 first there's going to be a special meeting about the referendum. July 21st, is that a Sunday morning? That's a Monday afternoon at 5.30. Monday afternoon here at 5.30. Who will be involved in that meeting? City Council. Oh it's a City Council meeting? The City Council workshop meeting. City official City Council workshop meeting. It's not a special one. Can you give us a preview? Yeah it's we're going to work through all the issues related to Congress Square and the referendum. So the referendum raised a number of issues about the role of the land bank, the role of the parks commission, whether or not the City Council wants to put the issue back out to vote again in November. If not, does the Congress Square redesign committee? What authority do they have going forward? And what type of benchmarks do we want to pursue in terms of the redevelopment of Congress Square? We also need to reconcile what the City Council passed in the end of April with what's in the petition. Why are you waiting until July 21st? Well because we just had a very long council meeting last night. The initiative does not go into effect until 30 days after the vote so it wouldn't be until mid-July. And I wanted to get our corporate council and staff the opportunity to review and do all the appropriate background work and I wanted to get people funny and notice and I thought trying to do something on July 7th would be too soon. I wanted to introduce Mike Murray is here who is the David Hurd Services Coordinator, Councilor Ed Suspick is here as well, and you're Jim Prosser. Jim Prosser. I'm Cheryl Joseph. Okay. Did you want to ask any questions? I wanted to thank you for the care of the trees with mulch, repairing the sidewalk with new bricks, the flowers around Longfellow Square and the Memorial Day parade. Great. Well thank you and in particular thank you for the about the trees. We just planted over 25 apple trees and I participated. We planted 12 apple trees up at the East End right across from the East End School and we have an apple orchard there now with the 12 trees and there were an additional I think 20 trees along with that so we had 25 or 30 apple trees that we planted. And then just because I had the time to kind of explain this too but we, two years ago we got a donation or a year ago of four chestnut trees and chestnut trees as you know have died all across the country from a disease that has attacked chestnut trees. And these four chestnut trees were developed with 36 million dollar investment to come up with a chestnut tree that would survive the disease that had killed them across the country. And we just planted four of those in Portland a year and a half ago and we just got a donation and three more that we will be planning. So not only will we have apple trees, peach trees, but we'll also have more chestnut trees. Are they going to go on the East End too? Are they going to be what? On the East End? No, they'll be throughout the city. And I'm glad we're able to do a little bit more work on sidewalks and this past Memorial Day Parade was one of the better Memorial Day Parades we ever had. So and I'm not sure who can claim responsibility but it was one of the bigger and better ones that we had. Jim, did you have any questions? I don't know, I didn't even review everything about a time or square. That's what I wanted to hear about. I do have a question and that is again motorcycles and I don't see any effort again this year by the police department to enforce a law that doesn't allow you to modify your loss to make it louder. And I've written to the Chief of Police a couple of times and did polite responses. I brought it up here with you last year, polite response. I'm wondering if maybe we just are okay with a lot of motorcycles and then we did something that a few others just need to get over. Could I respond to that? Jim, Ed Suslick, I chair of the Public Safety Health Human Services Committee. I too personally find the noise in motorcycles really antisocial and a problem. So what I'd like to do, you draw my memory on it, there's also the issue of graffiti that is I find out back with the vengeance around offense as well. Every one of the silver control boxes traffic signals. What I'd like to do would be to place these issues on the July Public Safety Committee meeting which would be the second Tuesday in July and ask the police chief as well as the community prosecutor to come and both update us in terms of what they're currently doing, what the results of previous enforcement efforts have been and then take public comment because I agree with you. I think it's a real problem. All it takes is one idiot on a motorcycle with a illegally altered muffler to wake up hundreds of people on their way up and down Brighton Avenue, Congress Street, you name it. So I'm glad you brought that up and I'll put that on the Tuesday. I appreciate it. It should be Tuesday, July 8th at 6, I don't know, 5.30 p.m. at 3. Thank you. Well, thank you Counselor Sosever for being so responsible. Well, if I don't, I'll probably hear about it from the mayor. Certainly I'm glad you brought that up, because motorcycles are defeated at two issues that seem to be getting worse now. I would note that we have made some progress through the work of Mr. Murray and others with Freshman Alley and the graffiti that had been there has been removed and the dumpster that has been there has been removed and note there's no longer any parking there. So that alley through there has been greatly improved with Freshman Alley, right by Portland High School. The connection between that and Congress Street. But that at some time the graffiti there was pretty intense. You got a question? Has the city decided to take any further action regarding the cutoff of aid to immigrants from the state? Are you going to challenge that in any way in court? Or is there a decision made on that? Well, Jessica, make sure I get this right. But I think we just issued a news release. And the city manager, we were officially notified yesterday by the state, by the Department of Health and Human Services that reimbursement in general assistance in the areas that they have identified would cease to continue as of yesterday. And the city manager is announcing today that we will continue to make payments to the city well. And obviously we'll be working with various groups to pursue either legal recourse or legislative recourse to reverse that decision. But at least for the immediate future, we will continue to make payments in the city of Portland. And we're hopeful that the Attorney General fairly soon will rule on this issue and that her ruling will be similar to the one that she made last month where she decided that the previous rules that have been introduced by the administration were both an unfunded mandate and unconstitutional. And Portland, we think it will affect several hundred people and the cost us would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, to continue to Without the state's assistance, right? Another lawsuit? Well, if the Attorney General announces that rules against that policy, then obviously we don't have to go to court. But it'll probably take somebody outside who is affected by the decision that would then go to court. You know, there'll be various communities around the state that would be affected and each one, we don't know the full extent of which communities may step up and say they're going to continue to make payments and those that may not. Do you know which communities these are and you name them? Or is this all in the press release? Well, Portland is obviously the largest community affected. Lewiston is probably the next largest. Both Westbrook and Augusta would also have citizens that would be affected. From what I've been told, Bangor may not be as affected as the other communities I just mentioned. But I think it's fair to say that Portland would have the largest number of people affected and then you have Westbrook, Lewiston, Augusta, and Bangor. And you talked to the mayors of these? I have not. It was just a decision that was made earlier today in consultation with the city manager and I haven't had a chance to determine. I know the mayor of Lewiston, for example, supports the proposal. What about the lawsuit on the buffer zone? Are you going to pursue that? That, you know, we've been sued on that issue. There is a case before the US Supreme Court and we believe that the court will rule by almost eminently on that issue and it will certainly affect the outcome of the suit that we're facing at this point. Do you need to hire extra legal assistance? And most recently passed budget, there was additional money that was placed in the budget for support in corporate council's office. For a part-time person, wasn't it? Ed, you remember this. It was to fill another part-time position and then to also fill a position between the police department and the city, but there was also money that was available for both the police department and the corporate council office to sit down and determine how to best provide legal counsel. It's a little bit of a confusing answer, but it was more an allocation of additional money without it being set exactly how many people would be hired as a result of that. How much money could you bring it up? No, because the issue is we wanted them to decide whether or not they wanted to hire a position or put the money aside to retain outside counsel and which would be more official. What about the situation between the House of Turkey and Joe Salmi and the city? That has been resolved, it has been, and they have agreed the House of Turkey that there will be a sprinkler. They have an approved plan in place with the fire department. The House of Turkey has an improved, is that what you called it? They have received their permit and they have an approved plan in place with the fire department to address the sprinkler issues. Improved plan in place to address the fire sprinkler issues. They've gotten their business license, okay, been issued. So is Joe Salmi not involved in this at all? My understanding is the agreement is with the House of Turkey and with that part of the building and the establishment of their own. Okay, so Joe Salmi is involved in it. I don't know that. Are they being inspected by the Department of Agriculture, which they were supposed to have been inspected by? The House of Turkey? Yeah. I don't know the answer to that. Do you know? I don't know. Huh? That's not a department. That's a state. Well, according to the clerk's office, in order to get the city's clerk's office, they told me that they have to get inspected by the Department of Agriculture in Augusta in order to get their business license. Well, then if they got their business license, it must have been checked out. I don't know the answer to that, Carol. That was one of the conditions. And there were several others that they hadn't met, like Mark Schmuckl, I think? Well, I think, and I might be overstating this, but I think the major issue for us was the health and safety of the sprinkler. Right. But, well, the Department of Agriculture, okay. Well, we wouldn't have issued a business license if they hadn't had all those boxes checked off, so. Do you think, well, the clerk's office would have to check tomorrow? Yeah. I'm sorry, what? You have to check with them tomorrow to see the back of the channel. And so, they're not, they've been open all of this time since May, before Memorial Day. Are they going to be penalized financially for being open all of this time? Not, not, not at all. Okay. The issue of whoever is in charge of the agenda or the city council meetings get resound? For the what, the, who's in charge of the agenda or the council meetings ever been resound? Who controls the agenda for council meetings? It was, it was in the news for a few months. Well, the, the, the, the city council in December passed a resolution outlining a process whereby counselors bring something to be put on the agenda. And the, there is an interpretation of the charter that indicates that the mayor, essentially agenda. And what we're trying to do is just work with both of those approaches. And since December, we have things, we haven't had any conflict between the two. And what we, what we have been trying to do is be focused on priorities and work plan that the committees do have and try to make sure that when items do come to the council, that they've been vetted through the committee process first. So for example, last night when we had the discussion about the feet of the bags and plastic bags and the fees that had spent a considerable time in the transportation sustainability and energy committee being discussed and vetted and worked on so that by having came to the council, it was somewhat clear as to how we might go on that. So I was just going to add that I think that the council as a whole, I think organizationally is working better than I've ever seen it in my time. We've got a perfect, perfect cue for the manager to come in because we've got the council as a whole has been working with the manager and staff on long-term goals and objectives, trying to dovetail then staff assignments accomplishing that and timelines, trying to dovetail each of the council committee's work plan with what their goals and objectives are and making sure that if the council said, you know, X was a priority, well does the appropriate committee have that on their agenda to work on it. So I would just say that overall I think this is relatively new to all of us. I don't ever recall having done this before in previous times on the council. So, you know, this growing pains as we try to figure our way through it but I think we're on the path to becoming more and more, I don't want to use the word efficient because efficient and democracy don't always go well together but I think the communication is getting better and I think that the committees, the council as a whole and the staff, I would submit are working better and better together. I mean is it perfect yet? No, but we're I think likely ahead of where we used to be and I think people are pretty excited about what we see in front of us for what it's worth, my opinion. Regarding the styrofoam band, is the city aware of any alternatives that are out there, things that made from potatoes or other things that might be possible to use and are they sort of encouraging businesses to go find them or are they providing any information to help businesses find alternatives to the styrofoam? Well, I, Councilor Suspick is the expert on the city council on styrofoam, plastic bag and fees but clearly there are alternative products that are available to styrofoam and there clearly will be some period of adjustment for businesses when they make the conversion to styrofoam but there definitely are other products that are available. But just to expand on that, lots of other committees obviously have already done this so there's clearly a market, there's these companies, I suspect local businesses are going to start to get communications from vendors of non-polystyrene foam containers. When the school department, which is where a lot of us got started two years ago, when the school department no longer switched from using polystyrene foam containers and trays. What we did, because I was involved with that, we worked with Hutomaki which is an international company but they bought the old China factory up in Waterville, Maine and what they do is they make products, trays, cups, plates, etc. from 100% post-consumer recycled paper products so they're made from recycled products and then the products themselves, the trays and plates and stuff, are not only recyclable they are also compostable and instead of shipping polystyrene foam from the other China where the great wall is, we're now shipping stuff down from one of the warehouses I think is actually in China, Maine. So we're buying local, we're sourcing local, reducing the carbon footprint, Maine jobs so it was that was a very positive outcome I think of discovering there's some sources right here within the state of Maine and Hutomaki by the way was great too. They donated products for a period of time so we could test them and everything and stuff and try them out and they were great to work with. What do you think about the activities that at Congress for apart? Do you think they're good for the community or not? Well I don't, I would never say when you have activity anywhere as far as unless it's you know criminal activity but for the most part you know any activity you have is positive for us and whether or not the activity will be sustained over time you know we don't know at this point and there was a second food truck award for congress square and urban sugar right they make bite-sized donuts bite-sized what donuts donuts oh good fancy fancy and again what you know what we're thinking about at the workshop meeting that we have on 24th will have the opportunity to start thinking about an array of policy decisions that the city council will make in regards to congress square okay like somebody said something about public-private partnership or down there? Well somebody the the friends of congress square put out a news release saying they wanted to have a public-private partnership I don't know what that means I don't know who the public is or who the private that that partnership will permit but we'd like to talk to the friends of congress square to find out more their ideas we would like to talk to the friends of congress square to get a little bit better ideas about what they think that private public-private partnership might look like I haven't had a recent conversation with city manager or council or anybody about the lighting deal for it or request for it right but is there somebody who is already doing is doing work or there are men ready to do the job easy electric or something of that nature you can google it everything electric that's it everything electric just message gentlemen to a met the owner but but the speaker is mr. solid in the old for you briefly but they don't have any funding to do it uh what do you mean well I mean are you they're willing to meet you halfway the city pays half and they pay half oh okay does that make sense I it's just nobody's approach us to talk to the spot I'm sorry nobody's approach us to talk to the spot you tell me uh until that right so here we go okay well you know I don't waste time and knowing knowing you but what do you think about possibility yes no it's crazy yes well the you know we just got through uh with our budget passing our budget budgeting process we're now in the process of reviewing our cip our capital improvement program and that's where we typically put money in to do capital uh projects and programs this isn't in there because nobody came to us well no it just it just I'm breaking the subject I'm just bringing it forward you know on behalf of them I think the best thing for you to do now is if you send me an email uh about what you're thinking about um what you might want to do we'll pass along to Mike Kupinski who is the head of our public works department and and he could find a time to meet with you talk about what you are proposing and what the city's doing and what's possible