 All right. Good evening everybody. It is 6 o'clock and I will call the 17th regular Common Council meeting to order. Will the clerk state the code of the evening? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. Thank you. Will the clerk call the roll? Alderperson Ackley. Alderperson Decker. Alderperson Felde. Alderperson Felde. We'll come back. Alderperson Flicky Paneski. Alderperson Heidemann. Alderperson Mitchell. Alderperson Pirella. Alderperson Raimi. Alderperson Rust. Alderperson Salazar. Alderperson Felde. She did. Yeah. She appears to be online. Okay. Thank you. There are 10 present. Thank you. And if everyone, if you're able, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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, liberty and justice for all. All right. Alder Decker, is there a motion to approve the minutes for our last meeting? Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the minutes from the 16th regular council meeting held on November 20th, 2023. Who didn't seconded any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none. All those in favor, state aye. Aye. Any objections? Minutes are approved. Next, resignation. City attorney. There is one resignation. William L. Bolson resigns from the Mead Public Library Board of Trustees. Thank you. Alder Decker. I move to accept. Second. Move seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, state aye. Aye. Any opposition? All right. That is accepted. Next, mayoral appointments. City attorney. The mayor hereby submits the following appointments for your confirmation. To be considered for appointment to the business improvement district board of directors for the 2024-2025 term, Katie Gludusky from the Wiles Center, Marlowe Testweed from H.C. Denison, David Gass from Rody Dales, David Hondo-Honneman from GMs, Jackie Erdman from Above and Beyond Children's Museum, Andrew Jacobs from EOS, and Ryan Sorensen, mayor as the City of Sheboygan representative. Thank you. Those will lay over. Next, mayoral appointments. City attorney. Next, pursuant to the requirements of section 7.30, the Wisconsin Statutes, the mayor herewith submits for your approval, the list of nominations for election inspectors for all elections in 2024 and 2025, the affirmation and for mentioned section of the law stipulates the manner in which the election officials shall be chosen. The mayor tenders those appointments as follows to retain as much seniority and experience as possible while complying with state law. That will lay over. City attorney continuing with mayoral appointments. Mayor hereby submits the following appointments for your confirmation. Jim Hollister to be considered for appointment to the Mead Public Library Board of Trustees. Thank you. That will lay over as well. Next, item number 8, confirmation of appointments. City attorney. Pursuant to section 2-550-B of the Sheboygan municipal code relating to the position of director of human resources and labor relations. The mayor and the city administrator recommend that Kelly Hendy be appointed as the director of human resources and labor relations for the city of Sheboygan. All right. Holder Decker. Thank you, mayor. I move to confirm the appointment effective December 22nd, 2023. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on the confirmation? Seeing none. This is a roll call vote. Alder Felde. Two dropped off. Okay. Nine eyes. All right. That's approved. City clerk. Anyone for public form this evening? Yes. The first person that signed up is Jim Van Akron. All right. Mr. Van Akron, if you could come to this podium and state your name and address, please, and then you'll have five minutes. My name is Jim Van Akron. I live at 432 Lincoln Avenue here in the city Sheboygan. I'm here tonight to ask you to adopt the resolution to develop a complete streets policy, which is item 38 on your agenda. I am the chairperson of the Sustainable Sheboygan Task Force. However, I do not speak for the task force on this issue. The complete streets initiative is consistent with the common council's resolution establishing the purpose of the Sustainable Sheboygan Task Force, specifically to create and maintain a sustainable Sheboygan and doing so to address such issues as climate change and environmental stewardship. Complete streets is also consistent with the sustainability vision statement that the council accepted and filed last month. Specifically, if implemented, it utilizes federal funding to implement sustainable sustainability improvements. The complete streets process also engages and informs the public on sustainability plans. It helps develop the infrastructure for low carbon transportation modes, including expanding and improving the safety of biking and walking. It will help our air quality and develop green infrastructure, such as rain gardens adjacent to our streets, which helps address stormwater issues. My only criticism of the resolution is that the resolution came to you without input from the Sustainable Sheboygan Task Force. This is exactly the type of policy that the task force should be involved with, but we were not made aware of this until after the fact. That is why I said at the beginning I do not speak for the task force. I do speak for the task force when I say we look forward to working more closely with city administrative staff in creating a comprehensive sustainability action plan. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. The next person is Braden Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, if you could state your name and address please and then you'll have five minutes. Braden Schmidt, 2118 North Third Street. So I'm also here to comment on the same item number 38 on your agendas for complete streets, which I am in favor of. And I first wanted to thank everyone at the DPW who's worked to get people involved, especially for community input to this point, seeing the effort that's going into the outreach, whether it be at the farmers market, the dedicated landing page on the website, the dedicated email list for people who wanted to sign up and get updates, that's made a huge difference. I wanted to give a couple of examples of how other communities have done complete streets in ways that are great and ways that are less great and kind of understand how I think we should learn from those experiences that they've had. So one example is Hyatt'sville, Maryland. They had what was considered by the American Society of Engineers as one of the 2023 Outstanding Engineering Achievement Awards for this complete street project that they completed. It checked all the boxes of both a green and complete street, had sidewalk improvements, cycling upgrades, safety, functionality, all the kind of buzzwords and things that you'd expect. And a few months after they received that award, someone was killed by a vehicle in a crosswalk there. Shortly after that, a crash analysis team was put together to go and understand what happened there. And what they immediately saw was that, well yes, it checked all these boxes, there were sidewalks, there were bike lanes, there was a crosswalk, it did have the signage for it. There were a lot of things that were done that made it immediately obvious that the priority there was just to move cars and everything else was just kind of addressing to the side of it. It successfully checked the boxes, did not successfully create a safe place. You can compare that with Jersey City, New Jersey, which is a city of nearly 300,000 people. They haven't seen the traffic death in nearly five years, and their approach is much different. So yes, I'm sure their projects also checked all the boxes necessary, but what they also did was they went out and worked both with the community and across city departments as they built out their plans. So they would do one day pop-ups, or just a couple of hours of pop-ups of cones and the sort of tactical urbanism of the infrastructure. They tested out not just with people who lived in the area, but also invite first responders to try and navigate a fire truck through it or a plow truck or something like that. They would take that input and adjust and change until they had something that worked well in that temporary state, so they had a good idea of what would work, and they gave the community an opportunity to give input that was meaningful, because they could see and experience what it would feel like when changed, rather than just a drawing or an idea or some words. Both of these places checked the boxes necessary for complete streets, but it's an extra effort to test and adjust and ask and listen and work to get that meaningful feedback that made the difference. So I encourage us to not only use community input to create this policy, but to bake that in so that as we go forth and make these actions, that input is embedded into the policy itself in each of the projects that come from it. So thank you for your time, thank you for the effort that's gone on so far, and I ask you to please support this resolution. Thanks. Thank you. Next is Kyle Schmitz. Hi, my name is Kyle Schmitz. I'm at 2728 South Promenade Circle. I'm here to speak about Agenda Item 38 as well, the complete streets policy. My speech will not be nearly as well thought out or organized as those that have preceded me, but just want to speak to my experiences as a year-round bicycle commuter. I have been commuting year-round by bicycle for over a decade now in a number of different Midwest cities. A number of those cities have had complete streets policies implemented. I've been in Sheboygan for about two years now and have definitely seen plenty of areas for improvement. Beyond that also my background is in physical therapy. My wife is an occupational therapist. I work a lot with adaptive equipment and meeting the needs of our public to make things more accessible. I see plenty of room for improvement in the city in terms of areas that could use sidewalks, areas that have existing sidewalks, but need access to the sidewalks for other abled people. For myself as a cyclist, the current infrastructure in the city necessitates often that I either have to choose to add lots of times additional miles to my commute to take safe roads or travel on highly traveled, high vehicular traveled roads. So just looking for improvement in this infrastructure, there's definitely examples in this city of where those attempts are are being made and I think they're positive steps in the right direction. I'm a south side resident. The work on Indiana Avenue recently is a fantastic example of steps in this direction. I think a complete streets project would be able to take those steps and amplify it to the city at large. So I do ask that you consider adopting this change. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else, City Clerk? No one else this evening. All right. Just a few quick announcements from me this evening. So I know we have a good audience here tonight for the complete streets conversation, so I appreciate everyone for coming out on a beautiful Monday evening here in Sheboygan. So just a quick note on the complete streets discussion for those at home and in here as well. If you do want to follow along, stay in tuned in terms of what DPW will do for outreach and focus groups down in the future, please sign up. We have a newsletter email listserv that folks can sign up for on DPW's website, so please stay involved and stay engaged on that and sign up. Another item, winter parking rules are in effect. It is Wisconsin. We have had some snow already, so for further information regarding winter parking rules, I'll also refer you to the Department of Public Works website. Just a good rule of thumb is always park for tomorrow. So additional note too, people to people is looking for host families to host for an exchange students for the next school year as well. So they look for families that can host either middle school age students or high school age students for both short-term and long-term exchange programs. This is a great opportunity to get further connected with our sister city, Esslingen in Germany. So they're looking for host families. So if you want to host a student, contact people to people and you can find their contact information on the People to People's webpage or their Facebook page as well. So those are just my quick notes for this evening. With that, we'll jump into our agenda. All right, first item we have a hearing number 423-24 pursuant served and a notice published by the City Clerk. There is a hearing scheduled this evening for the purpose of the vacation and discontinuous of the east-west alley east of north ninth street located clock 127 of the original plot. Is there anyone here this evening that wishes to speak on this item? Anyone wishing to be heard? Anyone wishing to be heard? Final call on this item, anyone wishing to be heard? Seeing none, Alter Decker. Thank you, Mayor. I move to close the hearing. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, state aye. Aye. Any objection? The hearing is closed. Next, we have the consent items 13 through 21, Alter Decker. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive and file all ROs, receive all ROCs, and adopt all resolutions and ordinances. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on any of the consent items? Holder Perola. I just wanted a clarification on the number 19. So on that one, I understand that that is something that addresses the PFAS and PFOs that have been found generally speaking in Wisconsin, but did we have findings, such findings in Sheboygan? So there there are PFAS in Sheboygan if that's the question. Yes, the amounts that we've detected in Sheboygan are much lower fortunately than many other communities. However, by being part of this litigation, we can ensure that our interests are protected both should more be discovered and because it is still not entirely clear the extent of the negative impact and at what even at the low levels that they may be found. So that is why our recommendation is to be involved with this. If we had had much more significant numbers, especially from a local company, like you may have seen Wausau chose to pursue their own claims, that would make sense in a situation like that. But here where the claim is more generalized, smaller amounts and more generalized throughout the city, this is I think the proper way to handle the city's interests. And those, this is unrelated, however, is relatively a follow-up. Those the data on the presence of PFAS regardless of how big, so those were shared already with us, correct? Were we aware of it as far as the presence of those results in the sewage? We are, the findings that we have, yes, we were aware of. We know that there are small amounts of PFAS that have been detected in various sources around the city. We as a common council, did we receive those? I can't remember that I've seen that, so that's why I was wondering. I know I have seen it in the water utilities reports which do come to council for acceptance and filing. All right, thank you. Any other discussions on the consent agenda? Seeing none, this is a roll call, Alderbrough. Yeah, just it's fun at the number 20, the service charge fee increase. Is that something that we do, how often do we increase the service charge? Do we do that on annual basis or because I see the only changes are about the increase of some service charges? Jordan? Yes, this is done on an annual basis, and so around this time every year we come back to you with this ordinance change and then we have taken a pretty complex rate tool and use that to look at our expenses from this past year and anticipate expenses for next year and then try to come up with a fair and equitable balance of rates. But yes, this is an annual thing that we have brought to you every year. Thank you for refreshing my memory. Anything else on the consent agenda? All right, call the roll. Scott, is Alderfelde on? Alderflicky Podewski? Yes. Okay, there we go. We got it. Nine eyes. All right, those items are approved. Next report of officers, row number 76, 23, 24 by the City Planning Commission, to whom was requested to consider recommending that the Common Council approve an amendment for the project plan in boundaries of tax incremental district number 17 at its meeting on November 14th. Alder Mitchell? Thank you, Mayor. I move to accept and file. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? Seeing none, this is a roll call vote. Nine eyes. That's approved. Report of officer number 75, 23, 24 by the City Planning Commission, to whom was referred to consider recommending that the Common Council approve an amendment to the project plan in boundaries of tax incremental district 18 at its meeting on November 14th, 2023. Alder Mitchell? Thank you, Mayor. I move to accept and file. Is there a second? Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? Seeing none, roll call vote again. Nine eyes. That's approved. Items 24 and 25 will be referred to their respective committees. Item 26 into resolutions. Resolution number 111, 23, 24 by Alder Persons Decker and Salazar, authorizing the appropriate City officials to enter an employment agreement with Kelly Handy. Alder Decker? Thank you, Mayor. I ask to suspend the rules. Any objection? Seeing none, please proceed with your motion. I move to adopt the resolution. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? Alder Decker? I move to amend the resolution so as to provide that approval is of an employment agreement substantially the same to that attached except that it is modified so as to provide the following. One, the effective date shall be December 22nd, 2023. Two, the term of the agreement shall expire on December 21st, 2026 unless terminated sooner as provided in the agreement. Three, the employee is authorized to take up to 10 days of vacation during December 2023 whether before or after the effective date of the agreement. Four, and the employment shall receive 160 hours of paid time off effective January 1st, 2024 and be granted paid leave according to city policy. Is there a second? Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this amendment? Seeing no discussion, all those in favor of the amendment, state aye. Aye. Any objection? The amendment is approved. Now back to the main motion as amended. Any discussion on the main motion? Seeing none, this is a roll call vote. Nine ayes. That's approved. Welcome aboard Kelly. All right, jumping into item number 27 resolution number 107-23-24 by elder persons. A delayed pause. All right, resolution number 107-23-24 by elder persons, Mitchell and Flicky Panesky, authorizing, retaining outside legal counsel to represent the city in the matter of Walmart real estate businesses trust versus the city of Sheboygan and authorizing payment of said services. Elder Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. I move to suspend the rules. Any objection to suspension? Seeing none, please proceed with your motion. Move to adapt the resolution. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? All right, seeing none. This is a roll call vote. Nine ayes. That's approved. Item 28 resolution number 105-23-24 by elder persons, Mitchell and Flicky Panesky, approving an amendment to the project plan and boundaries of tax incremental district number 17. Elder Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. I move to suspend the rules. Any objection? Seeing none, please proceed with your motion. Move to adapt the resolution. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Elder Perler. Is this amendment related to the recent request of RDA for moving funds to purchase the properties that we discussed at the last committee, finance committee meeting? City attorney. So is it connected? It is connected in that one of these tids, that's where some of those funds are coming from, yes. Right, so the tids 17. Is this amendment is just for that? No. No, okay. No, so and forgive me, I never remember which tit is which. There's a 17 and an 18 that we're doing, but in a sense we are making amendments to two existing TID districts. First of all, to expand them somewhat to include some properties nearby, as well as to amend the project plan so that certain projects that are anticipated in those TID districts can be included as part of the project plan. Thank you. Okay, city administrator. Just to add on to that, one of the projects that'll be in TID 17 is a brownfield site, so this will enable us to help to participate in the cleanup of that site as well. Thank you. Elder Perler, any follow-up? No, I'm fine. Okay, Elder Mitchell. It was buried on page 17, but I found reference to a bridge, so bear with me. I do have one question. Bottom half of 17, the section, projects outside of the tax increment district lays out eligible projects that are within a half mile of the borders, the plan for the pedestrian bridge. It mentions that that approval from the joint review board is still required. I just want to make sure that with having the project costs for the bridge listed in this document that does not circumvent the joint review board approval process. Who wants to answer that one? City Attorney? The joint review board approval is required for these TIDs to be complete. So yeah, there's no sort of circumventing that process. JRB has met and had their initial approval. I'm not sure if they had their second meeting already, but they either haven't approved it or will shortly. Fair enough. Thank you. Elder Flicky Paneski. Thank you. The TID 17 boundaries, as Mr. Bradley said, part of it is brownfield, but the other is that TID district was expanded through the redevelopment authority. We purchased additional properties and then gathered all of those properties into one piece so that the developer could have one entity with whom to work, which is why we needed to borrow money. It will be paid back to the city through the TID. So it's it's a matter of making the project cash flow, making it cash flow expediently, and keeping the city whole, and keeping the redevelopment authority whole. Thank you, Elder Flicky Paneski. Any other discussion on this item? Seeing no more queues, this is a roll call vote. Nine nights. That's approved. Item 29, Elder Mitchell. Resolution number 1062324 by Elder Persons, Mitchell of Flicky Paneski, approving an amendment to the project plan and boundaries of tax incremental district number 18, Elder Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. I move to suspend the rolls. Any objection? Seeing none, please proceed with your motion. I move to adapt the resolution. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? All right, seeing no queues, this is roll call vote. Nine nights. That item is approved. Next item 30, Resolution Number 1082324 by Elder Persons, Rust, officially recognizing the Farnsworth Neighborhood Association and that item will lay over until our next meeting. Items 31 and 36 will be referred to their respective committees. Next to reports of committees. Items 37, RC Number 1482324 by the Finance and Personnel Committee. To whom was referred? General Ordinance Number 322324 by Elder Persons, Mitchell, Flicky Paneski, amending various sections of the Sheboygan Municipal Code relating to personnel. Elder Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive the RC and adapt the ordinance. Is there a second? Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? Seeing none, so roll call vote. Nine nights. That item is approved. Next, 38, RC Number 1492324 by the Public Works Committee. To whom was referred? Resolution Number 962324 by Elders Decker and Rust, directing staff to develop a complete streets policy to improve citizen accessibility in all forms of mobility within our community to increase safety, comfortability, and convenient travel while promoting public health and sustainable and that environmental practices. Elder Decker. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive the RC and adapt the resolution. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on this item? Alder Prowler. Yeah, I was wondering if the director could could give us some just a few words on how the process would be or anybody else how the process would work to develop the policy also to address some of the community's requests and comments. Great, Director Bebel. Thank you. Yes, tonight what you have is just a resolution directing us to start the process. We've already started some initial process with the community and starting engaging in terms of getting those that are active and involved in such an initiative of a complete streets for the city of Sheboygan. Our whole effort with this is going to be a community-based driven initiative. We recognize that over the years a lot of the street improvements have been, let's just say it, automobile car centric and we know as a community that there's a large percentage of our of our community that will like to walk and bike and have other amenities with with our transportation network accessibility issues. So throughout the next stages tonight is like I said the initial step getting the council authorization to direct our department to move forward with a policy. The next step will be to start to engage a lot of different types of active groups to be part of this process neighborhood groups bicyclists, mobility experts, trying to get a holistic viewpoint on this policy and how we want to look at moving forward with infrastructure improvements within our community. Is there going to be a specific task force or committee that is formed to this purpose or not? The we anticipate periodic updates to the Public Works Committee but obviously there's going to be issues potentially that would be in terms of changes that would have to be discussed with such as the Sustainable Task Force and other communities such as the Park and Forestry and Marina Commission. There's aspects within that that commission as well. Finance is going to be a key player in this as we start to develop the budget so in terms of city committees we don't have necessarily right at this moment a task force identified but as we start our process and doing our data collection and information fact finding and engagement I think there could be an opportunity then to as this develops and actually start to identify potentially a subcommittee specifically to focus on developing this policy as it advances to to final adoption. Yeah just just a brief comment on that I think that that would be an interesting and wise way to go to have later on a task force that includes of course also parts of the community but also you know some of different types of stakeholders that would I think that that would be a efficient way to look at this in this project and and finally may I mayor yep timeline where we well we let me just put it this way we're looking to implement this this development in the year 2024 ideally by the end of next year we'd have a very good draft policy that we could implement for the 2025 construction season thank you we we've also just for we've applied for a safe streets for all grant through the federal highway and it's it's it's pending for the second round we're still in consideration for it's about a $200,000 grant to help us develop and look at some of our higher stress corridors within the community so we're waiting on that and that grant will also help fund a lot of this effort as well Alder Mitchell thank you mayor I think 10 gently some of my questions were answered just looking at the resolution itself the in the title it does state that it's directing staff to develop a complete streets policy it's my understanding that the title isn't necessarily the actionable portion when we move down to the now therefore be resolved the common council reaffirms its commitment to complete streets directs department staff to follow to the extent possible complete street concepts it seems like we're starting with saying that we are directing staff to follow the policy we have not yet developed the be it further resolved states that the common council supports the development of the plan I guess I would be asking the city attorney is the language in the document enough to be construed as passage being the common council directing staff to move forward on a policy yeah I mean in essence what what's happening here primarily is that you're directing staff to take action to create policies and authorizing them to create to create policies and basically indicating your support for those type of policies without specifically drafting policies in advance for their approval thank you my esteemed colleagues suggested maybe it would be a great idea to have another commission or committee or I think we probably have a lot of them and it occurs to me that the sustainability task force would be a good place to house this because they are a sustainability task force so I I'd encourage you to think about that please thank you for those comments older cells are I'm basically echoing the same thing that my colleagues are saying up here about sort of the idea of some sort of committee or task force I'm not saying that we need to create one but as we can see in the audience there's clearly enough people here that are interested in making sure that this continues to happen so as long I believe that DPW does a really great work and has been working hard to provide opportunities by showing up at the farmers market and will continue to do that work as long as we can hope that you can show up to those moments and we can have you participate and allow for some dialogue I think this can be super successful it's very clear that our citizens want this so if we can support this in any way and allow for conversation I'm in full support of that thank you older cells are anyone else all right seeing no more cues this is a roll call vote eight eyes one no all right that item is approved next item 39 RC number 152 23 24 by the licensing hearing and public safety committee to whom was referred general ordinance number 3123 24 by elder person cells are in Feldy adopting new records retention schedules and making necessary amendments to the Sheboygan municipal code relating to the adoption older cells are I moved to receive the RC and adopt the ordinance it's been moved and seconded any discussion seeing none roll call vote holder perla nine eyes all right that item is approved next items held from our previous meeting item 40 RC number 133 23 24 by the finance and personnel committee to whom was referred resolution number 92 23 24 by elder persons Mitchell and flaky Panesky authorizing the sale of city parking lot number 3 located at 821 at Niagara avenue to trinity evangelical Lutheran church alder Mitchell and can marry move to receive the RC and adopt the resolution moved and seconded any discussion on this item all right seeing none this is a roll call vote nine eyes that item is approved next matters laid over item 41 RO number 64 23 24 by the city plan commission to whom was referred resolution number 85 23 by older persons Mitchell and perla vacating in east west alley located at north 9th street located in block 127 of the original plot older Mitchell thank you may I move to receive the RO and adopt the resolution moved and seconded any discussion on this item seeing none roll call vote nine eyes that item is approved next other matters authorized by law city attorney thank you RO number 79 23 24 is by the city clerk submitting a new license application all right that'll be referred to the licensing hearing public safety committee although that we've exhausted the agenda what's the pleasure of your motion I move to adjourn moved and seconded all in favor all right we are adjourned at 642 thanks everyone