement would come later, but this is actually what they're asking for to authorize the proper official to sign the letter of intent. So, and would you make a new one? I will, the motion read that we move to agree to the specifications in the letter of intent dated August 9th, 2005, sent by the Sheboygan Development Corporation. Second. The motion and the second. Any further discussion? Your Honor. Attorney McLean. Just so I can feel comfortable that I'm doing my job, I'm gonna give downsides. I don't know if any of you have ever been offered a free steak dinner to attend a sales pitch by some condominium developer, timeshare developer, and you go there and you get the nice dinner and you get the nice presentation and they want you, before you leave, they want you to sign on the dotted line. Now, I don't know if there's a time crunch here. I don't think so, but just so I can tell you that I've advised you, you may want to think about this and maybe you don't. That's perfectly up to you. The letter of intent isn't real binding as far as you're not signing a lease or anything like that, but just in the interest of disclosure, you may want to send it to a committee and refer it back and give it sleep on it, if you will. Maybe a lot of you are already aware of this and have done that and that's fine too. And I guess, as far as the details of the document for truth and advertising, I guess I'm a little concerned with item number one, it says the city of Sheboygan has the Midwest's only commercial spaceport and launch site. Now, that might be good PR promotional and it seems a bit much to me to say that the South Pier is, and I'm assuming that's what we're talking about as spaceport Sheboygan is the South Pier is a commercial spaceport and launch site. Be that as it may, I have to throw a little water on you, just so you give it a little thought. I guess to make that more clear, it should say only proposed, which that is true, but as Jim explained, it is going through the process. But I mean, I guess I would say even proposed commercial spaceport, I mean, is that really realistic? I mean, if we had acquired the Rice Coal property 40 acres and not put a hotel and convention center on the site and use that as a rocket launching facility or something, that would be one thing, but. I'd add, actually, we've gone to outer space from spaceport Sheboygan seven or eight times already. So whether it's been certified by the FAA, not FAA or not, I don't know, but it hasn't been a municipal entity that has paid $15,000 to have the rocket shipped up here and launched. So, yes, it's great. I was thinking when I read this brochure today, the first question I would ask as a kid when I go down to this facility and walk around and stuff of it, I'd say, mommy, mommy, where's the spaceport? And they'd point to the South Pier and it'd be kind of underwhelming to me, but. I know it's more of a science and education center and that's, I don't mean to put the cold water on this, but I think it's a very interesting concept and worth further exploration and see if there is money to do it. If I could make just a comment about the timing. This is, you certainly do not have to sign this tonight. We're not saying that that's a must. We would say that there is an urgency. There's a transportation bill that's just been passed that's worth billions and people are after that money right now as we sit here, okay? There is a, we believe that Homeland Security money is available for something like this. We have all sorts of, we have many advice from different people of how, where is the money, how do we get it? This is the perfect window right now. We couldn't do this. We couldn't have done it three years ago. We won't be able to do it three years from now. This money is out there and believe me, there's people a lot smarter than we are that know how to get it and they're gonna get a lot more than we are. All we want is to earn easily 10 and a half million dollars. I mean, that's, as the consultant said to us, he said, you know, actually it costs, it's just as much effort to get 50 million. Is it 10 and a half? And well, we'll just, just give us our God, give him 10 and a half million and we'll try to work with that if we can. So, what I am saying is that time is of an essence, not 48 hours or a week or something like that, but I can guarantee you that if in fact this goes through, we will be making arrangements to visit Congress people in Washington right away. Well, I think John and John are in situations where you sign now or you lose out on the deal. Quite frankly, folks, this is not one of them. This just isn't one of them. And I think that signing the letter of intent is not going to carry us beyond that point where we can't enter into an agreement. These people need the opportunity to go out and try to secure the funding. And I think that it wouldn't be prudent to just allow it for now for the moment. Alderman Stephan. I guess I was going to follow up on your thoughts. I didn't see a risk. I think the only risk here is that if they fail and can't get the money, we still have the armory. I mean, we don't have anybody else knocking on the door to buy the place. I don't think we're putting a police station there, so there's really no downside. Thank you, Alderman Stephan. One more, Alderman Montemire. Thank you, Your Honor. And I don't mean to be a smart aleck, but we know where every single one of these gentlemen lives. Jim Tess, we just moved. Thank you very much. Okay, are we ready to call the roll? Paulette, please call the roll. Deberg? Aye. Bauman? Aye. Kiddelsen? Aye. Deberg? Aye. Graf? Aye. Stephan? Aye. Meyer? Aye. Montemire? Aye. Radke? Aye. Segali? Aye. Davis? Aye. Van Akron? Aye. And Manny? All ayes, motion carries. Motion to adjourn. Is there a second? All in favor? Aye. We stand adjourned.